611 if you had cut off his tongue. For if you did not fear the martyr’s tongue, O wicked and execrable devil, why did you cut it out? Why did you not leave the argument of the combat, but instead closed the stadium? Just as if someone, about to wrestle in every kind of contest, had received heavy blows, and when he was no longer able to resist, ordered his hands to be cut off, and even so struck his opponent—there would be no further proof needed to decide the victory for him whose hands had been cut off. So too, in the martyr, the amputation of his very tongue was the most manifest proof of all of the victory against the devil. For although the tongue was mortal, since it inflicted immortal wounds upon the devil, it was for that reason that he breathed his poison into it, bringing greater shame upon himself, while rendering the martyr’s crown more splendid. For just as it is wonderful to behold a tree without a root or a river without a source, so too is a voice without a tongue.
B Where now are those who do not believe in the resurrection of bodies? Behold, the voice died and has come to life again, and both happened in a single moment of time. And yet, this is far greater than the resurrection of bodies; for there, the nature of the bodies is subject to the law of nature, and only the composition is dissolved. But here, the very foundation of the voice was taken away, and yet it has become more splendid than before. For if you were to remove the strings from a flute, the instrument would henceforth lie useless; but the spiritual flute is not so, for even though the tongue was taken away, it was not only not dumb, but poured forth a more melodious and more mystical song, and with greater wonder. Again, in a lyre, if anyone rips away only the plectrum, the artist is idle, the art useless, and the instrument vain; but here, there was nothing of the kind, but quite the contrary. For the mouth was the lyre, the tongue the plectrum, the soul the artist, and the confession the art. Yet when the plectrum was taken away—I mean the tongue—neither the artist, nor the art, nor the instrument became useless; rather, all showed their own power. Who did these things? Who showed these marvelous things that surpass all expectation? It is God, who alone does wonders, of whom David says: "O Lord our Lord, how wonderful is Thy name in all the earth! For Thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens; out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings Thou hast perfected praise" (Ps. VIII, 2, 3). And truly, then it was out of the mouth of infants and sucklings, but now out of the mouth of the tongueless. Then the nature was immature; now the mouth was empty of a tongue. Then there was a soft root in the children, but the fruit was perfect; here, however, the very root had been taken away, and yet the generation of fruit was not hindered. For voice is the fruit of the tongue. Truly, the later things are more marvelous than the earlier. For, lest you not believe at all, those things preceded so that we might not be troubled by these, since our mind had been accustomed to those. Therefore these things happened, so that those things which are hidden and ancient might be believed from these manifest things and those which have been newly performed. Thus, at one time, Aaron’s rod also flourished, just as the martyr’s mouth has now germinated. But for what reason did Aaron’s rod then germinate? Because the priest was suffering insults. But for what reason has the martyr’s mouth now germinated? Because the great High Priest, Jesus Christ, was being assailed with blasphemies and curses. See, therefore, what is the kinship and excellence of the miracle. For just as that rod, not being joined to a root, nor drawing moisture from the earth, but being utterly deprived of its sap and having lost its vital and fruitful power, suddenly displayed fruit; so too, here, the voice, deprived of its root and having no power from the instrument, suddenly germinated in a dry and sterile mouth. In this there is a kinship, but in the other is excellence; for there is a great difference between the two fruits. For that one was sensory, but this one is spiritual, and opens the very heavens to him who has then given forth that voice. For all these things, let us congratulate the martyr, let us glorify God who does these miracles, let us imitate the patience of our fellow servant, and let us give thanks to the Lord for His grace. From the things that have been said, let us receive sufficient consolation in temptations; and admiring the power and care and providence of God who made us, let us bring everything that is in our power, and the things that are from Him will surely follow. Whether men, or demons, or the devil himself should fight against us, they who oppose us will achieve nothing, provided we show our prompt zeal of soul and bring everything that behooves us to bring. For thus we shall draw down God’s help, and we shall enjoy great glory and salvation in the life to come, which may it be granted to us all to attain, by the grace and lovingkindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, with whom, to the Father, together with the Holy Spirit, be glory, honor, and power, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
CONCERNING THE HOLY MARTYR ROMANUS. ORATION II
A The games acquire strength and the skill of the athletic art for bodies, but the commemorations of martyrs arm souls against the arts of the demons and ready them for a struggle against them. For while they publicly display the athletic strength and the continuous struggle against the scourges, they corroborate piety with courage, and in the narration of tortures, as if in stadiums, they propose a course laid down by every martyr. Such is the commemoration of the martyr who has been crowned today. For who would not leap boldly into the stadium against the devil, having trained his soul in the struggles of the martyr, whom the multitude of so many dangers did not shake?
the tyranny of impiety was then rioting, and life was like a sea being shaken from its depths, and the crashing waves of that deep had surged onto the dry land. A violent gale of impiety was overwhelming the ship of piety, in which many pilots were lying dead everywhere, and no small number of sailors were submerged; A everything was full of bitter fears and shipwrecks. Kings were blowing more fiercely than a gale, tyrants were bringing in terrible crashing waves; the thrones of magistrates were shaken, judges were proclaiming the denial of Christ, legislators were threatening bitter punishments, men were being dragged off to the sacrifices of demons, women were being pulled toward the abomination of the altars. Virgins were being dragged along to this same madness, priests were being surrendered to exile and slaughter, the faithful were being driven from the sacred enclosures. The martyr was arming himself against such a struggle and was resisting such dangers with his mind made up, B laughing at the battle line as if it were some mock combat, and just as in a wrestling pit, he was sprinkling the judges with faith instead of dust; thus he was rousing the mind of the one then judging, stopping the course he was plotting against the Church. For this reason, the noble man was suddenly snatched off to punishment, and many varieties of torture were brought to bear; the martyr, however, was like a lyre, moved to sound by the plectrum of the tortures. The executioners surrounding him were crushing his body, but he, like bronze C being struck, was sounding forth the melody of piety; they were hanging him on a tree and lacerating him, but he was embracing that tree as if it were the tree of life. When they were tearing at the cheeks of the righteous man as if they were his sides, he was holding forth as if receiving more mouths, and with a new manner of falling, he put his opponent to shame. For when he saw the judge calling him to the effort of demons, he asked for a child to be brought from the market, intending to make that child the judge of the things sought by the judge; and when the child was brought, he proposed the question regarding the issues at hand. Child, he says, is it right to worship God, or those who are called gods by these men? Great is the abundance of the martyr's wisdom; he sets the child as judge over the judge; and the child swiftly gave its verdict on behalf of Christ, so that it might be shown that even the children of those who practice impiety are wiser than the judges, or rather, so that it might appear that the martyr was not only a martyr, but also a trainer of martyrs. But not even this tripped up the judicial madness; rather, the martyr was immediately snatched away to the tree along with the infant, and the prison succeeded the torture of the tree, and that too, a decree D distributing various punishments to the athletes; for it condemned the infant to death, and the martyr to the excision of the tongue. Who has heard of such a manner of judgment? Judges flog prisoners, compelling them to confess what they themselves know, but the judge of impiety cuts out the tongue of him whom he knows is forcing silence upon himself! O terrible invention of malice. He says, "I have not dislodged his soul from thinking the things of Christ, even if I cut away the tongue that speaks for Christ." Cut out, O tyrant, the tongue, so that you may learn that nature also possesses a tongue that discourses for Christ without a tongue; gouge out the tongue from the mouth, so that you may learn that he who promised the gifts of tongues is the true one. For he cut out the instrument of the tongue, but the Word was sallying forth more vehemently, as if freed from some obstacle of the tongue—a new and paradoxical spectacle; a being of flesh, speaking in a fleshless manner! Appropriately, then, is the verse of the prophet suited to the martyr: *Our mouth was filled with joy, and our tongue with exultation* (Ps. cxxv, 2). Our mouth was filled with joy, having offered the tongue as a new sacrifice to Christ; the tongue had much exultation, having appeared as a forerunner martyr to the martyr. O tongue, whose soul has taken the lead before the crowds of martyrs! O mouth that secretly gave birth to a martyr! O tongue that acquired the mouth as an altar; O mouth that acquired the tongue as a priest! O you who, without knowing it, had a temple, O noble one, the mouth—a temple in which you sacrificed the flesh-and-blood tongue, a paradoxical lamb.
2. Who then, O orator, will worthily crown your virtues? You received a tongue from nature, but you raised it up as a martyr; you received a mouth as a guardian of the tongue, but you constructed the mouth as an altar for the tongue; you received a plectrum for speaking, but you displayed it as a harvested sheaf being cut; you received a tongue as a minister of words, but you sacrificed it as a spotless sheep to Christ. With what appropriate title shall I honor your tongue? With what name shall I adorn your tongue? The executioners brought iron to it, but it did not recoil like the bound Isaac, but lying as if on an altar, it was receiving the blow with pleasure in its mouth, teaching the tongues of men that one must not only speak for Christ, but also be slaughtered for Him. You snatched away, O noble one, the honor of the patriarch's sacrifice, offering the unique blossom of the tongue instead of a unique child. Christ, then, has well replanted a second tongue for you; for He found you a good husbandman of the former; He has well granted you the fleshless tongue; for a tongue of flesh did not befit an angelic mind; He has well rendered to you the reward for the tongue. You lent your tongue to the Master for sacrifice, but He lent back to it a voice for eloquence: and there has come about an exchange between the tongue and Christ, with the tongue being cut for Christ's sake, and Christ speaking for the sake of the tongue. Where is Macedonius for us now, he who fights against the Paraclete who gave the gift of tongues? As for the fact that I do not lie in ascribing the gifts of charismata to the divinity of the Paraclete, blessed Paul is our witness, who now occupies the study of your hearing: *All these things one and the same Spirit works, dividing to each one as He wills* (1 Cor. xii, 11). *As He wills*, he says, not as He is commanded. But lest, by adding certain things to these, we overwhelm your memory with the crowd of words, remembering this voice—which is strong—for the sake of the Paraclete, let us go forth from here, thinking great things against those men, but for the time being having sympathy.
them, while meanwhile sparing those who are wandering, let us adore the divinity of the Comforter. A For the prophetic trumpet, announcing to the inhabited world the consensus regarding Christ, said: "For they shall all know me, from the least of them even to the greatest of them" (Jer. 31:34), "And every tongue shall confess to the true God" (Rom. 14:11). And the prophet, as I have said, restricts the entire tongue of the knowledge of God to a net; but we, on this very day, will listen to an even voiceless discourse acting as an advocate for piety: for it is as though a lyre, bereft of its plectrum, were to praise the Creator. Let the blessed Romanus, therefore, say: "My tongue is the pen of a scribe who writes rapidly" (Ps. 44:1): what kind of tongue? Not that which the iron snatched away, but that which the grace of the Spirit fashioned; for when the tongue was torn out, the grace of the Spirit was substituted in its place. The apostles also had tongues, but that the power of Him who works might be indicated, the clay was idle, and the heavenly fire was speaking. The Mosaic Scripture also held the image of the affair which exceeds discourse: for there was a bush with him, and fire (Exod. 3:2). B And the apostolic word prefigured the voices of the preaching in the bush, and imparts the voice of an inanimate thing, so that to him, when it touches animate instruments, it might be believed: for if the touch of fire made an inanimate object vocal, ought it not, when it had filled souls endowed with reason, to resound a song most harmonious from the touch? With this grace also was this celebrated Romanus gifted; he, with his tongue excised, reproved the tyrant with a clearer voice. Nor, indeed, would the tyrant have hastened to excise the tongue in any way, had he not feared the rivers of reproofs, had the torrent of the Gospel preaching not terrified him, had he not thought he would break the waves of evangelical eloquence. But let us see whence the necessity for the tyrant arose to dare such a deed.
C After having sacrificed to demons, and having become filled with smoke and stench, and stained with the drops of impiety, he was hastening at a run to the church, and carrying before him an axe dripping with blood, he was seeking out the unbloody altar for an impious sacrifice. But the rabies of the tyrant did not reach the martyr. Therefore, since he suddenly leaping forth entered into the vestibule, he already restrains the inundation of impiety rushing in; and just as a skilled helmsman, while he sees the sea making an assault upon the prow, cannot remain idle, but traverses the whole ship with quick foot, and raising the stern with the rudder, sets the face of the vessel opposite to the waves, and having lifted what was in danger to the heights, cleaves the mid-ocean swell, and with a certain art furrows the sea that is swelling: this the blessed Romanus also did. D With the sea of idolatry roaring blasphemies, and raging against the ecclesiastical ship, and vomiting foams of blood upon the altars, he alone is armed against the maddened sea, and seeing the skiff being utterly subverted, he awakens the Lord sleeping in the ship, he stirs Him from the sleep of longsuffering. He sees the sea troubled by contrary blasts of winds and storms, and usurps the words of the disciples for those in danger: "Master, save us, we perish" (Luke 8:24): pirates besiege the skiff, wolves surround the fold, robbers dig through your chamber, adulterous whispers resound around the spouse who is the church, again the serpent breaks through the wall of paradise; the rock, the foundation of the Church, is shaken; but do you cast the evangelical anchor from heaven, and steady the shaken rock: "Master, save us, we perish."
A The speech of Romanus to the tyrant. A common danger divides the martyr’s soul, and he directs words with confidence to the Lord, and against the tyrant he sends forth the tongue that remains. Stop, he says, this furious course, O tyrant: acknowledge the measures of your own weakness, revere the boundaries of the Crucified; the boundaries of the Crucified, however, are not the walls of the church, but the ends of the whole world: shake off the darkness of your fury, look down to the earth, and consider the weakness of your nature; look up to the heavens, and weigh the magnitude of the war; despise the weak aid of the demons; observe that the demons, struck by the cross, hold you out as the defender of their own altars. B Why do you pursue those things which cannot be comprehended? Why do you cast your javelins into the air? For is God circumscribed by walls? The divinity is uncircumscribed: for is the Lord seen by the eyes? For His essence is invisible and without shape: furthermore, according to His humanity, He is both depicted and seen. For does He, inhabiting wood and stone, sell His providence for bulls and cattle? Or is an altar required as an intermediary in His pacts? That is the gluttonous mendicancy of demons; my Lord, or rather the Lord of all, Christ, inhabits heaven, and governs the world, and the sacrifice for Him is the soul, which reflects its eyes upward to Him: one food for Him is the salvation of those who believe. Cease moving arms against the Church: the flock is on earth, and the Shepherd in the heavens: the branches are on the earth, and the Vine in the heavens: if you cut off the branches, you multiply the Vine. C Your hands abound in gore, your sword is stained with the blood of brute victims: spare the innocent cattle, and turn the iron against us, who challenge you: spare the silent beasts, and slaughter us who accuse you. For I do not fear the iron of murderers as I fear the axe serving the altars: the iron of murderers lacerates the body, the axe of the altars kills the soul: the iron of murderers slays what is sacrificed, but the axe of the altars destroys both that which is sacrificed and him who sacrifices at the same time: truncate my neck, do not defile the altar: you have a willing victim, why do you bind a captive bull that resists? If you desire to slaughter, slaughter a beast endowed with reason in the vestibule of the church.
D The tongue of Romanus is excised. The tyrant did not endure the excessive liberty of speech of the martyr, but straightway began the sacrifice from his tongue. He cut out his tongue, therefore, not because he wished it to be torn out, but to oppose the preaching of the Gospel: not so much because he envied the herald, as because he burned with envy against Him who was being proclaimed. But "Who catches the wise in their craftiness" (1 Cor. 3:19), restored the excised instrument of voice from heaven, upholds the faltering sound with an invisible tongue, grants a voice to the tongueless one, and demonstrates the creation of man in reality to the tyrant. And just as wells