The devil cuts out the tongue; grace supplies a greater voice
The devil, reasoning that killing Romanus would only encourage his disciples, decides instead to cut out his tongue so that he can no longer exhort them.
For this reason he cut off the tongue, so that the martyr’s disciples, deprived of the voice they had been enjoying, and having fallen away from counsel, and having been made desolate of exhortation, might become more cowardly and return to their former anxiety, since they no longer had the one who anoints them, nor the one who rouses and arms them.
And observe the wickedness. Herod cut off the head of John the Baptist, but this one cut off not the head, but only the tongue. Why? Because of great wickedness and perversity. “If I cut off his head,” he says, “and he dies, he will depart without seeing the destruction of his own brothers. But I want to set him up as a witness of the corpses and the calamity of his fellow soldiers, so that he may be choked by grief as he watches them fall, unable to stretch out a hand, and no longer able to give the counsel he gave before, since his voice has been cut out along with his tongue.”
But the One who catches the wise in their craftiness turned this scheme back upon that one’s head, and not only did He not deprive them of counsel, but He made them enjoy even more exhortation and share in more spiritual teaching. For when this was decided, the physician is summoned for the cutting, and the executioner takes the place of the physician, not correcting the diseased member but destroying the healthy one. And when he removed the tongue, he was not able to remove the voice along with it. The tongue of flesh was cut out, but the grace hovered over the blessed man’s mouth. Nature released its own member, as the iron forced it, but grace did not allow the voice to fall out with it. From then on the disciples enjoyed more spiritual teaching, hearing not a human voice as before, but a divine and spiritual voice, greater than our nature. And everyone ran together—angels from above, humans from below—each one longing to see a mouth without a tongue and to hear it speaking in this way.
For it was truly wondrous and extraordinary: a mouth speaking without a tongue, bringing great shame to the devil, great glory to the martyr, and great encouragement to the disciples, an occasion of endurance. For it is God’s custom from the beginning: whatever the devil stitches together against us, He turns it back upon that one’s head and makes it serve our salvation.
Consider: the devil cast the human being out of paradise, and God opened heaven to him. The devil drove him from his rule on earth, and God gave him the kingdom of heaven and seated our nature on the royal throne. So God always gives greater goods than those the devil tries to deprive us of. He does this to make the devil more hesitant in his plots against us, and to teach us never to fear his schemes. This is what happened here with the martyr. For the voice the devil expected to deprive him of, God granted him a much greater and more august one. It was not the same thing to speak with a tongue and to speak without a tongue. The former was natural and common to all; the latter was beyond nature and became his alone.
Greek
Διὰ τοῦτο τὴν γλῶτταν ἀπέτεμεν, ἵνα ἀποστερηθέντες τῆς φωνῆς, ἧς ἀπήλαυον οἱ τοῦ μάρτυρος μαθηταὶ, καὶ τῆς συμβουλῆς ἐκπεσόντες, καὶ τῆς παραινέσεως ἐρη μωθέντες, δειλότεροι γένωνται, καὶ πρὸς τὴν προτέραν ἀγωνίαν ἐπανέλθωσιν, οὐκ ἔχοντες τὸν ἐπαλείφοντα, οὐδὲ τὸν διεγείροντα καὶ καθοπλίζοντα. γʹ. Καὶ σκόπει μοι τὴν κακουργίαν. Ἡρώδης μὲν ἀπέτεμε τὴν κεφαλὴν Ἰωάννου· οὗτος δὲ οὐχὶ τὴν κεφαλὴν, ἀλλὰ τὴν γλῶτταν μόνην. Τί δήποτε; Διὰ πολλὴν κακουργίαν καὶ σκαιότητα. Ἂν ἀποτέμω τὴν κεφαλὴν, φησὶ, καὶ ἀποθάνῃ, ἀπελεύσεται οὐχ ὁρῶν τὴν ἀπώλειαν τῶν ἑαυτοῦ ἀδελφῶν· ἐγὼ δὲ αὐτὸν βούλομαι στῆσαι μάρτυρα τῶν πτωμάτων καὶ τῆς συμφορᾶς τῶν οἰκείων στρατιωτῶν, ἵν', ὑπὸ τῆς ὀδύνης ἄγχηται καταπίπτοντας μὲν ὁρῶν, χεῖρα δὲ ὀρέγειν μὴ δυνάμενος, καὶ τὸ συμβουλεῦσαι ταῦτα ἅπερ καὶ πρότερον οὐκ ἔχων, τῆς φωνῆς μετὰ τῆς γλώττης ἐκκοπείσης. Ἀλλ' ὁ δρασσόμενος τοὺς σοφοὺς ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτῶν, τὸ σόφισμα τοῦτο εἰς τὴν ἐκείνου περιέτρεψε κεφαλὴν, καὶ οὐ μόνον συμβουλῆς οὐκ ἀπεστέρησεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ πλείονος αὐτοὺς ἐποίησεν ἀπολαῦσαι παραινέσεως, καὶ πνευματικωτέρας μετασχεῖν διδασκαλίας. Ἐπειδὴ γὰρ τοῦτο ἐκράτησε, καλεῖται λοιπὸν ἐπὶ τὴν τομὴν ὁ ἰατρὸς, καὶ δήμιος ἀντὶ ἰατροῦ γίγνεται, οὐχὶ τὸ νενοσηκὸς διορθούμενος μέλος, ἀλλὰ τὸ ὑγιαῖνον διαφθείρων· καὶ τὴν γλῶτταν ἐξελὼν, οὐκ ἴσχυσεν αὐτῇ συνεξελεῖν καὶ τὴν φωνήν· ἀλλ' ἡ μὲν τῆς σαρκὸς ἐξεκόπτετο γλῶττα, ἡ δὲ τῆς χάριτος ἐφίπτατο τῷ στόματι τοῦ μακαρίου· καὶ ἡ μὲν φύσις τὸ οἰκεῖον ἠφίει μέλος, τοῦ σιδήρου τοῦτο καταναγκάζοντος, ἡ δὲ χάρις συνεκπεσεῖν αὐτῇ τὴν φωνὴν οὐκ εἴασεν· ὅθεν λοιπὸν πνευματικωτέρας ἀπήλαυον οἱ μαθηταὶ διδασκαλίας, οὐκ ἀνθρωπίνῃ φωνῇ καθάπερ τὰ πρότερα ἀκούοντες, ἀλλὰ θείᾳ τινὶ, καὶ πνευματικῇ, καὶ μείζονι τῆς φύσεως τῆς ἡμετέρας· καὶ πάντες συνέτρεχον, ἄνωθεν ἄγγελοι, κάτωθεν ἄνθρωποι, ἕκαστος χωρὶς γλώττης στόμα ἰδεῖν ἐπιθυμοῦντες, καὶ ἀκοῦσαι φθεγγομένου οὕτως. Καὶ γὰρ ἦν ὄντως θαυμαστὸν καὶ παράδοξον στόμα ἄνευ γλώττης φθεγγόμενον, πολλὴν μὲν τῷ διαβόλῳ φέρον αἰσχύνην, πολλὴν δὲ τῷ μάρτυρι δόξαν, μεγάλην δὲ τοῖς μαθηταῖς παράκλησιν καὶ ὑπομονῆς ὑπόθεσιν. Καὶ γὰρ ἔθος τῷ Θεῷ τοιοῦτον ἄνωθεν καὶ ἐξ ἀρχῆς, ἅπερ ἂν καθ' ἡμῶν ὁ διάβολος ῥάψῃ, ταῦτα εἰς τὴν ἐκείνου τρέπειν κεφαλὴν, καὶ ὑπὲρ τῆς ἡμετέρας κατασκευάζειν σωτηρίας. Σκόπει δέ· ἐξέβαλεν ἐκεῖνος τοῦ παραδείσου τὸν ἄνθρωπον, καὶ ἀνέῳξεν αὐτῷ τὸν οὐρανὸν ὁ Θεός· ἀπήλασεν αὐτὸν ἐκεῖνος τῆς ἀρχῆς τῆς ἐν τῇ γῇ, καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν ὁ Θεὸς, καὶ ἐν τῷ θρόνῳ τῷ βασιλικῷ τὴν φύσιν ἐνίδρυσε τὴν ἡμετέραν. Οὕτως ἀεὶ μείζονα δίδωσιν ἀγαθὰ, ὧν ὁ διάβολος ἀποστερεῖν ἐπιχειρεῖ. Ποιεῖ δὲ τοῦτο, ἐκεῖνόν τε ὀκνηρότερον ἐν ταῖς καθ' ἡμῶν κατασκευάζων ἐπιβουλαῖς, ἡμᾶς δὲ παιδεύων μηδέποτε αὐτοῦ δεδοικέναι τὰ μηχανήματα· ὃ δὴ καὶ ἐνταῦθα γέγονεν ἐπὶ τοῦ μάρτυρος. Ἧς γὰρ προσεδόκησε φωνῆς ἀποστερήσειν αὐτὸν, πολλῷ μείζονα καὶ σεμνοτέραν αὐτῷ ἐχαρίσατο ὁ Θεός. Οὐ γὰρ ἦν ἴσον μετὰ γλώττης φθέγγεσθαι, καὶ χωρὶς γλώττης· τὸ μὲν γὰρ ἀκόλουθον ἦν, καὶ κοινὸν ἅπασι, τὸ δὲ ὑπὲρ τὴν φύσιν, καὶ αὐτοῦ ἴδιον ἐγένετο μόνου.