In Aeneas of Gaza's Theophrastus, a philosophical/theological dialogue, a character refers to the *African confessors whose tongues were cut out by the Vandals (S01481), and claims that he had examined their mouths to confirm this. Written in Greek, probably in Gaza, 485/510.
E07838
Literary - Theological works
Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus
Εὐξίθεος: Ταῦτα μὲν παρ’ ἡμῖν γέγονε καὶ ἄλλοθι τοιαῦτα καὶ γενήσετα· τὸ δὲ χθὲς καὶ πρώην γενόμενον καὶ αύτός, οἴμαι, τεθέαται.
Θεόφραστος: Τὸ ποῖον δὴ λέγεις ;
Εὐξίθεος: Τὴν μεγάλην Λιβύην πικρὰ κατέχει τυραννίς. Ἄπιστον δὲ τυραννίδι φιλανθρωπία καὶ ἀληθεῖς δόξαι, ὁ γοῦν τύραννος ἔγκλημα ποιεῖται τὴν τῶν ἀρχομένων εὐσέβειαν καὶ τουτὶ τὸ καλὸν δόγμα τοὺς ἱερέας ἀρνεῖσθαι κελεύει· οὐ πειθομένων δέ, ὢ τῆς ἀσεβείας, θεοφιλῆ γλῶτταν ἐκτέμνει, καθάπερ ὁ τοῦ μύθου Τηρεὺς βεβιασμένης παρθένου προανελεῖν κατηγορίαν οἰόμενος τὴν γλῶτταν ἀπέκειρεν. Ἀλλ’ ἡ μὲν κόρη ἐνυφαίνει τῷ πέπλῳ τὸ δρᾶμα καὶ ἑρμηνεύει τῇ τέχνῃ· οὐ γὰρ ἔτι λαλεῖν παρέσχεν ἡ φύσις. Οἱ δὲ πέπλου καὶ τέχνης οὐδὲν δεηθέντες τὸν τῆς φύσεως καλοῦσι Δημιουργόν· ὁ δὲ νεωτέραν αὐτοῖς φύσιν ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ χαρίζεται, οὐ γλῶτταν ἑτέραν διδούς, ἀλλ’ ἄνευ γλώττης σαφέστερον ἢ πρότερον διαλέγεσθαι. Ἐγὼ δ’ ἐπειθόμην ὡς ἀδύνατον αὐλητὴν ἐν ἀπορίᾳ τῶν αὐλῶν αὐλητικὴν ἐπιδείκνυσθαι, ἀδύνατον δὲ κιθαρῳδὸν ἐν ἀπορίᾳ τῆς κιθάρας μουσικὴν ἐργάζεσθαι νῦν δὲ τουτὶ τὸ καινὸν θέαμα ἀναγκάζει μετανοεῖν καὶ μηδὲν τῶν ὁρωμένων πεπηγέναι νομίζειν, εἰ Θεὸς ἐθέλοι μετακινεῖν. Εἶδον ἔγωγε τοὺς ἄνδρας καὶ λαλούντων ἤκουσα καὶ τῆς φωνῆς τὸ ἔναρθρον θαυμάζων, τὸ τῆς φωνῆς ὄργανον ἐζήτουν καὶ τοῖς ὠσὶν ἀπιστῶν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς ἐπιτρέπω τὴν κρίσιν καὶ τὸ στόμα διανοίγων ὅλην ἐκ ῥιζῶν ἀνασπασθεῖσαν ἐθεώρουν τὴν γλῶτταν καὶ ἐκπλαγεὶς ἐθαύμαζον οὐχ ὅπως τὸν λόγον συνήρμοσαν, ἀλλ’ ὅπως ἐσώθησαν. Τοῦτο καὶ τοῦ ἀγνώμονος λυέτω τὴν ἀπιστίαν, εἰ σώματα πεσόντα διανίσταται. Ἐκεῖ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ τῶν ὄντων ἡ τῶν σωμάτων ἀνάστασις, ἐνταῦθα δὲ ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων ἡ τῆς φωνῆς ἁρμονία. Εἰ ταῦτα δρῶσι, τίς οὕτως ἠλίθιος ὥστε μὴ οἷς ἐκεῖνοι γιγνώσκουσιν ἀκολουθεῖν;
'EU. This [another miracle mentioned by Euxitheus] happened in my country: other instances have happened elsewhere, and will happen. What happened the other day, I imagine you saw yourself.
TH. What do you mean?
EU. A harsh tyranny oppresses Great Libya. Humanity and true doctrine are distrusted by tyranny, for the tyrant makes the religion of his subjects an offence, and orders the priests to deny this good doctrine. When some do not obey – O what impiety! – he cuts out their pious tongues, just as Tereus in the fable cut out the tongue of the maiden he had violated, thinking thereby to forestall her accusations. But the girl wove the story in a robe and revealed it by her skill, since nature no longer gave her the means of speaking. But [the priests] needed no robe or skill, they called on the Creator of nature, and he granted them a new nature on the third day, not giving them another tongue, but the power of speaking clearer than before without a tongue. I used to believe that it was impossible for a flute-player to display his skill without a flute, or a lyre-player to perform music when lacking a lyre; but this new spectacle has made me change my mind and think that nothing which we see is fixed, if God wishes to change it. I have seen the men myself and heard them speak. Wondering at the clear articulation of their speech, I looked for their organ of speech; not trusting my ears, I passed the judgement over to my eyes. I opened their mouths and saw the tongue entirely torn out from the root. I was amazed, and wondered not only how they spoke clearly but how they survived. Let this destroy even the doubts of the thoughtless as to whether dead bodies rise again. For in that other world the resurrection of the body is from things that are, but here the harmony of voice comes from things that are not. If these persons can do this, who is so foolish as not to follow the beliefs which they hold?'
Text: Colonna 1958, p. 66, line 10–p. 67, line 16 (PG 85, 1000A-1001B).
Translation: Gertz, Dillon and Russell 2012, 52-53.
Oral transmission of saint-related stories
MiraclesMiracle during lifetime
Miracles experienced by the saint
Healing diseases and disabilities
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesHeretics
Foreigners (including Barbarians)
Source
Aeneas of Gaza was active as a writer in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. He studied at Alexandria, but spent most of his life in his native Gaza (Gertz et al. 2012, 3; Champion 2014, 8-11). His only surviving works are the dialogue Theophrastus and a collection of letters.The Theophrastus is a philosophical work which opposes Platonist ideas antithetic to Christian doctrine, such as the pre-existence of the human soul and its transmigration to other bodies after death. It has the form of a dialogue, set dramatically in Alexandria, between a Syrian Christian called Euxitheos and an Athenian philosopher called Theophrastus. The latter is a defender of Platonism, who finally accepts the Christian position.
Discussion
The story of the African confessors whose tongues were cut out during Huneric's persecution in 484, but who were afterwards miraculously still able to speak, is attested in multiple sources from the late 5th and 6th centuries.The reference to the confessors in the Theophrastus appears in part of the dialogue where the Christian Euxitheos cites examples of holy men who have gained from God the ability to perform miracles. Euxitheos first describes miracles by two individual holy men: the first brings back to life a dead child, the second cures a disciple of blindness. Neither man is named, nor is the location of events specified. He then mentions the case of priests whose tongues had been cut out in Libya (i.e. western North Africa), and to whom God gave 'a new nature' that allowed them to speak without tongues. The reference to the confessors in the Theophrastus is marked by the work’s overall literary character as a philosophical dialogue, written in a highly classicizing style. For example, there is no mention of the doctrinal basis of Huneric's persecution, merely to 'the tyrant' persecuting 'the religion of his subjects': the language could just as easily apply to a pagan ruler persecuting Christians.
Euxitheos is depicted as claiming to have witnessed the priests’ miraculous ability to speak and even to have examined their mouths and seen that their tongues had been completely removed. It is not stated where this is supposed to have happened but the most natural implication is that it was in Alexandria, the dramatic setting of the dialogue, also implied by Euxitheos’ remark that Theophrastus could have seen the priests himself. However, there is no reason to believe that this is anything more than fictional scene-setting (all other accounts represent the confessors who left Africa as going to Constantinople).
The Theophrastus is most commonly dated to 485/490 (Champion 2014, 10; cf. Rigolio 2019, 177), which if correct makes it an extremely early attestation of the story (note that Gertz et al., 3, date it slightly later, to the first decade of the 6th century). It would imply that the story of the confessors circulated around the Mediterranean world with remarkable speed – fast enough for the story to reach Aeneas in Gaza within five or six years of the event. (Even the later date of 500/510 would still make it the second earliest attestation of the story after Victor of Vita, E08296)
Bibliography
Editions:Colonna, M.E., Enea di Gaza: Teofrasto (Naples, 1958) (with Italian translation).
Migne, J.P., Patrologia Graeca 85 (Paris, 1865), 871-1004.
Translation:
Gertz, S., Dillon, J., and Russell, D., in: Aeneas of Gaza, Theophrastus, with Zacharias of Mytilene, Ammonius (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012).
Further reading:
Champion, M.W., Explaining the Cosmos: Creation and Cultural Interaction in Late-Antique Gaza (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
Rigolio, A., Christians in Conversation: A Guide to Late Antique Dialogues in Greek and Syriac (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 177-180.
David Lambert and Efthimios Rizos
20/11/2021
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01481 | African confessors whose tongues were cut out by the Vandals | Certain |
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