 |
| Pentacost! Peace through glossolalia. |
The word for the day is glossolalia, meaning
speaking in tongues. It is the phenomenon described in
Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit filled the Apostles and they were able to preach to a diverse audience and be understood by folks of all languages.
Bishop Theodore and his deacons -- Ammonius, Irenaeus, and Serapion -- were not blessed with the gift of glossolalia, or if they were, it was not recorded. They were however gaffled up in the persecution under Galerius and tortured. At some point their denials of the Roman gods and insistence on Christian dogma must have spooked someone because the tongues of the four men were ripped out and they were left for dead. They lived long, holy lives and died of natural causes. Yet for their resistance under duress, they are considered martyrs.
 |
| Beware the Undertoad |
In
The World According to Garp, a child named Ellen James is brutally raped; her tongue is then cut out in a vain attempt by her attackers to shield themselves against her testimony. In protest and solidarity, a group of women form the Ellen Jamesian Society and cut out their tongues. We can be grateful that for all the zeal of the early Christians, for all their mortification and sacrifices, none of them became Pentapolians by cutting out their tongues.
No comments:
Post a Comment