A Visit to the Monastery of St. Thaddeus
By Calvin Miller,
Birmingham, AL
Note: This first chapter from The Second Letter of Eusebius of Philippi to his Beloved Friend Clement, is a long-lost second-century manuscript discovered by archeologist Dr. Helmut Niedegger and translated from ancient Greek scrolls by the author.
1. A year has now passed since I wrote my last epistle to you. It has been a year of quiet for the church. We have not lost a single member to martyrdom, and we heard that the authorities were thinking of shipping the big cats to Rome where the persecution seems to really be getting underway. 2. I cannot believe that in the economy of the kingdom of God would rather have the cats eating Romans rather than Philippians. I can say the atmosphere here is not so tense, and we are breathing deeply.
3. I only wish I could say that I was feeling the same freedom in the assembly. For the last year Coriolanus has repeatedly explained to me God’s will for my life. He believes I should leave this pulpit. 4. He offered me a stipend of many shekels if I would take an empty pulpit just outside of Rome. I told him that I had heard that the Romans were receiving the Philippian lions to be ready for a new wave of persecution. 5. He informed me that a true man of faith would never turn from lions to sidestep the will of God in cowardly self-interest.
6. I am afraid, Most Excellent Clement, that Coriolanus will not be content until I am no longer shepherd of this flock. 7. Last week he invited every elder of the church to his home for squab and honey, but neglected to add me to his invitation list. He is applying a kind of ostracism. 8. It is possible to face it, but it does keep me busy praying that I may not reciprocate his hostility with hostility of my own.
9. I have learned a little more about the sad care of one of my predecessors whom we have called Tertius. It seems that on the day he entered the marketplace singing hymns he had a long discussion with Coriolanus who explained to him the will of God. 10. According to Coriolanus it was the will of the Father that Tertius join the order of St. Thaddeus. You will recall that these monks live high on a rocky pinnacle north of Atticus. 11. They all submit to having their tongues torn out so that they never again will be tempted to utter a single syllable that might break the silence of their lifelong vigil of prayer. 12. While Tertius had always been known as a man of prayer, the idea that his tongue would be tenderly removed as a part of the sweet will of God had not been revealed to him so clearly as it had been revealed to Coriolanus.
13. Last week I visited the monastery at St. Thaddeus. It is all true. It is a silent settlement manned by thirty tongueless monks. But, my dear Clement, here was the startling impact of my discovery—twenty-two of them had once been the shepherds of local congregations before entering their tongueless lifestyles. 14. Can you imagine that? I could but ponder what had taken those tongues once given to sermonizing and subjected them to amputation and the life of prayer and silence that it produced.
15. I must admit that mine was a silent sojourn among these brothers! They wheezed and breathed, occasionally sneezed, and I found out that many even snored, but year after year they passed without ever saying so much as “Good day!” 16. Cicero Chrysostom and I became as good friends as we might with my talking and his nodding or writing monosyllable phrases on the scratch parchment.
17. Cicero had once preached in the suburbs of Philadelphia. By his own immodest testimony he was a popular preacher and large crowds attended him whenever and wherever he spoke the gospel. 18. You are probably moving ahead of me in this tale, but he had his own Coriolanus who knew God’s will for his life and, thus, the inner persecution began.
19. “Do you like the silent life?” I asked him.
20. He dipped his quill in the berry juice and scratched on the parchment. “I like preach!” he wrote, living up to his monkish vows to write no more words than absolutely necessary to communicate what had to be said.
21. “How are the accommodations here?” I asked.
22. “Bed hard!” he wrote.
23. “And the food? Is it well prepared?” I asked.
24. “Bad cook! Food awful!” he complained with his quill and parchment.
25. “Do you miss preaching?” I asked.
26. Tears came to his eyes, and he dipped his quill and wrote for fully five minutes, “I like preach. I like feel God power. I like see people’s faces when they hear sermon. I like power of spoken gospel. 27. I used to feel like God moved inside my life to form every word of sermon and people were powerless to resist. Once wrote sermon on repentance. Thirty-four Phillipians heard sermon and came out of sin to Christ . . .”
28. He stopped writing. He buried his head in the sleeve of his robe and convulsed.
29. When he stopped convulsing, I spoke softly. “I am a preacher in Philippi, but I have been having second thoughts. I may come here and become your silent brother. You see, things aren’t going well for me in the congregation, and I felt it may be God trying to tell me to . . .”
30. Cicero Chrysostom jumped up and shoved me onto the rough-carved bench. He dipped his quill into the ink and scrawled in large, angry letters across the parchment:
31. “NO! NO! NO! KEEP TONGUE! ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’ How shall they hear without a preacher?”
32. He stopped writing the giant letters and opened his mouth and faced me. There was an odd and powerless cavity. 33. Nothing was behind his teeth, Clement. 34. For the first time in my life I realized that silence cannot truly serve our dear Lord best. Only sound may serve. The sound must be trumpeted in faith. 35. It must not quail before those who would seek to put to silence that speech of integrity that has something to say and has to say something . . . that sound that must trumpet a warning because it has seen the distant chasm and knows the pitfalls that the adversary has dug in the path of humankind.
36. Now I am back in Philippi. I am determined to preach the gospel.
37. Coriolanus may divert the flock from my affection, but he will not silence my tongue.
38. It may be foolhardy to preach in the face of my current alienation, but by the foolishness of preaching I hope to fill my world with saving sound.
39. Clement, remember the monks of St. Thaddeus! Twenty-two of them would give their lives if they could just stand one more time in the marketplace and cry out above the hostile unbelievers, “Jesus Saves!”
This article is reprinted by permission of the author from his book, The Philippian Fragment, now out of print. For other works by the author, visit www.calvinmillerauthor.com .
