The Detractor Carries the Devil on His Tongue

And behold Miriam became white as snow with leprosy (Num 12:10)

Listen to St. Ephrem speaking of the morbidity of the tongue: “From the most terrible leprosy of the prophetess Miriam, we learn how grave and detestable the vice of detraction is. A body infected with leprosy is like a mirror of the detractor’s soul, which is not apparent but stains the interior. The corruption of the flesh reveals how the mind of a detractor is corrupted. For just as Miriam had detracted her brother, so also her own body detracted her, so that she might learn charity for herself.”
In his homily On Psalm C, St. Chrysostom declares among other things: ”Detraction is a grave evil, a turbulent demon, never leaving a man at peace. From it hatreds sprout, quarrels are stirred up, dissensions arise, evil suspicions are generated. For no reason it transforms into an enemy a man who was a friend but a little while ago; it upends entire homes and excites peaceful cities to war; it dissolves the beautiful bonds of peace and breaks the purity of a great charity. He who makes detraction serves the Devil as well as he who follows the works of slander. Wherefore the detractor is to be driven away as a liar and a thief.”
St. Bernard says in a sermon: “Both the detractor and the willing listener carry the Devil on their tongues. This is the work of the Demon, who is called the Devil, that is, the slanderer.”
The same St. Bernard: “The tongue of a detractor is a most fierce viper; it is a lance which pierces ‘thrice with one blow‘ for it kills, firstly, the soul of the speaker; secondly, that of the listener; thirdly, the reputation of the one who is detracted.
And these words of St. Bernard in his sermon On the three-fold destruction of hands, tongue and heart: “Is not this tongue a viper? It is not the fiercest of all, indeed, since it inflicts three lethal blows with one. Is not this tongue a lance? Indeed, it is the sharpest one, which pierces three times with one blow. The tongue is a sharp sword, rather, a two-edged sword; or better, the tongue of a detractor is a three-edged sword: … Light is the speech, because it flies lightly but wounds gravely; it spreads lightly, but burns gravely; it penetrates the mind lightly, but it does not leave lightly."

Commentaria in Scripturam Sanctam, in Numeros, cap. XII, 10,
Luduvicum Vives Ed., Paris 1877, vol. 2, pp. 253, 254.
Posted on May 9, 2026