ON ST. ANTHUSA THE VIRGIN,
DAUGHTER OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE COPRONYMUS, A NUN AT CONSTANTINOPLE.
TOWARD THE END OF THE 8TH CENTURY.
CommentaryAnthusa, Virgin, daughter of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, Nun at Constantinople (St.)
G. H.
To Leo the Isaurian, Emperor of the East, a heretical and nefarious father, succeeded a most wicked offspring, Constantine surnamed Caballinus, who, because as an infant brought to baptism he had polluted the water with excrement, received from the common people the surname Copronymus ("Dung-named"). To him was married in the year 732 Irene, St. Anthusa's parents daughter of the Chagan, King of the Avars, who, imbued with Christian learning and illustrious for piety, rebuked the impiety of Leo and Constantine, constant in retaining sincere and orthodox religion. She bore to her husband in the year 750, Indiction 3, Leo Chazares, successor to the throne; kind of life but perhaps some years earlier she bore this holy Virgin Anthusa, and brought her up in orthodox faith; who then lived under the reign of her brother Leo, and of her nephew Constantine, who under the guardianship of his mother (this one was also called Irene, famous for the empire she herself wielded) in the 10th year of his age, the year of Christ 771, entered upon the Empire. Asked by this Irene, the wife of her brother Leo, that she might administer the Empire together with her, St. Anthusa preferred to live for herself and her Christ; to whom that she might cleave more closely, she was tonsured by St. Tarasius the Patriarch (who received that dignity in the year 784), time of death and was veiled among the nuns in the monastery of Eumenia; and when she had lived altogether fifty-two years, she died most holily, toward the end, as far as we can gather, of the 8th century.
[2] Whether the Acts were written We do not doubt that the Acts of the pious conduct and death of this most glorious Virgin were once written down; but because the diligence of Simeon Metaphrastes did not extend to collecting the Acts of the Saints of April, very many Acts of particular Saints have more easily perished. In their place we give the illustrious encomia preserved in various Synaxaries of the Greeks: and first in the Greek Menology, most ancient encomium on April 17 which was compiled in the 10th century by the care and command of the Emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus, on April 17 this encomium is had.
[3] Saint Anthusa, whose memory is kept on April 17, was the daughter of Constantine, surnamed Caballinus: who, being commanded by him to enter upon wedlock with a man, did not assent. After his death, however, free from all fear and having obtained security, largess in giving alms she distributed all her riches: some she dispersed to the poor, others she gave to the inhabitants of churches and monasteries, others she spent on the redemption of captives. As for the golden garments which she had, she gave them out for the ornament of churches. She was moreover the mother of many orphans; for gathering together abandoned and destitute infants, monastic life she raised and instructed them. Further, those who were dying she commended to God; those who survived to old age she placed in those places where poor old people are nourished. Very often, when called by the most religious Irene and her son Constantine, that she might rule together with them, she constantly refused; but, veiled as a nun by St. Tarasius, she passed to the Lord in the monastery of Eumenia. These things are had in the said Menology of the Emperor Basil, where toward the end it is read thus: "In the monastery of Eumenia she departed to the Lord"; which monastery we think is named from some illustrious Eumenia, its foundress. On the same day, April 17, the memory of St. Anthusa, daughter of Constantine Copronymus, is celebrated in the manuscript Greek Menaea of Cardinal Mazarini, celebration in other manuscripts on April 17 and in others preserved at Milan in the Ambrosian library and marked with the letter O number 148 and the letter N number 38, with encomia also added, which we have not copied out. On the same day it is celebrated in the Gallican Menology of Virgins of Laherius, and she is called Floria.
[4] On April 18, in the manuscript Synaxary of the Paris College of Clermont of the Society of Jesus, such an encomium is read. April 18 in the manuscript Synaxary "Memory of St. Anthusa, born daughter of the Emperor Constantine, surnamed Copronymus. Often she was urged by her father to contract a marriage with a man, Spurned nuptials which she always refused. But after her father departed this life, having obtained her liberty, whatever goods had been left to her from inheritance, she distributed to all the poor, and to the churches and sacred buildings, becoming the mother of all orphans, the champion of widows and orphans. Asked and almost forced by many exhortations by the most illustrious Irene Augusta, that she should dwell with her and administer the empire together, and the empire offered by Irene Augusta she could never be prevailed upon, nor ever yielded to entreaties. As long as she lived in the paternal palace, she indeed went about outwardly adorned with royal dress, but within she wore a hair shirt. All her food was Her holy life in the royal court like that of those who serve God in the desert, and for drink she drank water. Tears swam in her eyes, and her tongue uttered praises and hymns of God. At length, embracing the monastic life, she was tonsured by the hands of St. Tarasius the Patriarch in the monastery of Eumenia. From that time she never set foot out of the monastery, as neither do the other Sisters. She was never absent from the ecclesiastical offices; failing in body she never neglected any prayers; her eyes never ceased from shedding tears. Her humility exceeded almost every measure: and in the monastery with the highest humility she served all the Sisters, adorned the church, brought water, stood by the table and waited on it. And when she had passed all the time of her life in this manner, she was translated to the Lord with the handfuls of virtue, the years of her life numbering fifty-two being completed."
[5] We have found other manuscript Menaea in a parchment codex of the Congregation of St. Louis of the Preaching Fathers at Paris, likewise in the library of Cardinal Mazarini, of which one copy agrees with the said codex of St. Louis, and in both the encomia of St. Anthusa, daughter of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, are referred to the 21st day. In the printed Menaea, her veneration is proposed on April 12, and the same encomium, almost, is given, which we have already translated from the Paris Synaxary into Latin, except that what in the others is indicated as the monastery of Eumenia, her solemnity on April 21 or in Greek "the monastery of Eumenia," is called "the monastery of Homonoia," which might be explained as the monastery of Concord: but the older copies please us more. In the Menaea there is added a distich, with an allusion made to the name of Anthusa, which in Latin would be called Florentia, and it is of this kind:
"Of a foul-smelling root, a most sweet-smelling fruit, Chaste Anthusa flowers away from earth and life."
[She ceases to flower both to earth and to life, Anthusa, A most sweet-smelling flower of a foul root.]
On the same day, April 12, her memory is celebrated in the manuscript Menaea, which at Dijon Peter Francis Chifflet, our fellow-Jesuit, shared with us. Maximus, Bishop of Cythera, in his "Lives of the Saints" copied out his encomium from the printed Menaea. In so great a variety of days on which she is venerated, we have preferred to embrace April 17, because the older monuments assign that day to her veneration, and closest to them comes the Paris Synaxary, in which April 18 is prescribed.