ON SAINT THEODORE TRICHINAS, IN A HERMITAGE OF THRACE NEAR CONSTANTINOPLE.
CommentaryTheodore Trichinas, in a hermitage of Thrace, near Constantinople (St.)
By G. H.
[1] With most solemn office the Church of Constantinople celebrates on this day the feast of Saint Theodore Trichinas as her own citizen, and with this the rest of the Eastern and Western Church. We give an illustrious compendium of his deeds from the manuscript Menology compiled by command of Basil Porphyrogenitus the Emperor about seven hundred years ago, in which these things are found: "On the twentieth day of the same month of April, of our Holy Father Theodore, Born at Constantinople who is surnamed Trichinas or the Hairy. Theodore, our holy Father, surnamed Trichinas, was a noble shoot and nursling of the city of Constantinople, the son of wealthy parents; whom however, together with riches and glory, he forsook, and departed into the solitude which by him was named the desert of Trichinas, and led the solitary life as a monk. There he subjected himself to so rigid a rule of life in the hermitage he leads a strict life that he seemed to all almost dead. For the whole night and day in cold and ice he was wont to offer continual prayers to God, clothed only in a single garment, and this was a rustic one and woven of hair: therefore he was called Trichinas, that is, Hairy. Called Trichinas from the garment of hair Moreover he walked with bare feet without shoes, nor did he ever have his head covered with any covering. Wherefore also he exercised power over demons, and wrought very many other miracles: he is famous for miracles and even near the end of his life he ceased not to work miracles. For indeed he bestowed fitting cures on each who came to him."
[2] This the said Menology, which same things are read in the Greek manuscript Synaxary of the Parisian College of Clermont of the Society of Jesus, and some things are more accurately expressed; and the rigid rule of life is explained not only by skleragogia, but kakouchia is added, by which a state in evils, he lives under the open sky vexation, and affliction is indicated. Moreover he is said, aithrios, to have stood under the open sky and, exposed to sky and air, to have uncovered the deceits of demons; finally, that at his death his tomb distilled an unguent of best odor.
[3] The Greeks in the Menaia have a certain compendium of his life, but more contracted; which Cardinal Sirletus transferred into his Menology in these words: Elogium from the Menaia and Menology "April 20, of our holy Father Theodore, surnamed Trichinas. This man on account of the hardships and harshness of life to which he subjected himself, vexed for Christ himself by cold and heat, covered his body with a thick and harsh garment; whence it came to pass that he was called Trichinas by surname; and thereby he received power against demons. And when he had so lived and emigrated to the Lord whom he desired, he confers healings on all the faithful, an unguent gushing forth from his holy tomb." Thus far the Menology, which being cited in these words he has been inscribed in the records of today's Roman Martyrology: and the Roman Martyrology "On the same day, of Saint Theodore the Confessor, surnamed Trichinas from the rough hair-shirt with which he was covered, who shone with many virtues, especially against demons, from whose body unguent gushing forth imparts health to the sick." The records of the Muscovite Calendar represent him on this day in Episcopal habit, which must be pardoned to the ignorance of the sculptor.
[4] In the Menology of Sirletus and the Roman Martyrology was lacking the place of his birth and hermit exercise; hence it seemed that Saint Theodore could be transferred to any place whatever, which the patcher of the Pseudo-Dexter Chronicle under the year 300, Commentary 3 number 9, did in these words, modest enough: "In the hermitage of Metellinum, Saint Theodore the Admirable." What then? Among so many Saints famous with the name Theodore, wrongly transferred to Spain and Lusitania why this Theodore is to be understood as Trichinas I do not see, unless we say the Greek word Trichinas in Latin is Admirable. Meanwhile the more recent Spanish writers ascribe to themselves Theodore, of whom we here treat, whom Tamayo Salazar cites in his Spanish Martyrology and himself defends, and hands down such a manner of his life: "Theodore," he says, "is known to be by origin a Greek, his native land unknown; Spain his nurse, Lusitania his cultivator, Metellinum his seat, his retirement his hermitage. After the first ardors of military service, casting aside the military belt, he deserted the camps, and we believe he traversed various places, until he found a hermitage near the Colony of Metellus in Lusitania, twenty miles distant from the city of Augusta Emerita. He wove so rough a garment of goat's hair, that thenceforth he was called Trichinas. By the touch of that garment, then, the possessed were freed, the lame restored to health, and innumerable oppressed with infirmities cured: from the frequency of which wonderful works Theodore thenceforth began to be called the Admirable. He flew to his heavenly homeland on the 20th day of the month of April in the year 300." These things excerpted from a long deduction suffice. But how is his native land unknown, when it is established from the Menology of the Emperor Basil and the very ancient Greek Synaxary that Saint Theodore was a shoot and nursling of the city of Constantinople, and son of wealthy parents. Which in Greek is thus handed down in both codices: "Theodoros en Konstantinoupoleos kai gennema kai thremma, plousion de goneon hyparchon hyios." The forgers of the chronicle therefore did not know his native land, which we have shown them; and we say the rest, which is not found among the Greeks, to be mere ravings, in whose place, if they had read the odes and hymns which the Greeks alone sing to Saint Theodore on this day, and had published them in Latin, they would have furnished a thing more pleasing to God and the Saint. We ourselves would do this, except that the praises properly singular to the Saint are all already known from the epitome of his life; and the others, fitted to any solitary, with a generic enumeration of the chief virtues, would contribute nothing to the history. George Cardoso inscribed the same in his Lusitanian Hagiology, relying on the same Pseudo-Dexter Chronicle. But all are to be forgiven, because they knew nothing of the said Greek antiquities. he lived in Thrace while the Christian faith flourished in peace He is therefore known at Constantinople; and in a neighboring solitary place of Thrace, which from him was called the desert of Trichinas, he led a holy life; not under Diocletian, but in later centuries, when the Christian faith peacefully flourished there.