ON ST. TITHOËS, MONK,
IN THE THEBAID,
From the Greek Fasti.
V century.
CommentaryTithoës, monk in the Thebaid (St.)
BY J. P.
[1] The Greek Menology, rendered into Latin by Henry Canisius from the version of Cardinal Sirleto, relates these words on this day: This Saint seems to be that one The birthday of Tithoas, resting in peace. The great Menæa also record him most briefly: On the same day (the XXVI of August) holy Tithoës is consummated in peace. And presently they praise him with these little verses, which I thus render into Latin, changing, for the reader's convenience, the τοῦ which stands in the faulty printing of those Menæa into οὐκ:
Οὐκ εἶχεν, οἶμαι, σάρκα Τιθόης ὅλως, Κἂν εἶχε, τήξας οὐκ ἐᾷ βρῶσιν τάφῳ.
Tithoës was, I think, wholly without flesh; His corpse gave no food to the worms in the tomb.
A better allusion than often elsewhere in the Menæa: as though he should say that his body, macerated to wasting and stripped of flesh by the austerity of his life, left nothing in the sepulcher to be fed upon besides the bones and skin of which it consisted. But although this Saint is almost unknown in the ancient Fasti of the Greeks, nor do I know that any memory of him is hitherto had in the Latin ones, nevertheless he was not hidden from Castellanus, who in his Universal Martyrology thus announces him: In the Thebaid, St. Tithoës, second (or, from what is presently to be said, subordinate) Superior of the Religious women (rather, as here below, of the sacred virgins) of St. Pachomius. In the Life of this holy abbot among the Tabennesiotes in the Thebaid, which has been given in our work in volume III of May, on the XIV day of that month, I find this to our purpose at page 315: Those also who were held in the second rank and place after them (namely after those set over the monasteries by the Saint) were borne with a great love toward God; of whom a certain abbot Tithoës, employed in governing the sacred virgins, distinguished in sanctity, and so affected by the divine mercies as though fat with richness, turned out most useful to many.
[2] But although it is not established whether the Tithoës who is announced above among the Greeks of whom it is treated in the Life of St. Pachomius. is the same who presided over the nuns, as Castellanus judges, I nevertheless incline to his opinion until another more suitable be brought forward — such as does not seem to have been the Tithoës of the same name, of whom these things are recorded in the aforesaid Life at page 317: He was a monk, a strong champion of Christ, and even unto blood against
sin, whose name was Tithoi, set over those stewards who in the monastery of Pabau were appointed for the helping of the souls and bodies of the Brethren who were ill. For the things which are here said of him were so often common to monks that, so far as appears, he did not deserve on their account to be entered in the sacred Fasti; but rather, in likelihood, that other one who, as it is in the cited Life, was distinguished in sanctity, and turned out most useful to many, and thus obtained a more memorable name among men, so that he should have a place in the sacred records. And it is according to these congruities indeed that we would have taken the place in the Thebaid marked by us above, and the V century, into which we have woven the Saint, and in which flourished St. Pachomius, his abbot, who died about the middle of that century of the vulgar era.
[3] Jean-Baptiste Cotelier in the Monuments of the Greek Church, volume 1, page 699 and following, records various apophthegms concerning the abbot Tithoës, Certain apophthegms of Tithoës, the first of which treats of the singular gift of prayer with which he was adorned; but the rest of his other virtues or teachings. I. They used to relate of the abbot Tithoës that, unless he quickly let down his hands, as often as he stood at prayer his mind would be caught up on high. If, therefore, it happened that the brethren prayed with him, he took care to let down his hands at once, lest his mind be caught away and he be delayed. II. The abbot Tithoës said: It is a pilgrimage for a man to restrain his mouth. III. A brother asked the abbot Tithoës: How shall I keep my heart? The old man answered: By what reasoning shall we guard our heart, when our tongue is open, and our belly too? IV. The abbot Matoës gave this testimony concerning the abbot Tithoës: No one can find whence he may open his mouth against him in any matter; but as pure gold stands in the balance, so also the abbot Tithoës. V. The abbot Tithoës, sitting once at Clysma, knowing and prudent, said to his disciple: Let down water into the palms, my son. He said: We are at Clysma, abba. The Old man rejoined: What am I doing at Clysma? Lead me again to the mountain. VI. Once when the abbot Tithoës was sitting, a brother was beside him; not knowing which, he drew a sigh, and did not notice that the brother was near at hand; for he was in ecstasy. And so, having made a bow of penance, he said: Forgive me, brother, for I am not yet made a monk, who have groaned in your presence. VII. A brother inquired of the abbot Tithoës (otherwise Sisoës, from the marginal note in Cotelier) what way led to humility. And the Old man answered: This is the way of humility: abstinence, and prayer, and to reckon oneself beneath every creature.
[4] ours, or another's? The place at Clysma, which occurred above, contains a difficulty, whether those apophthegms belong to the Tithoës of whom we here treat, or to another of the same name; and the ground of doubt lies in this, that the ascetic house among the Tabennesiotes in the Thebaid, under whose abbot Pachomius our Tithoës lived, is so far distant from Clysma, as may be seen in the Particular Chorography of the eremitical dwellings in Egypt, etc., in our Rosweyde after the Prolegomena to the Lives of the Fathers, where the aforesaid place is written Clisma, and lies upon the gulf of the Arabian sea, and between the Mount of Antony and the Cell of Paul. That difficulty, however, did not deter me from setting in this place the aforesaid apophthegms as either of the Tithoës of today, or at least of some celebrated man of the same name. Nor indeed ought it to stand in the way that ours is called above second Superior, or subordinate, while in the apophthegms the word abbot is repeatedly used; for besides the head of a monastery, that word signified monks everywhere, especially those venerable with old age, as was said in volume 1 of July in the onomastic index. Finally, even though our Tithoës presided over nuns dedicated to God, nevertheless either before or after that office he could have had a disciple.