Theodora

ON ST. THEODORA, EMPRESS, AT CONSTANTINOPLE

Year of Christ 867

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Theodora, Empress, at Constantinople (St.)

By I. B.

Section I. The homeland, family, and marriage of St. Theodora.

[1] Theodora Augusta, wife of the Emperor Theophilus, mother of Michael III, that glory (as Baronius calls her in the Annals, volume 10, at the year 866, number 14) and ornament of holy women, the public veneration of St. Theodora, long tested and refined in the furnace of tribulation, rendered as purest gold, expelled from the Empire by her son, thrust into a monastery, most excellently deserving of the holy Catholic faith, the sole example in the East of outstanding sanctity, the Greeks honor with celestial honors on this day, as we shall say below. We shall summarize the deeds bravely and piously performed by her from the Compendium of Histories of George Cedrenus and John Scylitzes Curopalates, and from the Annals of John Zonaras, Michael Glycas, deeds, Constantine Manasses, and the Life of Basil the Macedonian by his grandson Constantine, and of St. Ignatius the Patriarch by Nicetas, and of St. Joannicius.

[2] The homeland of Theodora, therefore, was Paphlagonia; her parents were Marinus and Theoctista, homeland, surnamed Florina, both born of illustrious birth in that province, both pious and devoted to the veneration of sacred images. parents, So say Zonaras and Cedrenus. She had brothers: Petronas, famous for his military valor and therefore made Domestic of the Legions, brothers, and Bardas Caesar, indeed outstanding and industrious in the administration of civil affairs, as is said in the Life of St. Ignatius, but exceedingly cruel and savage, and moreover infamous for incest with his daughter-in-law, for the expulsion of his most innocent sister, for the persecution of Ignatius and the pious men who adhered to him, and finally for the disturbance of the Church. Theodora also had, says Cedrenus, three sisters, excellent sisters, Sophia, Maria, and Irene. Of these, Sophia married Constantine Babutzicus, who attained the honor of Master. Irene was the wife of the Patrician Sergius, brother of Photius, he who afterward was made Patriarch. Maria was married to Arzaber the Master, an illustrious man and famous at that time. All were of elegant beauty and endowed with the highest virtue. John Baptist Gabius, who translated the history of Scylitzes Curopalates, and from him Baronius at the year 855, number 52, wrongly believed by some to be daughters, make these daughters of Theodora, not sisters. We shall soon enumerate five daughters. The occasion of error was perhaps given by what Cedrenus immediately adds: Kai he men Theodora thanousa toiauten apolelolipe ten genean. Xylander translates: When Theodora died, those brothers and sisters we have mentioned surviving. Gabius: Theodora, having died, left behind such offspring. The word genea indeed also signifies offspring or children; but here it must be taken for family, kindred, or relationship. This is clear from what precedes in Cedrenus: adelphoi duo, adelphai de treis, Sophia, Maria kai Eirene. Two brothers, and three sisters, Sophia, Maria, and Irene.

[3] By what means Theodora was married to the Emperor, Glycas briefly records thus in part 4 of his Annals: After Michael (II, called Balbus), his son Theophilus reigned for twelve years She marries the Emperor Theophilus, and three months. Immediately upon beginning his reign, he ordered a selection of maidens to be held. Among these Cassia also appeared. Her he dismissed and rejected because of a response full of prudence. For when he had given her an apple, as one who was smitten with love because of her outstanding beauty, and at the same time had said: From a woman evil things have proceeded; she in turn replied: From a woman good things also proceed. And so, having changed his mind, he married Theodora the Paphlagonian.

[4] Zonaras recounts the matter more fully: Intending to take a wife, he says, he summoned many beautiful maidens from everywhere; among whom was also the Virgin Icasia, who both surpassed the rest in beauty and was endowed with learning, to Icasia, a noble and wise Virgin, and was born of illustrious family. While therefore he was circulating among them and examining them, holding a golden apple in his hand, which he would give as a pledge of marriage to the one who pleased him; when he came to Icasia, admiring her beauty, he said: From a woman evil things have proceeded. To whom she calmly and with honorable modesty cleverly replied: But better things also abound from a woman. But he, struck as if thunderstruck by the Virgin's speech, passing her by, gave the golden apple to Theodora of Paphlagonia. But Icasia, having lost the kingdom, founded a monastery which was called by her name, and in it she herself, having become a nun, lived for God, not at all neglecting the pursuit of letters. (she, rejected, devoted her virginity to God) Whence her writings are found, in which you would miss neither learning nor grace. And so she managed her affairs, and having been disappointed of a mortal King, she betrothed herself to the King of all, and in place of an earthly empire obtained a heavenly one. The Emperor, moreover, adorns Theodora with both the nuptial crown and the royal diadem, and celebrates the wedding.

[5] What indeed in the response of this most illustrious Virgin Icasia displeased the Emperor, so that he should avert her marriage? Did he conjecture from the promptness of her reply that she would be garrulous, or even forward? For those vices, as familiar as they are to the female sex, are equally odious to men, especially those established in an illustrious dignity. Yet the modesty which Zonaras praises seemed to excuse her. Or was the Virgin's wisdom suspect to him, to whom he would think it shameful to seem inferior? Or, forewarned by his teacher John, who was given to divinations and magical auguries, did he observe some other secret thing in the words and manner of Icasia's response? preferred by divine direction Indeed divine providence brought it about that Theodora should be raised to the purple, who could both somewhat moderate her husband's cruelty by her prudence, and after his death restore and establish Catholic piety; and that in the meantime Icasia herself should consecrate her virginity to Christ.

[6] Constantine Manasses exaggerates this fortunate marriage of Theophilus and Theodora, with a notable commendation of Theodora, in this manner: Michael, about to depart from life, handed over the empire to his son Theophilus: who, unfortunate in all other things throughout his entire life, obtained one good thing, Theodora as his wife, to her husband, otherwise unfortunate, a truly divine woman, venerable among other women, like a pearl and a carbuncle. Being joined to her in marriage, he not only became a father of children from his fruitful wife, but also surpassed in happiness that first man, Adam. For Eve, born from the rib and the first mother of men, a cause of eternal salvation, as it is believed; deprived him of the pleasure which he derived from the trees of Eden; but this woman led her husband and life companion to the right hand of those who obtain salvation. And indeed here only that sweet harp of David, soothing even stones, sang something discordant when it says that God places men of one and the same disposition and character in one dwelling. Psalm 67:7 far unlike him in character. For here dung and fragrant ointment, the blushing rose and the rough thorn, the dye of bile and of purple came together. Theodora was a grove adorned with all virtues, a garden planted with graces, a tree of all elegance and modesty. Theophilus, on the contrary, was a field of pure impiety filled with thistles, a rough bramble, a thorn-bush tearing the inward parts. The same author proceeds at greater length to exaggerate the vices of Theophilus, and especially his impiety.

Section II. St. Theodora learned magnificence from her husband, who was just but severe.

[7] When Theodora was crowned, her mother Theoctista was also adorned with the dignity of Zoste and Patricia. So Cedrenus. The most ample offices were also conferred upon her brothers and the husbands of her sisters. We have already mentioned above that two of these held the office of Master, Her relatives honored. and the third was a Patrician. Of Bardas, more will be said below; his ambition brought ruin not only to his sister but to himself. Petronas was appointed by Theophilus as Drungarius of the Vigla, that is, the supreme Prefect of the Watch; and soon thereafter, however, he was subjected to a notable disgrace, not without the knowledge of the Empress herself. Which happened thus.

[8] Theophilus (as Cedrenus has it), cultivating justice and, as he supposed, faith and piety toward Christ and his Mother, rode every week along the public road, attended by bodyguards, to the basilica of the Mother of God at Blachernae; Theophilus administers justice excellently: but while going, he gave access to all persons to himself, especially to those who had suffered injury, so that they might set forth their complaints, and would not be hindered by any of those who were unjustly oppressing them, through fear of the punishment soon to be inflicted by the Emperor himself. At the same time, passing through the marketplace, he inspected the goods for sale, he regulates the prices of goods for sale: and inquired about their prices; and this not casually or about one type only, but about food and drink and clothing suitable for keeping the body warm, and in general about everything that was displayed in the market. Zonaras adds: If any things were sold for more than was fair, he would inquire about them from the Prefect, and would either remove him from his magistracy if he had erred, or at least, after rebuking him, would prescribe what was to be done.

[9] Thus, therefore, when he was passing by on a certain occasion, a certain woman approached him he commands private persons to be compensated for damages by the nobles and complained that she was being wronged by the Drungarius of the Vigla (and this was the Empress's brother, named Petronas), who, by raising his buildings to a height, was blocking her windows since he lived in the neighborhood. Thus she accused Petronas. He, moreover, summoned by the Emperor and asked what the woman was saying, said that she was talking nonsense. Then the Emperor said: Take care that she does not appeal to me again about this matter; for that will not turn out well for you. Then he orders the woman to go to Petronas, and if he does not repair the damage, to return to him. She met with Petronas and obtained no compensation for the damage. Therefore, with the matter having been given up as hopeless, she again appeals to the Emperor. those who do not comply, He immediately orders certain Senators to go and inspect whether damage had been done to the woman. They went and reported to the Emperor that damage had been found. the case having been examined, He, going into the forum and standing there, orders Petronas to be stripped and his back and chest to be beaten, and what had been built to the woman's damage to be destroyed, and all the material and the site to be given to her. he punishes severely: And let this be a specimen of how great a care for justice Theophilus had. So far Zonaras. Glycas touches on the same thing briefly. But shall not this heretical Emperor rise up in the judgment and condemn many Kings and Princes, even orthodox ones, who are overly indulgent toward the plunder and other crimes of their nobles and prefects, not to say their soldiers and bodyguards?

[10] What happened here to Petronas, if it happened in our age to a nobleman, he would stay far away forever from the Court and from public dignities; but perhaps there was not an equal sense of the utmost infamy among the Greeks. For afterward Petronas both led an army and performed other very distinguished services in the state. It is by no means doubtful, however, that the punishment inflicted upon her brother, though he deserved it, stung Theodora deeply. But she had more to endure from her husband. Such as the following, which Cedrenus narrates about her ship, burned by order of her husband together with its merchandise: Once, looking out for pleasure from the wall of the palace which faces the sea, he saw a merchant ship arrive under full sail and a favorable wind, he orders the Empress's ship to be burned, which had no equal in beauty and size. Having contemplated it with admiration, he inquired whose it was and what merchandise it carried. When he learned that it was the Empress's, he concealed his feelings for the time being and awaited the day on which he would go, according to custom, to visit the sacred church at Blachernae. But when the Empress was also present then, he himself meanwhile, having been informed where the ship was stationed and which way led to it, went to it, and approaching closer, stood at the stern and asked those present several times: Does any of you lack grain, wine, or other necessary things? Being asked repeatedly, they at length answered that they lacked nothing, since they were abundantly provided for under his empire and dominion. But he said: Do you not know that since God made me Emperor, my wife the Empress has made me a shipmaster? Then he added these words with a certain bitterness: Who ever saw a Roman Emperor as a merchant, or his wife as a tradeswoman? And having said these things, he immediately orders the men to leave the ship, with nothing taken out, and that ship to be burned together with all its sails and merchandise. Then he sharply rebuked the Empress herself, threatening that he would take her life if she were ever found to have done anything similar. (the Empress herself being severely rebuked)

[11] Zonaras narrates this somewhat differently: But let another thing also be told, he says, by which both his observance of equity and his solicitude for his subjects may be demonstrated. There once arrived in the harbor, which is at the palace, a merchant ship heavy with the weight of its cargo and submerged to the very last line. The Emperor, looking down from above and admiring the ship, inquired through one of his attendants whose it was. When he learned that it was the Empress's, recently brought back from a trading expedition with merchandise brought from Syria; which those sent by the Empress had conducted in the regions of Syria, he immediately ordered whatever cargo was on the ship to be unloaded at once, but that nothing belonging to the Empress be touched. When this was done, having expelled the sailors and applied Greek fire, he burned the ship with its very cargo, reviling the Empress. For since God, he said, designated me Emperor, you seek to make me a shipmaster. Know, moreover, that commerce has been assigned to private persons, so that they may have from it an occasion for sustaining life. But if we, besides the resources of the Empire, also intercept the profits of commerce, from where will persons of slender fortune obtain their livelihood? Glycas records the same admonition given to the Empress.

[12] Manasses diverges somewhat from both accounts: By chance, he says, the Emperor was standing on an elevated place in the palace where marble of snowy color, ingeniously carved, represents a cow of immense flanks and a lion leaping upon the cow and eagerly killing it, from which sculpture the name was given to the place. having caught sight of it arriving, from the Bucoleon, Here, therefore, the Emperor stood and, directing his eyes to the sea, since the sky was clear and he wished to refresh himself by gazing at the sea, he saw a merchant ship arrive, with a gentle south wind blowing and conveying the vessel under full sail calmly into the harbor. Someone could even from a long distance have estimated that the arriving ship carried an immense load. For the weight of the merchandise so depressed the ship that only the third belt was visible above the sea. The Emperor, having seen this ship, asks what it was and whose it was. When he learned that both the ship and the merchandise were the Empress's, suppressing his mental anguish and having summoned his wife: Alas, my Empress, he said, to what state have my affairs been reduced! Alas, what fortune have I exchanged for the most opulent! For now I, the Emperor of the Romans, have goods for sale, and I myself (alas) have become a merchant, even inferior to traders. Having said these things, he ordered the ship together with the merchandise, of which there was an immense quantity, to be burned.

[13] Whether and to what extent Theodora sinned by that mercantile trade against royal magnificence, I do not discuss. I wish one thing: that those Princes would attend to the deed and admonition of Theophilus having professed that he would thus look after the interests of private persons who deprive their subjects of every opportunity for profit and gain, and claim for themselves the right of selling those things which are either necessary for sustaining life or useful for convenience, though discovered by private individuals. Which things they then either lease to contractors to be sold by a cruel monopoly, or distribute through their prefects at such a price and in such a manner that no one's industry or frugality can profit him. How much more illustrious for their glory, more suited for winning the goodwill of the people, and more profitable for public utilities it would be, if the industry of craftsmen were stimulated and the security of merchants were safeguarded!

[14] He who had so condemned the desire for profit in the Empress, Theophilus himself bound himself by the fouler crime of avarice, through the cruel exaction of new taxes. yet himself avaricious and immoderate in taxes, Unless because it is plebeian, and therefore shameful, to arrange for merchandise to be brought from elsewhere, that you may use it, or sell at a price what you do not wish to use; but splendid and magnificent to drain the wealth of private persons through taxes, because it is royal. Concerning Theophilus, in the Life of St. Joannicius on November 4, these things are recorded: He was wholly intent on amassing gold, and was plainly overcome by that vice; and then: He occupies every village at once with tax-collectors and exactors, wishing to accomplish two things at once, both of them most wicked: namely, that his soul's appetite for riches might be satisfied by the exaction of taxes, and that whoever followed the Catholic doctrine might be made known to him, etc.

[15] Nor therefore should it seem remarkable that he left behind such great treasures in the treasury as we shall mention below when he died, and that he made many splendid works. magnificent in buildings: For he built palaces for his daughters (they were five) in the region called Cariani. The ruins of these, even in our own age (says Cedrenus), still remain. He also restored the walls of the city with the greatest care, and having demolished the lower ones, erected higher ones which could not be scaled by enemies; which still stand with his name inscribed, says the same author, who also recounts his other buildings and concludes thus: And in these things indeed Theophilus was considered magnificent and admirable.

Section III. The children of St. Theodora; the chastity of her husband.

[16] The Empress, thus taught magnificence by her husband, herself drew him back from foul lust. It is reported that Theophilus, says Cedrenus, then living somewhat loosely, attracted by the beauty of a maidservant who was the Empress's attendant, had sinned with her; taught chastity by his wife, but having soon recognized his fault, when he learned that Theodora was in the greatest grief on account of this, he confessed his sin, and raising his hands to God, swore that he had fallen only this once, and begged his wife's forgiveness.

[17] Moreover, says the same Cedrenus, he expelled prostitutes from certain cells and, purging the whole house, he expels prostitutes: made a Xenon (that is, a house designed for receiving strangers) named after himself, of remarkable size and elegance: it is now a convent of women. So alien was he from foul lust. Zonaras records the same things.

[18] Theodora bore him five daughters: Thecla, Anna, Anastasia, Pulcheria, and Maria; and finally an only son, Michael. Before the latter was born, Theophilus determined to give in marriage his youngest daughter Maria, Maria his daughter betrothed to Alexius Moselus, beloved above the rest. He chose as her husband Alexius, surnamed Moselus, an Armenian by nation, of the family of the Crenitae, elegant in appearance and in the flower of youth. Upon him he conferred the honor of Patrician, who was made Caesar then of Proconsul; then he made him Master, and finally Caesar; and having equipped him with a suitable army, he sent him to Lombardy, as circumstances required. Having gone there, Alexius managed affairs excellently and according to the wishes of his father-in-law. It came about, he suffers envy, as his reputation grew, that envy also increased; and some accused him of aspiring to the Empire, adding that one day A would obtain dominion over Th. When the Caesar learned of the words of his rivals, he earnestly besought the Emperor by many prayers to permit him to pass to the monastic life. But the Emperor did not allow this, lest he deprive his daughter of her husband. Accordingly, Alexius retained his position and managed the state securely.

[19] But when a son, Michael, was born to the Emperor, and the wife of the Caesar died, his betrothed having died Theophilus paid such honor to his deceased daughter that he placed the corpse in a coffin overlaid with gold and granted asylum at her sepulcher for those guilty of any crime. As for Alexius, who had secretly departed and put on the monastic habit, he voluntarily becomes a monk. when the Emperor could by no persuasion recall him from his resolve, he reluctantly let him go and gave him the imperial monastery near Chrysopolis, and that of Btyseus, and the one at Elaea. When, moreover, he once came to the place called Anthemius for the purpose of walking, having obtained the Emperor's authorization, he purchased it and built there a distinguished monastery, in which he was also buried after his death, and with him his brother Theodosius, who, having attained the patrician dignity, left many proofs of his excellent life in that monastery. Zonaras narrates the same things somewhat more briefly.

[20] The remaining daughters seem to have lived unmarried, for nowhere is mention made of their marriage. They did not, however, assume the habit of consecrated virgins, except when compelled and expelled from the palace, as we shall soon relate. But they assisted their mother, the other daughters remained unmarried, who governed the Empire after their father's death on behalf of their very young son. For thus does Bardas address Michael, in the Life of St. Ignatius by Nicetas: Why, he says, O Lord, do you permit the Empire to your mother and sisters? called Queens, And Ignatius himself there calls them Basilidas, Queens: And now, he says, what is the crime of the Queens? Therefore, they assisted Michael and their mother with their efforts and counsel, just as Pulcheria with her sisters had assisted Theodosius the Younger. they counsel with their mother concerning the state. Baronius exhibits, volume 10, at the year 866, number 14, an image of Thecla, the eldest, together with her mother and brother, struck on a gold coin. Theodora sustains the orb with her right hand, surmounted by a double cross, and in her left a scepter; and inscribed around it: THEODORA DESPOINA, that is, Theodora the Lady. On the reverse is the image of the boy, holding the orb with a single cross above in his right hand; to his left stands his sister in the same attire as her mother, but without scepter or orb. Inscribed above: MICHAEL. THECLA. But Maria, although betrothed to Alexius the Caesar, seems to have died a Virgin, the image of the elder Thecla on a coin. having indeed died before her father, who reigned twelve years and three months; and he married after already obtaining the Empire, and Maria was born to him the fifth in order, so that she does not seem, when she died, to have been more than eight or at most nine years old.

[21] That one of the surviving daughters should be joined in marriage to the Emperor Louis II, son of Lothar, seems to have been arranged afterward. one of them betrothed to Emperor Louis II, For in the Bertinian Annals of the Franks in Chesne, volume 3, these things are found at the year 853: The Greeks are stirred up against Louis, son of Lothar, King of Italy, on account of the daughter of the Emperor of Constantinople who had been betrothed to him, but who was delaying coming to his wedding. not married. For besides these four, there was no daughter of the Emperor. Bardas indeed had a daughter, married to Symbatius; but neither was Bardas then Caesar, so that through the ignorance of the Latin writer he could be thought to have been called Emperor. But from that plan of giving the Empress's daughter in marriage to Louis, occasion was taken to accuse Theoctistus, as will be said below.

[22] Only the six children we have mentioned did Theodora have. However, there was a certain Gebo, or Gebon, a stupid and unsound man, Gebo falsely believed to be a son of Theodora. as is said in the Life of St. Ignatius the Patriarch, who came from Dyrrachium to Constantinople before the year 855, clothed however in ecclesiastical garb, and foolishly boasted that he was the son of the Empress Theodora by another man. Not a few of the common people adhered to him as if he were about to rule; for this reason he was banished to the island of Oxia and held under strict custody, and afterward put to death. Hence the insult of Bardas the Caesar against St. Ignatius, calling him Gebobasileuton, that is, a supporter of the pseudo-emperor Gebo. But let us return to earlier events, performed while Theophilus was emperor.

Section IV. While Theophilus persecuted sacred images, St. Theodora secretly venerated them, together with her mother.

[23] The Emperor Theophilus was (as Nicetas, the writer of the Life of St. Ignatius, relates) not otherwise bad in other respects, and a champion of justice; but in the abolition of sacred images and the persecution of the Orthodox, he was inferior to none of his predecessors as persecutors. It was believed that he did this at the instigation of John, Theophilus made use of John as his teacher, whom he had substituted for Anthony as Patriarch. They called that John "Jannes," says Zonaras, both on account of his heresy and on account of his sorceries, the name being repeated from that ancient Jannes, the magician of Pharaoh, whom St. Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 3. Concerning Jannes the pseudo-patriarch, Cedrenus says: Jannes, the tutor of Theophilus, succeeds, having obtained that priesthood as the reward of his impiety and perfidy. And after much more: He was throughout his entire life intensely devoted to the impious heresy of the Iconoclasts, an Iconoclast and sorcerer, and a student of sorceries and divination by basin throughout his life; and he was most dear to Theophilus's father, Michael Balbus, either on account of their partnership in heresy or on account of his reputation for learning, and was given as a teacher to his son Theophilus. When Theophilus obtained the Empire, he first conferred upon him the dignity of Syncellus; then he made him Patriarch of Constantinople. He was accustomed to predict the future to him by basin divination and sorceries.

[24] It is not surprising that, using such a teacher and counselor, Theophilus (as Cedrenus likewise writes of him) endeavored to surpass in cruelty all the tyrants who had preceded him. These were Leo, Constantine Copronymus, and his own father Michael Balbus. And the latter had indeed decreed that the word "Holy" should not be applied to any painted image, wherever it was painted, because that word belongs to nothing but God alone --- reasoning indeed ignorantly. For since the very name "God" is conferred upon men by God, a name far more august than "Holy," why should this, which is much more humble, be denied to them? Before him, indeed, Leo and his son Constantine had absolutely forbidden all adoration of images. But Theophilus did not even permit them to be painted in colors, he forbids the painting of sacred images, saying that it was the sign of an abject mind to be captivated by admiration of such things, and that only truth should be contemplated. And so divine images were pulled down in all the churches, and in their place the figures of beasts and birds were affixed, arguing his bestial and servile madness. and destroys them: Then with impure hands, the most sacred treasures were cast into the marketplace and treated ignominiously. He then relates the things which the impious Prince perpetrated against the worshipers, painters, and defenders of sacred images, especially monks.

[25] With what grief do we think the Empress's soul was tormented, while she saw and heard these things done by her husband, and could not intercede? What is more, she herself was sometimes not far from danger. What Cedrenus narrates gives evidence of this: There was maintained, he says, in the Court a certain ridiculous little man, quite mad, and very similar to the Homeric Thersites, with an impediment of speech and laughable, which Theodora secretly venerates: admitted to the palace solely for the sake of amusement, Denderis by name. He once entered the Empress's chamber and caught her embracing the sacred images; and seeing them, that fool inquired what they meant caught by the court jester, she says they are her dolls: and drew nearer. The Empress replied in a rather rustic expression that they were her beautiful dolls, very dear to her. The Emperor was then at a feast, and asked that base Denderis, coming to him from there, where he had been. He answered that he had been with Mana (thus calling the Lady Theodora) informed by him, and had seen her taking out very pretty dolls from under her pillow.

[26] The Emperor, grasping the matter, rises from the table full of anger, and immediately goes to his wife, and heaps other insults upon her, calling her an Idolatress with unbridled tongue, and at the same time declares what the madman had reported. She, in order to appease her husband's mind for the present, said: You suspect wrongly, O Emperor; the matter is otherwise than you think. she cleverly evades it, I was looking at myself with my maidservants in a mirror: Denderis, having caught sight of the forms shining in it, foolishly gave the report that you mention. With these words she mollified the Emperor's anger; but she punished Denderis with a fitting penalty and taught him not to speak to anyone henceforth about dolls. And therefore, when the Empress was rising at some point, Theophilus asks Denderis whether Mana was again embracing those pretty dolls. and then punishes the jester. He, placing his right hand upon his lips, said: Hush, hush, O Emperor, about the dolls. Glycas and Zonaras narrate the same, and write that Theodora, whom Cedrenus and Scylitzes call Mana, was called Manna by the jester. Zonaras adds that she honored sacred images secretly from her husband beyond measure. Moreover, what Zonaras and Cedrenus report that she said to Denderis about the images -- ta kala mou ninia, Scylitzes nynnia, "my pretty dolls" -- Gabius translates as "little images of reeds," for he seems to have read kalamou instead of kala mou.

[27] The Empress was confirmed in this zeal for venerating images by her mother Theoctiste, who also instructed her daughters, her granddaughters, in the same piety, Her mother instructs her granddaughters with good counsels and fearlessly admonished the Emperor, her son-in-law. She, inviting Theodora's daughters (there were five: Thecla, Anna, Anastasia, Pulcheria, and Maria) to her house near the Gastria, as Cedrenus writes, both won them over with various gifts by which that sex is usually attracted, and also, taking them aside, besought them not to be soft and cowardly, nor to remain women (as they were), but to show themselves men, and to adopt thoughts that were becoming and worthy of their mother's education, and detesting their father's heresy, to embrace the sacred images; and at the same time, taking the images in her own hands (for she kept them in a chest), she would bring them to the faces and lips of her granddaughters, and teaches them to worship the images; and incited them to love of them.

[28] When she did this repeatedly and kindled in her granddaughters a desire for the sacred images, it by no means escaped Theophilus's notice. For when he asked on one occasion what had been given to them by their grandmother and what pleasant things had been done at her house, the others, using prudent counsel, avoided his question as a trap; but Pulcheria, led by the simplicity of her tender age, recounted the caresses and the abundance of fruits, and also revealed the adoration of the venerable images, thus thinking and speaking childishly: that her grandmother had many dolls in a chest, which she had placed upon their heads and faces after kissing them. The Emperor, seized with fury, nevertheless did not dare to decree anything harsher against his mother-in-law, restrained both by shame and reverence toward the woman, and especially by the freedom of speech which she exercised. For she openly accused him and reproached him for the daily persecutions of Confessors and rebukes the Emperor. and for his manifest heresy; and she was virtually the only one who made known to him the hatred of all against him. He therefore only forbade his daughters from visiting their grandmother henceforth. Zonaras reports the same things more briefly and says that Theoctiste suffered no harm from Theophilus, because he respected her both on account of kinship and even more on account of her virtue, although she frequently reproached him both for persecuting the Orthodox and for inflicting injury on the sacred images, and for provoking by these things the hatred of all his subjects against himself.

[29] The Empress did not dare to rebuke Theophilus in the same way; it is, however, by no means doubtful that she often exhorted him to clemency. Cedrenus writes that St. Lazarus the monk, of whom we shall treat below on February 23, Theodora obtains liberty for St. Lazarus the Confessor. when he had been tortured with savage torments by order of the same Emperor, was finally released from prison by the entreaties of the Empress and of certain of her most intimate friends.

Section V. The Empire bestowed upon St. Theodora together with her son Michael, excellently administered.

[30] Furthermore, as Cedrenus writes, when the Emperor Theophilus was anxiously inquiring who would rule after him, a certain woman, captured from the Saracens in previous wars, who used to predict the future with success, was brought before him. The Emperor asked her what he wished, and especially who would possess the Empire after him. She, [Theophilus learns from a certain prophetess that his son with his mother would reign after him,] whether by divine impulse or diabolical instigation, said: Your son, O Emperor, will succeed you, with his mother as partner of the Empire. After him, moreover, the race of the Martinacii will hold the Empire for a long time. She had scarcely spoken when Theophilus immediately ordered Martinaces, although very dear to him, to be tonsured as a monk and his house to be converted into a monastery. He did not, however, thus elude the fulfillment of the prophecy; for also St. Theophano the Thaumaturga, Empress and wife of Leo the Wise, was, as the Menaea have it, "born of royal blood, from the illustrious Martinacii, daughter of Constantine who had attained the honor of Illustris, and of her mother Anna." We shall give her complete Life on December 16. And Theophano's mother-in-law Eudocia, the mother of Leo, was the daughter of Ingeris Martinacius, a most noble man.

[31] Cedrenus continues: And not only this did that woman predict, but also many other things about future events: namely, that Jannes would be cast down from the patriarchal throne, that images would be restored: and that the proper honor and veneration would be restored to the sacred images. Wherefore, seized with great grief, Theophilus often exhorted the Empress and Theoctistus the Logothete of the Dromus, he adjures Theodora that she not allow this, and bound them with a most solemn oath, that after his death they would neither remove Jannes from the patriarchate nor allow the worship of idols (for so he was accustomed to call the sacred images) to be restored. And not that woman alone prophesied this, but Jannes also, using divination by basin, clearly indicated his successor. Nor did that woman answer only the Emperor, but also responded to the questions of others.

[31] Seized by a fatal dysentery, and it growing worse daily, as the same Cedrenus writes, Theophilus orders himself to be carried on a litter to the Magnaura, and there convokes the Senate and the rest of the illustrious men who were in the city. Before these he tragically deplores the wretched condition of his affairs, and entreats them all being ill, he commends her and his son to the Senate. that the fidelity and goodwill which they had previously shown to him, they should henceforth maintain toward his wife and son, and keep the Empire safe for them from treachery. When the spirits of those present were moved by the Emperor's pitiable speech, all burst into lamentations, and all implored God for the Emperor's health and life; and at the same time they promised that, if anything should happen to him by human chance (which indeed they prayed would not happen), they would then expend even their own lives, if the matter so required, for his wife, their Lady, and for his children, and would preserve the Empire unimpaired for them. After these things, Theophilus, utterly consumed by disease, shortly after paid the debt of nature, having held the Empire for twelve years and three months. So Cedrenus, and somewhat more briefly Zonaras. He had assumed the Empire, as the same author writes, in the month of October, Indiction VIII, that is, in the year of the common Latin era 829. He died, therefore, near the end of the year 841, or at the beginning of the next. Moreover, as he was dying, as Glycas writes, he requested that the sacred images not be erected again, and that John the Patriarch, a notable sorcerer, not be removed from his place. And at that time he asked this specifically of the Empress, and of Theoctistus the Prefect of the Canicles, who held the second power after her, as Zonaras relates.

[33] When Theophilus had died, says Cedrenus, his son Michael assumed the scepter, with his mother Theodora. upon his death, He had, moreover, the guardians and governors whom his father had appointed for him by testament, the diligence of the guardians Manuel the Master and Domestic of the Scholae, and Theoctistus the Patrician and Logothete of the Dromus. These, as soon as Theophilus had died, proceeded to the Hippodrome and, having called the people together there for an assembly, recalled the words of the recently deceased Emperor and reminded them of his benevolence, and by many gentle and conciliating words, having won the favor of the people, obtained the favor of the citizens for the new Emperor; who promised that they would even shed their own blood for his safety, and confirmed their words with an oath.

[34] Concerning these auspices of Theodora's Empire, Nicetas speaks thus in the Life of St. Ignatius: Theophilus dies, and the whole Empire devolves upon Theodora, Theodora with her son rules excellently. the most religious and excellent of matrons and most Christian Empress, while her son Michael was still very young. Constantine Manasses: When Theophilus was about to cross the river of mortal essence, which all who are surrounded by a gross body must pass through (for so nature commands, that swift ferryman who exacts the debt from everyone), having already ruled for twelve years, he adorns his son Michael, still quite a boy, with the imperial crown. But since this tender age was not unreasonably suspect to the father, he makes the mother a partner of the empire, as one who would serve as guardian for the son. And a little later: Moreover, as long as the Emperor was a boy, he had his mother Theodora with him, who managed all things dexterously and administered the Empire excellently.

Section VI. St. Methodius the Confessor, after the expulsion of the impostor Jannes, made Patriarch by St. Theodora. Images restored.

[35] Theodora, therefore, having obtained supreme power together with her son, says Cedrenus, with the Empire confirmed, immediately from the beginning deliberated, as pious men urged, about the abolition of the Iconoclast heresy, which had spread through the Roman dominion from the Empire of Leo the Armenian to the death of Theophilus. Theoctistus favoring the restoration of images, Theoctistus also offered himself as an ally in its extirpation, while Manuel still hesitated for a time. Nor indeed did anyone dare to speak openly on the matter, since the greatest part of the Senate and the Council, and even the Patriarch himself, were devoted to that heresy. Manuel alone then dared this, Manuel, the other guardian of Michael, hesitates: stirred by the divine power. For previously, as we said, he wavered uncertainly about the adoration of sacred images; at length he applied his mind seriously to it, for this reason. He had fallen into a most grievous illness, so that, with all the art of physicians exhausted, there was now despair of his life. Certain pious monks from the monastery of Studius came to him, health promised to him on his deathbed if he would give his support: to whom it had been reported that he had already died. And when they had approached nearer to his bed and had perceived that he was still alive and breathing, they announced that he would live on and recover his former strength and health. At first he did not believe their words, yet when they insisted that he should not doubt the gift and glory of God revealed to them, recovering himself a little from his illness, he said with a faint and feeble breath: How, divine Fathers, will this happen to me? The faculties of my soul have failed, my body, utterly consumed, has withered away; I lie entirely dried up and consisting of bones alone, and differ from the dead only in that...

...I draw breath. What hope, what reason, therefore, can persuade me that I shall recover my strength and be restored to my former health? The holy men respond: God can do all things; nothing is impossible for him. If, therefore, having recovered your health, you will devote your efforts to extinguishing the fire kindled by the Iconoclasts and to restoring the sacred images according to the ancient decrees of the Fathers, we promise you life with certainty. And having spoken these things, they departed. he suddenly recovers, Immediately the disease abated and his natural faculties were freed from every impediment, and in a short space of time Manuel was released from all sickness.

[36] Thus, therefore, having been relieved in body, he immediately mounted his horse and hastened to the palace, he voluntarily urges the Empress to this, and having entered to the Empress, he most earnestly exhorted her to restore the sacred images. She, indeed, had long been seeking an occasion for doing this, continually urged by her mother and her Patrician brothers. Nevertheless, she at first opposed Manuel's words, either out of religious scruple for the oath given to her husband, or fearing the multitude adhering to the heresy, as we said. When Manuel pressed her, Theodora said: O Master, my husband and Emperor had a most diligent care for accuracy, and never did anything inconsiderately. And that dogma concerning the veneration of images -- had it not been condemned by the laws and divine Scriptures, he would never have proscribed it from the Church. After she had said this, Manuel threatened with threats: that she would soon lose both the Empire and her life, and her son with her, unless she restored to the churches that divine adornment of sacred images.

[37] Frightened by these words, or rather, as we said, delighted, Theodora girded herself for the work. She therefore immediately commands all to assemble in the quarters of Theoctistus, she summons the Nobles to a Council: who excelled in wisdom and learning from the Senate and the Council, and to deliberate publicly about the true religion. There, when all had been assembled (as could rightly be judged), various speeches were made, not a few testimonies of Sacred Scripture were adduced, and finally the opinion of the pious party prevailed, and a decree was made that the sacred images should be restored as soon as possible; with the Bishops and monks and men of the senatorial order, as many as had previously been held by the disease of the majority, now better instructed and embracing the truth.

[38] The impious Jannes was also stripped of his dignity and cast down from the patriarchal throne, distinguished men being sent to him, Jannes the pseudo-patriarch, prefects of the palace guard. At first he refused to obey them, affirming that he would absolutely not withdraw from that Church. But when they returned to the Empress, who had sent them, refusing to yield, and reported his contumacy to her, Bardas the Patrician was immediately dispatched to him to inquire whether he was unwilling to yield the patriarchate to the orthodox Faith. But Jannes, a cunning man and skilled in weaving fraud and calumny if anyone was, pierced his belly and back and buttocks with lead, so that he might seem to have been beaten with whips by someone; and spinning out delays by imposture, and crying out that he had suffered these things from those who had been sent, he demanded that so much time be granted to him until the welts should be healed. Curopalates narrates these last details thus, with Gabius as interpreter: but especially from Constantine the Drungarius of the Vigla, he begged that indulgence be given to him for a time until the welts should disappear. Cedrenus continues: But Bardas the Drungarius of the Vigla, by whom Jannes said he had been thus beaten, she orders him to be ejected: having detected the imposture, moved by anger, ejected him from the patriarchate even against his resistance.

[39] And shortly after, he thus recounts who and of what origin that John, or Jannes, was: This great city, who was he? the chief of all cities, bore this Jannes, sprung from the stock of the Morocharzarii. But now, already declining into old age, the monastery of the glorious Martyrs Sergius and Bacchus received him as its head, as a dragon lurking in a church as in a cave. Then gradually he advanced to higher things, throughout his whole life intensely devoted to the impious heresy of the Iconoclasts, and a student of sorceries and divination by basin; and therefore dear to Michael Balbus, and then to Theophilus, as was said above, section 4, number 23, to whom he was accustomed to predict the future by basin divination and magical sorceries.

[40] Those whom Cedrenus writes were, before Manuel the Master, the authors of the restoration of images together with Theodora and her mother -- tous metradelphos tous patrikious, maternal uncles who were Patricians -- Zonaras calls tous syngonous tous patrikious, brothers who were Patricians (as we have also translated), namely Bardas and Petronas. He adds that first of all those were recalled by her Confessors recalled: whom Theophilus had sent into exile; those whom he had shut up in prison were released; and those whom he had afflicted with other troubles were freed; and before there was any inquiry about the heresy, Jannes was expelled from his throne. There seems to have been a twofold Council: the first of the Nobles, presided over by the Empress, with certain members of the priestly assembly also included; and in this it was decreed that images should be restored and the impostor be expelled from the patriarchal throne. The second was of Bishops, presided over by Methodius. Concerning the former assembly, we have already spoken from Cedrenus; another Council held concerning images, concerning the second, Zonaras has it thus: The Empress, before the investigation, strips that magician John, unworthy of the Patriarch's name, of the pontifical See, which he had held wickedly for six years; and in his place she introduces that sacred and divine Methodius; under whose governance of the orthodox people, the investigation was made, presided over by St. Methodius, and the sacred images were publicly restored and adored. Which, a little before, while Theophilus was still alive, had been predicted by St. Joannicius to St. Eustratius, Abbot of the monastery of the Agauri, of whom we treated on January 9, as being about to be accomplished through the efforts of Methodius, as divinely predicted: as is related in his Life on November 4; and we shall also say this in the Life of St. Methodius on June 14, and what labors he had to undergo here, to bring the matter to the desired conclusion, and to quiet other dissensions that had arisen in the Church.

[41] This most blessed man, as Zonaras writes, previously, because he was unwilling to support his Theophilus's perverse opinion, after many tortures and the bruising of his cheeks and the knocking out of his teeth, had been banished by the impious Theophilus to the island of Panormus, he suffered incredible things under Theophilus. which is now called Antigoni, and had been shut up in a tomb with two robbers; of whom when one died, no one can express in any speech what great violence and distress the holy man endured from the most foul stench of the corpse. Glycas, Manasses, and Cedrenus record the same things, but Cedrenus does not mention the corpse.

[42] But when, says Zonaras, the holy man had spent seven years in the tomb, he was taken out thence and confined in the palace, summoned by the Emperor to the court with no one seeing him except his servant and the Emperor. For since the latter read much studiously, he consulted Blessed Methodius about doubtful matters, and for this reason he also had him with him when he traveled abroad. By what means he was recalled from exile, Constantine Manasses explains: At last, he says, he came forth from there, like the rising of the morning sun, by the will (as is right to believe) of God, who beholds the depths and sits upon the Cherubim and Seraphim, intending to place this distinguished man like a fortified city on a lofty mountain, lest so great a virtue, like a lamp under a bushel, should lie hidden in a gloomy and dark cave. For it happened that the Emperor Theophilus, always occupied with the reading of books, from which he shaped the vessels of his knowledge, for resolving his doubts, like a diligent bee from the flowers of the meadows, fell upon certain things resembling riddles and labyrinths, such that no one could properly peel away the hard parts and illuminate the obscure, even though there were any number of men celebrated for their fame of learning in his presence. When, therefore, this matter was most annoying to the Emperor and distressed his mind, at the suggestion of a certain courtier; a certain one of the Nobles and Chamberlains approached and extolled Methodius, indicating his gifts: the greatness of his learning, the ready and abundant store of his knowledge, his prudence and wisdom whose summit touched heaven itself; whether moved by divine impulse to do this, or nurturing a secret love toward a man of heavenly mind and full of the divine spirit. The Emperor, hearing these things, recalled and invited Methodius, drawn forth from his cave (like a pearl from its shell, a star from a cloud), a man shining with the most brilliant rays and dispelling the darkness and gloom of ignorance. often consulted by the Emperor, And when he had tasted the quality of Methodius's tongue, he assigned the illustrious man a dwelling in the palace, placing him, like a thing of great price and a splendid, gleaming, shining gem, in inviolable and inaccessible treasuries; and frequently sitting beside that golden Nile, he drew copiously from its sweetest waters. Glycas records the same things somewhat more briefly.

[43] Why Theophilus took him with him even on military expeditions, he is taken even to war, Cedrenus says the reason was either that he used his extraordinary wisdom in explaining many obscure and intricate matters; or that he was being cautious lest Methodius should stir up some rebellion on account of the removal of the sacred and venerable images; for those who were foremost in the city dear to the leading men of the people: and most devoted to piety held Methodius in great honor; and so it seemed by no means advisable to the Emperor to leave him behind.

[44] This Methodius, then, when Jannes had been removed, the Empress raised to the patriarchal throne, he becomes Patriarch by command of the Empress, a truly divine man, as Cedrenus says, and still bearing in his body the marks of his confession and the tortures endured on its account; all pious persons, priests as well as laymen, and monks, even those who led a religious life in the mountains, approving his promotion with the greatest joy, with the approval of the pious, and immediately flocking to the Empress, and with one voice condemning the heresy of the Iconoclasts with eternal anathema. These things were excellently accomplished at the very beginning of the reign by the venerable Theodora and her son. What marks of his confession he bore in his body, Glycas explains with these words: Because Methodius's cheeks had been injured and loosened by bruising on account of his defense of the sacred images under Theophilus, binding with a band his cheeks previously bruised. who renewed the destruction of images after the Seventh Synod, he was obliged to bind them with a certain thin linen band. Whence (in my opinion at least) the custom has grown up that Bishops have linen bands tied on the inner side.

[45] The zeal which the Empress then brought to the restoration of piety, Constantine Manasses eloquently amplifies: She, he says, in the earlier time, like a nocturnal disciple, similar to that timid Nicodemus, Theodora eradicates the heresy of the Iconoclasts. secretly venerated the sacred images. But now she professed with a loud and free voice what she believed, and was a clear trumpet; or rather, like a songbird, a nurse of chicks, she gathered featherless birds from all places, as many as had hidden themselves until the fowler should pass by. And although she concealed the most excellent seeds beneath her heart, like a fertile field, like a rich furrow, yet while the winter raged she had put forth no shoot. But now, when that most bitter winter time had long since passed, and the spring was smiling sweetly and dissipating the former sadness, she sprouted abundantly and bore a copious harvest, like a field stirred by the west winds and by the grace of that Spirit who perfects all things. Wherefore, having gathered together men acceptable to God, whom you might not inaptly call industrious diggers of the soil, she utterly uprooted the thorns of the war against images. So far Manasses.

Section VII. The zeal of St. Theodora against the impious; her solicitude for the soul of her husband; her reverence toward the Confessors.

[46] The impious Jannes, as Cedrenus writes, having been confined in a certain monastery, caught sight of an image of Christ God, of the Mother of God, and of the Archangels affixed to a particular place therein, and ordered his Deacon to climb up and gouge out the eyes of the venerable images, saying that they were not endowed with the faculty of sight. When the devout Empress learned of this, inflamed with holy zeal, she commanded that his own eyes be gouged out. However, through the intercession of certain persons it was arranged she punishes him: that this should not be done. Nevertheless, having sent guards, she ordered him to be scourged with two hundred lashes.

[47] He and his associates bring a charge of adultery against St. Methodius, Then, after certain details interposed concerning the magic and licentiousness of this nefarious man, the same Cedrenus adds: However, Jannes, cast down in the manner I described, and his associates likewise overthrown, did not restrain themselves from still contriving something against the sacred images and laying snares for the pious. For having concocted a fraud against the great Methodius, they attempted to calumniate this most upright man and thereby bring grief to the orthodox people. They suborned a certain woman (she was the mother of Metrophanes, who afterwards became Bishop of Smyrna), corrupted by much gold and promises, to tell the Empress and the guardians of the Emperor that Methodius had violated her. A trial full of horror was immediately instituted, with judges selected from both the sacred and the lay order. The orthodox stood by, oppressed with sorrow and grief; nor were the impious absent, supposing that by this proceeding a signal disgrace would be branded upon the Church of the orthodox. The woman is brought forth, confessing that she had been violated: The accusers came forward with spirits inflated, because the accusation had ready proof at hand: the woman, brought into the midst, who had been coached, recounted it triumphantly. The judges were indignant, and especially Manuel the guardian of the Emperor, that through the fault of one man the multitude of the orthodox should be imperiled and become a laughingstock to their adversaries.

[48] Perceiving this, Methodius, in order to frustrate the hopes of the impious and to free the pious from the distress of mind by which they were held, Methodius refutes the calumny in a marvelous manner, and lest he should become a stumbling-block to the Church -- not in the least deferring to the multitude, though he himself was most worthy of all reverence and honor -- casting aside his garment, he bared his private parts in the sight of all who were present: and all saw that they had so withered from some disease that they were utterly deprived of their natural power. This deed filled the calumniators and the rest of the wicked with shame, but the pious with joy and great exultation, to the great joy of the pious; who, approaching him with immense delight, saluted and embraced him, nor could they adequately express the pleasure of soul with which they overflowed.

[49] And after a few words the same author adds: Manuel, judging this fraud utterly intolerable, the woman revealing the calumny and its authors; determined that the woman should be interrogated under torture, so that he might learn what the method of contriving the deceit had been. Immediately therefore a sword was drawn, thorny rods were brought, lictors stood ready. Terrified by these things, the wretched woman openly confessed the truth of the matter: how the snares had been laid, and how she herself had been seduced by a lavish gift of gold and many promises; then she named those who had arranged these things, and finally uncovered the entire fabrication. She added moreover that, if anyone should go to her house, he would find the gold in a purse within a certain chest full of grain. Immediately therefore one of the guards was sent thither and brought back the gold, and the whole machination was laid bare.

[50] The calumniators would have paid the deserved penalties for their crime, had not the Patriarch, with his characteristic patience, Methodius exempts them from punishment, said that he wished to take this one vengeance and punishment upon them: that every year, at the public celebration of Orthodoxy, he himself, with torches borne before him, would process from the most holy temple of the Mother of God, which is situated in the Blachernae, to the basilica of Holy Sophia, and pronounce anathema in their ears. And this was done throughout their entire lives. Zonaras and Glycas record the same things in summary. An annual feast of Orthodoxy having been instituted: Concerning the annual feast of Orthodoxy, customarily celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent, at which the restoration of the sacred cult of images in the East was recalled with immense thanksgiving, Baronius treats of it in volume 9, at the year 842, number 27 and following. And we treat of it elsewhere.

[51] Concerning the outcome of the trial which we have related, the more anxious Theodora had been than Manuel and the other orthodox, the more abundant and splendid was the joy with which she was afterward suffused. Following this trial, or even before it, [He, together with other Confessors, at the request of the Empress, is said to have obtained eternal salvation for her husband,] as soon as Methodius had been chosen Patriarch, that seems to have occurred which Zonaras relates: Then, he says, they report that the Empress most urgently entreated the Patriarch and the other Bishops and monks to beseech God by their common prayers for the salvation of the Emperor, her husband. When they had done this with fervent spirits, God did not despise the prayers of his servants, but pardoned the Emperor Theophilus. These things are celebrated and are received and believed by those who contemplate the loving-kindness of God. Nor indeed would anyone deny them credence, unless he thought that the intercessions of the Saints availed little with God and knew not how to reconcile the goodness of God with human failings. Glycas likewise relates the same: However, he says, just as the first woman led Adam out of Paradise, so the Lady Theodora led her husband into Paradise. When she had been informed of this matter, she graciously received these holy Fathers, who also prayed to God on behalf of Theophilus. Michael Constantine Manasses also relates that she ardently beseeched the men of God to pour forth prayers to God for her deceased husband; and that she persuaded them to do so, and was clearly assured that Theophilus had been freed from the punishments of the next life. How this came about, since Theophilus appears to have died obstinate in heresy, let others debate. This will not seem incredible to those who believe that even the soul of Trajan was snatched from the torments of Hell after so long a time. There will perhaps be someone who judges that Theophilus sinned with an error that was in some way excusable, or that toward the end of his life (this is the conjecture of our Matthew Rader in his manuscript Notes on the Menaea) he detested, by divine impulse, the crimes of his whole life, yet still had to pay penalties after death in the purgatorial flames -- forgiveness of which was afterwards obtained from God through the intercession of the holy Confessors.

[52] However the matter may have turned out, "This feast of Orthodoxy the Empress Theodora of blessed memory was celebrating on one occasion," says Cedrenus, She herself entertains them at a banquet on the feast of Orthodoxy, (which celebration we previously related was instituted at the request of St. Methodius) and received the ecclesiastical assembly at a banquet in the palace which is in the quarter of Carianus. Among the guests were Theophanes and his brother Theodore, who were called "Graptoi" from the marks impressed on their faces. As the banquet was now drawing toward its end, and pastries and other confections were being set before them, the Empress, gazing continually into the faces of these Fathers and reading what had been inscribed on their foreheads, groaned and wept. When one of the said Fathers noticed this, he asked the reason for her so frequent gaze. "I marvel," said she, "at your patience, where, dismayed by St. Theophanes' austere reply, that you endured having so many letters engraved upon your foreheads, and I pity the hatred of him who inflicted these things upon you." The Blessed Theophanes answered: "The cause of this writing, Mistress, we shall plead at the incorrupt judgment of God against the Emperor your husband." This speech pierced the Empress's heart; and with tears she said to the Saint: "Is this then your promise and written obligation -- not only not to forgive, Methodius with others consoles her: but even to summon him to judgment?" The Patriarch and the rest of the company of Bishops, to console her and relieve her of her heavy grief, immediately rose and said: "Our promises and compacts, O Empress, remain firm and immovable; but the license of this man must be overlooked." And thus the Empress's sorrow was assuaged. Michael Glycas and Constantine Manasses narrate the same things; the latter says that Theophanes was by then already Bishop of Nicaea.

[53] To the same point pertains what the same Cedrenus writes of St. Lazarus the monk, She herself entreats St. Lazarus to obtain pardon for her husband, and what we shall relate on February 23: The Blessed Lazarus, he says, was asked by the admirable Theodora Augusta to forgive her husband and to obtain pardon for him from God. But he replied: "God is not unjust, O Augusta, so as to forget our love and the hardships endured for his sake, yet set his hatred and immoderate fury above them."

[54] It is fitting here to add, by way of epilogue, what is found in the Life of St. Nicholas the Studite, February 4, chapter 7, number 36, concerning the restoration of piety as we have already described: "When Theophilus" (says the contemporary writer) "had now died, and heresy was at the same time justly, as I think, entombed in one miserable grave; and the Christ-loving wife Theodora, together with her son Michael, still very young, had assumed the pinnacle of the Roman Empire; and the impious Jannes, as if by a prelude to eternal vengeance, had here also received his deposition from sacred things; and the great Methodius held the helm of the Church as Pontiff; then, with the God-inspired Fathers assembling together, the celebration of Orthodoxy had its beginning; He appoints Naucratius the Confessor as head of the Studites. while the world's boundaries now possessed serenity, and the Confessors of Christ, like certain stars, more brilliantly adorned the entire firmament of the Church. Then also our common Father and servant of Christ, Naucratius, returning from exile, came to Byzantium, and in proportion to the merit of his struggles, received with much honor by the Empress and the Patriarch himself, at their request this illustrious man assumed the governance of the sacred brotherhood of the Brethren then assembled together in the most venerable monastery of Studius."

Section VIII. The bodies of St. Nicephorus the Patriarch and Theodore the Studite, Confessors, brought back to Constantinople through the efforts of St. Theodora.

[55] Theodora, who so graciously brought back the holy Confessors from exile, arranged for those who had died in exile, before the persecution had been extinguished, to be honorably conveyed back to Constantinople. The most notable were St. Theodore the Studite and St. Nicephorus the Patriarch. Concerning the former, the aforesaid author of the Life of St. Nicholas the Studite, chapter 7, number 37, has this: "At that time also the illustrious and joy-filled Translation of the Confessor and our holy Father Theodore took place, from the island of Prinkipos to this our monastery, she arranges for the body of St. Theodore the Studite, with the most pious Empress providing for it and the great Pontiff, and the entire ecclesiastical assembly concurring: and he was gloriously deposited on the twenty-sixth of January, beside his renowned and God-inspired uncle Plato, together with his brother and Bishop Joseph, to the right on the eastern side of the shrine of the Holy Forerunner."

[56] Michael the Studite, cited by Baronius in volume 10, at the year 844, final section, narrates the same thus: Since it was fitting that this sacred and holy body should be honored with a certain special distinction, after eighteen years, when the war against the Church, which Theophilus had last stirred up, had now ceased, who had died in exile, it was conveyed to the royal city in a brilliant and celebrated procession; the illustrious Methodius and the pious Theodora transporting it from the island and placing it in the monastery of Studius, in which the rich casket of the great Plato and of the Blessed Joseph is likewise preserved. When it was being carried in, the divine Patriarch himself and the entire clergy, with an immense multitude of monks and people, with torches and various incense, poured out beyond the city to meet it, and receiving it with upturned hands, magnificently conveyed back into the city, found it safe, entire, sound, and fragrant with a wondrous odor; and rendering praise to God, King of all, they bore it into the rotunda of the Fathers. St. Plato, who is here mentioned, is venerated on April 4; St. Joseph, Archbishop of Thessalonica, on July 14. St. Theodore died on November 11 (although his memorial is observed on the 12th), on a Sunday, in the year of the Latin Era 826. Since this author says that his body was translated after eighteen years, if he means complete years, on January 26, in the year 845 or 844, it must be said to have occurred in the year 845; if incomplete years, in the preceding year, as Baronius also placed it.

[57] The Translation of St. Nicephorus the Patriarch was far more magnificent, as may be perceived in the oration of Theophanes the Presbyter, which we shall give on March 13; for on that day there exists a solemn memorial of St. Nicephorus in the Latin Calendar, while the Greeks commemorate his Translation on the same day, and his birthday on June 2. From that oration we shall excerpt certain passages here, from which the pomp of that Translation and the outstanding praise of Theodora may be recognized: "After Theophilus had died," he says, "and the Empire had devolved upon his wife Theodora, being most pious, and their son Michael, still quite a young man, this woman, truly given by the gift of God (as her name indicates), devoted herself most especially to the pursuit and care of piety, esteeming no deed more excellent among all the glorious and great exploits by which rulers are accustomed to prove themselves -- by which she might more securely establish her sovereignty or exercise manly courage in a womanly person -- than if she should render God propitious to herself by the cultivation of piety and religion. And this could in no way come about more easily or advantageously than if she should calm the disturbance long since stirred up in the Church and bring back to health the part laboring under that malady: she labors for the concord of the Church, so that those who were alienated in spirit from one another might be reconciled and think entirely the same. For thus it would come to pass that, when there was one opinion and one mind among all, the true and sincere Faith, adhering to the teachings of the Apostles and the Fathers as to solid foundations, would be preserved firm and immovable; and that henceforth the governance of the Empire would remain easy and tolerable for her."

[58] "When therefore this Queen, truly excellent in mind and strong in spirit, had devised these things by her own counsel and considered them with prudence, having communicated the matter with those who held magistracies and dignities, she summoned together with them those who were preeminent among the monks, a council being convened for the restoration of images, and proposed for deliberation the question of the restoration of images. And when she found them all of one mind, and that they had long been tormented by desire for this matter and anguished in spirit because of the change in religion on this point, she asked them to confirm her in the truth by the authorities of the Fathers as well, which they had found in various books; and she directed that at a designated place in the palace the entire ecclesiastical assembly should gather and address the people on this matter as openly as possible. But so great a multitude flowed together that it could not be encompassed in number. For there assembled not only when all were in agreement, those who had preserved a sound mind during the times of impiety, but also many of those who had agreed with the enemies of piety, and who had been chosen by them for the governance of priestly offices and churches; and immediately changing their opinion, they subjected those who had attacked the holy images to anathema."

[59] "By this swift and unexpected revolution of affairs, John, while Jannes the pseudo-patriarch gnashed his teeth, who then impiously administered the pontifical office, was seized with stupor and mental darkness, and very nearly laid violent hands upon himself and took his own life. For he had been the chief and summit of the wickedness: who, since he held impious opinions and previously wielded the greatest authority with the Emperor, drove them by lies and deceits, imprudently and inconsiderately fabricated, into the abyss of impiety. He therefore, on account of the crimes he had committed against God, by the unanimous consent of all, and by the votes of both the great Emperors and the entire ecclesiastical assembly, and soon ejected, having been cast from the sacred See with ignominy, Methodius, a man highly approved both in life and learning, who had endured many struggles and a long exile for the sake of truth and religion, St. Methodius she substitutes: and had returned thence after being long tormented by scourges and imprisonment, was chosen, with the approval of all persons of rank, to hold the sacred See of the queen of cities."

[60] After a few words concerning the restored cult of sacred images, the same Theophanes adds: "Four years later, the most sacred Methodius, impelled clearly by the divine Spirit, wisely and opportunely admonished the divine Empress that it was not consistent with the dignity of the Empire and the Commonwealth at his suggestion, that the venerable Nicephorus, illustrious among the Patriarchs, who had been driven from the sacred See for the defense of the glorious and sincere faith and had died in a very long exile, should be neglected; but that every effort should be made to have his divine body brought back to the city." He subjoins other reasons offered by St. Methodius, she orders the body of St. Nicephorus to be brought back as well: and finally says: "The illustrious Empress most swiftly and gladly assented to these prayers and exhortations. 'For it is clear,' she says, 'that this will bring honor to me and to my children among all posterity.'"

[61] "Then, having set out with the entire clergy and a great multitude of the people to the tomb of St. Nicephorus, Methodius prayed to him to be willing to return to his own, saying among other things: 'Today the Emperors, which, taken from the tomb, most dear to God for the piety of their conduct, restore the Church to the dead man; which, as sons made such through the Gospel, together with me they establish, not having spot or wrinkle -- such as you left it adorned and strengthened by your teachings ...' At length he uncovered the illustrious body from the tomb, which through the space of nineteen years had remained completely entire and pure, found completely intact, and, placed in a casket by his own hands and lifted up by the hands of the priests, it was carried with lights and frequent chanting of psalms into a ship prepared for this purpose. But when it had crossed the strait conveyed by ship, and was approaching the shore of the city, by the providence of God the young Emperor Michael, and men distinguished by the most ample dignities, and Patricians, and the rest of the citizens, joyful and holding torches in their hands, went forth to meet it. Received with the greatest magnificence, It was borne first to the great church, that is, of Holy Sophia, then to the church of the Holy Apostles, with such a concourse of people that, although many celebrations have taken place on account of Emperors and priests at various times, none can be compared with this one. Finally, the holy body of the outstanding Patriarch, after the sacred mysteries had been performed for God, was laid in a newly constructed sepulchre in the most celebrated temple of the Apostles, by the hands of Methodius himself, on the third day before the Ides of March, deposited in the temple of the Apostles, March 13, on which day he had also been cast into exile, so that both events make the day memorable." Thus far Theophanes; from whom what we have related here is found also, in nearly the same form, in the Menaea for that day. Nicephorus was created Patriarch in the fourth year of the Emperor Nicephorus, that is, in the year of Christ 806; he held the See for nine years; relegated by Leo the Armenian, he lived in exile for thirteen years; he died at the age of seventy on June 2, 828; he lay in his first sepulchre for nineteen years, as Theophanes and the Menaea expressly state; 847. therefore he was translated to Constantinople in the year 847, on March 13.

Section IX. The Bulgarians converted, with St. Theodora's encouragement; their King Bogoris becomes a monk. The defection of the Manichaeans. St. Ignatius becomes Patriarch.

[62] Amid these triumphs of piety, a new fear of war descended, but it was dispelled by the prudence of Theodora and the favor of the heavenly hosts (whose images and honor she had restored). Cedrenus thus records the matter: Bogoris, Duke of the Bulgarians, hearing that a woman with a small son held the Roman Empire, took courage and, having sent ambassadors to the Empress, To King Bogoris of Bulgaria, who threatened war, Theodora replies excellently, threatened that he would break the treaties and make war on the Romans. She, with a spirit by no means womanly or abject, replied: "You shall find me as well, prepared to resist you in battle, and, with God's favor, to gain the victory. But even if you (which may God avert the omen) should prove superior, even so the victory will be mine: seeing that you will have conquered a woman, not a man." Confounded by this reply, the barbarian preferred peace to war and renewed the former treaties.

[63] Ambassadors were then exchanged on both sides again, the Empress Theodora requesting Theodosius, surnamed Cupharas, a distinguished man useful to the state, then a captive in Bulgaria; while Bogoris requested his sister, he is taught the faith by the captive and by his sister, who had long since been captured in a certain raid and detained in the court of the Empress. She had there been both initiated into the religion of the Christians and imbued with the learning of letters; and after she was sent back home, she did not cease to preach the mysteries of the Christians to her brother and to cast the seeds of faith into his mind, since the divine mysteries had already been explained to him by Cupharas. Yet after this exchange was made and the woman was restored to her brother, and Cupharas to the Empress, although the Prince had been instructed in sacred doctrine and initiated into divine things, he still clung to unbelief, addicted to the superstitions of his ancestors. But when a dreadful famine invaded Bulgaria and no remedy was at hand to repel it, at length, having obtained heavenly relief from famine, he at last implored the help of the God of the Christians, whose sacred rites he had been taught by Cupharas and his sister, and commanded his entire people to do the same. Having been relieved of the evil, they embraced the true religion and obtained the laver of regeneration. The Bishop who was sent to them and bestowed baptism upon the Prince named him Michael, after the name of the Emperor. The famine which is said to have seized the Bulgarian territories -- he is baptized, as Gabius correctly rendered it, for in Greek it is "limos" famine -- Xylander translated as plague and pestilence, as if he had read "loimos."

[64] "Another thing also happened," says Cedrenus, "which led him to piety and confirmed him in it. He was extraordinarily devoted to hunting; and desiring to amuse himself not only when he went out to pursue wild beasts, greatly moved by a painting of the Last Judgment: but also in leisure, by contemplating painted figures of animals, he built a new house for this purpose and commanded a certain monk named Methodius, a Roman by nation and a painter by craft, to adorn that house with paintings."

"But as if guided by a certain divine providence, he did not prescribe specifically what and what kind of animals he should paint: he only commanded him to paint at his own discretion whatever he wished, provided that the subjects were terrifying and such as would strike horror and fear into the beholders. Since the painter knew nothing more terrible than the Second Coming of Christ, he painted it there. The Prince, beholding on this side the assembly of the just depicted, and on the other the punishments endured by the impious, and having been taught by the painter what these things meant, immediately abjured the ancestral superstition; and having been instructed, as we said, in the divine mysteries by the holy Bishop, he received holy baptism in the dead of night. But when it became known to the nobles and the people that the Prince had changed his religious worship, the rebels he conquers, bearing the Cross before him: having stirred up a rebellion, they plotted to do away with him. He, attacking them with a small band of his own men, bearing before them the sign of the Cross, routed them, and having struck them with amazement at this unexpected event, made them Christians."

[65] "Moreover, when the entire nation had been brought over to the true worship of God, he entreated the Empress by letter to bestow upon his people, who dwelt too narrowly, some portion of territory, promising that he would unite the peoples and make an eternal and unchangeable peace. She obtains lands for them from Theodora: The Empress very kindly and cheerfully granted the request and gave to the Bulgarians all the land that lies from what they call the Sidera, or Iron region, all the way to Debeltum, which was then deserted, the border of the Roman Empire and the Bulgarian domain. The Bulgarians called this region Zagora. And in this manner all of Bulgaria was brought over to the true worship of God, and there was the most tranquil peace in the West."

[66] Zonaras narrates the same things somewhat more briefly and states more explicitly the dilemma which Theodora employed against Bogoris, in these words: "I shall certainly resist you, and if, with God's assent, I win the victory, consider how much ignominy you will bear, having been conquered by a woman. But if perchance you should conquer, that success will bring you little honor, having overcome a woman." Moreover, the Bulgarians, having been instructed in the Christian faith in this manner, perhaps not sufficiently trusting the Greeks -- especially after the Empress Theodora was soon afterward reduced to a private station, he consults Pope Nicholas, and after St. Ignatius, of whom we shall speak presently, was cast down from the patriarchal chair -- consulted Nicholas I, the Roman Pontiff, whose Responses to the Consultations of the Bulgarians survive. What the state of religion was among them thereafter, Baronius relates in his Annals from ancient writers.

[67] But the noble deed of this first Christian King of the Bulgarians, Bogoris Michael, is narrated by the contemporary author of the Annals of Metz, at the year 868: "In these times," he says, "the most fierce and warlike nation of the Bulgarians, having abandoned their idols, believed in Christ in very great part, and having been washed with the salutary water of baptism, passed over to the Christian religion. From whom he received priests and religious men, Priests and religious men were sent from the Apostolic See to this same nation, who would instruct the still uncultured people in the divine precepts and, cultivating the barbarous roughness with sacred doctrines, would prepare for Christ a pleasing habitation. In order that the work of this holy devotion might obtain a prosperous result, the most Christian King Louis, with the help of Louis, King of Germany: who ruled over the Germans, provided no small assistance. They report, moreover, concerning the King of this nation, that after receiving the grace of baptism he began with such great perfection that during the day he went forth before the people clothed in royal ornaments, having become most pious, but by night, clad in sackcloth, secretly entering the church, he lay prostrate in prayer upon the very pavement of the basilica, with only a haircloth spread beneath him."

[68] "Not long after, admonished by divine inspiration, he relinquished his earthly kingdom so that he might reign eternally in heaven with Christ; and having appointed his elder son as King in his place, having left his kingdom, he becomes a monk: he laid aside the hair of his head, and having assumed the habit of the holy way of life, became a monk, intent day and night upon almsgiving, vigils, and prayers. Meanwhile his son, whom he had made King, departing far from his father's intention and practice, began to plunder, to devote himself to drunkenness, feasting, and licentiousness, and to strive with all effort to recall the newly baptized people to the rites of paganism. When his father heard of this, inflamed with exceeding zeal, he laid aside the sacred habit and resumed the military belt, he resumes it and blinds his apostate son, and clad in royal attire, having allied to himself God-fearing men, he pursued his son. He soon captured him without difficulty, put out his eyes, and cast him into prison. Then, having convoked his entire kingdom, and hands the kingdom to the younger son, he appointed his younger son as King, threatening before all that similar things would happen to him if he deviated in any respect from right Christianity. These things having been accomplished, laying aside the belt and resuming the habit of the holy religious life, he returned to the monastery and spent the remaining time of this present life in holy conversation."

[69] Sigebert of Gembloux reports the same things, at the year 865, but he too does not give the name of the King. Our Denis Petavius, part 1 of the Rationarium Temporum, book 8, chapter 12, expressly says that it was Bogoris, and the chronological reckoning supports this. Some attributed this to Terbellius, a much earlier figure. Marcus Antonius Coccius Sabellicus, in Ennead 8, book 6, attributes this deed to Terbellius (who in the Greek writers is "Terbelos"), whom he acknowledges to have lived in the times of Constantine Pogonatus, nearly two hundred years before Bogoris. But he himself reveals his error in the same passage, when he says that at that very time Cyril drew that nation (of the Bulgarians) to the cultivation of the Christian faith by preaching and miracles. But St. Cyril, the Apostle of the Bulgarians and Moravians, lived in the time of St. Theodora and the Emperor Michael, and came to Rome to Pope Nicholas I with his brother St. Methodius, as we shall say on March 9, the day on which both are venerated. And the same Sabellicus, in Ennead 9, book 1, writes thus: "The King of Bulgaria at that time, together with his entire kingdom, embraced the faith of Christ at the exhortation of Pope Nicholas, having excluded Photinus the heretic from his territories." To this King certain writers ascribe that signal example of piety: that, moved by religious devotion, he left his kingdom to his son, on the condition that he persist in the piety he had received, etc. He then writes that Albert was the younger son of the same King. Anastasius the Librarian has more about the most pious King Michael and his legations to Nicholas, and about the Bishops and Priests sent by the latter into his kingdom, in the Life of that same Nicholas. But enough about the Bulgarians; let us return to Theodora.

[70] Theodora strives to convert the Manichaeans, The Empress, delighted by her success, turned her attention to the conversion of other nations, though with unequal success. Zonaras briefly narrates it thus: "There was in the East a great multitude of Manichaeans, who are more commonly but less accurately called Paulicians, a name taken from John and Paul -- two men who, although celebrated among them, were not the founders of the heresy or the authors of the perverse doctrine, but its followers and exceedingly zealous promoters and heralds. When the Empress had it in mind to draw them back from error to the true religion, she sent distinguished men to them. Unsuccessfully, through the fault of her agents: Since they conducted the business with no dexterity and no skill, not only did they waste their efforts, but they drove the entire people, numbering many thousands, to rebellion, so that, joining with the Ishmaelites, they fought together with them against the Romans and inflicted many disasters upon them." Cedrenus records and amplifies the same things, and lists the cities built by them. They were subdued by more than one defeat at the hands of Basil the Macedonian, with their cities also captured, as may be read in his Life.

[71] Meanwhile, while these things were taking place, St. Methodius the Patriarch died in the year 847. In his place was chosen an equally most holy man, Ignatius, the son of the Emperor Michael I, [Upon the death of St. Methodius, she designates St. Ignatius as Patriarch, having first consulted St. Joannicius,] who, however much he shrank from the office, was nevertheless, as Nicetas writes in his Life, by the power of the Holy Spirit and the authority and judgment of the Bishops, deemed most worthy of the sacred honor and placed in the sacred See of the reigning city, and a lamp was set upon a lampstand. Before the votes of all the Bishops and the people, the Empress had sent to the anchorite Joannicius to consult whether he knew by divine revelation whom the Lord deemed worthy of this honor of the Patriarchate. That outstanding Joannicius divinely pronounced the name Ignatius. Concerning the same election of St. Ignatius, Michael writes thus in his Life: "When the most Blessed Methodius departed from both the throne and this life, the Empress Theodora, having convoked a council of the holy Fathers, and by the authority of the Senate and the entire Clergy, pronounced Ignatius Patriarch." The Metaphrast, in the Life of St. Joannicius on November 4, seems to assert that St. Joannicius died eight months before St. Methodius, so that he could not have been consulted about the election of Ignatius. Zonaras says of him: "Whom the Empress Theodora, while administering the Empire, raised to the pontifical throne of Constantinople."

Section X. The dissolute habits of Michael III. St. Theodora, his mother, contemptuously mocked by him.

[72] "Meanwhile," says Cedrenus, "Michael, having now passed out of youth and approaching manhood, was seized with a desire to manage affairs by his own industry, being urged to this especially by Bardas, his uncle and guardian. Michael is instigated by his uncle Bardas, For Bardas, burning with love of power, concentrated all his zeal upon this one thing alone." Nicetas says in the Life of St. Ignatius: "Bardas was at that time a Patrician and Domestikos of the Schools, and as Michael's uncle claimed for himself the entire administration of the Empire. Having once approached the young man and ensnaring him with insidious words, he said: 'Why, my Lord, do you permit the Empire to remain in the hands of your mother and sisters? to rule by himself, You are no longer an infant and of immature age; indeed, having already taken a wife, you play the man. You ought therefore henceforth to maintain a manly spirit. And so, having summoned the Patriarch, order your mother and sisters to be tonsured and veiled. For that you should henceforth rule alone with the children to be born to you, and to order his mother to be veiled, both pleases the heavenly power and seems to us most equitable.' The cunning man first took care to remove the other guardians, Manuel and Theoctistus, as we shall presently relate; then to have the mother thrust into a monastery, and to eject the Patriarch Ignatius himself, whom he persecuted with mortal hatred for this reason: that Ignatius had publicly forbidden him the sacred Communion, after repeated admonitions, on account of his incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law."

[73] Before we relate the manner in which Theodora was expelled from the palace, we shall first describe what Michael's manner of life was, once he had begun to obey Bardas and to scorn his mother's counsels -- even before he ejected her from the palace, although he then gave himself to those vices with greater license when his admonisher had been removed. All the Greek histories recount these things. We shall excerpt a few details from the Life of Basil the Macedonian written by the Emperor Constantine, his grandson, recently translated into Latin and published in print by the distinguished Leo Allatius. "But," he says, "since the narrative has proceeded thus far, I think it worthwhile that the history of the Emperor Basil should be briefly interrupted, and, taking the matter up from an earlier point, to narrate in a few words (as may be done) what the life of the Emperor Michael was, he lives most dissolutely: what things delighted him, and in what he expended all his time and zeal and the public treasuries; so that from this anyone, by reasoning, may perceive that Basil was manifestly called to the Empire by divine decree (for it was impossible that things should continue much longer in the state in which they were), and that Michael henceforth sharpened swords against himself, and turned the hostile right hands of those who killed him upon himself, and incited them to his own destruction. So completely had he banished himself from human duty, so disgracefully had he raged in base and impious actions, so fiercely had he vented his fury against divine things, and by outrage overthrown all the laws of the commonwealth and of nature together. For having assembled about his person an impious gathering of shameless, impure, and utterly depraved men, and having dishonored the dignity of the Imperial majesty in unworthy ways, he spent entire days -- the wretch -- in revelries, drunkenness, impure loves, obscene stories, and moreover in charioteers, horses, chariot races, and the madness and loss of mind that arises therefrom; and he poured out the public monies upon men of similar station; and, what is most pitiable of all, mocking the very symbols of our Faith and abusing the sacred Priests with insults, promoting from the mimes and buffoons of his entourage counterparts to the clergy, he made them objects of ridicule and exposed everything to the derision of all. I shall adduce a few of these instances, so that from a few you may know the rest."

[74] "That he played the charioteer and drove horses in races, seated in the chariot, wearing the garb of a charioteer, and competing with rivals in reciprocal courses, both within the royal city and court and outside, in the imperial residences near the shrine of the Martyr Mamas; and that he consumed an immense quantity of money in these pursuits, he plays the charioteer: diverting military expenditures to the use of spectacles and games, and squandering the wealth of the Romans on theatrical dances and frivolities, and extravagantly and lavishly exporting the treasures of the Emperors upon impure and lawless bacchanalian revels and sordid amours -- he squanders wealth on trifles: since all this is known and plain to everyone, I think it should be wrapped in silence."

[75] "But that he made the divine rites his sport, and from the obscene, effeminate, and execrable men who attended him created one Patriarch, and appointed eleven others as Metropolitans from the same company -- as though he himself completed the number twelve in this promotion -- this I shall undertake to narrate. For calling the impious and supremely execrable Gryllus by the name of Patriarch, he sets up a buffoon named Gryllus as Patriarch, and clothing him in the pontifical vestment interwoven and resplendent with gold, and wrapping him in the omophorion; and creating in the order of Metropolitans eleven others, as we said, from the same company of his adherents, and calling himself the twelfth, the Archbishop of Cologne; and eleven Metropolitans with himself; and furnishing each one with a cittern to carry under the priestly vestment, and commanding them to play these instruments thus concealed: so, with these men, mocking sacred things, of course, and amusing the spectators, he performed the mystagogy and the liturgy -- most wicked among the wicked, impious among the profane. When the prayer was recited in secret, they were to strum softly on the citterns; but when the time demanded that the priest raise his voice or the people respond, with whom he mocks the divine mysteries, then they were to sound loudly, striking them vigorously with the plectrum, and to fill the ears of the spectators with melody all around. Afterwards, pouring mustard and vinegar into the sacred vessels, even the most holy sacrifice, in an abominable imitation: gleaming with precious stones and the splendor of pearls, fashioned of silver and gold, which had frequently served in the divine mystagogy, they offered toasts to their like-minded companions amid great laughter and gestures both loathsome and execrable. We are sickened by these things."

[76] "On one occasion, when the most holy Patriarch Ignatius, accompanied by his clergy and ecclesiastical retinue, was offering suppliant prayers to God outside the city walls, and was proceeding to a certain sacred temple with the customary sacred melody and orderly procession, at that very time the impious and profane Patriarch of the Emperor, Gryllus, clad in priestly vestments and seated upon an ass, they encounter St. Ignatius in a public supplication, with his more impious Metropolitans and the rest of his theatrical troupe, in a satyric dance and procession, following their cues after the fashion of actors, with voices tinkling and singing in the manner of stage performers, confronted them head-on. When they had drawn near, raising their mantles upon their shoulders and striking the citterns more loudly, and infamously creating a disturbance, singing words and harlot-songs set to the tune of sacred chant, and dancing like Pans and Satyrs, and clanging cymbals, as if mocking rival artists -- the priests and the divine Bishop -- they continued their diabolical dance and procession. But the Bishop of God, inquiring and learning who these men were, and by whom and for what reason they had been sent, having drawn a sigh from the depths of his breast and lamenting the Prince who was the author and cause of these things, he pronounces a curse upon them, finally with tears streaming forth he prayed to God to put a stop to such outrage and injury, and to hurl the impious down to hell, lest holy things be profaned and sacred and venerable things become a laughingstock, and thereupon continued the procession and hymn-singing he had undertaken."

[77] "On another occasion also, in contempt of the same illustrious Patriarch and in mockery of his own mother, the demented and senseless Emperor contrived the following. Michael summons his mother so that she may seek a blessing from Ignatius: Sitting in the imperial seat in the resplendent Chrysotriclinium, having ordered the most impure Gryllus, clothed in pontifical vestments, to sit beside him as close as possible in place of the true Patriarch, and paying the honor due to the Bishop of God, and commanding the scoundrel to cover his long beard with a head-covering, he signifies to his mother through a Cubicularius eunuch that the most holy Patriarch Ignatius is sitting with him, and that if she desires to have blessings invoked upon her, she should come and share in the prayer with him. She, being most devout and God-loving, Gryllus makes a vulgar jest at her as she reverently kneels, and at other times also embracing the most holy Ignatius with immense love and ardent faith, no sooner heard this than she hastened forth eagerly; and not daring to raise her eyes out of reverence -- or rather, suspecting nothing wicked because of her freedom from malice -- she fell at the feet, as she supposed, of the holy Bishop, and begged him to pray to God on her behalf for his favor. But that most wicked wretch, rising slightly from his seat and turning away from her, letting forth an asinine noise from his execrable bowels, thus addressed her: 'That you should no longer be called Mistress, we have declared you unworthy even of this.'"

[78] "At this the Emperor burst into a loud laugh, and that execrable creature also broke into laughter with a raised clamor; and while they were babbling many things, or rather most foolishly reciting them with an unsound mind, the Empress, recognizing the fiction and the fraud, she curses her son, groaning much at the state of affairs and heaping many ill wishes upon her son, at last addressed him thus: 'Behold, wicked son, God has withdrawn his hand from you, and a reprobate mind has been given you, that you should do those things which are not fitting.' and grieves, Saying this, and with wailing and tears tearing out her own hair, she withdrew. These are the valiant exploits of the noble Emperor. This was his reverence and devotion toward divine things and the sacred Priests."

[79] Thus far Constantine. Cedrenus and Curopalates narrate the same things; they call him "Gryllon," whom Constantine calls "Groullon." Zonaras also treats of that impious buffoonery of Michael, but briefly, employing this praeterition: "To recount all the license of that company, of which the Emperor himself was a member, would be tiresome and vexing." Glycas and Constantine Manasses also remember the same pursuits of Michael; and the latter adds this about Theodora: "His mother, seeing Michael living in this way and the Roman Emperor having become a laughingstock, was moved in all her heart and soul, and she often admonishes him: and she chastised him with words, corrected him, exhorted him. But (as the proverb says) she was conversing with a dead man and singing her admonitions to the deaf."

Section XI. St. Theodora's presentiment concerning Basil the Macedonian. Treasures left behind. Departure from the palace.

[80] Bardas and Theoctistus dissembled these vices of the Emperor, as Cedrenus writes, and indulged him, since they were his guardians, The guardians, who dissembled the Prince's vices, are punished, and did not recall him from his depraved pursuits. For this fault they too paid the penalty of an untimely death; and then Michael himself, by this very frivolity of conduct, brought destruction upon himself. For when Bardas had been slain and Basil the Macedonian, first adorned with the dignity of Master and soon also with the diadem, strove to divert Michael from those hateful and nefarious activities, he inflamed him with bitter hatred against himself, says Cedrenus. For Michael, not tolerating reproofs, formed plans to kill him and he himself was afterwards slain by Basil for these reasons; as one who obstructed his desires. When these plans came to light and were repeatedly foiled by Basil's prudence, the latter at length judged it necessary to forestall him who was perpetually plotting his destruction. Constantine the Emperor relates these matters eloquently and at length in the Life of Basil.

[81] But these things happened after the death of St. Theodora, though they had been long foreseen by her. This is recorded by Cedrenus, Zonaras, Manasses, and before them by the Emperor Constantine, in the Life of his grandfather (as we said), in this manner: "The Emperor Michael, being eager for hunting, once went out to a place called the Armamentea for the sake of hunting and a moderate stroll. Afterwards, a banquet having been prepared at Dulichium, and the Emperor reclining at table with his mother Theodora and other relatives and closer members of the Senate, the Protostrator (Basil the Macedonian) was summoned by the Emperor's command. Which St. Theodora had once foreseen, When he had taken his place, the Empress Theodora began to fix her eyes upon him constantly, to contemplate the man and examine him most closely. At length, recognizing certain marks in him, she gradually began to faint; so that it was only with great difficulty, even by sprinkling water and drops of rosewater upon her, that she recovered her senses. Those present, seeing this, withdrew from the spot. Having recovered her composure and been restored, she was asked by the Emperor her son what the matter was and for what reason she had so suddenly lost consciousness. She, scarcely collecting herself from the disturbances of her mind, said: she was struck senseless for this reason; 'The one whom I had heard from your father would destroy our family root and branch -- this is he whom you call Basil. For this man bears the marks of the future heir of us all. Hence, comprehending the whole course of events in my mind and, as it were, beholding our ruin with my eyes, I was seized with distress of soul and fainted.'"

[82] "The Emperor, refuting his mother's fear and calling her back to equanimity and consoling her, said: 'You suspect amiss, Mother, his son dismissing her fear, for this man is a simpleton and exceedingly plain, excelling only in bodily strength, like the ancient Samson, and in nothing else besides; but he has appeared in our age like a certain Anak or Nimrod. Set aside therefore your fear and the sinister suspicion about him that troubles you.' And so Basil, guarded by God, escaped the storm that had then arisen." Cedrenus and Curopalates write that Theodora fell to the ground in a faint. The reply of Michael consoling his mother was this: "Know, O Mistress and my mother, that this man is noble and of invincible strength, and excels in nobility of spirit, and is faithful to our interests and most benevolent, and in no respect ill-disposed toward us." Zonaras writes that the Empress spoke these things about Basil as if divinely inspired; but that Michael regarded them as trifles, and so far from being drawn away from his goodwill toward Basil, he even made him his Cubicularius. Manasses briefly and simply sums up the whole matter thus: "It is recorded that the Empress Theodora, truly a royal woman in mind and judgment, having once gazed upon Basil, addressed her son Michael with words of this kind: 'Do you see this man, Emperor and my son, illustrious and robust, whom you honor and who is perpetually with you? This man (alas!) will devour our family like a dragon, will lay it waste, will slay it, will utterly uproot it, like the featherless chicks of an unfortunate hen.'"

[83] Now let us come to the murder of Theoctistus. He was, as we said, together with Manuel, guardian of the Emperor. When on one occasion a bitter dispute arose between them, at the instigation of Bardas, Manuel, Bardas, through Theoctistus, removes the guardian Manuel from the court, in order to avoid envy, resolved to withdraw from the palace and to abstain from constant attendance and the administration of affairs. He therefore moved to his own residence, situated at the cistern of Aspar, which he afterwards converted into a religious house, and in which he himself was buried. From there, when the business required, he would go to transact affairs. This brought singular pleasure to Bardas, who, having thus removed Manuel not by his own agency but through the efforts of Theoctistus, then contrives to remove Theoctistus himself, who reproached him for his incest, resolved to remove Theoctistus himself as well; for since he intended to seize the Empire, he feared that he would be hindered by him -- and most of all because Theoctistus repeatedly reproached him for his incestuous intercourse with his own daughter-in-law.

[84] He seized the following occasion for destroying the man. The Emperor had a tutor, a certain vile fellow, at the same time intractable and wicked, but so dear to the young Prince that he wished to adorn him with the highest honors and dignities at court and petitioned his mother for this. [He who did not allow -- together with Theodora -- offices to be given to the unworthy, he contrives to have accused of various crimes,] But Theoctistus (to whom the mother also assented) refused to bestow upon the tutor a dignity that exceeded his station, lest dignities be thereby disgraced with indignity. Therefore, having found in this tutor an instrument of his wickedness, Bardas did not cease to insinuate base opinions about Theoctistus into the Emperor's mind: now suggesting that the commonwealth was not being properly administered; now that this man wished to give the mother or one of the Emperor's sisters in marriage, and to strip the Emperor of his eyes and his sovereignty. Swift and cunning counsel was therefore needed. Nor was any other course available than that he be removed: otherwise the Empress would defend him. "When the man's murder had been decided upon," says Zonaras, "his departure from the Empress's chamber was watched for. For he used to report to her both what had been done and what needed to be done. As he was leaving, therefore, an assassin was sent against him ... while Bardas meanwhile brandished a drawn sword and threatened death to anyone and finally to have him killed, who might bring aid to the dying man." Cedrenus writes that he was kept a short while in custody while sentence was deliberated concerning him. At length, when they judged it by no means advantageous that he should live any longer, lest in the meantime the Empress should contrive something, they sent someone to cut him down.

[85] "When Theoctistus had been removed in this fashion," says Zonaras, "the Empress, having learned of the deed, rushed from her chamber with wailing, and advises that Theodora, who disapproved, be removed, assailing both her son and her brother with reproaches and imprecating a similar death upon both." Cedrenus says: "Since they could not endure her reproaches, Bardas meanwhile pressing his plan, they also considered removing her, so that they might thereafter act freely and with no one opposing, in all things as they pleased." When Theodora perceived this (for she was a prudent and shrewd woman), she judged it best not to resist, lest murders and bloodshed should occur. She only resolved to open to the Senate the treasures amassed in the palace, [Upon learning this, she reveals the immense treasures of the treasury to the Senate,] both to restrain her son's immoderate largesses and to make her own management manifest. Having therefore convoked the Senate and standing where she could easily be heard by all, she spoke as follows: "One hundred ninety thousand centenaria of gold, Conscript Fathers, and silver to the value of three thousand, are deposited in the Royal Treasury, partly amassed by my husband, partly gathered by me after his death. There are besides many other and diverse riches. This I declare before you on the present occasion, lest after my departure from the palace my son, your Emperor, should be able to say that I left the palace bereft." At the same time she ordered the Treasurers of the exchequer to attend, who testified that her words were true. Then, having saluted the Senate, she abdicated all office and administration and departed from the palace. But Michael so squandered those monies and voluntarily withdraws from the court, that when Basil attained the Empire he found in the treasury no more than three centenaria of gold and nine sacks of miliarisia, as the same Cedrenus, the Emperor Constantine, and others relate.

[86] That Theodora did not withdraw from the court voluntarily but was ejected, Constantine Manasses and others write. And Glycas indeed has the following: "Theodora, chastising Michael with frequent admonitions and trying to instruct him, was at length expelled from the palace. For Michael's uncle, or she is expelled: whose name was Bardas, leaving no device untried and assailing the man by every means, brought it about that the Empress should be removed far from the palace, while he himself was designated Caesar by the Emperor."

Section XII. The monastic veil imposed upon St. Theodora against her will. The relegation of her and of St. Ignatius. A letter of Pope Nicholas to her. Her death. Her veneration.

[87] Whether Theodora left the palace of her own accord and forestalled the ignominy which her son and brother were devising for her, or whether she departed under compulsion at their command, she was not long permitted to remain at peace even in a private dwelling. Zonaras writes thus: "Michael did not allow his mother, who had departed from the palace, to remain at rest; but at the instigation of Bardas, he thrust both her and his sisters, with their hair shorn, into the dwelling of Carianus, all their possessions having been taken from them. St. Ignatius the Patriarch was ordered to tonsure them as nuns: the son orders St. Ignatius to tonsure and veil her; which he, as was his duty, refused." Nicetas, in his Life: "Michael immediately summoned, at Bardas's instigation, the venerable Patriarch, and said: 'Seize my mother and sisters at once, as is fitting, tonsure them and clothe them with the religious veil, and devote them to the religious life.' But the Patriarch freely replied: 'It is forbidden for me to do this; for when I assumed the helm of the Church and the sacred See, I bound my faith by an oath in writing, that I would never plot against your Empire or entertain such a design. And indeed, what is the crime of the Queens now, and what cause is there in them for your Majesty and Power to contrive such things against them?'" And after a few words: which he refuses to do, "But Michael immediately ordered his mother, together with her sisters, to be thrust into the dwelling of Carianus, relegated, and tonsured. Ignatius himself, or Theognostus the Archimandrite in his name, writes in a petition to Pope Nicholas: 'After he had been impelled by Bardas to resolve to remove his mother together with her sisters from the palace, he commanded me to tonsure them; but I did not think they should be tonsured against their will.'"

[88] "For these reasons," says the same writer, "I was hurled from the throne, beaten, and banished." And Nicetas adds: "Not long after, Michael banished the Patriarch Ignatius himself as well and cast him out to the island of Terebinthus. He is driven into exile in November, 858. Ignatius was expelled in the month of November, in the year 858, having held the See of Constantinople for eleven full years, as Nicetas states; and he had been raised to it, as we showed above, in the year 847, when St. Methodius died on the day after the Ides of June. He was restored by Basil the Macedonian as soon as the latter began to rule alone after the murder of Michael, in the year 867." The same Nicetas writes: "It was a Sunday, the twenty-third of November; at which time of year he had also previously been driven into exile. He, relying upon the protection and mercy of God, having won through the contest of virtue a nine-year and perfect crown, is restored to the throne of his Church."

[89] Since from what has been said it is established that Theodora was clothed with the monastic veil not long before Ignatius himself was relegated, it follows that Ignatius was not solicited to impose the veil upon her while she was still dwelling in the palace. For Michael, as Cedrenus and others relate, St. Theodora was expelled from the palace in the year 856, ruled with his mother Theodora for fourteen years, alone for eleven. He assumed the Empire near the end of January in the year 842 and held it until September 20, 867; with his mother therefore until the year 856, at the beginning of which the fourteenth year was concluded. At that time therefore she departed from the palace, having abdicated the administration; she remained in the city, however, in the splendor befitting the mother of an Emperor, until the month of October in the year 858, when she was confined in a monastery or a certain palace. And because during that interval of time she perhaps also met with her son from time to time and was called Empress, Nicetas in the Life of Ignatius says that Michael reigned with his mother for fifteen years and eight months Nevertheless she lives in splendor in Constantinople until October 858, (namely from the end of January 842 to October of the year 858, when his mother was tonsured), and alone for nearly nine years; for he perished, as the same writer says, at the beginning of Indiction 1, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of October, in the year 867.

[90] How, when Ignatius refused to clothe the unwilling Theodora in the monastic habit, this was accomplished through others, Cedrenus narrates (and from him Curopalates) in this manner: Theodora was accustomed to go with her daughters to the sacred church of the Mother of God which is in the Blachernae, both for the sake of prayer and of bathing. When therefore on a certain day the Emperor and his uncle Bardas learned that she had gone thither, they sent Petronas -- whom we showed above was also a brother of Theodora -- to tonsure her together with her daughters as nuns. Thus they were relegated to the palace which is near Carianus, and, stripped of all the wealth they possessed, she is then tonsured together with her daughters and confined: were compelled to live not in the manner of royalty but of private persons. Where this "palace near Carianus" was situated, and in what quarter of the city, is not indicated there. Glycas writes that she was removed far from the palace. Zonaras says she was "confined in the house of Carianus." Above, in section 2, number 15, we related that Theophilus had built individual palaces for his daughters in the quarter called Carianus. Into these same palaces, or one of them, they appear to have been thrust.

[91] Cedrenus and Curopalates say that she died not long after she was expelled to that place. Zonaras writes that, since her spirit was wounded by the sense of these events, she did not die immediately after, she withdrew into a monastery which was there, and did not long survive so great a calamity; but that her daughters, the Emperor's sisters, endured the evils into which they had been cast. That she was alive as late as the year 866 is proved by Baronius from the letter of Pope Nicholas addressed to her on the Ides of November, in Indiction 15, reckoned from the month of September. From this letter, if Theodora died on February 11, as is evident from the letter of Pope Nicholas to her, dated November 13, 866; the day on which her memory is celebrated among the Greeks, it appears to follow that she did not die before the year 867. For how probable is it that for a full nine months the news of her death would not have been conveyed to Rome, to the Pope who was intensely concerned with the affairs of Constantinople? We shall transcribe that letter

as a noble epitaph consecrated to the worthy memory of so great a woman, as Baronius professes to do in the Annals. And we shall transcribe it here. It is the fourteenth among the Letters of Nicholas in volume 3 of the Councils, and reads as follows:

[92] "Nicholas, Bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his most beloved daughter Theodora, once joined to an earthly Emperor, but now spiritually united to the heavenly one. Carefully and diligently recalling your virtues, by which you have appeared in these days second to none of the Empresses who preceded you -- in which virtues also, and especially in the cause of piety, in which he praises her, you have been found inferior to none of them -- we do not cease to render immense thanks to almighty God, by whose gift you received them, and to bless his holy name; and we continually recount the praises of your pious endeavors among the conversations of the faithful, for the imitation of those who hear them. As he was often accustomed to do, For you, even while your husband the Prince was still alive and opposed to the laws of the Church, did not fear to think soundly and to defend what was right. You, I say, persevering in the orthodox religion, taught your only son to walk the path not of his earthly father for piety, but of the supernal one. Who, moreover, could suffice to narrate the notable qualities of your character or the brave deeds of your corrections? For when you ruled alone, with the Lord's cooperation, you protected the Church of the Lord not only from the visible enemy but also, for prudence, no weaker than any man, from the invisible enemy -- that is, from error -- and like a ray of the sun you dispelled the cloud of perverse doctrines from the face of the Church. For zeal for the Faith, The heretics felt in you a manly heart, and, marveling at your unconquerable strength, were uncertain whether you were indeed a woman. For reverence toward the Roman Church: Why was this, unless because you followed the doctrines of the Apostolic See and embraced the counsels of the Pontiff of Constantinople, with whom the Roman Church was in communion? For thus devoted sons venerate their father and are found to agree with him."

[93] To the exiled one he proposes examples of patience, "But what do the enemies do? They seize, they cast out. And what more? They subject her to every dishonor. But examples of patience, by which you may be taught to despise these things and to desire those which belong to the eternal kingdom, O most Christian daughter, are abundant enough. For Moses the lawgiver and Aaron, the Holy One of the Lord, suffer murmuring and harsh insults and sedition from those Moses, whom Moses carried in his bosom like children and loved so much that, when the Lord wished to destroy them and to make him into a great nation, he said: 'Either forgive them this sin, or blot me out of the book which you have written.' Exodus 32 Samuel, So the Blessed Samuel was driven from his office by those upon whom he had bestowed many benefits. So the Prophet Zechariah was stoned by the one for whom his father had secured the kingdom, Zechariah, and to whom he himself was showing the way of salvation. But why should we linger longer upon the human race, when the Mediator himself between God and men, our Lord Jesus Christ, endured from those Christ; for whom he illuminated the blind, restored many of the sick to their former health, and raised the dead -- reproaches, spitting, scourges, and the death of the Cross?"

[94] "For (alas!) we have arrived at the perilous times which the blessed Apostle foretold when he wrote: 'In the last days perilous times shall come, and men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,' where he also interposed, 'disobedient to parents, ungrateful, criminal, without affection.' 2 Timothy 3 Indeed, we have arrived at those lamentable and deplorable days what she suffers was long ago foretold, in which (O sorrow!), just as the Lord also says in the Gospel, 'brother shall betray brother to death, and children shall rise up against parents.' Mark 13 But what do these perpetrators and raging enemies accomplish? While they desire to harm, they benefit; and while they plot to injure, they confer the greatest advantage. They tyrannically deprive one of a temporal kingdom, but bestow, even unwillingly, this to be material for merits: an eternal empire. They take away earthly glory, but confer heavenly blessedness. For their argument of iniquity is converted into an instrument of equity, and the arms of destruction or tyranny are turned into instruments of salvation and piety. For howsoever much enemies may rage, howsoever much adversaries may be maddened, all things work together for good to those who love God; namely because there is no wisdom, no knowledge, no counsel against the Lord."

[95] "Therefore, most beloved daughter, be strengthened in the Lord and in the power of his might; and in adversities approach the Lord alone as your sole refuge; he exhorts her to constancy: setting your feet also upon the rock, upon which the Lord principally chose to build his Church; and from the solidity of communion with him, as you have not done until now, so also to the end, let no blasts of the tempest alienate you. But we, who are the unworthy vicar of the same, both concerning the state of the Church of Constantinople and concerning the restoration of our Brother and fellow Bishop Ignatius, he pledges his support for St. Ignatius, according to the ministry entrusted to us, be assured that we shall in no way be found sluggish or idle. As for how matters stand with you or with your beloved daughters, or if perchance anything weighs upon your heart, comfort for her, we beseech you to intimate it to us with a faithful mind and unhesitating conscience through our present envoys, whom we ask you to assist in their needs. Given on the Ides of November, Indiction the fifteenth."

[96] On the same day, the Ides of November, a letter of the same Pope Nicholas to Bardas Caesar was also dated, from which Baronius conjectures that Curopalates errs in writing that Bardas was slain on Indiction 14, on the first of April. And he rightly proves indeed that he does not seem to have been slain on the first of April, which fell that year on the second day of Holy Week; since Nicetas relates that at the very beginning of the solemn fast, Ignatius was so closely guarded by Bardas's command Bardas Caesar was slain that he could not even perform the sacred rites, nor was anyone allowed access to him, nor he to go out; and that when he had remained thus confined for three months, Bardas was killed. But Ash Wednesday in that year was February 21, from which to April 1 is scarcely six weeks. What Cedrenus therefore has concerning the date -- not on April 1, "it was then the first of April, but the 21st, of Indiction 14" -- should be corrected thus: "it was the twenty-first"; or as the Emperor Constantine has in the Life of Basil: "the month of April had its twenty-first day, of the fourteenth Indiction." Allatius translated this as "the eleventh day before the Kalends of May, Indiction 14." Literally: "it was the twenty-first of April, of the fourteenth Indiction." And that phrase "after the twentieth" appears to have been changed in Cedrenus to "at that time."

[97] That there is an error in the number of the Indictions, as Baronius suspects, is first refuted by the consensus of the writers. Of the year 866. We have given the words of Constantine and of Cedrenus, whom Curopalates follows. And these last two give an even more certain chronological marker: Michael places the crown upon Basil on the very day of holy Pentecost, which was the twenty-sixth of May, on which day Pentecost fell on May 26, Indiction 14. But in the year 867, Indiction 15, Easter fell on March 30, the Dominical Letter being E, and Pentecost on May 18. In the preceding year, however, Easter fell on April 7, Pentecost on May 26, the Dominical Letter being F. Baronius was not unaware that this was expressly written by Curopalates; but he passed over the day of Pentecost, corrected the Indiction, and retained May 26. But Nicholas could easily have remained ignorant of these events even five months later, when he wrote those letters to Bardas and none to Basil. If you ask, since from May 26 of the year 866 to September 20 of the year 867, for nearly sixteen months, Basil ruled jointly with Michael, [Why Theodora was not then restored by Basil, the colleague of the Emperor Michael,] why then did he not arrange for his mother (if she survived for at least eight months) to be restored to her former dignity, or at least to be recalled to the court? Doubtless because he judged it necessary first to strengthen his own position before making any innovations: he knew the fickle and inconstant character of Michael, and the powerful faction of Photius, and that neither could be provoked without the utmost danger to himself. Moreover, he remembered that Theodora herself had previously opposed his honors when she presaged that he would attain supreme power. What if, then, when he had reconciled her with her son, she should alienate the son from him? In short, there was no lack of reasons why he should not immediately come to the aid of the innocent who were unjustly oppressed. He came to their aid as soon as he had obtained full and absolute power, as we shall say at the Life of St. Ignatius on October 23; but by that time Theodora had died. She herself died on February 2, 867.

[98] She appears therefore to have died on February 11, Indiction 15,

in the year 867, about nine months after the death of her brother Bardas. Seven months and ten days after her death, her son Michael was also slain, on the twelfth day before the Kalends of October, Indiction 1. Pope Nicholas died on the Ides of November; and the legates who had been sent to him by the Patriarch Ignatius and the Emperor Basil found Hadrian II as his successor. Moreover, when Basil had gained the Empire, as Cedrenus and Curopalates write, he transferred Theodora's body and her daughters to the monastery of their grandmother, which is called Gastria. John Baptist Gabius translates the phrase "to the monastery of the grandmother" as "to the monastery of Mamma." Translated by the Emperor Basil. Zonaras likewise writes that the sisters of Michael were conveyed by Basil the Macedonian, upon his accession to the Empire, to the monastery of their maternal grandmother, called Gastria. We have already treated above of the grandmother Theoctista Florina.

[99] Theodora, says Baronius at the year 866, number 18, enrolled among the Saints, was after her death enrolled among the Saints, as the Greek Menologium of the Emperor Basil shows, where on the eleventh of February her birthday is celebrated with this eulogy: "The memory of the Empress Theodora, who restored the true faith." As is evident from the Greek Menologium. "The Blessed Theodora the Empress was the wife of Theophilus the Iconoclast, but she herself was Catholic. He indeed relegated St. Methodius the Patriarch, and in his place created John the heretic, who burned the holy images. She, however, was not then permitted to adore them publicly; but keeping them hidden in her chamber, she would rise in the night and adore them, beseeching God to show mercy to the orthodox. She bore a son, Michael, whom she taught the true Faith. After her husband's passing, she immediately recalled St. Methodius and arranged for the convening of a holy Synod, in which the sacred images were restored. Thereafter, cast out from the Empire, she was placed in a monastery together with her daughters, where she rested in the Lord." Which is called that of the Emperor Basil. These words are found in Baronius; from which we conjecture that the Menologium was not composed in the age of Basil the Macedonian, when the memory of Theodora and Methodius was still fresh, since no learned person could then have written that Methodius was recalled from exile by her, or that he had been subjected to exile by Theophilus when he was already Patriarch.

[100] The same things are found in the Menaea, but with this title: "On the same day, the memory of Theodora the Empress, who established the Orthodoxy." And the Menaea.

"I joyfully honor Theodora Augusta, Who honored the image of Christ."

The rest largely agrees with the Menologium and is also found in the "Life of the Saints" by Maximus of Cythera. And Maximus, Bishop of Cythera.