7. Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike - Dumbarton Oaks

St. Theodora of Thessalonike 185
body with modesty, so she also loved to feast her soul with the constant study
and hearing of the Holy Writ, because, as the psalm says, “her pleasure is truly
in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth she meditate day and night.” 127 Thus
she was revealed to be like a tree planted by the brooks of waters, bringing forth
the suitable fruit in each season. 128 For although we have been given many
great commandments by the Creator through which, if we wanted, we could
wipe away the wrinkle of the soul and purify our mind from the mist of
worldly cares in order to receive the incomprehensible divine illumination, she
managed to carry out each of them in an extraordinary manner.
25. Therefore the Devil, who begrudges the good, observing that she was
truly deserving of the blessing in this psalm, 129 heated up his venom and scrutinized
her spiritual paths if he might somehow be able to trap her.
Since he knew that she was particularly devoted to the two commandments on
which hang all the law and the prophets, 130 and since he knew that parents, and
especially the mother, are compelled by the laws of nature to love their children,
he lay in ambush to strip the second away from the
first; and in his typical fawning mode of combat he instilled in Theodora a
passionate attachment to her daughter. And she, becoming subject to human
emotions, began to pester the superior (for
she had brought the child to her own convent 131 because the woman responsible
for her tonsure [i.e., Aikaterine] had already died), saying: [p. 116]
“My Lady Mother, you who alone are concerned with my soul, I cannot
endure to see the daughter born of my womb clothed in a cheap and tattered
garment and subsisting on so little food. Please arrange for her to be trans-
127 Ps. 1:2.
128 Cf. Ps. 1:3.
129 I.e., Ps. 1.
130 Mt. 22:40. The author is referring to the commandments to love Jesus Christ and
to love one’s neighbor as oneself (Mt. 22:37–39).
131 Theodora’s transfer of her daughter to her own convent might seem to contravene
the principle of monastic stability, discussed in note 175 below, that nuns should remain
for life in the convent where they first took monastic vows. But Theopiste may still have
been a novice who had not yet taken vows at the convent of St. Luke. In any case,
Theodora’s transfer of her daughter was an early indication of her inability to forget
her maternal bonds even though monks and nuns vowed to substitute the cenobitic
community for their biological families; cf. A.-M. Talbot, “The Byzantine Family and
the Monastery,” DOP 44 (1990), 121–23.