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

St. Theodora of Thessalonike 197
and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one
of their fingers.” 187 For this reason and lest their thoughts take a wrong direction
on account of being afflicted by such a disease, and lest they that God did not accept her sufferings and her extensive
ascetic struggle, He saw fit that after three years of senility she regained
her senses for a time before her departure to the Lord, so that she both spoke
and reasoned appropriately. And, they say, when the hour approached for the
great to depart to the Lord, as an enormous crowd of monastics and
laymen sat in attendance and [p. 144] watched her, she quietly raised her right
hand to her left side, and tranquilly opening her mouth, she spoke thus in the
following words, “What do you seek? Thou hast no part with me,” 188 as if she
were rebuking and blowing upon the Devil 189 that lies in wait for Christians
up to their last breath and as if she were rendering him ineffective with the
sign of the cross.
Fear and trembling seized them all, as each of those who heard wondered what it was that the Lord vowed to confess before the heavenly
Father: “For,” He said, “whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I
also confess before my Father Which is in heaven.” 190 And thus the Devil shamelessly
lay in wait for up to the time of her death, although she had
reconciled herself to from the time she was in her mother’s womb
through her monastic office and had directed her entire life in a manner pleasing
to God. But glory be to the holy God, Who strengthened His servant
against him [the Devil]. For with the words she gave up the ghost to
the Lord with joy and rejoicing. And after having conducted appropriate funeral
rites, they laid her to rest in coffins of the blessed. 191
39. The blessed Theodora continued to gain strength and was manful in
her labors for obedience; indeed she believed that she had just commenced
these , since, as she said, up to that point in her life she had been
187 Mt. 23:4.
188 Cf. Jn. 13:8.
189 Anna’s action is reminiscent of the baptismal liturgy in which the priest blows
upon the baptismal water to exorcise evil spirits; cf. Goar, Euchologion, 289.
190 Mt. 10:32.
191 ´
The meaning of ejn oJsíwn qh kai" is unclear. The plural form of coffin may be a
poetic plural or might refer to the practice attested in Sozomenos of placing a wooden
coffin inside a lead receptacle; cf. note 27 of Life of Mary/Marinos, above.