Saint Theodosius the Cenobiarch

As he wished to apply himself entirely to the service of God, he doubted, at the beginning, whether he should embrace the solitary life of the hermits, or that of the cenobites who lived under the obedience of the Elders. After having thought about it well and commended the matter to God, he found it better and more secure, because of his youth and his lack of experience, to follow the will of another than to live alone and govern himself according to his own fancy, far from the company of men. To carry out this resolution, having learned th at a h Longin Holy elder and master of perfection to Theodosius. oly old man named Longinus, who dwelt in a small place commonly called the Tower of David, was an excellent master of perfection, he went to find him, and this good religious received him and kept him with him for some time, in order to set him on the path of virtue. From there, he moved to a church that a woman devoted to the service of God had had built and consecrated in honor of Our Lord and his most holy Mother, on the road to Bethlehem; but, later, he withdrew to a mountain, because certain religious, having heard the report of his holiness, began to frequent him to receive instructions from him; and then, he devoted himself more particularly to fasts, vigils, prayer, tears, and the perfect mortification of his appetites. He ate very little and all his food was only dates, vegetables, or wild herbs; when he had no more provisions, he would soak and soften the date pits and eat them; he remained thirty years without consuming bread, a rigor and austerity of life in which he persevered until his old age.

Having finally admitted a few people into his company, to lead them to heaven and detach them from all earthly things, he proposed to them the remembrance of death as the foundation of religious perfection; and, in order to impress it deeply into their memory, he had a tomb built to serve as a common burial place for the religious, so that, by dying every day through the meditation on this object of death, they would have less apprehension when it arrived.

One day, therefore, when he went to see this funeral dwelling with his brethren, seeing them all around him, he said to them graciously: "The pit is made, but who among us will enter it first?" Then, one of his disciples, who was a priest and was named Basil, knelt down and repli Basile Disciple and priest who was the first to be buried in the community tomb. ed: "My father, give me your blessing, for I shall be the first to descend into it." Theodosius gave it to him and commanded that, although Basil was still alive, his brethren should recite for him the prayers that the holy Church ordained for the dead; at the end of forty days, when these prayers were finished, having neither fever nor any other ailment, the religious fell into a sweet and deep sleep, during which he rendered his soul to God. This is considered a miraculous thing; but that which happened in the space of the following forty days was no less so; for, during all this time, the holy abbot Theodosius heard and saw this same Basil, who was singing in the choir, without, however, being seen or heard by any of his brethren, except for one named Aetius who heard his voice, until Theodosius prayed to Our Lord to open his eyes as well. And immediately Aetius ran toward Basil to embrace him; but he could not, because he disappeared, saying: "Remain with God, my fathers and my brothers, you will see me no more."

Another time, on the evening of the vigil of Easter, there were no provisions in the monastery, not even a loaf of bread to consecrate the next day for Mass. The religious who noticed this were not pleased, and as they began to complain about their superior, they received from him this wise and Christian correction: "Let us take care, my brothers, of what concerns the altar and the Mass for tomorrow's communion, for divine Providence will provide for the rest." That is all he said to them, and before it was night, two mules arrived at the gate, loaded with so many provisions that there was enough for the whole convent until the feast of Pentecost. A very pious and very wealthy man, who gave great alms to the poor, especially to religious, once sent notable sums of money and other goods to be shared among religious houses, without specifying in particular the persons or the places where he intended them to be distributed; whether by forgetfulness, or for some other reason, and what is more certain, by the disposition of the will of God, neither Theodosius nor his own had any part in it. The brothers begged him to make their hardships known to the one who was giving charity in this way, so that they might participate in it, since they were in such great need. But Theodosius would not do it, because such diligence seemed to be a lack of trust in God. Thus, Providence showed that it never abandons those who hope in it, for at that same hour, a man passed by who had a horse loaded with various provisions to give to the poor; although he had no intention of coming to the monastery of Theodosius, seeing nevertheless that his beast stopped there and remained as if immobile, he believed that this was not without reason, and that God wanted him to enter this monastery, where, learning of the poverty of the place, he gave much more to Theodosius than the other who had forgotten them would have done.

Through these miracles, Theodosius acquired a great reputation, and many religious men, who knew by experience how much he was favored by God, came to the school of such a holy master to be instructed and trained by him in the way of heaven; but Theodosius, seeing that the number of his religious was growing, was troubled as to what he should do; on one hand, he loved rest and solitude, and on the other, he felt held back by the profit and spiritual utility of his brothers. Whereupon, having prayed to the divine goodness to declare His will, he was miraculously warned to value the salvation of souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ more than his own rest. By a new fire that ignited in a censer he was carrying, God showed him the place where He wanted a vast monastery to be built, capable of containing the religious, the poor, pilgrims, and the sick. This monastery being made, all sorts of people were received there, and especially the sick, whom the holy religious assisted and treated charitably, consoling them with his words, helping them with alms, and serving them himself with marvelous piety, to the point that he would dress them with his own hands and affectionately kiss their wounds. There was no one so miserable or so infected who was not welcome in his house; on the contrary, the most horrible were the best received; everyone had all their comforts there in abundance, even though there was nothing in the monastery to give them, because the great Father of the family provided liberally for all kinds of needs, and it was even noted that in one day the tables had been set a hundred times to treat those who arrived. At this same time, it pleased God to chastise the world with such a great famine and need for food that there were few people, however rich and well-off they might be, who could exempt themselves from this misery; such a great number of poor people then presented themselves at the monastery that those who had the charge of receiving them closed the door, not having enough to satisfy their needs.

Theodosius, knowing this, wanted the doors to be opened for all, and ordered that what was necessary be distributed to each one; God provided so abundantly that all were satisfied without the provisions being diminished. The hand of God opened in other circumstances for the consolation of the holy abbot; another time, he treated with such magnificence a great multitude of people who had come to his monastery to celebrate the feast of Our Lady that, after having eaten sufficiently, they still took leftovers from the service home with them; Our Lord renewing in his favor the miracles He had performed in the desert, when with five small loaves He satisfied five thousand people. Thus the great Theodosius made himself illustrious by the wonders he performed and by the radiance of his angelic life and his high virtues; also, the number of his disciples grew so much that there were up to one hundred and ninety-three whom he sent before him to heaven, and the abbot who succeeded him saw four hundred others die.

This great gathering was animated by the edifying spectacle offered by this community. One would have taken all the brothers for so many angels clothed in a mortal body. United by the bonds of charity and peace, they all had but one heart and one soul. Rigid observers of the law of silence, they did not dissipate themselves in external communications. One saw reigning among them a holy emulation for the accomplishment of their duty and for all the observations of the rule. There were four churches in the enclosure of the monastery: the first was for the brothers who spoke Greek; the second, for the Armenians, to whom the Arabs and Persians had been joined; the third, for the Bessi, that is to say for all those who had come from the northern countries and who spoke the Slavonic or Runic language. Each of these nations sang in its particular church what was called the Mass of the Catechumens; that is to say, that part of the Mass which precedes the offertory. After the reading of the Gospel, they all assembled in the church of the Greeks, which was the most numerous. It was there that the holy sacrifice was offered and that all the monks participated in the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The fourth church was for the use of those who were expiating their faults through the labors and humiliations of penance.

It was not enough for Theodosius to have destined a considerable part of the day and night to public prayer; he also wanted to preserve his disciples from the evils that idleness ordinarily causes. He ordered them to apply themselves to some useful trade which, without being incompatible with the spirit of recollection, could provide the things necessary for the community.

Theodosius was bound by a close friendship wi th Saint Sa saint Sabas Contemporary and friend of Theodosius, superior of the hermits of Palestine. bas, who also lived in Palestine and who supported a great number of solitaries in the ways of perfection. Sallu st, Bish Salluste Patriarch of Jerusalem who ordained Sabas as a priest. op of Jerusalem, who knew the merit of these two great men, wished to give more exercise to their zeal and charity. He appointed Sabas superior of all the hermits, and Theodosius superior of all the cenobites of Palestine. It is for this reason that the latter was surnamed the Cenobiarch. The two servants of God paid each other frequent visits; but their conversation never turned on anything but subjects of piety and edification. Animated by the same zeal, they concerted together the most effective means of procuring the glory of God. United also by a sincere attachment to the doctrine of the Church, they both had the honor of being persecuted for its defense.

Many, who had been soldiers of the princes of the earth, came to find him to fight, through his means, under the banner of the King of heaven. Others, very powerful in riches and in all that can make one considerable in this century, knowing the vanity and deceit of the world, came to seek with him glory in the ignominy of Jesus Christ, opulence in poverty, and true felicity in the contempt of themselves. There were also some learned persons of great reputation who embraced, under his guidance, the evangelical wisdom which passes in the mind of the blind world for folly. For, although he was not versed in human sciences, he was nevertheless very enlightened in supernatural things, so that he governed souls divinely well by the admirable talent that Our Lord had communicated to him. His discourses were filled with so many good and strong reasons, and he explained them in such beautiful terms, that he was admired by everyone; in his instructions, he conformed so much to the capacity and condition of each one, that, measuring the burdens he imposed to the strength of those who submitted to them, he loaded the robust and lightened the weak, for fear that the former might give way to idleness, and that the latter might be overwhelmed by work.

His punishments were not rigorous, but he was content to inflict them with a firm and powerful word, which, nevertheless, was full of love and penetrated to the bottom of the hearts of his religious. This moderation was an effect of the evenness of his spirit; thus he was always the same, whether alone or in company, because he kept himself unceasingly in the presence of God.

In his time, the Church was tormented by the heretics called Acephali, meaning without a head, because they followed no author of their error, and also by the Eutychians. They condemned the Council of Chalcedon in that it recognized two natures in Jesus Christ.

In 513, Emperor Anastasius, protecto r of the Eutychians l'empereur Anastase Byzantine emperor who favored the Monophysite heresy. , had driven out Elias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who detested the impieties of these heretics, and had placed on his seat a Eutychian monk named Severus. Then he had published an edict, ordering the Syrians to obey these intruders. Theodosius and Sabas, without worrying about the indignation of the prince, supported with all their strength Elias and John, his legitimate successor, whose defense they took up loudly.

Anastasius corrupted the bishops and notable persons to draw them to his opinion and engage them to make war on the Catholic religion; and as the virtue of Theodosius made him famous throughout the East, he tried to win him over with gifts. Therefore, knowing well that the holy abbot, as a friend of evangelical poverty, wanted and sought nothing for himself, but only for the unfortunate, he sent him thirty pounds of gold, which could amount to three thousand crowns or thereabouts, so that, he said, he might distribute them to the poor.

Theodosius immediately discovered the trap hidden under this bait and the pretension of the emperor; he nevertheless prudently dissimulated, either so as not to defraud the poor of such a rich alms, which could appease Our Lord and obtain for the emperor his pardon and the grace of a perfect conversion; or else, so that this prince (who was avaricious) would be better punished, finding himself frustrated in his expectation. He therefore accepted this alms with great thanks, and distributed it to the poor. The emperor having learned of this, sent his deputies to him to beg him to make his declaration touching the points of faith that were in controversy. Then Saint Theodosius had all the religious of his monastery assembled and told them that the time was approaching when the servants of Jesus Christ must fight valiantly and expose their lives for the Catholic faith, exhorting them, with ardent and pathetic words, to do their duty well. Then, he had the emperor answered that he and his religious would rather die, following the doctrine that the holy Fathers had left them, than live in the communion of heretics; that he rejected all those who followed them and did not want to embrace the four Councils received by the Church and recognized as ecumenical. This letter from the holy abbot stung Anastasius extremely; nevertheless, dissimulating the fury of the lion to attack Theodosius as a fox, he let him know that the trouble of the Church did not proceed from him, but from the clergy and the religious who had overturned it by their ambition. But Theodosius remained firm and constant, without worrying about the words and the indignation of the emperor, nor even the weapons of his soldiers and the spies who observed those who opposed his will; although he was old and broken by fasts, penances, and austerities, he regained new strength and went off, like a robust and vigorous young man, to preach the Catholic truth through all the cities: he confounded the heretics, reassured the faithful, raised up those who had fallen, and held back those who were on the edge of the abyss. Entering the church of Jerusalem one day, he mounted the pulpit, and imposing silence on the people, he said to them: "Let him who does not receive the four general Councils as the four Gospels be cursed and excommunicated!" After which, he descended, and left the whole assembly very astonished. God justified the conduct of his servant by a miracle performed upon leaving the church. Indeed, a woman afflicted with a horrible cancer was healed by touching the habit of Saint Theodosius. It was then that the emperor, dropping the mask, sent the holy man into exile; but his banishment lasted very little, God caused Anastasius to die by a thunderbolt (518), and Theodosius returned glorious and triumphant to his monastery, under the empire of Justin, who favored the Catho Justin Emperor and successor to Anastasius, favorable to the Catholics. lics; he lived another eleven years in a happy and holy old age. To the portrait we have already painted of his virtues, we must add these two traits of humility: having one day seen two of his monks who were arguing together, he threw himself at their feet with tears and prayers, and would not rise until they had been entirely reconciled. Another time when he had been forced to separate from his communion a brother guilty of a very grave fault, the latter, instead of submitting to the penance he deserved, dared in his turn to excommunicate his superior. Theodosius conducted himself as if the excommunication had been valid, thus giving his disciple, whose salvation he alone desired, an example of submission which was followed.

Several miraculous actions showed the powerful credit our Saint enjoyed with God; we shall report a few of them.

Being with a religious named Marcian, the latter, who did not have a piece of bread in his hand, ordered his disciples to give Theodosius and his companions a dish of lentils, apologizing that he could not give them bread. Then Theodosius, looking at Marcian, noticed a grain of wheat on him; he took it in his hand and said to him: "Here is wheat, how do you say there is none in your house?" Marcian devoutly received this grain and carried it to the granary: the next day, the granary was found so filled with wheat that it was overflowing through the door.

A woman was always giving birth to dead children; she went to throw herself at the feet of Theodosius to beg him to have pity on her, to give her a place in his prayers, as well as to allow her to name the first child she would have Theodosius, hoping that this resolution would make her have life. Theodosius granted it to her, and she soon had the fulfillment of her desires, giving birth to a son whom she named Theodosius.

A captain of the Roman army, named Cericus, before leaving for the war against the Persians, visited Theodosius to receive his blessing. The Saint told him not to expect victory from the strength of his arms, nor from the multitude of his soldiers, but from God alone, who is the Lord of hosts and who gives victory to whom He pleases. The captain asked him for the hair shirt he was wearing, as a rich treasure and an invincible defense: he gave it to him with a good heart, and the captain, having worn it on the day of the combat, saw during the battle the Saint who was walking before him, showing him with his hand those he should attack, and where he should do so, until finally the enemies turned their backs and took flight. The holy Abbot favored other people who were in peril several times, both at sea and on land, appearing to them, either in a dream or in broad daylight, and always delivering them from the accidents with which they were threatened.

Theodosius, having thus enlightened the world by his admirable life, by the institution of so many religious, and by such a great number of miracles, was visited by a long and painful illness which caused him a frightening thinness; nevertheless, he resisted the pains with incredible patience, as if he had been a young man in the flower of his age. Someone having advised him to address himself to heaven in order to obtain some relief for his ailments: "No, no," replied the Saint, "such a prayer would mark impatience and would rob me of my crown." He conversed in prayer with God, and he was so accustomed to this holy exercise that even when he was dozing, one could see him moving his lips as when he was praying. When he saw his last moments arriving, he assembled his religious, his beloved children, who were all melting into tears for the loss of such a good father. He exhorted them to perseverance, to a generous resistance to the temptations of the enemy, to the practice of obedience and submission toward their superiors, and left them several other instructions worthy of his virtue. God having made it known to him that in three days he would no longer be in the world, he wished to prepare himself for death; he therefore sent to ask three bishops to come to his monastery, as if he had some great business to communicate to them; and in their presence, lifting his hands toward heaven, he made his prayer to God, commended his soul to Him, and rendered it into the hands of the angels who carried it to heaven. He died at the age of one hundred and five, around the year 529, according to Father Bollandus, in the first volume of the *Actes des Saints*. A man possessed by the demon, who had often prayed to Theodosius during his lifetime to deliver him, without having been able to obtain this favor, threw himself upon the holy body to embrace it, and suddenly recovered a perfect healing.

As soon as the death of Theodosius was published, the patriarch of Jerusalem, named Peter, third of that name, came to the monastery, accompanied by several bishops, to perform his funeral rites; there was such a great number of religious, priests, and laypeople to see and touch the body of the holy abbot that the multitude caused the ceremony of his funeral to be deferred for a few days, during which several miracles took place. The body of the Saint was buried in his first cell, called the *Cave of the Caverne des Mages Burial place of Theodosius, traditionally associated with the resting place of the Magi. Magi* (because it was the tradition of the country that the Magi had lodged there when they came to adore Jesus Christ). The feast of Saint Theodosius is marked on January 11 in all Greek and Latin calendars.

Painters place before Saint Theodosius the Cenobiarch a *coffin* and an *hourglass*: the latter to recall the flight of time, the former to recall the thought of death, which he had made the foundation of religious perfection. At his feet is the *purse* in which Anastasius sent him thirty pounds of gold; he is also depicted in conversation with the general, Count of the Orient, to whom he gives his hairshirt, or else multiplying a grain of wheat.

His life was written by a contemporary author who did not wish to be known: Baronius believes it to be the monk Cyril. It is found in Metaphrastes, and Bollandus collated it from a Greek manuscript in the Vatican Library.