ST. THEODORA 255 went with her camels to the market- place, and saw her husband standing in the street, and she said within herself " Alas ! good husband, how hard I labonr that I may haye forgiveness £rom God for the sin I have committed against yon ! " And to him she said, *< The Lord give thee joy." Bat he did not know her, and after waiting a long time, he went home disappointed. One day a young woman brought a child to the abbot and told him that Brother Theodoric was its father. Theo- dora felt that she deserved to be thus branded, although the accusation was false ; so she offered no defence, and was expelled from the monastery, taking the child with her. She fed it with the milk of beasts and took care of it for seven years, during which the devil tempted her in divers manners. At the end of the seven years, she was again received into the monastery with the child. Once the abbot, to try her obedience, sent her to fetch water from a lake, where there was a crocodile so fierce that the prefect of Alexandria had placed a guard near the place, to warn people not to go within reach of the monster. She went, in spite of the remonstrances of the guard, who stood watching afar off and saw the creature seize her and drag her into the middle of the lake, and then, instead of devouring her, as soon as she had filled her pitcher, he brought her safely to land again. She reproached him for having killed so many persons, and he fell down dead. Soon after this the abbot had a vision which revealed to him her sex, her sin, her repentance and her holiness. He went immediately to her cell and found her dead. He at once sent for the father of her accuser and convinced him that she had been slandered. He was then directed by an angel to go into the city and bring the first man ho met. He met Theodora's husband and said to him,
- < Whither so fast ? " And he answered,
" My wife is dead and I am going to see }ier." So they returned together, and Theodora's husband took her place among the monks for the rest of his life, and the child walked in the steps of his good nurse and eventually became abbot of that monastery. B,M. Villegas. Per- fetto Leggendario. The incident of the crocodile is not found in the oldest versions of the legend. Theodora (13), Dec. 30, V. Leo IH., the Isaurian, in 769 gave to his son (grandson) Christopher CsBsar, a wife Theodora, daughter of Theophilus, a patrician, and Theodora. She had been brought up in the monastery of Eigidion, and wished to take the veil there. On the wedding day the Scythians invaded the Greek provinces, and the bridegroom had to go against them. He was lalled, and the bride returned to her monastery, where she died in the odour of sanctity and is honoured in the Qreek Meneas. Du Fresne, Historia Byzantinae Families Augustae, 105. St Theodora (14), Feb. 11, 812- 868. Eepresented crowned, a large cross on her robe, in her hand the picture of a saint. In the year 830, Theophilus, the young Emperor of the East, was a widower. The most beautiful maidens of the empire were assembled that he might select a wife, and Theodora, daughter of the Tribune Marinus of Ebissa, had the preference over all her rivals. Theophilus died in 843 and left her regent, in the minority of her son Michael III., "the Drunkard." In re- turn for a certificate from the Church, that her husband's sins as an iconoclast were pardoned, she made use of her power to overthrow iconoclasm. The policy of the iconoclastic Emperors for more than a century was set aside, and picture-worship was reinstated in the Eastern Church. Theodora further manifested her zeal for orthodoxy by the persecution of the Paulicians, ten thou- sand of whom perished during her regency, while larger numbers took re- fuge with the more tolerant Saracens. She ruled with decision, acuteness and ad- ministrative ability. Without oppress- ing the people, she accumulated an immense sum in the imperial treasury. But the slur rests on her name, as on that of the Empress St. Irene (12), that she neglected the education of her son, to preserve her own power. She forced him into a marriage that was distasteful
