THE LIFE OF ST. THEODORE OF SYKEON

[An asterisk * indicates a note, keyed by chapter, at the end of the life.]

11

Now when the devil, the enemy of truth, saw that Theodore was industriously acquiring the spiritual weapons of virtue against him, he determined to destroy him. Accordingly one day he assumed the appearance of one of Theodore's school fellows, Gerontius by name, and took him and led him up to the cliffs of a place called Tzidrama, and, setting him on a lofty crag of the cliffs there, put the temptation to him which was put to our Saviour, and said. 'If you are willing, master Theodore, to display your powers of conquest, display them here and jump down from this cliff.' But Theodore looked at the height which was really great and said to Gerontius, 'It is high and I am afraid'. The devil said to him, 'In the eyes of all the boys you are considered braver than I, and you outshine me, but in this matter I am no coward and will throw myself down'. The boy answered him, 'Don't do it! You may lame yourself, or even be killed'. As the other asserted he could do the feat without any danger, Theodore finally said to him, 'If you will, then I will too'. So the devil standing with him on the rock jumped down, and alighting on his feet shouted up to the boy Theodore, saying 'See, I have done it! If you dare, come down too, that I may see your bravery: if you can, as in all else, distinguish yourself in this test too'. Whilst the boy stood debating within himself full of fear at this utterly useless ordeal, and staggered at the boldness of the supposed Gerontius, who had never previously been so bold, George, the martyr of Christ, suddenly appeared and taking Theodore by the hand, led him away from the place, saying, 'Come, follow me, and do not listen to the tempting of him who is seeking your soul; for he is not Gerontius but the enemy of our race'. And so saying the holy martyr brought him to his oratory.

12

One day when Theodore was staying in the chapel of St. George his mother and his mother's mother came up to him and with much coaxing tried to force him to come down home saying that they expected the visit of some important friends. But the boy could not be persuaded by them to go down, for he fulfilled literally the words of holy scripture which says, 'The friendship of this world is emnity with God, and whoever would be a friend of the world maketh himself an enemy of God.' [Jam 4:4] and 'No one can serve God and Mammon.'[Luke 16:13] He also regarded the wealth of the world as nought and wishing to get rid of it, he unbuckled his gold belt, took off his necklace and the bracelet from his wrist and threw them down in front of the women saying, 'You suspect that these things may get lost and it is because of them you trouble me. Take them then and begone! for I will not leave this place.' And the women took them and went as they could not persuade him. For all his thoughts were towards the Lord Whom he imitated and in Whose footsteps he followed; he fled from his parents and ran to God; he gave up wealth and houses in order to be rewarded a hundredfold and inherit eternal life, [Luke 18:29] as the Lord who has promised this says: 'He that wishes to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me !' [Mat 16:24]

For the boy nobly mortified his body, keeping it under and wearing it down, as though it were some alien thing which warred against his soul; and on his forehead he bore the Cross; and just as Peter and James and John and the rest of the apostles 'left all and followed Jesus' [Luke 5:11] so this boy likewise believed in the witness of the Scriptures and sought earnestly to mould his life thereon.

13

Further, he wanted to imitate David in his holy hymnwriting and accordingly began to learn the psalter. With difficulty and much labour he learnt as far as the sixteenth psalm, but he could not manage to get the seventeenth psalm by heart. He was studying it in the chapel of the holy martyr Christopher* (which was near the village) and as he could not learn it, he threw himself on his face and besought God to make him quick of learning in his study of the psalms. And the merciful God, Who said 'Ask and it shall be given you', [Mat 7:7] granted him his request. For as the boy got up from the ground and turned to the icon of our Saviour in prayer, he felt a sweetness more pleasant than honey poured into his mouth. He recognized the grace of God, partook of the sweetness and gave thanks to Christ, and from that hour on he memorized the psalter easily and quickly, and had learnt the whole of it by heart in a few days.

And he would wander about to all the churches, 'with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and praising the Lord' [Col 3:16]; and wherever a commemorative service in honour of a saint was being held, he attended it with joy. Similarly, on the occasion of the allnight service for the holy martyr Heuretus* held in the town of Iopolis,* fifteen miles away, he left at the hour of supper and ran fasting to this service and after praying and partaking of the divine mysteries of Christ, he returned and reached his home at midnight. For he was an exceedingly swift runner, so much so that several times for a wager he ran a race of three miles with horses and outstripped them.

14

Taking instructions from proverbs-from such texts as 'And if thou hearest of a man of understanding, get thee betimes unto him' [Ecclesias. 6:36]: and 'With the holy thou wilt be holy and with the elect elect' [Ps 18:26 = LXX Ps. 17:26-27], he acquired a great affection for the servants of God and wherever he heard of a righteous man, he would go to him and learn his manner of life gathering like a busy bee the flowers of the man's virtues* as if he were storing up food.

Now there was a certain holy father, Glycerius, by name, in a place called Trapezas about ten miles off, and Theodore went to him desiring to be blessed by him in order that like Elisha, the miracleworker, who after being blessed by Elijah received a double portion of his spirit and grace, he himself might also in a similar manner through the blessing of our Saviour be deemed worthy of greater virtues and graces. 'For the blessing of a father establisheth the houses and the labours of children.' [Ecclesias. 3:9] When the man of God saw him, having by divine aid learnt of the virtuous manner of life that was flowering in him, he received him cordially and smiling at him said, 'Do you like the monkish habit, my son?' to which Theodore replied, 'Yes, certainly, father, I like it very much indeed and I long to be thought worthy of it myself.'

Now there was a drought in that district, and they both went out and stood in the open air in front of the apse of an oratory of St. John the Baptist which stood there. Then the blessed man said to the lad, 'Let us bend our knees in prayer, son, so that the Lord may be merciful and send down rain on the earth, and by that we shall know whether we are among the number of the Just'. Whilst they prayed, the sky became covered with clouds and after they had risen from prayer the Lord sent down much rain upon the earth. Filled with joy at His goodness the old man, with a smile on his face, said to the boy, 'From henceforth, my son, whatsoever you shall ask of the Lord, will be granted unto you. Therefore carry out your desire, and the Lord God will be with you and will give you increase both in bodily stature and in virtuous living'. When the boy had received the old man's blessing, he embraced him and returned home

15

By now he had reached the age of fourteen and decided within himself to bid a final farewell to his home and take up his abode in the martyr's oratory. And he did indeed bid farewell to the women, and went up to the oratory and lived there giving thanks to God; but as his mother and the women who lived with her still did not realize that he had irrevocably chosen his blessed mode of life and that his resolve was no youthful fancy, they used to carry up to him fresh white loaves, and divers kinds of boiled and roast birds. Theodore took them all indeed in order to satisfy them and because his fasting was in secret; however, he never touched any of these things but after his mother and her sister had gone down* he would come out of the chapel and throw all the food out on the rocks and go in again, and the birds and beasts ate it up. Or if by chance a man passed by, he would take them from the rock. The boy's nourishment was from the gifts brought to him in the martyr's chapel and if sometimes these failed, he was content with bread alone.

16

Once he heard tell of a certain place called Arkea eight miles away that it was impossible for anyone to go near it, especially at the midday hour, because it was rumoured that Artemis, as men called her, dwelt there with many demons and did people harm even unto death. As he was astonished at such a report he used to set off at a run for that place during the days of July and August, after he had recited the psalms set for the third hour, and would spend the whole afternoon there in the places supposed to belong to Artemis. And as no evil manifestation showed itself to him owing to Christ's protection, he returned to the chapel.

In this chapel Theodore dug and made for himself a dark cave underground beneath the step of the altar. On the night of the Feast of the Epiphany [In the Greek church the baptism of Christ in the Jordan is commemorated on the day of Epiphany, January 6th] when some of the clergy and laity had gathered round him he went down with them from the chapel to the ford of the river, and he alone entered into the water and stood there until all the reading from the prophets, apostles and Gospels was over as well as the rest of the liturgy; so that at the end of the service he could only with difficulty pull up his feet all covered with mud and icicles frozen on to them, and thus he reentered the oratory with psalmsinging.* And when the day had dawned, he celebrated the feast and then retired to his underground pit where he lived in silence until Palm Sunday, so that all who saw and heard this raised their hands to heaven and said, 'We thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou didst hide these things from the wise and understanding, and didst reveal them unto this babe; Yea, Father, for so it was wellpleasing in Thy sight'. [Matt. 11:25]

Now his grandmother, Elpidia, truly sympathized with him and loved him more than her two daughters; and she came up to the chapel and stayed with him all the time of his silence and ministered to him and gave him a little nourishment of fruit or some vegetable salad, but this only on Saturdays and Sundays, for the other days he touched nothing at all; and this abstinence he practised until Palm Sunday.

When Theodosius, at that time bishop of the town of Anastasioupolis, heard these things about Theodore, he rejoiced about him and spoke highly of him to all men, saying that it was through the stirring of God's spirit that he accomplished such things.

17

(Summary) A black unclean demon causes Theodore to fall ill from cold but is turned to flight by St. George, and Theodore is restored to health. The Saint gives Theodore a promise that the wicked demon will not trouble him in future. And the merciful God 'who gave to his holy aposcles power against unclean spirits and to banish diseases' [Matt 10:1] gave to him also power against the demons to cast them out from men and to heal the sick.

18

After the feast of holy Easter a man appeared in the oratory one day with his only son who was troubled by an unclean spirit; and the man, emboldened by faith, besought the virtuous boy, Theodore, to heal his son. But the virtuous child of Christ did not know what he ought to do for him and indeed was greatly perplexed, for he was so young. But the father of the demoniac gave him a little whip and said to him with tears, 'Dear master, servant of Christ, take this and rebuke my child and beat him and say, "Come out, come out from this boy, you unclean demon, in the name of my Lord"'

The righteous boy did as he was told; and the demon was disturbed and began to disparage him and to call him an impostor, and if Theodore said anything to him the devil just repeated the same words, and for two days he gave him no answer at all. Then on the third day Theodore, the child of Christ, did as he had done before with the boy and the demon, now disturbed again, began to cry out; 'I am coming out, boy, I am coming out, I will not resist you, give me one hour!' Then Theodore moved away to the altar and the demon shouted out, 'Oh, the violence of the Nazarene who excites these forces against us ! for ever since He came down upon the earth He wins men against us, and now He has given authority to the son of the harlot to cast us out. Woe is me, wretch that I am, to be expelled by such a child! for I cannot withstand the grace which has been sent down upon him from heaven. Woe will come upon our kind from this harlot's action, because he will drive out many of us from men. But the dreadful thing for me is that he has made a beginning with me and I dare not return to my father the Devil, after being expelled by such a child. For if it had been done by an old man, my shame would not be great; accursed be the day on which you were born!' Whilst he was speaking Theodore, the child of God, took some oil from the lamp and touched the boy's head and with the sign of the Cross rebuked the demon saying, 'Come out then, you most wicked spirit, and do not talk so much nonsense!' And the demon with a shriek cast down the boy at his feet and went out of him. And the boy that was healed iay like a corpse, so that Theodore was in much concern and thought that he was dead. But the father said to him, 'Give him your hand, master, and raise him up. And immediately the boy came to himself and stood up, and through the grace of God Theodore restored him to his father in complete health. And this became known throughout all the neighbourhood so that all gave glory to God who bestows wisdom and grace even upon children.

19

(Summary) Theodore determined to imitate St. John the Baptist by living in a desert place. So he went up into the interior of the mountain and there found a rock to shelter him. He dug beneath the rock and made for himself a spacious cave. He blocked up the entry and lived there in secret. At that time some soldiers were passing through the district. When the members of his family had searched for Theodore high and low-in the oratory and everywhere else-and could not find a trace of him they came to the conclusion that he had been carried off by the soldiers, and they urged the then governor of the province to arrest the soldiers and institute an inquiry about the boy. Since they still could not find him, they thought that he had been eaten by wild beasts, and his mother, his kinsfolk and their acquaintances mourned him for a long time as though he were dead. For two years Theodore remained hidden in the cave. A single pious deacon alone knew his secret; he gave to Theodore his tunic-for before that he had worn linen clothes-and brought him the scantiest fare, water and vegetable salad. He told no one where Theodore was hidden.

20

(Summary) But God made his virtue known to all men. Since Theodore's kinsfolk noticed that the deacon on many different occasions went up to the mountain, they suspected that he knew where the boy was; so they called him into the house and adjured him with frightful oaths to tell them anything he knew. On account of the oaths and in fear lest Theodore should die through the violence of his mortification he disclosed to them the place. With joy they went to the mountain and brought Theodore out looking like a corpse. They carried him to the oratory of St. George. When he came into the air he fainted and did not speak for a long time. His head was covered with sores and pus, his hair was matted and an indescribable number of worms were lodged in it; his bones were all but through the flesh and the stench was such that no one could stand near him. In a word people looked on him as a second Job. His relations besought him when he had regained consciousness to come home with them to be looked after, but he would not be persuaded.