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254 254 ST. THEODORA Jan. 2, M. c. 302. According to the Arabic version of the legend, Theodora was the mother of Eosman, Dimian, An- tinous, Landins, and Ibrabios. They belonged to the city of Dapema in the Arab country. She taught her fiye sons medicine, and they visited sick persons without reward. In Diocletian's perse- cution they underwent divers tortures. They were kept for three days in the furnaces used for heating the baths. The fire did them no harm, and their mother encouraged them all the time and bade them be true to their religion. As she also kept abusing the Emperor and his gods, she was beheaded. No one dared to bury her until her eldest son Eosman cried out, " O, people of the city, have ye no pity in your hearts, that ye do not carry the body of this aged widow to burial ? '* Then a man named Buktor took the body, wrapped it in a shroud and buried it. The Hug ordered him to be banished to Egypt, where he died. Eosman and his brothers were beheaded. When the persecution was over, people built churches in their memory, and many miracles rewarded their devotion. Butler, Coptic Churches. In the Western Church the two eldest of the brothers are called Cosmo or Cosmas and Damian ; and their mother is called Theodote or Thbodosia. In their Acts, AA.SS. Sept. 27, it is said that they were born in Arabia and lived at iEgea in Cilicia, where, in the perse- cution under Diocletian, they were tor- tured and beheaded. Butler, Lives, Mentioned as Theodosia by Bzovius, in a tract on the saints of the medical pro- fession whose anniversaries are celebrated by the whole Church. (Cologne, 1623). St. Theodora (11), April 28, V.M. at Alexandria in the reign of Diocletian and Maximian. Sometimes represented with a veil over her face. Eustratius Proculus Imperiiis, prefect of Alexandria, asked who she was and whether she was free or a slave. She answered, " I am a Christian and made free by Christ. I am also born of what the world calls free parents." Said he, '^What then is the reason that you are not married? Do you not know that the Emperors have ordered that you virgins shall either sacrifice to the gods or be made the disgrace of your ^Eumilies and the ayersion of all virtuous and respectable persons ? " Theodora chose rather to be sent to a place of infamy than to abjure her re- ligion. She was saved by a young man, named Didymus, who disguised himself as a Eoman soldier and changed clothes with her to let her escape. • Some wicked people coming directly after to visit Theodora and finding Didymus instead, said, <<How is this? A girl came in here, but this seems to be a man. Wo had indeed heard, but we never believed, that Christ turned water into wine, and now it seems he has changed a woman into a man. Let us go away from this place, lest we should be transformed into women or something worse." The suc- cessful plot was soon discovered and Didymus was condemned to death. Theodora wished to take the blame and the punishment on herself; they dis- puted and quarrelled for the honour of martyrdom, and finally both were be- headed. (See Antonina (1).) B.M. Leg- gendario aelle Santissime Vergtni, Butler. Cahier. St Theodora (12), says The Golden Legend, '^ was a noble woman and a fair, in Alexandria, in the time of Zeno, the emperor" (474-491). She was rich and had a good husband, who appreciated her beauty and good qualities ; but she was an unfaithful wife. However, her conscience gave her no rest The sense of her guilt made her miserable, and she feared the auger of God. The comfort of her home and the goodness of her in- jured and unsuspecting husband were only aggravations of her misery ; so one day, in her husband's absence, she dressed herself in his clothes, and went to a monastery some miles from the city, and there she was admitted as a monk, under the name of Theodoric. Her husband at first feared she had deserted him for some other man, and was in great dis- tress. After some years he was told in a vision to go into the Street of SS. Peter and Paul, and there he should see his wife ; and he went. That morning, it happened that the abbot had ordered Theodora to go into Alexandria to buy oil for the use of the brotherhood. She