Amma Théodora

IVe-Ve siècle

Humility preferred to feats of endurance; the winter of trials received as a season that does its work.

Who was Amma Théodora?

A woman of Alexandria who withdrew to the desert, she was one of those mothers whom monks came to consult as they would an elder. Almost nothing is known of her life, except that she had the ear of the city's archbishop and that her answers were written down. A dozen of her sayings have crossed sixteen centuries in the collections of the desert fathers, brief, sharp, without an ounce of soft piety.

In their own words

Trees bear no fruit unless they have taken the winters and the rains, and it is the same with us. This age is a winter, and it is not without many afflictions and trials that we become heirs of the kingdom of heaven.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Amma Theodora 2 (PG 65), translated from the Greek by the Manna team

Neither the ascetic life, nor keeping vigil, nor any hardship saves; only real humility does.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Amma Theodora 6 (PG 65), translated from the Greek by the Manna team

Whoever teaches must be a stranger to the love of ruling, to empty glory and to pride.

Sayings of the Desert Fathers, alphabetical collection, Amma Theodora 5 (PG 65), translated from the Greek by the Manna team