Section 04: The Monastic Writings

The works by which Theodore formed his monks and the liturgical inheritance the Studite house gave the Church. To the brethren he spoke in the Great and Small Catecheses — hundreds of short instructions on the common life — and left at his death the Testament. From the Studite scriptorium and choir came a body of liturgical poetry (above all the Studite share in the Lenten Triodion) and a renowned tradition of book-production. This section sets out what is securely Theodore’s own and where the consensus assigns a text to the school or to a later hand.

Contents

File Topic
The Catecheses The Great Catechesis (in three books) and the Small Catechesis (134 instructions); their editions (Cozza-Luzi, Papadopoulos-Kerameus, Auvray); their teaching on the cenobitic life and the abbot’s care; and the Testament (Diatheke), dictated near death to his disciple Naukratios (PG 99:1813–1824)
Poems, Canons, and the Scriptorium The iambic Epigrams (ed. Speck) — the most securely attributed of his verse; the Studite contribution to the Lenten Triodion (Theodore’s second Lenten weekday canon, his brother Joseph’s first) with the scholarly caution on attribution; and the Studite scriptorium, its penances for negligent scribes, and the minuscule book hand

How to Use

  • Start with The Catecheses for the prose by which Theodore governed and instructed — the daily and weekly word to the monks, and his final Testament.
  • Read Poems, Canons, and the Scriptorium for the Studite verse and book-culture, kept carefully distinct from the popular over-attribution of the Triodion to Theodore’s personal hand.

Cross-References