perfection to his clergy and people. His table had nothing of the
superfluity, nor his palace any thing of the magnificence, of several of
his predecessors. He allowed himself very little time for sleep, being
always up the first and last in his family. Reading and prayer filled
all his leisure hours. It was his pleasure, in imitation of our blessed
Redeemer, to serve others instead of being served by them;{466} on which
account he would scarce permit his own servants to do any thing for him.
Loving humility in himself, he sought sweetly to induce all others to
the love of that virtue. He banished the use of gold and scarlet from
among the clergy, and labored to extirpate all the irregularities among
the people. His charity and love for the poor seemed to surpass his
other virtues. He often took the dishes of meat from his table to
distribute among them with his own hands: and he assigned them a large
fixed revenue. And that none might be overlooked, he visited all the
houses and hospitals in Constantinople. In Lent, especially, his bounty
to them was incredible. His discourses were powerful exhortations to the
universal mortification of the senses, and he was particularly severe
against all theatrical entertainments. Some time after, the emperor
became enamored of Theodota, a maid of honor to his wife, the empress
Mary, whom he had always hated; and forgetting what he owed to God, he
was resolved to divorce her in 795, after seven years' cohabitation. He
used all his efforts to gain the patriarch, and sent a principal officer
to him for that purpose, accusing his wife of a plot to poison him. St.
Tarasius answered the messenger, saying: "I know not how the emperor can
bear the infamy of so scandalous an action in the sight of the universe:
nor how he will be able to hinder or punish adulteries and debaucheries,
if he himself set such an example. Tell him that I will rather suffer
death and all manner of torments than consent to his design." The
emperor hoping to prevail with him by flattery, sent for him to the
palace, and said to him: "I can conceal nothing from you, whom I regard
as my father. No one can deny but I may divorce one who has attempted my
life. She deserves death or perpetual penance." He then produced a
vessel, as he pretended, full of the poison prepared for him. The
patriarch, with good reason, judging the whole to be only an artful
contrivance to impose upon him, answered: that he was too well convinced