rch, and in the declining influence
of the pope, she had reason to believe that the dreams of her religious
diplomacy were realized.

Theodora's advocacy of the cause of the dissenters accounts for much of
the vituperation heaped upon her by orthodox Catholics. In the eyes of
the Cardinal Baronius, the wife of Justinian was "a detestable creature,
a second Eve too ready to listen to the serpent, a new Delilah, another
Herodias, revelling in the blood of the saints, a citizen of Hell,
protected by demons, inspired by Satan, burning to break the concord
bought by the blood of confessors and of martyrs." It is worthy of note
that this was written before the discovery of the manuscript of the
_Secret History_. What would the learned cardinal have said had he known
of the alleged adventures of the youth of this woman, classed by pious
Catholics as one of the worst enemies of the Church?

Perhaps, after all, we are to find in Theodora's religious defection the
source of all the scandal which has attached to her name. Damned in the
eyes of pious churchmen because of her religious faith that Christ's
nature was not dual, it was easy for the tongue of scandal regarding her
early life to gain credence. Had Theodora followed the orthodox in the
belief in the two natures, she might have committed worse offences than
were charged to her, and no such vituperation would have been uttered by
any member of the orthodox Church; but her position in the religious
controversies of the sixth century will certainly, in the twentieth
century, do her memory little harm.

Theodora's health was always delicate. After these years of stormy
dissension, as her strength began to fail, she was directed to use the
famous Pythian warm baths. Her progress through Bithynia was made with
all the splendor of an imperial cortege, and all along the route she
distributed alms to churches, monasteries, and hospitals, with the
request that the devout should implore Heaven for the restoration of her
health. Finally, in the month of June, A. D. 548, in the twenty-fourth
year of her marriage and the twenty-second of her reign, Theodora died
of a cancer. Justinian was inconsolable at her loss, which rightly
seemed to him to be irreparable. His later years were lacking in the
energy and finesse that had characterized him during her lifetime, and
it was doubtless her loss which clouded his spirits and removed from him
the chief inspiration of his reign. Some years a