f heaven only to
open and shut the gates of salvation to the living, while the dead were
beyond its help.

Theodora, however, was determined all the more to secure salvation for
her deceased husband. She declared that in his last moments the dying
Theophilus had tenderly grasped and kissed an image she had laid on his
breast. Although the probabilities were that the soul of Theophilus had
already sped ere such an event took place, the wily Methodius saw in the
statement an escape from the dilemma that faced the synod; and upon his
recommendation the assembled clergy consented to absolve the dead
emperor from excommunication and to receive him into the bosom of the
orthodox church, declaring that, as his last moments were spent in the
manner Theodora certified in a written attestation, Theophilus had found
pardon with God.

Like her more celebrated predecessor Irene, Theodora exhibited a
masterful ability in governing, and, in spite of her persecuting policy
toward the Iconoclasts, she preserved the tranquillity of the Empire and
enhanced its prestige. Like Irene, too, she became so engrossed in
things religious and political that she shamefully neglected the
education of her son. It is a sad commentary on the history of the
Church that in the long series of emperors from Theodosius to Basil only
two were utterly unfit for the high station to which they fell heir, and
these were the sons of the two empresses whose names figure so largely
in the triumph of the image worshippers,--Irene's son, Constantine VI.,
and Theodora's son, Michael III.

Theodora, absorbed in imperial ambition, abandoned the training of her
child to her brother Bardas, of whose profligate life she could not have
been ignorant. Bardas reared the young Michael in the most reckless and
unconscientious manner, permitting him to neglect his serious studies,
and teaching him his own vices of drunkenness and debauchery. Michael
proved to be an apt pupil in profligacy, and before he reached his
majority had become a confirmed dipsomaniac. Meanwhile, his mother, with
the aid of her minister, Theoktistus, arrogated to herself the sole
direction of public business, and viewed with indifference her brother's
corruption of the principles of her son. Perhaps she saw in his ruin the
continuance and perpetuation of her own power; perhaps she feared that
his influence would be cast with the Iconoclasts, as had been his
father's before him, and that only by his wil