Saint Isidora the Simple

Saint Isidora the Simple was a 4th century nun who lived at the Tabbenisi monastery in Egypt. She is celebrated as the first example of a "Holy Fool"- a Saint whose humble and simple lifestyle attracts the mockery of the world, much like how Christ was mocked in his crucifixion. We contemplate Saint Isidora's life, read scriptures that celebrate this "Christian foolishness", and consider how her example of Christian foolishness inspired Saint Francis and Feodor Dostoevsky, particularly in his character of Prince Myshkin. 

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Transcript

God is glorious in his saints! 

Welcome to the Christian Saints Podcast. My name is Darren Ong, recording from Sepang in Malaysia. In this podcast, we explore the lives of the Christian saints, from the Anglican, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Today, we will commemorate St Isidora the Simple, also known as St Isidora the Fool

Isidora was a 4th centiury nun at the Tabennisi convent in Egypt. She is the first of a type of saint known as the “Holy Fool”. The only source we have of her life is a text known as the Lausiac history, a text compiled to record the lives of the desert fathers and mothers (one of our earliest episodes is about this community of Egyptian monastics – please listen to it to learn more). Let us read that entry of her life:

In this monastery there was another virgin who feigned madness and possession by a demon. And they detested her so much that they would not even eat with her, she preferring this. She would wander about in the kitchen and do every kind of menial work, and she was, as they say, "the monastery sponge," fulfilling in fact the words of Scripture: "If any one seem to be wise among you in this world, let him become foolish that he may be wise." 223 She fastened some rags on her head----all the rest had the tonsure and wore cowls----and served in this guise. [2] None of the 400 sisters ever saw her chewing during the years of her life. She never sat at table, nor partook of a piece of bread, but wiping up the crumbs from the tables and washing the kitchen pots she was content with what she got in this way. Never did she insult any one nor grumble nor talk either little or much, although she was cuffed and insulted and cursed and execrated. 
[3] Now an angel appeared to the holy Piteroum, an anchorite of high reputation who dwelt in Porphyrites,224 |119 and said to him: "Why are you proud of yourself for being religious and dwelling in a place like this? Do you want to see a woman who is more religious than you? Go to the monastery of the Tabennesiot women and there you will find a woman wearing a crown on her head. She is better than you. [4] For though she spars with so great a crowd, she has never let her heart go away from God. But you sit here and wander in imagination through the different cities." 225 And he who had never gone out went off to that monastery and besought the masters 226 to let him go to the monastery of the women. They were emboldened to let him in, since he was famous and advanced in years. [5] And having gone in he demanded to see them all. But she did not appear. At last he said to them: "Bring me all, for there is one lacking." They said to him: "We have one within in the kitchen, a fool." 227 For thus they style the mentally afflicted. He said to them: "Bring her also to me. Let me see her." They went off to call her. She did not answer, perhaps perceiving what was the matter, or even having had a revelation. They drag her forcibly and say to her: "The holy Piteroum wants to see you"; for he was famous. [6] When she came, he perceived the rag on her forehead and fell at her feet and said to her: "Bless me." She also fell at his feet in like manner, saying: "Do you bless me, Master." They were all amazed and said to him: "Father, do not let her insult you, she is a fool." Said Piteroum to them all: "You are fools. For she is mother 228 both of me |120 and you"----for thus they call the spiritual women----"and I pray to be found worthy of her in the day of judgment." [7] Having heard these words they fell at his feet, all confessing in different ways: one that she had poured the rinsings of the plate over her; another that she had beaten her with her fist; another that she had applied a mustard-plaster to her nose. And, in a word, all confessed outrages of one kind or another. So after praying for them he went away. And after a few days, unable to bear her glory and the honour bestowed by the sisters, and burdened by their apologies, she left the monastery. And where she went, or where she disappeared to, or how she died, no one knows. 

The life of Saint Isidora was marked by humility, innocence, and a closeness with God, all traits valued by the Desert Fathers and Mothers. Saint Isidora also possessed an indifference towards mockery and persecution from the world, enduring those insults the same way Christ did. Saint Isidora thus was an archetype of a particular sort of Saint, the Holy Fool. 

 The roots of “Chrisitian foolishness” however came centuries earlier, in the Bible, precisely St Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthian church. In the early parts of that letter, St Paul contrasts the wisdom of the world with Godly foolishness. I will read here from 1:18-31, 3:18-20, 4:9-13:


 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
    the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
26 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

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1 Cor 3:18-20

Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become “fools” so that you may become wise. 19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness”; 20 and again, “The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile.
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1 Cor 4:9-13

For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.

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Saint Isidora became an example to many saints who sought to pursue this sort of Christian foolishness. There are many “holy fools” to come after her, both in the Western and Eastern church.

In the west, the most famous example of a Holy Fool is that of Saint Francis of Assisi, and his Franciscan order.  Saint Francis and his followers lived simply, in voluntary poverty, often begging for sustenance, enduring insults from others the same way Saint Isidora did. To this day, there are Franciscans who live on very little, serving the poor among the poor.  By these practices, Saint Francis developed a unique and enduring spirituality that inspires to this day -it is no accident that Pope Francis chose his name when he became Pope.

I will read from a delightful book, the St Francis Holy Fool prayer book by Jon Sweeney, a book of prayers that emphasizes this foolish nature of Saint Francis. Here is how that book introduces the foolishness of St Francis:

Then he entered into the city of Assisi and began, as though drunk with the Holy Spirit, to praise God aloud in the streets and the squares.” That is how the first-ever biography of Francis relays one of the saint’s earliest public expressions of faith. The author who wrote that account, Thomas of Celano, knew Francis personally. The analogy to drunkenness—public drunkenness, no less!—was clearly deliberate. That’s what many thought of Francis in those early days. He wasn’t drunk on alcohol, of course. But to extend the metaphor: he was tipsy, light-headed, even to the extent of being louder in public than is usually deemed appropriate. He wasn’t acting like he was drunk; he was praising God aloud “as though drunk.” There’s a difference. A holy fool does sometimes act a part. He will pretend to be something that he isn’t in order to make a point, or to get a message across. For example, this is what Brother Bernard did only a few years later, when he went to Bologna and sat in the piazza all day, for days on end, looking like what soon came to be known as a Franciscan fool: unshaven, filthy, patches on his clothing, an incongruous smile on his face. “Who are you? Why are you here?” someone finally asked Bernard. Which is when he pulled from his pocket the radically simple rule of life that he and the first Franciscans lived by, and shared it with them. Within days there were novice friars in Bologna. Brother Juniper did the same thing, over and over—allowing himself to be poked fun of, even  deliberately humiliating himself, in order to express the spirit of his faith and commitments. There was the time, for instance, when Juniper wanted to make himself a laughing stock before others and stripped himself of all but his underwear (yes, this is something of a recurring theme!), and carried a bundle of his habit and other clothes into the city of Viterbo— half-naked, right into the marketplace. This story is told in full in chapter 5, below. Many youths came by and believed that Juniper had lost his senses. They threw stones and mud at him and pushed him around, spitting words of insult. But Juniper stayed there most of that day, enduring it happily. As the day was coming to a close, he then went to sleep at the convent nearby. When the other friars saw what he’d done, they were angry. One said, “Let’s lock him up.” Another, “He deserves worse that that!” And another, “He’s caused a scandal to the whole Order.” But Juniper with joy answered, “I deserve all these punishments, and far worse.” 10 Such a response surely made the others pause. But before this contrived foolery could take place, there was the unpretending kind—the drunk with the Spirit kind: It was in the days when Francis was still wearing his secular clothing, even though he had begun to renounce the things of the world. He had been going around Assisi looking mortified and unkempt, wearing his penance in his appearance 4Looking to St. Francis and Brother Juniper for Inspiration in such a way that people thought he had become a fool. He was mocked and laughed at, and pelted with stones and mud by both those who knew him and those who did not. But Francis endured these things with patience and joy, as if he did not hear the taunts at all and had no means of responding to them. 11 Somewhere between these two kinds of prayerful foolishness comes the ability to laugh at the world when it places value on what is really without meaning.

Holy fools also became an important feature in the Orthodox East, and especially in Russia. The Russians called these Holy Fools Yurodivii, and they are an ever-present feature of Russian Orthodox spirituality. These Yurodivii appear prominently in Russian literature too, especially in the writings of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. His two most famous works contain Yurodivii characters – in the Brothers Karamazov, the minor character of Lizaveta is often regarded as a holy fool, whose innocence is put up against the cruelty of the world. In Crime and Punishment the prostitute Sonya is at the heart of the story, and she too demonstrates many features of the Yurodivii in her piety, innocence, and in attracting the disdain of others around her. But Dostoyevsky’s most extensive exploration of the Yurodivii is in “The Idiot”, in the character of Prince Myshkin, the titular idiot of the book. The book is about how the innocence and humility of the foolish prince exposes the emptiness and cruelty of the people around him.  

I will quote here a wonderful passage by Frances Hernández’s  
Dostoevskij's Prince Myshkin as a "Juródivij", which is from 
The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain Modern Language Association:

As a yurodivii Myshkin is a wanderer, sent as a youth to Switzerland by a family friend, finding himself without home or relatives when he returns to Russia. In the short time span of the novel, he moves from one rented lodging to another until his final collapse. He is poorly and peculiarly dressed though in the conventional attire of the gentry class, posing a dilemma for the servants when he presents himself at upper-class homes in a worn, sleeveless cloak, tattered gaiters, accompanied by a shapeless bundle by way of luggage. His manners seem so eccentric to all he meets that be is often spoken of as an idiot in his very presence. He is so foolish and naive that he recognizes no social barriers, chatting with equal ease to fcotmen, random train passengers, and the formidable Princess Bjelokovskij. lie has a gift of prophecy or precognition, reading their futures in the faces of Nastasja and the Jepanchin girls upon first meeting. His intuition warns him of Rogozhin's intentions to kill him and later his bride, he divines Nastasja's madness; he foretells Hippolifs bad dreams and his mainn embarrassment on the evening when he is introduced to society as the future son-in-law of the Jeponehins; and he previews the gloomy house where he finds Rogozhin with Nastasja's body. His apparently candid re-marks strike others, often later, as full of revelatory wisdom. They recall his comment that "children are capable of giving advice in the most important matters," or "I think I am a philosopher, perhaps, and who knows, it may be I do wits to teach my views of things to those I meet with." He is completely tolerant of and sympathetic to the sufferings of others, no matter how respon-sible they are for what has happened to them. His concept of honor, though it is more chivalrous than Christian, also seems aberrant to his associates. 

Aglaja calls him the poor knight" became of his imprudent courage in the defense of others; she tucks his note to her in a volume of Don Quixote. His soul is th opposite of the "Euclidean mind," an expression Dosioevskij uses frequent-ly in his works. As an institutional yurodivii, Myshkin is tolerated with a kind of affection-ate wonder by his richer associates and trustingly beloved by the poorer ones. Several become completely dependent on his moral support. They all regard his epileptic seizures, which are preceded by moments of visionary insight and exaltation, as mystical experiences. His affliction is his own private burden which seems to produce more curiosity than pity. Even though they recoil from his normal behavior as senseless, absurd, possibly insane, or at least addled and confused, they do not doubt his motives. The prince is a man completely without goals: he has no social, economic, or scientific interests, except perhaps copying the calligraphy of medieval manuscripts. Before he is assured of his inheritance, he announces that he can earn his living by copying documents in his fine manuscript, doubtless an impractical assumption. But his only concern with money is how he can distribute what he has where it is most needed. 

The figure of the yurodivii cannot, of course be entirely separated from the archetype of the Christ. He is, instead, a radical in the application of the precepts of Jesus: poverty and humility. The institution of the yurodivii of Russia is part of the broader European classification of the 'fools of Christ" and holy fools... 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Christian saints podcast. Look for the Christian Saints podcast page on Facebook or Instagram, or look for us on Twitter at podcast_saints. All music in this episode was composed by my good friend, James John Marks of Generative sounds.  Please check out his music at  https://generativesoundsjjm.bandcamp.com/

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Saint Isidora is celebrated both in the Roman Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church, with a feast day either in May 1 or May 10. To end this episode, let us read the Eastern Orthodox troparion for her feast day.


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In you the image was preserved with exactness, O Mother, / for taking up your cross, you followed after Christ. / By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away, / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore, most venerable Mother Isidora your spirit rejoices with the Angels.