St. Athanasius: The Paradise of the Holy Fathers

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CHAPTER XXXVII

OF OUR BLESSED MOTHER TALIDA, THE OLD WOMAN OF ANTINOE

NOW in the city of Antinoë there were twelve nunneries, and the women thereof conducted themselves according to a rule of beautiful spiritual excellence; here I saw the aged handmaiden of Christ whose name was “Mother Talîdâ,” who had dwelt in the holy house, according to what she herself and those who were her associates told me, for eighty years. And there lived with her sixty virgins who followed the path and rule of the ascetic life in purity, and they led a life of happiness under the teaching of this good old woman, whom they loved, and on whom they depended; and because of the great affection which they poured out upon her, the key was never taken away from any one of them, as is customary in other religious houses for women, and through her divine doctrine she changed them into a state of incorruptibility. Now this old woman arrived at such a state of impassibility that when I entered into her presence and sat down by her side, she stretched out her hands and laid them upon my shoulders, in the boldness and freedom which she had acquired in Christ.