She had been thoroughly educated, and the two bishops in her family wondered to see a woman learning Syriac through the Latin language.

Nor was their wonder less when she turned to the Greek for the meaning of some difficult passage in the New Testament.

Finding the prejudices of the people too strong to permit her to begin a girls' school at once, she taught her own female domestics to read, and then sought to interest mothers in the education of their daughters.

At length she succeeded in collecting a small school of girls, of which she was the first teacher.

When too sick to leave her chamber, she had the pupils assemble there.