Theodoret was an author and bishop of the
5th century Christian church.
Bishop of Cyrrhus and member of the School of Antioch.
Born at Antioch in 393 (Tillemont); died either at Cyrus or Cyrrhus ("about a two-days' journey east of Antioch"; eighty Roman miles), or at the monastery near Apamea (54 miles s.s.e. of Antioch) about 457.
The following facts about his life are gleaned mainly from his "Epistles" and his "Religious History" (Philotheos historia).
His mother having been childless for twelve years, his birth was promised by a hermit named Macedonius on the condition of his dedication to God, whence the name Theodoret ("gift of God").
He was brought up under the care of the ascetics and acquired a very extensive classical knowledge, and, according to Photius, a style of Attic purity. That he was a personal disciple of Theodore of Mopsuestia and listened to John Chrysostom is improbable.
He early became a lector among the clergy of Antioch, tarried a while in a monastery, was a cleric at Cyrrhus, and in 423 became bishop over a diocese about forty miles square and embracing 800 parishes, but with an insignificant town as its see city.
Theodoret, supported only by the appeals of the intimate hermits, himself in personal danger, zealously guarded purity of the doctrine.
More than 1,000 Marcionites were reclaimed in his diocese, beside many Arians and Macedonians; more than 200 copies of Tatian's Diatessaron he retired from the churches; and he erected churches and supplied
them with relics.
Extensive and varied were his philanthropic and economic interests: he endeavored to secure relief for the people oppressed with taxation; his inheritance he divided among the poor; out of his episcopal revenues he erected
baths, bridges, halls, and aqueducts; he summoned rhetoricians and physicians, and reminded the officials of their duties. To the persecuted Christians of Persian Armenia he sent letters of encouragement, and to the Carthaginian Celestiacus, fleeing before the Vandals, he gave refuge.
The life of Theodoret stands out prominently in the christological controversies aroused by Cyril of Alexandria.
Theodoret shared in the petition of John of Antioch to Nestorius to approve of the term theotokos ("mother of God"), and upon the request of John wrote against Cyril's anathemas.
He may have prepared the Antiochian symbol
which was to secure the emperor's true
understanding of the Nicene Creed, and he was member
and spokesman of the deputation of eight from
Antioch called by the emperor to Chalcedon. To
the condemnation of Nestorius he could not
assent. John, reconciled to Cyril by the emperor's
order, sought to bring Theodoret to submission by
entrenching upon his eparchy.
Theodoret was
determined to preserve the peace of the Church by
seeking the adoption of a formula avoiding the
unconditional condemnation of Nestorius, and,
toward the close of 434, strove earnestly for the
reconciliation of the East. But Cyril refused to
compromise and when he opened his attack (437)
upon Diodorus and Theodoret, John sided with
them and Theodoret assumed the defense of the
Antiochian party (c. 439). Domnus, the successor
of John, took him as his counselor. After the death
of Cyril, adherents of the Antiochian theology were
appointed to bishoprics. Irenaeus the friend of
Nestorius, with the cooperation of Theodoret, became
metropolitan of Tyre, in spite of the protests of
Dioscurus, Cyril's successor, who now turned specially
against Theodoret; and, by preferring the charge
that he taught two sons in Christ, he secured the
order from the court confining Theodoret to Cyrrhus.
Theodoret now composed the Eronistes (see below).
In vain were his efforts at court at self-justification
against the charges of Dioscurus, as well as the
countercharge of Domnus against Eutyches of
Apollinarianism (see APOLLINARIS OF LAODICEA).
The court excluded Theodoret from the council
at Ephesus (449) because of his antagonism to
Cyril. Here, because of Epist. cli. against Cyril and
his defense of Diodorus and Theodore, he was
condemned without a hearing and excommunicated
and his writings were directed to be burned. Even
Domnus gave his assent.
Theodoret was compelled
to leave Cyrrhus and retire to the monastery of
Apamea. He made an appeal to Leo the Great, but
not until the death of Theodosius II (450) was his
appeal for a revocation of the judgments against him
granted by imperial edict. He was ordered to
participate in the Council of Chalcedon (451), which
created violent opposition. He was first to take
part only as accuser, yet among the bishops. Then
he was constrained (Oct. 26, 451) by the friends
of Dioscurus to pronounce the anathema over
Nestorius. His conduct shows (though hindered
from a statement to that effect) that he performed
this with his previous reservation; namely, without
application beyond the teaching of two sons in
Christ and the denial of the theotokos. Upon this
he was declared orthodox and rehabilitated.
The
only thing known concerning him subsequent to the
Council of Chalcedon is the letter of Leo charging
him to guard the Chalcedonian victory (MPG,
lxxxiii. 1319 sqq.). With Diodorus and Theodore
he was no less hated by the Monophysites
than Nestorius himself, and held by them and their
friends as a heretic. The Three Chapter Controversy
led to the condemnation of his writings
against Cyril in the second Council of Constantinople (553).
In literature Theodoret devoted himself first of
all to exegesis. The Scripture was his only
authority, and his representation of orthodox doctrine
consists of a collocation of Scripture passages.
The genuineness and relative chronology of his
commentaries is proven by references in the later to
the earlier. The commentary on Canticles, written
while he was a young bishop, though not before 430,
precedes Psalms; the commentaries on the prophets
were begun with Daniel, followed by Ezekiel, and
then the Minor Prophets. Next that on
the Psalms was completed before 436;
and those on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
the Pauline Epistles (including
Hebrews), before 448. Theodoret's last exegetical
works were the interpretations of difficult passages
in the Octateuch and Quaestiones dealing with the
books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, written
about. 452-453.
Excepting the commentary on
Isaiah (fragments preserved in the catenae) and on
Gal. ii. 6-13, the exegetical writings of Theodoret are
extant. Exegetical material on the Gospels under
his name in the catenae may have come from his
other works, and foreign interpolations occur in his
comments on the Octateuch.
The Biblical authors
are, for Theodoret, merely the mouthpieces of the
Holy Spirit, though they do not lose their individual
peculiarities. By the unavoidable imperfection of
the translations he states, the understanding is
encumbered. Not familiar with Hebrew, Theodoret
uses the Syrian translation, the Greek versions, and
the Septuagint.
In principle his exegesis is
grammatical-historical; and he criticizes the intrusion of
the author's own ideas. His aim is to avoid a
one-sidedness of literalness as well as of allegory. Hence
he protests against the attributing of Canticles to
Solomon and the like as degrading the Holy Spirit.
Rather is it to be said that the Scripture speaks
often "figuratively" and "in riddles." In the Old
Testament everything has typical significance and
prophetically it embodies already the Christian
doctrine. The divine illumination affords the right
understanding after the apostolic suggestion and the
New Testament fulfilment. Valuable though not
binding is the exegetical tradition of the
ecclesiastical teachers. Theodoret likes to choose the best
among various interpretations before him,
preferably Theodore's, and supplements from his own.
He is clear and simple in thought and statement;
and his merit is to have rescued the exegetical
heritage of the school of Antioch as a whole for the
Christian Church.
Among apologetic writings was the Ad quaestiones magorum (429-436), now lost, in which he justified the Old Testament sacrifices as alternatives in opposition to the Egyptian idolatry (question 1, Lev., MPG, lxxx. 297 sqq.), and exposed the fables of the Magi who worshiped the elements (Hist. eccl. v. 38).
De providentia consists of apologetic discourses, proving
the divine providence from the physical order (cap.
i.-iv.), and from the moral and social order (cap.
vi.-x.).
The "Cure of the Greek Maladies or
Knowledge of the Gospel Truth from the Greek
Philosophy," of twelve discourses, was an attempt to
prove the truth of Christianity from Greek philosophy
and in contrast with the pagan ideas and
practises. The truth is self-consistent where it is not
obscured with error and approves itself as the
power of life; philosophy is only a presentiment of
it. This work is distinguished for clearness of
arrangement and style.
The "Church History" of Theodoret, which begins with the rise of Arianism and closes with the death of Theodore (429), falls far behind those of Socrates and Sozomen.
It contains many sources otherwise lost, specially letters on the Arian controversy; but it is defective in historical sense and chronological accuracy,
and on account of Theodoret's inclination to embellishment and miraculous narrative, and preference for the personal.
Original material of Antiochian information appears chiefly in the latter
books.
Theodoret's sources are in dispute.
According to Valesius these were mainly Socrates and
Sozomen; A. Guldenpenning's thorough research
placed Rufinus[?] first, and next to him, Eusebius of Caesarea,
Athanasius[?], Sozomen[?], Sabinus[?], Philostorgius[?],
Gregory Nazianzen, and, least of all, Socrates.
N. Glubokovskij counts Eusebius, Rufinus,
Philostorgius, and, perhaps, Sabinus.
The "Religious History," with an appendix on divine love, contains the biographies of thirty (ten living) ascetics, held forth as religious models. It is a document of remarkable significance for understanding the complexities of the role of early monastics, both in society and in the church; it is also remarkable for presenting a model of ascetic authority which runs strongly against Athanasius's Life of Antony.
Upon the request of a high official named Sporacius, Theodoret compiled a "Compendium of Heretical Accounts" (Haereticarum fabularum compendium), including a heresiology (books i. iv.) and a "compendium of divine dogmas" (v.), which, apart from Origen's De principiis and the theological work of John of Damascus, is the only systematic representation of the theology of the Greek Fathers.
Among dogmatic treatises Theodoret mentions (Epist. cxiii. cxvi.) having written against Arius[?] and Eunomius, probably one work, to which were adjoined the three treatises against the
Macedonians.
There were, besides, two works against the Apollinarians, and of the Opus adversus Marcionem nothing has been preserved.
The treatises "On the Trinity" and "On the Divine Dispensation" (cf. Peri theologias kai tes theias enanthropeseos; Epist., cxiii.), assigned by A. Ehrhard to the work "On the Holy and Life-giving Trinity" and "On the Incarnation of the Lord" of Cyril of Alexandria, certainly belong to the Antiochian School and to Theodoret.
To the same belong cap. xiii.-xv., xvii., and brief parts of other chapters of the fragments which J. Gamier (Auctarium) included under the title, "Pentology of Theodoret on the Incarnation" as well as three of the five
fragments referred by Marius Mercator to the fifth book of some writing of Theodoret.
They are polemics against Arianism and Apollinarianism.
Theodoret's "Refutation" of the twelve anathemas of Cyril is preserved in the antipolemic of Cyril (MPG, Ixxvi. 392 sqq.).
He detects Apollinarianism in Cyril's teaching, and declines a "contracting into one" of two natures of the only begotten, as much as a separation into two sons
(Epist. exliii.).
Instead of a "union according to hypostases," he would accept only one that
"manifests the essential properties or modes of the natures." The man united to God was born of Mary; between God the Logos and the form of a servant a distinction must be drawn. Only minor fragments (cf. Epist. xvi.) of Theodoret's defense of Diodorus and Theodore (438-444) have been
preserved (Glubokovskij ii. 142).
His chief christological work is the Eranistes etoi polymorphos ("Beggar or Multiform") in three dialogues, representing the Monophysites like beggars passing off their doctrines gathered by scraps from diverse heretical
sources and himself as the orthodox.
God is immutable also in becoming man, the two natures are separate in Christ, and God the Logos is ever immortal and impassive.
Each nature remained "pure" after the union, retaining its properties to the exclusion of all transmutation and intermixture.
Of the twenty-seven orations in defense of various propositions, the first six agree in their given content with Theodoret.
A few extracts from the five orations on Chrysostom were preserved by Photius (codex 273). Most valuable are the numerous letters (Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., iii. 250-348).
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