Theodoret

The most significant works of Theodoret are those of exegesis.

A chronology of the composition of these works can be developed by studying references in the latter works to the earlier works. The commentary on the Song of Songs, 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 to 453.

Excepting the commentary on Isaiah (fragments preserved in the catenae) and on Galatians 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.

His representation of orthodox doctrine consists of a collocation of Scripture passages.

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 Syriac 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 The Song of Songs 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 typological 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.

Many of Theodoret's dogmatic works have perished; five, however, have survived.

His chief Christological work is the Eranistes etoi polymorphos (Beggar or Multiform, or perhaps The Collector) in three dialogues, describing the Monophysites as beggars passing off their doctrines gathered by scraps from diverse heretical sources and himself as the orthodox. The work is interspersed with lengthy florilegia (anthologies of patristic citations), which may be the reason for its preservation. These florilegia provide evidence of Theodoret's considerable learning, with 238 texts drawn from 88 works, including pre-Nicene writers such as Ignatius, Irenaeus and Hippolytus, as well as theologians such as Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers. This use of florilegia heralds a new stage in doctrinal development, in that it creates a new authority for Christian theology: that of the 'Fathers'.[12][13]

Two works, On the Holy and Life-giving Trinity and On the Incarnation of the Lord, have survived through ascription to his opponent Cyril of Alexandria.[12][14][15]

Another surviving work by Theodoret is his Refutation of the Anathemas, his rejection of the twelve anathemas pronounced on him by Cyril of Alexandria, which has been preserved in Cyril's defence.[16] 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. Cxliii). 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.

Another surviving work is the Expositio rectae fidei. This was preserved among the writings of Justin Martyr. However, both Lebon (1930) and Sellers (1945) independently recognised it as the work of Theodoret, probably pre-dating the outbreak of the Christological controversies.[17]

Only minor fragments (cf. Epist. 16) of Theodoret's defence of Diodorus and Theodore (438-444) have been preserved.[18]

There are many lost works. Theodoret mentions having written against Arius and Eunomius,[19] probably one work, to which were joined the three treatises against the Macedonians. There were, besides, two works against the Apollinarians, and of the Opus adversus Marcionem nothing has been preserved.

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 defence 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).

Among apologetic writings was the Ad quaestiones magorum (429-436), now lost, in which Theodoret justified the Old Testament sacrifices as alternatives in opposition to the Egyptian idolatry,[20] and exposed the fables of the Magi who worshipped the elements (Church History v. 38).

De providentia, or Ten Discourses on Providence, consists of apologetic discourses, proving the divine providence from the physical order (chapters i-iv), and from the moral and social order (chapters vi-x). They were most probably delivered to the cultured Greek congregation of Antioch, sometime between 431 and 435. Unlike most sermons, they are reasoned arguments, lectures rather than homilies on scriptural texts.

The Graecarum Affectionum Curatio or Cure of the Greek Maladies, subtitled The Truth of the Gospel proved from Greek Philosophy, arranged in twelve books, was an attempt to prove the truth of Christianity from Greek philosophy and in contrast with the pagan ideas and practises. As such, it forms one of the last Apologies written, since in an age when Christianity was dominant, the need for apologies gradually died out. 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.[21]

The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, which begins with the rise of Arianism and closes with the death of Theodore in 429 (despite being completed in 449–450) is very different in style from those of Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen. It contains many sources otherwise lost, specially letters on the Arian controversy; however, the book is extremely partisan, the heretics being consistently blackened and described as afflicted with the 'Arian plague'. The narrative is more compressed than in the other historians, and Theodoret often strings documents together, with only brief comments between. 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; Albert 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, also known as A History of the Monks of Syria, 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" (book 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.

Compared to the more than 500 letters known to Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century, only about half that number had survived to the twentieth century. Three collections survive, though there is some overlap between them. 179 letters were edited by J Sirmond in the seventeenth century. To these, J. Sakkelion added another 47 letters he published from a manuscript he found at the Monastery of Patmos in 1855.[22] 36 letters have been preserved in conciliar records. These letters provide glimpses of rural Christianity in northern Syria, as well as insight into episcopal relationships; hints of the development of Christological issues between the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon can be seen; there are letters of consolation and commendation; throughout there is revealed the generous and sensitive soul of a pastor.[12]

An English translation of the surviving letters is part of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2 ser., iii. 250–348).[23]

In several works, Theodoret demonstrated an interest for linguistic issues related to translations of sacred texts and theological works, with emphasis on literary exchange between two languages, Greek and Syriac.[24][25] Theodoret himself belonged to the highly Hellenized urban landscape of Roman Syria,[26] but his Aramaic background,[27] accompanied with knowledge of Aramaic language (called Syriac among Greeks), enabled him to note several features of his ancestral language. Aware of regional diversities of Aramaic dialects, he recorded that "the Osroënians, the Syrians, the people of the Euphrates, the Palestinians, and the Phoenicians all speak Syriac, but with many differences in pronunciation".[28] Theodoret's regional (provincial) differentiation of Aramaic dialects included an explicit distinction between the "Syrians" (as Aramaic speakers of Syria proper, western of Euphrates), and the "Osroenians" as Aramaic speakers of Osroene (eastern region, centered in Edessa), thus showing that dialect of the "Syrians" (Aramaic speakers of proper Syria) was known to have somewhat different pronunciation from that of the "Osroenians" (speakers of Edessan Aramaic).[29][30]