DIDYMUS THE BLIND. – Ancient ecclesiastical writer, born around 313 in Alexandria, where he spent his entire life, and died there between 395 and 399. He became blind at the age of four; nonetheless, he acquired an extensive culture, especially in sacred matters, to the point of being placed at the head of the Didaskaleion, the Alexandrian catechetical school. During his long teaching career, he counted among his disciples Rufinus and St. Jerome. He remained a layman but devoted himself to an ascetic life and infused his doctrinal activity with profound piety.
His works, so numerous that St. Jerome (De vir. ill., 109) refrains from listing them, are exegetical and homiletic. From the Old Testament, he at least commented on the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, Hosea, Zechariah, and Proverbs; from the New Testament, the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. John, the Acts of the Apostles, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, and Ephesians; only scant remnants of these survive in biblical Catenae. The attribution to D. of an Enarratio in epistolas canonicas, mentioned by Cassiodorus (Inst. div. litt., 8) and preserved in the Latin version by Epiphanius Scholasticus, encounters difficulties. In his exegesis, D. follows Origen, focusing on textual criticism.
Diderot, Denis – Bust of D. D. Work by J. B. Pigalle. Paris, Louvre.