Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia

THEODORE, Bishop of Mopsuestia. - Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia (Asia Minor) from 392 to 428, the principal representative of the Antiochene school.

I. LIFE AND WORKS

Born at Antioch in Syria around 350, he was a fellow disciple of St. John Chrysostom, who induced him to be converted and enter a monastery and comforted him, in a serious spiritual crisis of his, with a splendid letter (Ad Theodorum lapsum: PG 47, 277-316). For ten years he attended the school of Antioch (v. ANTIOCHIA, V) then directed by Diodore, later bishop of Tarsus in Cilicia in 378, absorbing its spirit to a large extent. Ordained a priest in 383, he embarked on his career as an orator and above all as an exegete and polemicist. Between 386 and 392 he was probably at Tarsus, from where he was called to the episcopal see of Mopsuestia, in the same Cilicia. Little is known of his episcopate. A zealous pastor and tireless writer, he was widely known and admired. He took part in the Conference of Anazarbus (392) between orthodox and Macedonians, in the Council of Constantinople of 394 which decided the controversy between Agapius and Bagadius for the see of Bostra; he hosted between 418 and 422 Julian of Eclanum (v.) and the other Pelagian bishops expelled from Italy by Pope Zosimus (v.) and before dying in 428 he perhaps had conversations with Nestorius, then promoted to the see of Constantinople. The number of works, as it results from the Catalogue of Ebediesu (1318), from the anonymous chronicle of Seert (PG 5, 289-91), from the exegetical catenae and from the citations of many writers before and after the Council of Constantinople of 533 (Ecumenical V), place T. among the most prolific writers of ancient Christian literature. But of him there remain only a few complete works and fragments. Complete are the commentary on the twelve Minor Prophets, on the Psalms, on St. John, on the minor letters of St. Paul; of the theological works only the Catecheses and a large part of the work against the Macedonians (De Spiritu Sancto). The exegetical catenae preserve many fragments, but not always authentic

(cf. R. Devreesse, Chaînes exégétiques, in DBs, I, coll. 1084-1233) collected by F. Fritzsche and transcribed in the PG (v. bibl.); numerous texts also emerge from the polemical literature concerning T., especially from Marius Mercator (E. Schwartz, Acta Conc. Oec., I, 5, Berlin 1914, pp. 23-28; PL 48, 1041-46), Leontius of Byzantium (PG 86, 1385-90), from the Fifth Council of Constantinople with the Constitutum of Pope Vigilius (Mansi, IX, 157-858), from the Collectio Palatina, and from the deacon Pelagius (later Pope Pelagius II) and above all Facundus of Hermiane, the latter two favorable to T.

II. EXEGETE AND THEOLOGIAN

The Eastern Church soon saw in him the exegete par excellence; but the condemnation of his theological position also compromised his exegetical works, which constitute the greater part of his literary output. Leontius of Byzantium says that while still eighteen years old he began to distort Holy Scripture, despising the teaching of the earlier doctors, arbitrarily rejecting the books that did not please him (Job, James, Ezra and Chronicles), suppressing the titles of the Psalms and interpreting the Song of Songs in a Judaizing manner.

But with the exception of the Letter of James, Job and the Song, T. did nothing but follow the canon recognized by the Church of Antioch. As for the book of Job, it should be noted that T. left a commentary on it dedicated to St. Cyril of Alexandria. On the Song he showed himself uncertain and proposed as a hypothesis that it be considered an epithalamium composed by Solomon to celebrate his marriage to the daughter of the king of Egypt. Although in this case he does not hint at a deeper interpretation, it should be observed that as a young man he had understood in a spiritual, messianic sense the parallel epithalamium of Psalm 44. On the title of the Psalms he found himself faced with contradictory testimonies, and so he preferred to attribute them all to David.

The Third Council of Constantinople condemned a theory of his that distinguished two degrees of inspiration (for the wisdom books and for the properly prophetic books): perhaps it could be interpreted in a perfectly orthodox sense (Amann, v. bibl., col. 247, against Pirot). The two works that are completely lost, which probably treated ex professo of the principles of hermeneutics, can be partly reconstructed from his exegetical works. The principal representative of the Antiochene school, T. energetically criticizes the allegorism spread and exaggerated by the Alexandrian school, and after having established the literal sense, with appeal to the original text, also for the Old Testament although he did not know Hebrew perfectly (cf. R. Devreesse, Essai sur T. de M., v. bibl., p. 59, n. 3), he places his principal attention on clarifying the historical and literary context. He therefore censures the practice of applying passages from the same context to different senses, which leads him to renounce the messianic interpretations, then common, of passages that cannot be applied entirely to the Messiah. He does not, however, reject the typical sense; indeed he finds it precisely where the historical fact foreseen or described by the hagiographer does not justify the breadth of its expressions. Hence he recognizes as properly messianic certain psalms (2, 44, 15, 54, 88, 109) and in an accommodated sense others (21, 47, 48, 71); thus he openly admits the prophetic value of many texts although he discards others commonly held to be such. Fundamentally in this too he is a representative of the Antiochene school, which the allegorists readily accused of rationalism.

This defect appears instead more serious in his theology. The school of Antioch, guided by Diodore of Tarsus, found itself fighting against Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ, and Apollinarianism, which mutilated his humanity so as to have it absorbed by the Word. Against such errors Diodore formulated the theory of the "two sons" (son of God and son of Mary, elevated by Grace to divine adoption), a doctrine soon condemned by the Council of Alexandria (562) and then by Pope Damasus (380 and 382). It is necessary to keep in mind these controversies, which later had their epilogue in the Councils of Ephesus (437) and of Chalcedon (451), in order to understand the position of T. In such a polemical environment it is no wonder to find in him imprecise and equivocal formulations. But more than in his polemical works, the serene and complete exposition of his doctrine is to be sought in the Catecheses, recently translated and published. Yet even from this examination it clearly emerges that the formulas used by T. to explain the apostolic Union (v.) betray an erroneous conception of the mystery of the Incarnation. T. already teaches the error to which Nestorius has linked his name. Although attempting to remain within orthodoxy with an ambiguous terminology, he in reality splits Christ into two subjects of attribution, into two persons: the person of the Word born of the Father from all eternity, and the person of the man Jesus born in time of Mary the Virgin. According to T., the union between the assumer (the Word) and the assumed (the man) is undoubtedly very close, ineffable; it terminates in a single personality or πρόσωπον, called the πρόσωπον of union; but this single personality is by no means the very person of the Word; it is a resultant of the union of the Word and the man, a union that cannot be physical, substantial, but merely moral, extrinsic. It is a conjunction, an adherence from without and not a union from within, in the intimacy of being, that would bring it about that in Jesus Christ there is only one physical person, that of the Word, who says "I, or Me" to every action he exercises whether in the divine nature or in the human nature. Here is the mystery that T. wished to attempt to explain, to rationalize: an unhappy attempt, which corresponds neither to the formulas of Holy Scripture nor to the Creed of Nicaea. Another gap in the theology of T. is constituted by his doctrine on original sin; he undoubtedly admits that Adam's sin caused the fall of human nature, rendering it mortal and inclined to evil; but he expresses himself obscurely on the transmission of sin by way of generation. These imprecisions are no wonder in an Eastern writer poorly informed about the Pelagian controversy debated in the West. When, on the other hand, he expounds the Catholic doctrine on prayer and the Sacraments, in his Catecheses (in some way parallel to those of St. Cyril of Jerusalem), he represents the purest Christian tradition.

III. THE QUESTION OF ORTHODOXY

T. lived and died in peace with the Church and with the leading representatives of his time, such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and was not accused of error by them. His work was highly esteemed by the Eastern Churches and widely circulated. But the posthumous condemnation weighed upon his person and his writings, which were preserved almost exclusively in the Churches of Syria and Persia independent of Constantinople.

His doctrine became involved in the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies. Despite his equivocal and compromising expressions, the Council of Chalcedon refused to condemn him, also accepting the praises contained in the letter of Ibas. The polemic was revived a century later in the controversy over the Three Chapters (v.). Under the influence of the Monophysite current, supported by the emperor Justinian, and after long hesitations, Pope Vigilius resolved upon the condemnation of the doctrine and the person of T. as opposed to orthodox doctrine.

Today attempts are made to rehabilitate him, by calling into doubt the authenticity of the documents that motivated the condemnation. But the list of the 55 Theodorian texts, which served Pope Vigilius for the condemnation of the Mopsuestian, offers 22 numbers that are certainly authentic, 2 others barely touched upon, 8 positively doubtful, 5 certainly manipulated with aims that appear tendentious, and 20 uncontrollable (Ortiz de Urbina, in Orientalia christiana periodica, 15 [1949], p. 443). Moreover, the Christological doctrine contained in the certainly authentic works of T. proves to be substantially identical with that which is discovered in the fragments cited by the Fifth Council (cf. P. Parente, v. bibl.). It is certain, however, that T. did not deserve the fierce hatred that pursued him beyond the grave, especially in the time of Justinian. He had died in peace with the Church, so his person could be respected while nevertheless condemning his formulas. As for the deficiencies of his Christology, it must be borne in mind that he wrote before the great controversies that clarified and defined the problem of the two natures united in Jesus Christ; but his attempt at explanation, with the formulas in which he expressed it, cannot be reconciled with the data of the faith.

Martino Jugie-Vittorino Dellagiacoma