Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 3 (Theodoret, Jerome, Gennadius, Rufinus)

to Diodorus of Tarsus.Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, was a prominent theologian of the Antiochene school. Accepting 393 as the date of his birth and 392 as that of Theodore’s appointment to his see, it would seem that the younger theologian must have been more of a reader than a hearer of both Theodore and Diodore. However, Theodore expounded Scripture in many churches of the East.Refers to Theodore of Mopsuestia, a famous biblical interpreter. The friendship between Theodoret and Nestorius may have begun when the latter was a monk in the convent of St. Euprepius at the gates of Antioch. It is recorded that on one occasion, Theodore caused offense while preaching at Antioch by refusing to give the blessed Virgin the title Theotokos Original: Θεοτόκος (God-bearer). This was a controversial title in the early Church regarding the humanity and divinity of Christ.. He afterwards retracted this refusal for the sake of peace. The original objection and subsequent consent have a curious significance in view of the later careers of his two famous pupils. Of the school of Antioch, as distinguished from that of Alexandria, it may be said broadly that while the latter showed a tendency toward syntheticism and unity of conception, the former—under the influence of Aristotelian philosophy—favored analytic processes. And while the general bent of the school of thinkers among whom Theodoret was brought up inclined toward recognizing a distinction between the two natures in the Person of Christ, there was much in the special teaching of its great living authority which was not unlikely to lead to such a division of the Person as was afterwards attributed to Nestorius. Such were the influences under which Theodoret grew up.

On the death of his parents, he at once distributed all the property he inherited from them and embraced a life of poverty, retiring at about the age of twenty-three to Nicerte, a village three miles from Apamea and seventy-five from Antioch. In the monastery there, he passed seven calm and happy years, occasionally visiting neighboring monasteries and perhaps, during this period, paying the visit to Jerusalem that left an indelible impression on his memory.

“With my own eyes,” he writes, “I have seen that desolation. The prediction rang in my ears when I saw the fulfillment before my eyes, and I praised and worshipped the truth.”

Of the peace of Theodoret’s earlier manhood, Dr. Newman says in a sentence less open to criticism than another which shall be quoted further on:

“There he laid deep within him that foundation of faith and devotion, and obtained that vivid apprehension of the world unseen and future which lasted him as a secret spring of spiritual strength all through the conflict and sufferings of the years that followed.”

II. — EPISCOPATE AT CYRUS.

Cyrus, or Cyrrhus, was a town in the district of Syria named after it, Cyrestica. The capital of Cyrestica was Gindarus, which Strabo describes as being in his time a natural nest of robbers. Cyrus lies on a branch of the river Enoparas, now the Aphreen, and the site is still known as Koros. A tradition has long held that it received the name of Cyrus from the Jews in honor of their great benefactor, but this is more than doubtful. The form "Cyrus" may have arisen from a confusion with a Cyrus in Susiana. The Cyrestica is a fertile plain lying between the spurs of the Alma Dagh and the Euphrates, irrigated by three streams and blessed with a rich soil. The diocese, which was subject to the Metropolitan of Hierapolis, contained some sixteen hundred square miles and eight hundred distinct parishes, each with its church. But Cyrus itself was a wretched little place, scantily inhabited. Before it was beautified by the generosity of Theodoret, it contained no buildings of any dignity or grace. The people of the town, as well as of the diocese, seem to have been poor in orthodoxy as well as in pocket, and the rich soil of the district grew a plentiful crop of the tares of Arianism, Marcionism, Eunomianism, and Judaism.

Such was the diocese to which Theodoret, in spite of his honest nolo episcopari Latin: "I do not wish to be made a bishop"—a traditional formula of refusal used by those being elevated to the episcopacy., was consecrated at about the age of thirty, A.D. 423. Of the circumstances of this consecration, we have no evidence. Garnerius conjectures that he must have been ordained deacon by Alexander, who succeeded Porphyrius at Antioch. He was probably appointed, if not consecrated, to succeed Isidorus at Cyrus by Theodotus, the successor of Alexander on the patriarchal throne of Antioch. In this diocese, certainly for twenty-five years and perhaps for thirty-five, he worked with occasional intervals night and day, with unflagging patience and perseverance for the good of the people committed to his care, and in the cause of his Master and of the truth.