Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1053

THEODORETUS. in A. D. 457 or 458. (Gennad. de Vir. IVustr. 89.) His remains were deposited in the same urn with those of his stedfast supporter, the monk Jacobus Thaumaturgus, who died shortly after him. Since his death his memory has met with the same varied fortune that he himself suffered during life. The emperor Justin honoured his statue with a solemn installation in his episcopal throne ; but the various Monophysite sects continued their op- position to his writings, and twice procured the condemnation of them by ecclesiastical synods during the reign of Anastasius, in A. d. 499, and 512. Marius Mercator, the bitter opponent of everything connected with Nestorianism, represents Theodoret as one of the worst of heretics ; and he is followed by Gamier, the completer of Sirmond's edition of Theodoret, the value of whose very learned and elaborate treatise on the life of Theo- doret is seriously diminished by the recklessness with which he not only adopts the calumnies of Mercator, but even falsities facts in order to support them. Cave has been to some degree misled by these writers ; but yet he gives us so warm and just a eulogy of the character of Theodoret as to make one smile at the words with which he introduces it : " Meliori quidem fato, et molliori censura dignus erat Theodoritus." Tillemont has re- futed many of Garnier's misrepresentations ; but he sometimes defends the orthodoxy of Theodoret by arguments which the bishop of Cyrus himself would scarcely have adopted. For the complete vindication of Theodoret's character we are in- debted to the German church historians, Schrockh and Neander. A strong encomium upon his learning and his style will be found in Photius (Bibl. Cod. 46), who describes his language as pure and well- chosen, and his composition as clear, rhythmical, and altogether pleasing. In other passages Pho- tius notices several of the works of Theodoret (Cod. 31, 56, 203—205, 273) ; and an incomplete list of them is given by Nicephorus Callistus (H. E. xiv. 54). Many of them are mentioned bv Theodoret himself, in his letters {Episi. 82, l"l3, 116, 145). The fullest account of them is contained in Garnier's second Dissertation, de Li- bris Theodoreli. I. The most important of Theodoret's works are those of an exegetical character, in several of which he adopts the method, not of a continuous com- mentary, but of proposing and solving those diffi- culties which he thinks likely to occur to a thoughtful reader ; so that these works are essen- tially apologetic as well as exegetical. This me- thod is pursued, especially in the first of his com- mentaries, which is upon the first eight books of the Old Testament, that is, the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judges, and Ruth, and is entitled ils rh. &KQpa T^s Stdas ypa(p7js Kar iKAoyfj^, or, Qiiaestiones in Odaieuchum ; and also in the second of them, upon the books of Kings (i. e. Samuel and Kings) and Chronicles, entitled Eis to C^tou- /ueva rwv ^aaiKeiau koX rcav TrapdKinrop.iv(»v. As a specimen of his method, we give two or three of the first questions which he proposes on the book of Genesis. First, " Why did not the writer pre- face his account of the creation with the doctrine of God " (1&60A0710) ; to which he replies, that Moses was sent to a people infected with Egyptian jiantheism, and that therefore the very first thing liiat he had to teach them was the distinction WL. III. THEODORETUS. 1041 between the creature and the Creator ; and in so doing, instead of passing by the general subject of theology, he has laid the foundation on which it all rests, in the doctrine of the independent and eternal existence of the one true God. The se- cond question is, " Why does he not mention the creation of angels ? " The third, " Did angels exist before the heaven and the earth, or were they created at the same time with them ? " In this and many other questions he grapples with some of the most difficult points of controversy which had occupied the Church from the apostolic age to his own time, especially with the various forms of Gnosticism and Manichaeism. His other com- mentaries are upon the Psalms {'Epfirfveia els tovs kKarhv TreuTijKouTa ^ak/JLOvs), the Canticles {"Epm- veia ets rh 0.0-1x0. twj/ q.(Tixa.TU)v Isaiah (Eis rhv 'Hcraiav Trpocpr]T7)u epfxrjveia Kar iKAuy^y), Jere- miah, with Baruch and the Lamentations ('Ep^uTj- veia TTJs Trpo<pr]Tcias rod ^eiov 'lepejuiov), Ezekiel ('EpyttTjveia Trjs irpo<pr}Telas rov ^elov 'Ie^e/cjr?A), Daniel (^vird/j.vriina ets ras bpdaeis rov Trpo(pT]Tou AaviTjA), and the Twelve Minor Prophets (v7ro;ui'77/ia eis TOVS ScadeKa Trpocpriras). With respect to the New Testament, we have commentaries by Theo- doret on the fourteen epistles of Paul ('Ep/Lnqveia rwv ih' iiTKTToKwv Tov ayiov airoaToXuv Tlavknv). II. Theodoret has also left two works of an his- torical character, but of very different value. (1) His Ecclesiastical History, in five books (^EkkKi]~ (Tia(TTiKrjs l(TToplas yoi TreVre), is a very valuable work, on account of its learning and general im- partialit}% though it is occasionally one-sided, and often runs into a theological treatise. It was in- tended, as he himself tells us in the preface, as a continuation of the History of Eusebius. It begins with the history of Arianism, under Constaniine the Great, and ends with the death of Theodore of Mopsuestia in A. d. 429, although it contains an allusion to an isolated fact which occurred as late as a. d. 444. (2) The work entitled ^iXoQeos 'la-Topia, or Religiosa Ilistoria, contjiins the lives of thirty celebrated hermits, and displays that wealc side of the character of Theodoret, which has already been mentioned as the necessary result of the earliest impressions he received. It is rather the work of a credulous ascetic than of a learned theologian. III. Of his works against Cyril, the Eutychians, and the heretics in general, the chief are, (1) His censure {avarpoinj) of the twelve heads of anathe- matization {avaOe/jLaTKr/xoi) of Cyril : (2) The great work against the Eutychians, in A. D. 447, the year before the condemnation of Eutyches at Con- stantinople, entitled 'EpartVrTjj ijroi Uovnop<pos (the Mendicant or Many-shaped), which, as he explains in the preface, was intended to imply that the Eutychians endeavoured to paas off their doc- trines, like beggars with their tales of imposture, under many guises, derived from many previous heresies. The work is in the form of a discussion between the Mendicant and the Orthodox ('Epa- viarris and 'Op66So^os), and it is divided into three dialogues ; the first, entitled "ArpevTos^ to prove that the Son of God is unchangeable ; the second, "Aa-xryxvTos, that his divine nature .'a in- capable of being raixt or confounded with the nature of man ; the third, 'ATrafl^y, that the divine nature is insusceptible of suffering ; and to these dialogues are appended syllogistic demonstrations (diroSef^eis 5ia avWoytcrfMcSy) of the three propo- 3x