ABSTRACT
Theodore of Mopsuestia lived from c. 350 to 428.1 In their lifetime together Theodore and John Chrysostom were classmates, fellow monks, and close friends at Antioch in the late fourth century. Whereas John is esteemed today as a prolific and saintly churchman, Theodore is viewed as one of the outstanding christological heretics. Yet at the time of his death he was widely revered as one of the prominent biblical theologians in Late Antiquity and a leader of the famed School of Antioch.2 He was hailed as the principal exponent of the School’s literal, historical, and rational approach to biblical exegesis and respected as the most penetrating critic of Origen’s allegorical interpretation. He is also acknowledged as the peerless spokesperson and systematic defender of the Antiochene efforts to protect and promote the full humanity of Christ. He is especially remembered and reviled for describing the unity of Christ’s two natures as occurring in one proso¯pon (person). Yet, despite his being an imposing intellectual force in his own day, little factual knowledge has come down to us about his life.3 What is most ironic in all this is that such a towering, independent-minded church figure in his age has become in our day simply a name worthy of a sentence or two on how he influenced Nestorius in his christological thinking. This is doubtless primarily because relatively little of his surviving writings have been available in the major modern languages. Nevertheless, some central moments of his life have come down to us.
