ABSTRACT
To exemplify how Theodore applies his exegetical method, we will first examine his Genesis commentary. He wrote at least one commentary in response to either Augustine or Jerome, regarding whether Adam had been created immortal, and in what sense Adam was the cause of an inherited sin. The Fall of Adam had become an important issue at the beginning of the fifth century, mainly in the West, because it raised such questions as what kind of sin is removed when infants are baptized and how the Greek text of Romans 5:12 ought to be translated: whether as “in whom all have sinned” or as “inasmuch as” or “because” all have sinned. Theodore argues that Adam was originally created mortal and that Christ’s humanity is the first to experience immortality. Since immortality is so closely involved with his understanding of salvation, this was not a minor disagreement over how to rightly interpret the creation story. Theodore bases his argument on what the Genesis account actually states. In opposition to the allegorists who interpreted Adam, paradise, and the serpent in a spiritual way, he insists that Adam is a historical figure and that any allegorical interpretation is foolishness:
For by so entangling the historical narrative [with extraneous material], they no longer possess a historical narrative. Since this is a fact, let them assert what is their source for declaring who was the first man to be fashioned and in what way the disobedient (Adam) exists and how the sentence of death has been introduced . . . Where, therefore, have they derived this knowledge that they have accepted? How can they say that they have learnt to speak thus from the divine Scripture?”
