HE lived forty years on barley moistened in water, till finding his
health impaired, he ate bread, reflecting that it was not lawful for him
to shorten his life to shun labors and conflicts, as he told the mother
of Theodoret; persuading her, when in a bad state of health, to use a
proper food, which he said was physic to her. Theodoret relates many
miraculous cures of sick persons, and of his own mother among them, by
water on which he had made the sign of the cross, and that his own birth
was the effect of his prayers, after his mother had lived childless in
marriage thirteen years.[1] {214} The saint died, ninety years old, and
is named in the Greek menologies. See Theodoret, Hist. Eccles. l. 5, c.
19, and Philotheae, c. 13. St. Chrysost. hom. 17, ad Pop. Antioch.
Footnotes:
1. The great Theodoret was dedicated to God by his parents before he
was born, and was educated in the study of every true branch of
Syriac, Greek, and Hebrew learning. He gave a large estate to the
poor, and entered a monastery near Apamea, but was taken out of it
against his will, and consecrated bishop of Cyrus in 423, being very
young. He converted all the Marcionites, Arians, and other heretics
in his diocese, in which he reckons eight hundred churches, or
parishes. (Ep. 113, p. 987.) Cyrus was a very small poor town in a
desert country, eighty miles from Antioch, one hundred and twenty
from Apamea, and one hundred and seventeen from Samosata. Though
Theodoret lived in great poverty, he enriched the poor and the
churches, and built for his city an aqueduct, two large bridges,
porticoes, and baths. In 430 pope Celestin and St. Cyril of
Alexandria wrote to John, patriarch of Antioch, against Nestorius,
who on his side sent an orthodox letter to the same prelate: soon
after St. Cyril wrote his third letter to Nestorius, to which he
subjoined twelve anathematisms against the errors of Nestorius. In
this writing certain obscure phrases occur, which John of Antioch
thought favorable to the heresy of Apollinaris: whereupon he engaged
Theodoret to undertake a confutation of them. Theodoret carried on
this contest with great warmth in several writings, and when the
ecumenical council of Ephesus was assembled in 431, refused, with
John of Antioch, and the rest of the forty Oriental bishops, to
enter it, because Nestorius had been condemned in it on the 21st of
June, before they arrived at Ephesus on the 27th. They even went so
far as to pretend to excommunicate St. Cyril, and form a schism in
the church. F. Garnier, the most declared enemy to Theodoret among
the moderns, lays to his charge several things, of which Tillemont
and others clear him. It is certain that he wrote with great
bitterness against St. Cyril, and his anathematisms, as appears from
the works which he wrote upon that occasion, especially certain
letters and fragments of his Pentalogus, (or work in five books,
against St. Cyril,) still extant. But St. Cyril having made a clear
confession of his faith in a letter to Acacius of Ber[oe]a, Theodoret
loudly declared him orthodox, and this he proved even in letters
which he wrote to Nestorius himself, and to Alexander of Hierapolis,
his own metropolitan, the warmest of all St. Cyril's enemies. John
of Antioch and many others made their peace with St. Cyril, about
the month of April. In 433, Theodoret stood out some time longer, by
refusing to condemn the person of Nestorius. St. Cyril and John of
Antioch afterwards admitted him to their communion without requiring
that condition, and Theodoret labored to gain over Alexander of
Hierapolis; but in vain, so that this prelate was banished by the
emperor; Theodoret himself, though he enjoyed the communion of St.
Cyril, and of John of Antioch, was often accused, because he
persisted to defend the person of Nestorius. The persecution was
often renewed against Theodoret, so long as he adhered to Nestorius,
especially after St. Cyril, St. Proclus, and all the western
prelates condemned the writings of Theodorus of Mopsuestia, as the
master of the heresiarch Nestorius in his capital error. The
Orientals defended Theodorus, and Theodoret endeavored to justify
him by several writings against St. Cyril, of which only fragments
quoted in the fifth council are extant. St. Cyril, by his silence
and moderation, calmed this dispute, and always maintained peace
with the Orientals from the time it was settled between them. His
death happened in June, 444, and Dioscorus, the impious Eutychian,
was his successor. Theodorus, bishop of Mopsuestia, in Cilicia, who
died in 428, in his erroneous writings laid the foundation both of
the Pelagian and Nestorian heresies. Theodoret, in his writings
against St. Cyril, adopts certain expressions which favored
Nestorianism, and were condemned in the fifth general council;
nevertheless, his sentiments were always orthodox, as is proved by
Tillemont, (Art. 20, t. 15, p. 253,) Natalis Alexander, Graveson,
&c. By exerting his zeal against Eutyches and Dioscorus, he incurred
the indignation of their sect, and the false council of Ephesus
pronounced a pretended sentence of deposition against him.
Theodosius the younger first forbade him to stir out of his diocese,
and when he desired to go to Rome to justify himself, in 450,
banished him to his monastery near Apamea. The emperor Marcian put
an end to the persecution raised by the Eutychians under his
predecessor; yet Theodoret chose to continue in his monastery till
he was called by pope Leo to assist at the council of Chalcedon. He
had received, with great applause, the excellent letter of that pope
to Flavian, and St. Leo declared null all the proceedings of
Dioscorus against him at Ephesus, and restored him to his see,
(Conc. t. 4, p. 622.) The council of Chalcedon met in 451, and in
the seventh session, held on the 26th of October, Theodoret
presented his request that his writings and faith might be examined.
Those who were prepossessed against him would not allow any such
examination, but required that he should anathematize Nestorius,
which he at length did; and the council, with high commendations,
declared him orthodox, and worthy of his see. Marcian, by a law
published the following year, annulled the edict of Theodosius
against him and Flavian. He died at Cyrus, about the year 458. The
heresy of Nestorius he had clearly condemned from the beginning,
with John of Antioch, in their exhortatory letter to Nestorius,
(Conc. t. 3, p. 394). What mistakes and faults he fell into he
cancelled by his edifying repentance; and the great virtues which he
practised even under his disgrace, the extent of his learning, and
the sublimity and acuteness of his genius, have established his
reputation in all succeeding ages, and he is deservedly ranked among
the must illustrious fathers of the church. His excellent writings
are the most authentic monuments of his extraordinary learning and
piety. He modestly compares himself (Proleg. in Osee. t. 2, p. 700)
to the Jewish poor women, who in the building of the tabernacle,
having neither gold nor silver to give to God towards this work,
picked and gathered together the hair, thread, or cloths,
contributed by others, or spun, or sewed something, not to be found
quite empty-handed. St. Chrysostom was taken away from Antioch in
397, and Theodoret was only born about the year 393: but though he
had not the happiness of hearing his divine discourses, he took him
for his principal model, and especially in his comments on the
scriptures usually adhered to those of that incomparable doctor. His
works were printed at Paris, in 1642, in four volumes in folio, to
which F. Garnier, a learned Jesuit, in 1684, added a fifth under the
title of an Auctarium, containing certain letters and discourses of
this father, with several prolix historical dissertations on the
Nestorian heresy. The judicious F. Sirmond, far more equitable than
F. Garnier. admires Theodoret's brevity, joined with great
perspicuity, especially in his commentaries, and commends the
pleasing beauty and attic elegance of his style. Photius praises his
fruitfulness of invention, the purity of his language, the choice of
his words, and the smoothness and neatness of his style, in which he
finds everywhere a decent and noble elevation, though he thinks his
metaphors sometimes too bold. This great critic calls his method of
short notes the most accomplished model for interpreting the holy
scriptures, and mentions, as an instance of his sincere humility,
that he never employs a single word, or produces a quotation for
ostentation, never falling into digressions foreign to his purpose;
we may almost say, that a superfluous word scarce ever escapes him.
(Phot. Cod. 203, p. 526. Cod. 31, 46, 56.)
His comments on St. Paul, and on most of the books of the old
Testament, are concise literal, and solid, but contain not that
inexhausted and excellent treasure of morality which we find in St.
Chrysostom, whose commentaries Theodoret had always before him: this
latter excels chiefly on the prophets. His church history, in five
books, from the close of that of Eusebius in 324 to 429, is a
valuable compilation. Photius justly prefers his style to that of
Eusebius, Evagrius, Socrates, and Sozomen, as more historical,
clear, and lofty, without any redundancy. (Cod. 31) His religious
history, or Philothea, (_i.e._ History of the Friends of God,)
contains the lives of thirty monks and anchorets of his time. He was
himself an eye-witness to several of the miracles which he relates
to have been wrought by the sign of the cross, holy water, and
blessed oil. Of some other miracles which he mentions, he tells us
that they were so authentic and notorious that no one who believes
those of Moses, Elias, and the Apostles, could deny them. The five
books, Of Heretical Fables, are a history of ancient heresies which
he wrote at the request of Sporacius, one of the imperial
commissaries at the council of Chalcedon, who was consul in 452. In
the fourth book, he inveighs most bitterly against Nestorius, whom
he had for some time unwarily favored. The letters of Theodoret
which are extant, amount to the number of 146. His book Against the
twelve Anthematisms of St. Cyril, he tacitly recalled by his
condemnation of Nestorius; also his Pentalogus on the same subject,
which is now lost, except some fragments preserved by Marius
Mercator. His three dialogues against the Eutychians, he entitled
Polymorphus, (_i.e._ of many shapes,) and Eranistes, that is, the
Beggar, because the Eutychian error was gathered from the various
heresies of Marcian, Valentin, Arius, and Apollinaris. The first
dialogue he calls the Unchangeable, because in it he shows that the
divine Word suffered no change by becoming man. The second is
entitled The Inconfused, from the subject, which is to prove that in
Christ, after the Incarnation, the divine and human nature remain
really distinct. The third is called, The Impassible, because in it
the author demonstrates that the divinity neither did nor could
suffer; the same is the purport of his Demonstration by syllogisms.
The dialogues were written about the year 447; for the author
clearly confutes Eutyches, though he never names him; and it appears
that St. Cyril was then dead, the author reckoning him in the end
among the Catholic doctors, who had formerly flourished in the
church, and among the stars which had enlightened the world. (Dial.
2. p. 86, and 111.)
Theodoret's ten sermons On Providence, is a work never yet
paralleled by any other writer, ancient or modern, on that sublime
subject; whether we consider the matter and the choice of thoughts,
or the author's sincere piety, or his extensive knowledge, and the
depth of his philosophical inquiries, or the strength and solidity
of his reasoning, or the noble sublimity of the expression, and the
elegance and perspicuity of the diction. It was the love of God
which engaged him to undertake, in this task, the defence of the
cause of our best Father and supreme Lord, as he modestly assures
us, (p. 320,) and this motive animated him with fresh life and
uncommon vigor in exerting and displaying the strength and beauty of
his genius on so great a subject.
His twelve discourses On healing the Prejudices of the Greeks, are
an excellent apology for our faith against the pagans; a performance
which falls little short of the former. In it we meet with many
curious anecdotes relating to the heathenish theology of the
ancients, and the impiety and vices with which their philosophers
disgraced their profession. In the eighth of these discourses, which
is entitled, On the Martyrs, he clearly demonstrates that the
veneration which Christians pay to the saints in heaven, is entirely
different from the worship which the heathens give to their false
gods, and elegantly explains (pp. 591, 660, 606) in what manner the
souls of the martyrs now in heaven, with the choirs of angels, are
our protectors and mediators with God, the physicians of our bodies,
and savers of our souls: the portions of their divided relics are
the guard and protection of our cities, which through their
intercession with God obtain divine gifts: Christians give their
names to their children to put these under their patronage: it was a
custom to hang up before their shrines, gold or silver images of
eyes, feet, or hands, as tokens or memorials of health, or other
benefits received by their means: they keep their festivals, as
those of Peter, Paul, Thomas, Sergius, Marcellus, Leontius,
Panteleemon, Antoninus, Mauritius, and others, in prayer, divine
canticles, and holy sermons. The same he testifies in his other
works. Almost every life of holy monks which he wrote, he closes by
imploring their intercession, and mentions that as far as Rome,
handicraftsman hang up in their shops the picture of St. Simeon
Stylites, hoping by their devotion to share in the protection of his
prayers. (Philoth. c. 26, p. 862.) We learn from, him, that
Christians were always accustomed to make the sign of the cross on
the cup before they drank. (Hist. Eccl. l. 3, c. 13.) He often
extols the virtues of that holy sign, honored, as he says, by all
Christians, whether Greeks, Romans, or Barbarians, (Serm. 6, de
Prov. p. 580, t. 4,) and he relates, (Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 1,) that
Julian the Apostate, by making it in a fright, drove away the devils
which one of his enchanters was invoking. His book in praise of
virginity, to which he refers us, (on 1 Cor. vii. 33.) is lost; also
the book in which he confuted both Eutyches and Nestorius, which is
mentioned by Gennadius (c. 89) and Marcellinus. (ad an. 466.) His
book Against the Jews, and several others, have not reached us.
Among those which are extant his Octateuch, (or comments on the five
books of Moses, and those of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth,) to which he
added comments on the books of Kings and Paralipomenon, much
commended by Photius, seems to be the last work which he wrote. See
Tillem. t. 15. Ceillier.
{215}