Theodoret

According to Tillemont, he was born at Antioch in 393, and died either at Cyrrhus ("about a two-days' journey east of Antioch" or eighty Roman miles), or at the monastery near Apamea (fifty-four miles south-east of Antioch) about 457.

The following facts about his life are gleaned mainly from his Epistles and his Religious History (Philotheos historia). He was the child of a prosperous Antiochene couple who had been childless for many years. Encouraged by the fact that his mother had been cured of a serious eye complaint and converted to a sober life by Peter the Galatian, an ascetic living in an unoccupied in the locality,^[3] Theodoret's parents sought further help from the local holy men, since she had been childless for twelve years. For years their hopes were fed but not fulfilled. Eventually, Theodoret's birth was promised by a hermit named Macedonius the Barley-Eater on the condition of his dedication to God, whence the name Theodoret ("gift of God").^[4]

Theodoret received an extensive religious and secular education. The actual evidence given to us by Theodoret suggests that his education was exclusively religious. He paid weekly visits to Peter the Galatian, was instructed by Macedonius and other ascetics, and at an early age became a lector among the clergy of Antioch. Though he speaks of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia as his teachers, this is improbable - though it was certainly their theological tradition in which he was brought up. He clearly, also, though, received an extensive classical education, unsurprisingly for the child of prosperous parents in a city which had long been a centre of secular learning and culture. His correspondents included the sophists Aerius and Isokasius. He understood Syriac as well as Greek, but was not acquainted with either Hebrew or Latin.^[5] In his letters he quotes from Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Demosthenes and Thucydides.^[6] When he was twenty-three years old and both parents were dead, he divided his fortune among the poor (Epist. cxiii; P.G., LXXXIII, 1316) and became a monk in the monastery of Nicerte not far from Apamea.^[7] There he lived for about seven years.

In 423 he left as he had been appointed Bishop of Cyrrhus, over a diocese about forty miles square and embracing 800 parishes, but with an insignificant town as its see city. Theodoret, supported only by the appeals of the intimate hermits, himself in personal danger, zealously guarded purity of the doctrine. He converted more than 1,000 Marcionites in his diocese,^[8] besides many Arians and Macedonians;^[9] more than 200 copies of Tatian's Diatessaron he retired from the churches; and he erected churches and supplied them with relics.

His philanthropic and economic interests were extensive and varied: he endeavoured to secure relief for the people oppressed with taxation; he divided his inheritance among the poor; from his episcopal revenues he erected baths, bridges, halls, and aqueducts; he summoned rhetoricians and physicians, and reminded the officials of their duties. To the persecuted Christians of Persian Armenia he sent letters of encouragement, and to the Carthaginian Celestiacus, who had fled the rule of the Vandals, he gave refuge.

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Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont

Louis-Sébastien Le Nain de Tillemont was a French ecclesiastical historian.

Antioch

Antioch

Antioch on the Orontes was a Hellenistic city founded by Seleucus I Nicator in 300 BC. The city served as the capital of the Seleucid Empire and later as regional capital to both the Roman and Byzantine Empire. During the Crusades, Antioch served as the capital of the Principality of Antioch, one of four Crusader states that were founded in the Levant. Its inhabitants were known as Antiochenes. The modern city of Antakya, in Hatay Province of Turkey, was named after the ancient city, which lies in ruins on the Orontes River and did not overlap in habitation with the modern city.

Hermit

Hermit

A hermit, also known as an eremite or solitary, is a person who lives in seclusion. Eremitism plays a role in a variety of religions.

Macedonius of Syria

Macedonius of Syria

Macedonius the Hermit, sometimes known as Macedonius Kritophagus, lived at the turn of the fourth to fifth century in Byzantine Syria. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church, with a feast day of January 24.

Lector

Lector

Lector is Latin for one who reads, whether aloud or not. In modern languages it takes various forms, as either a development or a loan, such as French: lecteur, English: lector, Polish: lektor and Russian: лектор. It has various specialized uses.

Homer

Homer

Homer was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the most revered and influential authors in history.

Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete. There are many fragments of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined—he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.

Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright or comedy-writer of ancient Athens and a poet of Old Attic Comedy. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete. These provide the most valuable examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy and are used to define it, along with fragments from dozens of lost plays by Aristophanes and his contemporaries.

Demosthenes

Demosthenes

Demosthenes was a Greek statesman and orator in ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by studying the speeches of previous great orators. He delivered his first judicial speeches at the age of 20, in which he successfully argued that he should gain from his guardians what was left of his inheritance. For a time, Demosthenes made his living as a professional speechwriter (logographer) and a lawyer, writing speeches for use in private legal suits.

Diocese

Diocese

In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop.

Episcopal see

Episcopal see

An episcopal see is, in a practical use of the phrase, the area of a bishop's ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Arianism

Arianism

Arianism is a Christological doctrine first attributed to Arius, a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt. Arian theology holds that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who was begotten by God the Father with the difference that the Son of God did not always exist but was begotten/made before "time" by God the Father, therefore Jesus was not coeternal with God the Father, and the difference that Arius believed the Son to be "God" only in name.

Theodoret stands out prominently in the Christological controversies aroused by Cyril of Alexandria. Theodoret shared in the petition of John I of Antioch to Nestorius to approve of the term theotokos ("mother of God"),^[5] and upon the request of John wrote against Cyril's anathemas.

He may have prepared the Antiochian symbol which was to secure the emperor's true understanding of the Nicene Creed, and he was a member and spokesman of the deputation of eight from Antioch called by the emperor to Chalcedon. To the condemnation of Nestorius he could not assent. John, reconciled to Cyril by the emperor's order, sought to bring Theodoret to submission by entrenching upon his eparchy.

Theodoret was determined to preserve the peace of the Church by seeking the adoption of a formula avoiding the unconditional condemnation of Nestorius, and toward the close of 434 strove earnestly for the reconciliation between the Eastern churches. But Cyril refused to compromise and when he opened his attack (437) upon Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore, John sided with them and Theodoret assumed the defence of the Antiochian party (c. 439).^[5] Domnus II, the successor of John, took him as his counsellor. After the death of Cyril, adherents of the Antiochian theology were appointed to bishoprics. Irenaeus the friend of Nestorius, with the cooperation of Theodoret, became bishop of Tyre, in spite of the protests of Dioscorus, Cyril's successor, who now turned specially against Theodoret; and secured the order from the court confining Theodoret to Cyrrhus.

Theodoret now composed the Eranistes (see below). In vain were his efforts at court at self-justification against the charges of Dioscurus, as well as the countercharge of Domnus against Eutyches of Apollinarism. The court excluded Theodoret from the Second Council of Ephesus in 449 because of his antagonism to Cyril. Here, because of his Epistle 151 against Cyril and his defence of Diodorus and Theodore, he was condemned without a hearing and excommunicated and his writings were directed to be burned. Even Domnus gave his assent.

Theodoret was compelled to leave Cyrrhus and retire to his monastery at Apamea. He made an appeal to Leo the Great, but not until after the death of Theodosius II in 450 was his appeal for a revocation of the judgments against him granted by imperial edict. He was ordered to participate in the Council of Chalcedon, which created violent opposition. He was first to take part only as accuser, yet among the bishops. Then he was constrained (October 26, 451) by the friends of Dioscurus to pronounce the anathema over Nestorius. His conduct shows (though hindered from a statement to that effect) that he performed this with his previous reservation; namely, without application beyond the teaching of two sons in Christ and the denial of the theotokos. Upon this he was declared orthodox and rehabilitated.

The only thing known concerning him following the Council of Chalcedon is the letter of Leo charging him to guard the Chalcedonian victory (PG, lxxxiii. 1319 sqq.). With Diodorus and Theodore he was no less hated by the Miaphysites than Nestorius himself, and held by them and their friends as a heretic. After Chalcedon, he lived in Cyrrhus until his death, which may have been in 460.^[10][11]

The Three-Chapter Controversy led to the condemnation of his writings against Cyril in the Second Council of Constantinople (553).

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Christology

Christology

In Christianity, Christology, translated from Greek as 'the study of Christ', is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Different denominations have different opinions on questions such as whether Jesus was human, divine, or both, and as a messiah what his role would be in the freeing of the Jewish people from foreign rulers or in the prophesied Kingdom of God, and in the salvation from what would otherwise be the consequences of sin.

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria was the Patriarch of Alexandria from 412 to 444. He was enthroned when the city was at the height of its influence and power within the Roman Empire. Cyril wrote extensively and was a major player in the Christological controversies of the late-4th and 5th centuries. He was a central figure in the Council of Ephesus in 431, which led to the deposition of Nestorius as Patriarch of Constantinople. Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and also as a Doctor of the Church, and his reputation within the Christian world has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers. The Nestorian bishops at their synod at the Council of Ephesus declared him a heretic, labelling him as a "monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church."

John I of Antioch

John I of Antioch

John I of Antioch was Patriarch of Antioch (429–441). He led a group of moderate Eastern bishops during the Nestorian controversy. He is sometimes confused with John Chrysostom, who is occasionally also referred to as John of Antioch. John gave active support to his friend Nestorius in the latter's dispute with Cyril of Alexandria. In the year 431, he arrived too late for the opening meeting of the First Council of Ephesus. Cyril, suspecting John of using procrastinating tactics to support Nestorius, decided not to wait and convened the council without John and his supporters, condemning Nestorius. When John reached Ephesus a few days after the council had begun, he convened a counter-council which condemned Cyril and vindicated Nestorius.

Anathema

Anathema

Anathema, in common usage, is something or someone detested or shunned. In its other main usage, it is a formal excommunication. The latter meaning, its ecclesiastical sense, is based on New Testament usage. In the Old Testament, anathema was a creature or object set apart for sacrificial offering and thus removed from ordinary use and destined instead for destruction.

Creed

Creed

A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets.

Chalcedon

Chalcedon

Chalcedon was an ancient maritime town of Bithynia, in Asia Minor. It was located almost directly opposite Byzantium, south of Scutari and it is now a district of the city of Istanbul named Kadıköy. The name Chalcedon is a variant of Calchedon, found on all the coins of the town as well as in manuscripts of Herodotus's Histories, Xenophon's Hellenica, Arrian's Anabasis, and other works. Except for the Maiden's Tower, almost no above-ground vestiges of the ancient city survive in Kadıköy today; artifacts uncovered at Altıyol and other excavation sites are on display at the Istanbul Archaeological Museum.

Eparchy

Eparchy

Eparchy is an ecclesiastical unit in Eastern Christianity that is equivalent to a diocese in Western Christianity. An eparchy is governed by an eparch, who is a bishop. Depending on the administrative structure of a specific Eastern Church, an eparchy can belong to an ecclesiastical province, but it can also be exempt. Each eparchy is divided into parishes, in the same manner as a diocese in Western Churches. Historical development of eparchies in various Eastern Churches was marked by local distinctions that can be observed in modern ecclesiastical practices of Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches and Eastern Catholic Churches.

Diodorus of Tarsus

Diodorus of Tarsus

Diodore of Tarsus was a Christian bishop, a monastic reformer, and a theologian. A strong supporter of the orthodoxy of Nicaea, Diodore played a pivotal role in the Council of Constantinople and opposed the anti-Christian policies of Julian the Apostate. Diodore founded one of the most influential centers of Christian thought in the early church, and many of his students became notable theologians in their own right.

Bishop

Bishop

A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.

Eutyches

Eutyches

Eutyches or Eutyches of Constantinople was a presbyter and archimandrite at Constantinople. He first came to notice in 431 at the First Council of Ephesus, for his vehement opposition to the teachings of Nestorius; his condemnation of Nestorianism as heresy led him to an equally extreme, although opposite view, which precipitated his being denounced as a heretic himself.

Apollinarism

Apollinarism

Apollinarism or Apollinarianism is a Christological heresy proposed by Apollinaris of Laodicea that argues that Jesus had a human body and sensitive human soul, but a divine mind and not a human rational mind, the Divine Logos taking the place of the latter. It was deemed heretical in 381 and virtually died out within the following decades.

Council of Chalcedon

Council of Chalcedon

The Council of Chalcedon was the fourth ecumenical council of the Christian Church. It was convoked by the Roman emperor Marcian. The council convened in the city of Chalcedon, Bithynia from 8 October to 1 November 451 AD. The council was attended by over 520 bishops or their representatives, making it the largest and best-documented of the first seven ecumenical councils. The principal purpose of the council was to re-assert the teachings of the ecumenical Council of Ephesus against the heresies of Eutyches and Nestorius. Such heresies attempted to dismantle and separate Christ's divine nature from his humanity (Nestorianism) and further, to limit Christ as solely divine in nature (Monophysitism).

Exegetical

The most significant works of Theodoret are those of exegesis.

A chronology of the composition of these works can be developed by studying references in the latter works to the earlier works. The commentary on the Song of Songs, written while he was a young bishop, though not before 430, precedes Psalms; the commentaries on the prophets were begun with Daniel, followed by Ezekiel, and then the Minor Prophets. Next that on the Psalms was completed before 436; and those on Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews), before 448. Theodoret's last exegetical works were the interpretations of difficult passages in the Octateuch and Quaestiones dealing with the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, written about 452 to 453.

Excepting the commentary on Isaiah (fragments preserved in the catenae) and on Galatians ii.6-13, the exegetical writings of Theodoret are extant. Exegetical material on the Gospels under his name in the catenae may have come from his other works, and foreign interpolations occur in his comments on the Octateuch.

His representation of orthodox doctrine consists of a collocation of Scripture passages.

The biblical authors are, for Theodoret, merely the mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit, though they do not lose their individual peculiarities. By the unavoidable imperfection of the translations, he states, the understanding is encumbered. Not familiar with Hebrew, Theodoret uses the Syriac translation, the Greek versions, and the Septuagint.

In principle his exegesis is grammatical-historical; and he criticizes the intrusion of the author's own ideas. His aim is to avoid a one-sidedness of literalness as well as of allegory. Hence he protests against the attributing of The Song of Songs to Solomon and the like as degrading the Holy Spirit. Rather is it to be said that the Scripture speaks often "figuratively" and "in riddles." In the Old Testament everything has typological significance and prophetically it embodies already the Christian doctrine. The divine illumination affords the right understanding after the apostolic suggestion and the New Testament fulfilment. Valuable though not binding is the exegetical tradition of the ecclesiastical teachers. Theodoret likes to choose the best among various interpretations before him, preferably Theodore's, and supplements from his own. He is clear and simple in thought and statement; and his merit is to have rescued the exegetical heritage of the school of Antioch as a whole for the Christian Church.

Dogmatic

Many of Theodoret's dogmatic works have perished; five, however, have survived.

His chief Christological work is the Eranistes etoi polymorphos (Beggar or Multiform, or perhaps The Collector) in three dialogues, describing the Monophysites as beggars passing off their doctrines gathered by scraps from diverse heretical sources and himself as the orthodox. The work is interspersed with lengthy florilegia (anthologies of patristic citations), which may be the reason for its preservation. These florilegia provide evidence of Theodoret's considerable learning, with 238 texts drawn from 88 works, including pre-Nicene writers such as Ignatius, Irenaeus and Hippolytus, as well as theologians such as Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers. This use of florilegia heralds a new stage in doctrinal development, in that it creates a new authority for Christian theology: that of the 'Fathers'.^[12][13]

Two works, On the Holy and Life-giving Trinity and On the Incarnation of the Lord, have survived through ascription to his opponent Cyril of Alexandria.^[12][14][15]

Another surviving work by Theodoret is his Refutation of the Anathemas, his rejection of the twelve anathemas pronounced on him by Cyril of Alexandria, which has been preserved in Cyril's defence.^[16] He detects Apollinarianism in Cyril's teaching, and declines a "contracting into one" of two natures of the only begotten, as much as a separation into two sons (Epist. Cxliii). Instead of a "union according to hypostases," he would accept only one that "manifests the essential properties or modes of the natures." The man united to God was born of Mary; between God the Logos and the form of a servant a distinction must be drawn.

Another surviving work is the Expositio rectae fidei. This was preserved among the writings of Justin Martyr. However, both Lebon (1930) and Sellers (1945) independently recognised it as the work of Theodoret, probably pre-dating the outbreak of the Christological controversies.^[17]

Only minor fragments (cf. Epist. 16) of Theodoret's defence of Diodorus and Theodore (438-444) have been preserved.^[18]

There are many lost works. Theodoret mentions having written against Arius and Eunomius,^[19] probably one work, to which were joined the three treatises against the Macedonians. There were, besides, two works against the Apollinarians, and of the Opus adversus Marcionem nothing has been preserved.

God is immutable also in becoming man, the two natures are separate in Christ, and God the Logos is ever immortal and impassive. Each nature remained "pure" after the union, retaining its properties to the exclusion of all transmutation and intermixture. Of the twenty-seven orations in defence of various propositions, the first six agree in their given content with Theodoret. A few extracts from the five orations on Chrysostom were preserved by Photius (codex 273).

Apologetic, historical

Among apologetic writings was the Ad quaestiones magorum (429-436), now lost, in which Theodoret justified the Old Testament sacrifices as alternatives in opposition to the Egyptian idolatry,^[20] and exposed the fables of the Magi who worshipped the elements (Church History v. 38).

De providentia, or Ten Discourses on Providence, consists of apologetic discourses, proving the divine providence from the physical order (chapters i-iv), and from the moral and social order (chapters vi-x). They were most probably delivered to the cultured Greek congregation of Antioch, sometime between 431 and 435. Unlike most sermons, they are reasoned arguments, lectures rather than homilies on scriptural texts.

The Graecarum Affectionum Curatio or Cure of the Greek Maladies, subtitled The Truth of the Gospel proved from Greek Philosophy, arranged in twelve books, was an attempt to prove the truth of Christianity from Greek philosophy and in contrast with the pagan ideas and practises. As such, it forms one of the last Apologies written, since in an age when Christianity was dominant, the need for apologies gradually died out. The truth is self-consistent where it is not obscured with error and approves itself as the power of life; philosophy is only a presentiment of it. This work is distinguished for clearness of arrangement and style.^[21]

The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, which begins with the rise of Arianism and closes with the death of Theodore in 429 (despite being completed in 449–450) is very different in style from those of Socrates Scholasticus and Sozomen. It contains many sources otherwise lost, specially letters on the Arian controversy; however, the book is extremely partisan, the heretics being consistently blackened and described as afflicted with the 'Arian plague'. The narrative is more compressed than in the other historians, and Theodoret often strings documents together, with only brief comments between. Original material of Antiochian information appears chiefly in the latter books.

Theodoret's sources are in dispute. According to Valesius these were mainly Socrates and Sozomen; Albert Guldenpenning's thorough research placed Rufinus first, and next to him, Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius, Sozomen, Sabinus, Philostorgius, Gregory Nazianzen, and, least of all, Socrates. N. Glubokovskij counts Eusebius, Rufinus, Philostorgius, and, perhaps, Sabinus.

The Religious History, with an appendix on divine love, contains the biographies of thirty (ten living) ascetics, held forth as religious models. It is a document of remarkable significance for understanding the complexities of the role of early monastics, both in society and in the church; it is also remarkable for presenting a model of ascetic authority which runs strongly against Athanasius's Life of Antony.

Upon the request of a high official named Sporacius, Theodoret compiled a Compendium of Heretical Accounts (Haereticarum fabularum compendium), including a heresiology (books i-iv) and a "compendium of divine dogmas" (book v), which, apart from Origen's De principiis and the theological work of John of Damascus, is the only systematic representation of the theology of the Greek Fathers.

Letters

Compared to the more than 500 letters known to Nicephorus Callistus in the fourteenth century, only about half that number had survived to the twentieth century. Three collections survive, though there is some overlap between them. 179 letters were edited by J Sirmond in the seventeenth century. To these, J. Sakkelion added another 47 letters he published from a manuscript he found at the Monastery of Patmos in 1855.^[22] 36 letters have been preserved in conciliar records. These letters provide glimpses of rural Christianity in northern Syria, as well as insight into episcopal relationships; hints of the development of Christological issues between the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon can be seen; there are letters of consolation and commendation; throughout there is revealed the generous and sensitive soul of a pastor.^[12]

An English translation of the surviving letters is part of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (2 ser., iii. 250–348).^[23]

Linguistic interest

In several works, Theodoret demonstrated an interest for linguistic issues related to translations of sacred texts and theological works, with emphasis on literary exchange between two languages, Greek and Syriac.^[24][25] Theodoret himself belonged to the highly Hellenized urban landscape of Roman Syria,^[26] but his Aramaic background,^[27] accompanied with knowledge of Aramaic language (called Syriac among Greeks), enabled him to note several features of his ancestral language. Aware of regional diversities of Aramaic dialects, he recorded that "the Osroënians, the Syrians, the people of the Euphrates, the Palestinians, and the Phoenicians all speak Syriac, but with many differences in pronunciation".^[28] Theodoret's regional (provincial) differentiation of Aramaic dialects included an explicit distinction between the "Syrians" (as Aramaic speakers of Syria proper, western of Euphrates), and the "Osroenians" as Aramaic speakers of Osroene (eastern region, centered in Edessa), thus showing that dialect of the "Syrians" (Aramaic speakers of proper Syria) was known to have somewhat different pronunciation from that of the "Osroenians" (speakers of Edessan Aramaic).^[29][30]

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Exegesis

Exegesis

Exegesis is a critical explanation or interpretation of a text. The term is traditionally applied to the interpretation of Biblical works. In modern usage, exegesis can involve critical interpretations of virtually any text, including not just religious texts but also philosophy, literature, or virtually any other genre of writing. The phrase Biblical exegesis can be used to distinguish studies of the Bible from other critical textual explanations.

Psalms

Psalms

The Book of Psalms, also known as the Psalms, or the Psalter, is the first book of the Ketuvim ("Writings"), the third section of the Tanakh, and a book of the Old Testament. The title is derived from the Greek translation, ψαλμοί, meaning "instrumental music" and, by extension, "the words accompanying the music". The book is an anthology of individual Hebrew religious hymns, with 150 in the Jewish and Western Christian tradition and more in the Eastern Christian churches. Many are linked to the name of David, but modern mainstream scholarship rejects his authorship, instead attributing the composition of the psalms to various authors writing between the 9th and 5th centuries BC. In the Quran, the Arabic word ‘Zabur’ is used for the Psalms of David in the Hebrew Bible.

Book of Daniel

Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology both cosmic in scope and political in focus, and its message is that just as the God of Israel saves Daniel from his enemies, so he would save all Israel in their present oppression.

Book of Ezekiel

Book of Ezekiel

The Book of Ezekiel is the third of the Latter Prophets in the Tanakh and one of the major prophetic books, following Isaiah and Jeremiah. According to the book itself, it records six visions of the prophet Ezekiel, exiled in Babylon, during the 22 years from 593 to 571 BCE, although it is the product of a long and complex history and does not necessarily preserve the very words of the prophet.

Book of Isaiah

Book of Isaiah

The Book of Isaiah is the first of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the first of the Major Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. It is identified by a superscription as the words of the 8th-century BCE prophet Isaiah ben Amoz, but there is extensive evidence that much of it was composed during the Babylonian captivity and later. Johann Christoph Döderlein suggested in 1775 that the book contained the works of two prophets separated by more than a century, and Bernhard Duhm originated the view, held as a consensus through most of the 20th century, that the book comprises three separate collections of oracles: Proto-Isaiah, containing the words of the 8th-century BCE prophet Isaiah; Deutero-Isaiah, the work of an anonymous 6th-century BCE author writing during the Exile; and Trito-Isaiah, composed after the return from Exile. Isaiah 1–33 promises judgment and restoration for Judah, Jerusalem and the nations, and chapters 34–66 presume that judgment has been pronounced and restoration follows soon. While virtually no scholars today attribute the entire book, or even most of it, to one person, the book's essential unity has become a focus in more recent research.

Book of Jeremiah

Book of Jeremiah

The Book of Jeremiah is the second of the Latter Prophets in the Hebrew Bible, and the second of the Prophets in the Christian Old Testament. The superscription at chapter Jeremiah 1:1–3 identifies the book as "the words of Jeremiah son of Hilkiah". Of all the prophets, Jeremiah comes through most clearly as a person, ruminating to his scribe Baruch about his role as a servant of God with little good news for his audience.

Octateuch

Octateuch

The Octateuch is a traditional name for the first eight books of the Bible, comprising the Pentateuch, plus the Book of Joshua, the Book of Judges and the Book of Ruth. These texts make up the first eight books of the Septuagint, which provided the ordering used in traditional Christian Bibles. This order is quite different from that of the Masoretic Text of the Jewish Bible, where Ruth is considered part of the third section of the canon, the Ketuvim, and is found after the Song of Songs, being the second of the Five Megillot.

Books of Kings

Books of Kings

The Book of Kings is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. It concludes the Deuteronomistic history, a history of Israel also including the books of Joshua, Judges and Samuel.

Books of Chronicles

Books of Chronicles

The Book of Chronicles is a book in the Hebrew Bible, found as two books in the Christian Old Testament. Chronicles is the final book of the Hebrew Bible, concluding the third section of the Jewish Tanakh, the Ketuvim ("Writings"). It contains a genealogy starting with Adam and a history of ancient Judah and Israel up to the Edict of Cyrus in 539 BC.

Catena (biblical commentary)

Catena (biblical commentary)

A catena is a form of biblical commentary, verse by verse, made up entirely of excerpts from earlier Biblical commentators, each introduced with the name of the author, and with such minor adjustments of words to allow the whole to form a continuous commentary.

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

In Judaism, the Holy Spirit is the divine force, quality, and influence of God over the Universe or over his creatures. In Nicene Christianity, the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost is the third person of the Trinity. In Islam, the Holy Spirit acts as an agent of divine action or communication. In the Baha’i Faith, the Holy Spirit is seen as the intermediary between God and man and "the outpouring grace of God and the effulgent rays that emanate from His Manifestation".

Hebrew language

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family. It was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a spoken language by their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans, before dying out after 200 CE. However, it was largely preserved as a liturgical language, featuring prominently in Judaism and Samaritanism. Having ceased to be a dead language in the 19th century, today's Hebrew serves as the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival. It is the only non-extinct Canaanite language, and is also one of only two Northwest Semitic languages still spoken, with the other being Aramaic.

• Translations of some of Theodoret's writings can be found in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers.
• A bilingual edition of the Eranistes was published by Oxford University Press in 1974.
• Theodoret of Cyrus. On Divine Providence, translated and annotated by Thomas P. Halton, 1988 (Ancient Christian Writers, 49) ISBN 9780809104208
• Theodoret of Cyrus. A Cure for Pagan Maladies, translation and introduction by Thomas P. Halton, 2013 (Ancient Christian Writers, 67) ISBN 9780809106066
• Ettlinger, GH, 2003. Theodoret: Eranistes, FC, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press.
• Petruccione, John F and RC Hill, 2007. Theodoret of Cyrus. The Questions on the Octateuch, Greek text and English translation, Washington, DC, Catholic University of America Press
• RC Hill has published translations into English of the Commentary on the Psalms (2000, 2001), the Commentary on the Songs of Songs (2001), and the Commentary on the Letters of St Paul (2001)
• István Pásztori-Kupán, Theodoret of Cyrus, (Routledge, 2006), includes full translations of On the Trinity, On the Incarnation, and excerpts from A Cure of Greek Maladies and A Compendium of Heretical Mythification.^[31]
• Bilingual editions (Greek text with parallel French translation) of several of the texts mentioned above have been published in recent years in Sources Chrétiennes.

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Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers

A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, usually known as the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (NPNF), is a set of books containing translations of early Christian writings into English. It was published between 1886 and 1900.

Ancient Christian Writers

Ancient Christian Writers

Ancient Christian Writers: the works of the Fathers in translation is a book series with English translations of works by early Christian writers. The translations are made from Latin and Greek. The series was founded by Johannes Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, the first volume being published in 1946.

Sources Chrétiennes

Sources Chrétiennes

Sources Chrétiennes is a bilingual collection of patristic texts founded in Lyon in 1942 by the Jesuits Jean Daniélou, Claude Mondésert, and Henri de Lubac. Citations to the series are commonly made by the letters SC followed by the volume number.