Theodore's cousin, Paeanius, to whom several of John Chrysostom's letters are addressed, held an important post of civil government; his brother Polychronius became bishop of the metropolitan see of Apamea.
Theodore first appears as the early companion and friend of Chrysostom, his fellow-townsman, his equal in rank, and but two or three years his senior in age.
Together with their common friend Maximus, who was later bishop of Isaurian Seleucia, Chrysostom and Theodore attended the lectures of the Greek-speaking teacher of rhetoric Libanius (Socr.
Chrysostom credits his friend with diligent study, but the luxurious life of polite Antioch seems to have received an equal share of his thoughts.
During this period doubtless the foundations were laid of Theodore's understanding of the Bible and ecclesiastical doctrine, and he was imbued for life with the principles of scriptural interpretation which Diodore had inherited from an earlier generation of Antiochenes, and with the peculiar views of the Person of Christ into which the master had been led by his antagonism to Apollinaris of Laodicea.
The epithet seems to imply that Theodore was an adherent of the Meletian party, but there is no evidence that he was involved in the feuds which preoccupied the Catholics of Antioch during Flavian's office.
Theodore is said by Hesychius to have left Antioch while yet a priest and remained in Tarsus until 392, when he was consecrated to the see of Mopsuestia on the death of Olympius, probably through the influence of Diodore.
[citation needed] Mopsuestia was a free town (Pliny) upon the Pyramus (Ceyhan) river, between Tarsus and Issus, some forty miles from either, and twelve from the sea.
The sermon made a deep impression, and Theodosius, who had sat at the feet of Ambrose and Gregory Nazianzus, declared that he had never met with such a teacher (John of Antioch, ap.
x.2) John begs him to retract, urging the example of Theodore, who, when in a sermon at Antioch he had said something which gave great and manifest offence, for the sake of peace and to avoid scandal, after a few days publicly corrected himself.
When in 418 the Pelagian leaders were deposed and exiled from the West, they sought in the East the sympathy of the chief living representative of the school of Antioch.
The synod can hardly be a fabrication, since Mercator was a contemporary writer; but it was very possibly convened, as Fritzsche suggests, without any special reference to the Pelagian question.
i.2) that Nestorius, on his way from Antioch to Constantinople (AD 428), took counsel with Theodore and received from him the seeds of heresy which he shortly afterwards scattered with such disastrous results.
v.39) Theodore died at the age of seventy-eight, having been all his life engaged in controversy, and more than once in conflict with the popular notions of orthodoxy; yet he departed, as Facundus (ii.1) triumphantly points out, in the peace of the church and at the height of a great reputation.
The Nestorian party consequently fell back upon the words of Theodore, and began to circulate them in several languages as affording the best available exposition of their views (Liberat.
Hesychius of Jerusalem attacked him around 435 in his Ecclesiastical History; Rabbula, bishop of Edessa, who at Ephesus had sided with John of Antioch, now publicly anathematized Theodore (Ibas, Ep.
72), that had Theodore been still alive and openly approved of the teaching of Nestorius, he ought undoubtedly to have been anathematized; but as he was dead, it was enough to condemn the errors of his books, having regard to the terrible disturbances more extreme measures would excite in the East.
Ibas, who succeeded Rabbula in 435, restored the School of Edessa, and it continued to be a nursery of Theodore's theology till suppressed by Emperor Zeno in 489 and found refuge at Nisibis.
The African delegation objected not only to a decree which seemed to negate the authority of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, but also violated the sanctity of the dead; they had no particular interest in Theodore's doctrine or method of interpretation.
Published under the name of Ambrose of Milan, the work of Theodore passed from Africa into the monastic libraries of the West, was copied into the compilations of Rabanus Maurus and others, and in its fuller and its abridged form supplied the Middle Ages with an accepted interpretation of an important part of the Bible.
Theodore believed that the torment of hell will be finite and will serve to reform sinners (a form of Christian universalism) and he was quoted as an authority on this issue by later bishops of the Church of the East: St. Isaac of Nineveh (7th cent.)
[5][6] In the 19th century, Edward Beecher discussed Theodore's belief in the finiteness of hell and stressed that it was neither based on the allegorical interpretation of the Bible nor derived from Origen.
It is marked by his usual defects of style; it is nevertheless a considerable monument of his expository power, and the best illustration we possess of the Antiochene method of interpreting Old Testament prophecy.
A fortunate discovery in the 19th century gave us a complete Latin translation of the commentary on Galatians and the nine following epistles, which were published in two volumes by Henry Barclay Swete (Cambridge: 1880, 1882).
The Latin, apparently the work of an African churchman of the time of the Fifth council, abounds in colloquial and semi-barbarous forms; the version is not always careful, and sometimes almost hopelessly corrupt (published by Cambridge University Press, 1880–1882).
Photius, criticizing the style of this work in words more or less applicable to all the remains of Theodore, notices the writer's opposition to the allegorical method of interpretation.
After a logical and scriptural demonstration of the truth and perfection of each of the natures in Christ, Theodore deals more at length with the Sacred Manhood.
Photius mentions that Theodore wrote three books on "Persian Magic" where he not only attacked Zoroastrianism, but also betrayed his "Nestorian" views and advocated the notion of the eventual restoration of sinners.
The last works were directed at Jerome[9] though they did not accurately represent his positions since Theodore was not personally acquainted with his writings, but relied on information provided by Julian of Eclanum.
[11] Lastly, Leontius intimates that Theodore wrote a portion of a liturgy; "not content with drafting a new creed, he sought to impose upon the church a new Anaphora".