portrait
Patristic

Theodore of Mopsuestia

Bishop of Mopsuestia · Antiochene Exegete
c. A.D. 350–428 294 Commentaries died 428, in the peace of the Church

Theodore was bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia and the most eminent representative of the Antiochene school of interpretation, which prized the plain, historical sense of Scripture. So great was his reputation as a commentator that the Church of the East called him simply "the Interpreter," and he died in 428 in the peace of the Church. More than a century later, however, his Christology was blamed for the Nestorian error, and his writings were condemned as one of the "Three Chapters" at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553.

PD · after the Catholic Encyclopedia
"The Interpreter"

In the churches of the Syriac East, Theodore needed no other name than "the Interpreter" — so authoritative were his commentaries, which insisted always on the literal and historical meaning of the text. It is one of history's ironies that the West, which condemned him, and the East, which reveres him to this day, are reading the same man.

Antiochene literal exegesis "The Interpreter" Commentaries on the Pauline Epistles Commentary on the Twelve Prophets Condemned in the Three Chapters (553)