Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 14.djvu/629

 THEODORE

571

THEODORE

'eter's. By his contemporary Frodoard he is said to ave been beloved by the clergy, to have himself loved nd promoted peace, and to have been temperate, and baste, and charitable to the poor.

Frodoard. De Christi Iriumph. in P. L., CXXXV; AnxiLitJS 1 DM.MLEH. Auxihus und Vulgarius (Leipzig. 1866); Jaffe, Re- ■sla, I (Leipzig, 1888) ; Mann. Lives of the Popes in the early Mid- e Ages (London. 1910), 88 sqq.

Horace K. Mann.

Theodore, seventh Archbishop of Canterbury, b. t Tarsus in Cilicia about 602; d. at Canterbury 19 eiit ember, 690; was a monk (probably of the Basilian irder), i)Ut not yet in Holy orders, living at Rome in 137, when Pope Vitalian chose him for the See of Canterbury in jilace of ^^'ighard, who had died before ansecration. After receiving orders, Theodore was snsecrated bv the i)ope himself, on 26 M.irch, 668, nd set out for England, but did not reach Canter- urj' until May, 669. The new primate found the Inglish Church still suffering from the jealousies and itteme-ss engendered by the long Piuschal contro- ersy, only lately settled, and sadly lacking in order nd organization. The dioceses, conterminous with fie divisions of the various kingdoms, were of un- ■ieldy size, and many of them were vacant. Theo- ore, says Bede, at once "visited all the island, ■herever the tribes of the Angles inhabited", and was verj'where received with respect and welcome, le made appointments to the vacant bishoprics, reg- larized the position of St. Chad, who had not been uly consecrated, corrected all that was faulty, in- lituted the teaching of music and of sacred .and secular ■aming throughout the cotnitry, and had thedistinc- ion of being, .as Bede si)efially mentions, "the first rchbishop whom all the ICnglish Church obeyed". In 73 he convoked at Hertford the first sjmod of the rhole province, an a,ssembly of great importance as he forerunner and prototype of future English ntenagemotes and parliaments. Going later to the ourt of the King of Northumbria, which country was ntirely under the jurisdiction of St. \Vilfrid, he ivided it into four dioceses against the will of Wil- 'id, who appealed to Pope Agatho. The pope's ecision did not acquit Theodore of arbitrary and ■regular action, although his plan for the subdivision f the Northumbrian diocese was carried out. For he Sec of Kindi.sfarne Theodore himself consecrated t. Cuthbert in 68.5, and in the following year he was ally reconciled to Wilfrid, who was restored to his lee of York. Thus, before his death, which occurred ve years later, Theodore saw the diocesan system of he English Church fully organized under his pri-
 * iatical and metropolitical authority. Stubbs em-

phasizes the immensely imijortant work done by 'heodore not only in developing a single united ec- lesiastical body out of the heterogeneous Churches f the several English kingdoms, but in thus realiz- ig a national unity which was not to be attained in ecular matters for nearly three centuries.

Apart from the epoch-making character of his wenty-onc years' episcopate, Theodore was a man f commanding per.sonality: inclined to be auto- ratic, but possessed of great ideas, remarkable lowers of administration, and intellectual gifts of a ligh order, carefully cultivated. Practically his only iterary remains are the collected decisions in dis- iplinary matters, well known as "The Penitential if Theodore'. It was first published complete by Vasserschleben in IS.^jl, and several editions of it lave been printed during the past sixty years. rhe(5dore was buried in St. Augustine's Mon.astery, ^Canterbury, a long jjoetical epitaph, of which Bede las preserved only eight verses, being inscribed upon lis tomb.

Bede, ed. Moberlv, Hint. EccUsiastiea Genl. A ngl- (Oxford. 1879), 212-21'>. 227, 230-39. etc.; Haddan and Sti-bbs. Councils \ni Ecdes. DncumenU. HI (Oxford. 1871). 114-213; .Stdbbs in Oicl. Chritl. Biof. (London. 1887), s. v. Theodom (7); Mann.

Lives of the Popes, I (t>ondon, 1902). ii. 10. 11, 28-36, bks. Wil- LELM. Malmesb., ed. Hamilton, De Gestis Pontiftcum Angl. I-III (London, 1870); Eddius, Vita S. Wilfridi in Raine, }listorians of the Ch. of York, I (London, 1879), 1-103.— For text of Theodore's Penitential and other reputed works, see P. L., XCIX, 901-1229.

D. 0. Hunter-Blair.

Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia and ecclesiastical writer, b. at Antioch about 350 (thus also known as Theodore of Antioch), of wealthy and promi- nent parents; d. 428.

I. — According to Syrian sources Theodore was the cousin of the somewhat younger Ncstorius (Nestle, op. cit. in bibliography) ; Polychromius, afterwards Bishop of Apamea, was a brother of Theodore. The clever and highly gifted youth received the education in classical literature usual to his station and studied philosophy and rhetoric in the school of the renowned pagan rhetorician Libanius. He here became ac- quainted with his early friends, St. John Chrysostom and Maximus, later Bishop of Seleucia (perhaps as fel- low-student). Following the example of Chrysostom (Socrates, "Hist. eccl. ",VI, iii), Theodore renounced a secular career when about eighteen years old, and de- voted himself to the ascetic life in the school of Diodorus (later Bishop of Tarsus) and Cartcrius, situated near Antiochia. His youthful and too tem- pestuous zeal soon grew cold, and, owing chiefly to the memory of Hermione whom he intended to take as wife, he resolved to return to the world (Sozomen, "Hist, eccl.", VIII, 2; Hesychius Hieros., "Hist, eccl." in Mansi, "Concil.", IX, 248). Chrysos- tom's grief at this step of his friend was so great that he addressed him two letters or treatises ("Ad Theo- dorum lapsum" in P. G., XLVII, 277 sqq.) to recall him to liis early resolution. X little later Theodore did iiidrcd return tot lie "ilivine pliilosophy" of theascetic- numastic life. He quickly a{H|uired a great acquaint- ance with the Holy Scriptures. Impetuous and rest- less of character, he had already, when scarcely twenty years old (at eighteen according to Leontius, ".\dv. Incorruptieolas", viii, in P. G., LXXXVI, 1364), applied himself to theological compositions. His frrst work was the commentary on the Psalms, in which his extreme exegetical tendencies in the sense of an almost exclusively grammatico-historical and realistic explanation of the text is already manifest (see below Theodore's Hermeneutics). Between 383 and 386 he was ordained priest (perhaps together with Chrysostom) by his early teacher (now bishop) Flavian. Theodore soon displayed a very keen inter- est in the theologico-polemical discussions of the time, writing and preaching against the Origenists, Arians, Eunomians, ApoUinarists, magicians, Julian the Apos- tate, etc. His keen and versatile literary activity won him the name of "Polyhistor" (Sozomen, op. cit.,

VIII, ii). Theodore apparently left Antioch before 392 to join his old teacher Diodorus, who was then Bishop of Tarsus (Hesychius Hier., op. cit., in Mansi,

IX, 248). Probiibly through the influence of Dio- dorus he was named Bislinp nf .Mopsuestia in 392, in which capacity he was to l:il)ur tliirty-six years. In 394 he attended the Synod of Constantinople, and during its progress preached before the Emperor Theodosius the Great. During the confusion con- cerning Chrysostom, Theodore remained faithful to his early friend ((^f. Chrysostom, "Epp. ", cxii, in P. G., LII, 668; Latin tran.slation in Facundus, loc. cit., VII, 7). Later (about 421) he received hospitably Julian of Echmum and other Pelagians, .and doubtless allowed himself to be further influenced by their dog- matic errors. However, he later as.sociated himself with the condemnation of Pelagianism at ;i .synod in Cilicia (Marius Merc, in P. L., XLVIII, 1044). He died in 428, the year in which Nestorius succeetied to the episcopal See of Constantinople. During his lifetime Theodore was always regarded as orthodox