Thus, with the exception that Hebrews came somewhere near the beginning of the list, Theo- dore appears, so far as we can judge, to have written on the Epistles in the order of our New Testament Canon. But both the separate dedica- tions of the different groups recorded by Ebed-jesu (p. 509, above), and the interval between the com- mentary on Titus and that on 1 Timothy ‘quam dudum’ scripseramus,’ + suggest that the whole exposition may have been spread over some con- siderable number of years. The work on at least the later Epistles was posterior to the work on the Gospels: on Col 1” (i. 273, 1. 5) he refers to the explanation of Jn 5, ‘si interpretationem nostram decurrere voluerit in illam partem evangelii Iohannis’; on 1 Ti 14 (ii. 74, ll. 2-6) to the ex- planation of the genealogies, ‘interpretationem nostram ... quam de evangeliis expressisse visi sumus’; and on 1 Ti3" (ii. 137, 1. 14) to his exegesis of the Epistles and Gospels as a whole, ‘ sicut non solum in apostolica interpretatione id ostendimus, sed et in evangeliorum interpretatione identidem id demonstravimus.’
Seeing that Theodore’s prolonged span of exe- getical activity extended over the whole of the last quarter of the 4th cent. and of the first quarter of the 5th, the conclusion so far reached with regard to the date or dates of his commen- taries on the Epistles is not very precise. One line of argument, however, still remains to be examined which may bear upon the chronology, namely, the relation of his commentaries to those of other more or less contemporary exegetes. +
* Note that the Epistle to the Hebrews comes next before. Galatians in the Sahidic version (Scrivener, Introd. to the Criticism of the N14, i. 57, ii, 188): next a/ter Galatians in the system of chapters running through the Pauline epistles in the margin of B (op. cit. i. 56, 57).
+ Yet ‘dudum’ may only represent #7, as perhaps in Swete, ay Le Ae oe
{ Dr. Swete (p. Ixi) emphasizes in this connexion the use apparently made by Theodore of the Euthalian ‘chapters’ as indicating a date after A.D. 396. Some attempt will be made later on in this article (see p. 524) to deal jn outline with the intricate questions that centre round the name of Euthalius.
512 PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
a a
Ancient commentators were accustomed to study and copy earlier models, and were studied and copied by later imitators in their turn. Theodore, though he was of too independent a mind to copy his predecessors as much as others did, probably studied them quite as much, to judge from the frequency with which he records the views of ‘certain people’ and expresses disagreement with them. To Origen’s system of exegesis he, of course, stood in fundamental opposition. The material is hardly sufficient to enable us to estimate the extent of his undoubted debt to Diodore; and even if it should be proved that he used also Chrysostom and Severian—both of them more nearly his contemporaries than was Diodore— yet even their expositions might have been in his hands before the year 400 A.D. Of his successors, Theodoret can be shown to have exploited him freely (below, p. 5174); but Theodoret probably wrote after Theodore’s death, and furnishes us therefore with no new terminus ad quem. But between Diodore and Chrysostom on the one hand, and Theodoret on the other, there is yet one other commentator whose evidence is crucial for the chronology of Theodore. The date of Pelagius’ Latin exposition of St. Paul falls within the years 401-409, and since his points of contact with Theodore appear to be unambiguous (Swete, pp. Ixxiv-Ixxvi), we get a new terminus ad quem or @ guo for the latter, according as we make his share in the common matter original or derivative. The question can be fully answered only when the true text of Pelagius has been restored from a comparison of the various recensions in which he has come down to us.* Dr. Swete inclines to the view that Theodore borrowed from Pelagius ; but it would be unusual to find a Greek writer using a Latin authority, and in two at least of the paral- lels (Gal 3%, 2 Ti 2°), while Theodore states his own view and no other, Pelagius prefixes to the view that coincides with Theodore the formula ‘ut quidam putant.’+ If then Pelagius drew on Theodore, and that for the later as well as the earlier Epistles, it would follow that Theodore’s exposition of St. Paul was completed very early in the 5th century: nor does there seem to be anything which seriously conflicts with such a conclusion,
4. THEODORE AS A COMMENTATOR ON SY. PAUL.t—Theodore is the typical Antiochene exegete, not in the sense that he serves as a standard for judging other commentators of the school, or as a mean from which in one direction or another they diverge, but in the sense that the literal and historical method of interpretation, which (with whatever qualifications) is distinctive of them all, is in him carried out to its most rigorous extreme. The present age is impatient of any form of allegorizing, and so is inclined to sympathize with Theodore; and yet it might be well to recollect that it was Origen’s allegorical interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis which, as much as anything else, aroused the opposition of the Antiochenes, and that Theo- dore’s literalist principles committed him to the