* With the appearance of H. Zimmer's book Pelagius in Irland (Berlin, 1901), all previous discussions of the subject of Pelagius’ commentary, and of the related commentaries of pseudo-Jerome and pseudo-Primasius (ct. Swete, p. xlv), were at once superseded ; see a review of Zimmer by the present writer in Journal of Theological Studies (October 1902), iv. 132-141,
+ Of course a common source for Theodore and Pelagius—in that case probably Diodore—is conceivable ; but Theodore’s work is the more likely to have reached the West.
{See Swete, pp. Ixv-Ixxi, Ixxix-Ixxxvii, and Kihn, Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus als Exegeten (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1880). The first 200 pages of Dr. Kihn’s admirable monograph are devoted to Theodore and his Biblical exegesis : unfortunately, he wrote before the publication of Dr. Swete’s
edition, and pays little or no attention to the commentaries on St. Paul.
acceptance of the story of Jonah as a record of actual historical fact. No doubt, Messianic appli- cations of the Old Testament had often led to exegesis that was arbitrary in the extreme, and Theodore voices the reaction of common-sense ; no doubt also it can be urged, with show of truth, that at least in the New Testament there is no place for allegory, and that Theodore’s position is here inexpugnable. And he would be a singu- larly unfair critic who failed to recognize and appreciate the services of Theodore’s | severely logical mind in expounding the often difficult con- nexion and concatenation of the Apostle’s thought; in this direction probably no ancient expositor either attempted or achieved as much; and for that alone, if all other merits were refused them, these commentaries of his would possess a real and permanent value. But it is also just this relentless sense of logic which from another side sets a fatal limitation on Theodore’s powers of exegesis; for he approaches the study of the Epistles, unconsciously no doubt to himself, with the expectation of finding in them, not merely a theological system as complete as his own, but the particular system at which he had himself arrived. St. Paul’s thoughts do not always con- sent to be labelled and put in their proper place as parts of an organized and coherent body of doctrine; and so far as they do admit of it, it is not quite on Theodore’s lines. The contrast be- tween % mdpovoa and 4 péddovea Kardoraots, which dominates Theodore’s whole scheme of the uni- verse, is a fruitful one, but it does not exhaust, and in part it does not even correspond to, the theology of St. Paul. To Theodore the ‘ present con- dition’ and ‘future condition’ are indeed those of sin and sinlessness, but they are also those of death and immortality, of change and changelessness ; and it is on this aspect of the contrast that Theo- dore’s optimistic thought habitually dwells. Re- demption tends to be predominantly the restora- tion of the gift of immortality, moral lapse a weakness of our mortal condition, Christ our human example in the successful struggle with it. It would be rash to say that there is no room for Theodore’s conceptions in the wide cycle of Chris- tian theology ; but they are not the characteristic conceptions of St. Paul, and so far Theodore could not be his ideal ‘ Interpreter.’
16. Isidore of Pelusium (letters on detailed points of exegesis).—
With Isidore a new chapter opens: we are on the threshold of the era when Greek exegesis ceases to be strictly original, and begins to reproduce what seemed most worthy of preservation in the great writers of the past ; and however great the loss in vigour and freshness which this change entailed, it carried with it at least the compensating advan- tage of expanded sympathies. Allegorical and literalist systems could each claim the sanction of illustrious names : neither could be wholly rejected by those who wished to walk in the footsteps of the ‘Fathers.’ St. Isidore is the earliest expositor in whose case geographical position is not the decisive factor in determining exegetical affinities, His nationality and all the external circumstances of his life connected him exclusively with Alex- andria, while his literary studies and his ecclesi- astical hero-worship tended rather to make him a follower of the great homilist of Antioch. The interest which attaches to him in these respects is sufficient excuse for finding a place in this article for a writer whose exegetical remains consist only of answers to correspondents about difficulties in he explanation of detached passages of the Sacred Text.
Isidore, as his name suggests, was an Egyptian ; and his whole career, so far as we know, was spent
el
PATRISTIC COMMENTARIES
in Egypt. Of Alexandrine family (according to Ephraem of Antioch, in Photius cod. 228), and, to judge from his extensive learning, of Alexandrine training, he early embraced the monastic life and commenced the prolonged residence at Pelusium, the frontier-city between Egypt and Palestine, which has given him the title that distinguishes him from his namesake of Seville. From Pelusium he carried on, during a period of which different critics extend the limits as far back as 395 and as far on as 450, the vast correspondence on which his fame mainly rests. It is enough for the present purpose to say that Isidore, when writing to Cyril of Alexandria during and after the Council of Ephesus in 431, employs towards the archbishop a familiarity and even authority of tone which imply either advanced age or long- established reputation.