Theodore of Mopsuestia, interpreter of the prophets

Abstract

With the exception of the bishop of Cyrus, Antioch has left little of its biblical commentary on the prophets. Yet Theodore's sparse remains include a work on the Twelve revealing both his inadequate response to Libanius's tutelage and his flawed grasp of Diodore's hermeneutical principles. With him the salutary Antiochene accent on the reality of biblical discourse becomes a literalist insistence on finding exclusively within the Old Testament an historical fulfilment of prophecy, exemplified in the replacement by Zerubbabel of the prefigured Jesus. In short, through is limited and inflexible understanding of to historikon, albeit in his youth the Interpreter betrays a perversely foreshortened hermeneutical perspective, with which Theodoret will later take issue.