been written to counteract the allegorists. The God of both Testaments, being one and the same, worked out His purpose with a single aim. Hence the events of O.T. were so ordered as to be typical of those which were to follow. Consequently the histories and prophecies of the older revelation are susceptible of an application to the facts and doctrines of the Gospel, to which they offer a divinely foreseen and instinctive parallel. The words of the Psalmists and Prophets are constantly Christological, because the events to which they relate find a perfect counterpart in Christ (in Ps. xvi. xxii.). Their language is often hyperbolical or metaphorical, if viewed in reference to its original object; exhausting itself only in the higher realities of the kingdom of heaven (in Joel ii. 281). (b) Excepting some few passages in which he recognizes direct prophecies of the Messiah and His times, Theodore holds that the language of O.T. is applied to Christ and the Christian dispensation only by way of accommodation. This accommodation is, however, amply justified by the fact that in the divine foreknowledge the earlier cycle of events was designed to be typical of the later. Thus Ps. xxii., Theodore says, is clearly a narrative of David's conflict with Absalom, yet rightly used by the Evangelist to portray the passion of Christ, in which the words found a complete, and even to some extent a literal, fulfilment. Again, the words of Joel ii. 28 cannot possibly have been a prediction of the coming of the Holy Ghost, since the O.T. writers knew nothing as yet of a personal Spirit of God; "I will pour out of my Spirit" meant only "I will extend to all the divine favour and protection." Yet St. Peter rightly quotes the prophecy as finding its accomplishment in the Pentecostal effusion; for its fulfilment to the Jews of the Restoration was a pledge and type of the descent of the Spirit upon the universal church. This view (so Theodore argues) at once secures for the prophecy a historical basis, and magnifies the Christian economy as that which converted into sober fact the highest imagery of the ancient Scriptures.
If Theodore's N.T. exegesis is less characteristic, it is certainly more satisfactory than his interpretation of the Hebrew prophecies. His mind and education were Greek; in expounding the O.T. he trusted entirely to the guidance of the LXX ; in commenting on the Evangelists and St. Paul he found himself face to face with an original which he was competent to handle upon his own principles. In the remains of his commentaries of the Gospels we notice the precision with which he adheres to the letter of his author (e.g. on Matt. xxvi. 26), his readiness to press into the service of the interpreter minor words which are commonly overlooked (John xiii. 33, ἄρτι), his attention to the niceties of grammar (iii. 21) and punctuation (ix. 27), his keen discussion of doubtful readings (i. 3), his acuteness in seizing on the ἰδιώματα of Scripture (i. 14), and in bringing out the points of a parable or discourse (Mark iv. 26; John iii. 5, x. i seq., xv. 4, 26). Yet we note a want of spiritual insight (John xi. 21, ὃ δὲ λέγει κ.τ.λ.) and feeling (xi. 35), and detect an occasional departure from the author's own first principles under the pressure of theological prejudice (xx. 22, 28). The commentary on the Pauline Epistles seems on the whole worthy of its author's great name. It manifests in yet greater measure his care and precision, and, in addition, an honest and unceasing effort to trace the sequence of St. Paul's thought. Its principal fault is the continual introduction of theological disquisitions, which break the course of the interpretation and not seldom carry the reader into speculations entirely foreign to the mind of the Apostle. But even these digressions have their value as expositions of Antiochene theology and as shewing the process by which so acute an intellect as Theodore's could elicit that theology from the Epistles of St. Paul, or reconcile the two systems where they appear to be hopelessly at variance.
The worth of Theodore's contributions to the exegesis of Scripture has been very variously estimated. He is for ourselves the best exponent of Antiochene exegesis. Diodore has left too little to be representative; Chrysostom was a homilist rather than a scientific expositor; Theodoret is little else than a judicious compiler from Chrysostom and Theodore. Theodore is an independent writer, yet influenced more deeply than either Chrysostom or Theodoret by the Antiochene traditions. He had no audience to propitiate, no council to dread, and treads with the firmness of a man conscious that he represents a great principle and is fully convinced of its truth. His expositions, especially of N.T., possess intrinsic value of no common kind. Except when led astray by theological prepossessions, his firm grasp of the grammatical and historical method and a kind of instinctive power of arriving at the drift of his author's thought have enabled him often to anticipate the most recent conclusions of exegesis. Besides, however, being deterred by his unwieldy style, the reader misses the devotional and spiritual tone which recommends most Patristic commentaries. His abundant theological discussions and moral teachings do not compensate for this. Yet after every fair deduction on these and other grounds, we may still assign to Theodore a high rank among commentators proper, and a position in which he stands among ancient expositors of Scripture almost alone—that of an independent inquirer, provided with a true method of eliciting the sense of his author and considerable skill in the use of it.
Life and Writings.—O. F. Fritsche, de Theod. Mops. Vita et Scriptis Commentatio Hist. Theologica (Halae, 1836); J. L. Jacobi in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Christl. Wissenschaft (1864); F. J. A. Hort in the Journal of Class. and Sacred Philology, iv. (Camb. 1859); Bickell, Conspect. Rei Syror. Liter. (Monast. 1871); H. Kihn, Theodor. v. Mops. u. Junilius Africanus (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1880); F. Loofs, art. "Theodor. v. Mopsuestia" in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopädie, xix. (1907); O. Bardenhewer, Patr. pp. 301 ff.; F. Barthgen, "Du Psalmenkommentar d. Theodor. v. Mops in Syrichen Bearbeitung," in Z. A. T. W. v. (1889), "Sichenzahn Makkabäische Psalmen" in Z. A. T. W. vi. (1887); J. B. Chabot, Commentarius Theod. Mops. in Evang. D.
