Tarachus, also called Victor
Tarachus, also called Victor, martyr, an Isaurian from Claudiopolis, and a soldier, who left the army on the outbreak of Diocletian's persecution. The Acts of Tarachus and his companions Probus and Andronicus are one of the most genuine pieces of Christian antiquity. They were first pub. by Baronius in his Annals, under a.d.290, but from an imperfect MS. Ruinart brought out the most complete ed. in Greek and Latin from a comparison of several MSS. in the Colbertine Library. The martyrs were arrested a.d.304 in Pompeiopolis, an episcopal city of Cilicia. They were publicly examined and tortured at three principal cities -- Tarsus, Mopsuestia, and Anazarbus, where they were put to death and their relics carefully preserved. The Acts are often quoted by Le Blant (Les Actes des martyrs) to illustrate his argument. Thus, p.9, he notes the sale of copies of the Proconsular Acts by one of the officials for two hundred denarii. He also illustrates by them the judicial formularies, proconsular circuits, etc. (cf. pp.27-29, 32, 63, 68, 72, 74, etc.). They suffered under a president Numerianus Maximus (Ruinart, Acta Sinc.454-492).

[G.T.S.]

Tatianus
Tatianus (1) the "Apologist," "born in the land of Assyria" (Oratio, c. xlii.), i.e. E. of the Tigris, in a land incorporated, under Trajan, with Mesopotamia and Armenia into one Roman province of Syria (Zahn, Forsch. z. Gesch. d. N.T. lichen Kanons; I. Theil, "Tatian's Diatessaron," p.268). Of his parents, date of birth (c.110, Zahn; c.120, Funk), and early training, little or nothing is known. In Syria were Greek official representatives of Rome, merchants, and residents. Among such, stationed in the Assyrian district, may have been the parents of Tatian; persons perhaps of birth and wealth (cf. Oratio, c. xi.). The lad, Semitic as regards the land of his birth, but possibly Greek by parentage and name, was educated in the Greek teaching open to him (Oratio, c. xlii.). As he grew older his inquiring mind led him to a personal examination of the systems of his teachers (c. xxxv.). A peripatetic by disposition if not in philosophy, he "wandered over many lands, learning from no man," but with eyes open and ears unstopped, listening, observing, hearing, pondering, until he abandoned the learning that had made him a pessimist, and became a teacher of that "Word of God" which had taught him a holier faith and a happier life (cc. xxvi. xlii.). He notes that the simplicity of style of Holy Scripture first attracted and then converted him (c. xxix.). The "barbaric [i.e. Christian] writings," upon which he stumbled by chance, charmed him by their modest diction and easy naturalness. He soon discovered that these writings were older than the oldest remains of Greek literature, and in their prophecies and precepts diviner and truer than the oracles and practices of the most powerful gods or the purest philosophers.

Tatian's information about himself ceases with the
autobiographical allusions and statements in the Oratio. According to Irenaeus (adv. Haer. i. c.28; cf. Eus. H. E. iv.29) he was a hearer (akroates) of Justin Martyr; and the Oratio indicates that he and the "most admirable" Justin were at Rome together, and were both exposed to the hostility of the Cynic Crescens (cc. xviii. xix.).

Tatian's Christian life, like that of Tertullian, divides into pre-heretical and heretical periods. So long as Justin was alive, says Irenaeus, he brought out no "blasphemy"; after his death it was different.

The testimony of his pupil Rhodon (Eus. H. E. v.13) leaves the impression that Tatian for some time after Justin's death worked and taught at Rome, busying himself with his "book of questions" (problematon biblion), dealing with what was "hidden and obscure in the sacred writings" (i.e. of O.T.).

The chronology of his literary career is more or less connected with the martyrdom of Justin c.163-167. Many critics consider Justin's Apology and the Oratio to have been composed about the same time (cf. Zahn, p.279; Harnack, Texte u. Untersuch. z. Gesch. d. altchrist. Lit. i. p.196), i.e. a.d.150-153. Others place the Oratio after the death of Justin (Lightfoot in Contemp. Rev. May, 1877; Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, p.395; Funk, Zur Chronol. Tatian's in Tübingen Theol. Quartalschrift for 1833, p.219, etc.). The difference in opinion turns very much upon the estimate formed of a passage in Eusebius (H. E. iv.16). A similar want of unanimity prevails as to the place of composition of the Oratio. Harnack (pp.198-199) argues from its language that it was not written at Rome, where Zahn (p.280) places it.

A. The Oratio. -- The Oratio, by which he is best known, belongs to that part of Tatian's the most interesting and difficult of the Greek apologetic writings. The title, Tatianou pros Hellenas, terse and abrupt, is characteristic of life which is reckoned orthodox. It is one of the treatise. Tatian did not care for style. Christianity was not, in his opinion, dependent upon it. It was absent from the Scriptures which had fascinated him; it belonged to the Greek culture he had left behind. Yet he at times shews himself no novice in the art he condemned. C. xi. is a noble piece of declamation; c. xix. a scathing denunciation of the false, passing into a grave appeal in behalf of the true. He can draw word-pictures, e.g. those of the actor (c. xxii.), the wealthy patron of the arena (ib.), and the Cynic philosopher (c. xxv.), which are as clever and life-like as those of Tertullian. The Oratio has two principal divisions introduced by a preface (cc. i.-iv.). Div. i. states the Christian doctrines and their intrinsic excellence and superiority to heathen opinions (cc. v.-xxx.); div. ii. demonstrates their superior antiquity (cc. xxxi.-xli.); the whole closes with a few words autobiographical in character (c. xlii.).

Tatian opens (c. i.) by deprecating as unreasonable the contemptuous animosity of the Greeks towards "Barbarians," and points out that there was no practice or custom current among them which they did not owe to "Barbarians." Oneirology, astrology, auguries from birds or sacrifices had come to them from external sources. To Babylonia they owed astronomy, to Persia magic, to Egypt geometry, to Phoenicia instruction by letters. Orpheus had taught them poetry, song, and initiation into the mysteries, the Tuscans sculpture, the Egyptians history, rustic Phrygians the harmony of the shepherd's pipe, Tyrrhenians the trumpet, the Cyclopes the smith's art, and Atossa, queen of the Persians, the method of joining letter-tablets (see Otto's note). They should not boast of their excellent diction when they imported into it "barbaric" expression and maintained no uniformity of pronunciation. Of Doric, Attic, Aeolian, Ionian, which was the real Greek? Further, let them not boast while they used rhetoric to subserve injustice and sycophancy, poetry to depict battles, the amours of gods, and the corruption of the soul.

C. v., one of the most important (doctrinally) and difficult in the Oratio, opens thus:

"In the beginning was God. We have been taught that the beginning is the power of the Logos. For the Lord of all, being Himself the substance (hupostasis) of all, in so far that creation had not yet taken place, was alone; but in so far as He was Himself all power, and the substance of things visible and invisible, all things were with Him: (and thus) with Him by Logos-power (dia logiches dunameos), the very Logos Himself, Who was in Him, subsisted (hupestese). By the simple will of God the Logos springs forth, and not proceeding forth without cause (kata kenou), becomes the first-begotten work of the Father. Him we recognize as the beginning of the world. He was born by participation, not by scission (kata merismon ou kata apokopen); for He Who proceeds by scission is separated from the first, but He Who has proceeded by participation and has accepted a part in the administration of the world (to . . , oikonomias ten hairesin proslabon), hath not rendered Him defective from Whom He was taken. Just as many fires are lighted from one torch, but the light of the first torch is not lessened through the kindling of the many, so the Logos coming forth from the power of the Father hath not made Him Who begat Him without Logos (alogon)."

Tatian upholds the belief in the resurrection of the body at the end of all things. His argument is briefly: "There was a time when I did not exist: I was born and came into existence. There will be a time when (through death) I shall not exist; but again I shall exist, just as before I was not, but was afterwards born [cf. Tertull. Apol. xlviii.]. Let fire destroy my flesh, let me be drowned, or torn to pieces by wild beasts, I am laid up in the treasure-chambers of a wealthy Lord. God Who reigneth can, when He will, restore to its pristine state that which is visible to Him alone." In c. vii. Tatian returns to the Logos, that he may demonstrate His work as regards angels and men.

The thoughts of the better land and of God's revelation by the prophets lead Tatian to God's revelation of Himself in the Incarnation. That doctrine he treats in a manner likely to be admitted by a Greek, if very differently from the way (e.g.) Justin Martyr presented it to the Jews. We are not mad, he says (c. xxi.), nor do we utter idle tales when we say that God was made (gegonenai) in the form of man. The mythology of the Greeks was full of such appearances -- an Athene taking the form of a Deiphobus, a Phoebus that of a herdsman, etc., etc. Further, what did so frequent an expression as the origin of the gods imply but that they were mortal? The difficulty attendant upon the heathen belief was not removed by the tendency to resolve all myths and gods into allegory. Metrodorus of Lampsacus, in his treatise on Homer, invited men to believe that the Hera or Athene or Zeus, to whom they consecrated enclosures and groves, were simply natural beings or elemental arrangements. That, argues Tatian, was to surrender their divinity; a surrender he freely endorses, for he will not admit any comparison between the Christian God and deities who "wallow in matter and mud."

Tatian (c. xxii.) lashes with ridicule the teaching offered to and accepted by the Greeks, the teaching of the theatre and arena. It might be urged that such places were frequented and delighted in by the uncultured only. Tatian therefore places the philosophers also at the bar of judgment, and his contempt for their teaching is only equalled by his ridicule of their appearance (c. xxv.). He denounces them as tuft-hunters and gluttons, to whom philosophy was simply a means of getting money. No two of them agreed. One followed the teaching of Plato, a disciple of Epicurus opposed him. The scholar of Democritus reviled the pupil of Aristotle. Why, protests Tatian, do you who are so inharmonious fight us Christians who are at least harmonious? "Your philosophers maintain that God has a body: I maintain that He is without a body; that the world shall be often consumed by fire, I once for all; that Minos and Rhadamanthus will be the judges of mankind, I God Himself (cf. c. vi.); that the soul alone is immortal, I the body together with the soul." We, he continues, do but follow the Logos of God, why do you hate us? We are not eaters of human flesh; the charge is false. It is among you that Pelops the beloved of Poseidon is made a banquet for the gods, that Saturn devours his own children, and Zeus swallows Metis.

After all, the philosophers do but make a boast of language taken from others (c. xxvi.), like the jackdaw strutting about in borrowed plumes. The reading of their books is like struggling through a labyrinth, the readers must be like the pierced cask of the Danaids. Why should they affirm that wisdom was with them only? The grammarians were at the bottom of all this folly; and philosophers who parcelled out wisdom to this and that system-maker knew not God and did but destroy each other. "Therefore," Tatian concludes scornfully, "you are all nothing -- blind men talking with deaf; handling builder's tools but not knowing how to build; preaching but not practising; swaggering about in public but hiding your teaching in corners. We have left you because this is your character. We can have nothing more to do with your instructions. We follow the word of God."

Tatian then explains (c. xxix.) how he became a Christian. It was not through want of knowledge of what he was leaving. He had been initiated into the (Eleusinian) mysteries, and had made trial of every kind of religious worship. The result had sickened him. Among the Romans he had found the Latiarian Jupiter delighting in human gore, Diana Aricina similarly worshipped, and this or that demon systematically urging on to what was evil. He withdrew to seek by some means to discover the truth. "As," he says, "I was earnestly considering this I came across certain barbarian writings, older in point of antiquity than the doctrines of the Greeks, and far too divine to be marked by their errors. What persuaded me in these books was the simplicity of the language, the inartificial style of the writers, the noble explanation of creation, the predictions of the future, the excellence of the precepts, and the assertion of the government of all by One Being. My soul being thus taught of God I understand how the writings of the Gentiles lead to condemnation, but the sacred Scriptures to freedom from this world's slavery, liberating us from thousands of tyrants, and giving us, not indeed what we had not received, but what we had once received but had lost through error."

Tatian, with all the energy of a convert, loudly proclaimed the truth which satisfied him. He goes on to shew (cc. xxxi.-xli.) that the Christian religion was a "philosophy" far more ancient than that of the Greeks. He compares Homer and Moses, "the one the oldest of poets and historians, the other the founder of our barbarian wisdom." The comparison proves the Christian tenets older than those of the Greeks, and even than the invention of letters. After enumerating numerous variant opinions as to the date, parentage, and poetry of Homer, he remarks upon such discordant testimony as proving the history untrue; so different from the unanimity common among Christians. "We reject everything," he says, "which rests upon human opinion; we obey the commandments of God and follow the law of the Father of immortality. The rich among us follow philosophy, and our poor are taught gratuitously. We receive all who wish to be taught, aged women and striplings: every age is respected by us. . . . We do not test them by their looks, nor judge them by their outward appearance. In body they may be weak, but in mind they are strong. . . . What we do keep at a distance is
licentiousness and falsehood." His mention of the women who received Christian instruction leads him to a digression in defence of them. The Gentiles scoffed, he says, at them, and alleged that the Christians talked nonsense among them. Tatian retorts (cc. xxxiii. xxxiv.) by pointing to the disgrace the Greeks cast upon themselves, not only by their unbecoming conduct to women generally, but by the statues they erected to courtesans and wanton poetesses. "All our women," bursts forth Tatian, "are chaste; and our maidens at their distaffs sing nobler songs about God than a Sappho." The Greeks should repudiate the lesson of immorality which their statues had immortalized and the foul practices inculcated by indecent writers, and turn to Christianity which enjoined truth and purity of thought and life. "I do not," says Tatian (c. xxxv.), "speak of these things as having merely heard about them. I have travelled much; I have studied your philosophy (al. rhetoric, cf. Eus. H. E. iv.16, and Otto's note here), and your arts and inventions. At Rome I saw the multitude of statues you have collected there. And, as the result, I have turned from Roman boastfulness, Athenian exaggeration, ill-connected doctrines, to the barbaric Christian philosophy."

He now returns to the subject started in c. xxxi., after one word in deprecation of the sneer at himself: "Tatian, the man so superior to the Greeks, so superior to the numberless teachers of philosophy, has opened up a new vein of learning -- the doctrines of the barbarians!" Whether Homer was contemporary with the Trojan war, or a soldier under Agamemnon, or even lived before the invention of letters, Moses yet lived long before either the building or taking of Troy. In proof of this, Tatian appeals to the Chaldeans, Phoenicians, and Egyptians. E.g. Berosus, the Babylonian historian, "a most competent authority," spoke of the wars of Nebuchadnezzar against the Phoenicians and Jews which happened 70 years before the Persian rule, and long after the age of Moses. Phoenician historians, such as Theodotus, Hypsicrates, and Mochus had referred to events connected with Hiram of Tyre, whose date was somewhere about the Trojan war. Both Solomon and Hiram lived long after Moses. The Egyptians were noted for the accuracy of their chronicles, and Ptolemy, the priest of Mendes, spoke of the departure of the Jews from Egypt as having taken place under the leadership of Moses under king Amosis. This king, according to him, lived in the time of the Argive king, Inachus, after whose reign, dating 20 generations, the taking of Troy was reached. Therefore, if Moses was a contemporary of Inachus, he lived some 400 years before the Trojan war. It was not till after the time of Inachus that the most illustrious deeds of gods and men in Greece were committed to writing and became known. Such records, therefore, were far less ancient than the time of Moses. Tatian sums up (c. xl.) by affirming it self-evident that Moses was of far greater antiquity than the ancient heroes, wars, or gods (demons). Men ought, therefore, to believe the more ancient authority in preference to the Greeks, who had borrowed from Moses, as from a spring, without acknowledgment (al. unconsciously); and in many cases had perverted what they took. Moses was, moreover, older than all the writers before Homer, e.g. than Linus, the teacher of Hercules, who lived in the generation before the Trojan war, than Orpheus, who was a contemporary with Hercules, and than the wisest of the wise men of Greece, e.g. Minos -- so famous for his wisdom, shrewdness, and legislative powers -- who lived in the 11th generation after Inachus; Lycurgus, the Lacedemonian lawgiver, who was born long after the taking of Troy; Draco, Solon, Pythagoras, and those seven wise men, the oldest of whom lived about the 50th of those Olympiads which began about 400 years after the taking of Troy.

The treatise is a defence of Christianity rather than of Christians, and not so much a defence of doctrines as an answer or oration to those who sneered at them. He depicts Christianity as contrasting by its goodness, wisdom, and truth with the heathenism which revelled in vice, foolishness, and error. Unlike other apologists, there is little care to discuss Thyestean banquets (cf. c. xxv.), or refute want of patriotism (c. iv.) His weapons are weapons of offence rather than of defence. In Tatian "barbaric (i.e. Christian) philosophy" dares to carry the war into the enemy's camp, and scorn is turned upon the scorners. It is a typical specimen of the class to which the lrrisio Gentilium Philosophorum of [553]HERMIAS also belongs.

The Opinions of Tatian. -- (a) God (see c. iv.). -- With Tatian, as with Justin, God, not contemplated as He is in His nature but as revealed in His works, is the starting-point of all Christian philosophy. Tatian's doctrine about the creation is in c. v. In the creation itself he recognizes two stages (c. ii.): (a) matter, shapeless and unformed, is put forth (probeblemene) by God; and (b) the world, separated from this matter, is fashioned into what is full of beauty and order, though eventually to be dissolved by fire (c. xxv.).

(b) The Logos (see c. v.). -- The relation between God (ho despotes) and the Logos Who subsists in Him, the Hypostasis, is conceived from a different point of view, and set forth in different terms from those of Justin. With Tatian the Logos springs forth (propeda) by the Will of God. The process of begetting, the relationships of Father and Son, and the worship due to the Son, are not brought forward. The inward communion between them which carries with it these truths is indeed expressed by the deep phrase sun auto dia logikes dunameos autos kai ho logos; but the outward exhibition of this communion -- the "springing forth" -- is suggestive of emanation rather than of begetting. The distinction between the logos endiathetos and the logos prophorikos, so strongly expressed by the apologist Theophilus (ii.10), is more than visible. Tatian, in fact, presents the Logos as the personification of an abstraction.

(c) The Holy Spirit is evidently with Tatian a distinct personal Being. He does not, as Justin (Apol. i.60), speak directly of His share in the creation; he rather leads up to His work and office as "the Minister of the suffering God" (c. xiii.), when he would present its bearing upon the nature of man. Starting from the initial positions, "God is Spirit," and the Logos "a Spirit born of the Father," Tatian recognizes two varieties of Spirit: (a) "the spirit which pervades matter, inferior to (b) the more Divine Spirit" (c. iv.). To the Spirit is attributed prophetic powers. Abiding with the just and locked in the embrace of the soul (sumblekomenon te psuche), He proclaims to other souls by means of prophecies that which is concealed. He uses the Prophets as His organ (cf. c. xx.). This action Tatian has also attributed to "the Power of the Logos" (c. vii.). Perhaps, as with Justin, this title of the Logos, he dunamis, defines for Tatian the meaning of the pneuma (cf. II. Cor. iii.17). The Spirit is the Divine Power of the Logos.

(d) Angelology and Demonology. -- Of good angels Tatian says nothing; but he speaks as strongly as Justin of evil angels, though he presents their work and ways in different language and (in some respects) from a different point of view. When expelled from heaven the fallen angels or demons lived with animals. Some of these they placed -- the dog, the bear, the scorpion, etc. -- in the heavens as objects of worship. Of demons, Tatian recognizes two classes. Receiving alike their constitution from matter, and possessing the spirit which comes from it, few only turned to what was purer, the many chose what was licentious and gluttonous (c. xii.); they became the very "effulgences of matter and wickedness" (c. xv.). Though material, none of the demons possess flesh; their structure is spiritual like that of fire or air (ib.).

(e) Man. -- Tatian recognizes the three parts of body, soul, and spirit. At the fall man lost the spirit or highest nature, which had in it immortality (c. vii.). As the angels were cast down from heaven, so man was driven forth from earth, "yet not out of this earth, but from a more excellent order of things than exists here now." Tatian would seem to place Paradise above our earth; he describes it (c. xx.) as one of the better aeons unaffected by that change of seasons which is productive of various diseases, as partaking of a perfect temperature, as possessing endless day and light, and as unapproachable by mortals such as we are. Man, though deprived of the spirit, must aim at recovering his former state. Body and soul are left him. The soul is composite: it is the bond of the flesh; yet also that which encloses the soul is the flesh. The soul cannot appear without a body, nor can the flesh rise again without the soul.

Faith is a necessity for knowledge of divine things; ho pisteuon epignosetai (c. xix.); faith and knowledge together help towards the victory over sin and death. Men, after the throwing away (apobolen) of immortality; have conquered death by the death which is through faith (cf. c. xi.: "Die to the world! Live to God!"); and through repentance a call has been granted to those who (according to God's word) are but a little lower than the angels (c. xv.). Through faith, and as the object of faith, Tatian proclaims that "God was born in the form of a man" (c. xxi.), and speaks of the Holy Spirit as the minister of the God Who hath suffered (ton diakonon tou peponthotos theou, c. xiii.). If he never mentions the names Jesus or Christ, it is because the facts of the Incarnation and Passion would commend themselves independently of names to Gentiles, to whom such facts were illustrated by their mythology (cf. Justin, Apol. i.21). Faith animates the famous passage on the soul (c. xiii.), and especially in connexion with the resurrection. "We have faith in this doctrine," he exclaims (c. v.); but he does not rest his reasons on the resurrection of Christ (as St. Paul), but on an argument which may have suggested the more elaborate reasoning of Tertullian (Apol. c. xlviii.): There was a time when as man he was not; after a former state of nothingness he was born. Again, there would be a time when he would die; and again there would be a time when he should exist again. There was nothing of metempsychosis or transmigration of souls in his conception. Though the flesh were destroyed by fire or wild beasts, or dispersed through rivers or seas, "I," says Tatian, "am laid up in the storehouses of a wealthy Lord. God the King will, when He pleases, restore to its former state my substance which is visible to Himself alone" (c. vi.).

As regards free will, Tatian uses even more emphatic language than Justin (e.g. Apol. i.43). He opposes the Scriptural (and Platonic) belief in free will to the fatalism of philosophers (cc. viii.-x.), and while he pours scorn upon their views, pens a touching appeal to them as men "not created to die" (see c. xl. end).

Christian Practice. -- Though Tatian does not speak of his co-religionists as Christians, but accepts willingly the contemptuous expression "barbarians," it is the doctrines of Christ which alone have, in his opinion, raised them above a world deluded by the trickeries of frenzied demons (c. xii.), and wallowing in matter and mud (c. xxi.). Where the old nature has been laid aside, men have not only apprehended God (c. xi.), but through a knowledge of the True One have remodelled (metarrhuthmizein) their lives (c. v.). Holy baptism and membership in the church did not enter into his argument. A passing allusion to the Holy Eucharist perhaps underlies his indignant protest against the frequent defamation that Christians indulged in Thyestean banquets (c. xxv.). He seems to prefer advancing the great help which the Scriptures had been to himself, and might be to his philosophical opponents. "Barbaric" though these Scriptures were, they were in the O.T. portion both older and more divine, more full of humility and of deep knowledge, more marked by excellence and unity than any writings claimed by the Greeks (c. xxix.). These "divine writings" made men "lovers of God" (c. xii.); and men thus God-taught were helped by them to break down the slavery in the world, and gain back what they had once received, but had lost through the deceit of their spiritual foes (c. xxix.).

The O.T. seems to have greatly attracted Tatian. It probably formed the basis of the lost work problematon biblion mentioned by Rhodon; and in his attempt to collect and solve O.T. difficulties, Tatian was among the first, if not the first, of Christian commentators. The Oratio shews that he knew well the Gospels, Acts, and Pauline Epistles. If reference to O. and N. T. is more marked by allusion than by direct quotation, the cause is the well-known practice of the apologists, who usually abstain from such quotations when writing to Gentiles who would have allowed little authority to them. Tatian's references to St. John's Gospel are, however, both exceptional and indisputable, and testify to a widespread knowledge of that Gospel at the period in question. Independently of coincidences of exposition, three passages may be specified:

TATIAN. ST. JOHN.
Ch. iv. pneuma ho Theos Ch. iv.24. pneuma ho Theos. Ch. xiii. he skotia to phos ou katalambanei. Ch. i.5. to phos en te skotia phainei, kai he skotia auto ou katelaben.
Ch. xix. panta hup' autou kai choris autou gegonen oude hen. Ch. i.3. panta di' a autou egeneto, kai choris autou egeneto oude hen. (Westcott & Hort.)

Of these the second is prefaced by to eiremenon, the expression which in N.T. introduces the Scriptures (cf. Luke ii.24; Acts ii.16, xiii.40; Rom. iv.18). The third passage is punctuated by Tatian in the manner invariably followed by the early Christian writers (contrast the textus receptus, oude hen ho gegonen). The coincidence is, as noted by Bp. Lightfoot, remarkable, for the words are extremely simple in themselves. Their order and adaptation give uniqueness to the expression.

B. The Diatessaron. -- (1) History. -- The history of the recovery of this work is sufficiently romantic. In the literature of the Western church there is no serviceable testimony to it till the middle of 6th cent.; in the Eastern church Eusebius ( 339-340) is the only Greek writer of the first four cents. who gives any information about it. It was apparently (see Codex Fuldensis, ed. Ranke, 1868, ix.1) mere chance which put into the hands of bp. Victor of Capua ( 554) a Latin book of the Gospels without title or author's name, but evidently compiled from the four canonical books. This unknown work excited his interest; and searching in vain the Latin Christian literature of the past, he turned to the Greek, and found in Eusebius two notices of Harmonies. (a) In the letter to Carpianus the harmony of Ammonius of Alexandria (3rd cent.) was described. Its principle was that of comparison. The Gospel of St. Matthew was followed continuously, and the passages -- and only those -- from the other Gospels which tallied with the text of St. Matthew were referred to or inserted in the margin or in parallel columns. This excluded the greater part of St. John's Gospel and much of St. Luke's. The Harmony was for private use, not for the public service of the church. Whether or not the descriptive title given to it in Eusebius -- to dia tessaron euangelion -- was that of the church historian or of Ammonius remains undetermined. (b) In his Church History (iv.29, 6), Eusebius refers to Tatian as having composed a "sort of connexion or compilation, I know not how, of the Gospels, and called it the Diatessaron" (sunapheian tina kai sunagogen ouk oid' hopos ton euangelion suntheis.) Cf. Bp. Lightfoot in Contemp Rev. May 1877; Zahn, i. pp.14, 15); and he adds that this work was current in his day. Its principle was amalgamation, not comparison. Victor came to the conclusion that his unknown work was substantially the Diatessaron of Tatian. This acute verdict -- purged of some unimportant errors (see Lightfoot, l.c.; Zahn, i. pp.2, 3) -- has survived the difficulties which a comparison of the Codex Fuldensis with the Diatessaron at first presented.

A notice in the treatise on Heresies, written in 453 by Theodoret ( 457-458), bp. of Cyrrhus on the Euphrates, is the first definite evidence to the Diatessaron after the time of Eusebius. The identification of it by Epiphanius (Haer. xlvi.1) with the Gospel according to the Hebrews is an earlier testimony in point of date (Epiphanius 403), but is connected with a blunder which, though capable of explanation, somewhat disqualifies the evidence. Testimony to the Diatessaron comes rather from the Syriac-speaking church of the East than from the Greek. Theodoret says of Tatian: "He composed the Gospel which is called Diatessaron, cutting out the genealogies and such other passages as shew the Lord to have been born of the seed of David after the flesh. This work was in use not only among persons belonging to his sect, but also among those who follow the apostolic doctrine, as they did not perceive the mischief of the composition, but used the book in all simplicity on account of its brevity. And I myself found more than 200 such copies held in respect in the churches in our parts. All these I collected and put away, and I replaced them by the Gospels of the four Evangelists" (i.20. Cf. Lightfoot, l.c.; Zahn, i. p.35). This passage indicates a considerable circulation of the Diatessaron in the bishop's diocese and neighbourhood. The language of that district was Syriac (Zahn, i. pp.39-44); therefore the book to which Theodoret refers was in Syriac and not Greek. This simple fact helps to explain the language of Eusebius and the blunder of Epiphanius; and is itself illustrated by the fact that the commentary on the Diatessaron was composed not by a Greek writer, but by Ephrem the Syrian. Epiphanius's statement that Tatian on leaving Rome went into Mesopotamia, points to a visit to Edessa, the only place in the district where Christianity had secure footing (see Zahn, i. p.282 and Excursus ii.) and a city famous for its schools. To the same Tatian rumour assigned the Diatessaron which some called "the Gospel according to the Hebrews." How did Epiphanius confound two works so essentially different? Zahn's explanation seems perfectly satisfactory. The report was current that there was a Syriac book of the Gospels, called a Diatessaron, used in the Syrian churches, e.g. those of the diocese of Cyrrhus. Further, it was reported that there was another book of the Gospels, written in a kindred dialect and used e.g. at Beroea, i.e. in the neighbourhood of Cyrrhus, by the half-heretical Nazareans. An outsider like Epiphanius might very easily confound them and even identify them (i. p.25. See Wace, Expositor for 1882, p.165). Eusebius had not actually seen Tatian's Diatessaron. His statement, "I know not how" Tatian composed it, shews that he had not personally examined it, doubtless because of non-acquaintance or non-familiarity with Syriac.

Theodoret's language implies, moreover, that the Diatessaron had been current in his diocese for a very long period; and this is confirmed by an examination of the commentary of Ephrem Syrus ( 378). Dionysius bar Salibi, bp. of Amida in Armenia Major ( 1171 Mösinger and Bickell, or 1207 Assemani and Lightfoot, see Zahn, i. p.98, n.4), states in the preface to his own commentary on St. Mark (quoted in Assemani, Bibl. Or. i.57, ii.159; see Mösinger, p. iii.; Zahn, i. pp.44, 99) that Tatian, the pupil of Justin, made a selection from the four Gospels (al. Evangelists), which he wove together into one Gospel, and called a Diatessaron, i.e. Miscellanies. This writing St. Ephrem interpreted. Its opening words were, "In the beginning was the Word." An Armenian version (5th cent.) of Ephrem's Commentary was printed at Venice in 1836, but remained unserviceable until a MS. Latin and literal translation of the Armenian made by J. B. Aucher, one of the Mechitarist monks of that city, together with one of the Armenian codices, was placed in the hands of a Salzburg professor, Dr. G. Mösinger, who revised, corrected, and published the Latin text at Venice in 1876. Internal and external evidence (see Mösinger, pp. vi-x) combine in justifying the conclusion that in this Latin translation of the Commentary of Ephrem is contained substantially Tatian's Diatessaron, and that from it Tatian's text may be in a great measure recovered.

The bearing of Mösinger's translation upon the corresponding portion of the Codex Fuldensis may be briefly summarized. Dr. Wace (Expositor for 1881, pp.128 seq.) may be said to have proved that Victor of Capua's Harmony preserved in that Codex is not only very closely allied with Tatian's Diatessaron, but exhibits substantially the document on which Ephrem commented with some occasional alterations of order and few additions; the difference being remembered that in Victor's Evangelium Tatian has been transferred into the Latin text of St. Jerome, whereas Ephrem commented upon him in a Syriac translation. The Mösinger text and the Codex proceed pari passu, and agree in order where that order is certainly remarkable. The very interesting fact is thus established, that Tatian's Diatessaron found acceptance in the West as well as the East, and was transferred rather than translated into a Western version. This is not surprising. Theodoret's statement as to its popularity in his diocese may well account for its existence in a Latin form a century later.

It remains to indicate the manner in which the Syriac Diatessaron passed into Latin form, such as is preserved in the Codex Fuldensis (Zahn, i. pp.298-328) The interesting fact comes out that this took place without the use of any intermediary Greek Diatessaron. In language and form the Latin Harmony is based upon St. Jerome's version; and the differences between the Codex and Tatian -- such as alterations in chronological order, expansions and abbreviations, coincidences and deviations -- indicative as they are of dependence of the Codex upon Tatian, do not require the explanation which an intermediate Greek text would easily supply. The Codex Fuldensis must be dated between 383 (when Jerome put forward his revision of the translation of the Gospels) and 546 (when Victor of Capua wrote down the Latin Harmony preserved in the Codex); or, more approximately, c.500 (Zahn, i. p.310). Translations from Syriac into Greek existed in 4th cent. (Eus. H. E. i.13, iv.30), and the fact -- with its consequence, a further translation from Greek into Latin -- might be quoted in proof of a more early date than a.d.500 for the Codex Fuldensis; but, independently of other reasons, the age of Victor of Capua has yielded proofs of direct translations from Syriac into Latin, which render appeals to a Greek Diatessaron unnecessary. Kihn (Theodor von Mopsuestia und Junilius Africanus; see Zahn, i. p.311) has shewn that in the days of Victor of Capua, [554]JUNILIUS, Quaestor sacri palatii at Constantinople (c.545-552) sent to Primasius, bp. of Adrumetum, a Latin introduction to the Scriptures (Instituta regularia divinae legis) which was a free rendering of a work written (c.533-544) by the Syrian Nestorian Paul, a pupil and teacher of the school of Nisibis.

(2) Recovery of the Diatessaron. -- This is due to the energetic scholarship of Zahn. By the use principally of Ephrem's commentary (ed. Mösinger) and of the quotations in the Homilies of Aphraates he has printed the text (i. pp.113-219) in detail; comparing it throughout with the Syriac of Cureton (Sc.), the Peshito (P.), and frequently the Philoxenian text revised by Thomas of Harkel (Hl.), with the Greek MSS. ' , B, and D, and with Sabatier and Bianchini's editions of the MSS. of the Itala. Verse by verse the text is reconstructed and tabulated in sections. Each section is accompanied by an exhaustive critical and expository comment, and an index to all the passages incorporated in the Harmony enables the student to examine the evidence respecting any individual verse. These sections indicate the character of the Harmony and may be seen as given by Zahn, with the refs. to Ephrem omitted in favour of Eng. headings in Fuller's Harmony of the Gospels (S.P.C.K.). Zahn has pursued the subject further in his Forschungen zur Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, ii.286-299, and his Geschichte des N.T. Kanons, (1888) i.1, 369-429; (1892), ii.2, 530-556.

(3) The Theological Opinions of Tatian. -- Until the death of Justin Martyr he was considered orthodox; after that heterodox. The change can only be roughly sketched. In the Oratio are found traces of the three heretical views which Irenaeus attributed to him. (i) The allusion to Aeons above the heavens (c. xx.) may very well have led on to theories akin to those of Valentinus (Iren. adv. Haer. i.28). (ii) The doctrine that the protoplast lost the image and likeness of God (cc. viii. xii. xv.) might lead to the denial of the salvation of Adam (ib. iii.23, § 8). (iii) His allusion (c. xv.) to man as distinguished from the brute -- implying by contrast points of resemblance between them -- makes possible a transition to the severer views of denouncing marriage as defilement and fornication as did Marcion and Saturninus (Iren. c. xv.; Hieron. Comm. l.c. in Ep. ad Gal. vi.), and also the use of meats (Hieron. adv. Jovin. i.3). Were the heretical writings in existence which Irenaeus affirmed that Tatian had written and he himself had read (Zahn, i. p.281), we might be able to judge how far they justified Irenaeus in describing him as "elated, puffed up as if superior to other teachers, and forming his own type of doctrine," and to trace something of his erroneousness in the Problems, and other lost works, e.g. Concerning Perfection according to the Saviour; and in the criticisms, paraphrases, or translations of some of St Paul's Epistles, which Eusebius (H. E. iv.29) had heard of, and which Jerome described as repudiations of those apostolic writings (Praef. in Comm. to Titus, see Zahn, i. p.6, n.4). A few hints only are forthcoming on these points, and these filtered through unfriendly channels. But the general impression cannot be resisted. Tatian became first suspected and then denounced. He left Rome, possibly pausing at Alexandria to teach, among his pupils being Clement of Alexandria (cf. Lightfoot, p.1133; Zahn, i. p.12), and then proceeding to the East, to Mesopotamia (Epiphan. Haer. xlvi. i. Correct his error in chronology by Lightfoot and Zahn, i. p.282), there to live until his death. It is more than probable that on leaving Rome he carried the Diatessaron with him, unpublished. In the West he had become unacceptable. The language of Irenaeus c.185 -- i.e. probably after Tatian's death -- leaves no doubt upon this point. Men honoured and valued the Oratio (cf. int. al. Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, pp.386, 387); but say nothing of the Diatessaron. In the Greek-speaking churches of the East the writer of the Oratio was not less valued (cf. Eus. H. E. iv.29, v.28), and they speak of the Diatessaron; but it is by report or at second-hand only. Ugly rumours circulated. Tatian, described broadly as "connexio omnium haereticorum" (Iren. adv. Haer. iii.23), had become, in defiance of historical probability (Zahn, i. p.288), an [555]ENCRATITE, one whose tenets had spread into Asia Minor from Antioch, and who blossomed out at last into "Encratitarum acerrimus
haeresiarches" (Hieron.). Had Irenaeus, Eusebius, or Jerome known the Diatessaron, would they not have examined it as they had examined Tatian's Oratio and other works? Would not the very compilation of a Diatessaron have been obnoxious to one who, like Irenaeus, counted the fourfold Gospels (neither more, nor less) an absolute necessity? But in the Syriac-speaking East he was unknown, or not followed by troublesome reflections upon his orthodoxy, and there the teacher who was eclectic rather than heterodox could produce and circulate that work, which commended itself to the "simplicity" of the churches around Edessa "on account of its brevity," till Theodoret enlightened them.

The date of his death is unknown, but if he left Rome c.172 or 173 he would have been about 62 years of age, and, humanly speaking, with time before him to circulate the Diatessaron before he died.

Literature. -- In the prolegomena (pp xiii-xxix) to Otto's ed. of the Oratio will be found a description of the MSS., edd., etc., in existence (cf. also Harnack, op. cit. pp.1-97; Donaldson, History of Christian Literature and Doctrine, iii. pp.60-62). For other works besides those freely used and specified in this art. see Preuschen's art. s.n. in Herzog's R. E.³ The text of the Diatessaron ed. by J. White is pub. by Oxf. Univ. Press, and a trans. in Ante-Nicene Lib.

[J.M.F.]

Teaching of the Twelve Apostles
"Teaching of the Twelve Apostles." Bryennius discovered at Constantinople a MS. thus entitled in a vol. containing an unmutilated MS. text of the two Epp. ascribed to Clement, and pub. it at the close of 1883, no other copy being known to exist in MS. or print.

The MS. bears the heading "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles," followed by the fuller title "Teaching of the Lord by the Twelve Apostles to the Gentiles." That both titles belong to the original form appears probable from the phrase "the Twelve Apostles." The phrase didache ton apostolon occurs in Acts ii.42; and the earliest writers who have been supposed to speak of the work (Eusebius and Athanasius) do so merely under the name "Teaching of the Apostles"; the addition of "Twelve" being superfluous when the word "Apostle" had become limited to the Twelve. In the work itself "Apostle" is used in a very wide sense; so that if this really represents church usage when it was written, the title "Teaching of the Apostles" would be quite vague without the addition "Twelve" (cf. Luke vi.13; Rev. xxi.14).

The title was only intended to describe the substance of the work, not to assert anything as to its direct authorship. Though called "Teaching (Didaché) of the Lord," our Lord is certainly not represented as the speaker; see such expressions as "concerning these things spake the Lord," "as the Lord ordered in His Gospel," "as ye have in the Gospel of our Lord." Neither is it written in the name of the twelve apostles; for the author uses the singular, addressing his disciple as "my child." Nor does the treatise contain any indication that the author of the whole claimed to be one of the apostles, or that the work is to be broken up into sections supposed to be spoken by successive apostles. In this respect it is favourably distinguished from a number of spurious works which claimed apostolic authorship in early times. But, as in the case of the Apostles' Creed, a title apparently originally only intended to assert conformity with apostolic teaching, came to be understood as an assertion of authorship, and later authorities undertook to specify the portions contributed by each apostle; and later works founded on the Didaché are divided into sections supposed to be contributed by individual apostles.

The work divides into two parts: the first, which we shall refer to as the " Two Ways," forming the first 6 chapters of Bryennius's ed., contains moral instruction; the second (cc.7-15 Bryennius) deals with church ritual and discipline, a chapter (16) being added on our Lord's Second Coming. Several very early writers exhibit coincidences with pt. i., such as to prove that they borrowed from the Didaché, or the Didaché from them, or that both had a common source. With pt. ii. similar coincidences are much later and much more scanty. Part i. was intended for catechumens, or at least for use in their instruction, for part ii., which begins by treating of baptism, directs that candidates shall first have received the preceding teaching.

Contents. -- The work begins by declaring that there are two ways: one of Life, the other of Death; phrases borrowed from Jer. xxi.8, a passage itself derived from Deut. xxx.19. It then describes first the Way of Life, which is summed up in two precepts: love God Who made thee; and love thy neighbour as thyself and do not to another what thou wouldest not have done to thyself. [112] Then follow several precepts from the Sermon on the Mount.

As c. i. is based on the Sermon on the Mount, so is c. ii. on the second table of the Decalogue. C. iii. instructs the disciple to flee not only from every evil, but from everything like it. C. iv. contains miscellaneous precepts. C. v. gives an enumeration of the sins which constitute the way of death. C. vi. is a short exhortation to abide in the foregoing teaching; but giving permission if the disciple cannot bear the whole yoke, especially as regards food, to be content with bearing as much as he can; provided always he abstains from things offered to idols. Here terminates the section addressed to the catechumen. Then follow (c. vii.) directions for the baptism of candidates who have received the preceding instruction. It is to be in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in running water if it can be had; if not, in any water, even warm water. If sufficient water for immersion is not at hand, it will suffice to pour water three times on the head. Baptizer and baptized must fast beforehand; the baptized for a day or two: others, if possible, to join in the fast. This rule of fasting may be illustrated by the account given in the Clementines (Hom. iii.11; Recog. vii.36) of the baptism of Clement's mother. Peter directs that she shall fast one day previous to baptism.

C. viii. relates to fasting and prayer. The disciples must not fast "as the hypocrites," on the 2nd and 5th days of the week; but on the 4th and on the preparation day. Neither must they pray as the hypocrites, but as the Lord ordered in His Gospel. The Lord's Prayer is given in conformity with St. Matthew's text with but trifling variations, but adding the doxology "Thine is the power and the glory for ever." This prayer is to be used thrice daily. Chaps. ix. x. contain Eucharistic formulae. In the opening words "Concerning the thanksgiving, give thanks in this manner," we can scarcely avoid giving to the word eucharistia the technical meaning it had as early as Ignatius (Philad.4; Smyrn.6, 8; Eph.13; cf. Justin, Apol.66). This interpretation is confirmed by a direction that of this "Eucharist" none but baptized persons should partake, since the Lord has said "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs." But the forms themselves are more like what we should expect in prayers before and after an ordinary meal than the Eucharist proper. There is no recital of the words of institution; no mention of the Body and Blood of our Lord, though both Ignatius and Justin Martyr so describe the consecrated food. The supposition that we have here private prayers to be said before and after reception is excluded by the direction that "prophets" should be permitted to offer thanks as they pleased, where it is plain that public thanksgiving is intended. The explanation seems to be that the celebration of the Eucharist still accompanied the Agape or Love Feast, and that we have here the thanksgivings before and after that meal. In the Clementines, which in several points manifest affinity with the Didaché, it is not merely the Eucharist from which the unbaptized are excluded. They can take no food of any kind at the same table with the initiated. An unbaptized person is the home of the demon, and until this demon has been driven out by baptism, no Christian can safely admit him to a common table (Recog. ii.71; see also i.19, vii.36); and all through the Clementines the language in which the benediction of every meal is described is such as to make it uncertain whether a celebration of the Eucharist is meant. In the form in the Didaché we notice that: (1) the benediction of the cup precedes that of the bread (see Luke xxii.17-19). (2) The broken bread has the technical name to klasma. (3) The thanksgiving for the cup runs: "We give thanks to Thee our Father, for the holy vine of Thy servant David which Thou hast made known to us through Thy servant Jesus." This expression the "vine of David" was known to Clement of Alexandria, who says of Christ (Quis Dives Salv.29), "Who poured forth the wine, the blood of the vine of David, for our wounded souls." Elsewhere (Paed. i.5), treating of Gen. xlix. "binding the colt to the vine," he interprets "the vine" of the Logos Who gives His blood, as the vine yields wine. (4) The benedictory prayer contains a petition that as the broken bread had been scattered on the mountains and had been brought together and made one, so might the church be collected together from the ends of the earth. (5) The thanksgiving prayer after reception is directed to be said "after being filled" (meta to emplesthenai), words answering better to the conclusion of an Agape than of a Eucharistic celebration (cf. Recog. i.19).

Chaps. xi. xii. xiii. treat of the honour to be paid to Christian teachers, who are described as "apostles and prophets." This combination of terms reflects N.T. usage (I. Cor. xii.28, 29; Eph. ii.20, iii.8, iv.11). The word "apostle" in our document is not limited to the Twelve, but is used as our word "missionary." Every true apostle was a prophet, but only those prophets received the name apostle who were not fixed in one place, but accredited by churches on a mission to distant localities. This terminology is a proof of the antiquity of our document (see Lightfoot on the word Apostle, Gal. p.92). The word was used by Jews to denote an envoy sent by the authorities at Jerusalem to Jews in foreign places, especially the envoy charged with the collection of the Temple tribute. Our document is solicitous to provide for the due entertainment of Christian missionaries, and yet to guard against the church's hospitality being traded on by impostors or lazy persons. Every apostle was to be received as the Lord; but if he wanted to prolong his stay beyond two days at most, he betrayed himself as a false prophet. Clearly the apostle is an envoy on his way to another place; for it could never have been intended to forbid a missionary to settle down in one spot for a longer period of preaching. The false apostle is said to betray himself if he asks for money or for a larger supply of travelling provisions than will provide for his next stage. There are commands in a similar spirit for the hospitable treatment of ordinary Christian strangers. If such a one wishes to settle among them, he must work at a handicraft or employ himself in some other way; but if he wants to eat the bread of idleness, he is one who makes merchandise of Christ (christemporos estin). The use of this word by Pseudo-Ignatius (ad Trall.6, ad Magn.9) agrees with the conclusion, drawn from other considerations, that the interpolator was acquainted with the Didaché.

There is a command in which commentators have found a difficulty, that a prophet speaking in the spirit must not be proved nor tested. "Every sin shall be forgiven, but not that." Yet there follow marks for discerning the false prophet from the true. The subsequent history of Montanism casts a clear light on the subject. The bishops attempted to test the Montanist prophetesses by applying to them the formulae of exorcism, to find whether it were possible to cast out an evil spirit who possessed them. This the Montanists naturally resisted as a frightful indignity. Such testing by exorcism is here manifestly forbidden, as involving, if applied to one really inspired by the Spirit of God, the risk of incurring the penalties denounced by our Lord, in words plainly here referred to, upon blasphemy against the Holy Ghost. That this precept of the Didaché was apparently not quoted in the Montanist disputes is one of many indications that our document had only a very limited circulation. Hilgenfeld's notion, that the Didaché is as late as Montanism, is condemned both by the whole character of the document and by its silence on the vital question in the Montanist controversy, whether true prophets lost their self-command when prophesying. To label every early document which speaks of prophesying Montanistic is to ignore the fact that prophetical gifts were recognized in the early church, and that Montanism was an unsuccessful local attempt to revive pretensions to them after they had generally ceased to be regarded as an ordinary feature of church life. [113] The Didaché gives a different way of discerning the false prophet from the true, viz. by his life and conversation. If he taught the truth but did not practise it, he was a false prophet. He might, when speaking in the spirit, command gifts to be bestowed on others; but if he asked anything for himself, or gave commands in the benefit of which he was to share, he was a false prophet. But a true prophet, settling in one place, deserves his maintenance. So also does a teacher, by which apparently is meant a preacher who does not speak in prophetic ecstasy. To the prophets are to be given the first-fruits of all produce; "for they are your high priests." If there are no prophets, the first-fruits are to go to the poor.

C. xiv. directs Christians to come together each Lord's Day to break bread and give thanks, having confessed their sins in order that their sacrifice may be pure. Those at variance must not pollute the sacrifice by coming without having been first reconciled. Our document then quotes Mal. i.10, in which so many Fathers from Justin downwards (Trypho, 41, 116) have seen a prediction of the Eucharistic oblation. C. xv. begins: "Elect therefore to yourselves bishops and deacons." These are to receive the same honour as the prophets and teachers, as fulfilling a like ministration. In the preceding chapters where church officers are spoken of, mention is made, as in I. Cor., only of apostles, prophets and teachers; and of these, apostles are only stranger visitors of the church, and prophets are men endowed with supernatural gifts of the Holy Ghost, who may or may not be found in any particular church. Bearing in mind the account given by Justin (Apol. i.66) of the share taken by "the president" and the deacons in the Eucharistic celebration, we seem warranted in inferring from the "therefore" at the beginning of c. xv. that it was with a view to the conduct of the weekly stated service that bishops and deacons are described as appointed; and that, though gifted men were allowed to preach and teach in the church assemblies, the offering of the Eucharist was confined to these permanent officers. It is possible that the section on "bishops and deacons" may have been added later when the Didaché assumed its present form, the editor feeling it necessary that mention should be made of the recognized names of the officers of the church in his time.

C. xvi. is an exhortation to watch for our Lord's Second Coming, in order to be able to pass safely through the heavy trial that was immediately to precede it. This time of trial was to be signalized by the appearance of one who is called the "deceiver of the world" (kosmoplanos), who should appear as God's Son and do signs and wonders, and into whose hands the earth should be delivered, so that under the trial many should be scandalized and be lost (cf. II. Thess. ii.3, 4; Rev. xii.9; Matt. xxiv.21, 24, x.22). But then shall appear the signs of the truth: first the sign of outspreading (ekpetaseos) in heaven (a difficult phrase which need not here be discussed); then the trumpet's voice (Matt. xxiv.31; I. Cor. xv.52; I. Thess. iv.16); thirdly the resurrection of the dead -- not of all, but, as was said, the Lord shall come and all His saints with Him. Then shall the world see the Lord coming on the clouds of heaven.

External Attestation. -- The sketch just given shews that our document bears marks of very high antiquity. We next ask what ancient writers expressly speak of the Didaché, or manifest acquaintance with it, earlier than the appearance in its present shape of the Apostolic Constitutions, the first half of bk. vii. of which contains an expansion of the Didaché. The forger of this book was plainly acquainted with the whole Didaché; for he goes through it from beginning to end, making changes and additions, the study of which throws interesting light on the development of church ritual during the interval between the two works. Harnack has given good reasons for thinking that the same forger manipulated the Didaché and the Ignatian letters, and that his work may have been as early as a.d.350. Hence the Didaché was by then an ancient document, but one in such small circulation that it could be tampered with without much fear of detection.

It is necessary here to notice the tract professing to contain apostolic constitutions, published by Bickell in 1843 and described D. C. A. i.123. This is quite independent of and earlier than the work commonly known as the Apostolic Constitutions. The two forms employ some common earlier documents, but there is no reason to think that the framer of either was acquainted with the other. Bickel calls this tract Apostolische Kirchenordnung, and to avoid confusion with the Apostolic Constitutions, we refer to it as the Church Ordinances. It had been translated into various languages, and is the foundation of Egyptian Canon Law. It has so much in common with Bryennius's Didaché that either the Church Ordinances certainly used the Didaché or both drew from a common source. In form they differ; for in the Ordinances the precepts are distributed among different apostles by name, the list being peculiar, Cephas appearing as distinct from Peter; he and Nathanael taking the place of James the Less and Matthias. In substance the two works closely coincide, but only in the section on the "Two Ways."

Writers earlier than the Apostolic Constitutions know of a work which professed to contain the teaching of the apostles, but concerning them we cannot say with certainty whether the work to which they witness is the same as ours. The list of direct witnesses is indeed much shorter than it must have been if the work had obtained any wide acceptance as containing really apostolic instruction. Earliest is Eusebius, who to his list of canonical Scriptures (H. E. iii.25) adds a list of spurious books of the better sort, recognized by church writers, and to be distinguished from writings which heretics had forged in the names of apostles. Among these he enumerates next after the Ep. of Barnabas, "what are called the Teachings of the Apostles" (ton apostolon hai legomenai didachai). Some years later Athanasius (Ep. Fest.39) adds to his list of canonical Scriptures a list of non-canonical books useful in the catechetical instruction of converts, viz. the Wisdom of Solomon, the Wisdom of Sirach, Esther, Judith, Tobit, the so-called Teaching of the Apostles (didache kaloumene ton apostolon), and the Shepherd. The only obstacle to our supposing our Didaché to be here referred to is the Eucharistic formulae it contains, which Athanasius would scarcely place in the hands of the uninitiated, unless indeed he thought them so unlike the truth as to make no revelation of Christian mysteries. It will be observed that Eusebius uses the plural (didachai), Athanasius the singular. Unmistakable coincidences with the Didaché have been pointed out in writings ascribed to Athanasius, but rejected as spurious in the Benedictine ed., though the genuineness of at least the second of these is still urged: viz. de Virginitate (Migne, p.266), Syntagma Doctrinae ad Monaches (p.835), and Fides Nicena (p.1639). Among the spurious writings printed with those of Athanasius is a Synopsis Sacrae Scripturae, which, because of its coincidences with the Stichometry of Nicephorus, Credner has dated as late as 10th cent. The Stichometry doubtless preserves an ancient list, and there among the apocryphal books appended to the N.T. Canon we find the didache apostolon. Those that precede it are heretical apocrypha; but those that follow, viz. the Epp. of Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, and the Shepherd, are all orthodox. The number of stichoi attributed to the Didaché is 200; whereas 1,400 are assigned to the Revelation of St. John. Calculations founded on stichometry are uncertain; so we cannot lay much stress on the fact that this appears to indicate a somewhat shorter work than Bryennius's didache, which according to Harnack would make about 300 stichoi. and on a rough estimate seems about a quarter the length of the Apocalypse. A list of 60 books of Scripture appended to a writing of Anastasius, patriarch of Antioch in the reign of Justinian, is in Westcott's N.T. Canon, p.550. This gives as an appendix a list of apocryphal books; one being the Travels (periodoi) and Teachings (didachai) of the Apostles. The absence of the Didaché from the list of the Codex Claromontanus agrees with other indications that this work possessed no authority in Africa. In one of the fragments, published by Pfaff, as from Irenaeus, we read: "Those who have followed the Second Ordinances of the Apostles (hoi tais deuterais ton apostolon diataxesi parekolouthekotes) know that our Lord instituted a new offering in the New Covenant according to the saying of Malachi the prophet, 'From the rising of the sun to the going down, my name has been glorified in the Gentiles; and in every place incense is offered to my name and a pure offering.'" This passage is quoted in the Didaché with reference to the Eucharist; not, however, textually, as in the fragment, but very loosely. We can only say then that it is possible the Didaché may be the Second Ordinances of the Apostles referred to here. The fragment is probably ancient, but contains a citation of Hebrews as St. Paul's, which proves, as Zahn and others have remarked, that Irenaeus could not have been the author.

Western testimony to the Didaché is scanty, and rather indicates that any book which circulated in the West as the Teaching of the Apostles was not the same as Bryennius's Didaché. Rufinus (Comm. in Symb. Apost.38) gives a list of canonical books which bears marks of derivation from that of Athanasius; but where the Didaché should come he has "qui appellatur Duae Viae vel Judicium Petri." This suggests that either the entire Didaché or at least the first half, the "Two Ways," had been translated into Latin and circulated under the name of the Judgment of Peter, to whom, and not to the apostles generally, the authorship would seem to have been ascribed. The existence of a Latin "Two Ways" is independently proved by the discovery of a fragment by von Gebhardt, reprinted in his Texte und Untersuchungen, ii.277. It is so short as to leave it undetermined whether the Latin version contained anything corresponding to what follows the "Two Ways" in Bryennius. Lactantius (Div. Instit. vi.3, etc., and Epit. c.59) gives an unmistakable expansion of the teaching of the "Two Ways," who must have used our Latin version, thus proving it older than a.d.310.

The treatise de Aleatoribus, falsely ascribed to Cyprian, contains a quotation from Doctrina Apostolorum (Hartel, ii.96) not found in the Didaché, though there is one passage (xiv.2) which might have suggested the idea to the framer of the Latin. If we may ever rely on the argument from silence, we should gather from Tertullian's discussion on the "Stations" (de Orat.19, de Jejun.2, 10, 14) that he was unacquainted with our document. Thus, scanty though the Western notices are, they seem to prove that the Didaché, in Bryennius's form, never circulated in the West; that the Latin Doctrina Apostolorum, even as regards the section on the "Two Ways," was not a translation of Bryennius's Didaché, but contained a different manipulation of a probably common original; and that beyond the "Two Ways" there is no evidence that the Latin form had anything in common with the Didaché.

We now come to coincidences with the Didaché in works which do not mention it by name. Far the most important of these are found in the Ep. of Barnabas, in which, after the conclusion of the doctrinal teaching, the writer proposes to pass to another doctrine and discipline (gnosin kai didachen), and adds an appendix of moral instructions. This appendix agrees so completely in substance with the section on the Two Ways that a literary connexion between the two documents is indisputable. But there is great diversity of detail. The precepts in Barnabas are without any orderly arrangement, while the Didaché contains a systematic comment on the second table of the Decalogue. Bryennius differs from later critics and some earlier ones who consider it probable that Barnabas was the borrower. The whole character of the Didaché makes it unlikely that its author collected the precepts scattered in Barnabas's appendix, digested them into systematic order, and made a number of harmonious additions; while if in what Barnabas says about the "Two Ways" he is but reproducing an older document, his unsystematic way of quoting its precepts, just as they came to mind, is quite like his mode of dealing with O.T. We have still to inquire whether Barnabas borrowed from the Didaché or from a common source. Now a study of the Didaché, as compared with Jewish literature, shews very clearly its origin among men with Jewish training, and the work from which both borrowed may have been not only Jewish but pre-Christian. For Barnabas's letter is of so early a date that, if we suppose him to have copied an earlier Christian document, we bring that document into the apostolic age, which would give it all the authority that has been claimed for it. We must, then, in comparing Barnabas with the Didaché, distinguish carefully the specially Christian element from those parts which might have been written by a Jew unacquainted with Christianity. If Barnabas copied the Didaché, he would have naturally included the Christian element. If Barnabas and the Didaché independently copied an originally Jewish document, the Christian elements they might add would not be likely to be the same. In the section in Barnabas we are struck by the extreme meagreness of the Christian element. There is no mention of our Lord, scarcely any coincidence with N.T. language, very little that might not have been written by a Jew before our Lord's coming. In the Didaché coincidences with N.T. are extremely numerous, end it begins with a whole section embodying precepts from the Sermon on the Mount. This section is entirely absent from Barnabas. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that Barnabas did not know the Didaché in Bryennius's form. He has elsewhere coincidences with N.T., and had no motive for avoiding them. If a book before him contained a number of N.T. precepts he would never have studiously avoided these in using the work, nor have forgotten them even if he wrote from memory. The coincidences between the two works, therefore, must be explained by the use of a common document.

This conclusion is confirmed on taking into the comparison also the Latin "Two Ways," and the Egyptian Church Ordinances, both of which, like Barnabas, do not recognize the Didaché section founded on the Sermon on the Mount. Neither is this section recognized in Pseudo-Athanasius. The Church Ordinances exhibit signs of acquaintance with Barnabas; the Latin form does not. In the order of the precepts the Ordinances and the Latin both agree with the Didaché against Barnabas. The Ordinances differ from the Latin by excess, but scarcely at all otherwise. The same reasons that forbid us to think that Barnabas, if he had known the Didaché, would have left out its Christian element, prove the Ordinances and the Latin likewise independent of the Didaché. The phenomena are explained if we assume an original document in substantial agreement with the Latin, enlarged in the Didaché by additions from N.T., and afterwards independently enlarged by the framer of the Church Ordinances, who broke it up into sections supposed to be spoken by different apostles; while Barnabas worked up in his own way the materials he drew from the document. We cannot say positively whether this original proceeded beyond the "Two Ways." The Latin fragment breaks off too soon to give any information as to the length of the original: the Church Ordinances cease to present coincidences with the Didaché after the section on the "Two Ways"; but this may be because the directions for ritual and discipline had become out of date when the Ordinances were put together, the editor therefore designedly substituting what better agreed with the practice of his own age. The quotation by Pseudo-Cyprian leads us to think that the Latin Doctrina Apostolorum did go beyond the "Two Ways." No great weight can be attached to the length ascribed to the Didaché in the Stichometry, but this rather favours the idea that the document intended was longer than the "Two Ways," but shorter than the Didaché of Bryennius.

It remains to be mentioned that there is a coincidence between Barnabas and the Didaché outside the "Two Ways." The opening of the Ep. of Barnabas and the last or eschatological chapter of the Didaché both contain the warning that the disciples' faith would not profit them unless they remained stedfast in the last times. There is a good deal of difference in the wording of the warning, but not more than is usual in quotations by Barnabas. The supposition that Barnabas was acquainted with Bryennius's form of the Didaché has already been excluded; therefore either (1) the earlier form which Barnabas did use included an eschatological chapter containing this warning, or (2) the editor who changed the earlier form into that of Bryennius was acquainted with the Ep. of Barnabas. We prefer (2), on account of the reasons we shall presently give for thinking the document used by Barnabas to have been pre-Christian. If the editor of Bryennius's form knew Hermas, he might also have known Barnabas, with whom he has a second coincidence in a passage about almsgiving, which, as implying a knowledge of Acts and Romans, Barnabas was not likely to have found in his original. Possibly there is a third coincidence; for a plausible explanation of the difficult word ekpetasis in c. xvi. is that it means the sign of the cross, being derived from Barnabas's interpretation of exepetasa in Is. lxv.2.

Hermas also presents coincidences with the Didaché, but it is not easy to say that there is literary obligation on either side, except in one case, viz. a coincidence between the second "commandment" of Hermas and the "Sermon on the Mount" section, which we have already seen reason to think belongs to a later form of the Didaché. In this case the original seems clearly that of Hermas. His instructions as to almsgiving are perfectly clear. The corresponding passage in the Didaché has many coincidences of language, but expresses the thought so awkwardly as to be scarce intelligible without the commentary of Hermas. It begins, "Blessed is he that giveth according to the commandment, for he is blameless: woe to him that receiveth." The words "for he is blameless," as they stand, are puzzling; for we should expect the "for" to introduce something stronger than merely an acquittal of blame. By comparison with Hermas we see that the case contemplated is that of giving to an undeserving person. Then the receiver deserves the woe; the giver obtains an acquittal. We conclude, then, without disputing the greater antiquity of the original Didaché, that the interpolator who brought the work to the form published by Bryennius was later than Hermas, and drew from him.

Clement of Alexandria was certainly acquainted with the Didaché in some form. He expressly quotes one sentence as Scripture (Strom. i.20, p.377), "My son, be not a liar, for lying leads to theft." This saying is not quoted by Barnabas; but the Church Ordinances attest that it belongs to the earlier form of the Didaché. Even the later form of the Didaché may well be considerably older than Clement; and he might easily have met with a copy during his travels in the East. He uses (Quis Dives Salv.20) the phrase "vine of David," found in one of the benedictory prayers of the Didaché. He shews a knowledge (Strom. vii.7, p.854) of the Wednesday and Friday fasts (c.12, p.877), but does not seem to attribute to these institutions the authority which belongs to the name Scripture bestowed by him on the Didaché.

Origen was later than Clement and must have been well acquainted with the literature current in Egypt and Palestine; so that we might naturally expect him to be familiar with the Didaché. Yet no satisfactory proof of his knowledge of it has been produced.

Place of Composition. -- The Church Ordinances, at the basis of which lies the Didaché in some form, are with good reason regarded as of Egyptian origin; Clement, one of the earliest to quote the Didaché, wrote in Egypt, and so very possibly did Barnabas. Hence, it was natural to think that the Didaché also is of Egyptian origin. But attention was called to the petition in the prayer of benediction of the bread, that as it had been scattered on the mountains, and collected together had become one, so the church might be collected together from the ends of the earth into the Lord's kingdom; and it was pointed out the words "on the mountains" could not have been written in Egypt; and, moreover, the proper inference from the use made of the Didaché in the Church Ordinances is that when the latter work was put together, the former was almost unknown in Egypt. There is nothing to contradict the inference suggested by the intensely Jewish character of the book, that it emanated from Christian Jews who, after the destruction of Jerusalem, had their chief settlements E. of Jordan.

Time of Composition. -- The theory set forth is that the original, alike of Barnabas and of all the forms of the Didaché, was a Jewish manual for the instruction of proselytes. If Palestinian Christians had habitually used such a manual while still Jews, it would be natural for them to employ it, improved by the addition of some Christian elements, in the moral instruction of converts before admission into the church. The document, being a formula in constant practical use, would be added to and modified; and we seem to be able to trace three stages in its growth.

(1) Barnabas represents for us the original Jewish manual; probably quoting, not from any written document, but from his recollection of the instruction he had himself received or had been given to others. Barnabas's quotations do not proceed beyond the section on the "Two Ways," corresponding to cc. i.-iv. of the Didaché.

(2) In the Church Ordinances and in the Latin Doctrina we have the manual as it was modified for use in a Christian community. The Latin book may have been the first publication of this catechetical manual of Palestinian Christians, brought to the West by one himself instructed in it. It was probably called the Teaching of the Apostles, because the authorized formulary of a church founded by apostles and claiming to derive its institutions from them. We are without evidence whether this manual contained more than the "Two Ways," though it probably did. The only clue to the date of this publication is that the Church Ordinances contain that precept about almsgiving which we have already noted as the solitary instance of use of the N.T. in this section of Barnabas. Reasons have been already given for thinking that Barnabas was not here employing a Christian document, and we find it hard to believe that the phrases in which coincidences occur are older than N.T., so we seem forced to conclude that the first editors of the Teaching of the Apostles knew Barnabas. This would not be inconsistent with a date before the end of 1st cent.

(3) In the Didaché published by Bryennius we have the manual enlarged by further Christian additions; the precepts in the original manual being expanded, others added from N.T., and also some wholly new sections. Yet the whole character of the Didaché, and in particular the lively expectation of our Lord's Second Coming in c. xvi., disposes us to give it in its present form as early a date as we can; and since we place Hermas at the beginning of 2nd cent., we have no difficulty in dating the Didaché as early as a.d.120.

Literature. -- The publication of the Didaché by Bryennius produced an enormous crop of literature. The lists in Schaff's and in Harnack's editions may be supplemented by an article of Harnack's Theol. Literaturz.1886, p.271. Here we only mention, of editions, those by De Romestan (1884), Spence (1885), Schaff (1885 and 1886), Sabatier (1885), Hilgenfeld in a 2nd ed. of pt. iv. of his Nov. Test. ext. Can. (1884), and by Gebhardt and Harnack, Texte und Untersuchungen, vol. ii. (1884). Bp. Lightfoot's paper at the Church Congress of 1884, pub. in the Expositor, Jan.1885; Zahn's discussions in his Forschungen, pt. iii. p.278 (1884), and Taylor's Lectures at the Royal Institution, 1885, in which the Didaché is illustrated from Jewish literature. A new ed. with a fascimile (autotype) text and a commentary from the MS. of the Holy Sepulchre, Jerusalem, ed. by J. R. Harris, is pub. by Camb. Univ. Press, as is also an Eng. trans. from the Syriac by Dr. Margaret Gibson; while S.P.C.K. pub. an Eng. trans. with intro. and notes by Dr. C. Bigg. See also Bigg's Notes on the Didaché in Journ. of Theol. Stud., July 1904.

[G.S.]

Teilo, bishop of Llandaff
Teilo, bp. of Llandaff and one of the principal saints of Wales, was son of Enlleu ap Hydwn Dwn and cousin to St. David. He was born near Tenby, and educated with St. David and other celebrated Welsh saints. He opened a school near Llandaff, called Bangor Deilo, and on account of his proficiency in the Scriptures is said to have received the name Elios or Eliud. His withdrawal to Armorica on the outbreak of the yellow plague in Wales is counted by Pryce (Anc. Brit. Ch.163) one of the few incidents in his life which can be considered historical. In the Chron. Series of the Bpp. of Llandaff (Lib. Landav. by Rees, 623) he is said to have become bp. of Llandaff in.512, so that Rees (Welsh SS.243) is probably safest in saying that his period in that see ended in its first stage with the appearance of the plague. [[556]DUBRICIUS.]

Returning from Armorica after a stay, as is said, of 7 years and 7 months, he found St. David dead and the see of Menevia vacant. St. Teilo is said to have been elected to the vacant chair as archbp. of Menevia, but, preferring his old see, he consecrated Ishmael, one of St. David's earliest disciples, to be his suffragan at Menevia, raised others to the same rank in different parts of South Wales, while he himself removed to Llandaff, and, carrying with him the primacy, became archbp. with the title of the inferior see (Stubbs, Reg.154, 156; Haddan and Stubbs, Counc. i.115 seq.; Rees, Welsh SS.174, 243 seq.; Pryce, Anc. Br. Ch.158 seq.). The date of his death is variously fixed from 563 (Lib. Land.623) to 604 (Ussher). He is said to have died at a very advanced age.

The chief authority for his Life is Vita S. Teliavi Episcopi a Magistro Galfrido Fratre Urbani Landavensis Ecclesiae Episcopi dicata, belonging to 12th cent., and printed, with trans. and notes, in Lib. Land. by Rees, 92 seq., 332 seq. For MS. and other authorities see Hardy, Desc. Cat. i. pt. i.130-132, pt. ii.897, app.; Haddan and Stubbs, Counc. i.146, app. C.159.

[J.G.]

Telesphorus, bishop of Rome
Telesphorus (2), bp. of Rome, accounted the 7th from the apostles. According to Eusebius H. E. iv.5) he succeeded Xystus in the 12th year of Hadrian (a.d.128), and suffered martyrdom in the 11th year of his episcopate and the 1st of the reign of Antoninus Pius (iv.10). Lipsius (Chron. der röm. Bischöf.) considers his earliest probable dates to have been 124 to 135 or 126 to 137 as the latest. If so, Eusebius erred in placing his martyrdom in the reign of Antoninus Pius instead of Hadrian. For the fact of his martyrdom he alleges the authority of Irenaeus; the assertion of the date is his own. Telesphorus is remarkable as being the only one of the early Roman bishops, afterwards accounted martyrs, who appears on the early authority of Irenaeus as such (Iren. Haer. iii.; cf. Eus. l.c.).

[J.B -- Y.]

Tertullianus, Quintus Septimius Florens
Tertullianus (1), Quintus Septimius Florens.

I. LIFE. -- The earliest of the great Latin Fathers, their chief in fire and daring, and the first to create a technical Christian Latinity, is known almost entirely through his writings. It can only be conjectured that he was born between a.d.150 and 160, and died between 220 and 240, with preference for the later dates. He was born at Carthage (Hieron. Catal. Script. Eccl.53; cf. Tertull. Apol. c. ix.) of heathen parents (de Poen. c. i.; Apol. c. xviii. "de vestris sumus"), his father being a proconsular centurion (Hieron.). Tertullian received a good education (Apol. c. xiv.; adv. Prax. c. iii.). In after-life he recalled his school studies in Homer (ad Nat. i. c. x.); but poetry attracted him less than philosophy, history, science, and antiquarian lore. He spoke and composed in Greek, but his Greek writings are lost. He studied the systems of the philosophers if he mocked and hated the men (cf. de Anima, cc. i.-iii.). Possibly destined for state-official life, he was celebrated for his knowledge of Roman law (Eus. H. E. ii.2), and the legal fence and juridical style of the advocate are observable throughout his apologetic and polemical writings.

He was probably attracted to Christianity by complex irresistible and converging forces: "Fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani" (Apol. c. xviii.). The constancy of the Christians in times of persecution staggered him. He knew men who began by denouncing such "obstinacy," and ended in embracing the belief which dictated it (Apol. c. l.; ad Scap. c. v.). Demons confessed the superiority of the new faith (Apol. c. xxiii.), and Tertullian, in common with his heathen and Christian contemporaries, was a profound believer in demons (cf. Réville, La Religion à Rome sous les Sèvéres, pp.44, 46.130 seq.). These facts led him to examine the faith which seemed to promise a foothold which no philosophical system furnished. It was illustrated by a life of holiness and humility -- that of its Founder, the Just One -- in contrast with which the life of the Cynic and the Stoic sickened him.

His conversion took place c.192, in Carthage more probably than in Rome. Carthage was his home and usual dwelling-place (de Pallio, c. i.; Apol. c. ix.; Scorpiace, c. vi.; de Resur. Carnis, c. xlii.); Rome he had visited (de Cultu Femin. i. c. vii.), and he was well known there for his abilities (Eus. l.c.), but critics are by no means agreed whether he ever went there as a Christian (cf. Baron. Annal. Eccl. ii.476, ed. Theiner). He was married but childless (cf. the two treatises ad Uxorem), and became a priest of the church. He probably exercised his presbyterate at Carthage and not at Rome.

In middle age (c.119-203), says Jerome, Tertullian became a Montanist, his constitution and temperament predisposing him to a rigour opposed to the laxity prevalent at Rome, and so finding the austere doctrines and practices of Montanus perfectly congenial (Kaye, Account of the Writings of Tertullian,³ p.34). He became the head of the Montanist party in Africa -- a party which existed till the 5th cent. under the name of
"Tertullianists."

II. TIMES. -- The golden age of the empire died with Marcus Aurelius (161-180); the age of iron began with his son Commodus (180-193). The golden age of the church began with that iron age of the empire (Aubé, Les Chrétiens dans l'empire romain, a.d.180-249, pp. iii, 495-498). Expiring polytheism and ancient philosophy were confronted by a new philosophy and a nascent faith.

From one quarter only of the empire was the comparative peacefulness noticeable elsewhere absent. In Africa persecution, sharp, short, fitful, and frequent, marked the reign of Septimius Severus and the most active period of Tertullian's life. It is stamped in letters of blood upon his pages.

The church in Africa has no historian before Tertullian, though its foundation is placed, with much probability, at the end of cent. i. or the beginning of cent. ii. By the end of cent. ii. the Christians in Roman Africa were to be counted by thousands (cf. Aubé, p.152) if not by millions (cf. Apol. c. xxxvii.; ad Scapulam, cc. ii. v.). They were fully organized and had their bishops, priests, deacons, places of assembly, and cemeteries. Immunity from the wholesale decimation which had befallen, by imperial command (cf. Apol. c. v.), other Christian bodies of the East and West, allowed in Africa growth and development, accelerated by occasional suffering and martyrdom. But the tempest broke upon the African church at last.

Facts connected with the persecutions can be followed in those writings of Tertullian which all critics place between a.d.197 and 212, from the ad Martyres to the ad Scapulam.

The tract ad Martyres depicts men and women in prison, visited and relieved by the brethren, exhorted to unity, and prepared by fasting and prayer for the death which should be a victory for the church. Vigellius Saturninus was the first proconsul to draw the sword against Christians (ad Scapulam, c. iii.), and his date is not apparently earlier than 198 (see Aubé, p.191, etc.). The martyrology of Africa had begun in 180. In a time of peace the Scillitan martyrs had died at Carthage (Görres, Jahr. f. Prot. Theol.1884, pts. ii. iii.); but after that there is a blank till 198, when Namphamo was the new "archimartyr" of the church. A few months' respite followed. It was disturbed by an event which is with some plausibility alleged to have taken place at Carthage. A certain soldier refused the donativum of Severus and Caracalla, publicly declined the laurel crown accepted by his fellow-soldiers, and proclaimed himself a Christian. The incident is described in the de Corona; Tertullian, making it a test case, debated whether the Christian could accept military service. His advice, and the conduct founded upon it, infuriated the heathen. Under Hilarian (202-203) persecution broke out again. It took the special form of refusing the Christian dead their usual place of burial; the cry invaded the proconsul's tribune, "Areae non sint!" ("No cemeteries for the Christians!"). Just then the decree issued in 202 by Severus indirectly if not directly gave sanction to all measures of repression. It forbad proselytizing by either Jew or Christian. It was easy, were the African proconsul so minded, to read into this purely prohibitive measure a licence to persecute. The "fight of martyrdom and the baptism of blood" which ensued is perhaps to be traced in Tertullian's de Fuga and Scorpiace (between 202-212). These treatises are fiercely scornful against the flight once counselled when persecution raged. The de Fuga (c. v.) denounces, not less angrily, a growing practice -- purchase of immunity. Of sterner mould and of more loving faith were the brothers Satyrus and Saturninus, the slaves Revocatus and Felicitas, and the nobly born and nobly-wedded Perpetua. The Acts of their passion, by some (e.g. Bonwetsch and Salmon) attributed to Tertullian himself, have preserved a picture of the times -- a reluctant proconsul, all-willing martyrs, and a scoffing crowd saluting their baptism of blood with the mocking cry, "Salvum lotum" (see the Acts in Migne's Patr. Lat. iii., and Aubé's collation, op. cit. pp.221-224, 509, etc.).

Again there came a respite, and again must the character of the proconsul have been instrumental in securing it. Of Julius Asper (proconsul in 205 or 206) it is told that not only did he refuse to force a Christian to sacrifice who under the torture had lapsed from the faith, but publicly expressed regret to his assessors and the advocates at having to deal with such cases (ad Scapulam, c. iv.). For five or six years persecution was stayed, years of literary activity on the part of Tertullian. In 211, for some unknown reason, the religious war broke out afresh, and its cruel if brief progress is told in the ad Scapulam. Tertullian's last "Apology" is worthy of the Christian gladiator. Stroke upon stroke he deals his ponderous blows against the proconsul. "We battle with your cruelty," he cries; but his weapons are the "offensive" weapons which Christ had put in his hands -- prayer for the persecutors, love for enemies (Matt. v.44d). God's judgments, he warns them, were abroad. Drought, fires, eclipses, declared His wrath; the miserable deaths of persecuting proconsuls betokened it. "This our sect shall never fail," is his triumphant shout. "Strike it down, it will rise the more. We recompense to no man evil for evil, but we warn you -- Fight not against God!"

In 212 the blessing of peace rested again upon Africa and continued for some years.

III. WRITINGS. -- Tertullian's literary activity is by some confined to 197-212; by others, with far greater probability, it is extended to at least c.223. A general chronological arrangement only is possible, the dates given being few and uncertain. The only work which supplies positive evidence of date is the first book adv. Marcionem (3rd ed.). In c. xv. Tertullian says he is writing in the 15th year of Severus, now considered to be a.d.207 (Bonwetsch, Die Schriften Tertullians nach der Zeit ihrer Abfassung, p.42). Tertullian was then a Montanist, but his pen had for some years been employed in behalf of the church.

Tertullian's writings represent him variously as layman, priest, and schismatic; and divide broadly into works written in the Catholic or Montanist periods of his life. The latter must further be subdivided into treatises in which Catholic or schismatic elements are respectively prominent. In character they are threefold: (a) Apologetic; (b) Dogmatic and polemical; (c) Moral and ascetic. The arrangements of Bp. Kaye and Bonwetsch have in the main suggested that which follows; though the dates attached are in almost all cases conjectural.

(1) Works written while still in the church: (a) Apologetic writings (c.197-198): ad Martyres; Apologeticum; de Testimonio Animae; ad Nationes, i. ii; adv. Judaeos.

(b) Other works of this period, but of less certain date: de Oratione; de Baptismo; de Poenitentia; de Spectaculis; de Cultu Feminarum, i.; de Idololatria; de Cultu Feminarum, ii.; de Patientia; ad Uxorem, i. ii. (the last five c.197-199); de Praescriptione Haereticorum (c.199); adv. Marcionem i. (1st ed.), c.200.

(2) Montanistic writings: --

(a) Defending the church and her teachings (c.202-203): de Corona; de Fuga in Persecutione; de Exhortatione Castitatis.

(b) Defending the Paraclete and His discipline: de Virginibus Velandis (c.203-204, a transition work); adv. Marcion. (2nd ed.; c.206); ib. (3rd ed.; c.207). Between 200-207 or later: adv. Hermogenem; adv. Valentinianos; adv. Marcion. (iv.); de Carne Christi; de Resurrectione Carnis; adv. Marcion. (v.). De Pallio and de Anima (c.208-209); Scorpiace (c.212; al.203 or 204); ad Scapulam (c.212). Three c.217, al.203-207: de Monogamia; de Jejunio; de Pudicitia; and adv. Praxean (c.223, al. c.208-209).

A. Tertullian, Layman and Apologist. -- Ad Martyres. -- Two thoughts (c. iii.) should animate the martyrs. (1) Christians were soldiers, "called to the military service of the living God" by a sacramental oath, to which they must be true. (2) They were Christian athletes whose prison was their training-school (palaestra), where "virtus duritia extruitur, mollitia vero destruitur." The words of Christ (Matt. xxvi.41) should help them to subject the flesh to the spirit, the weaker to the stronger; the example of the heathens, Lucretia and Mucius, Heraclitus and Peregrinus, Dido and the wife of Hasdrubal, would teach them to count their sufferings trifling if, by enduring them, they might obtain a heavenly glory and a divine reward. In their own day many persons of birth, rank, and age had met their death at the hands of the emperor. Should Christians hesitate to suffer as much in the cause of God?

Apologeticum. -- This Apology -- the greatest of his works -- was a cry for bare justice.

(1) A heading to c. i., "Quod religio Christiana damnanda non sit, nisi qualis sit prius intelligatur," sums up its protest: The rulers of Carthage were persecuting and condemning a "sect" which forthcoming evidence proved unworthy of condemnation. Their conduct was the reverse of that enjoined by the emperor Trajan -- that Christians were not to be sought out; but if brought before Pliny were to be punished. Tertullian reminds the rulers (c. v.) that the laws against Christians had been enforced only by emperors whose memory men had learnt to execrate: e.g. Nero and Domitian. Not such as these was Tiberius (cf. Eus. H. E. ii.2), in whose day Christ came into the world (cf. c. vii.), and who had desired the senate to admit Him among the Roman deities. Marcus Aurelius was a protector. Not even Hadrian, Vespasian, Pius, nor Verus had put into force the laws against Christians. The men who were demanding this were daily and contemptuously infringing laws of all kinds. In proof he draws a sad picture of luxury and immorality. The good old laws had gone which encouraged in women modesty and sobriety.

(2) Chaps. vii.-ix. What were the charges against the Christians? "We are called miscreants" -- and the evidence was only rumour! "Fama malum, quo non aliud velocius ullum." It was, Tertullian retorts, the existence (secret or open) of evil practices among the heathen which explained their belief in similar deeds among Christians.

(3) Chaps. x.-xxvii. Tertullian faces the first of the two great charges, "sacrilege and treason." His "apology" as regards the former consists, briefly speaking, of (a) "demonstratio religionis eorum" (cc. x.-xvi. xxiv.-xxvii.) and of (b) "demonstratio religionis nostrae" (cc. xvii.-xxiii.), a most valuable evidential passage.

(a) You Christians, said the heathen, do not worship our gods: No, said Tertullian, and we won't, because we do not recognize them to be gods. They were nothing but men of long ago, whose merits should have plunged them into the depths of Tartarus. How much better would it have been if the deus deificus had waited and taken up to heaven in their place such men as Socrates, Aristides, Themistocles, and others. The images excite Tertullian's intense scorn, as "the homes of hawks and mice and spiders." Caustically does he describe the heathen treatment of their household gods. "You pledge them, sell them, change them. They wear out or get broken, and you turn your Saturn into a cooking-pot and your Minerva into a ladle! You put your national gods in a sale-catalogue; and the man who will sell you herbs in the herb-market will sell you gods at the Capitol. Or what could be more insulting than the company you give them? You worship Larentina, the prostitute, together with Juno or Ceres or Diana. You erect (at Rome) a statue to [557]SIMON MAGUS and give him as inscription the title of sanctus deus (see Kaye's Tertull. p.542, and Oehler's note here). You turn into a god a sodomite like Antinous" (see Kellner's note).

What then, it was asked, did Christians worship if not the gods? Tertullian answers, "Take in this first of all: they who are not worshippers of a lie are worshippers of truth." From this might be deduced the whole of the Christian religious belief. But before Tertullian proceeds to do this, he refutes some very false, but common, opinions about the Christians, e.g. the vulgar belief that the god of the Christians was an ass's head, that they worshipped the cross, or the sun. Lately a bestiarius (see Semler's and Kellner's notes) had exhibited a picture at Rome inscribed Deus Christianorum onokoites. The figure had the ears of an ass, one foot was hoofed, in his hand was a book, and he was dressed in a toga (see D. C. A. s.n. "Asinarii"). The name and the form only made us laugh, says Tertullian; and then he retorts: "But our opponents might well have worshipped such a biformed deity: for they have dog-headed and lion-headed gods, gods with horns, gods with wings, gods goat-limbed, fish-limbed, or serpent-limbed from the loins!"

(b) Tertullian turns from what Christianity was not to what it was, and the main lines of the evidences of Christianity in the 2nd cent. are still those of our own. These chapters (xvii.-xxiii.), so valuable in the history of religious belief, deserve the student's close attention. The eloquence, fervour, humility, and devoutness of the writer will be felt to be contagious. Irony and passion are comparatively absent. The section details (b[?]) the nature and attributes of the Creator, (b[?]) the mission of the prophets, men full of (inundati) the Holy Spirit, (b[?]) the character of the Scriptures, and (b[?]) the history of the Lord. Under b[?]Tertullian notes two things. These Scriptures were marked, first, by that antiquity which his opponents rightly valued. The most ancient heathen writings were far less ancient than those of Moses, the contemporary of the Argive Inachus, and (as some thought) 500 years older than Homer. Nay, the very last prophet was coeval with the first of the (heathen) philosophers, lawgivers, and historians. "Quod prius est, semen sit necesse est." Secondly, the Scriptures were marked by majesty. "Divinas probamus (scripturas), si dubitatur antiquas." This internal evidence was a proof of their antiquity, while the external and daily fulfilment of prophecy was a reason for expecting the verification of what was not yet fulfilled.

b[?]is in answer to the questions, Why did Jews and Christians differ? Did not these differences argue worship of different gods? Tertullian's reply (c. xxi.) is a history of the origin of the Christian sect and name, and an account of the Founder of Christianity, such as we have in the Gospels. His account is interspersed with most interesting statements, e.g. the Jewish inference from the humility of Christ that He was only man, and from His miraculous power that He was a magician, and not the Logos of God; the record of the darkening of the sun at the crucifixion preserved in the secret archives of the empire; the reason for the seclusion of the Lord after the resurrection, viz. "that the wicked should be freed from their error, and that faith destined for so glorious a reward should be established upon difficulty"; his own opinion that Caesars (such as Tiberius) would have believed in Christ, if they could have been Caesars and Christians at the same time; the sufferings of the disciples at the hands of the Jews; and at last, through Nero's cruelty, the sowing the seed of Christianity at Rome in their blood (cf. c. l.). He concludes: "Deum colimus per Christum." Count Him a mere man if you like. By Him and in Him God wishes to be known and worshipped.

One more point remained. Romans considered their position as masters of the world the reward of their religious devotion to their gods, and affirmed that they who paid their gods the most service flourished the most. Tertullian traverses this "assumption" in ironical terms, or meets it with positive denial.

(4) Chaps. xxviii.-xxxvi. -- The charge laesae augustioris majestatis is now reached. The evil spirits stirred up the heathen to compel Christians to sacrifice pro salute imperatoris; and that compulsion was met by resistance not less determined. Ironically does Tertullian commend in the heathen the dread with which they regarded Caesar as more profound and reverential than that which they accorded to the Olympian Jupiter. Christians were counted publici hostes, because they would not pay to the emperor vain, lying, or unseemly honours; and because, as verae religionis homines, they kept the festival days not lasciviously, but as conscientious men. Truly if public joy was to be expressed by public shame, the Christians deserved condemnation.

(5) Chaps. xxxvii.-xlv. -- This section, dealing with minor points of objection to the Christians, opens with an impassioned protest on behalf of men who, actuated by the principle "Idem sumus imperatoribus qui et vicinis nostris," never took vengeance for the wrongs done to them. Mob-law had attacked them with stones and fire, or with Bacchanalian fury had torn their dead from the graves to rend their bodies asunder. Had Christianity tolerated repaying evil with evil, what secret vengeance could have been wrought in a single night with a torch or two! Or, had they determined to act as open enemies, what numbers and resources would they have had! "We are but of yesterday," is Tertullian's proud boast (cf. c. i.), "and yet we have filled your cities, fortresses, towns, assemblies, camp, palace, senate, and forum: sola vobis reliquimus templa. Should we determine to separate from you and betake ourselves to some remote corner of the globe, your loss of so many citizens would cover you with shame. The solitude, silence, and stupor as of a dead world would fill you with fear. You would have to seek subjects to govern. Your enemies would be more numerous than your citizens. At present it is your Christian citizens who make your enemies so few." Tertullian therefore asks that Christians should be admitted "inter licitas factiones." The "sect" was incapable of any such acts as were dreaded in forbidden societies. If they had indeed their own occupations (negotia), why should that give offence? For what were the "negotia Christianae factionis"? (c. xxxix.). Tertullian's answer is a touching picture of the simple Christendom of his day. "We are a body linked together by a common religious profession, by unity of discipline, and by a common hope. We meet as a congregation and pray to God in united supplication. Haec vis Deo grata est. We pray for the emperors, their ministers, and those in authority, for the welfare of the world, for peaceful times, and for the delaying of the end (see c. xxxii.). We come together to listen to our Holy Scriptures (cf. Just. Mart. Apol. ii.); and by holy words we nourish faith, raise hope, stablish confidence, and strengthen discipline. Our presidents are elders of approved character, who have obtained this honour not by purchase but by desert. On the monthly day appointed each gives to the chest what he likes; the money is disbursed not in feasting and drinking, but in supporting and burying the poor, in providing for destitute orphan boys and girls, in supporting the aged, the infirm, and the shipwrecked, and in succouring those sent to the mines or incarcerated in prisons ex causa Dei sectae."

(6) Chaps. xlvi.-l. -- Accusations had been met and the case of the Christian stated. What remained? One last perversion on the part of unbelief: "Christianity was no divine institution, but simply a kind of philosophy." The refutation of this closes the Apology. Tertullian, if frequently satirical, is at first grave and dignified, sober and patient, more than is his wont; but the smouldering fire bursts out at last; his last chapter is a climax of withering scorn and impassioned appeal.

Ad Nationes (i. ii.) is practically a short form of the Apology. It covers the same ground, uses the same arguments and largely the same language. But the Apology was addressed to the rulers and magistrates of Carthage, this to the people. Its whole cast is consequently more popular, its arguments less prolonged, its illustrations less reserved (cf. I. cc. iv. viii. xvi.; II. c. xi.).

De Testimonio Animae was written very soon after the Apology, to which it refers (c. v.). Some have thought it the most original and acute of his works (see Neander, Antignosticus, p.259). Many of his predecessors, says Tertullian (c. i.), had ransacked heathen literature to discover in it support of the Christian efforts to expel error and admit equity. The attempt was, in his opinion, a mistake and a failure. He would not repeat it. Neither would he adduce Christian writings when dealing with heathen, for nobody consulted them unless already a Christian. Therefore he turns to another and a new testimony, that of the soul. Apostrophizing it, he cries, "Thou art not, so far as I know, Christian. The soul is not born Christian [cf. Apol. xviii.], but becomes Christian. Yet Christians beg now for a testimony from thee, as from one outside them; a testimony against thine own that the heathen may blush for their hatred and mockery of us." The testimony of the soul to God is found in popular phrases indicative of knowledge and fear of God; then it is adjured to speak about immortality and the resurrection of the body (c. iv.; cf. Apol. xlviii.).

Adversus Judaeos. -- The authenticity and integrity of the treatise, as usually printed, have both been disputed; the latter with justice, the former needlessly, and principally on account of the discredit attaching to the latter portion. Chaps. i.-viii. are certainly Tertullian's, written while still a churchman. The latter chapters are different, both in character and style. The treatise was occasioned by a dispute between a Christian and a heathen converted, not to Christianity but to Judaism. Practically, the question between them was the exclusion or not of Gentiles from the promises of God. But there was a preliminary question. Was any one expected, and if expected, had any one come, "novae legislator, sabbati spiritalis cultor, sacrificiorum aeternorum antistes, regni aeterni aeternus dominator," or was His advent still matter of hope? (c. vii.). The fulfilment of prophecy rightly understood was the answer. Tertullian does not need to prove that the Christ should come. Every Jew believed and hoped it. Is. xlv.1 was sufficient proof of it. (He renders the passage differently from the present Hebrew text, and with one especially interesting variation, reading, "Thus saith the Lord God to my Christ the Lord (Kurio)," etc., instead of "to Cyrus (Kuro) His anointed," etc. So also in adv. Prax. cc. xi. xxviii.] In the then fulfilment of this prophecy he sees the proof that the Christ had come. Upon whom but upon Christ had the nations believed? -- nations such as (int. al.) Moors, Spaniards, Gauls, Britons, "inhabiting places inaccessible to the Romans but subjugated to Christ" (in the same chapter he speaks of them as "shut up within the circuit of their own seas"), Germans and others, unknown to him, and too numerous to mention. Christ reigned everywhere, was adored everywhere: "omnibus aequalis, omnibus rex, omnibus judex, omnibus Deus et Dominus est."

B. Tertullian the Priest. -- Tertullian had hitherto written as a layman. The writings now to be considered indicate more or less directly that he had become a priest (cf. de Baptismo, cc. xvii. xviii.). Persecution was for a time suspended. It is highly probable that about this time a synod of African bishops met at Carthage to discuss matters affecting the organization, discipline, and teaching of the church; and the occasion may have been used to ordain one who, as an "apologist," had proved himself so fearless a champion of the church. Questions concerning heretical baptism, and the attitude of the church towards the heretical sects, were very probably discussed, and Tertullian's lost treatise on heretical baptism was written in Greek to circulate the synod's decisions beyond the confines of the African church.

Other points, however, dealing with Christian life and ethics, came before him in his work in Carthage as a priest. The flock looked to their pastors for guidance: prayer, baptism, repentance, and the discipline connected with them; woman's dress and woman's life, married or unmarried; pleasures, amusements, how far lawful or unlawful, -- all were matters upon which direction was desirable, and to all does Tertullian apply himself. Roughly divided, the treatises were practical and doctrinal, but the division must not be pressed too closely.

(1) Practical Treatises. -- De Oratione. (a) Of the Lord's Prayer specifically (cc. i.-xi.); (b) of prayer generally -- times, places, and customs (cc. xii.-end).

(a) As Christ was Spirit, Word, and Reason, so His prayer was formed of three parts: the word by which it was expressed, the spirit by which alone it had power, the reason by which it was appropriated (the reading is disputed); and the practice of prayer was recommended with three injunctions: that it should be offered up in secret, marked by modesty of faith," and distinguished by brevity. It was in very truth "breviarium totius evangelii." It is reckoned as containing seven clauses, the doxology not being given; and each clause is considered separately. The comments are reflections rather than interpretations; and if unequal and sometimes fanciful, they are very beautiful and can never be read without profit. His own summary (c. ix.) is a mine of spiritual thought. He approves of other prayers being used corresponding with the special circumstances of him who prays, but never to the omission of this, the regular and set form of prayer.

(b) Certain ceremonies, "empty" (vacuae) Tertullian calls them, but illustrative of many an interesting point of ritual and practice of the time, are next considered: Washing the hands before prayer; praying with the cloak taken off; sitting after prayer; the kiss of peace; the "Stations" (c. xix. ; see Oehler's note); the dress of women, and veiling or non-veiling of virgins; kneeling in prayer; place and time of prayer; prayer when brethren met or parted; prayer and psalm. The closing chapter, dealing with the power and effect of prayer, is one of the gems of Tertullian's writings. "Never," he cries, "let us walk unarmed by prayer. Under the arms of prayer guard we the standard of our emperor; in prayer await we the angel's trump. Angels pray; every creature prays. 'Quid amplius? Etiam ipse Dominus oravit.'"

De Baptismo. -- One Quintilla, "a viper of the Cainite heresy," had sought to destroy baptism. "What good could water do? Was it to be believed that a man could go down into the water, have a few words spoken over him, and rise again the gainer of eternity?" (see c. vi.). Quintilla was apparently a Gnostic, and the very simplicity of the means of grace repelled her. "Miratur simplicia quasi vana, magnifica quasi impossibilia." Her sneers had corrupted some; others were disturbed by such doubts as, Why was baptism necessary? Abraham was justified without it. The Christ Himself did not baptize. No mention was made in Scripture of the baptism of the apostles; St. Paul himself was bidden not to practise it. Answers had to be given, lest catechumens should perish through lack of right instruction.

(a) The foundation for the sacrament (religionem) of baptism Tertullian finds in (cc. i.-ix.) the history of the creation. The hovering of the Spirit of God over the waters was typical of baptism; and water still, after invocation of God, furnished the sacrament of sanctification. Shortly but beautifully he describes the baptismal ceremonies (cf. de Spect. c. iv.), notes the types and figures of baptism in O.T., and the testimony to baptism in the life and passion of the Lord.

(b) Larger questions acquiescing in the necessity of baptism awaited consideration.

(i) Heretical Baptism. -- Christians held firmly to a belief in one God, one Baptism, one Church. This unity was, as regards baptism, imperilled by heretical baptism. The ademptio communicationis (by some = deprivation of communion; by others = excommunication) stamped heretics as strangers. "We and they have not the same God, nor one [i.e. the same] Christ. Therefore we and they have not one [i.e. the same] baptism. What [baptism] they have, they have it not rightly, and therefore have not baptism at all." On these grounds he rejected heretical baptism. On the whole subject consult Libr. of the Fath. x. pp.280 seq.

(ii) Second Baptism. -- The belief and practice of the church Tertullian states thus: "We enter the font but once; our sins are washed away but once, because they ought not to be repeated." The Christian had, nevertheless, a second baptism, viz. the Baptism of Blood (cf. Luke xii.50). Two baptisms had Christ sent forth from the wounds in His pierced side, that they who believed in His Blood might be washed with water, and that they who had been washed with water might also drink His Blood. This was that Baptism which stood in the place of the font when it had not been received, or restored it when lost (cf. Scorp. c. vii.).

(c) The remainder of the treatise deals with points of church practice and discipline as regards baptism (cc. xvii.-xx.). Laymen as well as clerics could administer it, but only if disciples and in cases of necessity. "Layman" was not taken to include women. Baptism was not to be administered rashly (cf. Matt. vii.6). Tertullian, like the teachers of Alexandria, recommends delaying it in the case of children, till they had passed "the age of innocence," and in the case of the unwedded and widowed. The times most suitable for baptism were the Passover and Pentecost; but not to the exclusion of other opportunities. When about to receive baptism, candidates should prepare themselves by prayer, fasting, vigil, and confession of sins (cf. Mat. iii.6); and after baptism they should rejoice rather than fast. Tertullian suggests to them a prayer: "When you rise from that holy font of your new birth and spread your hands for the first time in the house of your mother Church with your brethren, ask of the Father, ask of the Lord, special grace ["peculia gratiae"] and the divers gifts of the Holy Spirit ["distributiones charismatum"]. And, he adds with touching humility, "I pray you that when you ask, you remember in your prayers Tertullian the sinner."

De Poenitentia. -- Repentance of sin before baptism (cc. i.-vi.). True repentance had its measure and its limit in the fear of God. God Himself initiated repentance, when He rescinded His sentence on Adam. He exhorted men to it by His Prophets; by St. John He pointed out its sign and seal in baptism. Its aim was the salvation of man through the abolition of sin. There was a tendency to say "God was satisfied with the devotion of heart and mind. Even if men did sin in act, they could do so without prejudice to their faith and fear." With an intensity of sarcasm Tertullian replies, "You shall be thrust down into hell without prejudice to your pardon." Such Antinomianism explained another frequent and lamentable practice. The Christians of the day most firmly believed in the washing away of sins in Holy Baptism, and in the necessity of true repentance as preparatory to the reception of it; but this led "novices" ("inter auditorum tirocinia") not to a willing and holy eagerness to receive baptism, but to a presumptuous and unholy spirit of delay, that they (the soldiers of the Cross) might steal the intervening time as a furlough ("commentum") for sinning rather than for learning not to sin. Tenderly and wisely does Tertullian plead with them. "If a man who has given himself to God is not to cease sinning till he be bound by baptism, I hardly know whether he will not feel, after baptism, more sorrow than joy."

De Spectaculis. -- A period of temporary peace after persecution (cf. c. xxvii.) had fallen upon the church in Carthage. Spectacular shows and games were being given, possibly in commemoration of the victory of Severus over Albinus, and the grave question had to be faced -- Should Christians attend them? The seal (signaculum) of baptism supplied the reason against attendance. All the preparations connected with the spectacles were based upon idolatry, and idolatry was renounced at the font. In cc. v.-xiii. Tertullian draws out in detail the origin of the spectacles, their titles, apparatus, localities, and arts; and the reader can realize to the very life the places and scenes he describes in impassioned but often one-sided invective. Everywhere in the circus were images and statues, chariots dedicated to gods, their thrones, crowns, and equipments. Religious rites preceded, intervened, and succeeded the games; guilds, priests, and attendants served the conventus daemoniorum. Consecrated to the sun, the solar temple rose in the midst, the solar effigy glittered on the summit. The chariots of the circus were dedicated to the gods, the charioteers wore the colours (white, red, green, and blue) of idolatry. The designator and the haruspex were two most befouled masters of the ceremonies connected with the funereal and sacrificial rites. The theatrum was the home of Venus and Bacchus; the performances there claimed their patronage. The very artistic gifts employed in producing the spectacles were the inspiration of demons, glozed over by a fallacious consecration. Men pleaded, "We cannot live without pleasure." Well, Christians had pleasures many and noble. What greater pleasure could be conceived than reconciliation to God and pardon of the many sins of a past life? What delight should exceed the trampling idolatry under foot, the expulsion of demons, acts of healing, a life unto God? These were the pleasures and spectacles of Christians, holy, perpetual, and free. In the Christian circus they might behold immodesty hurled down by chastity, perfidy slain by fidelity, cruelty bruised by mercy, wantonness overcome by modesty! These were the contests in which to gain the Christian crown. "or do you wish to see the blood shed? Behold Christ's!" Then Tertullian closes his eyes to the spectacles of earth. There looms before him (c. xxx.) the spectacle close at hand of the Lord coming in His glory and triumph. He depicts angels exulting, saints rising from the dead, the kingdom of the just and the city of the New Jerusalem, the hell of the persecutor and scoffer; and there were spectacles even more glorious still. Man could not conceive them; but they were nobler than those of the circus, the amphitheatre, or the racecourse.

De Cultu Feminarum, i. and ii. -- The luxury and extravagance of the women of the time is matter of notoriety. Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria do not express one whit more strongly than Seneca their ambition, cruelty, and licentiousness. Therefore, when women became Christians, and matronly and wifely virtues or virgin purity and modesty characterized them, it extorted the admiration of some and the impatient scorn of others. But luxury began to creep in and overrule the daughters of the church. Tertullian saw it, and the above works were among other efforts to recall Christian women to the Christian life.

De Idololatria is a protest against serving two
masters -- Christianity and heathenism. Many Christians had in adult age come over to Christianity from heathenism, and many Christian craftsmen gained their living by distinctly heathen trades, and would not or could not see that they were wrong. Many "servants of God" had official or professional engagements which brought them perpetually in contact with heathen customs, legal forms, sacrificial acts, and social courtesies. They drew sophistical distinctions between what they might write but not speak, or the image they might make but not worship. To Tertullian such contact and collusion, and therefore such professions and trades, were radically wrong. Heathenism in all its shapes was idolatry. Two professions connected with idolatry were especially obnoxious to him, (a) the astrologer (c. ix.), arguing that "astrology was the science of the stars which affirmed the Advent of Christ"; (b) the schoolmaster (ludimagister) and other professors of letters (c. x.), who had to teach the names, genealogies, honours of heathen gods, and keep their festivals from which they derived their income. On festival-days, in honour of emperors, victories, and the like, the doors of Christians were more decorated with lamps and laurels than those of the heathen (cf. Apol. c. xxxv.), men quoting Christ's command; "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's" (Matt. xxii.21). Private and social festivals stood on a different footing (c. xvi.), e.g. the natural ceremonies connected with the assumption of the toga virilis, espousals, nuptials, and the naming of children. It was a more important question (c. xvii.) what was to be the line of slaves or children who were believers, of officials in attendance upon their lords, patrons, or the chief magistrates when sacrificing? Tertullian answers all such questions in detail. From idolatry in act Tertullian passes to idolatry in word (c. xx.), forbidding ejaculations such as "By Hercules!" "By the god of truth" (Medius-fidius, see Andrews's Lex. s.n. Fidius). Lastly a yet subtler form of idolatry is considered (c. xxiii.). Christians borrowed money from the heathen, and by giving bonds in security avoided taking an oath. "Scripsi sed nihil dixi. Non negavi, quia non juravi." Indignantly does Tertullian protest against such sophistry: faults committed in mind were faults in deed (Matt. v.28).

De Patientia, one of the most spiritual of Tertullian's compositions, is a sermon preached to himself quite as much as to others. His experience as a priest had taught him the need of patience every time he confronted pettiness not less than pride, frivolity not less than idolatry.

Ad Uxorem, i. and ii. -- Among the questions discussed in, and disturbing, the Christian church at Carthage was that of second marriages. These were evidently numerous. Tertullian gave his advice in a treatise in two books addressed to his wife, which he hoped might be profitable to her and to any other woman "belonging to God." He does not go here beyond the position taken by St. Paul. If he evidently considered celibacy the higher state, though himself married, he does not forbid marriage. But second marriages were different, and he argues strongly against them.

(2) Doctrinal Treatises. -- Three positions laid down by Tertullian (de Praes. Haer. cc. xxi. xxxii. xxxvi.), (a) apostolic doctrine, (b) episcopal succession from the apostles, (c) the apostolic canon of Scripture, were rocks on which the church was then firmly fixed.

(a) His Regula Fidei (cf. de Praes. Haer. c. xiii.; de Virg. Vel. c. i.; adv. Prax. c. ii.) is the form given by Irenaeus (contr. Haer.1 c. x.; cf. the two in Denzinger's Enchiridion, pp.1, 2), expanded upon points which had come to the front during a lapse of about 30 years. But it had become something more than a mere regula; it had risen to a doctrina; and in the brotherhood of Carthage it was the contesseratio (cf. de Praes. Haer. cc. xx. xxxvi.) which reason and tradition united in approving. (b) The regula had come down to them through bishops "per successionem ab initio decurrentem" (cf. ib. c. xxxii.), and those bishops had received "cum successionem charisma veritatis certum" (Iren. iv. c. xxvi.2). The former fact gave historical value to the regula, the latter dogmatic credibility. The unworthy life of many a successor of the apostles (cf. de Pudicitia, c. i.) did not annul the validity of the doctrine. For (c) it was supported by the Scriptures. In the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian the Law and the Prophets, the Gospels and the Apostolic Epistles (cf. de Praes. Haer. c. xxxvi.) formed an undisputed canon. Tertullian's nomenclature for the Bible (see Rönsch, Das N. T. Tertullian's, pp.47-49) is alone sufficient record of the high value attached to the writings in the custody of "the one Holy Catholic Church." The sacred Scriptures contained the solution of every difficulty (cf. de Idolotat. c. iv. et pass.). It was the armoury of weapons offensive and defensive which the church permitted her children alone to use (cf. de Praes. c. xv., etc.), for she alone had taught them to use them aright. With such an equipment and in defence of "mother" church (ad Mart. c. i.; de Orat. c. ii. and aliter). Tertullian went forth to attack the "heresies " of men who, calling themselves Christians, yet abandoned the apostolic tradition for doctrines whose parentage he attributed to the devil, and whose precepts he scorned as derived from non-Christian religious systems and speculations, or as the offspring of self-willed wickedness.

De Praescriptione Haereticorum. -- This treatise, with its title drawn from the language of jurisprudence, consists of (i), an introduction (cc. i.-xiv.), (ii) the main division of the work (cc. xv.-xl.). It is more than probable that it originated in the desire to emphasize the doctrinal stability of the African church in the face of some fresh tendency towards Gnosticism in general and the views of Marcion especially. (i), Persons of weak faith and character (c. iii.) were unsettled because some once accounted firm in the faith were passing over to heresy; and it was not sufficient simply to refer to Scripture, which the Gnostic teachers could apply as much as the orthodox. For the time Tertullian conceived no better way of meeting their difficulty than by positive injunction to refuse appeal to Scripture to their would-be seducers, to note the character of the heretics, and to surrender themselves entirely to the guidance of the church. The authority men advanced for their deviations from the faith was nothing less than the words of the Lord, "Seek, and ye shall find" (Matt. vii.7). Tertullian argues that Christ's words could bear no such interpretation; they contained advice to search after definite truth and to rest content with it when found. There was safety only in the belief that "Christus instituit quod quaeri oportet, quod credi necesse est." Parables (Luke xi.5, Luke xv.8, Luke xviii.2, 3) taught the same lesson -- "finis est et quaerendi et pulsandi et petendi." Therefore Christians were to seek "in their own, from their own, and concerning their own; and only such questions as might be deliberated without prejudice to the rule of faith.

This mention of the regula fidei leads (c. xiii.) to the statement of it. This passage is therefore one of the most important in Tertullian's writings as an index to the articles of the Christian faith believed and accepted in his day (consult Pusey's notes in loco). This "rule" the Christians held to have been taught by Christ. Tertullian is quite willing (c. xiv.) that it should be examined, discussed, and explained to novices by some "doctor gratia scientiae donatus." But he gives a caution. It was not Biblical skill ("exercitatio scripturarum") but faith which saved (cf. Luke xviii.42). Faith lay deposited in this "rule"; it had a law, and in the keeping of that law came salvation. "Cedat curiositas fidei, cedat gloria saluti."

(ii) Chaps. xv.-xl. -- Heresy was sometimes defended on the ground that heretics used and argued from the Scriptures. But, answered Tertullian, their use of them was "audacious" and not to be admitted. None but they whose were the Scriptures had a right to use them. Tertullian adopts this position not from any distrust of his cause, but in accordance with apostolic injunctions (c. xvi.; cf. I. Tim. vi.3, 4; Tit. iii.10). Heretics did not deal fairly with the Scriptures; one passage they perverted, another they interpreted to suit their own purposes (cf. c. xxxviii.). A man might have a most admirable knowledge of the Scripture, but yet make no progress with heretical disputants. Everything he maintained they would deny, everything he denied they would maintain. As a result, the weak in faith, seeing neither side had decidedly the better in the discussion, would go away confirmed in uncertainty. Certain questions had therefore to be settled. Where was the true faith? Whose were the Scriptures? From whom, through whom, when, and to whom had been handed down the "disciplina qua fiunt Christiani"? It might be assumed that wherever the true Christian discipline and faith was, there would be also the true Scriptures, true exposition, and all true Christian traditions (c. xix.). In Christ, Tertullian finds Him Who first delivered the faith openly to the people or privately to His disciples, of whom He had chosen twelve "destinatos nationibus magistros." These twelve (St. Matthias having been chosen in the place of Judas) went forth and founded churches everywhere; and from them other churches derived then, and still derived, the tradition of faith and the seeds of doctrine. Hence their name of "apostolic churches." Though so many, they sprang from but one, the primitive church founded by the apostles. Thus all were primitive, all apostolic, all one; and this unity was proved by their peaceful inter-communion, by the title of brotherhood, and by the exercise of hospitality -- all of which owed their basis and continuance to one and the same sacramental faith. From this was to be deduced the first rule (c. xxi.) None were to be received (cf. Matt. xi.27) as preachers but those (apostles) whom the Lord Jesus Christ appointed and sent. A second rule was that what the apostles preached could only be proved by those churches which the apostles themselves founded, to which they preached, and to which they afterwards sent epistles. All doctrine therefore which agreed with these apostolic churches ("matricibus et originalibus fidei") was to be counted true, and firmly held as having been received by the church from the apostles, by the apostles from Christ, by Christ from God; and all doctrine must be pronounced false which contained anything contrary to the truth declared by the churches and apostles of Christ and of God. These rules Tertullian and his co-religionists affirmed to be held by the Holy Church to which they belonged: "Communicamus cum ecclesiis Apostolicis, quod nulla doctrina diversa. Hoc est testimonium veritatis."

Heretics advanced two "mad" objections to these rules: (a) The apostles did not know all things (c. xxii.). (b) Arguing from I. Tim. vi.20 and II. Tim. i.14, the apostles did not reveal everything to all men. Some doctrines they proclaimed openly and to all, others secretly and to a few (c. xxv.). Tertullian addressed himself to both these points.

C. Tertullian and Montanism. -- About the end of 2nd cent. Montanism invaded Africa. Tertullian would seem to have embraced it wholeheartedly. It suited his temperament; it furnished the logical solutions to problems practical and theological which had been disturbing him. But his Montanism was not the Montanism of 172-177 or of Asia Minor; it had come to him through the purifying medium of distance and time. He knew or remembered nothing of the extravagances connected with the first deliverances of the "new prophets." Montanism was in truth to Tertullian little more than a name; development and restoration rather than novelty underlie the intention, and are stamped upon the thoughts, of every treatise which follows those hitherto considered. The practices Tertullian favoured and advocated, the doctrines he loved and enforced, had alike their roots in the existing practices and doctrines of the church. It is the manner in which he has insisted upon the one which has so much discredited it; it is the juridical fence with which he has driven home the other which has angered opponents. He defended his practice and teaching as necessary for his day. New fasts, protests against second marriages, a sterner accentuation of discipline, were conceived as absolutely necessary by the man who, beginning by tightening bonds which the church had wisely left relaxed, ended by the Pharisaic assumption that he and his were pneumatikoi and his opponents psuchikoi. But if he drew his descriptive language from Gnostic codes, he burned in the spirit to depose Gnostic heresy. The merit he assigned to ecstasy, dream, vision, new prophecy, and special endowment by the Paraclete, were expansions of simpler but Scriptural teaching, with something of Pharisaic lordliness, but ever directed against the Sadduceeism, the materialism, the Patripassianism, and the Monarchianism of his day.

The career of Tertullian, his whole being and character, left him no choice when he had to make his decision. He was bound to side with the sterner party, and he did. If at first he retained his position in the church, that position before long became intolerable. The breach took place of which the de Virg. Vel. gives the ostensible cause; and the passion which animated the apologist in defence of the church was presently employed to revile, discard, and injure her. Few treatises are more painful to read than the de Monogamia, de Jejunio, and de Pudicitia. It is a relief to turn from them to the adv. Praxean. If the heart of the ascetic has been alienated from the church, he can still defend her faith with all his old loving energy, and, by his last existing writing, command respect from those whose affection he had lost.

(1) Practical Treatises. -- De Corona is usually counted the first treatise which indicates traces of Montanism (cf. c. i.; Hauck places the de Virg. Vel. before it), and it was written after the de Spectac. (cf. c. vi.). Opinions were divided as to the soldier's conduct. Some blamed him as rash, as eager to die, some as bringing trouble on the Christian name about a mere matter of dress. Tertullian, with one word of laudation of the man -- "solus scilicet fortis inter tot fratres commilitones, solus Christianus" -- turns furiously upon his decriers.

De Fuga in Persecutione. -- It may well have been that excitement threatening persecution was aroused against Christians by the conduct of the soldier specified in the de Corona. In Carthage (c. iii.) the question was anxiously debated, "May Christians flee from persecution or not?" The clergy answered "Yes," and set an example (c. xi.), which they probably defended by Christ's words (Matt. x.23), and by the practice of a Polycarp and others. A few years before (ad Uxor. i. c. iii.) Tertullian himself had conceded that flight was "better" where the Christian was likely to deny the faith through the agony of torture; but now he thought differently. Montanistic severity had laid its spell upon him. His work deals with the two modes by which the timid and doubtful sought to evade persecution: (a) flight (cc. i.-xi.), and (b) bribery (cc. xii.-end).

De Exhortatione Castitatis. -- Some years had elapsed since Tertullian had written ad Uxorem, deprecating for women a second marriage. The death of a friend's wife gave him an opportunity of urging upon men a like continence; and he did so in language declaratory of views far more exaggerated.

De Virginibus Velandis. -- The veiling of virgins was a burning question among Christians at Carthage; and partisans in Carthage took sides according as they argued from what St. Paul (I. Cor. xi.) had said or had left to be inferred. Did his term "women" include virgins? Christian married women appeared veiled everywhere, in the church as well as the marketplace; their veil was the mark of their status. The Christian virgin did one of three things: she went everywhere unveiled, or veiled in the streets but unveiled in the church, or everywhere veiled. Of these the first was the oldest and local custom -- it was the mark of the virgin and the practice of the majority. But a strong minority had adopted the last of the three practices. This Tertullian approved (cf. de Orat. cc. xx.-xxii.).

(2) Doctrinal Works. -- The majority of these were written when Tertullian had become a Montanist. They present more or less the catch-words of the sect, and refer to the Paraclete and the new prophecy, if the doctrines inculcated and defended are those of the church Catholic. To be a Montanist was not with Tertullian to be a seceder from the church in points of faith, though the church found it necessary for the sake of her unity in life and doctrine to count him and his outside her.

Adv. Hermogenem. -- For the nature of the opinions of this heretical teacher and of Tertullian's treatise against him see [558]HERMOGENES. The treatise contains two very beautiful passages, (a) the eulogy of wisdom (c. xviii.), and (b) the description of the development of cosmical order out of chaos (c. xxix.).

Adv. Valentinianos. -- For a review of the opinions of this school ("frequentissimum plane collegium inter haereticos") see [559]VALENTINUS. Tertullian's treatise does not so much discuss these opinions as state them; it is not so much a refutation as a satire, intended to provoke mirth (c. vi.). It claims no originality, but to be a faithful reflection of the teaching of Justin, Miltiades (cf. Eus. H. E. v.17) Irenaeus, and Proculus.

De Carne Christi. -- This is Tertullian's principal contribution to the Christological problem of the time: Was the flesh of Christ born of the Virgin and human in its nature (c. xxxv.)? In his de Resurrectione Carnis (c. ii.) he himself specifies the tenets he opposes here to be those of Marcion, Basilides, Valentinus, and Apelles. These "modern Sadducees" (c. i.; de Praes. Haer. c. xxxiii.) were apprehensive lest if they admitted the reality of Christ's flesh, they must also admit His resurrection in the flesh, and consequently the resurrection generally. It was necessary to discuss, therefore, His bodily substance. (i) (a) Marcion's views are examined (cc. ii.-v.); then (b) those of Apelles (cc. vi.-ix.) ; then (c) that of the Valentinians (cc. x.-xvi.). (ii) The second part of the treatise deals more especially with the single point -- "Did Christ receive flesh from the Virgin" (cc. xvii.-end)?

The treatise fully responds to the intention of the writer. It examines the arguments employed and the Scriptures advanced (see esp. c. xviii.) ; and does so, on the whole, in a style moulded by the recollection that the subject was a grave and solemn one. There are bursts of irony (e.g. cc. ii. iv.); paradoxes (see c. v., perhaps the most famous of Tertullian's many paradoxes) and retorts; but the total result is a valuable contribution to the literature of the subject. His line of argument and his statement of the church's doctrine is that of Irenaeus. For a general view of the opinions attacked see [560]APELLES, [561]MARCION, and [562]VALENTINUS.

De Resurrectione Carnis. -- Tertullian wrote this (c. ii.) in fulfilment of the intention expressed in the de Carne Christi (c. xxv.), against those who allowed that the soul would rise again, but refused resurrection to the flesh on account of its worthlessness. It was a logical sequence to their fundamental position that the works of the Demiurge, or the god who created the world and was opposed to the supreme God, were marked by corruption and worthlessness, and that the flesh of man was consequently so also. Tertullian grants that his subject was invested with uncertainty; but it was too important to be passed over. The question affected the very Oneness of the Godhead. To deny the resurrection of the flesh would be to shake that doctrine, to vindicate the resurrection of the flesh would establish it. In contrast to the unseemly language
(spurciloquium) of heathen and heretic, he will adopt a more honourable and modest style (cf. de Anima, c. xxxii.); and he has kept his word. There are few sentences which grate upon the ear, while there are many passages of considerable beauty and profound Christian faith.

Adv. Marcionem, bks. i.-v. -- This work in its present form is assigned to the 15th year of Severus (bk. i. c. xv.) or c.208; and comes to us as a work touched and retouched during many years (cf. i. c. xxii.). Tertullian had in other cases felt dissatisfaction with his writings of an earlier period, or altered his arguments to meet the ever-altering phases of false belief. Thus in the earlier work, de Praes. Haer. c. xix., he declines to allow appeal to the Scriptures in the discussion of heresy; in a later treatise, de Resurr. Carnis, c. iii., he demands of heretics that they should support their inquiries from Scripture alone (cf. adv. Prax. c. xi.). So now, his earliest edition of this treatise, if placed (conjecturally) c.200, would have seemed to him very defective when writing c.208. He had separated from his old friends, now branded as the "Psychics" (iv. c. xxii.), to find among the Montanists the true church (i. c. xxi.; iv. c. v.). To him "the new prophecy" was now the highest authority, the Paraclete the sole guide unto all truth. The doctrinal controversy between Tertullian and Marcion turned principally on questions of anthropology and Christology. All that Tertullian has to say upon it has been summed up under [563]MARCION.

De Anima. -- In the treatise de Testimonio Animae Tertullian had sought to prove that the soul of man bore natural testimony to the truth of the representations given in Holy Scripture of the unity, nature, and attributes of God, and of a future state. In the treatise de Anima, written some ten years or so later, he deals with the soul itself. Between these surviving treatises is to be placed one now lost, de Censu Animae, in which he had combated the opinion of Hermogenes that the origin of the soul was to be found in matter by the counter-opinion that it was formed by the afflatus of God (cf. de Anima, cc. i. iii. xi.; adv. Marc. ii. c. ix.). The attributes of the soul (animae naturalia) pointed, in his opinion, to propinquity to God and not to matter (cf. de Anima, c. xxii.), an opinion supported by the views of Plato, who had taught the divinatio animae (cf. de Anima, c. xxiv.). The discussion of its origin is followed by a general inquiry respecting the nature, powers, and destiny of the soul. An admirable analysis is that of Bp. Kaye (pp.178-207; cf. also Neander, the careful analysis of Böhringer, and Hauck). In c. xxii. Tertullian gives his definition of the soul as deriving its origin from the breath of God (iv. xi.). The soul is immortal, corporeal (v.-viii.), and endowed with form (ix.); simple in its substance (x. xi.); possessing within itself the principle of intelligence (xii.); working in different ways or channels (xiii.-xv.); endued with free will; affected by external circumstances, and thus producing the infinite variety of disposition observable among mankind; rational (xvi.); supreme over man (xvii. xviii.); and possessing natural insight into futurity (xix.). The Gospels, in (e.g.) the history of the rich man in torment (Luke xvi.23, 24), proved the corporeity of the soul (c. vii.; also a Stoic opinion), and medical science, "the sister of philosophy," in the volumes of a contemporary physician, Soranus (c. vi.), also attested this belief. The invisibility of the soul was no disproof of its corporeity; witness St. John, who, "when in the spirit," "beheld the souls of the martyrs" (Rev. vi.9); witness also the testimony of "the sister so endowed with gifts of revelation" (c. ix.). This latter testimony is of interest as exhibiting Montanist religious observances. Revelations used to come to her in the church on the Lord's Day. While the solemn services were being performed, she used to fall into an "ecstasy in the spirit." In that state she conversed with angels, sometimes even with the Lord; she saw and heard mysteries (sacramenta); she read men's hearts; she prescribed remedies to the sick. Sometimes these visions took place when the Scriptures were being read, or when the Psalms were being chanted, or at the time of preaching or of prayer. On one occasion Tertullian thinks that he must have been preaching about the soul. The "sister" was rapt in spiritual ecstasy. After the people had been dismissed, she told him, as was her habit, what she had seen. "The soul was shewn to me in a bodily form. It seemed a spirit; not, however, an empty illusion, but one which could be grasped, 'tenera et lucida et aerii coloris, et forma per omnia humana.'" Such testimony was to the Montanist Tertullian all-conclusive.

The main purpose of cc. xxiii.-xxvii. is to prove that the souls of all mankind are derived from one common source, the soul of Adam. In cc. xxviii.-xxxv. Tertullian ridicules the conclusions necessitated by metempsychosis and metemsomatosis.

As a preliminary to the consideration of the manner in which the soul encounters death, Tertullian considers the subject of sleep -- the image of death (cc. xlii.-end). He adopts by preference the Stoic definition of sleep as the temporary suspension of the activity of the senses ("resolutionem sensualis vigoris"), and limits the senses affected to those of the body; the soul, being immortal, neither requiring nor admitting a state of rest. While the body is asleep or dead, the soul is elsewhere.

Death, to which Tertullian now turns (c.1.), was to be the lot of all, let Epicurus and Menander say what they would. The voice of God (Gen. ii.17) had declared death to be the death of nature. Independent of heathen examples of this truth, Tertullian finds one in the translation of Enoch and Elijah. Their death was deferred only; "they were reserved for a future death, that by their blood they might extinguish Antichrist" (Oehler refers to Rev. xi.3). Where would the soul be when divested of the body (cc. liii.-lviii.)? Tertullian answers, In Hades; but his Hades is not that of Plato, nor his answer to the question that adopted by philosophers. To Hades, "a subterranean region," did Christ go (Matt. xii.40; I. Pet. iii.19); therefore Christians must keep at arms' length those who were too proud to believe that the souls of the faithful deserved to be placed in the lower regions. From Hades shall men remove to heaven at the day of judgment. But what would take place while the soul was in Hades? Would it sleep? No, Tertullian replies; souls do not sleep when men are alive. Full well the soul will know in Hades how to feel joy or sorrow even without the body. The "prison" of the Gospel (Matt. v.25) was Hades, and "the uttermost farthing" the very smallest offence which had to be atoned there before the resurrection. Hence the soul must undergo in Hades some compensatory discipline without prejudice to the full accomplishment of the resurrection, when recompense would be paid to the flesh also. This conclusion Tertullian affirms to be one communicated by the Paraclete, and therefore accepted by all who admitted the force of His words from a knowledge of His promised gifts.

De Pallio. -- This, a treatise intentionally extravagant, is a vindication of the philosopher's mantle (pallium) ridiculed by the people of Carthage. It might be called a juridical plea, couched in witty and forensic language, in an imaginary case of Pallium (see description s.v. in D. C. A.) v. Toga. Some have seen in Tertullian's assumption of the pallium an indication that he adopted it to show his separation from the church. The conjecture has nothing to prove or disprove it. The mantle had virtues of its own (cc. v. vi.). Did it not illustrate simplicity and capacity, economy and austerity, in protest against the follies and effeminacies, the gluttony and extravagance, the impurity and intemperance of the togati? "Grande pallii beneficium est." It was the garb not only of the philosopher, but also of those benefactors of the human race -- the grammarian and the rhetorician, the sophist and the physician, the poet and the musician, the student of astronomy and the pupil of national history. In face of such facts, why mind the sneer, "The pallium ranked below the toga of the Roman knight," or the indignant question, "Shall I give up my toga for the pallium"? There was no indignity in the matter. "'Gaude gallium et exsulta!' Thou art honoured by a better philosophy from the time that thou didst become a Christian garment."

Scorpiace. -- A defence of martyrdom stronger than is found in the Montanist works of his previous period, perhaps c.211.

Ad Scapulam. -- Probably at the beginning of the reign of Caracalla, a.d.211, the African proconsula Scapula authorized the persecution to which this work refers. He was a fierce opponent of the Christians, and permitted his fanaticism to override his sense of justice (c. iv.). This treatise uses the arguments of the Apology, but with a change in tone. Tertullian's passion is still strong, but gravely and soberly expressed. There is the same appeal for justice, but defiance has given place to prayer, and hatred of the persecutor to love for the enemy. The treatise may fairly take rank among the best and most interesting of all which have been preserved. Scapula is told frankly that they who had joined the "sect" of Christians were prepared to accept its conditions. The persecutions of men ignorant of what they were doing did not alarm them or make them shrink from heathen "savagery." Against the charges usually brought against them (cf. c. ii.; Apol. cc. vii.-ix.) Scapula should set one plain fact -- the behaviour of Christians. They formed the majority in every city, yet their conduct was always marked by silence and modesty. Their "discipline" enforced a patience which was divine; if they were known at all among men, it was for their reformation of the vices which once degraded them. Tertullian does not write to intimidate, but to warn -- me theomachein. "Perform your duties as proconsul, but remember to be humane." If the Christians of Carthage should see fit to come to Scapula, how many swords and fires would he need for such multitudes of every sex, age, and rank! He would have to slaughter the leading persons of the city, and decimate the noble men and women of his own rank, friends and relations of his own circle. "Spare thyself, Scapula, if thou wilt not spare us. Spare Carthage, if thou wilt not spare thyself. Spare thy province, which the mere mention of thine intention has subjected to the threats and extortions of soldiers and of private foes [cf. de Fuga, cc. xii. xiii.]. As for us, we have no Master but God. Those whom you reckon your masters are but men, and must one day die. Our community shall never die. The more you pull it to the ground, the more it will be built up."

De Monogamia. -- Some years passed, of peace from without but not from within; and a third time (c.217) Tertullian returns to that question -- marriage -- which had occupied him in the ad Uxorem and de Exhortatione Castitatis. The third treatise is the bitterest. Tertullian now claims for his party that they and they alone were guided by the Paraclete. From Him they had received their teaching on monogamy. He had come to supersede the teaching of St. Paul by yet higher counsels of perfection. Much of Tertullian's argument -- e.g. from Scripture -- is repeated from his former treatises, and much of it is strained and conjectural, as he felt it would be said to be (c. ix.); but no one will dispute Tertullian's earnestness. Immorality was prevalent and contagious, and in monogamy -- supposing celibacy and widowhood to be impossible -- he saw a counteracting agency. Discipline and spirituality would be at least practicable to those who would rally round the standard of monogamy.

De Jejunio Adversus Psychicos (al. de Jejuniis). -- Another great subject of difference between churchmen and Montanists had reference to fasts. Tertullian's paper is most distressing to read, scanty in argument, plentiful in abuse. Both sides indulged in unmeasured invective; both had lost their temper. The charges of luxury, gluttony, and immorality unhesitatingly and almost exultingly brought by Tertullian against church ecclesiastics and laymen are so gross as almost to refute themselves by their very exaggeration. They are more than the retort of a man infuriated by unjust accusations and meeting them by counter-charges. The ascetic has become a fanatic, and in his mad hatred besmirches and calumniates the church he had once so tenderly loved.

De Pudicitia. -- This work has been placed before the de Monogamia and the de Jejunio, but internal and negative evidence, if slight, seems to assign it a place after them. An edict (c. i.) of the bp. of Rome (Zephyrinus, 202-218, or Callistus, 218-223) lashed Tertullian into fury, and completely dissolved the last links of union between him and the Psychics. The treatise is marked by intense bitterness from beginning to end.

Adversus Praxean. -- For the history of Praxeas, the nature of his views and Tertullian's answer, see [564]PRAXEAS.

Tertullian was the first who, in the controversy against the Monarchians, introduced prominently the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Praxeas did not touch it. Hence the value of such chapters as viii. ix. xxv. xxx. He fully maintains the personality of the Third Person of the Trinity (cf. ad Mart. c. iii.) if his language is occasionally ambiguous (cf. c. xii., his comment on Gen. i.26). He bases as usual his arguments on Scripture (cc. xxi. to end), and if not always free from his well-known tendency to read into them what he wants, the passages are as a rule well and wisely handled either in defence of the Catholic position or in refutation of that of Praxeas. He gives (c. xx.) the 3 texts especially valued by this teacher in support of his heresy (Is. xlv.5; John x.30, xiv.9, 10), and refutes his views at length (cc. xxi.-xxiv.).

IV. SUMMARY. -- The brief sketch here presented of these powerful writings will have indicated the investigation of many a doctrine and the record of contemporaneous practices heathen and Christian, as well as illustrated the mind, character, and style of their writer.

(a) Tertullian and Heathenism. -- On its moral side, extravagance, luxury, immorality, and cruelty were to all external appearance as rampant in his day as ever. Tertullian knows heathenism only in its coarseness and repulsiveness. Yet a reformation was proceeding, religious in origin and intention, which must not be forgotten in any true estimate of the age. Tertullian lived when old pagan traditions and new tendencies were co-operating; when there had risen that religious movement which, owing its impulse to the eclecticism of a Julia Domna, passed through the stirring phases successively represented in the neo-Pythagoreanism of her salon, in the subordination by Elagabalus of every other cultus to that of the Oriental sun-god, and in the equalization by Alexander Severus of all worshipful beings in his common cultus of the heroes of humanity. That movement was the product of a real awakening.

The main centre of these changes and developments was Rome, but Tertullian's writings against heathenism prove that Carthage at least felt the effects of this great tidal wave of
religiousness. They are as full of attack as of defence. He strikes at a vigorous paganism as much as he beats off the charges alleged against Christianity. Every page teems with allusions which reflect without effort the firm foothold acquired by all forms of heathen cultus. Ridicule of the worship of the ancient deities of Greece and Rome, of the cultus of the emperors, of the "genius," and of demons is found allied with contempt of the gods of Alexandria (Isis and Serapis), of Phrygia (the Magna Mater and Bellona), of Syro-Phoenicia (the Dea Syra), and of Carthage (the Juno Coelestis). The very fierceness of his invective and scorn against the polytheistic revival, the ridicule he pours upon galli and flamines, priests and priestesses, itinerant and mendicant propagators of this or that cultus, guilds, processions, festivals, evidences the success and popularity of heathenism. The Apology of Apuleius (end of 2nd cent.) is illustrated by the Apology of Tertullian, and the statements of Dio, Spartian, Herodian, Lampridius, etc., can be compared with those of our writer. Were those heathen works lost, it would be almost possible to reproduce from his pages, shorn of their extravagance, a picture of the religiousness of the age such as they have given.

(b) Tertullian and Christianity. -- In passing from heathenism to Christianity, Tertullian believed himself to be passing from darkness to light and from corruption to purity. He embraced it with all the strength of a matured mind and life. All the more intelligible, therefore, is his vehement anger with any form of Christian precept and practice, whether at Rome or Carthage, which fell short of his ideal. The church was to him the Virgin and spotless Bride of the Ascended Lord, and her
children -- bishops, priests, and people -- must worthily reflect her purity and faith. He would permit no shortcomings because he would admit no failure. A writer of the 4th cent. has left on record that the Africans as he knew them were "faithless and cunning. There might be some good people among them, but they were not many" (quoted in Mommsen, The Provinces of the Roman Empire, ii. p.340). This estimate is reflected a century earlier in Tertullian's pages. It is a summary of his opinion of the spurious devotion which marked the Christian fop (de Poenit. c. xi.; cf. de Cultu Fem. ii. c. viii.), the would-be penitent (de Poenit. c. ix.), the rich Christian lady (de Cultu Fem. i. c, ix., ii. cc. v.-vii.; de Virg. Vel. c. xvii.), the fashionable virgin (ib. c. xii.; in contrast with her holy sister, c. xv.), the drugged and petted martyr (de Jej. c. xii., in contrast with the willing and happy martyr, ad Martyres, cc. i.-iii.); and it explains that final revulsion of mind which, spurning every kind of compromise, heaped indiscriminate abuse on what was best as well as what was worst in the life of the Christians of the church, and turned to find in asceticism and Montanism a seriousness and elevation impossible to him elsewhere. Paradoxical as it may seem, it was the same impulsive spirit which kept him staunch to the faith of that church whose discipline and ritual he abjured or carried with him to a schismatic body. Gnosticism was to Tertullian the embodiment of theological corruption, darkness, and falsehood, and he fought it with all his natural vehemence. His theology, if developed by Montanism, is in substance that which the church accepted, and accepts. The admiration felt for his writings by his countryman Cyprian (200-258), bp. of Carthage, should never be forgotten. Cyprian, says St. Jerome, never passed a day without reading a portion of Tertullian's works; he frequently asked for them with the words, "Da mihi magistrum"; and it is impossible to read Cyprian's existing treatises without seeing how largely the thoughts of Tertullian have been absorbed by him, if the language has been softened and deepened. In our own country Bp. Bull (Defensio Fidei Nicenae) and Pearson (On the Creed) have used many an argument which the Montanist of Africa had prepared for them, and Bp. Kaye's illustrations of the Articles of the Church of England from Tertullian's writings (pp.246, etc.) concur in establishing the force of Möhler's description of his dogma as "so homelike" (Patr. i. p.737). It is based on the teaching of Christ as handed down by apostles and apostolic men, and formulated in the "regula fidei una, sola, immobilis et irreformabilis" (cf. de Praes. Haer. cc. viii. ix.; de Virg. Vel. c. i.). Theology owes practically to him such words (int. al.) as Trinitas, satisfactio, sacramentum, substantia, persona, liberum arbitrium, transferred (some of them) from the Latin law courts to take their definite place in the language of Latin divinity (cf. the index verborum at the end of Oehler, vol. ii.).

(c) Tertullian, the Man. -- Of no one, says Ebert, is Buffon's saying truer, "the style is the man," and the best illustration of his style he finds in the Apology (Geschichte der Christlich-Lateinischen Literatur, pp.34-37). Tertullian cared nothing for form save as it best expressed his thought. He said right out from his heart what he had to say about friend or foe, without attempt to clothe his speech with the graceful charm of the Greek or the dignified periods of the Roman. Abrupt and impetuous, eloquent and stern, his sentences follow one another with the sweeping, rushing force of storm-waves. The very exceptions do but prove the. rule. Such tender or beautiful passages as those which depict the life of Christ on earth (de Pat. c. iii.; Apol. c. xxi.; were these written with any acquaintance with the Life of the pagan Christ, Apollonius of Tyana, edited by Philostratus at the command of Julia Domna?), the power and effect of prayer (de Orat. c. xxix.), the virtues and portrait of patience (de Pat. c. xv.), contemporary civilization (de Anima, c. xxx.), the happy marriage (ad Uxor. ii.8), and faith, the barque of the church (de Idol. c. xxiv.); or the impressive analogies of the resurrection he finds in nature (re Resurr. Carnis, c. xii.), and the illustrations of the Trinity (adv. Prax. c. viii.), come upon the reader as a surprise, as something so unlike one who is more in his recognized element when describing the place-hunter (de Poenit. c. xi.), the traitor (Apol. c. xxxv.), and the knowing Valentinian (adv. Val. end), or painting that ghastliest of his portraits, murder and idolatry crooning over adultery (de Pud. c. v.). His paradoxes are characteristic: To him the unity of heretics was schism (de Praes. Haer. c. xlii.); and heresy itself "tantum valeat quantum si non fuisset" (ib. c. i.). "God is great when little" (adv. Marc. ii. c. ii.); "Lie to be true " (de Virg. Vel. c. xvi.), contain thoughts only a shade less startling than the "Mortuus est Dei Filius; prorsus credibile est quia ineptum est; et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est" (de Carne Christi, c. v.), or the well-known "the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church" (Apol. c. i.). His right appreciation of the methods of Scripture exegesis (de Pud. c. ix.; cf. de Res. Carn. c. xxi.) is found side by side with such signal examples of perverse interpretation as those which disfigure the de Jejunio and de Pudicitia, or such fanciful expositions as his view of the cross (adv. Marc. iii. c. xviii.; cf. adv. Jud. cc. x. xiii.), St. Peter and the sword (de Idol. c. xix.), God's Voice to Adam (adv. Marc. ii. c. xxv.), and the phoenix (de Res. Carn. c. xiii.). Such paradoxes, contrasts, and contradictions are characteristic indications not so much of a want of comprehensiveness as of a determination to occupy himself with but one idea or one aspect of a great truth, and subjugate to that the wider bearings of the question. His great acuteness, power, eloquence, and causticity are concentrated for the time being upon a single principle; and whatever will illustrate it, prove it, and drive it home, is drawn into its service, often regardless of its fitness (see this drawn out in Pusey's pref. to Libr. of the Fath. vol. x.) Tertullian's style is strongly marked by the early training of his life: it is juridical in thought, language, and exposition -- a fact which explains so much of its difficulty. The advocate is always present. His conduct of the contest between Christianity and heathenism is that of a law-court contest, God v. the devil; his conception of the contest between Montanist and Churchman is that of one who asserted and developed Christianity v. one who surrendered it or left it defective. Tertullian was often wrong, and the church has, with sorrow, so adjudged him; but the character of the man explains everything.

What that character was he has himself told: "Miserrimus ego, semper aeger caloribus impatientiae" (de Pat. c. i.). The sentence, caught up by Jerome, explained to him the man ("homo acris et vehementis ingenii"), as it explains his secession to Montanism and his intellectual and moral defects. Perverse in the sense of wrongheaded he often was in his narrow estimates, but he was never wrong-hearted. His life and work, full of the shades and contrasts of one who loved well and hated well, were after all a life and a work from which more has been gained than lost. If Hilary can regret that his "later error took away from the authority of what he had written," Vincentius can remind us that those writings were "thunderbolts"; they were hurled forth in defence of faith and practice. It will be to his earlier life or less polemical treatises that the reader will turn with Cyprian by preference, and in the perverse impatience of his later life see at once "the fire which kindles and the beacon which warns" (Pusey).

V. LITERATURE. -- Oehler's ed. of Tertullian is on the whole the best extant. A new and scientific ed. was commenced by Rufferscheid and Wissowa in the Vienna Corpus Scr. Eccl. Lat. xx. See a full list of recent litt. in Bardenhewer's Patrology (Freiburg im Br.1908). Kaye is most serviceable in elucidating many points as to his life, era, teaching, and style. Translations into Eng. of some of his apologetic and practical treatises are in Lib. of the Fathers, vol. x., and of almost all his works in Ante-Nicene Lib. vols. ii. vii. xi. xviii.; but the translations are very unequal. Recent edd. are de Praescrip. Haer., ad Martyres, and ad Scapulam in one vol. with intro. and notes, and adv. Gentes, both ed. by T. H. Bindley (Oxf. Univ. Press); de Baptismo, ed. with intro. and notes by J. M. Lupton (Camb. Univ. Press); de Poen. and de Pud. with French notes and intro. by Prof. de Labriolle (1906); and a reprint of the bp. of Bristol's illustrations of Ecclesiastical History from Tertullian's writings in the A. and M. Theol. Libr. (Griffith).

[J.M.F.]

Thaddaeus
Thaddaeus. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. i.13) gives a story, which he says he found in the archives of Edessa, that after the ascension of our Lord, the apostle Judas Thomas sent Thaddaeus, one of the seventy disciples, to Edessa, to king Abgarus the Black, and that he cured the king of a serious illness, converted him with all his people to Christianity, and died at Edessa after many years of successful labours. The name of this apostle of the Edessenes is given by the Syrians as Addaeus (Doctrina Addai, ed. Phillips, p.5, Eng. trans.1876), and it is possible that Eusebius misread the name as Thaddaeus. Thaddaeus was at a later date confused with the apostle Judas Thaddaeus. The documents given by Eusebius contain a correspondence between Abgar and our Lord, which of course is spurious. Cf. R. A. Lipsius, Die Edessenische Abgarsage kritisch untersucht (Braunschweig, 1880), and in D. C. B. vol. iv.; also, by the same, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, vol. ii.2, 178-201, and Suppl. p.105; also Texeront, Les Origines de l'Eglise d'Edesse et la légende d'Abgar (Paris, 1888).

[H.W..]

Thaïs
Thaïs, St., a penitent courtesan of Egypt, converted c.344 by Paphnutius of Sidon. Her story illustrates her age. Her fame reached to Paphnutius's monastery, whereupon he determined to make a great effort to convert her, though she was evidently a nominal Christian. He assumed a secular dress and put a single coin in his pocket, which he offered to Thaïs on arriving at her house. Recognizing his true character, she cast herself at his feet, destroyed all her precious dresses, and entered a female monastery, where Paphnutius shut her up in a cell, sealing the door, and leaving only a small window, through which to receive food. After 3 years she received absolution, and died 15 days after (Vit. PP. in Migne's Patr. Lat. lxxiii.661).

[G.T.S.]

Thecla
Thecla (1), the heroine of a romantic story which from a very early date has had a strong hold on the imagination of the church, and which, though under the form in which it is now extant it can only be received as a fiction, has enough appearance of a foundation in fact to warrant us in treating of her as a real person. She was, as we read in the Acts of Paul and Thecla, a contemporary of St. Paul, a Virgin of Iconium, daughter of a woman of rank (apparently a widow) named Theocleia, and affianced to Thamyris, a youth who was first among the nobles of that city. At the time when the narrative opens St. Paul is represented as being on his way to Iconium, after having been driven from Antioch of Pisidia; but whether his flight from Antioch, related in Acts xiii.15, is meant, and consequently whether the ensuing events are to be taken as belonging to his first visit to Iconium, is not clear. One Onesiphorus of Iconium, whose house adjoined that of Theocleia, hearing of his approach, went with his wife and sons to meet him, and recognizing him by a description he had received from Titus, invited him to his house with joy. Two persons named Demas and Hermogenes, who under a hypocritical guise of seeking instruction in the gospel had attached themselves to the apostle on his journey, were at their urgent request admitted along with him by Onesiphorus (though not without demur). In this house Paul began at once to preach "the word of God concerning temperance and the resurrection"; his discourse consisting of a series of beatitudes, in form like those of the Sermon on the Mount, but in substance taken up with the commendation of asceticism and celibacy. Thecla, sitting at a window in her mother's house, heard his words and became filled with passionate faith and zeal for virginity. Being restrained from satisfying her longing to see him and hear his doctrine face to face, she remained listening at her window, despite her mother's remonstrances. The tender entreaties of her betrothed Thamyris, whom Theocleia summoned, proved equally unavailing. The lover, thus repulsed, hurried into the street and watched the house where the stranger was preaching, whose eloquence had cast this deplorable spell over Thecla. Observing Demas and Hermogenes among those going in and out, he questioned them, invited them to a rich banquet at his house, and offered them money for information concerning the preacher. They disclaimed personal knowledge of Paul, but represented him as urging on the young abstinence from marriage, under the threat of forfeiting their part in the resurrection, which (they said) he promised to the celibate only; whereas the true resurrection (as they professed themselves ready to explain) was already past for those that have children in whom they live anew; and men rise again when they fully know the true God. They also advised him to bring Paul before Castelius the governor on the charge of teaching "the new doctrine of the Christians," which (they assured him) would ensure his execution. Accordingly, next morning Thamyris, with other magistrates, and a great multitude, repaired to the house of Onesiphorus, and dragged Paul before the tribunal of Castelius the "proconsul," accusing him merely of dissuading maidens from marriage; though Demas and Hermogenes were at hand prompting him, "Say that he is a Christian, and thus shalt thou procure his death." St. Paul, being called on by the governor for his defence, delivered a speech, not answering the specific charge of Thamyris, but declaring his gospel message and pleading his mission from God. The governor committed him to prison until it was convenient to hear him more attentively. Thecla made this imprisonment her opportunity. That very night, by bribing her mother's doorkeeper with her bracelets and the jailer with her silver mirror, she visited St. Paul's cell; and there, after a night spent at his feet in hearing his doctrine, was found next morning by her mother and lover. At their instance St. Paul was immediately dragged again before the governor, pursued by the multitude with the cry, "He is a sorcerer! Away with him!" Thecla was summoned likewise, and followed him exultingly to the tribunal. Castelius was at first disposed to listen favourably to Paul, as he declared the works of Christ; but afterwards, finding that Thecla would give no reply to his interrogations, but remained silent with her eyes fixed on Paul, and being wrought on by her mother, who demanded that her daughter should be burnt alive as an example to warn other women, he scourged Paul and cast him out of the city, and sentenced Thecla to the stake. When the pyre was ready, she mounted it undismayed. A deluge of hail and rain quenched the fire, the people fled, and Thecla escaped. Meantime St. Paul, with Onesiphorus and his family, on their way to Daphne, had taken refuge in a tomb, where he continued in prayer for Thecla, and sent one of the lads back to lconium to sell his outer garment and buy bread. The youth met Thecla, who was seeking Paul, and brought her to the hiding-place. There they found Paul praying for her deliverance, and a scene of joyful thanksgiving ensued. The apostle with Thecla went on his way to Antioch. As they entered Antioch her beauty caught the eye of Alexander the Syriarch (this seems to prove that the city here meant is the capital of Syria), who sought to obtain possession of her by offering money to Paul. Baffled and enraged the Syriarch brought her before the Roman governor, who condemned her to be cast to wild beasts; committing her meanwhile to the care of Tryphaena, a widow lady (afterwards described as a queen, and kinswoman of the emperor), who, having lately lost her daughter Falconilla, found comfort in the charge of the condemned maiden, who converted her to Christ. After a series of marvellous escapes from the beasts, Thecla, interrogated by the governor, made profession of her faith: "I am a handmaid of the living God, and I believe in His Son in Whom He is well pleased; and therefore it is that none of the beasts hath touched me. . . . Whoso believeth not on Him shall not live for ever." Amid the jubilations of the women she was released. To rejoin St. Paul was her first thought, and hearing he was at Myra in Lycia, she disguised herself in man's attire and set out with a train of attendants, male and female. There she found him preaching the word. After relating to him in the house of Hermaeus (or Hermes) the wonderful story of her deliverances, she proceeded to Iconium, receiving from him the parting charge, "Go and teach (didaske) the word of God." Arrived at Iconium, she first visited the house of Onesiphorus, and there prostrating herself on the spot where St. Paul had sat and taught, she thanked God and the Lord Jesus Christ for her conversion and preservation. There was no longer anything to fear from the importunities of Thamyris, who had died. She found her mother still living, and endeavoured, but apparently without success, to bring her to believe in the Lord. Finally, she departed to Seleucia, where she "enlightened many and died in peace." Thus the story ends in its oldest form, as preserved in ancient Syriac and Latin versions; but the four extant Greek copies represent her as living an anchorite's life in a cave, on herbs and water, and they subjoin a marvellous account (certainly of more recent composition) of her latter years. She (according to three of these copies, A, B, and C) went to Rome to see St. Paul again, but was too late to find him alive. She died there soon after, aged 90, and was buried near his tomb 72 years after her martyrdom.

Though the story was undoubtedly written originally in Greek, the oldest Greek MS. is not earlier than 10th cent. But ample proofs of its high antiquity are forthcoming. The so-called Decree of Gelasius, de Libras Recipiendis et non Recipiendis, which is probably of the early years of the 7th cent., formally excluded (c. vi.) from the list of "scriptures received by the church" the "book which is called the Acts of Paul and Thecla." The Syriac version, extant in four MSS., one of 6th cent., contains internal evidence that the Greek text had been long in existence and frequently copied before the Syrian translator did his work. We have also an expanded Life of Thecla, composed before the middle of 5th cent. by Basil, bp. of Seleucia (in Isauria), professedly framed on the lines of a previous work then ancient. A comparison of our Acts of Paul and Thecla with this Life leaves no doubt that the former is the basis of the latter. These Acts (as we shall now call them") were thus "ancient" early in the 5th cent., and can hardly therefore be later than 300. In the 4th cent. Hilary (the Ambrosian) has several clear references to these Acts (Comm. on I. Tim. i.20; II. Tim. i.15, iv.14; cf. Acts 1: also on II. Tim. ii.18; cf. Acts 14); and even, as it seems, cites them in connexion with the last passage, as "alia Scriptura." Jerome, then or a few years later, mentions (de Vir. Ill. c.7) but rejects a book called Periodoi Paulou kai Thekles, which he says was discredited by startling marvels; probably Jerome is here inaccurately describing the book as we have it. The very early currency in Christendom of a written narrative of the life of Thecla is proved by the much earlier, more exact, and more authentic evidence of the writer whose authority Jerome here appeals to, Tertullian, in his treatise de Baptismo (c.17), written c.200. Tertullian refuses to admit the authority of certain writings falsely assuming the name of Paul, which some alleged in support of the claim of women to teach and baptize after "the example of Thecla"; for these (he says) were the production of a certain "presbyter of Asia," who was, on his own confession, proved to have composed them "through love of Paul" (as he said) and who for this fraud was degraded from the presbyterate. Jerome represents this degradation as occurring in St. John's time, which seems to be merely an addition of his own, and is inconsistent with our Acts, for they, in the age to which they prolong Thecla's life, imply that she survived St. John. Tertullian is our earliest witness that a story of Thecla existed; but whether the extant book of her Acts is identical with the Asian presbyter's production is a question. The balance of probability distinctly favours the identification. If so, it would be the oldest of the extant N.T. Apocrypha.

The story thus traced back, certainly as regards its substance and probably as regards its existing written form, to 2nd cent., was widely current in the church, East and West, thereafter. But though she is frequently mentioned by the Fathers, none of them, except Basil of Seleucia, cite our Acts or any written narrative. But of all the references to Thecla in ecclesiastical writers, not one (except that already noticed in Jerome) lies distinctly outside the range of the incidents which the Acts relate; so that a history of Thecla reconstructed out of the references to her in early Christian writers would be in fact an abridgment of these Acts, containing nearly all its chief points and adding nothing to them. Of these writers, the earliest seems to be Methodius, in his Symposium Decem Virginum (written c.300; see Migne, Patr. Gk. xviii. ). The incident of Thecla's sacrificing her ornaments to purchase access to Paul is turned to account by Chrysostom, "Thecla, for the sake of seeing Paul, gave her jewels; but thou, for the sake of seeing Christ, wilt not give an obolus" (Hom.25 in Acta App.4). Isidore of Pelusium (lib. i. Ep.87) is apparently the first to style her by the glorious title, ever since appropriated to her, of proto-martyr -- that is, as Basil of Seleucia explains (p.232), first among women as Stephen among men. Theodore of Mopsuestia is stated by Solomon of Bassora, a 13th-cent. Nestorian (cf. Assem. B. O. iii. p 323), to have composed an oration on Thecla, in which it appears that her prayer for Falconilla was mentioned. Epiphanius (Haer. lxxviii.16; lxxix.5) praises her for sacrificing under St. Paul's teaching her prospects of prosperous marriage, and reckons her near to Elias, John the Baptist, and even the Virgin Mother. In the West her name is similarly joined with that of Agnes as a virgin worthy to rank with Mary herself, by Ambrose (de Lapsu Virg. p.307); and by Sulpicius Severus (c.400), who relates (Dial. ii.13) how St. Martin of Tours was favoured with a vision, in which Mary, Agnes, and Thecla appeared and conversed with him (Migne, Patr. Lat. t. xx. col.210). Ambrose likewise associates her with Mary the Lord's mother, and Miriam, Moses' sister (Ep.63, ad Vercell. Eccl. t. ii. pt.1, p.1030); and here and in de Virginibus (ii.19, p.166) dwells on her deliverance from the wild beasts. Jerome in one of his Epp. (xxii. p.125) also associates her with Mary and Miriam, promising that they shall welcome Eustochium, to whom he writes, into the virgin choir of heaven. And in his Chronicle (s.a.377) he tells of one Melania, a Roman lady who by her sanctity earned the name of Thecla.

That the book as we have it is a fiction few will doubt; but it is a fair question whether it has been formed on a nucleus of fact; and if so, how far we can distinguish fact from fiction. The incidental reference to Thecla by Eusebius proves that he regarded her as a real person; and if Athanasius wrote her Life, he must be reckoned on the same side. Tertullian, even in rejecting her written history, raises no doubt as to her existence, as he certainly would if he had suspected her to be a creature of the Asian presbyter's imagination. Jerome, while still more emphatic in condemning the book, expressly names her as a virgin saint. It is hardly likely that if Thecla had not existed, her history and example could have so powerfully impressed themselves on the mind of Christendom for so many ages and been honoured by so many generations of the devout faithful, including some of the foremost intellects of the church. The monastery that marked her place of retreat and bore her name, which, as we learn from Gregory of Nazianzum (Orat. xxi. p.399, t. i.; Poemata Hist. s. i.11, p.703, t. ii.), had made Seleucia a place of pilgrimage before he retired there (c.375), is a further evidence of her reality, and also confirms the localization in that city of the traditions concerning her. It thus appears that our Acts probably grew out of a true tradition, handed down from the later apostolic age, of a maiden of Asia Minor who was converted to the Gospel and for its sake renounced all and braved death that she might remain a chaste virgin for Christ, and, having escaped martyrdom, lived and died in sanctity at Seleucia. The Asian presbyter whom Tertullian makes known to us, casting about for materials for a story in exaltation of virginity, would naturally choose for his hero St. Paul, as an unmarried apostle and the only N.T. writer from whom the doctrine of the superiority of the celibate over the married state could claim any support. The tradition which we have supposed current in the church, of a Christian who incurred the peril of martyrdom for virginity and ended her days as an anchorite near Seleucia would supply his heroine and leading incidents. Her name was probably part of the traditional story; for an invented name would no doubt have been either a Scriptural one or one of obvious Christian significance. II. Tim. iii.11 might suggest the scene, "at Antioch, at Iconium." Being of no critical turn, and writing for uncritical readers, the author would not inquire to what stage of St. Paul's course this Epistle belonged, or which Antioch was meant.

The history of Thecla, as we have it, whether this account of its origin be accepted or not, is not without literary merit. It has many touches of pathos, its incidents are striking and effectively told, and here and there the speeches (never of tedious length) rise nearly to the height of eloquence. Defective as we have seen it to be in structure, yet even here, as well as in interest of narrative, it compares advantageously with the clumsy dullness of the Clementine literature; its marvels, however startling, are less extravagant than those of the apocryphal Gospels and Acts; and on the whole it is distinctly above the level of the class of writings (most, if not all, of later date) to which it is usually referred. Its chief defect is the failure to realize and reproduce the spirit and personality of St. Paul. Schlau's opinion (p.17), that the local knowledge displayed in the work is such as might naturally belong to a resident in Asia Minor, is not to be accepted without qualification. It might, on the contrary, be said that if the author had more carefully studied the canonical Acts with a view to local and chronological knowledge, he might have assigned the scene and date of his narrative with much more definiteness and accuracy. For instance, he seems uncertain how Lystra lay relatively to Iconium (cc.1, 3 ), and his idea of the position and distance of Daphne seems equally indistinct (c.23). So too in his records of Thecla's journeys he is content to name the starting-point and the terminus, never noting any place on the way. His knowledge of political geography is shewn to be lacking when he represents the chief magistrates of Iconium (c.16) and Antioch (c.33) as addressed by the title of proconsul (anthupate), thus betraying that he supposed these cities to belong to proconsular provinces, whereas Iconium, though territorially included in Lycaonia, was in St. Paul's time extra-provincial, as the head of an independent tetrarchy (Pliny, Nat. Hist. v.25), and Antioch was the capital of Syria, an imperial province governed by a propraetor. Even if we regard Iconium as of Lycaonia, and the Antioch meant to be the Pisidian, in neither city would so high an official as the proconsul of Asia be resident, as the Acts represent. The author, being of Asia -- that is, of the Roman province supposed a proconsul to be found at Iconium and at Antioch, because he had himself been accustomed to see a proconsul at Ephesus or Smyrna; and thus Tertullian's statement that he was of Asia (taken in that limited sense) is borne out, not by his exact knowledge, as Schlau supposed, but by his mistake. He has such knowledge of places and political arrangements, and only such, as would naturally belong to an untravelled ecclesiastic of the Roman province of Asia, possessing a familiar but far from critical or precise knowledge of N.T. in general and the book of Acts in particular. The contents of these Acts serve indirectly to confirm the authenticity of the canonical Acts by shewing how difficult -- it may safely be said how impossible -- it would be for a falsarius, even if writing at no great distance in place or time from the scene and date of his fictitious narrative, to avoid betraying himself by mistakes; and the history of the reception of his work proves that such attempt to palm off pseudo-apostolic documents for genuine was not difficult of exposure, nor passed over as a light offence. The Asian church of the 2nd cent. was quick to detect the pious fraud and severe in punishing it; and in her dealing with the case there is no trace of uncritical promptitude to receive whatever offered itself as apostolical, or of the lax morality that would accept as true whatever seemed edifying-such as some writers have imputed to the early generations of Christians. Dr. Lipsius, indeed, maintains (p.460) that the work and its author were condemned, not because of the fraud attempted, but because of the Gnostic doctrine which he supposes it to have originally embodied. But this is mere conjecture; and, moreover, one which, while professedly based on Tertullian's authority, substitutes for his express statement an essentially different one. Tertullian, writing of a matter on which he was apparently well informed, and which was recent, is surely a competent witness; and his testimony is express, that the author of the Acts was deposed from the presbyterate, not because the teaching of his book was heretical, but because its narrative was an imposture.

Of edd. the best is Tischendorf's (in his Acta Apost. Apocrypha, p.40; 1851). For Eng. translations see Hone's Apocryphal N.T. p.83, and Clark's Ante-Nicene Libr. vol. xvi. p.279. The principal authorities on which this article is based have been specified. To Dr. Schlau's work it is largely indebted for its materials, and in some cases for its conclusions. For further discussion of the story see Tillem. Mém. t. ii. p.60 (2nd ed.); Spanheim, Hist. Christiana, i.11; Ittig, de Bibliothecis, c. xx. p.700; Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkath. Kirche (2 Aufl.), pp.292-294 ; Harnack, Zeitschrift f. Kirchengesch. ii. pp.90-92; Ramsay, Church in Roman Empire before 170 (2nd ed. Lond.1893). pp.375-428; and by the same, A Lost Chapter of Early Christian Hist. (Acta Pauli et Theclae), in Expositor, 1902, pp.278-295.

[J.GW.]

Themistius
Themistius. [[565]AGNOËTAE.]

Theoctistus, bishop of Caesarea
Theoctistus (2), bp. of Caesarea in Palestine, who on Origen's visit to Palestine received him at Caesarea and, like Alexander of Jerusalem, permitted him, though still a layman, to preach before him (Phot. Cod.118). On the remonstrance of Origen's bishop, Demetrianus, he joined with Alexander in a letter defending their conduct (Eus. H. E. vi.19). Later, c.230, Theoctistus and Alexander ordained Origen (ib. vi.8, 23). Theoctistus probably died when Xystus was bp. of Rome 257-259, and was succeeded by Domnus (ib. vii.14). Clinton, Fasti Romani, i.245, 271, 287, No.83; Le Quien, Or. Christ. iii.541.

[E.V.]

Theoctistus Psathyropola
Theoctistus (3) Psathyropola (Psathuropoles), or the cake-seller, the head of a sect among the Arians of Constantinople c.390. His followers were called, from his occupation, Psathyrians. Led by a certain Marinus from Thrace, they maintained that the First Person of the Trinity was in a proper sense Father, and so to be styled before the Son existed; while their opponents, the followers of the Antiochene Dorotheus, maintained that He was only a Father after the existence of the Son. A large party of the Arian Goths, taught by their bp. Selena, adopted the Psathyrian view, which continued to divide the church of Constantinople for 35 years, till in the reign of Theodosius Junior a reconciliation was effected (Socr. H. E. v.23).

[G.T.S.]

Theodebert I., king of the Franks
Theodebert (1) I., king of the Franks (534-548), the most capable and ambitious of the Merovingian line after Clovis. For the extent of the kingdom inherited from his father in 533 see [566]THEODORICUS I. It was increased in 534 by a portion of the now finally conquered Burgundy (Marius, Chron. ad ann.534). In 538 an army of Theodebert's Burgundian subjects entered Italy with his connivance and helped the Goths to conquer Milan (Procop. de Bell. Gotth. ii.12; Marius, Chron. ad ann.). In 539 Theodebert, invading Italy at the head of 100,000 Franks, overran a great part of Venetia, Liguria, and the Cottian Alps, till hunger and disease drove the remnant of his army back to France (Marius, ann.539; Marcell. Chron. ann.539; Procop. u.s.25). Death cut short his ambitious projects in 548.

Theodebert was perhaps the best of the Merovingian kings. Marius calls him "the Great" (Chron. ad ann.548); and according to Gregory of Tours, when he had come to the throne "he shewed himself governing with justice, honouring the priests, doing good to the churches, succouring the poor and distributing benefits charitably and liberally " (Hist. Franc. iii.25, 36). Instances of his good qualities appear in his liberality to the churches of the Auvergne, which his father had plundered (iii.25), and his generosity to the impoverished city of Verdun, at the suit of their bishop (iii.34). See, too, Aimoin, ii 25, and the letter of Aurelianus; archbp. of Arles, in Bouquet, iv.63.

[S.A.B.]

Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards
Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, daughter of Garibald, king of the Bavarians, married to king Authari probably in 589. On Sept.5, 590, Authari died (Greg. Epp. i.17). Theodelinda, taking counsel with her wise men, chose in Nov. Agilulf, the duke of Turin, a kinsman of her late husband (Paul. Diac. iii.55), who in the following May was accepted by all the Lombards as king in Milan. The Lombards, like the other Teutonic nations, except the Franks, had received Christianity under an Arian form, to which they still adhered. Further, nearly all who held the orthodox creed in the territories conquered by the Lombards were in schism from their refusal to accept the fifth general council which had condemned the Three Chapters. In this complication the position of Theodelinda was peculiar. By her influence king Agilulf became eventually a Catholic, though apparently not till after A.D.603 (Greg. Epp. xi.4; xiv.12), gave munificently to the church, and restored the orthodox bishops to their positions (Paul. Diac. iv.6). On the other hand, she continued to support the Three Chapters, threatened to withdraw from communion with Constantius, archbp. of Milan, and refused to accept the fifth council (Greg. Epp. iv.2, 3, 4, 38, 39; cf. Columbanus, Epp.5 in Migne, Patr. Lat. lxxx.274). Gregory touches this difference most delicately, and was, notwithstanding, on most friendly terms with Theodelinda. Mainly by her influence Agilulf was induced to make peace (Paul. Diac. iv.8; Greg. Epp. ix.42, 43), and Gregory congratulated her upon the birth of her son Adaloald in 602, and sent him a cross containing a piece of the true cross and a lection from the gospels, and three rings to his sister Gundiperga. Theodelinda built and endowed the basilica of St. John Baptist at Monza. After the death of Agilulf in 616, Adaloald succeeded with Theodelinda as regent. The date of her death was probably before 626 (Paul. Diac. iv.41). Her crown, the most ancient in existence except the Iron Crown, her fan, her comb, the golden hen and chickens she gave to the church, and the cross sent by Gregory, are still preserved in the treasury of the cathedral at Monza.

[F.D.]

Theodora I., empress
Theodora (10) I., empress, wife of Justinian I., daughter of Acacius, a bear-keeper at the amphitheatre at Constantinople, who died in the reign of Anastasius when she was 7 years old. When old enough, she appeared on the stage, as her elder sister had done. Though from the whole animus of his work and the absolute silence of all other writers we may infer that Procopius exaggerates, yet we may well believe that her life was an abandoned one, without believing all his scandalous stories. Reduced to great distress, she in appearance or reality changed her mode of life, and supported herself by spinning wool. Justinian, nephew of the reigning emperor Justin, married her, and succeeding his uncle in 527, caused her to be crowned as empress regnant, but not till 532 does she appear to have exercised a preponderating voice in public affairs. She died of cancer in June 548. Unlike her husband, she was an ardent Monophysite. Her influence was unbounded, her cruelty insatiable. She assumed an especial jurisdiction over the marriages of her subjects, giving the daughters of her former associates to men of high rank, and marrying noble ladies to the lowest of the people.

Her portrait in the mosaics at St. Vitale at Ravenna has been well engraved in Hodgkin's Invaders of Italy, vol. iii.606.

Sources. -- The three works of Procopius, esp. the Anecdota; Evagr. H. E. iv.10, 11; Victor. Tunun. Chron.; Liberat. Breviar.20-22; Lib. Pont., Vitae Silverii et Vigilii.

Literature. -- Gibbon, cc.40-41; Dahn, Prokopius von Cäsarea; Hodgkin, Invaders of Italy, iii.-iv.; Prof. Bryce, in Contemp. Rev. Feb.1885; M. Debidour, Thesis (pub. in 1877), who tries to make the best of Theodora.

[F.D.]

Theodoretus, bishop of Cyrrhus
Theodoretus (2), bp. of Cyrrhus, or Cyrus, in the province of Euphratensis, was born at Antioch probably c.393 (Tillemont). His parents held a high position at Antioch. His maternal grandmother was a lady of landed property (Relig. Hist. p.1191, vol. v. ed. Schulze, Halae, 1771). His writings indicate a well-trained and highly cultivated mind, enriched by complete familiarity with the best classical authors. But his chief study was given to the Holy Scriptures and the commentators upon them in several languages. He was master of Greek, Syriac, and Hebrew, but unacquainted with Latin. His chief theological teacher, to whom be never refers without deserved reverence and admiration, was Theodore of Mopsuestia, "the great commentator," as he was called, the luminary and pride of the Antiochene school, but one who undoubtedly prepared the way for the teaching of Nestorius by his desire to provide, in Dorner's words, "for a free moral development in the Saviour's manhood." Theodoret speaks also of Diodorus of Tarsus as his teacher, but this can only have been through his writings.

The parents of Theodoret were both dead when he was 23 years old. Being their sole heir, he immediately proceeded to distribute his inheritance among the poor (Ep.113), taking up his abode in a monastery, one of two founded in a large village called Nicerte, 3 miles from Apamea, and about 75 from Antioch (Ep.119).

After some 7 years in the Apamean monastery, he was drawn to assume the cares of the episcopate. Of the circumstances of his consecration we are entirely ignorant. The see was that of Cyrus, or more properly Cyrrhus, the chief city of a district of the province of Euphratensis, called after it Cyrrhestica, an extensive fertile plain between the spurs of the Amanus and the river Euphrates, intersected by mountain ranges. His diocese was 40 miles square, and contained 800 distinct parishes, each with its church. It was singularly rich in monastic houses for both sexes, some of them containing as many as 250 inmates, and it boasted of a large number of solitaries. All of these enjoyed Theodoret's unremitting and affectionate solicitude and frequent visits. Cyrrhus was equally fertile in heretics. The East has ever been the nursery of heresy. Lying, as it were, in a corner of the world, not reached by the public posts, isolated by the great river to the E. and the mountain chains to the W., peopled by half-leavened heathen, Christianity there assumed many strange forms, sometimes hardly recognizable caricatures of the truth. Eunomians, Arians, Marcionites, and others who still more wildly distorted the pure faith abounded. To the recovery of these Theodoret devoted his youthful ardour and still undiminished strength, at personal risk. "often," he writes, "have I shed my blood; often have I been stoned; nay, brought down before my time to the very gates of death." Nor were his labours fruitless. Eight villages polluted by Marcionite errors, with their neighbouring hamlets comprising more than a thousand souls, one village filled with Eunomians, another with Arians, were brought back to the sound faith. He could boast with all honesty to pope Leo I. in 449 that by the help of his prayers not a single plant of tares was left among them, and that his whole flock had been delivered from heretical errors (Epp.81, 113, 116, vol. vi. pp.1141; 1190, 1197). He carried his campaign against error, which embraced Jews and heathen as well as misbelieving Christians, beyond his own diocese. He was unwearied in preaching, and his acquaintance with the Syrian vernacular enabled him to reach the poorest and most ignorant. His care for the temporal interests and material prosperity of his diocese was no less remarkable. The city of Cyrrhus, though the winter quarters of the tenth legion, could boast little dignity or architectural beauty. He calls it "a small and desolate city," with but "few inhabitants, and those poor," whose ugliness he had striven to redeem by costly buildings erected at his own expense (Ep.183, p.1231). >From his own ecclesiastical revenues -- which cannot have been small -- he erected public porticos, two large bridges, and public baths, and, finding the city without any regular water-supply, constructed an aqueduct, and by a catchwater drain guarded the city against inundation from the marshes (Epp.79, 81). These works attracted architects and engineers to the city, and afforded remunerative employment to many people, for whose benefit he secured the help of presbyters skilled in medical science (Epp.114, 115). Finding that the severity of the state imposts caused many to throw up their farms, leaving the civil authorities to make good their deficiency, a liability they were seeking to avoid by flight, he wrote to the empress Pulcheria, entreating her to lighten so intolerable a burden (Ep.43, p.1102), as well as to the patrician Anatolius (Ep.45, p.1104). With considerable trouble he obtained from Palestine relics of prophets, apostles, and martyrs, for the greater glory of a church he had built (Relig. Hist. c. xxi. p.1251; Ep.66). So great was his zeal for orthodoxy that, having discovered in the churches of his diocese more than 200 copies of the Diatessaron of Tatian, which he regarded as tainted with heresy, he destroyed them all, and substituted the ordinary text of the four Gospels (Haer. Fab. lib. i. c.20). His life as bishop differed as little as possible from that he had lived in his monastery. State and official routine were very distasteful to him, and he avoided them as far as possible, devoting himself to the spiritual side of his office (Epp.16, 79, 81, 145)

The critical period in the life of Theodoret was in connexion with the Nestorian controversy, through which he is chiefly known to us. His personal share in it began towards the end of 430, with the receipt by John, the patriarch of Antioch, of the letters of Celestine and Cyril, relative to the condemnation of the doctrines of Nestorius obtained by the Western bishops in Aug.429. The high-handed behaviour of the patriarchs of Rome and Alexandria towards the bp. of the new Rome, a personal friend of long standing to both of them, was no less offensive to Theodoret than to John. When these documents arrived, Theodoret was at Antioch with other bishops of the province. The admirable letter (see Labbe, iii.390 seq.; Baluz. col.445, c. xxi.) despatched in the name of John and his suffragans to Nestorius, exhorting him to give up his objections to the term "Theotokos," seeing that its true sense was part of the Church's faith, and entreating him not to throw the whole of Christendom into confusion for the sake of a word, has been with great show of probability ascribed to the practised pen of Theodoret. The controversy was speedily rendered much fiercer by the publication of Cyril's celebrated twelve "Anathematisms" or "Articles." Designed to crush one form of heretical teaching as regards our Lord's personal nature, these "articles" (detached, against Cyril's intention, from the letter on which they were based) hardly escaped falling into the opposite error. The Godhead of Christ was asserted with such emphasis that to some readers His manhood might seem obscured. John was shocked at what he deemed the positive affinity to Apollinarian doctrine of some of these articles, and applied first to Andreas of Samosata and then to Theodoret to confute them. Theodoret readily replied to the anathematisms seriatim. So completely at variance with orthodoxy did he regard them, that in the letter to John (reckoned as Ep.150) prefixed to his observations upon them, he expresses a suspicion that some "enemies of the truth" had been sheltering themselves under Cyril's name. For the nature of these documents and for the objections urged by Theodoret and his friends, which, with much that is illogical and inconsistent, contain much that is prima facie Nestorian see [567]CYRILLUS. The documents were prior to the council of Ephesus and to the formal condemnation of Nestorius then passed. At that gathering Theodoret, accompanying his metropolitan, Alexander of Hierapolis, was among the earlier comers, anticipating the Oriental brethren, whose arrival he, with 68 bishops, vainly urged should be waited for before the council opened (Baluz. c. vii.697-699). On the arrival of John and his Oriental brethren, Theodoret at once united himself to them, and gave his voice for the deposition and excommunication of Cyril, Memnon, and their adherents (Labbe, iii.597-599). He took part also in the proceedings which ensued, when the "concilium" and the "conciliabulum" launched thunderbolts against each other, deposing and excommunicating. Theodoret was one of the Oriental commissioners to the emperor Theodosius II. at Constantinople, representing his metropolitan Alexander (ib.728). The deputies not being allowed to enter Constantinople, audiences with the emperor were held at Chalcedon, Sept.431. Theodoret's name appears in the letters and other documents passing between the Oriental party at Ephesus and their representatives in Chalcedon, in which much was said and written in a bitter spirit (Labbe, vol. iii.724-746; Theod. ed. Schulze, vol. iv. pp.1336-1354). Of the five sessions held at Chalcedon the proceedings of the first alone are recorded. We have also a few scanty fragments of speeches and homilies of Theodoret at this period, characterized by distressing acrimony (Theod. ed. Schulze, vol. v. pp.104-109), and a letter of his to Alexander of Hierapolis, whom he was representing, informing him how matters were going on at Chalcedon, telling him of the popularity of the deputies with the people, who, in spite of the hostility of the clergy and monks by whom they had been repeatedly stoned, flocked to hear them, assembling in a large court surrounded with porticos, the churches being closed against them; but Theodoret laments their ill-success with the emperor. Before the deputies finally left Chalcedon, the Orientals delivered addresses to the adherents of the deposed Nestorius who had crossed the Bosphorus from Constantinople. The first of these was by Theodoret. He and his companions, he said, were shut out from the royal city on account of their fidelity to Christ, but the Heavenly Jerusalem was still open to them. On their way home from Ephesus the Orientals, Theodoret among them, held a synod at Tarsus and renewed the sentence of deposition on Cyril in conjunction with the seven orthodox deputies to Theodosius II., which they published in a circular letter. They engaged also never to abandon Nestorius. Theodoret returned to his diocese, and devoted himself to composing a fresh work assailing the obnoxious anathematisms, entitled Pentalogus, from its division into five books. Only a few fragments remain. Other treatises he wrote then are lost. But we have, in a Latin version, a long letter addressed to the followers of Nestorius at Constantinople, declaring his adherence to the orthodox faith, although he had felt unable to acquiesce in the condemnation of Nestorius, not believing that the doctrines ascribed to him were actually held by him (Baluz. Synod. c.40, 742). Cyril found it impossible to accept the terms proposed in Theodoret's articles. He explained his objections in a long letter to Acacius, which, however, opened a way for pacification by interpretations of some questionable points in his anathematisms which he refused to withdraw. This letter Theodoret regarded as orthodox, but irreconcilable with the anathematisms, which he still regarded as heretical. He was, however, precluded from accepting the terms of peace which John and others were increasingly inclined to acquiesce in, by the demand that he should anathematize the doctrine of Nestorius and Nestorius himself. To do this (Theodoret writes to his friend Andrew of Samosata) would be to anathematize godliness itself. He is ready to anathematize all who assert that Christ was mere man, or who divide Him into two Sons, or who deny His Godhead. But if they anathematized a man of whom they were not the judges, and his doctrine which they knew to be sound, en bloc, "indeterminate," they would act impiously (ib.766, c.61). At this epoch, as Hefele remarks (Hist. of Councils, vol. iii. p.127 Eng. trans.), the Orientals were divided into two great parties: the peace-seeking majority, with John of Antioch and the venerable Acacius at their head, ready to meet Cyril half-way; the violent party of irreconcilables, with Alexander of Hierapolis as their leader, opposed to all reconciliation as treason to the truth; while a third or middle party was led by Theodoret and Andrew of Samosata, anxious for peace, but on terms of their own. Theodoret and his scanty band of adherents failed to secure the confidence of either of the two great parties. His inflexible metropolitan, Alexander, vehemently denounced as treason to the truth any approach to reconciliation with Cyril. Against this reproach and against the suspicion that he had given in to escape persecution or to secure a higher place Theodoret sought to defend himself (ib. c.72, 775). Though still holding back from reconciliation with Cyril, he was virtually the means of bringing about the long-desired peace. The declaration of faith presented to Cyril by Paul of Emesa, as representing the belief of John, and accepted by Cyril, had been originally drawn up by Theodoret at Ephesus. The paragraphs directed against Cyril's twelve articles were slightly modified, but the main body was unaltered (Cyril. ed. Pusey, vi.44; Baluz. c.96, 97, 804; Tillem. Mém. eccl. xiv.531; Hefele, op. cit. iii.130 ff.). The reconciliation, however, was by no means acceptable to Theodoret. For it demanded acceptance of the deposition of Nestorius, the anathematizing of Nestorius's doctrines, and the giving up the four metropolitans of his party who had been deposed at Constantinople. Theodoret's protest was in vain. Theodosius insisted on the deposition and expulsion of all bishops who continued opposed to union. Finding his growing isolation more and more intolerable, Theodoret invited the chiefs of the fast-lessening band of his sympathizers, Alexander, Andrew, and others, to take counsel at Zeugma, in reference to the union with Cyril, which had been accepted by John and earnestly pressed upon them by the combined weight of the ecclesiastical and civil power. Alexander refused to attend the synod except on his own terms. The bishops who met, as Theodoret informed John (Baluz. c.95, 662, 801), accepted the orthodoxy of Cyril's letter and regarded it as a recantation of his obnoxious twelve articles, but would not pronounce an anathema on Nestorius. John, now hopeless of peace otherwise, applied to the secular power. His method proved generally effectual. One by one the recalcitrant prelates yielded, except Alexander and some others. Theodoret was one of the last to yield. The coldness arising between him and John after John's reconciliation with Cyril had been much increased by John's uncanonical intrusion into the province of Alexander in the ordination of bishops. Theodoret, with the other bishops of the province, on this, withdrew from communion with him, and published a synodical letter charging him with ordaining unworthy persons (ib.831, 850). Long and painful controversy ensued, only crushed at last by John's appealing to the imperial power. All eventually yielded to combined entreaties and menaces save Alexander and a small band of irreconcilables, who were banished from their sees. Theodoret was assailed on his tenderest side by harassing his diocese. The unhappy renewal of strife, concerning the doctrines of Diodorus and Theodoret, brought Theodoret and Cyril once more into collision. For the details of the conflict see [568]CYRILLUS OF ALEXANDRIA; [569]PROCLUS; [570]RABBULAS; [571]IBAS. The long and bitter controversy, in which both parties did and said many regrettable things; was closed by the death of Cyril, June 9 or 27, 444.

The succession of Dioscorus to Cyril's patriarchal throne led to fresh trials for Theodoret. Dioscorus was resolved to bring about Theodoret's overthrow, as Theodoret was one of the first to discern the nascent heresy of Eutyches, and directed the powers of a well-trained intellect and great theological learning to exposing it. The ear of the emperor was gained, and Theodoret was represented as a turbulent busybody, constantly at Antioch and other cities, taking part in councils and assemblies instead of attending to his diocese; a troublesome agitator, stirring up strife wherever he moved (Ep.79, p.1135, etc.). He was also accused on theological grounds. Dioscorus, who seems to have regarded himself as "the lawful inheritor of Cyril's guardianship of anti-Nestorian orthodoxy," wrote to Theodoret's patriarch, Domnus, who c.442 had succeeded his uncle John in the see of Antioch, informing him that Theodoret was creating a crypto-Nestorian party, practically teaching Nestorianism under another name and striking at "the one Nature of the Incarnate." These accusations were accepted at court, and Dioscorus obtained an imperial edict (dated by Tillemont Mar.30, 449) that as a disturber of the peace of the church Theodoret should keep to his own diocese. Theodoret submitted, leaving the city without bidding his friends farewell (Ep.80, p.1137).

From the "Latrocinium" or "Robbers' Synod," at Ephesus (449) [[572]DIOSCORUS; [573]EUTYCHES], Theodoret was excluded by an imperial edict of Mar.4, unless summoned unanimously by the council itself (Labbe, iv.100). Theodoret's condemnation was evidently the chief purpose in summoning this infamous synod. From his "internement" at Cyrrhus Theodoret calmly watched his enemies' proceedings. He had not long to wait for the confirmation of his worst fears. Dioscorus and his partisans, having by brutal violence obtained the acquittal of Eutyches and the deposition of Flavian, Ibas, Irenaeus, and other sympathizers with Theodoret, proceeded on the third session to deal with him. The indictment was formulated by a presbyter of Antioch named Pelagius, who, in language of the most atrocious violence, proceeded to demand of the council to take the sword of God and, as Samuel dealt with Agag, and Elijah with the priests of Baal, pitilessly destroy those who had introduced strange doctrines into the church. Those who adhered to the poisonous teachings of Nestorius deserved the flames. "Burn them! -- burn them!" he cried. Pelagius was allowed to lay before the synod the proofs of his accusation, contained in "The Apology of Theodoret, bp. of Cyrrhus, in behalf of Diodorus and Theodorus, champions of God." The council exclaimed that they had heard enough to warrant the immediate deposition of Theodoret, as the emperor had already ordered. The unanimous sentence was that he should be deposed from the priesthood and deprived of even lay communion. His books were to be committed to the flames (ib.125, 126, 129; Le Brigandage, pp.193-195).

Dioscorus was now master of the whole Eastern church; "il règne partout." Theodoret knew that deposition was usually followed by exile, and prepared for the worst. He was allowed to retire to his monastery near Apamea (Ep.119, p.1202). An appeal to the West, forbidden him in person by Theodosius, was now prosecuted by letter, which, though addressed to Leo individually, was really meant for the bishops of the West assembled in the synod, to which he begs his cause may be submitted (Mém. eccl. xv.294). "In this remarkable letter," writes Dr. Bright (Hist. of Church, p.395), "he traces the primacy of Rome to her civil greatness, her soundness of faith, and her possession of the graves of the apostles Peter and Paul. He eulogizes the exact and comprehensive orthodoxy with which the Tome of Leo conveys the full mind of the Holy Spirit." He entreats Leo "to decide whether he ought to submit to the recent sentence. He awaits his decision. He will acquiesce in it, whatever it be, committing himself to the judgment of his God and Saviour." Theodosius continued to pay no heed to the remonstrances of Leo, asserting that everything had been decided at Ephesus with complete freedom and in accordance with the truth, and that the prelates there deposed merited their fate for innovations in the faith. The interposition of Pulcheria and of the Western princesses was employed in vain. On July 29, 450, Theodosius II. was killed by a fall from his horse, and the imperial dignity passed to the resolute hands of the orthodox Pulcheria and her soldier-husband Marcian. All was now changed. Eutychianism became the losing cause, and the orthodox sufferers were speedily recalled. Theodoret appears to have been mentioned by name in the edict of recall. The stigma of heterodoxy was speedily removed from him. There is no reason to doubt that he was one of the bishops who signed the Tome of Leo, prefixing a short résumé of his own faith regarding the Incarnation, and that on this Leo recognized him as a Catholic bishop (Tillem. xv.304; Baron.450, §§ 22-24). Though now at liberty to go where he pleased, Theodoret preferred to remain in his monastery (Ep.146). His chief desire was to witness the complete triumph of truth, and to convince others of the purity of his own teaching. This desire he saw in part fulfilled. But for his complete satisfaction an oecumenical council was necessary, and to bring that about he laboured with all his might.

The council of Chalcedon met on Oct.8, 451. Theodoret's entrance was the signal for outrageous violence on the part of the adherents of Dioscorus. The hall re-echoed with cries and counter-cries which interrupted all proceedings. Theodoret sat down "in the midst," not among his brother-bishops. He continued to attend the sessions of the council, but without voting, and taking no part in the deposition of Dioscorus. His own cause came on at the eighth session, Oct.26. Although his orthodoxy had been acknowledged by Leo and his restoration required by the emperor, the anti-Nestorian section would not hear of his recognition as a bishop until he had in express terms anathematized Nestorius. This step he had repeatedly declared he would never take, and he now tried to satisfy the remonstrants with something short of it, but in vain. Wearied out, at last he yielded to their clamour and pronounced the test words, "Anathema to Nestorius, and to every one who denies that the Holy Virgin Mary is the mother of God, and who divides the one Son, the Only-begotten, into two Sons." The imperial commissioners now declared that all doubt had been removed and that Theodoret should now receive back his bishopric. The whole assembly raised the cry that Theodoret was worthy of his throne, and that the church must receive back her orthodox teacher. The leading bishops voted for his restoration, the rest signified their assent by acclamation, and the commissioners gave sentence that by the decree of the holy council Theodoret should receive again the church of Cyrrhus (Labbe, iv.619-624).

But few years remained to Theodoret, and of these very little is known. It is not even certain whether he returned to his episcopal duties at Cyrrhus or remained in the quiet Apamean monastery, devoting himself to literary labours. Tillemont thinks that he probably did not live beyond 453. But if the statement of Gennadius (c.89) be true, that his death took place under the emperor Leo, he must have lived till 457 or 458.

His writings may be divided roughly into I. Exegetical, on the Scriptures of O. and N. T. II. Controversial, dealing with the anathematisms of Cyril, the Eutychian heresy, and, in a work written towards the end of his life, with heresies in general. III. Theological, including the Graecarum affectionum Curatio, Orations on Divine Providence, and sundry orations and lesser treatises. IV. Historical, and V. Epistolary.

I. Exegetical. -- These include works on (1) the Octateuch, (2) the books of Sam., Kings, and Chron., (3) the Pss., (4) the Canticles, (5) the Major Prophets, (6) the Twelve Minor Prophets, (7) the Fourteen Epistles of St. Paul, including that to the Hebrews. The work on the Octateuch consists of answers to difficult points, for the most part characterized by the sound common-sense literalism of the Antiochene school, with but little tendency to allegory. He often, instead of his own opinion, cites that of his great masters Diodorus of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Origen. In Leviticus and Numbers he naturally adopts more of the allegorical method, regarding the whole Levitical ritual and the moral ordinances as typical of the sacrificial and mediatorial work of Christ, and of the new law He came to inaugurate. The commentary on the Canticles was his earliest exegetical work. He controverts the opinion that this book contains the story of the earthly loves of Solomon either with Pharaoh's daughter or with Abishag, or that it is a political allegory, in which the bridegroom represents the monarch and the bride the people, and adopts the spiritual interpretation by which the bridegroom stands for Jesus Christ and the bride for the church. From one passage in the very interesting prologue we learn that Theodoret held the then current opinion, that the whole of the O.T. books having been burnt under Manasseh and other godless kings, or destroyed during the Captivity, Ezra was divinely inspired to rewrite them word for word on the return from the Captivity. He denounces the iniquity of the Jews, who had excluded Daniel from the prophets and placed his book among the Hagiographa, because no prophet had so clearly predicted the advent of Jesus Christ, and the very time of His appearance. The only portions of the N.T. commented on by him are the Epistles of St. Paul, including that to the Hebrews. Of these bp. Lightfoot writes, "His commentaries on St. Paul are superior to his other exegetical writings, and have been assigned the palm over all patristic expositions of Scripture. For appreciation, terseness, and good sense they are perhaps unsurpassed, and if the absence of faults were a just standard of merit, they would deserve the first place; but they have little claim to originality, and he who has read Chrysostom and Theodore of Mopsuestia will find scarcely anything in Theodoret which he has not seen before. It is right to add, however, that Theodoret himself modestly disclaims any such merit. In his preface he apologizes for attempting to interpret St. Paul after two such men who are 'luminaries of the world,' and he professes nothing more than to gather his stores 'from the blessed Fathers."' (Gal. p.220).

II. Controversial. -- (1) The Refutation of the Twelve Anathematisms of Cyril. (2) Eranistes or Polymorphus, "a work of remarkable interest and of permanent value for theological students, to be read in connexion with the Tome of Leo and the definitions of Chalcedon" (Bright, Later Treatises of Athanas. p.177). It consists of three dialogues between the "Mendicant" 'Eranistes who represents Eutychianism, and Theodoret himself as Orthodoxos. Their respective titles indicate the line adopted in each. These are Atreptos, Immutabilis, Asunchutos, Inconfusus, and Apathes, Impatibilis. (3) Lhiretikes Kakomuthias epitome, Haereticarum Fabularum Compendium, a work directed against heresies in general, in five books. The fourth book, the most important as treating of matters with which he was more or less personally acquainted, begins with the heresies of Arius and Eunomius and comes down to those of Nestorius and Eutyches. His disgracefully violent language with regard to his former friend Nestorius -- whom he stigmatizes as an instrument of Satan, a man who by his pride had plunged the church into disorders, and under the cloak of orthodoxy introduced the denial of the Divinity and of the Incarnation of the Only-begotten Son, and who at last met with the punishment he deserved, a sign of his future punishment -- would warrant the charitable hope that this chapter has been erroneously ascribed to Theodoret. Of this, however, there is no evidence, and we are, though most reluctantly, compelled to accept it as his work, together with the equally atrocious letter to Sporacius on the Nestorian heresy. It is accepted by Photius (Cod.56) and Leontius of Byzantius (art.4, de Sectis) (cf. Neander, iv. p.246, note, Ceillier, Aut. ecclés. x.84).

III. Theological. -- The chief is an apologetic treatise, intended to exhibit the confirmations of the truth of the Christian faith contained in the philosophical systems of the Gentiles, under the title Helenikon therapeutike pathematon, Graecarum Affectionum Curatio, seu Evangelicae Veritatis ex Gentilium Philosophia Cognitio. It is in 12 discourses, and furnishes a very able and eloquent defence of Christianity against the ridicule and ignorant accusations of pagan philosophers, written probably before 437. It was followed by another of a similar character, in ten orations, on Divine Providence, regarded by the best critics as exhibiting Theodoret's literary power in its highest form, as regards the careful selection of thoughts, nobility of language, elegance and purity of style, and the force and sequence of his arguments (Ceillier, p.88, § 10). To these may be added a discourse on Charity, peri theias kai hagias agapes (Schulze, 14, 1296 seq.) and some fragments of sermons, etc., given by Garnier (Auctarium, ib. t. v. pp.71 seq.).

IV. Historical. -- This class contains two works of very different character and of very different value: (1) the Ecclesiastical History, and (2) the Religious History. (1) The former, in five books, was intended to form a continuation of that of Eusebius. It commences with the rise of Arianism under Constantius and closes with the death of Theodore of Mopsuestia, A.D.429. From his opening words he has been thought to have had in view the histories of Socrates and Sozomen, and to have written to supply their omissions and correct their mistakes (Valesius). This is questioned by some, and must be regarded as doubtful. He gives more original documents than either of his brother-historians, but is very chary of dates, and writes generally without sufficient chronological exactness. Photius finds fault with his too great fondness for metaphor, while he praises his style as "clear, lofty, and free from redundancy" (Cod.31). The history is learned and generally impartial, "though it is occasionally one-sided and runs off into a theological treatise." An Eng. trans. was pub. by Baxter in 1847. (2) The Religious History, philotheos historia, is devoted to the lives of 30 celebrated hermits and ascetics, his contemporaries, and was written from personal knowledge and popular report before his Ecclesiastical History. It excites our wonder at what Dr. Newman calls the "easy credence, or as moderns would say large credulousness," which appears more astonishing as he had been brought up in the most matter-of-fact, prosaic, and critical school of ancient Christendom. "What," writes Dr. Newman, "made him drink in with such relish what we reject with such disgust? Was it that, at least, some miracles were brought home so absolutely to his sensible experience that he had no reason for doubting the others which came to him second-hand? This certainly will explain what to most of us is sure to seem the stupid credulity of so well-read, so intellectual an author " (Hist. Sketches, iii.314). The whole subject presents a very curious intellectual problem.

V. Epistolary. -- No portion of Theodoret's literary remains exceeds in interest and value the large collection of his letters. As throwing light on his personal history and character, and as helping us to understand the perplexed relations of the principal actors in that stormy period of theological strife and their various shades of theological opinion, their importance cannot be over-estimated. They give us a heightened esteem of Theodoret himself, his intellectual power, theological precision, warm-hearted affection, and Christian virtues. An Eng. trans. of this remarkable series of letters, arranged according to date and subject, is much to be desired.

The Auctarium of Garnier also contains the following: (1) Prolegomena and Extracts of Commentaries on the Psalms, probably derived from Catenae. (2) A Short Extract from a Commentary on St. Luke. (3) Sermon on the Nativity of S. John Baptist. (4) Homily spoken at Chalcedon in 431. (5) Fifteen additional letters of Theodoret. (6) Seven dialogues composed a little before the council of Ephesus, 2 each against Anomoeans and Apollinarians, and 3 against Macedonians. Their authorship is doubtful; they have been ascribed to Athanasius or Maximus, but Garnier claims them for Theodoret.

Editions. -- There are 2 edd. of his complete works in Gk. and Lat.; the first in 4 vols. fol. (Paris, 1642 ), by the Jesuit Jac. Sirmond, to which a 5th vol. was added after Sirmond's death by his fellow-Jesuit, J. Garnier (Paris, 1684), containing an auctarium, comprising fragments of commentaries and sermons and some additional letters, together with Garnier's 5 learned but most one-sided dissertations on (1) the life, (2) the writings, (3) the faith of Theodoret, (4) on the fifth general council, and (5) the cause of Theodoret and the Orientals. This was succeeded by another ed. based on it, with additions and corrections by Lud. Schulze and J. A. Noesselt (Halae Sax.1769-1774), in 5 vols. and in 10 parts. To this edition our references are made. The ed. of T. Gaisford is pub. by the Clarendon Press. There is a trans. of Theodoret's works in Bohn's Lib. (Bell), and by Blomfield Jackson in Lib. of Post-Nicene Fathers. Cf. N. Ghibokowski, The Blessed Theodoret, bp. of Cyrus (Moscow, 1890, 2vols.); Harnack in Theol. Literatur Zeitung (1890), p.502.

[E.V.]

Theodoricus I., king of the Visigoths
Theodoricus (1) I. (Theodericus), chosen king of the Visigoths on the death of Valia, A.D.419. He was the real founder of the West Gothic kingdom. On his accession the Visigoths held nothing in Spain, but occupied in Gaul Aquitania Secunda, the region lying, roughly speaking, between the Loire and the Garonne, with some neighbouring cities, of which Toulouse, their capital, was the most important. This territory had been ceded to Valia as the price of the foedus with Rome. The history of Theodoric's reign consists of a series of endeavours to extend this territory when the Romans were otherwise occupied, with intervals of renewal of the foedus, the Goths, however, retaining what they had won. In the great battle of the Mauriac plains Theodoric, who was advanced in life, fell from his horse and was trampled to death by his own troops (A.D.451). Salvian (de Gub. Dei, vii.154) praises him for his piety, to which he attributes the defeat of the self-confident Litorius. Though, like the rest of his race, an Arian, he did not persecute the Catholics. Prosper and Idatius, Chronica; Jordanes, Get.34-40; Isidorus, Hist. Goth., Hist. Suev., Dahn, Die Könige der Germanen, v.71.

[F.D.]

Theodoricus, the Ostrogoth
Theodoricus (3) (Theodericus), the Ostrogoth, king in Italy. The second is the spelling of all inscriptions (Mommsen, Jordanes, 144). He was the son of Thiudimer by his concubine Erelieva, and was born probably in 454. His father was the second brother of Valamir, king of the Ostrogoths, Vidimer being the third. The three lived in amity, occupying N. Pannonia, the part of the tribe under Thiudimer being settled near Lake Pelso at Theodoric's birth. He succeeded his father in 474 or 475 and assisted in 477 in Zeno's restoration. In 487 Zeno induced Theodoric to undertake an expedition to Italy for the purpose of overthrowing Odoacer. Theodoric willingly consented; his people, who in the course of their wanderings had mostly settled in Lower Moesia, Nova near Rustchuk being his capital, were discontented with their settlements; and in the autumn of 488 they started. It was not the march of an army, but the migration of a whole people. Their progress by Sirmium and Pannonia was slow, impeded by the winter weather and the opposition of the Gepidae and Sarmatians; not till the summer of 489 did they force their way through the Julian Alps into Italy. For the events of the war, terminated in Mar.493 by Theodoric's complete victory, see D. C. B. (4 vols.1900), art. "Odoacer." After Theodoric had shut up Odoacer in Ravenna in autumn 490, he sent Faustus, the chief of the senate, and Irenaeus (Gelasius, Ep.8) to Zeno to ask his permission to assume the royal robes. Zeno died in Apr.491, and, no answer having come from his successor Anastasius, on the fall of Ravenna the army proclaimed Theodoric king (An. Val.53, 57). Already king of the Ostrogoths, he was thus recognized as king over his new conquests; but, like Odoacer, he assumed the title without any territorial definition such as "king of Italy." Gregory of Tours (iii.31) indeed styles him "Rex Italiae," but this is merely a description, not a formal title; cf. the parallel of Odoacer and Victor Vitensis. This independent assumption was regarded at Constantinople as a usurpation, and not till 498 was a recognition grudgingly obtained by the embassy of the senator Festus, and the imperial ornaments returned which Odoacer had sent to Constantinople (An. Val.64, Theodorus Lector, ii.16, 17, in Migne, Patr. Gk. lxxxvi.1, 189). Theodoric, while really independent, was ready to pay the emperor marks of respect, such as submitting for approval the name of the consul he nominated. But there was no real cordiality between the two. At Constantinople Theodoric was regarded merely as de jure the lieutenant of the emperor who had commissioned him to recover Italy, and the Byzantine claims were only kept in abeyance for a convenient opportunity.

His first care after the overthrow of Odoacer was to arrange the settlement of his followers in Italy. A third part of the lands was distributed to them. The Goths were very unequally distributed. In Calabria and Apulia there were none (Procop. i. x1); they began to appear in Samnium, and then increased to the N. and E., the settlements being thickest in the Aemilia and Venetia. The Goths were probably settled by families and tribes (Var. v.27), and did not, like the Vandals, clear out and occupy the whole of a continuous province. Their dispersion among the previous inhabitants had many important consequences, the most important perhaps being the increase of the royal power, which was further strengthened by Theodoric uniting to his hereditary kingship the derelict prerogatives of the Western emperor. He governed the two nations -- the Romans and the Goths -- who lived side by side without intermingling, in a twofold capacity: the former as the successor of the emperor, the latter as the king of immemorial antiquity. The Roman forms of government were kept up; the senate met, and Theodoric submitted his appointments of patricians, consuls, etc., for their ratification. The Roman systems of taxation and administration were maintained. The Goths, like the Romans, had to pay taxes, but their special obligation was that of military service. Theodoric's care for his dominions is shewn by the multifarious subjects of the Variarum -- e.g. drainage of marshes, regulations of the posting service, repairs of harbours, roads, and public buildings, such as Pompey's theatre and the cloacae at Rome, fortifications, searches for mines, etc. Under his firm rule Italy enjoyed 33 years of peace and prosperity such as she had not known for nearly a century, and was not to know again for generations.

The state of affairs in Gaul after 507 demanded Theodoric's interference. When his negotiations failed to prevent a breach between Clovis and his son-in-law Alaric, and when the rout and death of Alaric threatened that all Gaul, and perhaps Spain, would pass into the hands of the Franks, he felt compelled to interpose. The result was the preservation of Spain and the district of Narbonne or Septimania for the Visigoths, and the acquisition by Theodoric of a territory corresponding with the modern Provence, including Arles and Marseilles. He was thus placed in immediate communication with the Visigoths, among whose kings he is reckoned by Spanish historians as guardian of his infant grandson.

Though, like his countrymen, an Arian, Theodoric for most of his reign acted not only with impartiality but favour to the Catholics, some holding high offices under him. On his one recorded visit to Rome in 500, where he spent six months (An. Val., Cassiod. Chron.), he gave magnificent presents to St. Peter's as if he had been a Catholic; he was on friendly terms with the most eminent bishops, such as [574]EPIPHANIUS, whom he employed on an embassy to the Burgundians to obtain the release of the prisoners taken in their inroads into N. Italy during the war with Odoacer; and in his interference in the troubles following the disputed election of [575]SYMMACHUS and LAURENTIUS he seems to have acted solely with a view to benefit the church. Nor did he object to the nullification by the synod, under Symmachus, of Odoacer's law against the alienation of ecclesiastical property, on the ground that it rested only on lay authority. He was careful also not to infringe on the privileges of the church, and extended his protection to the Jews.

During most of his reign the difficulties of his position were much lightened by the schism between the Eastern and Western churches. To the pope and the orthodox party a Eutychian emperor was as hateful as an Arian king. But when in 518 Anastasius was succeeded by Justin and the 37 years' schism was ended by the complete triumph of [576]HORMISDAS, whose negotiations with the East had been conducted by Theodoric's permission (Vita Hormisdae), the obstacle to the desires of the orthodox Romans for reunion with the empire was removed. On the Eastern side the breach was widened by the persecution of heretics, commenced by Justin in 523. By the law of that year (Cod. i. v.12), heretics were subjected to many civil and religious disabilities. The Goths serving in the army (foederati) were exempted from its provisions, but must, like the rest of their co-religionists, have felt the next measure, the seizure of all the churches belonging to heretics. Theodoric appears to have intended to occupy the churches of the Catholics and hand them over to the Arians as reprisals for the similar treatment they had experienced in the East, when he was seized with illness, and died Aug.30, 526. He apparently never had a son. His only surviving daughter Amalasuintha he had given in marriage in 515 to Eutharic, a descendant of the Amals, whose consulship in 519 was celebrated with great magnificence at Rome. He died before Theodoric, leaving one son, Athalaric, whom his grandfather, shortly before his death, declared king, under the regency of his mother.

Theodoric was a great builder. He restored the aqueducts at Verona and Ravenna, built palaces at Verona and Ravenna, and baths there and at Pavia. But his greatest works are at Ravenna, his own mausoleum, with its marvellous dome, formed of one block of Istrian stone, and what is now St. Apollinare Nuovo, the church he built for his Arlan fellow-worshippers, of which they retained possession till the time of bp. Agnellus (Agnellus, Lib. Pont. in Rerum Script. Lang.334).

Almost our only source of information as to his internal administration is the Variarum of Cassiodorus (vid. Mr. Hodgkin's preface to this work). Of modern writings, Dahn's Könige der Germanen, ii.-iv. is the most valuable. Du Roure has published a Life of Theodoric, and there is a brilliant sketch in Gibbon, c.39, of his rule in Italy.

[F.D.]

Theodoricus I., king of the Franks
Theodoricus (5) I. (Thierry, Theuderich), king of the Franks (511-533), one of the four sons of Clovis, by a concubine. He was considerably older than his three half-brothers, the sons of Clotilda, and had a grown-up son, Theodebert, when his father died (Greg. Tur. Hist. Franc. ii.28, iii.1) in 511. The four sons divided the kingdom, nominally into equal portions, but really Theodoric, owing probably to his greater age and capacity, obtained the largest portion. His capital was Metz, and his kingdom comprised the Ripuarian Frankish territory, Champagne, the eastern portion of Aquitaine and the old Salian Frankish possessions to the Kohlenwald (Richter, Annalen, p.46). Fauriel says that besides Frankish Germany he had so much of Gaul as lies between the Rhine and the Meuse and, as his share of Aquitaine, the Auvergne with the Velai and Gévaudan, its dependencies, the Limousin in part or whole, and certain other cantons of less importance (Hist. de la Gaule Mérid. ii.92). Theodoric died in 533. He was a strong and capable king, but to the ferocity and lawlessness of his race he added an unscrupulous cunning of his own (ib. iii.7). His attitude towards the church seems to have been one of indifference, influenced neither by fear nor superstition. Orthodoxy had been so useful a political weapon to his father that the son was presumably a professing Christian, though he is not mentioned among the members of Clovis's family baptized by St. Remigius. He did not shrink from involving churches in his army's pillage and destruction in the Auvergne (iii.12), and though. he exalted St. Quintian, bp. of Clermont, it was not as a priest, but as a partisan who had suffered in his cause (iii.2), while he bitterly persecuted Desiderius, bp. of Verdun (iii.34). He has the credit of reducing to writing and amending the laws of the Franks, Alamanni, and Bavarians (Migne, Patr. Lat. lxxi.1163).

[S.A.B.]

Theodorus Askidas, archbp. of Caesarea
Theodorus (6) Askidas (ho Askidas), archbp. of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the chief supporter of Origen's views in the first half of cent. vi. and the originator of the celebrated controversy concerning the "Three Chapters." The general history of his life belongs to that subject; we now give merely a brief outline. He was a monk of the convent of Nova Laura in Palestine, and made, c.537, archbp. of Caesarea under Justinian. He supported the views of Origen when they were persecuted in Palestine. He secretly favoured Monophysite views, and, when Justinian condemned Origen, saw a chance of condemning the great authorities on the Nestorian side, Theodoret, Theodore, and Ibas. Working, therefore, through the empress Theodora, he persuaded Justinian to attempt to reconcile the Monophysite party; Justinian, at his suggestion, issuing his celebrated edict which gave rise to the great controversy concerning the Three Chapters. At the general council of Constantinople archbp. Theodore subscribed the condemnation of Origen on the one hand, and of Theodoret, Theodore, and Ibas on the other. He died probably c.558 at Constantinople. The Testimonium of Theodore and of Cethegus the patrician concerning the contradictions of pope Vigilius about the Three Chapters is in Mansi, t. ix. col.363 (Ceill. xi.327, 865, 881; Hefele's Councils, § 258).

[G.T.S.]

Theodorus, bp. of Mopsuestia
Theodorus (26), bp. of Mopsuestia; also known, from the place of his birth and presbyterate, as Theodore of Antioch, the most prominent representative of te middle Antiochene school of hermeneutics.

I. Life and Work. -- Theodore was born at Antioch c.350 (see Fritzsche, de Th. M. V. et Scr. pp.1-4, for the chronology; cf. Kihn, Theodor u. Junilius, p.39, n.1). His father held an official position at Antioch, and the family was wealthy (Chrys. ad Th. Laps. ii. in Migne, Patr. Gk. xlvii.209). Theodore's cousin, Paeanius, to whom several of Chrysostom's letters are addressed (Epp.95, 193, 204, 220, in Migne, lii.), held an important post of civil government; his brother Polychronius became bp. of the metropolitan see of Apamea. Theodore first appears as the early companion and friend of Chrysostom, his fellow-townsman, his equal in rank, and but two or three years his senior in age. Together with their common friend Maximus, afterwards bp. of Isaurian Seleucia, Chrysostom and Theodore attended the lectures of the sophist Libanius (Socr. vi.3; cf. Soz. viii.1), then at Antioch in the zenith of his fame. We have the assurance of Sozomen that he enjoyed a philosophical education (l.c.). Chrysostom credits his friend with diligent study, but the luxurious life of polite Antioch seems to have received an equal share of his thoughts. When Chrysostom himself had been reclaimed from the pleasures of the world by the influence of Basil, he succeeded in winning Maximus and Theodore to the same mind. The three friends left Libanius and sought a retreat in the monastic school (asketerion) of Carterius and Diodorus, to which Basil was already attached. Whether Theodore had been previously baptized is doubtful; Chrysostom, however, speaks of him shortly afterwards in terms which seem to imply his baptism (ad Th. Laps.). He gave himself to the new learning with characteristic energy. His days, as his friend testifies, were spent in reading, his nights in prayer; he fasted long, lay on the bare ground, and practised every form of ascetic self-discipline; he was full withal of light-hearted joy, as having found the service of Christ to be perfect freedom. His conversion was speedy, sincere, and marvellously complete, but was followed by a reaction which threatened an utter collapse of his new-found life. He had but just resigned himself to a celibate life when he was fascinated by a girl named Hermione (Chrys. ib. i., Migne, xlvii. p.297), and contemplated marriage, at the same time returning to his former manner of life (Soz. viii.2). His "fall" spread consternation through the little society. Many were the prayers offered and efforts made for his recovery. "Valerius, Florentius, Porphyrius, and many others," laboured to restore him; and the anxiety drew forth from Chrysostom the earliest of his literary compositions -- two letters "to Theodore upon his fall." The second letter reveals at once the strength of Chrysostom's affection, and the greatness of the character in which at that early age (Theodore was not yet 20) he had already found so much to love. Theodore remained constant to his vows (Soz. l.c.), although the disappointment left traces in his after-life.

Chrysostom's connexion with Diodore was probably broken off in 374, when he plunged into a more complete monastic seclusion; Theodore's seems to have continued until the elevation of Diodore to the see of Tarsus a.d.378. During this period doubtless the foundations were laid of Theodore's acquaintance with Holy Scripture and ecclesiastical doctrine, and he was imbued for life with the principles of scriptural interpretation which Diodore had inherited from an earlier generation of Antiochenes, and with the peculiar views of the Person of Christ into which the master had been led by his antagonism to Apollinarius. The latter years of this decade witnessed Theodore's first appearance as a writer. He began with a commentary on the Psalms, in which the method of Diodore was exaggerated, and which he lived to repent of (Facund. iii.6, x.1; v. infra, § III.). The orthodox at Antioch, it seems, resented the loss of the traditional Messianic interpretation, and, if we may trust Hesychius, Theodore was compelled to promise that he would commit his maiden work to the flames -- an engagement he contrived to evade (Mansi, ix.284).

Gennadius (de Vir. Ill.12) represents Theodore as a presbyter of the church of Antioch; and from a letter of John of Antioch (Facund. ii.2) we gather that 45 years elapsed between his ordination and his death. It seems, therefore, that he was ordained priest at Antioch a.d.383, in his 33rd year, the ordaining bishop being doubtless Flavian, Diodore's old friend and fellow-labourer, whose "loving disciple" Theodore now became (John of Antioch, ap. Facund. l.c.). The epithet seems to imply that Theodore was an attached adherent of the Meletian party; but there is no evidence that he mixed himself up with the feuds which for some years after Flavian's consecration distracted the Catholics of Antioch. Theodore's great treatise on the Incarnation (Gennad. l.c.) belongs to this period, possibly also more than one of his commentaries on the O.T. As a preacher he seems to have now attained some eminence in the field of polemics (Facund. viii.4). Theodore is said by Hesychius of Jerusalem (Mansi, ix.248) to have left Antioch while yet a priest and betaken himself to Tarsus, until 392, when he was consecrated to the see of Mopsuestia, vacant by the death of Olympius, probably through the influence and by the hands of Diodore. Here he spent his remaining 36 years of life (Theodoret, l.c.).

Mopsuestia was a free town (Pliny) upon the Pyramus, between Tarsus and Issus, some 40 miles from either, and 12 from the sea. It belonged to Cilicia Secunda, of which the metropolitan see was Anazarbus. In the 4th cent. it was of some importance, famous for its bridge, thrown over the Pyramus by Constantine. It is now the insignificant town Mensis, or Messis (D. of G. and R. Geogr.).

Theodore's long episcopate was marked by no striking incidents. His letters, long known to the Nestorians of Syria as the Book of Pearls, are lost; his followers have left us few personal recollections. In 394 he attended a synod at Constantinople on a question which concerned the see of Bostra in the partiarchate of Antioch (Mansi, iii.851; cf. Hefele, ii.406). Theodore preached, probably on this occasion, before the emperor Theodosius I., who was then starting for his last journey to the West. The sermon made a deep impression, and Theodosius, who had sat at the feet of St. Ambrose and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, declared that he had never met with such a teacher (John of Antioch, ap. Facund. ii.2). The younger Theodosius inherited his grandfather's respect for Theodore, and often wrote to him. Another glimpse of Theodore's episcopal life is supplied by a letter of Chrysostom to him from Cucusus (a.d.404-407) (Chrys. Ep.212, Migne, Iii.668). The exiled patriarch "can never forget the love of Theodore, so genuine and warm, so sincere and guileless, a love maintained from early years, and manifested but now." Chrysostom (Ep.204) thanks him profoundly for frequent though ineffectual efforts to obtain his release. No titles of honour, no terms of affection, seem too strong to be lavished on his friend. Finally, he assures Theodore that, "exile as he is, he reaps no ordinary consolation from having such a treasure, such a mine of wealth within his heart, as the love of so vigilant and noble a soul." Higher testimony could not have been borne, or by a more competent judge; and so much was this felt by Theodore's enemies at the fifth council that they vainly made efforts to deny the identity of Chrysostom's correspondent with the bp. of Mopsuestia.

Notwithstanding his literary activity, Theodore worked zealously for the good of his diocese. The famous letter of Ibas (Mansi, vii.247; Facund. vii.7) testifies that he converted Mopsuestia to the truth, i.e. extinguished Arianism and other heresies there. Several of his works are doubtless monuments of these pastoral labours, e.g. the catechetical lectures, the ecthesis, and possibly the treatise on "Persian Magic." Yet his episcopal work was by no means simply that of a diocesan bishop. Everywhere he was regarded as "the herald of the truth and the doctor of the church"; "even distant churches received instruction from him." So boasts Ibas to Maris, and his letter was read without a dissentient voice at the council of Chalcedon (Facund. ii. i seq.). Theodore "expounded Scripture in all the churches of the East," says John of Antioch (ib. ii.2) with Oriental hyperbole, and adds that in his lifetime Theodore was never arraigned by any of the orthodox. But in a letter to Nestorius (ib. x.2) John begs him to retract, urging the example of Theodore, who, when in a sermon at Antioch he had said something which gave great and manifest offence, for the sake of peace and to avoid scandal, after a few days as publicly corrected himself. Leontius tells us (Migne, lxxxvi.1363) that the cause of offence was a denial to the Blessed Virgin of the title theotokos. So great was the storm that the people threatened to stone the preacher (Cyril. Alex. Ep.69; Migne, lxxvii.340). The heretical sects attacked by Theodore shewed their resentment in a way less overt, but perhaps more formidable. They tampered with his writings, hoping thus to involve him in heterodox statements (Facund. x.1).

Theodore's last years were perplexed by a new controversy. When in 418 the Pelagian leaders were deposed and exiled from the West, they sought in the East the sympathy of the chief living representative of the school of Antioch. The fact is recorded by Marius Mercator, who makes the most of it (Praef. ad Symb. Theod. Mop.72). With Theodore they probably remained till 422, when Julian returned to Italy. Julian's visit was doubtless the occasion upon which Theodore wrote his book Against the Defenders of Original Sin. Mercator charges Theodore with having turned against Julian as soon as the latter had left Mopsuestia, and anathematized him in a provincial synod (op. cit.3). The synod can hardly be a fabrication, since Mercator was a contemporary writer; but it was very possibly convened, as Fritzsche suggests, without any special reference to the Pelagian question. If Theodore then read his ecthesis, the anathema with which that ends might have been represented outside the council as a synodical condemnation of the Pelagian chiefs. Mercator's words, in fact, point to this explanation.

A greater heresiarch than Julian visited Mopsuestia in the last year of Theodore's life. It is stated by Evagrius (H. E. i.2; Migne, lxxxvi.2425) that Nestorius, on his way from Antioch to Constantinople (a.d.428), took counsel with Theodore and received from him the seeds of heresy which he shortly afterwards scattered with such disastrous results. Evagrius makes this statement on the authority of one Theodulus, a person otherwise unknown. We may safely reject it, so far as it derives the Christology of Nestorius from this single interview. The germ of the Nestorian doctrine was in the teaching of Diodore and in the earliest works of Theodore; it could not have been new to Nestorius, as a prominent teacher of the church of Antioch.

Towards the close of 428 (Theodoret, H. E. v.39) Theodore died, worn out by 50 years (Facund. ii.2) of literary and pastoral toil, at the age of 78, having been all his life engaged in controversy, and more than once in conflict with the popular notions of orthodoxy; yet he departed, as Facundus (ii.1) triumphantly points out, in the peace of the church and at the height of a great reputation. The storm was gathering, but did not break till he was gone.

II. Posthumous History. -- The popularity of Theodore was increased by his death. Meletius, his successor at Mopsuestia, protested that his life would have been in danger if he had uttered a word against his predecessor (Tillem. Mém. xii. p.442). "We believe as Theodore believed; long live the faith of Theodore!" was a cry often heard in the churches of the East (Cyril. Alex. Ep.69). "We had rather be burnt than condemn Theodore," was the reply of the bishops of Syria to the party eager for his condemnation (Ep.72). The flame was fed by leading men who had been disciples of the Interpreter: by Theodoret, who regarded him as a "doctor of the universal church " (H. E. v.39); by Ibas of Edessa, who in 433 wrote his famous letter to Maris in praise of Theodore; by John, who in 429 succeeded to the see of Antioch. Yet Theodore's ashes were scarcely cold when in other quarters men began to hold him up to obloquy. As early perhaps as 431 Marius Mercator denounced him as the real author of the Pelagian heresy (Lib. subnot. in verba Juliani, praef; Migne, Patr. Lat. xlviii.110); and not long afterwards prefaced his translation of Theodore's ecthesis with a still more violent attack on him as the precursor of Nestorianism (ib. pp.208, 1046, 1048). The council of Ephesus, however, while it condemned Nestorius by name, contented itself with condemning Theodore's creed without mentioning Theodore; and the Nestorian party consequently fell back upon the words of Theodore, and began to circulate them in several languages as affording the best available exposition of their views (Liberat. Brev.10). This circumstance deepened the mistrust of the orthodox, and even in the East there were not wanting some who proceeded to condemn the teaching of Theodore. Hesychius of Jerusalem, about 435, attacked him in his Ecclesiastical History; Rabbûlas, bp. of Edessa, who at Ephesus had sided with John of Antioch, now publicly anathematized Theodore (Ibas, Ep. ad Marin.). Proclus demanded from the bishops of Syria a condemnation of certain propositions supposed to have been drawn from the writings of Theodore. Cyril, who had once spoken favourably of some of Theodore's works (Facund. viii.6), now under the influence of Rabbûlas took a decided attitude of opposition; he wrote to the synod of Antioch (Ep.67) that the opinions of Diodore, Theodore, and others of the same schools had "borne down with full sail upon the glory of Christ"; to the emperor (Ep.71), that Diodore and Theodore were the parents of the blasphemy of Nestorius; to Proclus (Ep.72), that had Theodore been still alive and openly approved of the teaching of Nestorius, he ought undoubtedly to have been anathematized; but as he was dead, it was enough to condemn the errors of his books, having regard to the terrible disturbances more extreme measures would excite in the East. He collected and answered a series of propositions gathered from the writings of Diodore and Theodore (Migne, xxvi.1438 seq.), a work to which Theodoret replied shortly afterwards. The ferment then subsided for a time, but the disciples of Theodore, repulsed in the West, pushed their way from Eastern Syria to Persia. Ibas, who succeeded Rabbûlas in 435, restored the school of Edessa, and it continued to be a nursery of Theodore's theology till suppressed by Zeno, a.d.489. At Nisibis Barsumas, a devoted adherent of the party, was bp. from 435 to 489. Upon the suppression of the school of Edessa, Nisibis became the seat of the Antiochene exegesis and theology. The Persian kings favoured a movement distasteful to the empire; and Persia was henceforth the headquarters of Nestorianism. Among the Nestorians of Persia the writings of Theodore were regarded as the standard both of doctrine and of interpretation, and the Persian church returned the censures of the orthodox by pronouncing an anathema on all who opposed or rejected them (cf. Assem. iii. i.84; and for a full account of the spread of Theodore's opinions at Edessa and Nisibis see Kihn, Theodor u. Junilius, pp.198-209, 333-336). At a later period the school of Nisibis reacted on the West, and the influence, though not the name, of Theodore appears in the Instituta Regularia of Junilius Africanus, and in the de Institutione Divinarum Literarum of Cassiodorus (Kihn, pp.209 seq.).

The 6th cent. witnessed another and final outbreak of bitter hatred against Theodore. The fifth general council (553), under the influence of the emperor Justinian, pronounced the anathema which Theodosius II. had refused to sanction and which even Cyril shrank from uttering. This condemnation of Theodore and his two supporters shook the fabric of the Catholic church. This is not the place to enter upon the history of the "Three Chapters," but we may point out one result of Justinian's policy. The West, Africa especially, rebelled against a decree which seemed to set at nought the authority of the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon, and also violated the sanctity of the dead. It was from no particular interest in Theodore's doctrine or method of interpretation that the African bishops espoused his cause. Bp. Pontian plainly told the emperor that he had asked them to condemn men of whose writings they knew nothing (Migne, Patr. Lat. lxvii.997). But the stir about Theodore led to inquiry; his works, or portions of them, were translated and circulated in the West. It is almost certainly to this cause that we owe the preservation in a Latin dress of at least one-half of Theodore's commentaries on St. Paul. Published under the name of St. Ambrose, the work of Theodore passed from Africa into the monastic libraries of the West, was copied into the compilations of Rabanus Maurus and others, and in its fuller and its abridged form supplied the Middle Ages with an accepted interpretation of an important part of Holy Scripture. The name of Theodore, however, disappears almost entirely from Western church literature after the 6th cent. It was scarcely before the 19th cent. that justice was done by Western writers to the importance of the great Antiochene as a theologian, an expositor, and a precursor of later thought.

III. Literary Remains. -- Facundus (x.4) speaks of Theodore's "innumerable books"; John of Antioch, in a letter quoted by Facundus (ii.2), describes his polemical works as alone numbering "decem millia" (i.e. muria), an exaggeration of course, but based on fact. A catalogue of such of his writings as were once extant in Syriac translations is given by Ebedjesu, Nestorian metropolitan of Soba, a.d.1318 (J. S. Assem. Bibl. Orient. iii. i. pp.30 seq.). These Syriac translations filled 41 tomes. Only one whole work remains.

(A) EXEGETICAL WRITINGS. -- (i) Old Testament. (a) Historical Books. -- A commentary on Genesis is cited by Cosmas
Indicopleustes, John Philoponus, and Photius (Cod.3, 8). Fragments of the Greek original survive in the catena of Nicephorus (Lips.1772). Latin fragments are found in the Acts of the second council of Constantinople, and an important collection of Syriac fragments from the Nitrian. MSS. of the British Museum was pub. by Dr. E. Sachau (Th. Mops. Fragm. Syriaca, Lips.1869, pp.1-21). Photius, criticizing the style of this work in words more or less applicable to all the remains of Theodore, notices the writer's opposition to the allegorical method of interpretation. Ebedjesu was struck by the care and elaboration bestowed upon the work. The catenae contain fragments attributed to Theodore upon the remaining books of the Pentateuch and of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Samuel, and Kings (Mai, Scr. Vet. Nov. Coll. i. praef. p. xxi.). Theodore is stated by Leontius (Migne, Patr. Gk. lxxxvi.1368) to have rejected the two books of Chronicles, and there is no trace of any comments upon them bearing his name.

(b) Poetical Books. -- Theodore's commentary on Job was dedicated to St. Cyril of Alexandria. Of all his works it seems to have been the least worthy of this dedication. Only four fragments survive (Mansi, ix. pp.223 seq.), but they are sufficient to justify the censure pronounced upon the work by the Fifth council. Theodore regards Job as an historical character, but considers him as traduced by the author of the book, whom he considers to have been a pagan Edomite.

The Psalms were the earliest field of Theodore's hermeneutical labours. The printed fragments, Greek and Latin, fill 25 columns in Migne. More recently attention has been called to a Syriac version (Baethgen), and new fragments of a Latin version and of the original Greek have been printed. That his first literary adventure was hasty and premature was frankly acknowledged by Theodore himself (Facund. l.c.). His zeal for the historical method of interpretation led him to deny the application to Christ of all but 3 or 4 of the Psalms usually regarded as Messianic.

No fragments have hitherto been discovered of the commentary of Ecclesiastes, which Ebedjesu counts among the Syriac translations. From the remains of the commentary on Job it appears that Theodore expressly denied the higher inspiration of both the sapiential books of Solomon. Of the Canticles he writes in terms of positive contempt (Mansi, ix.225). He repudiates imputations of immodesty on it, but denies its spiritual character. It is merely the epithalamium of Pharaoh's daughter, a relic of Solomon's lighter poetry, affording an insight into his domestic life. For this reason, he adds, it had never been read in synagogue or church.

(c) Prophetical Books. -- A commentary on the four greater prophets is in Ebedjesu's list; but one or two inedited fragments alone remain. The commentary on the minor prophets has been preserved and published in its integrity by Mai (Rome, 1825-1832) and Wegnern. Its exegetical value is diminished by Theodore's absolute confidence in the LXX, excessive independence of earlier hermeneutical authorities, and reluctance to admit a Christological reference, as well as by his usual defects of style. It is, nevertheless, a considerable monument of his expository power, and the best illustration we possess of the Antiochene method of interpreting O.T. prophecy.

(ii) N.T. (a) The Gospels. -- Ebedjesu recounts commentaries on SS. Matthew, Luke, and John. Fragments of these, with the remaining N.T. fragments, were collected and ed. by O. F. Fritzsche (Turici, 1847), and reprinted by Migne. The commentary on St. John exists in a Syriac version, and has been pub. by J. B. Chabot (Paris, 1897).

(b) Acts and Catholic Epistles. -- One fragment only remains of the commentary on the Acts; we owe it to the zeal of Theodore's opponents at the Fifth council. Notwithstanding Mai (l.c. p. xxi), it is more than doubtful whether Theodore wrote upon the Catholic Epistles. With the rest of the Antiochians he probably followed the old Syrian canon in rejecting II. Peter and II. and III. John.

(c) The Epistles of St. Paul. -- Ebedjesu distinctly states that Theodore wrote on all the Pauline epistles, including among them Hebrews. The commentary on Hebrews is cited by the Fifth council, Vigilius and Pelagius II.; that on Romans by Facundus (iii.6). A fortunate discovery last century gave us a complete Latin version of the commentary on Galatians and the nine following epistles. The Latin, apparently the work of an African churchman of the time of the Fifth council, abounds in colloquial and semi-barbarous forms; the version is not always careful, and sometimes almost hopelessly corrupt. But it gives us the substance of Theodore's interpretation of St. Paul, and we have thus a typical commentary from his pen on a considerable portion of each Testament (pub. by Camb. Univ. Press, 1880-1882).

(B) CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS. -- (a) Chief amongst these, and first in point of time, was the treatise, in 15 books, on the Incarnation. According to Gennadius (de Vir. Ill.12) it was directed against the Apollinarians and Eunomians, and written while the author was yet a presbyter of Antioch, i.e. a.d.382-392. Gennadius adds an outline of the contents. After a logical and scriptural demonstration of the truth and perfection of each of the natures in Christ, Theodore deals more at length with the Sacred Manhood. In bk. xiv. he approached the mystery of the Holy Trinity and the relation of the creature to the Divine Nature; in xv. the work was concluded, teste Gennadius, with an appeal to authority: "citatis etiam patrum
traditionibus." Large fragments of this treatise have been collected from various quarters. None of the remains of Theodore throw such important light upon his Christology.

(b) Books against Apollinarianism. -- Facundus (viii.2) says that Theodore wrote several distinct treatises against Apollinarius. One, entitled de Apollinario et ejus Haeresi, was written, as Theodore states in the only surviving fragment, 30 years after the treatise on the Incarnation (Facund. x.1). A number of important fragments preserved in the Constantinopolitan Acts and in the writings of Facundus, Justinian, Leontius, etc., are referred to bks. iii. and iv. "Against Apollinarius."

(c) Theodore wrote a separate polemic against Eunomius, and a single characteristic fragment has survived (Facund. ix.3). The work professed to be a defence of St. Basil. In the original it reached the prodigious length of 25 (Phot. Cod.4) or even of (Cod.177) 28 books. Photius complains bitterly of the faults of style, and doubts the orthodoxy of the writer, but admits its clearness of argument and wealth of scriptural proof.

(d) Ebedjesu includes in his list "two tomes on the Holy Spirit"; probably a work directed against the heresy of the Pneumatomachi; but see Klener, Symb. Liter. p.76.

(e) Three books on "Persian Magic." We learn from Photius that bk. i. was an exposure of the Zoroastrian system; bks. ii. and iii. contained a comprehensive sketch of the history and doctrines of Christianity, beginning with the Biblical account of the Creation. In this portion, especially in bk. iii., Theodore betrayed his "Nestorian" views, and even advanced the startling theory of a final restoration of all men. One cannot but regret the utter loss of so remarkable a volume, especially as it seems to have been written in the interests of Christian missions, an earnest of the missionary spirit which was afterwards so marked in the Nestorian church.

(f) According to Ebedjesu, Theodore wrote "two tomes against him who asserts that sin is inherent in human nature." The heading, as given in Marius Mercator, who published Latin excerpts from this book shortly after Theodore's death, is merely an ex parte description of its contents: "Contra S. Augustinum defendentem originale peccatum et Adam per transgressionem mortalem factum catholice disserentem." Mercator, a friend and disciple of St. Augustine, not unnaturally imagined Theodore's work to be directed against the great Western assailant of Pelagius; but Theodore seems actually to have selected Jerome as the representative of the principles he attacks. Such as they are, the remains of this book form our best guide to the anthropology of Theodore.

(C) PRACTICAL, PASTORAL, AND LITURGICAL WRITINGS. -- Ebedjesu mentions a treatise On the Priesthood, which seems to have been an extensive one, probably unfolding the doctrine of the Sacraments as based upon the doctrine of the Incarnation. It was written, Hesychius tells us, in Theodore's old age. A more popular treatment of the same subject seems to have been attempted in the Catechetical Lectures ("Catechismus," according to Marius Mercator; the Fifth council calls it "Allocutiones ad baptizandos," Facundus (ix.3) less correctly, "Liber ad baptizatos"). The fragments, which are chiefly from bk. viii., refer almost exclusively to the doctrine of the Incarnation. A MS. of the whole in Syriac exists in the library of the American College at Beyrout. Fritzsche thinks that to some copies at least of these lectures Theodore appended (1) an explanation of the creed of Nicaea, a fragment of which, preserved by the Fifth council, suggests that its object was to interpret the creed in harmony with the bishop's teaching upon the Person of Christ; and (2) the ecthesis afterwards produced at the Third council by the Philadelphian presbyter Charisius, and condemned, but without mention of the author's name (Mansi, iv.1347 seq. ). The document corresponds closely with Theodore's teaching, reveals his style in both its weakness and strength, and was attributed to him by his contemporary Mercator, who bases on it his attack upon Theodore's Christology. The ecthesis was probably composed in good faith, and intended to serve the interests of the Catholic doctrine.

Lastly, Leontius intimates that Theodore wrote a portion of a liturgy; "not content with drafting a new creed, he sought to impose upon the church a new Anaphora" (Migne, lxxxvi.1367). A Syriac liturgy ascribed to "Mâr Teodorus the Interpreter" is still used by the Christians of Assyria for a third of the year, from Advent to Palm Sunday. The proanaphoral and post-communion portions are supplied by the older liturgy "of the Apostles" (so called), the anaphora only being peculiar. A Latin version of this anaphora is in Renaudot, pub. in English by Dr. Neale (Hist. H. E. Ch.) and Dr. Badger (Eastern Ch. Assoc., occasional paper, xvii., Rivingtons, 1875). Internal evidence confirms the judgment of Dr. Neale, who regards it as a genuine work of Theodore.

IV. Doctrine. -- We deal with the peculiarities of Theodore's teaching under: (A) Anthropology, (B) Christology, (C) Soteriology.

(A) His whole doctrinal system hinges, as Neander and Dorner rightly judged, upon his conception of man's relation to the Universe and to God. (1) The Universe (ho kosmos = he sumpasa ktisis) is an organic whole (hen soma), consisting of elements partly visible and material, partly invisible and spiritual. Of this organism man is the predestined bond (philias enechuron, sundesmos, sunapheia, copulatio), and therefore made a composite creature, his body derived from material elements, his spiritual nature akin to pure spirits, the noetai phuseis. He was also to be the image of God, i.e. His visible representative, and as such to receive the homage of all creation. Hence all things minister to him, and even angelic beings superintend the movements of the physical world for his benefit. Man is thus the crowning work of the Creator, and the proper medium of communication between the Creator and the creature. (2) In the history of all intelligent created life, Theodore distinguishes two stages (katastaseis), the first a state of flux, exposed to conflict, temptation, and mortality; the second immutable, and free from all the forms of moral and physical evil. From the beginning God purposed that the second of these conditions (he mellousa katastasis) should be revealed through the Incarnation of His Son. Man was created in the former state, his nature being from the first liable to dissolution. "Earth to earth" -- the human body naturally returns to the element from which it was taken. (3) The fall therefore did not introduce mortality, but converted the liability into a fact. It was not said, "Ye shall become mortal," but "Ye shall die." As a matter of fact, "death came by sin"; and the dissolution of soul and body was followed by the still more serious dissolution of the bond which in the person of man had hitherto knit together the visible and invisible creations. The fall of the first man gave sin a foothold in the world. The same result followed in the case of each descendant of Adam who sinned; and since all sinned, death "passed upon all men, for that all sinned." (4) As our mortality was no after-thought with God, so neither was the sentence of death a vindictive punishment. The present life, with its vicissitudes and probationary trials, is a wholesome discipline, affording room for the exercise of free will and the attainment of goodness, which without our efforts would be destitute of moral worth. Although human nature is free, yet in its present condition of mortality and mutability it is insufficient to conquer the forces of evil and attain perfect virtue without supernatural aid. A new creation is needed to abolish sin and death.

(B) We are thus brought to Theodore's doctrine of the mission and Person of Christ. (1) The mission of Christ is primarily to restore the shattered unity of the kosmos and gather up all things to Himself, by realizing in His Person the position of man as the visible Image of God and the head of the whole Creation; secondarily, to restore mankind by union with Himself as the Second Adam and the Head of the Church to a condition of perfect deliverance from sin and death. (2) To fulfil this mission it was necessary that God the Word should become perfect man. The perfection of His manhood required Him to possess a rational human soul, capable of exercising a real choice between good and evil, although persistently choosing good; and to attain the perfection of human experience it was necessary for Him to take human nature in its mutable state, to pass through a period of growth, and to enter into conflict not only with the Evil One, but with the passions of the human soul. (3) Though perfect man, the man Christ surpassed all other men. He was absolutely free from sin, and His life was a continual progress from one stage of virtue to another, a meritorious course of which the end was victory over death and an entrance into the immortal and immutable state. This sinlessness and ultimate perfection of the manhood of Christ was due (a) to His supernatural birth and subsequent baptism of the Spirit, which He received in a manner peculiar to Himself, i.e. in the fullness of His grace; but yet more (b) to His union with the Person of the Divine Word. This union he had indeed received as the reward of His foreseen sinlessness and virtue, for with Him, as with the rest of mankind, divine gifts depended upon the action of the human will. The union, however, necessarily reacted on the Man, with whom the Word was made one; the cooperation of the Indwelling Godhead rendered it morally impossible for him to fall into sin. (4) But after what manner did the Word unite Himself to the Man whom He assumed? A priori there are three conceivable modes of divine indwelling: it might be essential, effectual, or moral (kat' ousian, kat' energeian, kat' eudokian). An essential indwelling of God is excluded by every adequate idea of His Nature. The indwelling of God in Christ and in the saints is generically the same, but there is an all-important specific difference, by which Theodore strives to retain the conception of a true incarnation of God. "I am not so mad," he says; "as to affirm that the indwelling of God in Christ is after the same manner as in the saints. He dwelt in Christ as in a Son (hos en huio); I mean that He united the assumed man entirely to Himself and fitted him to partake with Him of all the honour of which the indwelling Person, Who is Son by nature, partakes." Further, the union of the Word with the man Christ differs from the divine indwelling in the saints in two other important particulars. It began with the first formation of the Sacred Manhood in the Virgin's womb ("a prima statim plasmatione . . . Creator . . . occulte eidem copulatus existens non aberat cum formaretur, non dividebatur cum nascebatur"). And once having taken effect, the union remains indissoluble (achoriston pros ten theian phuso echon ten sunapheian). So close was the union, so ineffable, that the Word and the man He assumed may be regarded and spoken of as One Person, even as man and wife are "no longer two but one flesh"; or as "the reasonable soul and flesh are one man." Hence in Scripture things are often predicated of one of the natures which belong to the other. Hence the question whether the Virgin is rightly called anthropotokos or theotokos is an idle one; for she was both. She was the mother of the Man, but in that Man when she gave Him birth there was already the indwelling of God. On the other hand, every idea of the Incarnation which tends to a confusion of the natures is to be jealously excluded. When St. John says that "the Word was made flesh," we must understand him to speak only of what the Word apparently became; not that the flesh He took was unreal, but that He was not really transformed into flesh (to egeneto' . . . kata to dokein . . . ou gar metepoiethe eis sarka). (5) There are not two Sons in Christ, for there are not two Christs; the unity of the Person must be as carefully preserved as the distinction of the Natures; the Man is Son only by virtue of His indissoluble union with the Divine Word; when we call Christ the Son of God, we think principally of Him Who is truly and essentially Son, but we include in our conception the man who is indissolubly One with Him, and therefore shares His honours and His Name.

(c) Lastly, what are the elements, conditions, and ultimate results of the restorative work which the Incarnate Son came to do? (1) Theodore placed the redemptive virtue of the death of Christ chiefly in this, that it was the transition of the Second Adam from the mutable state into the immutable, the necessary step to the resurrection-life, in which death and sin are finally abolished. (2) Baptism, which represents the death and resurrection of the Lord, unites us to the risen Christ by a participation of His Spirit, so that in it we pass as by a second birth into the sphere of the future life. (3) The regenerate occupy middle ground between the two worlds, living in the present yet belonging to the future, potentially sinless and immortal, actually liable to sin and death. It is their business, by the aid of the Holy Spirit, to mould their present lives into conformity with the life of the risen Christ, and the conditions of the future state. Living thus they are justified by faith, i.e. their faith enables them in some sort to anticipate their future sinlessness. (4) But actual and final justification can only be obtained at the resurrection. The Parousia is therefore the great hope of the church, as bringing with it the two great results of the Incarnation, the anamartesia and the aphtharsia of the Body of Christ. Nothing short of the final state of perfection which will be then inaugurated can exhaust the meaning of such terms as "redemption," "forgiveness of sins," and "salvation." (5) Although the Second Advent will bring these blessings only to those who have in some degree responded to their baptismal calling, and co-operated with the Spirit of Christ, Theodore is far from pronouncing the case of the unprepared to be hopeless. The punishments of the condemned will indeed be in their nature eternal, being such as belong to eternity and not to time; but both reason and Scripture shew that they will be remissible upon repentance. Where (he asks) would be the benefit of a resurrection to such persons if they were raised only to be punished without remedy or end? What would, then, be the meaning of such texts as Mt. v.26, Lk. xii.47, 48? Moreover, Theodore's fundamental conception of the mission and Person of Christ compels him to believe that there will be a final restoration of all creation.

V. Method of Interpretation. -- As a scholar and successor of Diodore (cf. Socr. vi.3; Soz. viii.2), Theodore inherited the Antiochene system of grammatical and historical interpretation, and denounced the licence of the Alexandrian allegorizers. The recovery of the commentary on Gal. iv.24 shews that Theodore convinced himself that the allegorical method was essentially rationalistic, undermining the historical truth of the O.T. narrative. St. Paul's use of allegoria was different in kind, since it presupposed the facts of the history and employed them only by way of illustration. In his own interpretation of both the historical and prophetical Scriptures it was a first principle with Theodore to ascertain the intention of the writer, and to refuse a secondary and more subtle meaning when the words were capable of a literal and practical sense. But the application of this principle was checked by several considerations, such as (i) the usage (idioma) of Scripture or of the individual writer; (ii) the guidance of the context; (iii) in the case of O.T. writers, the general purpose of the older covenant. The third point requires careful examination. (a) Theodore was deeply convinced of the propaedeutic character of O.T. He saw that the divine purpose which runs through the whole of its course culminates in the Incarnation and the Gospel of Christ. His commentary on the minor prophets appears to have 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, arti), 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 idiomata 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, ho de legei k.t.l.) 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. Johannis i. (textus Syriacus) (Paris, 1897); J. Lietzmann, Der Psalmenkommentar, S.B.A. (1902). For doctrine and method of interpretation see Neander, Allgem. Geschichte, II. iii.; Dorner, Lehre v. der Person Christi, II. i.; art. in Ch. Quart. Rev. Oct.1875, entitled "Theodore and Modern Thought"; Prof. Sanday in Expositor, June 1880; A. Harnack, art. "Antiochenische Schule" in Hauck-Herzog, Realencyklopädie, i. (1896); History of Dogmas (Eng. trans.), iii.279 ff., iv.165 ff.; J. H. Soarsby, art. "Antiochene Theology" in Hastings, Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, i. (1908); J. F. Bethune-Baker, Early History of Christian Doctrine, pp.256 ff.; Nestorius and his Teaching, passim (1908). Migne's useful but uncritical ed. (vol.66, 1864) of all the pub. works and fragments is in his Patr. Gk. In 1869 Dr. E. Sachau published the inedited Syriac fragments scattered through the Nitrian MSS. of Brit. Mus., with a reprint of the Theodorean matter already collected by P. de Lagarde in his Analecta Syriaca (Lips.1858). The ancient Latin version of the commentaries on some of the Epp. of St. Paul, with a fresh collation of the Greek fragments, was issued by the Camb. Univ. Press in 1880-1882. A complete critical edition of all the literary remains of Theodore is still a desideratum. Cf. Zahn, Das N.T. Theodors von Mops. in Neue Kirch. Zeitschr.1900, xi. pp.788 f.

[H.B.S.]

Theodorus, bishop of Tyana
Theodorus (50), bp. of Tyana, a fellow countryman and correspondent of Gregory Nazianzen. He was a native of Arianzus. Accompanying Gregory to Constantinople in 379, he shared in the ill-treatment received there from the Arian monks and rabble. He subsequently became bp. of Tyana, but not before 381. After Gregory returned to Arianzus many letters of friendship passed between him and Theodore. On the attempt of the Apollinarians to perpetuate the schism at Nazianzus, by appointing a bishop of their own, Gregory wrote very earnestly (A.D.382) to Theodore, calling on him, as metropolitan, to appoint a bishop to replace him, as age and ill-health forbad his efficient superintendence of the church there (Ep.88). After being compelled reluctantly to resume the care of Nazianzus, Gregory felt reason to complain of Theodore apparently siding with his enemies, and expressed his feelings with vehemence (Ep.83). Their friendship, however, was not weakened, and on the completion, in 382, of the Philocalia -- the collection of extracts from Origen made by him and Basil many years before -- Gregory sent Theodore a copy as an Easter gift (Ep.115 al.87). Theodore was one of the bishops attending the council summoned against Chrysostom by Theophilus at the end of 403. Palladius describes him as a man of much wisdom and authority, who, when he discovered the malicious intention of Theophilus and his partisans, retired to his diocese soon after his arrival (Pallad. p.23). The Theodorus to whom Chrysostom addressed his Ep.112 has been identified with Theodore of Tyana by the second council of Constantinople (Labbe, v.490). Tillemont decides (xi.608) for Theodore of Mopsuestia.

[E.V.]

Theodorus of Tabenna
Theodorus (53), priest and abbat of Tabenna in the Thebaid. Born A.D.314, of noble parents in the Upper Thebaid, he forsook, at an early age, his worldly prospects, and found asylum with Palaemon the anchorite, and then in the monastery at Tabenna with Pachomius, under whom he became oeconomus. When Pachomius died Theodorus was offered the abbacy, but withdrew in favour of Orsisius, on whose retirement he succeeded, made many reforms, visited the subject monasteries, and founded 5 new ones at or near Ptolemais, Hermothis, Caius, Obi, and Bechre (Boll. AA. SS. Mai, iii.327-328). During the lifetime of Pachomius Theodorus met St. Athanasius in the Thebaid, and is said to have announced to him the death of the emperor Julian, then occurring in Persia (Athan. Opp. ii.695). St. Athanasius had a great regard for Theodorus, and bewailed his decease (Epp. ad Orsisium in Patr. Gk. xxvi.978). St. Nilus (de Orat. c.8) gives an anecdote of him. He died A.D.367 (Tillem. H. E. vii.225) or 368 (Boll. u.s.291). Gennadius (de Script. Eccl. i.8) calls him presbyter, and gives the substance of 3 epistles he is said to have addressed to other monasteries. Boll. u.s.287-362, give the most elaborate account of Pachomius and Theodorus. Fabric. Bibl. Graec. ix.318; Tillem. H. E. vii.469 seq.758 seq.; Cave, Hist. Lit. i.208; Ceill. Aut. Sacr. iv.233 seq.391.

[J.G.]

Theodorus Lector
Theodorus (64) Lector, reader of the church of Constantinople. He composed in two books a tripartite history out of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret, extant in MS. at Venice. It was copied by Leo Allatius, but not published. Valesius used his MS. in his edition of those authors. He also composed a history which extends from the last days of Theodosius the younger to the reign of the elder Justin, A.D.518; some portions of which remain, and are in Migne's Patr. Gk. lxxxvi. col.157-2280. They have been collected out of Nicephorus Callistus, John of Damascus, and the fifth action of the seventh general council. His history abounds with wonderful stories in defence of orthodoxy. He tells that Timotheus, bp. of Constantinople, A.D.571, was the first to ordain the recitation of the Nicene Creed at all celebrations of the Holy Communion. It was previously only recited once a year, at the end of Lent. Evidently the Arian party must have been still strong at Constantinople in cent. vi. A question has been raised whether our Theodore did not live in cent. viii. rather than cent. vi. Combefis in his Originum Rerumque Constant. Manip. and Baudurius in his Imper. Orient. have given some quotations from a Theodorus Lector relating to the statues with which Constantinople was adorned, one containing an incident which proves the writer to have lived in the reign of Philip, 711-713 (Combef. p.11; Baud. p.88); but two men of the same name may have occupied the same office. Ceill. xi.103-105; Fab. Bibl. Graec.

[G.T.S.]

Theodorus of Amasea
Theodorus (83) of Amasea, a young soldier who suffered in the persecution under Maximian and Galerius c.306; surnamed "Tiro," a recruit. Our authorities are the Encomium of Gregory Nyssen (t. iii. pp.578-586) and the less trustworthy Acts. He was of humble origin (Gregory says "a poor recruit") and a conscript. In winter quarters at Amasea the capital of Pontus, his refusal to join his comrades in sacrifice declared him a Christian. His trial was deferred some days to offer him time to recant. This interval he employed in firing the temple of the Mother of the Gods on the banks of the Iris in the midst of the city. The building and the statue of the deity were reduced to ashes. At the judgment-seat Theodore boldly acknowledged and gloried in the act. From prison, where he was visited at night by angels who filled the cell with light and song, he passed to death in a furnace. No fewer than three churches were dedicated in his honour at Constantinople (Du Cange, Constantinop. Christ. vol. iv. c.6, Nos.100-102). He had also a martyry at Jerusalem (Cyr. Vit. S. Sab. ap. Coteler. Eccl. Gr. Mon. iii. No.78) and Damascus (Johan. Damasc. de Sacr. Imag. Or. iii.). The little circular church of San Teodoro, popularly known as St. Toto, at the base of the Palatine Hill in Rome, is well known. Zonaras, Annal. lib. xvii. c.3, p.213 (ed. Par.1687); Credenus, Hist. Compend. pars. ii. p.681 (ed. Par.1647); Greg. Nyssen. Oratio de Magno Martyre Theodoro, t. iii. pp.578-586 (ed. Par.1633); Surius, Nov.9, p.231, § 7; Tillem. Mém. eccl. t. v. pp.369-377, notes 732-735; Ruinart, Acta Martyrum pp.505-511.

[E.V.]

Theodosius I., the Great
Theodosius (2) I., the Great, born A.D.346 at Cauca, a Spanish town upon a small tributary of the Douro; died Jan.17, 395. His father, an eminent general serving under Valentinian and Valens, was treacherously executed in 376 For the secular history of Theodosius see D. of G. and R. Biogr. We shall here set forth his ecclesiastical polity and his powerful influence on the fortunes of the church. His accession was the turning-point which secured the triumph of Trinitarian orthodoxy over the Arianism dominant in the East for at least the previous 40 years. Theodosius turned what seemed in many places an obscure and conquered sect into a triumphant church, whose orthodoxy, on this point at least, never afterwards wavered. In 378 the Roman empire was in great danger. Valens, the emperor of the East, had been defeated and put to death by the Goths on Aug.9 in the fatal battle of Hadrianople, and the whole empire was depending on the young Gratian, then less than 20 years old. Gratian perceived that the crisis demanded the ablest general the empire possessed; he boldly summoned the deeply-injured Theodosius from his retirement, and invested him with the imperial purple, Jan.19, 379, allotting him the government of the East with Illyricum in Europe. Theodosius fixed his residence at Thessalonica, skilfully selected as the headquarters of his operations against the Goths. Constantinople was just then the centre of the conflict between the Catholics and Arians. About July 379 Gregory of Nazianzus, coming there, assumed the care of its one orthodox church, the Arians having possession of the see and all the other churches. Meanwhile at Thessalonica, during the winter of 379-380, Theodosius had a severe illness which led to his baptism by Ascolius, the local bishop, a devoted adherent of the orthodox party. This was followed by his first edict about religion, issued at Thessalonica, Feb.28, 380, and addressed to the people of Constantinople. It orders that the religion which St. Peter taught the Romans and which Damasus of Rome and Peter of Alexandria profess, should be believed by all nations; that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost should be equally adored; that the adherent of this doctrine should be called Catholic Christians, while all others were to be designated heretics, their places of assembly refused the name of churches, and their souls threatened with divine punishment.

On Nov.24, 380, Theodosius made his formal entry into Constantinople, and at once took action against the unorthodox. He turned the Arian bp. Demophilus out of the churches, and personally installed Gregory in the great church. But he does not seem to have satisfied the orthodox zeal of Gregory, who in his Carmen de Vita Sua, 1279-1395, speaks very slightingly of him, finding fault with his toleration, and complaining that he made no attempt to heal the wounds and avenge the wrongs of the Catholics. Theodosius, however, soon improved under Gregory's tuition, direct or indirect. Gregory's tenure of the bishopric of Constantinople was only for 7 months. He retired about the end of June 381, yet continued to exercise a most active influence over the emperor through his successor Nectarius. Gregory in the East and Ambrose in the West must be largely credited with the intolerant ecclesiastical legislation of the Theodosian Code, lib. xvi. We may take the ecclesiastical legislation under two heads: (1) against heretics; (2) against pagans. Theodosius's first laws against heretics were issued immediately after the council of Constantinople, and rapidly increased in severity. In June or July, 381, he issued a law which must have been directly inspired by the council (Cod. Theod. lib. xvi. tit. v. leg.6), prohibiting all assemblies of Arians, Photinians, and Eunomians, and ordering the surrender of all churches to the orthodox. A few weeks later two edicts (ib. tit. i. leg.3, and tit. v. leg.8) prohibited Arians, Eunomians and Aetians from building churches to replace those taken from them. In law ix., Mar.382, first appeared the word inquisitor in connexion with religious controversy, officers being appointed to detect and punish the Manicheans. Law xi. of July 383 prohibited any kind of heretical worship, while in Sept. law xii. prohibited heretical assemblies for worship, building of churches and ordinations of clergy, and confiscated to the fiscus places where they met. Evidently the heretics had many official supporters, and many magistrates were lax in proceeding against them, as stern penalties were threatened against such. Yet the heretics maintained their ground. So in Feb.384, law xiii. was directed against the Eunomian, Macedonian, Arian, and Apollinarian clergy who had ventured back again and were concealed in Constantinople. The Apollinarians especially erected a regular church organization and established an episcopal succession. Gregory of Nazianzus, much troubled by the Apollinarian party, addressed Ep.77 to the prefect, telling how they took advantage of his absence at the hot baths at Xanxaris to ordain a bishop at Nazianzus. He calls on the prefect to punish them for disobeying the edict, but requests a light penalty. His influence, too, seems to have caused the original issue of this edict of Feb.384, for in Orat.46, addressed to Nectarius, patriarch of Constantinople, he calls for it as necessary, and in his Ep. to Olympius praises it, apologizing for his own toleration which had led the heretics to act with increased boldness.

Nectarius, Ambrose, and Ascolius of Thessalonica, who baptized Theodosius, also urged persecution (cf. esp. Ep. x. of St. Ambrose, written in the name of the council of Aquileia, demanding the suppression by force of heretical assemblies and ordinations (Opp. Ambros. in Migne's Patr. Lat. xvi.940) ). In Mar.388, when marching against the usurper Maximus, he issued for the East, and in June caused the younger Valentinian to issue for the West, a still more stringent edict, specially directed against the Apollinarians (Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. v.14 and 15), and against clergy and laity alike. It banishes all Apollinarians, deposes and degrades their bishops, forbids new consecrations, and denies them all approach to the emperors. Even this does not seem to have satisfied his advisers or to have stopped the progress of heresy. The Eunomians were very troublesome at Constantinople, where Eunomius himself had long lived, and whence Theodosius had banished him. Theodosius, in May 389, issued a law rendering him and his followers incapable of making bequests and confiscating to the public treasury all bequests made to them.

Theodosius sought to suppress paganism also. The ruins of many temples, statues, and fountains maybe traced to his legislation, which went far beyond that of his predecessor. Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. x. "de Paganis, Sacrificiis et Templis," enables us to trace accurately his progress. The policy of Constantine and his sons may be said to have abolished sacrifices as madness and essentially connected with immorality and crime, specially those celebrated at night, while at the same time protecting the temples. Constantius was the severest legislator in this respect. The temples were closed, but preserved as public monuments and caretakers appointed at the public expense. Had this policy continued, the world would have been now much richer in artistic treasures. It continued, with the short interval of Julian's reigns, till the accession of Theodosius. Even he retained the appearance of it. He issued no decree for the destruction of the temples. But a new force, the monks, had now become a power throughout the East. They began the destruction in the very teeth of imperial edicts, trusting for protection to the influence of Ambrose, Nectarius, and other bishops with the emperor. In 382 Theodosius issued a rescript to Palladius, dux of the province of Osrhoene, which was marked by a wise and tolerant spirit. There was a magnificent temple in Edessa, useful for popular assemblies, festivals, elections, and other public meetings. Theodosius seems to have been specially anxious to use such temples for his provincial councils, a form of local government he largely developed and strengthened (cf. Cod. Theod. xii. tit. xii. legg.12, 13). The local bp. Eulogius wished, however, to shut up the temple completely. He pleaded that the law was clear. All access to temples was long since forbidden, and this one was specially dangerous, being richly furnished with idols of rare beauty. The advocates of toleration for once gained the upper hand. All sacrifices were strictly forbidden, but the building was to be used for public purposes, and the statues retained as ornaments and public curiosities. Five years, however, elapsed. The emperor was taking sterner measures against Oriental paganism, and had just sent Cynegius as his deputy into Egypt and the East to see that his orders were strictly carried out; whereupon the monks, as Libanius expressly states, rose up and utterly destroyed the temple. The rage for destruction spread. The mob in another part of the same province, headed by the bishop, attacked and burned a Jewish synagogue and a Valentinian meeting-house. Theodosius was contemplating their punishment when Ambrose intervened, addressing a letter (Ep. xl.), which frightened the emperor from his purpose. He issued, however, a decree in 393 to the count of the East, prohibiting all interference with Judaism and specially forbidding attacks on their synagogues; but he significantly omitted all such protective measures as regards pagan temples. Destruction and confiscation raged on every side, and the destroyers found perfect impunity. The most notorious acts of destruction were in Egypt, and specially at Alexandria, as described by Socrates (H. E. v, 16, 17) when the celebrated Serapeum was destroyed. Socrates asserts, indeed, that this destruction took place at the imperial order, a special decree having been issued at the desire of the patriarch Theophilus, but of this there is no trace in the code. At Rome the same policy was pursued, either directly or indirectly, by Theodosius. In 382 Gratian issued an order abolishing the altar of Victory, as hitherto retained in the senate house, and the other traces of paganism which still remained. He confiscated the property of the vestal virgins, and probably seized their college. In 383 an effort to rescind this order was defeated by the vigorous action of pope Damasus. Symmachus renewed the attempt in 384 and appealed to the young emperor Valentinian. Ambrose, replying with extreme intolerance, warned Valentinian to consult Theodosius before complying with the senate's prayer. For this letter of Ambrose and the Relatio of Symmachus, see St. Ambros. Ep. Classis i. Epp. xvii., xviii. The protest of Ambrose was successful. The usurper Eugenius restored the pagan emblems and ritual, but Theodosius, on his victory, again abolished them, and adopted sterner measures against the vestal college.

Theodosius was a positive as well as a negative legislator. His legislation about the clergy and the internal state of the church was minute and far-reaching. He issued, in 386, a stringent edict for the observance of the Lord's Day, suspending all public business and branding as sacrilegious any one violating its sanctity (Cod. Theod. viii. tit. viii. leg.3). Another edict, A.D.380, prescribed among the annual holidays the 7 days before and after Easter (ib. ii. tit. viii. leg.2), (cf. "Lord's Day" in D. C. A. p.1047), and another (ib. xvi. ii.27) lays down most minute rules for deaconesses; while the previous law exempted guardians of churches and holy places from public duties. Cod. xi. xxxix.10 exempted bishops and presbyters from torture when giving evidence, but left the inferior clergy subject to it. Theodosius was appealed to on all kinds of subjects by the bishops, and we find decrees dealing with all manner of topics. If, e.g., religious controversy burst forth with special violence in Egypt or Antioch, the bishop applied for edicts imposing perpetual silence on the opposite factions (cf. Cod. xvi. iv.2 and 3).

Theodosius was devout to superstition, passionate to an extreme. Two incidents, the insurrection of Antioch upon the destruction of the imperial statues, and the massacre of Thessalonica, illustrate his character in many respects. [AMBROSIUS; [577]CHRYSOSTOM.]

[G.T.S.]

Theodosius II., emperor
Theodosius (3) II., emperor, born early in 401, the only son of the emperor Arcadius by EUDOXIA (2), had four sisters, Flaccilla, Pulcheria, Arcadia, and Marina. Pulcheria exercised a predominant influence over Theodosius throughout his life. He was appointed Augustus Jan.402, and succeeded to the throne at the age of 7 on his father's death in 408. For the secular history of his reign see D. of G. and R. Biogr.; we deal here only with his actions and legislation so far as they bore on the history of the church. His reign was very long, covering the first half of 5th cent., and embracing the origin and rise of two great heresies, the Nestorian and Monophysite. His education was conducted by Pulcheria, who acted as Augusta and his guardian, from July 4, 414, when she was herself little more than 15 years old. Sozomen (ix.1) tells us that she "superintended with extraordinary wisdom the transactions of the Roman government, concerted her measures well, and allowed no delay to take place in their execution. She was able to write and to converse with perfect accuracy in the Greek and Latin languages. She caused all affairs to be transacted in the name of her brother, and devoted great attention to furnishing him with such information as was suitable to his years. She employed masters to instruct him in horsemanship and the use of arms, in literature, and in science. He was also taught how to maintain a deportment befitting an emperor. . . . But she chiefly strove to imbue his mind with piety and the love of prayer; she taught him to frequent the church regularly, and to be zealous in contributing to the embellishment of houses of prayer. She inspired him with reverence for priests and other good men, and for those who in accordance with the law of Christianity had devoted themselves to philosophical asceticism." Socrates (vii.22) tells us about his training that "such was his fortitude in undergoing hardships that he would courageously endure both heat and cold; fasting very frequently, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays, from an earnest endeavour to observe with accuracy all the prescribed forms of the Christian religion. His palace was so regulated that it differed little from a monastery; for he, together with his sisters, rose early in the morning and recited responsive hymns in praise of the Deity. By his training he learnt the Holy Scriptures by heart, and would often discourse with the bishops on scriptural subjects as if he had been an ecclesiastic of long standing. He was an indefatigable collector of the sacred books and of expositions written on them, while in clemency and humanity he far surpassed all others." Pope Leo I., in one of his letters to Theodosius, which is intended to be very laudatory (Mansi, v.1341; cf. Socr. vii.43), describes him as having "not only the heart of an emperor but also that of a priest." Theodosius delighted in that magnificent ceremonial which gathered round the cultus of relics. He brought the remains of John Chrysostom back to Constantinople, laid his face on the coffin, and entreated that his parents might be pardoned for having persecuted such a holy bishop. He assisted at the discovery and removal of the relics of the Forty Martyrs (Soz. ix.2), and felt his reign honoured through the simultaneous discovery of the relics of the proto-martyr St. Stephen and Zechariah the prophet (ix.16, 17). During the latter portion of his reign, terminated by a fall from his horse July 28, 450, his sister lost her power, a comparatively healthy influence, and Theodosius fell completely under the guidance of selfish and tyrannical eunuchs. Pulcheria had vigour and determination. Theodosius seems to have taken refuge from her sway by yielding himself completely to a rapid succession of favourites. He had 15 prime ministers in 25 years, the last of whom, the eunuch Chrysaphius, retained his power longest, a.d.443-450. Under Theodosius II. paganism became in itself a disability. Some of the highest servants of the state towards the end of cent. iv. had been pagan; now by a law of Dec.7, 416 (Cod. Theod. xvi. tit. x.21), pagans were prohibited from entering the military and civil services or attaining any judicial office. This law was followed by 4 others within the next ten years, following closely upon the lines of Western legislation in the same direction as contained in the previous laws; law 25, for instance, passed at Constantinople Nov.426, orders the cross, "signum venerandae crucis," to be placed on such temples as were allowed to remain intact, while the materials of those pulled down were to be used in repairing bridges, roads, aqueducts, etc. (ib. t. v. lib. xv. tit.1, leg.36). These measures seem to have produced an apparent uniformity, as Theodosius, in law 22 passed in 423, refers to the "pagans who remain, though we believe there are none such." The law, however, as yet protected them if they lived peaceably; thus law 24 forbids Christians making attacks on Jews and pagans living among them. Heretics scarcely came off so well. The Novatianists still, as throughout cent. iv., were specially favoured, though occasionally a law was aimed against their rebaptisms and unorthodox celebrations of Easter (lib. xvi. tit. vi. leg.6, passed on Mar.21, 413) ; but severe measures of exile, confiscation, and other penalties were dealt out against Montanists, Eunomians, etc., and their employment in the army or civil service was prohibited except apparently in the local militia (xvi. v.58 and 61). Law 65 (tit. xvi.) is the most sweeping passed in this reign. Nestorius was its author, and law 66 is a severe one against himself and his party. The Jews were protected, as hitherto, but certain restrictions were by degrees placed upon them. Their synagogues were not to be seized or destroyed, and if destroyed were to be restored, but no new ones were to be built (xvi. tit. viii.25). They were forbidden to serve in the army, but permitted to be physicians and lawyers (lex 24). Their ecclesiastical and civil organization under their patriarchs was protected. The patriarchs, indeed, c.415, seem to have advanced so far as to exercise jurisdiction over Christians and to force them to receive circumcision, while the Jewish people mocked the Christian religion and burned the cross (Socr. H. E. vii.16). Under the influence of Nestorius, however, severer laws were enacted against Jews. In 429 we find one forbidding and confiscating the usual tribute to the patriarchs. This law with Gothofred's commentary is very important as regards the organization of Judaism in cent. v. (cf. the whole series of laws in lib. xvi. tit. viii. leg.18-29).

[G.T.S.]

Theodosius of Syria
Theodosius (20), a celebrated solitary of Syria contemporary with Theodoret, born at Antioch of a rich and noble family. Abandoning his worldly possessions, he dwelt in a hut in a forest on the mountain above the city of Rhosus, where he practised the severest self-discipline, loading his neck, loins, and wrists with heavy irons, and allowing his uncombed hair to grow to his feet. He speedily gathered a colony of ascetics, whom he taught industrial arts, as weaving sackcloth and haircloth, making mats, fans, and baskets, and cultivating, setting an example of laborious diligence, and carefully superintending every department. He was an object of reverence even to the Isaurian banditti, who on several predatory inroads left his monastic settlement uninjured, only requesting bread and his prayers. Fearing, however, that the Isaurians might carry him off for ransom, Theodosius was persuaded to remove to Antioch, settling near the Orontes and gathering about him many who desired to adopt an ascetic life, but not long surviving his removal (Theod. Hist. Relig. c. x.).

[E.V.]

Theodosius, a Monophysite monk
Theodosius (21), a fanatical Monophysite monk. Having been expelled from his monastery for some crime, he repaired to Alexandria, where he stirred up strife, was scourged, and paraded round the city on camelback as a seditious person (Evagr. H. E. ii.5). He attended the council of Chalcedon in 451, apparently as one of the ruffianly followers of Barsumas. On the termination of the synod Theodosius hastened to Jerusalem, complaining that the council had betrayed the faith, and circulating a garbled translation of Leo's Tome (Leo Magn. Ep.97 [83]). His protestations were credited by a large number of the monks and people, and having gained the ear of the empress dowager Eudocia, the former patroness of Eutyches, who had settled at Jerusalem, he so thoroughly poisoned the minds of the people of Jerusalem against [578]JUVENAL as a traitor to the truth that they refused to receive him as their bishop on his return from Chalcedon, unless he would anathematize the doctrines he had so recently joined in declaring. On his refusal the malcontents attempted his assassination, and he barely escaped with his life to Constantinople. After Juvenal's flight Theodosius was ordained bp. of Jerusalem in the church of the Resurrection, and at once proceeded to ordain bishops for Palestine, chiefly for those cities whose bishops had not yet returned from Chalcedon. A reign of terror now began in Jerusalem. The public prisons were thrown open and the liberated criminals were employed to terrify by their violence those who refused communion with Theodosius. Those who refused to anathematize the council were pillaged and insulted in the most lawless manner. Finally, the emperor Marcian interposed, and issued orders to Dorotheus to apprehend Theodosius, who, however, managed to escape to the mountain fastnesses of Sinai (Labbe, iv.879). What ultimately became of him is unknown. Evagr. H. E. ii.5; Coteler. Mon. Graec. i.415 seq.; Theophan. Chron. p.92; Leo Magn. Ep.126 [157]; Labbe, Concil. iv.879 seq.; Niceph. H. E. xv.9; Fleury, H. E. livre 38; Tillem. Mém. eccl. xv.731 seq.; Le Quien, Or. Christ. iii.164).

[E.V.]

Theodotion, otherwise Theodotus
Theodotion, otherwise Theodotus (so Suidas s.v. knizon), author of the Greek version of the O.T. which followed, as those of Aquila and Symmachus preceded, that of the LXX in Origen's columnar arrangements of the versions. Of his personality even less is known than of either of the other two translators. The earliest author to mention him is Irenaeus, in a passage which, by reason of its higher antiquity and authority, must be our standard to test the accounts of later writers, who probably derived their accounts partly from it. Irenaeus (III. xxi.1, p.215), referring to the word "virgin" parthenos) in Is. vii.14, affirms that the passage is to be read "not as certain of those who now venture to misinterpret the Scripture, 'Behold, the damsel (neanis) shall be with child and shall bear a son'; as Theodotion of Ephesus interpreted it and Aquila of Pontus, both Jewish proselytes; following whom the Ebionites pretend that he was begotten of Joseph." Eusebius cites this (H. E. v.8), adding nothing to it.

In attempting to fix the time when Theodotion flourished, the one certain and tolerably determinate datum we possess is, that his version must have been made before the composition of the above treatise of Irenaeus -- therefore before 180-189. A second but less available datum is the fact, admitted by all, that he came after Aquila. Thus we conclude that his work cannot have been so late as 189 or earlier than 130. Some consider that the expression of Irenaeus, "those who are now venturing" implies that Theodotion had then only just completed his translation; but this puts undue force on the words. The expression merely contrasts comparatively recent translations with the ancient and primary authority of the LXX. But direct evidence leads us to place Theodotion c.180, and Symmachus from 15 to 30 years later -- dates which agree well with the few known facts. Indirect evidence of an earlier date for Theodotion has been claimed as found in the apparent use of his version in the Trypho of Justin Martyr, a work written not later than 164, perhaps some 20 years earlier. But the fallacious character of this evidence is shewn in D. C. B. (4-vol. ed.1887).

Theodotion's work was not so much an independent translation as a revision of the LXX, with its insertions usually retained, but its omissions supplied from the Hebrew -- probably with the help of Aquila's version. Theodotion's was the version Origen usually preferred to the other two for filling omissions of the LXX or lacunae in their text as he found it; and from it accordingly comes a large part of the ordinary Greek text of Jeremiah, and still more of that of Job. Thus in these books we have fuller materials for learning the character of his version than that of either of the others; and still more in his version of Daniel, which has come down to us entire, having since before Jerome's time (how long before we are not told) superseded that of the LXX so completely that the latter was lost for centuries, and is now extant only in a single Greek copy, the Cod. Chisianus, and in the Syro-Hexaplar translation contained in Cod. Ambrosianus (C.313 Inf.). Any one who compares this version with Theodotion's which is usually printed in all ordinary editions of the Greek O.T. must agree with Jerome (Praef. in Dan.) that the church chose rightly in discarding the former and adopting the latter. Indeed, the greater part of this Chisian Daniel cannot be said to deserve the name of a translation at all. It deviates from the original in every possible way; transposes, expands, abridges, adds or omits, at pleasure. The latter chapters it so entirely rewrites that the predictions are perverted, sometimes even reversed, in scope. We learn from Jerome (in. Dan. iv.6, p.646) that Origen himself ("in nono Stromatum volumine") abandoned this supposed LXX Daniel for Theodotion's. Indeed, all the citations of Daniel, some of them long and important passages in Origen's extant works, agree almost verbatim with the text of Theodotion now current, and differ, sometimes materially, from that of the reputed LXX as derived from the Chisian MS. He seems, moreover, to have found the task of bringing its text to conform to the original by the aid of Theodotion's a hopeless one, as we may judge by his asterisks, obeli, and marginalia in the two MSS. referred to. Yet that this is the version which Origen placed as that of the LXX in the penultimate column of the Hexapla and Tetrapla is certain.

Theodotion, though not an independent translator, was by no means an "unlearned" one, as Montfaucon (Praelimm. in Hexapla) calls him. The chief, and apparently the only, ground for this is his practice of frequently transliterating words of his original. Dr. Field, however, has well shewn (Prolegg. in Hexapla IV. iii.) that he guides himself mostly by definable rules -- the words so dealt with being names of animals (as thennin for seirenes), plants (as achi for boutomon), vestments (as baddin for poderes), or articles used in worship (as theraphin for kenotaphia or [Aq.] morphomata). In such cases, his choosing to transliterate, rather than adopt a conjectural Greek rendering from a former version or hazard a new guess of his own, indicates scrupulous caution, not ignorance. He proves at least that he diligently consulted the original, and often shews a wise discretion in forbearing to translate a word whose meaning cannot be determined, or for which the Greek language has no equivalent. As well might the English translators of 1611 be called "unlearned" for retaining such words as "teraphim," "Belial," or the revisers of 1881-1884 because they replace the "scapegoat" of A.V. by "Azazel," and for "hell" give "Sheol " in O.T. and "Hades" in N.T.

Theodotion's version included all the canonical books of O.T. except, probably, Lamentations. Of the apocryphal books, he is only known to have included Baruch and the additions to Daniel.

[J.GW.]

Theodotus of Byzantium
Theodotus (4) of Byzantium. Eusebius (H. E. v.27) has preserved extracts from a treatise directed against the heresy of Artemon, who taught that our Lord had been mere man. Theodoret (Haer. Fab. ii.5) says that this treatise was called the Little Labyrinth; and the author was doubtless Caius of Rome, and its date the end of the first quarter of cent. iii. [[579]HIPPOLYTUS ROMANUS.] These heretics claimed to hold the original doctrine of the church which, they alleged, had continued incorrupt till the episcopate of Victor, the truth being first perverted by his successor Zephyrinus (c.199). Their antagonist replies that, on the contrary, it was in the episcopate of Victor that this God-denying heresy had been first introduced, that Theodotus the shoemaker (skuteus) was the first to teach that our Lord was mere man, and he had been excommunicated for this by Victor, and had then founded an organized sect, with a bishop (Natalius) to whom they paid a salary. Its leading men in the time of Victor's successor were Asclepiades and another Theodotus, a banker. These two undertook to clear the text of N.T. of corruptions, but our authority describes what they called "corrected" copies as simply ruined, the two not even agreeing as to their corrections.

Our sole other primary authority for this Theodotus is Hippolytus. The section on Theodotus in the lost earlier work on heresies by Hippolytus may be partly recovered by a comparison of the corresponding articles in Pseudo-Tertullian, Epiphanius, and Philaster; and Epiphanius, whose treatment (Haer.54) is the fullest, almost certainly drew his materials altogether from Hippolytus. There is an article on Theodotus in the later treatise of Hippolytus (Ref. vii.35). The influence of Theodotus did not extend much beyond his own generation; later church writers appear to have only known him from the two nearly contemporary authorities we have named.

The place in which the article on Theodotus came in the lost work of Hippolytus exactly corresponds to the date assigned to him in the Little Labyrinth. He comes immediately after Blastus, whom we otherwise know to have caused schism in Victor's time by endeavouring to introduce the Quartodeciman usage in Rome. Hippolytus stated that Theodotus was a native of Byzantium, who denied Christ in time of persecution -- a fact which accounted for his heresy, since he could thus maintain that he had only denied man, not God. Hippolytus reports that as to the Deity and the work of creation the doctrine of Theodotus was orthodox, but as to our Lord's person he agreed with Gnostic speculations, especially in distinguishing Jesus and Christ. The miraculous conception of Jesus he was willing to admit; but he held Him a man like others, though of the highest virtue and piety. He taught that at the baptism of Jesus, Christ descended on Him in the form of a dove, and that He was then able to work miracles, though He had never exhibited any before: but even so He was not God; though some of the sect were willing to acknowledge His right to the title after His resurrection.

Theodotus chiefly relied on texts of Scripture, specimens of which are given by Epiphanius (Haer.54). He evidently acknowledged the authority of St. John's Gospel, for one of these texts was John viii.40. He appealed to the prophecy, Deut. xviii.15, of the prophet who was to be like unto Moses, and therefore man, and quoted also Is. liii.3, Jer. xvii.9 (LXX), and other texts in which our Lord is called man.

[G.S.]

Theodotus the banker
Theodotus (5) the banker, distinct from [580]THEODOTUS (4) as asserted both in the Little Labyrinth and by Hippolytus. For the speculations which this Theodotus added to the heresy of (4) see MELCHIZEDEK.

[G.S.]

Theodotus, martyr at Ancyra
Theodotus (9), May 18, martyr at Ancyra in Galatia in Diocletian's persecution. The narrative of his martyrdom is intermingled with that of the Seven Virgins of Ancyra. Theodotus was a devout dealer in provisions. THEOTECNUS, the apostate from Christianity, was sent with ample power to enforce conformity to the imperial edicts, and began by ordering all provisions sold in the market to be first presented to the gods. This would render them unfit for use in the Holy Communion. Theodotus supplied the Christians with bread and wine free from pollution. The persecution waxing hot, he was compelled to fly from Ancyra to a place, distant some 40 miles, where a cave, through which the Halys flowed, was a refuge for some fugitive Christians. The narrative shews us how quietly Christians in country districts pursued their occupations and enjoyed daily worship, while those in the cities were suffering tortures and death, and is most valuable as illustrating the general condition of the Christians in Asia Minor during the earlier years of Diocletian's persecution. In the cave Theodotus found certain brethren who had overturned the altar of Diana, and were being carried by their relations for judgment to the prefect when Theodotus had bribed the accusers to let them off. They were delighted to see their deliverer, and invited him to a meal, of which we have a graphic picture: the fugitives reclining on the abundant grass, surrounded with trees, wild fruit, and flowers, while grasshoppers, nightingales, and birds of every kind made music around. In this passage (§ 11) we find one of the few instances where an early Christian author seems capable of appreciating the beauty of nature. We then have a glimpse of the religious life of the time. Before he would eat, Theodotus sent some of their number to summon the presbyter from the neighbouring village of Malus to dine with them, pray with them before they started afresh on their journey, and ask a blessing on their food, for, says the Acts, "the saint never took food unless a presbyter blessed it." The presbyter, whose name was Fronto, or, according to the Bollandist Papebrochius, Phorto, was just leaving the church after the midday hour of prayer. The village dogs attacked the messengers, and the priest ran to drive them away, asked if they were Christians, and informed them that he had seen them in a vision the night before, bringing a precious treasure to him. They told him they had the most precious of treasures with them, the martyr Theodotus, to whom the presbyter at once departed. During the meal Theodotus suggested the spot as a fit place for a martyrium or receptacle for relics, and exhorted the priest to build one. When he said he possessed no relics, Theodotus gave him a ring off his finger in token that he would provide them. He then returned to Ancyra, which he found greatly disturbed by a violent persecution. [[581]ANCYRA, SEVEN MARTYRS OF.] A writer in the Rev. archéol. (t. xxviii. p.303) notes a passage in the Acts of these sufferers (§ 14) as a valuable illustration of the paganism of Galatia. Theodotus, having rescued the bodies of the nuns from the lake into which Theotecnus had cast them, prepared to suffer. He prayed with the brethren, and told them to give his relics to Fronto if he brought a ring as a token. Then he went to the tribunal, where the priests of Minerva were demanding his arrest as the leader of the Christian opposition. The Acts now offer some of the most striking illustrations used by Le Blant in his Actes des Martyrs (cf. pp.25, 62, 78, 80). They illustrate every detail of Roman criminal procedure, especially the offer made to the martyrs of high promotion and imperial favour if they recanted. Theodotus was offered the high-priesthood of Apollo, now esteemed the greatest of all the gods, but in vain, till at last the president ordered him to be beheaded and his body burned. He was executed and his body placed on a pyre, when suddenly a bright light shone around it, so that no one dared approach. The president ordered it to be guarded all night, in the place of common execution, by soldiers whom he had just flogged for suffering the bodies of the nuns to be carried off. Fronto, who was a farmer, and kept a vineyard where he made wine, came to Ancyra to sell his wine, bringing the ring of Theodotus with him, and arriving at the place of execution just when night was falling and the gates of the city had been closed, found the guard erecting a hut of willow branches wherein to spend the night. The soldiers invited him to join them, which he did. Discovering what they were guarding, he made them drunk with his own wine and carried off the martyr's body, placing it in the spot Theodotus had marked as the site of a martyrium. The Acts purport to have been written by one Nilus, an eye-witness. They speak of the chapel erected to the memory of Theodotus, which could only have been done when peace was restored to the church. They are in Ruinart, Acta Sinc. p.354, and translated into English as an appendix to Mason's Persecution of Diocletian.

[G.T.S.]

Theodotus, bishop of Laodicea
Theodotus (11), bp. of Laodicea in Syria Prima, claimed as a zealous advocate of Arian doctrines by Arius in writing to Eusebius of Nicomedia (Theod. H. E. i.5; v.7). Eusebius gives him a high character for skill as a physician of both body and soul, remarkable for kindness, sympathy, sincerity, and zeal to help all who needed aid, reinstating the church in its prosperity which had suffered much by the cowardice of its last bishop, Stephen, who seems to have renounced the faith in the persecution of Diocletian (Eus. H. E. vii.32). Theodotus was at the council of Nicaea in 325 (Labbe, ii.51); before which he is coupled by Athanasius with the Eusebian party (Athan. de Synod. c. i. § 17, p.886). On the visit of Eusebius of Nicomedia to Jerusalem in 330 or 331, ostensibly to see the newly built church, he formed one of the Arian cabal which, proceeding to Antioch, succeeded in deposing Eustathius (Theod. H. E. i.21) and electing Eusebius of Caesarea in his room (Eus. Vit. Const. iii.62). He also took part in the council of Tyre in 335 (Labbe, ii.436) and of the Dedication at Antioch in 341 (ib.560), and is mentioned by Athanasius as having been at Seleucia in 359 (Athan. de Synod. c. i. § 12, p.880). The two Apollinarii, father and son, were excommunicated by Theodotus for being present at the recitation of a hymn in honour of Bacchus, composed by a sophist of Laodicea with whom he had interdicted an intercourse. He restored them on their repentance (Soz. H. E. vi.25; Socr. H. E. ii.46). Gelasius of Cyzicus (bk. iii. c.3) gives a letter from the emperor Constantine to Theodotus, warning him to return to the orthodox faith (Labbe, ii.284). It is quoted as genuine by Benignus of Heraclea at the fifth general council (ib. v.481). According to Gams, Theodotus was bishop 30 years.

[E.V.]

Theodotus, patriarch of Antioch
Theodotus (18), patriarch of Antioch, a.d.420-429 (Clinton, F. R. ii.552). He succeeded Alexander, under whom the long-standing schism at Antioch had been healed, and followed his lead in replacing the honoured name of Chrysostom on the diptychs of the church. He is described by Theodoret, at one time one of his presbyters, as "the pearl of temperance," "adorned with a splendid life and a knowledge of the divine dogmas" (Theod. H. E. v.38; Ep.83 ad Dioscor.). Joannes Moschus relates anecdotes illustrative of his meekness when treated rudely by his clergy, and his kindness on a journey in insisting on one of his presbyters exchanging his horse for the patriarch's litter (Mosch. Prat. Spir. c.33). By his gentleness he brought back the Apollinarians to the church without rigidly insisting on their formal renouncement of their errors (Theod. H. E. v.38). On the real character of Pelagius's teaching becoming known in the East and the consequent withdrawal of the testimony previously given by the synods of Jerusalem and Caesarea to his orthodoxy, Theodotus presided at the final synod held at Antioch (mentioned only by Mercator and Photius, in whose text Theophilus of Alexandria has by an evident error taken the place of Theodotus of Antioch) at which Pelagius was condemned and expelled from Jerusalem and the other holy sites, and he joined with Praylius of Jerusalem in the synodical letters to Rome, stating what had been done. The most probable date of this synod is that given by Hefele, a.d.424 (Marius Mercator, ed. Garnier, Paris, 1673, Commonitor. c.3, p.14; Dissert. de Synodis, p.207; Phot. Cod.54). When in 424 Alexander, founder of the order of the Acoemetae, visited Antioch, Theodotus refused to receive him as being suspected of heretical views. His feeling was not shared by the Antiochenes, who, ever eager after novelty, deserted their own churches and crowded to listen to Alexander's fervid eloquence (Fleury, H. E. livre xxv. c.27). Theodotus took part in the ordination of Sisinnius as patriarch of Constantinople, Feb.426, and united in the synodical letter addressed by the bishops then assembled to the bishops of Pamphylia against the Massalian heresy (Socr. H. E. vii.26; Phot. Cod.52). He died in 429 (cf. Theodoret's Ep. to Diosc. and his H. E. v.40). Tillem. t. xii. note 2, Theod. Mops.; Theophan. Chron. p.72; Le Quien, Or. Christ. ii.720; Cave, Hist. Lit. i.405.

[E.V.]

Theognostus, a priest of Alexandria
Theognostus (1), a priest of Alexandria and a writer of about the middle of cent. iii., whom we only know from quotations in St. Athanasius and Photius. He composed a work called Hypotyposes in seven books, still extant when Photius wrote (Cod.106). He used language in bk. ii. of very Arian sound, speaking of the Son as a creature, and in bk. iii. of the Holy Ghost in a style as little orthodox as that of Origen. In bk. v. he attributed bodies to angels and devils. In bks. vi. and vii. he discussed the doctrine of the Incarnation in a more orthodox manner than in bk. ii. Yet St. Athanasius regarded him as a useful witness against Arianism. Philip of Side says that he presided over the school of Alexandria after Pierius a.d.282 (cf. Dodwell, Dissert. in Irenaeum, p.488). The fragments of Theognostus are collected in Routh's Reliq. Sac. t. iii.407-422, and trans. in Ante-Nic. Lib. Cf. Migne, Patr. Gk. t. x. col.235-242; Ceill. ii.450; Athan. Ep.4 ad Serap., de Decretis Nic. Syn.

[G.T.S.]

Theonas, bishop of Alexandria
Theonas (1), 15th bp. of Alexandria (whom Eutychius absurdly calls Neron), succeeded Maximus in 282. His episcopate, says Neale (Hist. Patr. Alex. i.86), was a time of much suffering to the Egyptians, owing to the revolt of Achilleus. Diocletian besieged Alexandria in 294; and after eight months' siege the city, "wasted by the sword and fire, implored the mercy of the conqueror, but experienced the full extent of his severity" in the form of "promiscuous slaughter" and sentences "of death or of exile" (Gibbon, ii.76). Yet Theonas has left a very interesting and attractive picture of the relations which the emperor earlier in his reign maintained towards his Christian servants. Eusebius's testimony that those imperial domestics who held the faith (three of whom he afterwards names, Dorotheus, Gorgonius, and Peter) were allowed perfect freedom therein, and were even peculiarly valued by their master (viii.1), is singularly illustrated by the "letter of Theonas the bp. to Lucian, praepositus cubiculariorum or high chamberlain," published in cent. xvii. by D'Achery. It is obviously a translation from a Greek original, which no one will now hesitate to ascribe to Theonas of Alexandria. (See it in Routh's Rel. Sac. iii.439, and an Eng. version in Mason's Persecution of Diocletian, p.348, and see ib. p.39). After some opening words on the duty of so using the peace which the church was then enjoying "by means of a kindly sovereign" that God might be glorified by genuinely Christian lives, Theonas urges Lucian to thank Him for a signal opportunity of thus promoting His cause by fidelity to "an emperor who was indeed not yet enrolled in the Christian ranks," but who might be favourably impressed in regard to Christianity by the loyalty of the Christians to whose care he had "entrusted his life." Thus it was a primary duty to avoid everything that was "base and unworthy, not to say flagitious," lest the name of Christ should thereby be blasphemed. The Christian chamberlains were not to take money for procuring audience, must be clear of all avarice, duplicity, and scurrility, acting in all things with modesty, courtesy, affability, and justice, must discharge their several duties in the fear of God, with love for their prince and with exact diligence, regarding all his orders which did not clash with God's as coming from God Himself, and taking care in their ministrations to put away all gloom or bad temper, and to refresh his weariness by a cheerful manner and glad obedience.

[S.V.]

Theophilus, bishop of Antioch
Theophilus (4), bp. of Antioch (Eus. H. E. iv.20; Hieron. Ep. ad Algas. quaest.6), succeeded Eros c.171, and was succeeded by Maximin c.183, according to Clinton (Fasti Romani), but the dates are only approximations. His death may probably be placed c.183-185 (Lightfoot, S. Ignatius, vol. ii. p.166). We gather from his writings that he was born a heathen, not far from the Tigris and Euphrates, and was led to embrace Christianity by studying the Holy Scriptures, especially the prophetical books (ad Autol. i.14, ii.24). He makes no reference to his office in his existing writings, nor is any other fact in his life recorded. Eusebius, however, speaks of the zeal which he and the other chief shepherds displayed in driving away the heretics who were attacking Christ's flock, with special mention of his work against Marcion (H. E. iv.24). He was a fertile writer in different departments of Christian literature, polemics, exegetics, and apologetics. Dr. Sanday describes him as "one of the precursors of that group of writers who, from Irenaeus to Cyprian, not only break the obscurity which rests on the earliest history of the Christian church, but alike in the East and in the West carry it to the front in literary eminence, and distance all their heathen contemporaries" (Studia Biblica, p.90). Eusebius and Jerome mention numerous works of Theophilus current in their time. They are (1) the existing Apology addressed to Autolycus; (2) a work against the heresy of Hermogenes; (3) against that of Marcion; (4) some catechetical writings; (5) Jerome also mentions having read some commentaries on the gospel and on Proverbs, which bore Theophilus's name, but which he regarded as inconsistent with the elegance and style of his other works.

The one undoubted extant work of Theophilus is his Apologia ad Autolycum, in three books. Its ostensible object is to convince a heathen friend, Autolycus, a man of great learning and an earnest seeker after truth, of the divine authority of the Christian religion, while at the same time he exhibits the falsehood and absurdity of paganism. His arguments, drawn almost entirely from O.T., with but very scanty reference to N.T., are largely chronological. He makes the truth of Christianity depend on his demonstration that the books of O.T. were long anterior to the writings of the Greeks and were divinely inspired. Whatever of truth the heathen authors contain he regards as borrowed from Moses and the prophets, who alone declare God's revelation to man. He contrasts the perfect consistency of the divine oracles, which he regards as a convincing proof of their inspiration, with the inconsistencies of heathen philosophers. He contrasts the account of the creation of the universe and of man, on which, together with the history contained in the earlier chapters of Genesis, he comments at great length but with singularly little intelligence, with the statements of Plato, "reputed the wisest of all the Greeks" (lib. iii. cc.15, 16), of Aratus, who had the hardihood to assert that the earth was spherical (ii.32, iii.2), and other Greek writers on whom he pours contempt as mere ignorant retailers of stolen goods. He supplies a series of dates, beginning with Adam and ending with Marcus Aurelius, who had died shortly before he wrote, i.e. early in the reign of Commodus. He regards the Sibylline verses as authentic and inspired productions, quoting them largely as declaring the same truths with the prophets. The omission by the Greeks of all mention of O.T., from which they draw all their wisdom, is ascribed to a self-chosen blindness in refusing to recognize the only God and in persecuting the followers of Him Who is the only fountain of truth (iii.30, ad fin.). He can recognize in them no aspirations after the divine life, no earnest gropings after truth, no gleams of the all-illumining light. The heathen religion was a mere worship of idols, bearing the names of dead men. Almost the only point in which he will allow the heathen writers to be in harmony with revealed truth is in the doctrine of retribution and punishment after death for sins committed in life (ii.37, 38). The literary character of the Apology deserves commendation. The style is characterized by dignity and refinement. It is clear and forcible. The diction is pure and well chosen. Theophilus also displays wide and multifarious though superficial reading, and a familiar acquaintance with the most celebrated Greek writers. His quotations are numerous and varied. But Donaldson (Hist. Christ. Lit. iii. p.69) remarks that he has committed many blunders, misquoting Plato several times (iii.6, 16), ranking Zopyrus among the Greeks (iii.26), and speaking of Pausanias as having only run a risk of starvation instead of being actually starved to death in the temple of Minerva (ib.). His critical powers were not above his age. He adopts Herodotus's derivation (ii.52) of theos from tithemi, since God set all things in order, comparing with it that of Plato (Crat.397 c) from theein, because the Deity is ever in motion (Apol. i.4). He asserts that Satan is called the dragon drakon on account of his having revolted apodedrakenai from God (ii.28), and traces the Bacchanalian cry "Evoe" to the name of Eve as the first sinner (ib.). His physical theories are equally puerile. He ridicules those who maintain the spherical form of the earth (ii.32) and asserts that it is a flat surface covered by the heavens as by a domical vault (ii.13). His exegesis is based on allegories usually of the most arbitrary character. He makes no attempt to educe the real meaning of a passage, but seeks to find in it some recondite spiritual truth, a method which often betrays him into great absurdities. He discovers the reason of blood coagulating on the surface of the ground in the divine word to Cain (Gen. iv.10-12), the earth struck with terror (phobetheisa he ge) refusing to drink it in. Theophilus's testimony to the O.T. is copious. He quotes very largely from the books of Moses and to a smaller extent from the other historical books. His references are copious to Ps., Prov., Is., and Jer., and he quotes Ezek., Hos. and other minor prophets. His direct evidence respecting the canon of N.T. does not go much beyond a few precepts from the Sermon on the Mount (iii.13, 14), a possible quotation from Luke xviii.27 (ii.13), and quotations from Rom., I. Cor, and I. Tim. More important is a distinct citation from the opening of St. John's Gospel (i.1-3), mentioning the evangelist by name, as one of the inspired men (pneumatophoroi) by whom the Holy Scriptures (hai hagiai graphai) were written (ii.22). The use of a metaphor found in II. Pet. i.19 bears on the date of that epistle. According to Eusebius (l.c.), Theophilus quoted the Apocalypse in his work against Hermogenes; a very precarious allusion has been seen in ii.28, cf. Rev. xii.3, 7, etc. A full index of these and other possible references to O. and N. T. is given by Otto (Corp. Apol. Christ. ii.353-355). Theophilus transcribes a considerable portion of Gen. i.-iii. with his own allegorizing comments upon the successive work of the creation week. The sun is the image of God; the moon of man, whose death and resurrection are prefigured by the monthly changes of that luminary. The first three days before the creation of the heavenly bodies are types of the Trinity -- tupoi tes triados -- the first place in Christian writings where the word is known to occur (lib. ii. c.15) -- i.e. "God, His Word and His Wisdom."

The silence regarding the Apology of Theophilus in the East is remarkable. We find the work nowhere mentioned or quoted by Greek writers before the time of Eusebius. Several passages in the works of Irenaeus shew an undoubted relationship to passages in one small section of the Apology (Iren. v.23, 1; Autol. ii.25 init.: Iren. iv.38, 1, iii.23, 6; Autol. ii.25: Iren. iii.23, 6; Autol. ii.25, 26), but Harnack (p.294) thinks it probable that the quotations, limited to two chapters, are not taken from the Apology, but from Theophilus's work against Marcion (cf. Möhler, Patr. p.286; Otto, Corp. Apol. II. viii. p.357; Donaldson, Christ. Lit. iii.66). In the West there are certain references to the Autolycus, though not copious. It is quoted by Lactantius (Div. Inst. i.23) under the title Liber de Temporibus ad Autolycum. There is a passage first cited by Maranus in Novatian (de Trin. c.2) which shews great similarity to the language of Theophilus (ad Autol. i.3). In the next cent. the book is mentioned by Gennadius (c.34) as "tres libelli de fide." He found them attributed to Theophilus of Alexandria, but the disparity of style caused him to question the authorship. The notice of Theophilus by Jerome has been already referred to. Dodwell found internal evidence, in the reference to existing persecutions and a supposed reference to Origen and his followers, for assigning the work to a younger Theophilus who perished in the reign of Severus (Dissert. ad Iren. §§ 44, 50, pp.170 ff. ed.1689). His arguments have been carefully examined by Tillemont (Mém. eccl. iii.612 notes), Cave (Hist. Lit. i.70), Donaldson (u.s. ii.65), and Harnack (u.s. p.287), and the received authorship fully established. Cf. W. Sanday in Stud. Bibl. (Oxf.1885), p.89.

Editions. -- Migne's Patr. Gk. (t. vi. col.1023-1168), and a small ed. (Camb.1852) by the Rev. W. G. Humphry. Otto's ed. in the Corpus Apologet. Christ. Saec. Secund. vol. ii. (Jena, 1861, 8vo) is by far the most complete and useful. English trans. by Belty (Oxf.1722), Flower (Lond.1860), and Marcus Dods (Clark's Ante-Nicene Lib.).

[E.V.]

Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria
Theophilus (9), bp. of Alexandria, succeeding Timotheus in the last week of July 385. He had probably been a leading member of the Alexandrian clergy. Socrates states that Theophilus (probably two years later, Clinton, Fast. Rom. i.522) obtained from Theodosius a commission to demolish the pagan temples of Alexandria (Socr. v.16). Sozomen corrects this by saying that Theodosius granted to Theophilus, at his own request, the temple of Dionysus, on the site of which he proposed to build a church (vii.15). Socrates says that Theophilus "cleared out the temple of Mithras, and exposed its bloody mysteries." Socrates adds that the foul symbols used in the worship of Serapis and other gods were, by the archbishop's order, carried through the agora as objects of contemptuous abhorrence. The votaries of Alexandrian idolatry arranged a tragically successful onslaught on the Christians and then took possession of the vast Serapeum, in the N.W. quarter of the city, which had been the popular sanctuary of Alexandrian paganism, and now became their stronghold of "furious despair" (Orat. of Athan. against the Arians, p.5, ed. Oxf.). They made sallies from its precincts, captured several Christians, dragged them within, and inflicted torture or death on those who would not sacrifice. The general in command at Alexandria and the Augustal prefect summoned them to surrender, but in vain. Olympius, a philosopher, sustained their obstinate resolution until the arrival of an edict ordering the destruction of all the temples. Terrified by the shouts which proclaimed this mandate, the desperadoes abandoned the Serapeum; and Theophilus, with a great body of soldiers, exultant Christians, and astounded pagans, ascended the hundred steps leading up the mound, and penetrated into the faintly lighted sanctuary, from within which the Christians afterwards believed that Olympius, on the night before the evacuation, had heard a voice chanting "Alleluia" (Soz. vii.15). There was the huge seated statue of Serapis, constructed of various metals, now dusky with age, and inlaid with various precious stones (Clem. Alex. Cohort 48). The successor of Athanasius gazed on this visible concentration of the power of Egyptian idolatry, no doubt the symbol to many Alexandrians of the principle of life and of the powers that ruled the underworld. It was a supreme moment; at last the church had her foot on the neck of her foe. Mutterings of superstitious fear were heard; to draw near the image was to cause an earthquake. The archbishop turned to a soldier who held an axe, and bade him "strike hard." The man obeyed. A shriek of terror burst from many; another and another blow followed, the head was lopped off, and there ran out a troop of mice, which had "dwelt within the god of the Egyptians." Misgiving and alarm gave way to noisy triumph; the body of Serapis was broken up and burned; the head was made a public show. At Canopus, 14 miles from Alexandria, temples were immediately laid low. The images were melted down into cauldrons and other vessels required in the eleemosynary work of the Alexandrian church. The one exception was an image of an ape, which Theophilus set up in a public place "in perpetuam rei memoriam," to the vexation of the pagan grammarian Ammonius, who lived to teach the young Socrates at Constantinople, and used to complain seriously of the injustice thus done to "Greek religion" (Socr. v.16). During the demolition of various temples there were found hollow statues of bronze and wood, set against the walls, but capable of being entered by the priests, who thus carried on their impostures, which Theophilus explained to his pagan fellow-citizens (Theod. v.22). But when the Nile-gauge was removed from the Serapeum to the church, the pagans asked, Would not the god avenge himself by withholding the yearly inundation his power had been wont to effect? It was, in fact, delayed. Murmurs swelled into remonstrances; the state of the city was becoming dangerous; the prefect had to consult his sovereign. Theodosius's answer was: "If the Nile would not rise except by means of enchantments or sacrifices, let Egypt remain unwatered." Forthwith the river began to rise with vehemence; the fear was now of a flood (Soz. vii.20). We know not the nature of those concessions to the pagans which, according to a letter from Atticus to Theophilus's nephew Cyril, Theophilus made at this time for the sake of peace (Cyril, Epp. p.202), but they did not prevent a pagan like Eunapius from abusing him. To Eunapius the temple-breakers were impious men who "threw everything into confusion, boasted of having conquered the gods," enriched themselves by the plunder, "brought into the sacred places the so-called monks, men in form but swinish in life," deified the, "bones and heads of worthless men who had been punished by the courts for their offences," and assigned to "bad slaves who had borne the marks of the lash the title of martyrs and intercessors with the gods."

In 391 or 392 Theophilus was named by the council of Capua as arbiter of the dispute between Flavian, as representing the Meletian succession to the see of Antioch, and Evagrius, whose claims, like those of his predecessor Paulinus, were upheld by the West. Theophilus undertook to examine the case with the aid of his suffragans. Evagrius soon died, but Flavian was not recognized by the West until Chrysostom primarily, and Theophilus secondarily, effected that result in 398 (Soz. viii.3; cf. Tillem. x.538).

In A.D.394 we find Theophilus for the first time at Constantinople, at a council in the baptistery of the great church, on Sept.29. He sat next to Nectarius of Constantinople, and there were present also Flavian, Gregory of Nyssa, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Theophilus was in close relations with the solitaries of Egypt. In the Sayings of the Fathers he appears as inviting some of them to be present. at the destruction of the temples, and again as visiting those of the famous Nitrian settlement, and penetrating to the more distant Scetis. Still more celebrated was his intimacy with four monks of Scetis, known as "the Tall Brothers." These years were the best in Theophilus's episcopate; and if it had lasted only ten years, he might have left the name, if not of a saint, at least of a good as well as an able and energetic prelate.

But in 395 the story of his life changes its character. He begins to justify the description afterwards given of him by an adversary "Naturally impulsive, headlong, intensely contentious, insatiable in grasping at his objects, awaiting in his own case neither trial nor inquiry, impatient of opposition, determined to carry out his own resolves " (Pallad. Dial. p.76). In 395, at the request of bp. John of Jerusalem, he sent his friend Isidore, said to have been an Origenist, as his envoy into Palestine, to abate the strife between John and Jerome. Isidore visited Jerome three times, but would not give him a letter which Theophilus had written him (ib.39); and his so-called mediation only produced a soreness on Theophilus's part towards Jerome, whose letters for some time he ignored. At last he wrote, coldly exhorting Jerome to respect the authority of the bp. of Jerusalem, and again in 399 (according to Vallarsi), urging Jerome to come to terms with John.

Theophilus had been throwing his whole weight against the extreme literalism of the Anthropomorphists, a coarse reaction from the Alexandrian allegorism. A number of ill-informed and enthusiastic monks recoiled even from the ordinary explanation of those O.T. economies by which, as Epiphanius himself held, the divine manifestation had been adapted to the capacities of human nature (Haer.70.7; see also Aug. Haer.50 and 76; Theodoret, iv.10). They took the scriptural expressions "as to eyes, face, and hands of God, as they found them, without examination " (Soz. viii.11). Hence, when Theophilus, in his Paschal Letter for 399, insisted peremptorily on the immateriality of the divine nature, a storm of wrathful zeal broke out among the solitaries; one of them, indeed, named Serapion, was candid enough to be convinced by argument, but the pain which ensued was such that when his brethren were engaged in their devotions, he exclaimed with tears, "They have taken away my God, and I know not whom to adore!" (Cassian, Coll. x.3 ). Many others were of fiercer mood: was the "image of God" to be thus nullified? They hurried from their deserts to Alexandria and menaced the "pope" whom they had been wont to honour. "Impious man! thou deservest death!" He saw that they were not to be defied, but a smooth prevarication might disarm them. "In seeing you I see God's face!" It was enough: he had appeared to accept the imperilled phrase: they asked more calmly, "If you admit that God's face is like ours, anathematize the books of Origen; for some people contradict us on their authority. If you will not do this, be prepared for the treatment due to those who fight against God." Theophilus uttered the fateful words of compliance: "I will do what you think fit; do not be angry with me, for I object to Origen's books, and blame those who approve them." Here he was using "economy"; he stooped to propitiate the Anthropomorphists by using their phrase in a sense of his own and letting them think that he condemned Origen absolutely. About the end of 399 or beginning of 400 he held a synod at Alexandria, at which "Origenism" was condemned. He then wrote to Anastasius of Rome and Jerome, informing them of this. At the beginning of 401 he attacked Origenism in his Paschal Letter (Hieron. Ep.96), a remarkable document which anticipates the Christology of his nephew and successor Cyril, while excluding all Apollinarian ideas. Theophilus traces to Origen the (Marcellian) notion that Christ's kingdom would have an end. He goes on to denounce Origenistic Universalism, and the notions that Christ would suffer again on behalf of the demons, and that after the resurrection human bodies would again be subject to dissolution. Fortified by an imperial edict forbidding all monks to read Origen (Anastasius, ad Joan. Jerus.), he ordered the neighbouring bishops to banish the chief Nitrian monks from their own mountains and from the farther desert. Some of the monks came to remonstrate with him. They probably disclaimed the special errors associated with the name of Origen, and urged that they ought not to be treated as heretics because they opposed the degrading literalism of the Anthropomorphists. Palladius represents him as glaring at them in a fury, throwing his scarf or omophorion over the neck of Ammonius, one of the Tall Brothers, and with a blow on the face drawing blood, and fiercely exclaiming, "You heretic, anathematize Origen!" (Dial. p.54). Palladius adds that he induced five of the Nitrian monks ("men unworthy even to be doorkeepers"), whom he had promoted to ecclesiastical office, to sign accusations against three of their chief brethren, who were accordingly excommunicated in a council. At his request the Augustal prefect decreed their expulsion from Egypt; and Theophilus is said to have attacked the Nitrian settlement by night at the head of a force which was to execute this order. A wild scene, according to Palladius, ensued (Dial. p 57). Against this account is to be set Theophilus's own statement in what is called the synodical letter to the bishops of Palestine and Cyprus (trans. by Jerome, Ep.92), intended to be read by them when assembled for the Dedication Festival at Jerusalem in Sept.401. Theophilus says that, having been memorialized by orthodox "fathers and presbyters," he went to Nitria with a great number of neighbouring bishops, and there, in presence of many fathers who come together from nearly the whole of Egypt, some of Origen's treatises were read, and the adherents of Origenism condemned. The Origenist monks were now going about in foreign provinces, "seeking whom to devour with their impiety"; their mad impetuosity must be restrained. Theophilus protests that he has done them no hurt and taken nothing wrongfully from them. It is clear that Theophilus did personally visit Nitria, and that its "Origenist monks" were put under ban, and driven forth, probably in the early summer of 401, and that their places were filled by others of whose "docility" Theophilus could rely.

The persecuted "Brothers" found a temporary refuge with many other fugitives (Dial. p.160) at Scythopolis, on the slope of mount Gilboa. Some bishops of Palestine who shewed them countenance were peremptorily warned by Theophilus (ib. p.58). Hunted from place to place, the Nitrians determined to seek redress at Constantinople. Here the current of the Origenistic controversy flows suddenly, and with momentous consequences, into the stream of Chrysostom's episcopate. Towards the close of 401 some 50 elderly men of the Nitrian party fell at his feet as suppliants (ib. p.58). The bishop, moved to tears, asked who had accused them. "Sit down, father," they answered, "and provide some remedy for the harm that pope Theophilus has done us. If out of regard to him you will not act, we shall be obliged to apply to the emperor. But we beg you to induce Theophilus to let us live in our own country; for we have not offended against him or against the law of our Saviour." Chrysostom promised to do his best. "Meanwhile," he said, "until I have written to my brother Theophilus, keep silence about your affairs." He assigned them a lodging in the precincts of the church of Anastasia, and pious ladies contributed to their support. He wrote to Theophilus, "oblige me as your son and brother" (alluding to his own consecration by Theophilus), by being reconciled to these men." Theophilus saw his way to a blow, not only at the Origenists, but at Chrysostom, whom, according to Palladius, he had disliked from the first. He wrote to Epiphanius, urging him to get Origenism condemned by a synod of his suffragans in Cyprus. Epiphanius obtained from a synod of his insular church a decree forbidding the faithful of Cyprus to read Origen's works (A.D.402). Meantime the "Brothers" had laid before the emperor Arcadius their charges against Theophilus, and requested the empress Eudoxia to promote a formal hearing of the case, and even to cause Theophilus to be brought to Constantinople to be tried by its bishop. Arcadius ordered Theophilus to be summoned. Theophilus delayed to obey the imperial citation. When at last he set forth, as he passed through Lycia he is said to have boasted that he was "going to court to depose John" (ib. p.72). It was not a mere brag; he knew his own diplomatic ability, and that Chrysostom's unworldly strictness had alienated Eudoxia and some people of rank, and even not a few ecclesiastics. The great name of the see of Athanasius would also go for much, and the watchword of "No Origenism" for yet more. He felt that he could exchange the position of a defendant for that of a judge. Theophilus landed at Constantinople at midday on a Thursday in the latter part of June 403 (ib. p.64). Not one of the clergy went to meet him or pay him the usual honour (Socr.). Chrysostom invited him to the episcopal residence (Chrys. Ep. i. to Innocent; Pallad. p.12), but he ignored all friendly messages, would not enter the cathedral; and betook himself to lodgings without the city. The emperor now urged Chrysostom to sit as judge in the case; he refused, for he "knew" (so he says) "the laws of the Fathers, and had a respect for the man." Theophilus had no such scruples. Proceedings against Chrysostom were taken at the council of "the Oak," a suburb of Chalcedon, and a sentence of deposition passed. [[582]CHRYSOSTOM.] Theophilus was afterwards pleased to take up the almost forgotten question of the Nitrian exiles. They were persuaded to ask their pope's forgiveness, and Theophilus restored them to his communion. Returning to Constantinople he boldly entered the cathedral with an armed following to enforce the installation of a successor to "John," but finding that he had undertaken too much, and that the people were resolutely loyal to Chrysostom, he went on board a vessel at midnight and fled with his followers (Dial. p.16). It was high time, for, says Palladius drily, "the city was seeking to throw him into the sea " (ib. p.75). Theophilus did not attack Chrysostom in his Paschal Letter for 404, but returned to the subject of Origenism as an error which deceived "simple and shallow" minds. He informed pope Innocent that he had deposed Chrysostom; and Innocent, disposed to censure his "hasty arrogance" in not communicating the grounds of the condemnation (ib. p.9) wrote, "Brother Theophilus, we are in communion with you and with our brother John. . . . Again we write, and shall do so whenever you write to us, that unless that mock trial is followed by a proper one, it will be impossible for us to withdraw from communion with John."

Theophilus seems to have written a work of great length against Origenism (Gennadius, de Vir. Ill.33), from which Cyril quotes in his treatise, ad Arcadiam et Marinam (P. Pusey's Cyril, vii.166), in support of the "Personal Union," and Theodoret in his second dialogue on the distinction between Christ's soul and the Word. Theophilus affirmed that Origen had been condemned (not only by Demetrius, but) by Heraclas. Either in this work (as Tillemont thinks, xi.497) or in another, he strove to shew that he had only seemed to agree with the Anthropomorphists, for "he shewed," says Gennadius, that, according to the faith, God was incorporeal, "neque ullis omnino membrorum lineamentis compositum." In 410 he consecrated the eccentric philosopher and sportsman [583]SYNESIUS to the metropolitan see of Ptolemais, who thanked him warmly for his Paschal Letter of 411, and wished him a long and happy old age (Synes. Ep.9). In another letter Synesius, after professing his readiness to "treat as a law whatever the throne of Alexandria might ordain," asks the archbishop what should be done in regard to the people of Palaebisca and Hydrax, who were most reluctant to be placed, as Theophilus intended, under a bishop of their own, and asked leave to remain under Paul, bp. of Erythrum, to which diocese these "villages" had always belonged, save while Siderius was their bishop. Theophilus had also asked him to reconcile the bps. of Erythrum and Dardanis to each other (Ep.67).

Theophilus died "of lethargy" on Oct.15, 412 (Socr. vii.7), after an episcopate of 27 years and nearly 3 months. The moral of his life is the deterioration which too great power can produce in one whose zeal in the cause of religion, although genuine and active, is not combined with singleness of heart.

All his extant remains are collected in Gallandius (Bibl. Patrum, vol. vii. pp.603 ff.); his "canons" in Beveridge (Pand. Can. ii.170). The sense of these canons is given in Johnson's Vade Mecum, ii.255. See also Zahn, Forschungen, ii.234 ff.

[W.B.]

Theophilus
Theophilus (13), a Christian who discussed Christianity with Simon, a Jew, in a treatise published by a Gallic writer named [584]EVAGRIUS in 5th cent. The title as given by Gennadius (de Vir. Ill. c.51 is Altercatio Simonis Judaei et Theophili Christiani. This work lay hid till Zacagni, the Vatican Librarian, noticed it in 1698 in his Collect. Mon, pp.51, 53, 324. It was printed by Migne (Patr. Lat. t. xx. c.1165) and by Gebhardt and Harnack (Texte u. Untersuch. zur Gesch. der Altchrist. Lit. Bd. i. Hft.3; Leipz.1883), with exhaustive notes and dissertations. It has an important bearing on the controversy during patristic times between the church and Judaism. The disputants discuss various arguments against the deity of Christ drawn from O.T., Theophilus making a very liberal use of the mystical method of exposition. The Jew begins by objecting that Christ cannot be God because in Deuteronomy it is said "There is no other God beside Me," and Isaiah says, "I am the first and the last, and beside Me there is no God." Theophilus then defends his position from the conduct of Abraham towards the angel whom he worshipped at the oak of Mamre and from the Psalms. He quotes Is. vii.14, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive." Simon replies that the virgin was the daughter of Jerusalem, whom Isaiah represents as despising Shalmanezer, while the angel who smote the Assyrians is the fulfilment of the prophecy contained in the name Emmanuel, since he was for them indeed "Nobiscum Deus." Theophilus retorts that the virgin daughter of Jerusalem had brought forth no son. The difficulties of the Incarnation are then discussed, and Christ's descent from David maintained by Theophilus, who argues that conception by a virgin was no more difficult to God than bringing water out of a rock. Simon then raises the favourite difficulty of the Jews from 2nd cent. downwards, drawn from Deut. xxi.23, "He that is hanged is accursed of God" [[585]ARISTO PELLAEUS], which introduces the subject of Christ's passion, where Theophilus urges that Ps. xxii. describes all the circumstances of our Lord's sufferings. Harnack (l.c.) has a learned monograph on this, and discusses the Jewish controversy as it was maintained by the Fathers. He devotes 50 pages to stating the relation between the Altercatio and Tertullian's Tract. adv. Jud., Cyprian's Testimonia, Lactantius's Institutiones, and Justin's Dialogus cum Tryphone, and skilfully uses the Altercatio to determine the nature and contents of the similar 2nd-cent. work, Altercatio Jasonis et Papisci, which he considers the groundwork of the 5th-cent. document.

[G.T.S.]

Theophronius
Theophronius. [[586]AGNÖETAE].

Theophylactus Simocatta
Theophylactus (1) Simocatta, an Egyptian by birth, related to Peter who was viceroy of Egypt at the death of the emperor Maurice in 602. His Oecumenical History, or Historiae Mauricii Tiberii Imperatoris, is very important for Byzantine history at a critical period, just before the rise of Mahomet, and during the beginning of the struggles with the Turks and Slavs. For church history his historical writings are interesting, as giving a vivid picture of the rites, superstitions, and ideas of the close of cent. vi. They shew, e.g. that the emperor Maurice was in many points superior to his spiritual teachers. Thus in lib. i. c.11 we have the story of a sorcerer named Paulinus, whom the patriarch of Constantinople brought before the emperor, pressing for his capital punishment. The emperor suggested that instruction, rather than punishment, was required. Many other points of interest occur, e.g. the frequent use of a miraculous image (acheiropoietos) of our Lord (ii.3; iii.1); the conversion of Chosroes (v.15), and of a woman of noble birth among the Magi of Babylon, named Golinducha, her escape, pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and life at Nisibis (v.12); the continued existence of the Marcionists (viii.9); the church in honour of St. Paul at Tarsus (viii.13); the incredulity of the emperor about the liquefaction of the blood of St. Euphemia (viii.14); his overthrow and murder by Phocas, and the miraculous announcement of it by his statues at Alexandria the same night (viii.13). The History of Theophylact is included in the Bonn series of Byzantine historians, but the most complete and convenient ed. is by C. H. Fabrottus in Labbe's Corpus Hist. Byzant. (Paris, 1648).

[G.T.S.]

Theosebas, a deacon
Theosebas, a deacon of the Thirian (? Tyrian) church, ordained priest by bp. John of Jerusalem. Jerome takes this ordination as a justification of the ordination of his brother Paulinian by Epiphanius, bp. of Salamis. He describes Theosebas as an eloquent man, and believes John to have ordained him in order to employ him to speak against himself and his friends (Hieron. Cont. Joan. Hierosol.41).

[W.H.F.]

Theotimus, bishop of Tomi
Theotimus (2), bp. and metropolitan of Tomi, the capital of Scythia Minor in Lower Moesia. By birth a Goth, he was educated in Greece, where he took the name by which he is known. Adopting strict asceticism for himself, he kept a liberal table for the savage Goths and Huns who visited Tomi as the great central market of the province, endeavouring by hospitality, gifts, and courteous treatment to prepare them to receive the Gospel. In some instances the seed was sown in good soil, and the Hunnish strangers returned to their distant homes as converts, eager to convert their fellow-barbarians. Theotimus is with much probability identified by Baronius (sub ann.402) with the successful missionary to the Huns mentioned by St. Jerome. He was regarded by the Huns with superstitious reverence, and was styled by them "the God of the Romans." The long hair of a philosopher flowed over his episcopal attire. He was a frequent and much revered visitor at Constantinople. In 403, during the visit of Epiphanius of Salamis, he refused to affix his signature to the decree of the council of Cyprus condemning the teaching of Origen, denouncing the attempt to cast insult on a justly honoured name and to question the decisions of wise and good men before them. He supported his refusal by publicly reading passages from Origen. He was an author of some note. Jerome ascribes to him some treatises in the form of dialogues. Fragments of his are in John Damascene's Parallel. Sacr. (vol. ii. pp.640, 675, 694, 785, Le Quien's ed.). The archimandrite Carosus at the council of Chalcedon boasted that he had been baptized by Theotimus and charged by him to keep the Nicene faith inviolate (Labbe, Concil. iv.530). Socr. H. E. vi.12; Soz. H. E. vii.26, viii.14; Tillem. Mém. eccl. xi.190; Le Quien, Or. Chist. ii.1217; Cave, Hist. Lit. i.288.

[E.V.]

Thomas Edessenus
Thomas (8) Edessenus appears in the Life of Mar Abas. The latter, originally Magian by religion, was converted to Christianity, learnt Syriac at Nisibis, and Greek at Edessa from Thomas a Jacobite, whom he afterwards took with him to Alexandria and there with his help translated the Scriptures (or, the books) from Greek into Syriac (Gregory Bar-hebr. Chr. Eccl. ii.22, t. iii. col.189). Amrus (ap. Assem. iii.75) gives a similar history of their relations; but only ascribes to them the translation of the works of Theodore of Mopsuestia. He relates how they went to Constantinople, and finding their lives in peril in consequence of their refusal to "anathematize the Three Fathers," fled to Nisibis. There Mar Abas became a teacher, and an eloquent assailant of Zoroastrianism. Gregory says that he was at one time taught by John Grammaticus, the Tritheite; but the facts alleged by Amrus lead us to conclude that he lapsed early into Nestorianism. He was elected catholicus of the Chaldeans in 536, and persecuted by the Magians. Chosroes called on him to return to his original faith or to conform to Christian orthodoxy. Refusing to do either, he was exiled, and venturing to return to his see without the king's permission, was cast into prison, and died there, 552. Among his disciples Amrus (Assem. ii.411) reckons "Thomas of Edessa," no doubt his former teacher drawn by him from the opposing sect into Nestorianism. Of their joint work, the version of Theodore's liturgy survives (Brit. Mus.7181, Rich., R.-F. Catal. p.59 -- see also Rénaudot, Liturg. Or. t. i. p.616); and the liturgy of Nestorius (ib. p.626), still in use in the Nestorian churches, is probably their version mentioned by Ebedjesu (Catal. Assem. iii.36), who also says they translated the O.T. (ib.75), and adds a list of the writings of Mar Abas.

[J.GW.]

Thomas Apameensis, bishop of Apamea
Thomas (9) Apameensis, bp. of Apamea, the metropolis of Syria Secunda; one of the bishops sent to invite pope Vigilius to the second council of Constantinople. He himself attended it. Two contemporary historians, Procopius and Evagrius (the latter praises Thomas as a "man most mighty in word and in deed"), record his tact and courage when a great peril threatened his city. In 540 Chosroes, at the head of his Persians, after burning Antioch, was reported to be marching on Apamea. The panic-stricken people entreated their bishop to strengthen them to meet their fate by displaying a piece of the true cross, a cubit in length, which was treasured in their church in a casket richly decorated with gold and gems, and usually shewn to the faithful but once a year. Thomas fixed a day for its exhibition, to which the people of the neighbouring towns also eagerly repaired; among them the parents of Evagrius, bringing with them the future historian, who vividly describes the crowds pressing to see, and seeking to kiss, the sacred wood. The bishop (as both narrators relate) took it out of the casket, and raising it up in both hands proceeded round the church, according to usage. "A flame of fire shining, but not consuming," around and above the relic, moved as he moved, lighting up the roof. This was repeated several times. The people greeted with joy this visible token of divine protection, and drew from it confident hopes of deliverance. As Chosroes approached, the bishop met him, and assured him that no resistance was contemplated by the citizens, on whose behalf he engaged that the king with a limited guard should be admitted within the gates. Chosroes accordingly, leaving his army in camp, entered with 200 men. In violation of a compact he had recently entered into with the emperor (to receive 5,000 pounds of gold paid down and 500 annually, and make no further demands), he exacted from the bishop more than 10,000 pounds of silver, and all the gold and silver ornaments in the church treasury. Thomas produced last of all the casket that enshrined the cross, and, shewing its contents to the king, said, "This alone is left; take the gold and gems -- I grudge them not; only leave us the precious wood of salvation." The king granted his petition. Thomas conciliated Chosroes by assiduously courting his favour. It would be unfair to judge him hardly under circumstances of such great responsibility and peril, though he shews politic suppleness and tact rather than the higher virtues of a prelate and patriot.

[J.GW.]

Tiberius II., emperor of Constantinople
Tiberius (2) II., emperor of Constantinople, 578-582. For the secular history of his reign see D. of G. and R. Biogr. We shall confine ourselves to the religious history of the period, for which the church history of the Monophysite John of Ephesus (Dr. Payne Smith's trans.) afforded fresh material. Tiberius presented a striking example of toleration in an intolerant age. The patriarchs of Constantinople were ardent opponents of the Monophysites. The patriarch, John Scholasticus, soon after the emperor's accession to the position of Caesar (a.d.574), called on him to persecute the Monophysites. The emperor, having extorted from the patriarch an acknowledgment of their Christian character, declared he would not become a Diocletian in persecuting such followers of Christ. Eutychius, restored after John in 577, again urged Tiberius in the same direction, and again Tiberius refused, whereupon Eutychius, of his own motion, set the laws against heresy in operation (cf. John of Ephesus, H. E. pp.72, 201). On p.207 John relates Tiberius's only act of persecution. He had hired an army of Goths (Arians) to fight against the Persians. They left their families at
Constantinople, stipulating for the use of a church for Arian worship. Tiberius consulted the patriarch, whereupon interested parties roused the mob to hoot the emperor and accuse him of Arianism. To clear himself he permitted the mob to attack the houses of all heretics. A book concerning the nature of the resurrection, published by Eutychius, taught that the body would be impalpable like a pure spirit. Gregory, afterwards pope Gregory the Great, then a deacon and Roman apocrisiarius at the imperial court, at once detected heresy in the patriarch's teaching. The emperor, being appealed to, decided in favour of Gregory, while the patriarch was induced to burn the obnoxious book. John of Ephesus, p.192, says that Tiberius substituted a cross on his coins for a female figure, like Venus, which Justin introduced. See also Evagr. H. E. v.11-22; Paul Diac. Hist. Miscell. lib. xvii.; Theophan. Chronogr. i.380-387; Baron. Annal. a.d.582-585; Clinton's Fasti, p.840.

[G.T.S.]

Tiburtius
Tiburtius. [[587]CAECILIA.]

Tichonius, an African Donatist
Tichonius (Tychonius), an African Donatist, whose personal history is very little known, but who was conspicuous in the Donatist controversy, chiefly because Augustine mentions him in his letters to Parmenian and elsewhere. He appears to have flourished between 380 and 420, but according to Tillemont his date may be as early as 370. He was apparently a layman with a strong turn for church matters, including theology, was well versed in Scripture, and though a Donatist, revolted from the exclusive views of the sect, and occupied a position intermediate, as Neander says, between it and the church (Ch. Hist. iii.280, ed. Clark; cf. Dr. Sparrow Simpson, St. Aug. and Afr. Ch. Divisions [1910], p.51). Early in his career, perhaps 370-373 he published a work maintaining the universality of the church, and that no misconduct of a portion can annul the promise of God or contaminate Christians elsewhere. Consequently Catholic Christians in Africa were not cut off from the church of Christ, but still in communion with it. He pointed out the arbitrary character of the Donatist test of holiness, summing it up in the epigrammatic phrase, "quod volumus sanctum est" (Aug. c. Parm. i.1; ii.13, 31; see also ii.21, 40, and 22, 42; iii.3, 17; Ep.93, 43). In support of his argument he quoted the decision of a council at Carthage of 270 bishops, who, having debated for 75 days, concluded, as the words of Augustine seem to imply, that traditors ought to be invited to receive rebaptism, but if they declined to do so ought to be admitted to communion. He adds that down to the time of Macarius, A.D.348, communion was not refused to Catholics by Donatists (Aug. Ep.93, 43). Of this council no other record exists than the statement of Tichonius, who gives it no date. His book has perished, but is probably the same either as the one in three books mentioned by Gennadius under the title Bellum Intestinum, or the one entitled Expositiones Diversarum Causarum, unless these two titles refer to one book only, in which, says Gennadius, Tichonius mentions some ancient councils (de Scr. Eccl.18). Though denounced strongly for his inconsistency by St. Augustine, he appears to have continued his allegiance to the Donatists (Aug. de Doctr. Chr. iii.30; Gennad. u.s.), and while still belonging to them wrote another book entitled The Seven Rules or Keys of Christian Life, which was discussed by Augustine in his work de Doctr. Christ. iii.30-42. Its main heads are: (1) The church is the Lord's body, indivisible from Him, so that in Scripture language applicable to Him is applied also to the church. (2) The two-fold Body of the Lord, i.e. the distinction between bad and good people in the church. (3) The promises and the law. (4) Genus and species. Readers must be careful not to ascribe to the one what belongs to the other, e.g. in explaining Ezek. xxxvi.23, which must be compared with N.T. and the promise of baptism there contained. The "new land" is the church to be gathered from all nations, but not yet revealed. (5) Concerning Jewish expressions denoting time, as "three days and three nights," etc., and also such numbers as 7, 10, 12, etc. (6) Concerning what he calls Recapitulation. (7) The personality of Satan. Tichonius also wrote a commentary on the Revelation, which, Gennadius tells us, he interpreted entirely in a spiritual sense -- that the human body is an abode of angels ("angelicam stationem corpus esse"); that the Millennium in a personal sense is doubtful, that there is only one resurrection in which human bodies of every sort and age will rise, and that of the two resurrections mentioned, one is to be understood of the growth of grace in the soul of man and in the church. The Seven Rules are printed at length in the Bibl. Max. Patr. (Lyons, 1677), vi.49, and Bibl. Patr. Galland. (Venice, 1765), viii.107. Prof. F. C. Burkitt pub. a critical ed. of them in the Camb. Texts and Studies 1894), iii.1.

[H.W.P.]

Timotheus I., archbp. of Alexandria
Timotheus (7) I., archbp. of Alexandria, unanimously elected, as Theodosius I. affirms (Cod. Theod. t. vi. p.348; Tillem. vi.621), on the death of his brother, Peter II., in the latter half of Feb.381. He was an elderly man of high character, who had sat at the feet of Athanasius; and his distinguishing epithet of aktemon (Coteler. Eccl. Gr. Mon. i.366) indicates that he had parted with all his property. The council of Constantinople met in May 381; he and his attendant suffragans arrived late, and did not contribute to the peace of the assembly (Greg. Naz. Carm. de Vita Sua, 1800 ff.). They were annoyed at finding Gregory of Nazianzus established in the see of Constantinople; their jealousy of the "oriental" bishops who had "enthroned him" broke forth in angry debate. They assured Gregory that they had no objection to him personally; but they probably resented the disgrace of Maximus, who had attempted, by the aid of some Egyptian bishops, to possess himself of the see. Gregory was glad to take this opportunity of resigning it, and Timotheus perhaps presided over the council during the few days between this abdication and the appointment of Nectarius (Tillem. ix.474). The third canon gave to the see of Constantinople the second rank throughout the church; Neale says that Timotheus "refused to allow" its "validity" (Hist. Alex. i.209). The council of Aquileia alludes to some annoyance given to him and Paulinus of Antioch by those whose orthodoxy had previously been suspected (Ambr. Ep.12); yet that he did not break off openly from the majority is proved by the law of July 30, 381, in which Theodosius names him as one of the centres of Catholic communion (Soz. vii.9; cf. Tillem. ix.720). His episcopate was brief and uneventful. Facundus transcribes a letter of his to Diodore of Tarsus, referring to Athanasius as having spoken highly of Diodore, and professing his own inability to do justice to his virtue and orthodox zeal (Pro Defens. Tri. Capit. iv.2). Timotheus wrote an account of several eminent monks, which Sozomen used (vi.29). His 18 "canonical answers" to requests by his clergy for direction are interesting, and became part of the church law of the East (see Beveridge, Pand. Can. ii.165; Galland. vii 345). He died on Sun., July 20, 385 (see Tillem. vi.802), and was succeeded by Theophilus.

[W.B.]

Timotheus, called Aelurus
Timotheus (18), commonly called Aelurus, a Monophysite intruder into the see of Alexandria. He had been at first a monk, then a presbyter under Dioscorus, and soon after the deposition of the latter at the council of Chalcedon had come into collision with his successor [588]PROTERIUS. Deposed from office and banished into Libya (Mansi, Concil. vii.617), he awaited, as his opponents afterwards said, the death of the emperor Marcian (ib.525, 532). When that occurred in Jan.457, he returned to Alexandria, and practised the artifice which apparently procured him the epithet ailouros, "cat." "Creeping" at night to the cells of certain ignorant monks, he called to each by name, and on being asked who he was, replied, "I am an angel, sent to warn you to break off communion with Proterius, and to choose Timotheus as bishop" (Theod. Lect. i.1). Collecting a band of turbulent men, he took possession, in the latter part of Lent, of the great "Caesarean" church, and was there lawlessly consecrated by only two bishops, whom Proterius and the Egyptian synod had deposed, and who, like himself, had been sentenced to exile. Thus, without the countenance of a single legitimate prelate (see Mansi, vii.585) "he enthroned himself," as 14 Egyptian bishops express it in their memorials to the emperor Leo I. and to Anatolius of Constantinople (ib.526, 533), while the real archbishop was sitting in his palace among his clergy. He instantly proceeded to perform episcopal acts; but after thus playing the anti-patriarch for a few days, he was expelled by the "dux" Dionysius; and it was apparently in revenge that his adherents (ib.526, 533) hunted Proterius into a baptistery and murdered him (Easter, 457). Thereupon Timotheus returned and acted as archbishop. He declared open war against the maintainers of "two natures" as being in effect Nestorianizers, and on this ground boldly broke off communion with Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch, denouncing bishops of the Alexandrian patriarchate who had accepted the formula of the council, and some of whom had held their sees before the accession of Cyril; he also sent to cities and monasteries a prohibition to communicate with such bishops or to recognize clerics ordained by them. The 14 prelates who supply our most authentic information on these events were forced by the storm thus raised to abandon their homes, travel to Constantinople, and present memorials to the emperor and archbishop. These are extant in Latin versions (ib.524 ff.). Timotheus Aelurus sent some bishops and clerics to plead his cause with the emperor. We possess a fragment of their petition (ib.536), to the effect that under their "most pious archbishop, the great city of the Alexandrians, with its churches and monasteries, was by God's favour enjoying complete peace," and that they and their archbishop held firmly to the Nicene Creed, refusing to admit any alterations in, or additions to, its text. The document, as we now have it, breaks off abruptly with the words, "for the church of the great city of the Alexandrians does not accept the council of Chalcedon"; but it appears from other evidence (Leo, Ep.149; Mansi, vii.522) that it went on to ask that the sanction given to that council might be recalled, and a new council summoned, asserting that the Alexandrian people, the civil dignitaries, the municipal functionaries, and the company of transporters of corn-freights, desired to retain Timotheus as their bishop. The emperor Leo refused the request of the emissaries of Timotheus for immediate action against the authority of the council of Chalcedon, which he had already constructively upheld by confirming the ecclesiastical acts of his predecessors (cf. pope Leo's Ep.149 with Mansi, vii.524), but yet deemed it expedient to send copies of both memorials to the bishops of Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and to 55 other prelates and three leading monks (one of them being Symeon Stylites), requesting their opinion as to the case of Timotheus and as to the authority of the council (Evagr. ii.9; Mansi, vii.521). Of the prelates consulted, all but one, the inconstant Amphilochius of Side, accepted the council of Chalcedon (Evagr. ii.10), and all condemned Timotheus in more or less energetic terms, although some with "a salvo, if the statements of the exiles were true" (Mansi, vii.537 ff.). In the early summer of 460 Leo I. sent orders to Stilas, the "dux" commanding at Alexandria, to expel Timotheus from the church, and to promote the election of an orthodox bishop (Liberat. Brev.15). "The Cat" was then ejected, but shewed his wonted acuteness by obtaining permission to come to Constantinople and pretend that he had adopted the Chalcedonian doctrine, as if heterodoxy had been his only fault, and so on becoming orthodox he might hope to retain his see. Pope Leo wrote, on June 17, 460, to the emperor Leo and to Gennadius, the new patriarch of Constantinople, urging that Timotheus, even supposing his conversion sincere, was disqualified by having "invaded so great a see during the lifetime of its bishop" (Epp.169, 170). Accordingly Timotheus was a second time exiled with his brother Anatolius -- first to Gangra and then, on his causing fresh disturbances, to a village on the shore of the Chersonesus which Eutychius calls Marsuphia (cf. Evagr. ii.11; Liberat. Brev.16; Theophan. Chronogr. i.186; Eutychius, ii.103); and during 16 years the church over which he had tyrannized was at peace under the rule of his namesake, Timotheus, called Salofaciolus. But when the next emperor, Zeno, fled from the usurper Basiliscus, towards the close of 475, a new scene opened for Aelurus. He was summoned to Constantinople, where his admirers greeted him with "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord!" (Simplicius, in Mansi, vii.976). The patriarch Acacius closed the churches against him, but he held services in private houses (Mansi, l.c.). Basiliscus recognized him as rightful bp. of Alexandria, and by his advice put forth a circular to the episcopate, condemning "the innovation in the faith which was made at Chalcedon" (Evagr. iii.4). But when the Eutychians of Constantinople, deeming his arrival a godsend, hastened to pay court to him, he disappointed them by declaring that he for his part accepted the statement which Cyril had in effect adopted at his reunion with John of Antioch, that "the Incarnate Word was consubstantial with us, according to the flesh" (ib.5). On his way home he visited Ephesus, and gratified its clergy and laity by declaring their church (the fifth in Christendom in point of dignity) to be free from that subjection to Constantinople which had been imposed on it by the 28th canon of Chalcedon (ib.6). When he reached Alexandria, the kindly and popular Salofaciolus was allowed to retire to his monastery at the suburb called Canopus. Aelurus did not long survive, dying probably in the autumn of 477 (Neale, Hist. Alex. ii.17).

[W.B.]

Timotheus Salofaciolus
Timotheus (19), commonly called Salofaciolus, patriarch of Alexandria, elected after the expulsion of Timotheus Aelurus, at the beginning of Aug.460. He was attached to the Chalcedonian dogma, and may be identified with the "Timotheus, presbyter, and a steward of the Alexandrian church," who signed the memorial which the persecuted Catholic bishops presented to the emperor Leo in 457 (Mansi, Concil. vii.530). His name Salofaciolus, or Salafaciolus, appears to be made up of a Coptic and a Latin word, and to signify "wearer of a white head-gear or cap" (Du Fresne, Gloss. Med. et Infim. Graecit. ii.1659). After his consecration he sent a letter to pope Leo, who replied in terms of warm congratulation, and urged the newly appointed "Catholic bishop of the Alexandrian church" to root out all remains of Nestorian as well as of Eutychian error (Ep.171, Aug.18, 460). Ten orthodox Egyptian bishops had also written to Leo that the election had been unstained by "canvassing, sedition, or unfairness of any kind," and that Timotheus was approved as worthy of so eminent a bishopric for purity of character and integrity of faith (Ep.173). "In his episcopal administration," says Liberatus, "he was exceedingly gentle, so that even those who were of his communion complained of him to the emperor for being too remiss and easy-going towards heretics, in consequence of which the emperor wrote to him not to allow the heretics to hold assemblies or to administer baptism; but he continued to treat them gently, and while he thus discharged his office the Alexandrians loved him, and cried aloud to him in the streets and in the churches, 'Even if we do not communicate with thee, yet we love thee.'" This gentleness became weakness when, in the hope of conciliating the Monophysites, he reinserted the name of Dioscorus in his church diptychs (Mansi, vii.983), and so gave occasion for the blundering Eutychius to rank him with the other Timotheus as a "Jacobite" (Ann. ii.103). When Timotheus Aelurus returned in 476 and took possession of the archbishopric, Salofaciolus was allowed to reside in the monastery of the monks of Tabennesus, situated in a suburb of Alexandria called Canopus (see Le Quien, Or. Christ. ii.415). He remained there when Aelurus died, fearing to cause a "tumult" if he shewed himself in the city; whereupon the Monophysites took the opportunity of electing and enthroning Peter Mongus, who had been archdeacon under Aelurus; but the Augustal prefect Anthemius, acting on a mandate from Zeno, expelled Peter from the church, and reinstated Timotheus Salofaciolus (Evagr. ii.11). This step was followed up by rigorous edicts, intended to overawe the numerous clerics, monks, and laymen who refused to communicate with the restored patriarch (Brev. Hist. Eutych. in Mansi, vii.1063). Peter Mongus was lurking in corners of Alexandria, "plotting against the church"; the patriarch wrote to Zeno and Simplicius, begging that he might be removed to a distance (Liberat. Brev.16; Mansi, l.c.). Simplicius pressed the point in letters to Acacius; but Zeno could not be induced to take this step against Peter, and probably Acacius was at least lukewarm in the cause. At last, according to the Breviculus, Timotheus sent John Talaia again to Constantinople, and obtained a promise that he should have a Catholic successor. Soon afterwards he "died undisturbed" (Liberat.), about midsummer 482, as we learn from letters of Simplicius dated July 15, 482 (Mansi, vii.991).

[W.B.]

Timotheus, patriarch of Constantinople
Timotheus (24), patriarch of Constantinople, appointed in 511 by the emperor Anastasius the day after the deposition of [589]MACEDONIUS (3). He had been priest and keeper of the ornaments of the cathedral, and was a man of bad character. He apparently adopted the Monophysite doctrines from ambition, not conviction. Two liturgical innovations are attributed to him, the prayers on Good Friday at the church of the Virgin, and the recital of the Nicene Creed at every service, though the last is also ascribed to Peter the Fuller. He sent circular letters to all the bishops, which he requested them to subscribe, and also to assent to the deposition of Macedonius. Some assented, others refused, while others again subscribed the letters but refused to assent to the deposition of Macedonius. The extreme Monophysites, headed by John Niciota, patriarch of Alexandria, whose name he had inserted in the diptychs, at first stood aloof from him, because, though he accepted the Henoticon, he did not reject the council of Chalcedon, and for the same reason Flavian II. of Antioch and Elias of Jerusalem at first communicated with him. With [590]SEVERUS of Antioch he afterwards assembled a synod which condemned that council, on which Severus communicated with him. Timothy sent the decrees of his synod to Jerusalem, where [591]ELIAS refused to receive them. Timothy then incited Anastasius to depose him (Liberat.18, 19; Mansi, viii.375). He also induced the emperor to persecute the clergy, monks, and laity who adhered to Macedonius, many of whom were banished to the Oasis in the Thebaid. His emissaries to Alexandria anathematized from the pulpit the council of Chalcedon. Within a year of his accession Timotheus directed that the Ter Sanctus should be recited with the Monophysite addition of "Who wast crucified for us." On Nov.4 and 5 this caused disturbances in two churches, in which many were slain, and the next day a terrible riot broke out which nearly caused the deposition of Anastasius. Timothy died Apr.5, 517. Vict. Tun. Chron.; Marcell. Chron.; Theod. Lect. ii.28, 29, 30, 32, 33; Evagr. iii.33; Theophanes; Tillem. Mém. eccl. xvi.691, 698, 728.

[F.D.]

Titus, emperor
Titus, emperor. [[592]VESPASIANUS.]

Titus, bishop of Bostra
Titus (2), bp. of Bostra in Arabia Auranitis, c.362-371, of very high repute for learning and eloquence. He is named by Jerome among the many distinguished Christian writers of great secular erudition and knowledge of Holy Scripture (Hieron. Ep.70 [84]). Jerome mentions his works, dwelling especially on three written against the Manicheans (Hieron. de Vir. Ill. c.102). He is also enumerated by Sozomen (H. E. iii.14, ad fin.) with Eusebius of Emesa, Basil of Ancyra, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others, as writers of the highest celebrity, whose learning is proved by the many remarkable writings they left. The appearance of Titus in such company, and his being distinctly reckoned among the Acacians by Socrates (H. E. iii.25), makes his orthodoxy doubtful. He is chiefly known to us from the attempt made by the emperor Julian to induce the citizens of Bostra to expel him as a calumniator of their city. The pagan inhabitants made the authoritative revival of their cult by Julian the signal for organized attacks on their Christian fellow-citizens. The Christians retaliated. Julian, choosing to assume that the Christians were responsible for these disturbances, threatened to call Titus and the city clergy to judicial account if any fresh outbreak occurred (Soz. H. E. v.15). Titus replied that though the Christian population exceeded the heathen in numbers, in obedience to his admonitions they had remained quiet under severe provocations and there was no fear of the peace of the city being disturbed by them (ib.). Julian then issued a rescript to the citizens of Bostra, Aug.1, 362, charging Titus with calumniating them by his representations that they only abstained from violence in obedience to his monitions, and calling upon them to drive him out of their city as a public enemy (Julian Imp. Ep.52, p.437). The death of Julian found Titus still bp. of Bostra (Rendell, Emperor Julian, pp.188, 222). On the accession of Jovian, Titus is enumerated by Socrates (H. E. iii.25) as a member of the Acacian party. According to Jerome, he died in the reign of Valens, c.370. Of his works (Soz. H. E. iii.14) we have only very scanty remains. Of that against the Manichees in four books ("fortes libros," l.c.) commended by Jerome and referred to by Epiphanius (Haer. lxvi. c.21) and Theodoret (Haer. Fab. lib. i. c.26), three books exist in MS. in the library of the Johanneum at Hamburg. Tillem. Mém. eccl. vii.385; Ceill. Aut. eccl. vi.43 ff.; Cave, Hist. Lit. i.228; Migne, Patr. Gk. xviii.1069 ff.; Fabr. Bibl. Graec. vi.748, viii.684, ix.320; Clinton, Fasti Rom. No.141.

[E.V.]

Trajanus, M. Ulpius
Trajanus (1), M. Ulpius (Nerva), emperor, belonged to a family of Italian origin settled in the colony of Italica in Baetica. He was born on Sept.18, probably in a.d.53, and passed his early life in the army under his father, a distinguished officer who had risen to the consulship. In Oct.97, being then in command of the army of Lower Germany, he was adopted by Nerva, with whom, till his death on Jan.27, he reigned jointly, and then became sole emperor. He remained on the Rhine, placing that frontier in a state of defence, till in the latter half of 99 he made his entrance into Rome, being received with the greatest joy. He died at Selinus in Cilicia, probably c. Aug.7 or 8, 117.

For us the interest of his life centres in the famous rescript, addressed to his friend Pliny in reply to his letter detailing his procedure towards the Christians in Bithynia. Pliny had arrived in his province immediately before Sept.18, 110, or more probably 111 (Mommsen, Hermes, 1869, 59), and the letter was probably written in the year after his arrival. The rescript is one of a series of replies to inquiries on the most various subjects -- police, baths, sewerage, precautions against fires water supply, public buildings, etc. -- and neither Pliny nor Trajan seems to have considered the subject one of special importance. Pliny's letter is the earliest heathen account of the services and behaviour of the Christians, and Trajan's reply is the earliest piece of legislation about Christianity that we possess.

After stating that, having never been present at trials of Christians, he was ignorant of the precise nature of the crime and the usual punishment, and also how far it was the practice to pursue the inquiry, Pliny asks the emperor whether any distinction should be made on the ground of age; whether those who abjured Christianity should be pardoned, or a man who had embraced Christianity gain by renouncing it; whether the mere name apart from any crime or the crimes associated with the name should be punished? Provisionally he had taken the following course in the case of those charged before him with being Christians. "I demanded," he says, "of the accused themselves if they were Christians, and if they admitted it, I repeated the question a second and a third time, threatening them with punishment; if they persisted, I ordered them to be led to execution. For I felt convinced that, whatever it might be they confessed they were, at any rate their unyielding obstinacy deserved punishment. Some others, who were Roman citizens, I decided should be sent to Rome for trial. In the course of the proceedings, as is generally the case, the number of persons involved increased and several varieties appeared. An anonymous document was presented to me which contained the names of many. Those who denied that they were or ever had been Christians I thought should be released when they had, after my example, invoked the gods and offered incense and wine to your image, which I had ordered to be brought for the purpose along with those of the gods, and had also blasphemed Christ, none of which things, it is said, can those who are really Christians be compelled to do. Others, who were accused by an informer, first said they were Christians and then denied it, saying that they had been, but had ceased to be, some three years, some several, and one twenty years ago. All adored your image and those of the gods, and blasphemed Christ. They declared that all the wrong they had committed, wittingly or unwittingly, was this, that they had been accustomed on a fixed day to meet before dawn and sing antiphonally a hymn to Christ as a god, and bind themselves by a solemn pledge [sacramento] not to commit any enormity, but to abstain from theft, brigandage, and adultery, to keep their word, and not to refuse to restore what had been entrusted to their charge if demanded. After these ceremonies they used to disperse and assemble again to share a common meal of innocent food, and even this they had given up after I had issued the edict by which, according to your instructions, I prohibited secret societies [hetaeriae]. I therefore considered it the more necessary, in order to ascertain what truth there was in this account, to examine two slave-girls, who were called deaconesses [ministrae], and even to use torture. I found nothing except a perverted and unbounded superstition. I therefore have adjourned the investigation and hastened to consult you, for I thought the matter was worth consulting you about, especially on account of the numbers who are involved. For many of every age and rank, and of both sexes, are already and will be summoned to stand their trial. For this superstition has infected not only the towns, but also the villages and country; yet it apparently can be checked and corrected. At any rate it is certainly the case that the temples which were almost deserted begin to be frequented, the sacred ceremonies which had long been interrupted to be resumed, and there is a sale for fodder for the victims ["pastumque venire victimarum," so Lightfoot], for which previously hardly a buyer was to be found. From this one can easily conclude what a number of people may be reformed, if they are given a chance of repentance." Trajan replied with the following rescript: "You have followed the right course, my dear Secundus, in investigating the cases of those denounced to you as Christians, for no fixed rule can be laid down for universal adoption. Search is not to be made for them; if they are accused and convicted they are to be punished, yet with the proviso that if a man denies he is a Christian and gives tangible proof of it by adoring our gods, he shall by his repentance obtain pardon, however strong the suspicion against him may be. But no notice should be taken of anonymous accusations in any kind of proceeding. For they are of most evil precedent and are inconsistent with our times" (Plini et Trajani Epp.96, 97).

Besides the interesting information thus afforded on the belief and practice of the early Christians (hints are apparently given of the existence of some formula of prayer, of the Eucharist and Agape), what light does it throw on the legal position of the Christians? That trials of Christians had to Pliny's knowledge already taken place appears by it, and the allusion cannot be to the Neronian persecution when he was scarcely three years old, and hardly can be to that which was commenced and almost immediately discontinued by Domitian, assuming that the objects of it were Christians and not Jews. Pliny's language points rather to proceedings of a regular kind against Christians. On the other hand, the fact that a man who had attained distinction at the bar, and who had held all the high offices of state, had never witnessed a trial of this kind, proves that they were rare. Again, no statutory enactments as to Christianity existed, or Trajan would have referred to them in his rescript according to his usual custom, when senatus consulta or edicts of preceding emperors bore on the subject on which he is writing (cf. lxvi. and lxxiii.). Pliny's action was therefore based on the fact that Christianity was a religio illicita, its professors members of a collegium illicitum, at what might be termed the Roman common law. While Christians were regarded by the Roman government as a mere variety of Jews, they shared in the toleration enjoyed by Judaism as a religio licita. When the separation between the two religions became apparent to Roman eyes, Christianity lost this shelter and its professors fell under the ban that extended to all unlawful associations. The exact time when the Romans became aware of the distinction has been the subject of much controversy; at any rate, it had become apparent by the end of the 1st cent. Nero does not appear to have issued any edicts against Christians in general, and if Christianity, either apart from or along with Judaism, suffered under Domitian (Dion, lxvii.14), all the measures on the subject were repealed by Nerva on his accession (ib. lxviii.1).

What, then, was the effect of Trajan's rescript? Formally it made the position of the Christians worse. It confirmed, by a positive enactment, the view Pliny had taken of their status at common law. Practically, however, the qualifications that they were not to be sought for, and anonymous accusations ignored -- qualifications due to Trajan's abhorrence of delation in all its forms (cf. Juv. iv.87; Tac. Ann. iv.30; Pliny, Pan.34, 35), and from which it was his especial pride to be free -- must frequently have been a boon to the Christians. This secondary bearing of the rescript was first insisted on by Tertullian (e.g. Apol. c.5, in Migne, Patr. Lat. i.276) and the primary thrown into the background. >From Tertullian this view of the rescript passed to Eusebius and from him to other Christian writers, till at last it came to be taken as an edict of toleration terminating a general persecution (Sulp. Sev. ii.31; Orosius, vii.12, in Patr. Lat. xx.146, xxxi.1091), a theory excluded by the words of the rescript itself, "That no fixed rule could be laid down for the whole empire." It was not from favour to the Christians that these limitations were introduced, and Trajan's chief objection to them was his dread of secret societies, which were especially prevalent in Bithynia (Epp. xxxiv. xciii. cxvii.).

Overbeck (Studien zur Geschichte der Alten Kirche) maintained that the rescript was the law that regulated the position of the Christians till the beginning of the persecution of Severus in 202, and that from Tertullian downwards a thoroughly mistaken view of it had been taken. He asserts that during this period it regulated the practice of the emperors, and that they did not deviate from it either in favour of the Christians or against them. He supports his position by pointing out that Justin Martyr under Antoninus Pius, Athenagoras under M. Aurelius, and Tertullian under Severus (Apol. I.4, Legatio pro Christ.1 and 2, in Patr. Gk. vi.333, 892-893, and Apol.1-4, in Patr. Lat. i.259-289), all agree in stating that the mere name of Christian was punishable. The trials of Ptolemy and Lucius before the prefect of the city are conducted precisely in the manner laid down by the rescript (Justin, Apol. II. in Patr. Gk. vi.445). M. Aurelius, on the occasion of the persecution of Lyons, issues a rescript following the same rule, that those who abjured Christianity should be released, those who refused should be executed (Eus. H. E. v.1). Overbeck, therefore, rejects not only the protection edicts ascribed to M. Aurelius and Antoninus Pius, which are now generally considered to be forgeries, but also, following Keim, argues (134-148) for the spuriousness of Hadrian's letter to Minucius Fundanus, which has usually been thought to be genuine, and which is not really inconsistent with Trajan's rescript.

The only martyrs known by name as having suffered under Trajan are the bishops Symeon of Jerusalem and [593]IGNATIUS of Antioch.

For Trajan's relations with the Christians consult also Eusebius (H. E. iii.32, 33, 36), Tillemont, Mém. eccl. (ii.167-212), and Gibbon (c.16). The ancient authorities for his reign are singularly meagre, and the dates, and even the order of many important events, have been determined only by the evidence of inscriptions and coins.

[F.D.]

Trophimus, an Italian bishop
Trophimus (1) (Cyp. Ep.55, 11), an Italian bishop (sacerdotii) who with all his flock offered incense in the Decian persecution. He was restored to lay-communion by Cornelius, bp. of Rome. It is not denied that his people's attachment to him, and the assurance that they would follow his return, eased the reception of Trophimus. The Novatianists forwarded to Africa the misstatement that Cornelius had restored him to his episcopal orders, and so shook the confidence of some in him; but Cyprian of his own knowledge denies the statement. It is improbable that a lapsed bishop would be obliged or allowed to do public penance. The expression that Trophimus with "penance of entreaty confessed his own fault" is itself against it, and although it is said that he made "satisfaction," it is presently added that "the return of the brethren made satisfaction for him." The restoration seems to have been made at the Roman council of June (or July) a.d.251, from the words (Ep.55, ix. [6], H.11), "Tractatu cum collegis plurimis habito susceptus est." Ritschl (Cyprian von Karthago, p.79) calls Trophimus a "sacrificatus," though the case of the sacrificati is treated separately in the next section of Ep.55, and the words "Trofimo et turificatis" do not make it certain that he was even a "Turificatus."

[E.W.B.]

Trophimus, 1st bishop of Arles
Trophimus (3), St., 1st bp. of Arles, a subject of eager controversy. According to the tradition of the see, he was the disciple of St. Paul mentioned in Acts and II. Tim., and was sent forth as a missionary to Arles by St. Peter or St. Paul, or both. As early as 417 pope Zosimus, in a letter to the bishops of Gaul, speaking of the city of Arles, says, "Ad quam primum ex hâc sede Trophimus summus antistes, ex cujus fonte totae Galliae fidei rivulos acceperunt, directus est" (Ep.1, Patr. Lat. xx.645); and in the same pope's letter to Hilary, bp. of Narbonne, Trophimus was "quondam ad Arelatensem urbem ab apostolica sede transmissus" (Ep.6, Patr. Lat. ib, 667) Again, the 19 bishops of the province of Arles, writing to pope Leo about the middle of 5th cent., assert that it is known to all Gaul and to the church of Rome "prima intra Gallias Arelatensis civitas missum a beatissimo Petro apostolo sanctum Trophimum habere meruit sacerdotem, et exinde aliis paulatim regionibus Galliarum bonum fidei et religionis infusum" (Patr. Lat. liv.1880), though it should be mentioned that the genuineness of this letter has been questioned. So, too, Ado, in his Martyrologium (Dec.29) and Chronicon. On the other hand, Gregory of Tours, apparently quoting from the Acta of St. Saturninus, says in effect that Trophimus arrived in Gaul with the first bishops of Tours, Paris, and other cities in the consulate of Decius and Gratus, i.e. after the middle of 3rd cent.; and in a very old catalogue of the archbishops published by Mabillon, Vetera Analecta, p.220 (Paris, 1723), he is preceded by Dionysius, as though he were the second bishop. The question, to which some bitterness has been imparted as being closely connected with the hotly resented claims of the early archbps. of Arles to a sort of primacy in Gaul, is elaborately discussed by Trichaud (Hist. de l'Eglise d'Arles, i.21-143). The cathedral church at Arles was dedicated to Trophimus, with St. Stephen (Gall. Christ. i.519).

[S.A.B.]

---

Footnotes:

[112] This negative form is found in substance in Tob. iv. 15. It maybe due to the influence of the Didaché that it is found appended in this form to the instructions to Gentiles in Acts 15.in D. and some cursive MSS., confirmed by Irenaeus or his translator (III. xii. 14) and Cyprian (Test. iii. 119) The precept is found in the same form in Theophilus (ad Autol. ii. 34); but the context does not furnish coincidences such as would prove the Didaché the source. Lampridius says (Alex. Sev. 51) that Alexander Severus was fond of quoting this precept, which he had learned either from some Jews or Christians.

[113] In the Ep. of Ignatius, "the Prophets" means O.T. prophets, and there is no indication of an order of prophets then in the Christian church.