Trials of Theodoret
1.
It was the happy lot of Chrysostom to live in the lull between those fierce doctrinal tempests, which from time to time swept over the face of early Christendom: it was the great misfortune of Theodoret to pass his life under their wildest fury. Hence it has come to pass that, while Chrysostom is a Saint all over the world, Theodoret has the responsibility of acts which have forfeited for him that ecumenical dignity. He was betrayed into great errors of judgment, as even Popes have been betrayed; but, like Popes, without thereby committing himself to any heresy. In the great controversy of his day he was carried away by private, party, national feeling; but he was a great Bishop and writer notwithstanding. Yes, a great and holy Bishop; nor is there anything in his life, as it has come down to us, to forbid our saying that he was as genuine a Saint even as those whose names are in the calendar. Cyril, his antagonist, has not the burden of his ecclesiastical mistakes, but neither has he the merit of his recorded good works. Nor indeed is Theodoret without honorary title in the Church’s hagiology: for he has ever been known as “the Blessed Theodoret.” And this at least he had in common with St. Chrysostom, that both of them were deposed from their episcopal rank by a Council, both appealed to the Holy See, and by the Holy See both were cleared and restored to their ecclesiastical dignities.
But Theodoret had a further likeness to the great John Chrysostom. Nor only in the outlines of his history, but in its circumstances the one was parallel to the other. They were both natives of Antioch; both disciples of the Syrian exegetical school; both of one and the same ecclesiastical party. They both commented largely on Scripture, and in illustration of its literal sense: Theodoret more learned and of more versatile talents than Chrysostom, and Chrysostom more earnest than Theodoret in his tone, and more eloquent in his language. Theodoret was of the generation next after Chrysostom; he was five years old when Chrysostom left Antioch for the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, and not more than fourteen when Chrysostom died a martyr’s death at Comana.
Theodoret’s contemporaries at Antioch were John and Nestorius;—John, afterwards Bishop of that city and Patriarch of the East; and Nestorius, to his own and the Church’s heavy calamity, Patriarch of Constantinople; and he became attached at least to the former by the tie of familiar intercourse, and the sympathies of a common education. I must not forget his attachment to Theodore also,—Theodore, the great commentator, as he was called, the friend of St. Chrysostom; though Theodore has, in the event, left an evil memory of himself in the Church, as well as Nestorius. However, we must not class Theodore with Nestorius, a self-convicted heretic, for no one in Theodore’s lifetime, not himself more than others, understood and foresaw—nought but the trial of years brought to light,—the direction and scope of his teaching.
2.
Of Theodoret’s father we know enough in knowing that he was a Christian, and a pious one. So was his mother; that is, she had a strong sense of religion from the first, though for a while she lived to the world, as the bulk of Christians do at this day. After some years of married life she turned to God, under the trial of disappointment and ailments of body. She seems to have been wealthy, her mother having property in the neighbourhood of Antioch. She was married at seventeen; and, as a rich and handsome lady, she was fond of dress, and did not deny herself even the use of cosmetics. Thus passed six years, and she had no child; this was her first grief, at least on her husband’s account; and her second, at the end of that time, was a complaint in one of her eyes, for which medicine did nothing. In her distress she turned to a Higher Power, and she sought Him through the intercession of His servants.
There was at that time in Antioch a holy solitary named Peter, a Galatian by race. By the sign of the Cross he had cured the eyes of a great personage, wife of the Prefect of the East. To him accordingly went the mother of Theodoret, but without reflecting that silks and jewels and the other accessories of fashion were as unsuitable in a suppliant as the horses and chariots of Naaman. What the holy recluse first saw in her was the ailment of her soul; not the malady of her eyes, but the paint upon her cheeks, and he addressed himself at once to what was her chief misery. “God made you what you are,” he said, “and you think to improve upon His work. He has given to your countenance a natural red and white, and you proceed to daub with pigments the lineaments and tints traced and spread by a Divine Master. Do you think a human artist would be pleased if some rude sign painter took on him to restore and furbish up his masterpiece; yet you profane God’s handywork, nay, His very image, by adding to it an adulterous beauty,—I say adulterous, for why do you paint your face, except to draw upon you the eyes of men?”—Philoth., p. 1189 (ed. Schulze).
She received the rebuke, as a religious woman was sure to do. Then he made the sign of the Cross over her, and she returned home healed in body and soul, and, either at once, or as time went on, gave herself up to an ascetic life.
3.
One cross was removed, but the other remained;—still she had no child. Her husband beset the holy hermits, who were round about Antioch, for the benefit of their prayers with this object, but in vain; he could not obtain the desire of his heart. Another weary course of years passed by, as many as seven; then at length his wife was assured by one of these recluses, named Macedonius, that provided, like Samuel’s mother, she could make up her mind to dedicate her child to the immediate service of God, her prayer should be heard. “You must give him to the Giver,” he said; she accepted the condition, and christened him, when born, by the name “Theodoret,” the gift of God: and brought him up in the sight, and under the lessons, and with the prayers, of both her holy benefactors, Peter and Macedonius.
Once a week the boy was taken to Peter to receive his blessing. “Often,” says Theodoret, “did Peter take me on his knees, and feed me with dried grapes and bread.” Philoth.,—p. 1188. “You are a child of many prayers,” said Macedonius to him; “see that your life be worthy of them. You have been set apart before your birth; such an offering is a consecration. There must be no base passions in your soul; that only must you do, say, and think, which is pleasing to the Lawgiver.” “Well do I remember his words,” continues Theodoret; “well was I taught the divine gift given to me; but little have my words corresponded to his lessons. God enable me to live the rest of my life according to them!”—Ibid. p. 1215.