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Diodorus of Tarsus

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Mar
Diodorus of Tarsus
Bishop of Tarsus
Born unknown
Antioch
(modern-day Antakya, Hatay, Turkey)
Died 390
Tarsus
(modern-day Tarsus, Mersin, Turkey)
Venerated in Church of the East
Controversy Christology
Influenced John Chrysostom
Theodore of Mopsuestia

Diodore of Tarsus (Greek Διόδωρος ὁ Ταρσεύς; died c. 390) was a Christian bishop, monastic reformer, and theologian.[1] A strong supporter of the orthodoxy of Nicaea, Diodore played a pivotal role in the Council of Constantinople and opposed the anti-Christian policies of Julian the Apostate. Diodore founded one of the most influential centers of Christian thought in the early church, and many of his students became notable theologians in their own right.

Early life

Diodore was born into a noble family in the area of Antioch. He received a classic philosophical education at the school of Athens, and very quickly after his education he entered into the monastic life.[2] During this period, Diodore's work focused on philosophical treatises and opposing Emperor Julian's attempts to restore paganism in the empire. When an Arian named Leontius was made bishop of Antioch, Diodore and his friend Flavian (who later was appointed as bishop of Antioch) organized those who followed the Nicene orthodoxy outside the walls of the city for worship. Those services are seen as the beginning of antiphonal singing in the church, a practice that became widespread among Christians.[3]

During his time at the monastery in Antioch, Diodore came under the tutelage of Meletius of Antioch. Meletius was elected bishop in 360 and ordained Diodore as a priest. When the Antioch split into factions, Diodore was a strong supporter of Meletius and of his move towards Nicene orthodoxy. Diodore was noted for living with few possessions, being dependent on alms for food, frequently being imprisoned on account of his beliefs. His physical appearance was rough, but John Chrysostom describes his expression as angelic.[4]

Priesthood

During his priesthood, Diodore founded a monastery and catechetical school near the city of Antioch. It was through this school that Diodore became the mentor of the controversial theologian and liturgist Theodore of Mopsuestia as well as Chrysostom.[5][6] This school would give rise to the unique Antiochene perspectives on both biblical interpretation and Christology known as the Antiochene School.[7] Ultimately, taken to the extreme, the perspective set out for this school by Diodore led to the teachings of Nestorius, which were first condemned at the First Council of Ephesus in 431.

It was Diodore's role as the head of the Antiochene School which led to his exile in 372. Banished to Armenia by Emperor Valens, Diodore encountered a fellow supporter of the Nicene faction, Basil of Caesarea, during his exile.[8] When Diodore returned from exile following the death of Valens in 378, he was appointed as the bishop of Tarsus by Meletius of Antioch.[9]

Episcopate

As bishop of the see of Tarsus, Diodore continued to speak out for the Nicene understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine in the person of Jesus Christ. He actively opposed both the Arianism and the Apollinarianism of his day (Arius taught that Jesus Christ was a creation of god, rather than a child and subordinate to him; Apollinaris of Laodicea spoke of the Incarnation in ways that left him open to the charge that Christ was not in all aspects human by saying that his mind was divine and non-rational).

Diodore played key roles in both the local Council of Antioch (379) and the ecumenical First Council of Constantinople in 381. When their mentor Meletius died in 381, Diodore recommended his friend Flavian as his successor, thus prolonging the division in the Antiochene church.[10] Diodore died around 394.

Theology

The Christology of Diodore was condemned as heretical by later generations, most explicitly at a local synod in Constantinople in 499 which described Diodore's views as Nestorian.[11] Certainly, a similarly negative view of Diodore was held by Cyril of Alexandria. However, in his own generation Diodore was seen as someone who supported the orthodoxy of Nicaea, and in his official decree ratifying the actions of the First Council of Constantinople, Emperor Theodosius I describes Diodore as a "champion of the faith."[11]

The specifics of Diodore's theology are difficult to reconstruct, as all that remains of his works are fragments of uncertain provenance.[12][13] Much of Diodore's theology has been inferred from the later statements of his students and the intellectual heirs of the Antiochene School.

According to universalist clergyman John Mather Austin (1855) Diodorus was also a universalist since Saloman, Bishop of Bassorah in his Book of the Bee (1222) proclaimed the salvation of all men and cited the opinions of both Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia in support of his view.[14] According to Universalist writer J. W. Hanson (1899) Diodorus believed that God's mercy would punish the wicked less than their sins deserved, inasmuch as his mercy gave the good more than they deserved and he denied that God would bestow immortality for the purpose of prolonging or perpetuating suffering.[15]

Diodorus according to Joseph Simon Assemani’s Bibliotheca Orientalis (1728)

— "For the wicked there are punishments, not perpetual, however, lest the immortality prepared for them should be a disadvantage, but they are to be purified for a brief period according to the amount of malice in their works. They shall therefore suffer punishment for a short space, but immortal blessedness having no end awaits them, the penalties to be inflicted for their many and grave sins are very far surpassed by the magnitude of the mercy to be showed them. The resurrection, therefore, is regarded as a blessing not only to the good, but also to the evil."[16]

See also

  • Christian Universalism
  • Early Christianity
  • Eastern Christianity
  • Theoria

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

Diodorus of Tarsus — Date of birth uncertain; d. about A.D. 392. He was of noble family, probably of Antioch. St. Basil calls him a "nursling" of Silvanus, Bishop of Tarsus, but whether this discipleship was at Antioch or at Tarsus is not known. He studied at Athens, then embraced the monastic state. He became head of a monastery in or near Antioch, and St. Chrysostom was his disciple. When Antioch groaned under Arian bishops, he did not join the small party of irreconcilables headed by Paulinus, yet when Bishop Leontius made Aetius a deacon Diodorus and Flavian threatened to leave his communion and retire to the West, and the bishop yielded. These two holy men, though not priests taught the people to sing the Psalms in alternate choirs (a practice which quickly spread throughout the Church), at first in the chapels of the martyrs, then, at Leontius's invitation, in the churches. When at length, in 361, the Arian party appointed an orthodox bishop in the person of St. Meletius, Diodorus was made priest. He seems to have written some of his works against the pagans as early as the reign of Julian, for that emperor declared that Diodorus had used the learning and eloquence of Athens against the immortal gods, who had punished him with sickness of the throat, emaciation, wrinkles, and a hard and bitter life. In the persecution of Valens (364-78), Flavian and Diodorus, now priests, during the exile of Meletius kept the Catholics together, assembling them on the northern bank of the Orontes, since the Arian emperor did not permit Catholic worship within the city. Many times banished, Diodorus, in 372, made the acquaintance of St. Basil in Armenia, whither that saint had come to visit Meletius. On the return of the latter to his flock, he made Diodorus Bishop of Tarsus and Metropolitan of Cilicia. Theodosius soon after, in a decree, named Diodorus and St. Pelagius of Laodicea as norms of orthodoxy for the whole East. Diodorus was at the Councils of Antioch in 379 and of Constantinople in 381. Sozomen makes him responsible at the latter council for the proposal of Nectarius as bishop of that city, and represents him as one of the chief movers in the appointment of St. Flavian as successor to Meletius, by which the unhappy schism at Antioch was prolonged.

Diodorus came to Antioch in 386 or later, when St. Chrysostom was already a priest. In a sermon he spoke of Chrysostom as a St. John the Baptist, the Voice of the Church, the Rod of Moses. Next day Chrysostom ascended the pulpit and declared that when the people had applauded, he had groaned; it was Diodorus, his father, who was John the Baptist, the Antiochenes could bear witness how he had lived without possessions, having his food from alms, and persevering in prayer and preaching; like the Baptist he had taught on the other side of the river, often he had been imprisoned--nay, he had been often beheaded, at least in will, for the Faith. In another sermon he likens Diodorus to the martyrs: "See his mortified limbs, his face, having the form of a man, but the expression of an Angel!"

St. Basil in 375 asked Diodorus to disown a fictitious letter circulated in his name, permitting marriage with a deceased wife's sister. In the following year he criticizes the rhetorical style of the longer of two treatises sent him by Diodorus, but gives warm praise to the shorter. Diodorus's style is praised by Chrysostom, Theodoret, and Photius, but of his very numerous writings of a few unimportant fragments have been preserved, chiefly in Catenae (q.v). He wrote against some of the heresies and still more against heathen philosophy. Photius gives a detailed summary of his eight books "de Fato"; they were evidently very dull from a modern point of view. According to Leontius he composed commentaries on the whole Bible. St. Jerome says that these were imitations of those of Eusebius of Emesa, but less distinguished by secular learning. Diodorus rejected the allegorical interpretation of the Alexandrians, and adhered to the literal sense. In this he was followed by his disciple Theodore of Mopsuestia, and by Chrysostom in his unequalled expositions. The Antiochene School of which he was the leader was discredited by the subsequent heresies of Nestorius, of whom his disciple Theodore of Mopsuestia was the precursor. Theodoret wrote to exculpate Diodorus, but St. Cyril declared him a heretic. The damning passages cited by Darius Mercator and Leontius seem, however, to belong to a work of Theodore, not of Diodorus; nor was the latter condemned when Theodore and passages of Theodoret and Ibas (the Three Chapters) were condemned by the Fifth General Council (553). It seems certain that Diodorus went too far in his opposition to (the younger) Apollinarius of Laodicea, according to whom the rational soul in Christ was supplied by the Logos. Diodorus, in emphasizing the completeness of the Sacred Humanity, appears to have asserted two hypostases, not necessarily in a heretical sense. If the developments by Theodore throw a shade on the reputation of Diodorus, the praise of all his contemporaries and especially of his disciple Chrysostom tend yet more strongly to exculpate him. It will be best to look upon Diodorus as the innocent source of Nestorianism (q.v.) only in the sense that St. Cyril of Alexandria is admittedly the unwilling origin of Monophysitism through some incorrect expressions. Against this view are Julicher [in Theol. lit. Z. (1902), 82-86] and Funk [in "Rev. d' hist. eccl.", III (1902), 947-71; reprinted with improvements in "Kirchengesch, Abhandl." (Paderborn, 1907), III, 323].

The fragments of his Commentaries on the Old Testament are collected in Migne, P.G., XXXIII, from the Catena of Nicephorus and that published by Corderius (Antwerp, 1643-6), also from Mai, "Nova Patrum Bibl.", VI. A few more are found in Pitra "Spicilegium Solesmense" (Paris, 1852), I. A long list of the lost works is in Fabricius, "Bibl. Gr.", V, 24 (reprinted in Migne loc. cit.). Some Syriac dogmatic fragments are in Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca", (Leipzig and London, 1858). Four treatises of Pseudo-Justin Martyr have been attributed to Diodorus by Harnack ("Texte und Unters.", N.F., VI, 4, 1901).

John Chapman.

References

  1. Back to citation "Diodorus of Tarsus". Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
  2. Back to citation Julian, Letters, 55.
  3. Back to citation Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Flavian I.". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 484.
  4. Back to citation Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Diodorus of Tarsus". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
  5. Back to citation Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, 6.3
  6. Back to citation Rowan A Greer, "Diodore of Tarsus," in The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson, second edition (New York:Garland Publishing, 1997).
  7. Back to citation Frederick W Norris, "Antioch" in The Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, ed. Everett Ferguson, second edition (New York:Garland Publishing, 1997).
  8. Back to citation Catholic Encyclopedia, "Diodorus of Tarsus".
  9. Back to citation "Henry Wace: Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century A.D., with an Account of the Principal Sects and Heresies. - Christian Classics Ethereal Library". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2026-04-23.
  10. Back to citation Norris, "Antioch".
  11. Back to citation occurrence 11.0 Back to citation occurrence 11.1 Kelly, J. N. D. (1978). Early Christian Doctrines (revised ed.). San Francisco: HarperCollins. p. 302. ISBN 0-06-064334-X.
  12. Back to citation What remains is fragments in the catenae on the Hexateuch and the Pauline Epistles. Recently a complete commentary on the Psalms has been discovered, which its editor ascribes to Diodore. Andrew Louth, 'John Chrysostom to Theodoret of Cyrrhus', in Frances Young, Lewis Ayres and Andrew Young, eds, The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, (2010), p344
  13. Back to citation Parry, Ken and David Melling (editors). The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 1999. ISBN 0-631-23203-6
  14. Back to citation J. M. Austin. "Brief History of Universalism Archived 2007-12-26 at the Wayback Machine". Ca. 1855.
  15. Back to citation J.W. Hanson. Universalism: The Prevailing Doctrine Of The Christian Church During Its First Five Hundred Years. "Chapter 18 Additional Authorities Archived 2013-05-12 at the Wayback Machine". Boston and Chicago Universalist Publishing House. 1899.
  16. Back to citation J. W. Hanson, citing Assemani Bib. Orientalis, III, p. 324.
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