Theodore of Mopsuestia

Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350–428) was the leading biblical exegete of the Antiochene school, known for his insistence on the literal-historical sense of Scripture over allegorical interpretation. Born in Antioch, he studied rhetoric under the pagan sophist Libanius alongside John Chrysostom, then trained in biblical interpretation at the ascetic school of Diodore (at that time based in Antioch, later bishop of Tarsus). Ordained presbyter in Antioch in 383, he subsequently joined Diodore in Tarsus before being consecrated bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia around 392, a see he held for over three decades until his death. His prolific commentaries on nearly every book of the Bible — most surviving only in Syriac or Latin fragments — profoundly shaped the exegetical tradition of the Church of the East. He was a principal intellectual forerunner of Nestorius, and although he died in good standing with the Church, his writings were posthumously condemned at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) for Christological views deemed proto-Nestorian. He remains a towering, if contested in legacy, figure in the history of biblical interpretation and early Christology, celebrated as "The Interpreter" (Mephasqana) in the Syriac East.