The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret
Cyrrhus · 458
T
Theodoret of Cyrus
Theodoret of Cyrus
393 CE–458 CE · Antioch
Theodoret of Cyrrhus (c. 393–458) was a bishop, theologian, and church historian born and educated at Antioch who served as Bishop of Cyrrhus in Syria for roughly thirty-five years. A leading figure of the Antiochene theological school, he was drawn into the Christological controversies of the fifth century, opposing Cyril of Alexandria at the Council of Ephesus (431) and suffering exile after the Robber Council of Ephesus (449). He was fully vindicated at the Council of Chalcedon (451) and returned to his see, where he died around 458, leaving behind a vast corpus of biblical commentaries, polemical treatises, and the Ecclesiastical History.
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Stop 1 of 6393–416Birthplace, Early Formation
AntiochSyria
What they did here
Born c. 393 in Antioch on the Orontes and raised there; educated in Antiochene rhetorical and theological schools, and influenced by the ascetics Macedonius and Peter the Galatian whom his mother venerated, as he describes in his Historia Religiosa.
About Antioch
Antioch (Antakya), today in the Hatay province of southern Turkey near the Syrian border, was a major late-antique city that came under Muslim rule after the conquest of Syria, was retaken by the Byzantines in 969, and changed hands repeatedly during the Crusades. The poet al-Ma'arri (d. 1057) came from nearby Ma'arrat al-Nu'man; the astronomer al-Battani (d. 929) was active in the wider Syrian region.
In Antioch at the same time
Across the traditions, in Antioch at the same time
In the same place & time
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Sages whose lives overlapped with Theodoret of Cyrus’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Shenoute of Atripe, John Chrysostom, Cyril of Alexandria, Diadochus of Photice, Ibas of Edessa
The world in their lifetime
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Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Theodoret of Cyrus’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.