Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus and his Homily IV “On Matter and Cosmos” from the treatise “Treatment of Hellenic Ailments”

See also: Treatment of Hellenic ailments. Word IV. About matter and space The text below is a translation from ancient Greek of one of the twelve Words that are part of the famous and not yet translated into Russian apologetic work of the blessed one. Theodoret of Cyrus (393–466) "Treatment of Hellenic ailments." The future Bishop of Cyrus was born around 393 in Antioch, into a noble Christian family, and received an excellent ecclesiastical and secular education 1 . At the age of sixteen, Theodoret became a reader in the church, and then, inflamed with the desire to please God in a monastic form, he settled in the Nikert monastery not far from Apamea. In 423, at the age of about thirty, Theodoret became bishop of the small city of Cyrus, located east of Antioch. Here blzh. Theodoret devoted all his strength to serving the local church and the city as a whole. In the dispute that arose between St. Cyril and Nestorius, Theodoret initially defended Nestorius and even wrote some works against St. Cyril, in whose views he allegedly saw the revival of the Apollinarian heresy. He also participated in the “anti-Cyril” “conciliar of the eastern”, held in Ephesus in 431 after the Third Ecumenical Council. However, in 433 between St. Kirill and the “eastern” ones, which included Blzh. Theodoret, a theological reconciliation was concluded; much of Theodorit’s formula subsequently formed the basis of the creed of the IV Ecumenical Council of 451. After the death of St. Cyril of Alexandria in 444, Dioscorus ascended to the see of Alexandria, who, taking advantage of the patronage of Emperor Theodosius II, began to weave intrigues against Theodoret. First, by decree of the emperor in 448, the Bishop of Cyrus was actually placed under house arrest with a ban on leaving the diocese, and in 449 Dioscorus held the so-called Robber Council in Ephesus, at which Bl. Theodoret, without even being invited to answer, was deposed in absentia on various trumped-up charges. He was sent into exile to one of the monasteries in Apamea. After the death of Theodosius II and the accession of the Orthodox Emperor Marcian to the throne in 450, Theodritus was acquitted at the Fourth Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in 451. After this, Theodoritus probably returned to the see in Cyrus and ended his days in the service of God and the people of God. His death falls, according to various assumptions, in 457–466. “Treatment of Hellenic Illnesses” (or, as the more complete title says in the preface to the work, “Treatment of Hellenic Illnesses, or knowledge of the Gospel truth from Hellenic philosophy”) is the most important apologetic work of Blessed. Theodorit. This latest fully surviving early Christian apology is regarded as perhaps the best extant. It consists of twelve words, or discourses, in which the author thus compares Christian and pagan answers to the fundamental questions of philosophy and religion, so as, as the second title shows, to fully reveal the superiority of the Gospel over Greek philosophy. According to patrolologist Johann Quasten, The Treatment of Hellenic Ailments, more than any other work by Theodoret, demonstrates his erudition in classical ancient literature. The author quotes more than a hundred ancient philosophers, giving about three hundred and forty quotations. However, he cites most of them, by his own admission, not directly from the originals, but from secondary sources - especially from the “Stromata” of Clement of Alexandria and the “Gospel Preparation” of Eusebius of Caesarea 2 . Since blzh. Theodoret mentions "The Treatment of Hellenic Maladies" in letter 113, which is generally believed to have been written before 449. Most scholars date it to 437. Marcel Richard believes that the Christological terminology here refers to the period before the beginning of the division of theologians (obviously, we are talking about the disputes over Nestorius, which began in 428–429), and the editor of Theodoret's text in series Sources chrétiennes 3 Pierre Canivet believes that it was written before the beginning of Theodoret’s bishopric in 423. 4 According to N.N. Glubokovsky, Theodoret’s work was written in 436–437, as it mentions a strict state law against pagans. Perhaps we are talking about the law of Emperor Theodosius II of 435 5 The publication presents a translation of Word IV “On Matter and Cosmos,” where the author criticizes the philosophical ideas of pagan Antiquity about the world and its origin, showing their contradictory nature, and contrasts them with the biblical teaching about the One God the Creator, who created the world out of nothing. Translation based on the publication: Theodoret de Cyr. Therapeutiques des maladies helleniques / Texte critique, introduction, traduction et notes Pierre Canivet. Paris: Edition du Cerf, 1958 (Sources Chrétiennes, no. 57). The pages of this edition are indicated in the text in square brackets and highlighted in font. The numbering of chapters (large periods of 2-3 sentences) is also given according to the French edition. If the works of ancient authors were translated into Russian, the citation is given according to them (with the necessary corrections and an indication of the edition). For more details, see: [Glubokovsky N.N.] Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Kirre. His life and literary activity: church-historical study of N. Glubokovsky. In 2 vols. T. 1. M.: Universitetskaya typ., 1890. P. 8–9; Sidorov A.I. Patristic heritage and church antiquities. T. 3. Alexandria and Antioch in the history of church writing and theology. M.: Sibirskaya Blagozvonnitsa, 2013. P. 585 From this voluminous work of Eusebius, only the XIV book and individual fragments have been translated into Russian to date. Thérapeutique des maladies helléniques / Texte critique, introd., traduction et notes de Pierre Canivet // Sources chrétiennes 57. Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1958. Quasten J. Patrology. Vol. 3. Westminster, Maryland: Christian Classics Inc., 1986, pp. 542–544. See: Glubokovsky N.N. Blessed Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrrhus. T. 1. P. 204.