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Theodoret, Commentator on the Psalms THEODORET, COMMENTATOR ON THE PSALMS At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Theodoret was formally reinstated as bishop of Cyrus following deposition by the Robber Synod of Ephesus in 449, an assembly declared null and void by Pope Leo I the following year. In that year 451 Theodoret wrote to “the monks of Constantinople” a letter in which he claims authorship of thirty five works1 – a remarkable achievement for someone who for the same number of years, before retirement in 458, was bishop of a diocese with over 800 parishes in his care, and who was credited also with its civic improvement and social welfare2. In an earlier letter, dated on internal evidence December 448, Theodoret, better known to later ages for his dogmatic and controversial treatises, apologetic and historical works, claims also to have commented on “all the prophets, the psalter, and the apostle”3. For a busy pastor, that is clearly an imposing exegetical output, con- centrating on the Old Testament, no mention being made of any com- mentary on the Gospels, and that on the fourteen Pauline epistles being left possibly till last. Most of the Old Testament, the exception being Wisdom Books, came in for comment – Pentateuch, Historical Books and Prophets, as well as the Song of Songs – whether in full commentary or, owing to failing health, in a series of Quaestiones. Theodoret tells us in its preface that he would like to have begun his exegetical works with that Commentary on the Psalter as an appropriate firstfruits, partly because of the exalted nature of the material, partly perhaps because of the pride of place such an opus occupied among the works of other Fathers, including fellow Antiochenes Theodore of Mopsuestia and – to judge from textual evidence of youthful inexperience – possibly John Chrysostom4. But to his regret he was not free to indulge his preference5: It would have been a pleasure for me to do a commentary on the inspired composition of the mighty David prior to the other divine sayings ... But we were prevented from putting this desire into effect by those who requested from us commentaries on other divine Scriptures: some required of us clar- ification of the Song of Songs, others were passionate about having a close 1. Ep. 146: Y. AZÉMA (ed.), Théodoret de Cyr. Correspondance, III (SC, 111), p. 176. 2. F. YOUNG, From Nicaea to Chalcedon, Philadelphia, Fortress, 1983, p. 267, while conceding this degree of pastoral responsibility, speaks of Cyrus as a “little backwater”. 3. Ep. 82: Correspondance, II (SC, 98), p. 202. 4. For such evidence, see my Chrysostom's Commentary on the Psalms: Homilies or Tracts? in P. ALLEN et al. (eds.), Prayer and Spirituality in the Early Church, Brisbane, Australian Catholic University, 1998, pp. 301-317. 5. PG 80, 857A, 860A-B, “the man of passion” being a title used of Daniel on the basis of Dn 9,23, and Theodoret playing on the biblical term. THEODORET, COMMENTATOR ON THE PSALMS 89 knowledge of the inspired composition of the man of passion, still others of the work of the divinely-inspired Ezekiel, while others were impatient for the predictions of the Twelve Prophets, shrouded in obscurity, to be ren- dered clear and obvious. In fact, it was not until the years immediately preceding his deposition that he was able to satisfy his desire and sense of duty by commenting on “the spiritual harmonies of the divinely inspired David (which) many people frequently call to mind”6. We have seen above that Letter 82 writ- ten in the year 448 speaks of the Psalms Commentary as already com- pleted. That it was in process after events of 434 and 441, when the region was under attack from Huns and Persians respectively, is clear from the commentary on Ps 18,12-14 about the Lord's acting from heaven to scatter enemies7: This often happened in our time, too: in the wars that recently occurred he laid waste with hail and fire the savages from the north attacking us. And the Persians making war on us from the east, who expected to get possession of our cities without bloodshed, he caught in these snares and prevented their further advance. THE COMMENTATOR AS TEACHER An opportunity could be found for the work between the military incursions from Persia, on the one hand, and the ecclesiastical turmoil of latrocinium and Chalcedonian council, on the other. Once the latter made his life more tumultuous, he might have found it a luxury to set about a commentary on this demanding work at such length (that seems to put it beyond the reach of modern readers, to judge from the paucity of critical comment on the work beyond its preface and from lack of a translation in modern languages)8. From another point of view, the delay in achieving his initial goal means that in the Psalms Commentary we now have, as Marie-Josèphe Rondeau remarks, “l'œuvre classique of a bishop who regales his people with the knowledge to which he himself has access”9. At all events, circumstances allowed the bishop of Cyrus to set himself the admirable goal of making the hymns of the Church's 6. PG 80, 860A. 7. PG 80, 977B. It is more helpful to cite psalms and verses in the numbering of the Hebrew and modern versions than of Theodoret's Septuagint. 8. My translation of the Commentary into English is due to appear in the “Fathers of the Church” series nos. 101-102, Washington DC, The Catholic University of America Press, in 2000. 9. Les commentaires patristiques du Psautier (IIIe-Ve siècles). I. Les travaux des pères grecs et latins sur le Psautier. Recherches et bilan (OCA, 219), Roma, Pont. Inst. Stud. Or., 1982, p. 137. 90 R.C. HILL liturgy more comprehensible and therefore spiritually rewarding, as he says in the preface10: I wanted to do a commentary on this piece of inspired composition first of all, and offer to discerning investors the profit lying hidden in its depths, so that they might sing its melodies and at the same time recognise the sense of the words they sing, thus reaping a double dividend. For whom does Theodoret intend to expose “the profit lying hidden in the depths” of the Psalms? Not primarily for the learned; he can (like Chrysos- tom) speak somewhat disparagingly of “the scholars” (filoma‡eív), and leave detailed comment on some verses to them, as in his commentary on Ps 37,32-33; 68,35; 69,4. In the preface he speaks generally of “students of religion” as devotees of the Psalmist, acknowledging in particular “those who embrace religious life and recite (the Psalter) at night and in the middle of the day”. These religious, like the community at nearby Apamea with whom he spent some of his early life and later found residence when deposed from his bishopric, earn his commendation as “those who embrace the angelic life ... acting as ambassadors for human beings” (commentary on Ps 72), and again (on Ps 84) as “those embracing the ascetical life (who) proceed from prayer to hymnsinging, from hymnsinging to supplication, and from there to reading of the divine sayings, from there to exhorting and advising the less perfect”. Only occasionally do the clergy come in for men- tion, honorably (“The priestly order acts like the Church's countenance in being invested with greater spiritual dignity”, he remarks on Ps 45) – though he qualifies that with the comment on Ps 34 that, unlike the old covenant, “no longer is the divine nourishment reserved to the priest alone”. But these references to religious and clergy are rare enough to lead us to conclude that the readership for whom this theologian at his desk (stu- diously eschewing the role of a preacher) was composing his work was wider still, if not the general faithful. We saw in his statement of purpose above that his main concern was lack of understanding of the text on the part of those who “sing its melodies” but do not “recognise the sense of the words”, just as Chrysostom in his Commentary had lamented the fact “that those singing (the Psalter) daily and uttering the words by mouth do not enquire about the force of the ideas underlying the words”11. Yet, unlike Chrysostom, who envisages some degree of singing of the Psalms even in the didaskale⁄on where his classes were held, Theodoret is 10. PG 80, 860A. 11. PG 55, 427A. Theodoret, born about 393, hardly had firsthand acquaintance with John Chrysostom, who moved to Constantinople in 397 and died in exile a decade later, nor with Theodore, who was bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia from 392 until his death in 428. He did, however, know his fellow Antiochenes' work on the Psalms (including that of their mentor, Diodore of Tarsus), as emerges from his own Commentary. For Chrysostom's concerns about singers' understanding the psalms they sing, see the Introduction to my translation of his Commentary on the Psalms, Brookline MA, Holy Cross Press, 1998. THEODORET, COMMENTATOR ON THE PSALMS 91 generally quite insensitive to the liturgical and specifically musical dimension of the Psalms in Old Testament or New. His conviction is that his readers are short on understanding, and his focus is on teaching, he insists (those with the charism of teaching being the true trumpets and lyres spoken of in Ps 98). If not biblically illiterate, yet they are not scholars and they require even basic input; as he chides them in the opening commentary on Ps 3 on David's flight from Absalom, “This story, of course, is known to the more studious, but for the benefit of lazier people I shall summarise it”.
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