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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 te 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). |
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