I finished this collection of partial texts from Theodore of Mopsuestia, or Theodore the Interpreter. He is a controversial character in Christian history. All of his life he was considered orthodox but many years after his death he was retrospectively anathematized by The Second Council of Constantinople in 553. Nestorius, the famous heretic, said that his position was best expressed by Theodore. But is that so? Most of history has agreed, but more recent scholarship has revisited the question. One can see why there is ambiguity. The question is whether Theodore's conception of the union between the humanity and the divinity of Christ was a sufficient union. Sometimes he says things which seem perfectly orthodox. When commenting on Romans 7 he says, "Because he was speaking of two natures, he used 'me' in both of these statements as referring to two distinct realities aptly distinguished by their natures, yet being one; that is, he is speaking of these two as being one person because of the body's bonding with the soul. So also when our Lord speaks of his humanity and his divinity, he uses this 'I' referring to the common person" (104). Here he maintains the distinction between Jesus'two natures. He is not a mixture, a demi-god of half-man and half-god. He is wholly God and wholly Man. But neither does Theodore divide the person. He affirms the singularity of Jesus. But then he says odd sorts of things like this: “Seeing how fully God forknew what sort of person Christ in the flesh would be when He United him to Himself from the very moment of his fashioning" (134). He seems here to consider a man who is separate but assumed by the Word. Indeed he often speaks of the one assumed and the One assuming. "If this union [between the assumed one and the Assumer] is dissolved then the one assumed is seen to be nothing other than a mere man like us. This is why the holy books have insisted upon the two designations for the single Son, to make us know in our profession of faith the glory of the Only Begotten Son and the honor bestowed on the man whom He has clothed" (161).  His work is certainly ambiguous enough to allow heretics like Nestorius to make use of him. But should he be condemned for taking a position which had not yet been decided by the Church? Is a retrospective anathema deserved? Maybe his reputation was decided by an unfortunate association with Nestorius with whom he may have disagreed with personally. Whatever the case, this work was an interesting read and an intriguing look into the Christological controversies of the post-Nicean period.