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Modern interest in Theodore of Mopsuestia has focused on three main projects: a reappraisal of his Christology, which the Fifth Ecumenical Council condemned as Nestorian; an attempt to make sense of his Anthropology and Soteriology, which critics and admirers both ancient and modern have linked to Pelagianism; and an examination of his biblical exegesis, which in its avoidance of allegory and attention to the historical context of the Old Testament is almost unique for the Patristic period, and has been denounced as excessively Jewish. This study combines these major themes in a new and integrated way by tracing Theodore's linked doctrines of Man and Salvation in biblical order, as they develop in his surviving commentaries and as best suits his rare concern for history. As Christ is the middle term connecting Man to Salvation and Old to New Testament, this approach combines all three areas of special interest in an organic fashion that allows them to shed considerable light on one another, revealing internal logic that helps clarify some of Theodore's more difficult positions. The result is a thorough explication of the Christian story from beginning to end, through Theodore's eyes. It allows us to see how he could teach that Man was created in a mortal state from the first, but still not be a Pelagian; how he could understand the history of Old Testament Israel as bona fide salvation history, without either resorting to the standard Christological interpretations of his contemporaries or conceding to the Jews; and how he could honestly protest that he believed in a true union between the Word of God and the man Jesus---one that was not merely moral or dynamic, but metaphysical---while at the same time conceiving of them as separate persons. Rounding out the tale of Man and Salvation, though contributing less to the three main areas identified above, are Theodore's teachings on such subjects as the imago Dei, God's dealings with the Gentiles in the Old Testament, the means of Christ's atonement, divinization, living by faith instead of the Law, Baptism and the Eucharist, free will, and universal salvation.
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