Paideia and Cult: Christian Initiation in Theodore of Mopsuestia by Daniel L. Schwartz (review)

This study analyzes how Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 358–428) structured his collection of catechetical homilies in order to achieve the intellectual and emotional transformation of those seeking to enter formally into the Christian community. Schwartz believes that Theodore’s aim throughout his homilies was to prepare his catechumens so that they were both personally affected by their reception of baptism and the Eucharist and also aware, in a sensible way, that they were now members of a new cultural community. As the title Paideia and Cult indicates, Schwartz has focused his attention upon the critical role that Theodore’s rhetorical education played in inculcating the most basic essentials of the Christian message as well as awakening a personal appreciation of these truths at the time of their liturgical reception. Schwartz’s principal interest, therefore, in treating Theodore’s Catechetical Homilies is not in its theological content but in its survival as a unique collection of dynamically unified homilies that reveal the presence of a well thought out approach to catechesis at Antioch in the fourth century. Schwartz summarizes how Theodore’s instructions can be examined as creating not only a worshiping community but also a distinctive Christian culture coexisting with the popular culture of the day. He views the results of his study neither as a tentative solution to the complex issue of Christianization in the early church nor as an approach surpassing what others have done in the area of catechesis. Rather he assesses it as one that uncovers the variety of social, intellectual, and ritual elements present in Theodore’s catechetical approach that offer insight into what was apparently an effective process in Late Antiquity.

In the first three chapters of this work, Schwartz sums up the essentials of Theodore’s life and establishes the background setting for understanding both the wider intellectual and social issues and also the key questions involved in integrating the baptized into a Christian community, especially as regards conversion’s proper role in this process. The final two chapters discuss Theodore’s teaching on the Nicene Creed and the Our Father. Theodore regards these instructions as a preparation for understanding what his catechumens will experience when they receive first baptism and then the Eucharist. Schwartz also detects a pedagogical method running throughout these sermons that effectively introduces catechumens into another new kind of cultural community. Schwartz is firmly convinced that such an outcome has made Theodore’s Catechetical Homilies stand out as the only document from Late Antiquity that has conserved a comprehensive catechetical curriculum; he therefore claims that this work deserves a uniquely prominent position in the study of catechesis and cultural formation. Theodore’s work, he maintains, is structured not merely to influence catechumens intellectually and emotionally but also to awaken a Christian imagination that can stimulate a holistic way of thinking and acting as members of a new community. He sees in this approach a recognition of how a well-crafted ritual that is intentionally linked to the right kind of earlier intellectual preparation can promote and heighten a desired result wherein the distinction between doctrine, cult, and moral outlook is dissolved and then subsumed into a higher sense of personal and communal unity.

Chapter 4 discusses Theodore’s ten homilies on the Nicene Creed. What Schwartz says here by way of analysis can be applied also to Theodore’s eleventh homily on the Our Father. According to Schwartz, Theodore is not primarily concerned about instructing his catechumens on dogmatic pronouncements concerning a triune God, the meaning of the Incarnation, and the divine salvific role of the Holy Spirit. Rather Theodore’s principal interest is solely focused, Schwartz contends, on providing the theological language necessary for discernment of the underlying significance of the baptismal and eucharistic liturgies, which should simultaneously provoke an experience that will transform a catechumen into a believing and worshiping Christian. To achieve this end, Theodore...