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Theodoret of Cyrrhus has received much less attention that his two fellow Antiochenes, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius. Yet he was the most important Syrian writer of his generation and (as this book proves) an adept social operator, while the wealth of his own writings and the vast body of other contemporary evidence make him a singularly rich field for study. This new work establishes Adam Schor as the leading writer on Theodoret today, outside the purely dogmatic terrain, where Paul B. Clayton's The Christology of Theodoret of Cyrus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007) dominates the field. Schor concentrates on Theodoret's letters, and uses them with great skill and an impressive command of the sources to map out his activities as a political operator and patron. Schor is the first writer to make full use of this material.
As he sets out in his introduction, the particular inspiration for his study has been "social network theory," as readers of his article "Theodoret on the 'School of Antioch': A Network Approach" (Journal of Early Christian Studies 15 [2007]: 517-62) will already be aware. According to this theory, networks are developed through social interchange--and, in the case before us, primarily by letter writing--where common interests and a common loyalty are reinforced by the exchange of "cultural cues" special to the group. The theme of the book is how Theodoret of Cyrrhus became the centre of a network...