The Catechetical Homilies of Theodore of Mopsuestia stand at the heart of this study. Unfortunately, the resources available for doing work on these sermons present certain logistical problems. Scholars have known for many years that Theodore preserved his catechesis. However, the scholarly community did not have access to them until 1932 and 1933, when Alphonse Mingana discovered and published in his Woodbrooke Studies series an edition and English translation of the first and only known manuscript of the sermons.

A careful study of Mingana’s edition of the homilies, however, shows that Mingana often took liberties with the Syriac text when he reproduced it. He emended the text with some regularity, usually without including any notes to that effect, and only very rarely explaining his reasoning. As such, Mingana’s text cannot be considered a critical edition. Fortunately, in 1949, Raymond Tonneau and Robert Devreesse published a facsimile of the manuscript with facing-page French translation in their Les Homélies Catéchétiques. Reproduction phototypique du ms. Mingana Syr. 561 (Selly Oak Colleges’ Library, Birmingham). I have endeavored to point the reader toward both Mingana’s English translation and the published manuscript facsimile.

In this text I will cite Mingana’s edition as WS (for Woodbrooke Studies), followed by the volume number and page number of Mingana’s English translation. This is necessary, as Mingana offers the only complete English translation of these homilies. I have based the English translations of the catechesis on Mingana’s, emended as necessary, but the footnotes contain the Syriac text based on the manuscript facsimile. For this reason, alongside the reference to the English of Mingana, I cite the facsimile as Homélies Catéchétiques, followed by the sermon number and the manuscript folio number:

This practice will allow readers to access easily the available Syriac and English sources discussed in the text.