the Nicene faction, Basil of Caesarea, during his exile. When Diodore returned from exile following the death of the emperor in 378, Basil was serving as the archbishop (or patriarch) of Caesarea, and he appointed Diodore as the bishop of Tarsus. Episcopate As bishop of the see of Tarsus, Diodore continued to speak out for the Nicene understanding of the relationship between the human and the divine in the person of Jesus Christ. He actively opposed both the Arianism and the Apollinarianism of his day (Arius taught that Jesus Christ was not fully divine, Apollinaris of Laodicea spoke of the Incarnation in ways that left him open to the charge that Christ was not fully human). Diodore played key roles in both the local Council of Antioch (379) and the ecumenical First Council of Constantinople in 381. When their mentor Meletius died in 381, Diodore recommended his friend Flavian as his successor, thus prolonging the division in the Antiochene church. Diodore died around 394. Theology The Christology of Diodore was condemned as heretical by later generations, most explicitly at a local synod in Constantinople in 499 which described Diodore's views as Nestorian. Certainly, a similarly negative view of Diodore was held by Cyril of Alexandria. However, in his own generation Diodore was seen as someone who supported the orthodoxy of Nicaea, and in his official decree ratifying the actions of the First Council of Constantinople, Emperor Theodosius I described Diodore as a "champion of the faith." The specifics of Diodore's theology are difficult to reconstruct, as all that remains of his works are fragments of uncertain provenance. Much of Diodore's theology has been inferred from the later statements of his students and the intellectual heirs of the Antiochene School. According to the Universalist clergyman John Mather Austin (1855) Diodorus was also a Universalist since Saloman, Bishop of Bassorah in his Book of the Bee (1222) proclaimed the salvation of all men and cited the opinions of both Diodorus and Theodore of Mopsuestia in support of his view. According to Universalist writer J. W. Hanson (1899) Diodorus believed that God's mercy would punish the wicked less than their sins deserved, inasmuch as his mercy gave the good more than they deserved and he denied that God would bestow immortality for the purpose of prolonging or perpetuating suffering. See also Christian Universalism Early Christianity Eastern Christianity School of Antioch Theoria References External