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 of this kind in Syria, which exerted effective influence independently of the hierarchical authority of patriarchs and metropolitans. The exposition varies between the synchronic analysis of aspects of Theodoret's role over four decades, with an emphasis on his exercise of patronage, and a treatment in chronological sequence of the contribution of his network to the dramatic events that span the period from the First Council of Ephesus to the Council of Chalcedon. The narrative chapters tell a good story extremely well, and work in many significant details that older treatments overlooked. For the Christological controversy as experienced in Syria this book has no rival.

There are, however, problems in the notion of an Antiochene network dominated by Theodoret. First, Schor provides numerous charts showing who wrote to whom, and intended to bring out the indispensable role of Theodoret; in his own words, “without Theodoret nearly everyone would have a harder time communicating” (52). But the soundness of this demonstration depends on whether the extant letters are a representative sample, which is far from the case. Statistically the evidence is dominated by two large dossiers: 150 letters survive from the Byzantine collection of Theodoret's own letters, and about the same number are to be found in Rusticus's abridged translation of Irenaeus of Tyre's Tragoedia, which celebrated the resistance in northern Syria and chiefly Theodoret's own province of Euphratensis to the 433 compromise between John of Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria. The fact, therefore, that in the extant letters Theodoret is the single most prominent individual does not prove that he was ever the leader of the Syrian network as a whole. Schor tries to buttress his case by an account of the Nestorian controversy that belittles the role of John of Antioch, and largely ignores the numerous synods he held at Antioch. But the truth is that Theodoret's prominence owed a lot to the fact that he was in no way a rival to John, but his principal theological adviser.

Also problematic is the way in which Schor interprets the rise and supposed decline of the network to the ups and downs of the Antiochene cause in the Christological controversy; the implication is that the network was primarily a theological faction. But does the evidence support this? The extant letters belong overwhelming to periods in Theodoret's life (431–35 and 448–51) when theological warfare was at its height; even so, most of them do not touch on doctrine. Do they represent the workings of a distinctively Antiochene network, or simply those of a network of Syrian bishops—most of whom may have followed the Antiochene line in Christology, but for whom doctrine was not their main concern? For much of the book Schor gives the impression that Theodoret's prime and constant preoccupation was to promote Antiochene Christology, but this does not do justice to the sheer breadth of his concerns, brought out in the huge range of his writings—the pastoral and financial problems of his diocese, the promotion of asceticism, the conversion of pagans and heretics, and many other matters. These broader interests of Theodoret are in fact treated in exemplary fashion in chapters 6 and 7 on his exercise of patronage and relations with laypeople.

This is important for our view of the operation of the network after Chalcedon, when the supply of extant letters dries up. From the weakness of traditional “Antiochene” Christology in Syria by this date and the reinforcement of patriarchal authority in the canons of Chalcedon, which were adopted in Syria even by the anti-Chalcedonians, Schor deduces that the network lost both its coherence and its effectiveness after the council. But this depends on viewing it as a theological faction; surely its role in patronage on more practical matters would have continued undiminished. Moreover, whatever the intentions of the canons of Chalcedon, their attempt to strengthen patriarchal authority was fatally undermined by widespread opposition to the Chalcedonian Definition, to which the patriarchs (save the deposed Dioscorus) had subscribed.

In all, the narrow focus of this study on Theodoret's own correspondence and the Christological controversy leads to some questionable conclusions. But the book opens up new paths in the interpretation of late antique letter collections and the analysis of ecclesiastical politics outside the familiar terrain of the great councils and imperial policy. It needs to be read critically, but it certainly deserves to be read.