The fact that Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia insisted on the importance of the literal meaning of the biblical text and largely refused an allegorical interpretation is usually explained by the opposition between the schools of Antioch and Alexandria. In his Tübingen dissertation, supervised by Hermann J. Vogt, however, Felix Thome, following a lead provided by Alois Grillmeier and Giancarlo Rinaldi, claims that the exegetical approach of Diodore and Theodore has to be seen as a reaction to the defence of the allegorical method of pagan myths by the Emperor Julian. In order to substantiate his claim Thome analyses, on the one hand, the presentation of pagan myths in Julian and Salustius (author of On the gods and the cosmos), and, on the other, the exegetical method in Diodore's Commentary on the Psalms and in Theodore's writings. Although Thome's translations and interpretations of these little-known sources are thorough enough, I am not quite convinced by his main thesis. Contrary to what he repeatedly suggests (for example on pp. 11f., 20–4, 219), there is no positive evidence of a repeated literary, let alone personal, exchange between Diodore and Julian. From Julian's letter to Photinus (ep. lc: Bidez edn) one learns only that the emperor had been upset by Diodore's claim about the divinity of Christ and that he had heard about the presbyter's education and fragile state of health. Grillmeier's idea that Diodore's ‘christology of separation’ was a reaction to Julian's reproach of patripassianism is in itself highly speculative and cannot, therefore, be used to explain the motives for his exegesis. As regards Theodore, even Thome has to admit that ‘his struggle against an allegorical exegesis of Scripture is directed against Philo and Origen’ (p. 219) and not against Julian. In addition, it is difficult to see what Diodore and Theodore would have gained vis-à-vis Julian by insisting on the importance of a literal understanding of the biblical text, which the emperor had ridiculed. Rather, an emphasis on the allegorical meaning as the level of interpretation that, ultimately, ‘mattered’ would have served their apologetic purpose much better.