This thorough study, originally titled ‘Theodoret, Bishop of Cyrus, and the Mystery of the Incarnation in Late Antiochene Christology’ (Ph.D. thesis, Union Theological Seminary, New York, 1985) discusses the evolution of Theodoret's christology in chronological sequence. Considering the volume of Theodoret's legacy, the work is a laudable scholarly enterprise.

Chapter 1 presents Theodoret's life and works. For an accurate dating of his death (460) see Yvan Azéma, ‘Sur la date de la mort de Théodoret’, Pallas, 31 (1984), pp. 137–55. Theodoret's assessment in historical scholarship includes Marius Mercator, Facundus, Ph. Schaff, G. L. Prestige, J. N. D. Kelly, R. V. Sellers, A. Bertram, N. N. Glubokovsky, Marcel Richard, A. Grillmeier, K. McNamara and J. Meyendorff. Unfortunately, this quite useful overview stops exactly where the original thesis did twenty-two years before, and so lacks seminal contributions like Jean-Noël Guinot, L'exégèse de Théodoret de Cyr, Théologie historique, 100 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1995), esp. pp. 563–629, and many relevant articles by the same author, who is absent from both the index and bibliography.

Chapter 2 introduces the central proposition, the so-called ‘Arian syllogism’ (p. 56), borrowed from F. A. Sullivan, The Christology of Theodore of Mopsuestia, Analecta Gregoriana, 82 (Rome: Analecta Gregoriana, 1956). In Sullivan's view the major premise of the ‘Arian syllogism’ was that the Word is the subject of Christ's human experiences. The minor premise: whatever is predicated of the Word must be predicated according to his divine nature. Conclusion: the Word is passibly affected in his nature by human suffering, so he cannot be divine. Clayton follows Sullivan in claiming that the Alexandrians rejected the minor premise, whilst the Antiochenes the major one, consequently Theodoret also advocated a two-subject christology.

Chapters 3–7 examine Theodoret's writings, applying Sullivan's thesis to the christological statements. Both the barely emerging doctrine of communicatio idiomatum and the union according to hypostasis are regarded as valid theological standards of the Ephesian–Chalcedonian period. The term ‘hypostatic union’, however, was missing not only from the Formula of Reunion signed in 433, but also from the christological vocabulary of all orthodox theologians before 431, as shown by Marcel Richard, ‘L'introduction du mot hypostase dans la théologie de l'Incarnation’, Mélanges de science religieuse, 2 (1945), pp. 5–32, 243–70, and Luise Abramowski, ‘Über die Fragmente des Theodor von Mopsuestia in Brit. Libr. add 12.516 und das doppelt überlieferte christologische Fragment’, Oriens Christianus, 79 (1995), pp. 1–8. Clayton sees Theodoret's omission of hypostatic union and communicatio idiomatum (although the idea of oikeiosis, i.e. the Word appropriating human experiences to himself, appears in Theodoret) as proofs of his heterodoxy. The term prosopon is regarded as ‘outward countenance’, a common name of two separate natures, without denoting a truly one person. Similarly, the Antiochene synapheia (seldom applied by Theodoret) is interpreted exclusively as a loose conjunction. The author appears to have been unaware of the insights of L. Abramowski's ‘Synapheia und asynchytos henosis als Bezeichnung für trinitarische und christologische Einheit’ in Drei christologische Untersuchungen (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1981), pp. 63–109.

The conclusion is that Antiochene theology could not move beyond its own philosophical limitations, that is, the Neoplatonic concepts of divine impassibility and immutability, Clayton interpreting the doctrine of divine apatheia as ‘distant from the biblical God who cares, who enters into human pain and suffering’, thus Theodoret's picture of God being ‘sterile’ (p. 288). It is perhaps regrettable that some important findings of J. Daniélou, M. Richard, L. Abramowski and J. N. Guinot (since Donald Fairbairn's well-argued ‘modest suggestion’ in the April 2007 edition of JTS was probably unavailable at the time of printing) were not given a proper place – or, at least, a convincing answer – in this astutely written and indeed very thought-provoking work.