Theodore abu Qurrah As a polemicist with Monophysites

Theodore Abu Qurrah, 750 — 830 A. D., Bishop of Harran, the founder of the\nMelkite theological tradition, is mainly known in modern patrology as an apologist\nfor Christianity in the face of Islam, Judaism and Manichaeism. However, researchers\noften overlook the fact that Abu Qurrah was primarily an Orthodox theologian who saw\nthe main purpose of his activities in the positive exposition of the Orthodox faith, as\nwell as in polemics with heterodox Christians - Monophysites, Nestorians, Maronites.\nOf all heresies, Theodore considered the most dangerous the moderate Monophysitism\nof Severus of Antioch. This article discusses the argument of the Bishop of Harran\nagainst the Severian doctrine of one composite nature of the incarnated God the Word.\nWe come to a conclusion that Theodore was not only aware of the patristic tradition of\ncriticising the Severian concept of the composite nature, but also enriched it. Of the ten\narguments that he presented against this doctrine fi ve do not occur, at least explicitly,\nin the Byzantine Chalcedonian tradition. Abu Qurrah complements the argument\nagainst the concept of the composite nature with a criticism of the Severian use of the\nanthropological paradigm and tries to establish the limits of its use in the Orthodox\nChristology

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