Theophylact

A Byzantine scholar trained in Constantinople, deacon of Hagia Sophia and tutor to the imperial heir — for whom he wrote a treatise on royal education — Theophylact was appointed archbishop of Ohrid, in what is now North Macedonia, around 1090. From that difficult frontier post he wrote letters that vividly document Balkan church life, and above all his commentaries on the Gospels, Acts, and Epistles: lucid distillations of Chrysostom and the older fathers, seasoned with shrewd notes of his own. Aquinas quarried them constantly for the Catena Aurea, and Erasmus used them after him, making this Byzantine archbishop a quiet teacher of both East and West.

For the Catena Aurea, Aquinas had Theophylact's commentaries specially translated from Greek — among the Latin West's first real access to this Byzantine master.

Theophylact has 1,031 commentary entries in HolyStudy’s verse-by-verse Church Fathers commentary. Open any Gospel chapter, tap a verse, and choose the Church Fathers tab.