As Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia in Cilicia from 392 to 428, explained to his catechumens: When you say “pisteuo” [“I engage myself”] before God, you show that you will remain steadfastly with him, that you will never separate yourself from him and that you will think it higher than anything else to be and to live with him and to conduct yourself in a way that is in harmony with his commandments.83 “Belief” in our modern sense did not come into it. Even though Theodore was a leading proponent of the literal exegesis practiced in Antioch, he did not require his candidates to “believe” any
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