Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 3.djvu/1096

Rh 1084 THEOPHILUS. miliac Byzant'mae^ pp. 132, 133 ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, cc. xlviii. and lii.) THEO'PHILUS (QeJc^.Aos), literary. 1. An Athenian comic poet, most probably of the Middle Comedj% as Meineke shows from the extant titles and fragments of his plays. In a passage of Pol- lux (ix. 15), in which he is represented as one of the poets of the New Comedy, most of the MSS. have the name of Diphilus, instead of Theophilus. The following titles of his plays are preserved by Alhenaeus (passim) and Suidas (s, ■«.), except the first, which is quoted by the Scholiast to Dionysius Thrax (p. 724. 26) : 'ATroSrj/xot, Botwria, 'EvriSau- pios, 'larpos, Kidapqidos (Meineke, vol. iii. p. 628, retracts the doubt which he had raised as to this being a true title of a drama), NeoTrrdAe/xos, UayKpaTiacTT'fjs, UponiSes, ^iXavXos. (Fabric. BM. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 500, 501 ; Meineke, i^ra^. Com. Graec. vol. i. pp. 434, 435, vol. iii. pp. 626 —632 ; Editio Minor, pp. 816-818.) 2. An historian and geographer, if at least the passages about to be quoted refer to one and the same person. He is mentioned by Josephus (c. Apion. i. 23) among those writers, who had no- ticed the Jews. The third book of his work on Italy ('iTaXiKa), and the second of that on the Peloponnesus (neo7rowrj(ria/fa), are quoted by Plutarch (Parallela Minora, 13, 32, pp. 309, a., 313, d). Ptolemy (Geogr. i. 9. §3) quotes a statement from some geographical work by Theo- philus, the title of which he does not mention, but which is no doubt the same as the U^pnjyrjcns, the eleventh book of which is referred to by Ste- phanus of Byzantium (s. v. TlaXiKT]). Plutarch also (de Fluv. 24) cites the first book of a work of Theophilus Trepi [Oa}u. (Vossius, de Hist. Graec. p. 504, ed. Westerraann.) 3. A writer on agriculture, whom Varro (R. 7?. i. 1. § 9), and Columella (i. 1. § 11) mention in their lists of authorities, but about whom they give us no further information. 4. Bishop of Antioch, in the latter part of the second century of our era, and the author of one of the early apologies for Christianity which have come down to us. The common opinion concern- ing his time, derived from Eusebius, Jerome, and Nicephorus, has been elaboratel}' canvassed by Dodwell and others, whose arguments are fully examined, and satisfactorily answered by Cave {Hist. Lift. s. a. 168), and Earless (ad Fabric. Bi/d. Graec. vol. vii. p. 102). In the eighth (Hieron. Chron. s. a. 2184) or tenth (Euseb. Chron. s. a. 2186 ; Syncell. p. 352, d.) year of Marcus Anto- ninus (a. d. 16| or 17f), he succeeded Eros in the see of Antioch, of which he was the sixth bishop (Euseb. H. E. iv. 20 ; Hieron. de Vir. III. 25), or, including S. Peter, the seventh (Hieron. Algas. vol. iii. p. 318 ; Niceph, Chron. p. 417, c.) ; and he held that office for thirteen years, that is, till A. D. 181 or 183 (Niceph. I. c). Having been originally a heathen*, as he tells us himself {Ad Autolyc. . p. 78), he was converted to Christianity by the study of the sacred Scriptures, and, besides other religious works, he wrote an apology for the Christian faith, in the form of a letter to a friend, named Autolycus, who was still a heathen, but a man of extensive reading and great learning, and heathen, but a Jew and a Sadducee, see Harless, /.c, p. 101. THEOPHILUS. an earnest lover of truth (Theoph. ad Autolyc. L p. 69, b., iii. pp. 119, a., 127, b., 138, d.). This work must have been written, or, at least, finished, shortly before the death of Theophilus, for there is an allusion towards the close of it, which fixes the composition of that part after the death of Marcus Antoninus, in A. D. 1 80 ; and, according to the preceding testimonies, Theophilus did not live later than A. D. 183, or perhaps than a. D. 181. The work is cited by various titles, either simply irphs AvToXvKov jStgAi'a 7', or with the addition Trepi TTJs T(ov XpicTTiavwu TviaTews, or, as Eusebius has it {H. E. iv. 24), rpia rh. irphs AvtoKvkov aroi- XeJwSTj (rvY^pdp.ixara, implying that the object of the work was to teach Autolycus the elements of Christian truth ; and again, in a MS. in the Paris library, the title is given with an addition which states the object of the work to be, to prove " that the divine oracles in our possession are more ancient and more true than the statements of Egyptian and Grecian and all other historians." It is quoted by Lactantius (ii. 23), by the title of De Temporibus, and it is mentioned by Gennadius (33) who erro- neously ascribes it to Theophilus of Alexandria. The work shows much learning and more simplicity of mind ; in its general structure, it resembles the works of Justin Martyr and the other early apolo- gists ; but it contains a more detailed examination of the evidence for Christianity derived both from Scripture and from history. Some of the arguments are fanciful, not to say puerile, in the extreme ; for example, he interprets eV apxV-> in Genesis i. 1, as meaning by Christ. He indulges much in allegorical interpretations : thus, the three days, preceding the creation of the sun and moon, are typical of the Trinity of God and his Word and his Wisdom ; a passage, by the way, which is belieed to contain the earliest instance of the use of the word Trinity in the writings of the Fathers. The work, however, contains much valuable matter ; and its style is clear and good. The three books of Theophilus to Autolycus were first published in the collection of the monks An- tonius and Maximus, entitled Sententiarum sive Capitum, Theologicorum praecipue, ex sacris et profanis libris, Tomi tres, and containing, besides the work of Theophilus, the Centuriae of Maximus, and the Oratio ad Grae.eos of Tatian, edited by Conrad Gesner, Tiguri, 1546, fol. : again with the Latin version of Conrad Clauser, in the collections of the Scriptores Sacri, or Orthodoxographi, pub- lished in 1555 and 1559, fol. (see Hoffmann, Lex. Bibliogr.) : with the editions of Justin Martyr, 1615, 1636, 1686, 1742, 1747, fol.: with notes by Fronto Ducaeus, in the Auctuar. Biblioth. Palrum, Paris, 1624, fol.: with a revised text and notes, by John Fell, bishop of Oxford, Oxon. 1684. 12mo, : the most complete edition is that of Jo. Christoph. Wolf, Hamb. 1724, 8vo. It has been translated into English by Joseph Betty, Oxf. 1722, 8vo., and into German by G. C. Hosmann, Hamb, 1729, 8vo. Theophilus was the author of several other works, which were extant in the times of Eusebius and Jerome (Euseb. Chron. Arm. I.e.; Hieron. Chron. I. c. ; Sync. /. c.) Among these, were works against the heresies of Marcion and Hermogenes, in the latter of which the Apocalypse was quoted. (Euseb. H. E. iv. 24 ; Hieron. de Vir. Iltust. 25.) Jerome also mentions a Commentary on the Gospels, which seems to have been a sort of harmony, and of which
 * Respecting the opinion that he was not a