Theophilus of Antioch

Theophilus was the sixth bishop of Antioch in Syria, serving roughly from 169 to the early 180s. Antioch was the third city of the empire and the place where the disciples were first called Christians, and by his time the church there was old enough to count its bishops back to the apostles. He says he was born near the Tigris and Euphrates, raised a pagan, and converted by reading the Scriptures. He describes the moment plainly: he had thought the prophets were fables until he read them, and then he found that they had spoken of things before they happened, and he believed. One work of his survives, in three books, addressed to a cultured pagan friend named Autolycus who had asked to be shown this God of yours. It is called To Autolycus, and it is an argument, a rebuke, and an invitation at once. The first book answers the demand for a demonstration. Show me your God, Autolycus had said. Theophilus answers: show me your man — show me the human being inside you, and then I will show you my God, because a rusted mirror shows nothing and a clouded soul sees nothing. God is known by what he does, as the soul is known by what the body does, and as the pilot of a ship is known by the ship's course. The second book takes apart the Greek myths and then walks through the opening chapters of Genesis at length. It is here, discussing the first three days of creation before the sun and moon were made, that Theophilus writes that those days are types of the trias — the triad — of God, and his Word, and his Wisdom. That is the first known use of the word Trinity, in any language, for the Christian God. It is a passing phrase in a commentary, not a formula; the formula came later, in Latin, from Tertullian. The third book argues chronology. Theophilus reckoned the years from creation to his own day against Greek and Roman records to show that Moses was older than any Greek writer, and that the Christian faith rests on the oldest documents in the world rather than the newest religion in it. Eusebius and Jerome mention other works of his — against Marcion, against the heretic Hermogenes, catechetical writings, and commentaries — all lost. He died about 185. What survives is one book to one skeptical friend, and a single word that the whole church took up. Sources: Theophilus, To Autolycus (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2); Eusebius, Church History IV.20, IV.24; Jerome, On Illustrious Men 25; Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.