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Bible Dictionaries
Theophilus
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or Theophilus is the name of the person to whom the author of the Lucan Gospel and the Acts addressed his treatises. It is not certain whether Theophilus was a real person or a literary figment. The same doubt applies to other books in early Christian literature which seem to have been intended for a general public but are addressed to an individual, e.g. the Epistle to Diognetus. There is, however, no proof that the fiction of an imaginary address was a common literary artifice.
Origen (Hom, in Luke 1), without rejecting the existence of a historical Theophilus, applied the name to all who are loved of God. Jerome (Anecdota Maredsolana, Maredsous, 1895, iii. 3. 20) equates Theophilus with ‘amicus vel amator Dei,’ and Salvianus (Ep. ix. 18) says that Luke addressed the two books ‘ad amorem Dei.’
It is also possible that there is a reference to this interpretation in Tatian, Orat. adv. Graecos, xii. 3: τὰς θειοτάτας ἑρμηνείας αΐ κατὰ χρόνον διὰ γραφῆς ἐξεληλεγμέναι πάνυ θεοφιλεῖς τοὺς προσέχοντας αὐταῖς πεποιήκασιν (suggested by E, A. Abbott, Encyclopaedia Biblica ii. 1790), but the point cannot be pressed.
Lightfoot (Biblical Essays, London, 1893, p. 197) seems to favour the view that Theophilus is a nom de guerre. If this be so, the following remarks as to the interests of Theophilus would need to be interpreted as referring to the class of which this imaginary person was typical. In this case it is interesting to note the parallel between Acts 1:1, τὸν μὲν πρῶτον λόγον ἐποιησάμην περὶ πάντων, ὦ Θεόφιλε, and Philo, ed. Mangey, ii. 445, ὁ μὲν πρότερος λόγος ἦν ἡμῖν, ὦ θεόδοτε, περὶ τοῦ κτλ.
Assuming that Theophilus was a real person, the use of the title ‘excellent’ (κράτιστος) in Luke 1:3 has been used as a proof that he was a man of high official rank. It appears, however, that this title was often given to persons of good position as a matter of courtesy, and proves nothing. It is used by other writers in their dedicatory addresses (cf. Dion. Hal. de Orat. Antiq. [ὦ κράτιστε Ἀμμαῖε] and the Epistle to Diognetus). W. M. Ramsay thinks that the title ought to be interpreted in the strictest official manner, though he admits that ‘some Greeks were not so accurate as Luke’ [St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, London, 1895, p. 388 n. [Note: . note.] ); he endeavours to meet the obvious (and, in most writers’ judgment, fatal) objection that Theophilus cannot be the name of a Roman of equestrian rank, as it is Greek and not Latin, by the suggestion that Theophilus is the baptismal name of an official who would have been compromised if his legal name had been used. Attractive as this theory is, it is faced by the difficulty, stated, but apparently not appreciated, by Ramsay himself, that there is no evidence of the use of baptismal names at any period which can be suggested for Luke’s writings.
The question has often been disputed whether the Lucan writings assume that Theophilus was a Christian, or only an interested heathen inquirer. There seems to be nothing decisive either way, but, although the word κατηχήθης, used in Luke 1:3, need not be used of Christian catechetical instruction, it is perhaps more likely that it ought to be taken in this sense. The most probable guess is that Theophilus may have been a ‘God-fearer,’ but there is no evidence either for or against this view.
There is no credible tradition as to Theophilus in early literature.
The Clementine Recognitions (x. 71) say that a rich citizen of Antioch named Theophilus founded a great basilica which was established as the See (cathedra) of Peter. Pseudo-Hippolytus identified this Theophilus with the one to whom Luke wrote, and in Apost. Const. vii. 46 Theophilus appears as the third bishop of Caesarea, Zacchaeus and Cornelius being his predecessors. This tradition is almost certainly a confusion of the Theophilus of the Recognitions with the Theophilus who was living about 190. It is also to be noted that Seneca addressed his seventh letter to a Theophilus. The notes occasionally appended to Manuscripts of the Gospels sometimes say that Theophilus was a disciple of Luke (H. von Soden, Die Schriften des NT, Berlin, 1902, i. 319), sometimes that he was a man of senatorial rank (συγκλητικὸν ὄντα καὶ ἄρχοντα ἴσως) because he is addressed as κράτιστος (p. 324), but these statements are important only as showing the absence of any tradition or legend.
Among modern guesses, ingenious but devoid of any foundation, may be mentioned A. Beck’s, who identifies Luke with the unnamed companion of Cleopas on the way to Emmaus and Theophilus with an Antiochene tax-collector, the friend of Chuza and Herod, who had gone to Caesarea with Herod and Berenice (Prolog des Lk.-Evangeliums, Amberg, 1900).
As ‘tradition’ is thus ignorant of any facts concerning Theophilus, the only source of information which we possess is contained in the implications of the Lucan writings. Using this clue, the interest of Theophilus in Christianity may fairly be regarded as identical with the purpose of Luke in writing. Fully or certainly to discover what this was is doubtless impossible, but a general consideration of the Lucan books, both by themselves and as compared with the other Gospels, gives some important clues.
The most remarkable feature of the Lucan writings is that, unlike Mark and Matthew, they contain a continuation of the history of Jesus. This clearly points to a circle in which Church life, as something distinct from the Synagogue, had become self-conscious. It must be remembered that, so far as Mark goes, there is nothing to show this self-consciousness. The Second Gospel seems to have been written to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, not to support the view that the Christians were the chosen people of God. Similarly in Matthew, though there is a great development beyond the position of Mark, the question is that of the Law, not of the Church, or congregation of God. Matthew’s object is to show Christianity as the New Law, and therefore he added to Mark large sections expounding the teaching of Jesus in this light. He could not be satisfied with Mark, but was not obliged to consider the meaning of the Christian community. Luke, however, and Theophilus by implication, were concerned to give a reasonable account of the community, and to propound the view that the Christians, not the Jews, are the true Ecclesia-using the word which from its associations in the Septuagint implied that those to whom it was applied were the Ancient People of God. Acts especially seems intended to prove this proposition, and it justifies the conclusion that one of the λόγοι in which Theophilus had been instructed concerned the claim or Christians that they and not the Jews were the true people of God.
It is also possible that this contention had a further apologetic importance. It has often been noticed that Luke is anxious to prove that there was no lawful reason for persecution by the Romans. The right of the religion of Israel to toleration was unquestioned, and it was possibly part of Luke’s apologetic aim that the Christians’ Church, not the Jewish Synagogue, could claim this toleration.
Literature.-J. Moffatt, DOG, article ‘Theophilus’; T. Zahn, Einleitung in das NT3, Leipzig, 1906, § 58, n. [Note: . note.] 5.
K. Lake.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Theophilus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/theophilus.html. 1906-1918.
