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Theophilus
Introductory Note to Theophilus of Antioch
[521] Book iv. cap. 24. Thus he with others met the “grievous wolves” foretold by St. Paul “night and day with tears,” three years continually (Acts xx. 29-31).
[523] Renan, St. Paul, cap. 1., Farrar, Life of St. Paul, cap. xvi.
[524] [Our chronological arrangement must yield in minute accuracy to other considerations; and we may borrow an excuse from our author, who notes the difficulty of microscopic ἀκριβεία in his own chronological labours (book iii. cap. 29). It was impossible to crowd Tatian and Theophilus into vol. i. of this series, without dividing Irenæus, and putting part of his works in vol. ii. But, in the case of contemporaries, this dislocation is trifling, and creates no confusion.]
Chapter I.—Autolycus an Idolater and Scorner of Christians.
[525] [Acts xi. 26. Note this as from an Antiochian, glorying in the name of Christian.]
[526] Εὔχρηστος, punning on the name Christian. [Comp cap xii., infra. So Justin, p. 164, vol. i., this series. But he also puns on his own name, “beloved of God,” in the text φορῶ τὸ Θεοφιλὲς ὄνομα τοῦτὀ κ.τ.λ.]
Chapter II.—That the Eyes of the Soul Must Be Purged Ere God Can Be Seen.
[527] Literally, “your man;” the invisible soul, as the noblest pat of man, being probably intended.
[528] The techincal word for a disease of the eye, like cataract.
[529] The translation here follows the Hamburg editor, others read, “If Father, I say everything.”
[530] Maranus observes that Theophilus means to indicate the difference between God’s chastisement of the righteous and His punishment of the wicked.
Chapter IV.—Attributes of God.
[531] [Kaye’s Justin, p. 173.]
Chapter V.—The Invisible God Perceived Through His Works.
[532] The reference here is not to the Holy Spirit, but to that vital power which is supposed to be diffused thorughout the universe. Comp. book ii. 4.
Chapter VI.—God is Known by His Works.
[533] Literally, “propagation.”
Chapter VII.—We Shall See God When We Put on Immortality.
Chapter VIII.—Faith Required in All Matters.
[537] i.e., in the resurrection.
Chapter X.—Absurdities of Idolatry.
[538] [Foot-baths. A reference to Amasis, and his story in Heredotus, ii. 172. See Rawlinson’s Version and Notes, vol. ii. p. 221, ed. Appletons, 1859. See also Athanagoras, infra, Embassy, cap. xxvi.]
[539] [The fable of Echo and her shameful gossip may serve for an example.]
Chapter XI.—The King to Be Honoured, God to Be Worshipped.
[540] Prov. xxiv. 21, 22. The Greek of Theophilus has “honour” instead of “fear.”
Chapter XII.—Meaning of the Name Christian.
[541] “The argumentation of this chapter depends on the literal meaning which Theophilus attaches to Christos, the Anointed One; and he plays on this meaning, and also on the similarity of pronunciation between χρηστός, ‘useful,’ and χριστός, ‘anointed.’”—Donaldson.
[542] [Not material oil probably, for it is not mentioned in such Scriptures as Acts viii. 17, xix. 6, Heb. vi. 2; but the anointing (1 John ii. 20) of the Holy Ghost. As a symbol, oil was used at an early period, however; and the Latins are not slow to press this in favour of material oil in the chrism, or confirmation.]
Chapter XIII.—The Resurrection Proved by Examples.
[543] [This is the famous challenge which affords Gibbon (cap. xv.) a most pleasing opportunity for his cavils. But our author was not asserting that the dead was raised in his day, but only that they should be at the last day.]
Chapter XIV.—Theophilus an Example of Conversion.
[544] [Ps. cxix. 130. Note this tribute to the inspired Scriptures and their converting power; I might almost say their sacramental energy, referring to John vi. 63.]
[545] [Rev. xix. 10. I cannot reconcile what Scripture says of itself with the modern refinements as to the human and divine element, while fully admitting that there are such elements, intermixed and interpenetrated mutually, beyond all power of dissection by us. I prefer the childlike docility of the Fathers.]
Chapter II.—The Gods are Despised When They are Made; But Become Valuable When Bought.
[549] The words “by some and placed in” are omitted in some editions, but occur in the best mss.
Chapter IV.—Absurd Opinions of the Philosophers Concerning God.
[550] This is according to the Benedictine reading: the reading of Wolf, “nature is left to itself,” is also worthy of consideration.
[551] That is, the existence of God as sole first principle.
[552] Literally, “subject-matter.”
Chapter V.—Opinions of Homer and Hesiod Concerning the Gods.
[553] Il., xiv. 201.
[554] Hesiod, Theog., 74.
[555] Theog., 104.
Chapter VI.—Hesiod on the Origin of the World.
[556] [Theog., 116–133. S.]
[557] The Benedictine editor proposes to read these words after the first clause of c. 7. We follow the reading of Wolf and Fell, who understand the pyramids to be referred to.
Chapter VII.—Fabulous Heathen Genealogies.
[558] Aristoph., Av., 694. A wind-egg being one produced without impregnation, and coming to nothing.
[559] The Dionysian family taking its name from Dionysus or Bacchus.
Chapter VIII.— Opinions Concerning Providence.
[560] The following lines are partly from the translation of Hughes.
[561] Œdipus Rex, line 978.
[562] Il., xx. 242.
[563] This verse is by Plutarch hesitatingly attributed to Pindar. The expression, “Though you swim in a wicker basket,” was proverbial.
[564] Literally, “in fancy and error.”
Chapter IX.—The Prophets Inspired by the Holy Ghost.
[565] Wolf perfers πνευματόφοροι, carried or borne along by the Spirit. [Kaye’s Justin M., p. 180, comparing this view of the inspiration of prophets, with those of Justin and Athenagoras.]
Chapter X.—The World Created by God Through the Word.
[566] ἐνδιάθτον. [Here the Logos is spoken of in the entire spirit of the Nicene Council. Ps. xlv. 1 is a favourite text against Arius; and (Advs. Judæos. b. ii. 3) Cyprian presses it against the Jews, which shows that they accepted the Hebrew and the LXX. in a mystical sense.]
[567] Literally, belching or vomiting. [The reference is to Ps. xlv. where the LXX. read ἐξηρεύξατο ἡ καρδία μου λόγον ἀγαθὸν, and the Latin eructavit cor meum bonum Verbum; i.e., “My heart hath breathed forth a glorious Word.” The well-chosen language of the translator (emitted) is degraded by his note.]
[568] Prov. viii. 27. Theophilus reads with the Septuagint, “I was with Him, putting things into order,” instead of “I was by Him as one brought up with Him.” [Here the Logos is the σοφία as with the Fathers generally; e.g. Cyprian, Advs. Judæos, book ii. 2. But see cap. xv. p. 101, infra.]
[569] That is, the first principle, whom he has just shown to be the Word.
[570] In the Greek version of Gen. i. 1, the word “created” stands before “God.”
[571] Theophilus, therefore, understands that when in the first verse it is said that God created the earth, it is meant that he created the matter of which the earth is formed.
Chapter XI.—The Six Days’ Work Described.
[572] The words, “and light was; and God saw the light, that it was good,” are omitted in the two best mss. and in some editions; but they seem to be necessary, and to have fallen out by the mistake of transcribers.
Chapter XIII.—Remarks on the Creation of the World.
[574] [See book i. cap. v., supra, note 4; also, the important remark of Kaye, Justin Martyr, p. 179.]
[575] This follows the Benedicting reading. Other editors, as Humphrey, read [φωτὸς] τὼπον, “resembling light.”
[577] Following Wolf’s rendering.
[578] Or, suitably arranged and appointed it.
Chapter XIV.—The World Compared to the Sea.
[579] Literally, synagogues.
[580] [The ports and happy havens beautifully contrasted with rocks and shoals and barren or inhospitable isles.]
[581] [The ports and happy havens beautifully contrasted with rocks and shoals and barren or inhospitable isles.]
[582] That is, as the Benedictine edition suggests, when they have filled them with unsuspecting passengers.
Chapter XV.—Of the Fourth Day.
[583] Following Wolf’s reading.
[584] Τριάδος. [The earliest use of this word “Trinity.” It seems to have been used by this writer in his lost works, also; and, as a learned friends suggests, the use he makes of it is familiar. He does not lug it in as something novel: “types of the Trinity,” he says, illustrating an accepted word, not introducing a new one.]
[585] [An eminent authority says, “It is certain, that, according to the notions of Theophilus, God, His Word, and His wisdom constitute a Trinity; and it should seem a Trinity of persons.” He notes that the title σοφία, is here assigned to the Holy Spirit, although he himself elsewhere gives this title to the Son (book ii. cap. x., supra), as is more usual with the Fathers.” Consult Kaye’s Justin Martyr, p. 157. Ed. 1853.]
[586] i.e., wandering stars.
Chapter XVII.—Of the Sixth Day.
[587] [Note the solid truth that God is not the author of evil, and the probable suggestion that all nature sympathized with man’s transgression. Rom. viii. 22.]
Chapter XIX.—Man is Placed in Paradise.
[589] Gen. ii. 7. [The Hebrew must not be overlooked: “the breath of lives,” spiraculum vitarum; on which see Bartholinus, in Delitzsch, System of Bib. Psychol., p. 27. Also, Luther’s Trichotomy, ibid., p. 460. With another work of similar character I am only slightly acquainted, but, recall with great satisfaction a partial examination of it when it first appeared. I refer to The Tripartite Nature of Man, by the Rev J. B. Heard, M.A. 3d ed. Edinburgh, 1871, T. & T. Clark.]
[590] [But compare Tatian (cap. xiii. p. 70), and the note of the Parisian editors in margin (p. 152), where they begin by distinctions to make him orthodox, but at last accuse him of downright heresy. Ed. Paris, 1615.]
Chapter XXI.—Of the Fall of Man.
[591] Theophilus reads, “It shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel.”
[592] Or, “by thy works.”
[593] Gen. ii. 8iii. 19. [See Justin M., Dial., cap. lvi. p. 223, vol. 1. this series.]
Chapter XXII.—Why God is Said to Have Walked.
[594] The annotators here warn us against supposing that “person” is used as it was afterwards employed in discussing the doctrine of the Trinity, and show that the word is used in its original meaning, and with reference to an actor taking up a mask and personating a character.
[595] Προφορικός, the term used of the Logos as manifested; the Word as uttered by the Father, in distinction from the Word immanent in Him. [Theophilus is the first author who distinguishes between the Logos ἐνδιάθετος (cap. x, supra) and the Logos προφορικός; the Word internal, and the Word emitted. Kaye’s Justin, p. 171.]
[597] That is, being produced by generation, not by creation.
Chapter XXIII.—The Truth of the Account in Genesis.
[598] The Benedictine editor remarks: “Women bring forth with labour and pain as the punishment awarded to sin: they forget the pain, that the propagation of the race may not be hindered.”
Chapter XXIV.—The Beauty of Paradise.
[600] In the Greek the word is, “work” or “labour,” as we also speak of working land.
Chapter XXV.—God Was Justified in Forbidding Man to Eat of the Tree of Knowledge.
[601] [“Pulchra, si quis ea recte utatur,” is the rendering of the Paris translators. A noble motto for a college.]
[602] [No need of a long argument here, to show, as some editors have done, that our author calls Adam an infant, only with reference to time, not physical development. He was but a few days old.]
Chapter XXVII.—The Nature of Man.
[603] [A noble sentence: ἐλεύθερον γὰρ καὶ αὐτεξούσιον ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον.]
[604] Apparently meaning, that God turns death, which man brought on himself by disobedience, into a blessing.
Chapter XXVIII.—Why Eve Was Formed of Adam’s Rib.
[605] Gen. ii. 24. [Kaye justly praises our author’s high estimate of Christian marriage. See his Justin M., p. 128.]
[606] Referring to the bacchanalian orgies in which “Eva” was shouted, and which the Fathers professed to believe was an unintentional invocation of Eve, the authoress of all sin.
[608] [He speaks of the æconomy of the narative: τὴν οἰκονομίαν τῆς ἐξηγήσεως. Kaye’s Justin, p. 175.]
[609] Fell remarks, “Blood shed at once coagulates, and does not easily enter the earth.” [On the field of Antietam, after the battle, I observed the blood flaked upon the soil, not absorbed by it.]
Chapter XXX.—Cain’s Family and Their Inventions.
[610] Il., xx. 216. But Homer refers only to Troy.
[611] [Of the founder of Christian chronology this must be noted.]
Chapter XXXI.—The History After the Flood.
[612] But the Benedictine editor understands the words to mean, that the succeeding kings were in like manner called Pharaoh.
[613] Theophilus spells some of the names differently from what they are given in our text. For Tidal he has Thargal; for Bera, Ballas; for Birsha, Barsas; for Shinab, Senaar; for Shemeber, Hymoor. Kephalac is taken to be a corruption for Balak, which in the previous sentence is inserted by many editors, though it is not in the best mss.
[614] [St. Paul seems to teach us that the whole story of Melchisedek is a “similitude,” and that the one Great High Priest of our profession appeared to Abraham in that character, as to Joshua in another, the “Captain of our salvation” (Heb. vii. 1-3; Josh. v. 13-15). We need a carefully digested work on the apparitions of the Word before His incarnation, or the theophanies of the Old Testament.]
[615] [Certainly a striking etymon, “Salem of the priest.” But we can only accept it as a beautiful play upon words.]
Chapter XXXII.—How the Human Race Was Dispersed.
[616] Proving the antiquity of Scripture, by showing that no recent occurrences are mentioned in it. Wolf, however, gives another reading, which would be rendered, “understand whether those things are recent which we utter on the authority of the holy prophets.”
Chapter XXXIV.—The Prophets Enjoined Holiness of Life.
[617] [Comp. book i. cap. xiv., supra, p. 93.]
[618] Benedictine editor proposes “ they.”
Chapter XXXV.—Precepts from the Prophetic Books.
[619] Literally, “a nod.”
[621] Cf. Deut. iv. 19.
[627] Ps. xiv. 1, 3.
[633] Od., xi. 222.
[634] Il., xvi. 856.
[635] xxiii. 71.
[637] We have adopted the reading of Wolf in the text. The reading of the mss. is, “He who desires to learn should desire to learn.” Perhaps the most satisfactory emendation is that of Heumann, who reads φιλομυθεῖν instead of φιλομαθεῖν: “He who desires to learn should also desire to discuss subjects, and hold conversations on them.” In this case, Theophilus most probably borrows his remark from Aristotle, Metaphysic. i. c. 2.
Chapter II.—Profane Authors Had No Means of Knowing the Truth.
[638] While in Egypt, Pythagoras was admitted to the penetralia of the temples and the arcana of religion.
Chapter III.—Their Contradictions.
[639] Viz., in the first book to Autolycus.
Chapter IV.—How Autolycus Had Been Misled by False Accusations Against the Christians.
[640] [The body of Christ is human flesh. If, then, it had been the primitive doctrine, that the bread and wine cease to exist in the Eucharist, and are changed into natural flesh and blood, our author could not have resented this charge as “most barbarous and impious.”]
Chapter V.—Philosophers Inculcate Cannibalism.
Chapter VI.—Other Opinions of the Philosophers.
[642] Not in the first, but the fifth book of the Republic, p. 460.
[643] Minos.
[644] As this sentence cannot be intelligibly rendered without its original in Plato, we subjoin the latter: “As for those youths who excel either in war or other pursuits, they ought both to have other rewards and prizes given them; and specially this, of being allowed the freest intercourse with women, that, at the same time, under this pretext the greatest number of children may spring from such parents.”
[645] [This statement reflects light upon some passages of Hermas, and shows with what delicacy he has reproved the gross vices with which Christians could not escape familiarity.]
Chapter VII.—Varying Doctrine Concerning the Gods.
[646] αύτοματισμῶ.
Chapter IX.—Christian Doctrine of God and His Law.
[647] Or, right worship.
Chapter X.—Of Humanity to Strangers.
Chapter XII.—Of Righteousness.
Chapter XIV.—Of Loving Our Enemies.
Chapter XV.—The Innocence of the Christians Defended.
[670] At the theatres. [N.B.—Let the easy Christians of our age be reminded of this warning; frequenting, as they do, plays and operas equally defiling, impure in purport often, even when not gross in language.]
Chapter XVI.—Uncertain Conjectures of the Philosophers.
[671] i.e., tracing back its history through an infinate duration.
[672] The following quotation is not from the Republic, but from the third book of the Laws, p. 676.
[673] Plato goes on to say, that if he had this pledge of divine assistance, he would go further in his speculation; and therefore Theophilus argues that what he said without this assistance he felt to be unsafe.
Chapter XVII.—Accurate Information of the Christians.
[674] Literally, “contained.”
[675] [See supra, book i. cap. 14, p. 93, the author’s account of his own conversion.]
Chapter XVIII.—Errors of the Greeks About the Deluge.
[676] λαός, from λᾶας, stone.
Chapter XIX.—Accurate Account of the Deluge.
[677] Literally, in Greek, ἀνάπαυσις.
[678] Deucalion, from Δεῦτε, come, and καλἐω, I call.
Chapter XX.—Antiquity of Moses.
[679] Or, reading ὀ γὰρ Σέθως, “Sethos is also called Egyptus.”
Chapter XXI.—Of Manetho’s Inaccuracy.
[680] The Benedictine editor shows that this should be 393 years.
[681] The correct date would be about 400 years.
Chapter XXII.—Antiquity of the Temple.
[682] Others read 134 years.
[683] Literally, Hieromus.
[684] In this register it seems that the number of years during which each person lived does not include the years of his reign.
Chapter XXIII.—Prophets More Ancient Than Greek Writers.
[685] But the meaning here is obscure in the original. Malachi was much later than Zechariah.
[686] [Usher, in his Annals, honours our author as the father of Christian chronology, p. 3. Paris, 1673.]
Chapter XXIV.—Chronology from Adam.
[687] i.e., till he begat Seth. [A fragment of the Chronicon of Julius Africanus, a.d. 232, is given in Routh’s Reliquiæ, tom. ii. p. 238, with very rich annotations. pp. 357–509.]
Chapter XXVI.—Contrast Between Hebrew and Greek Writings.
[688] [Usher notes this as affirmed in general terms only, and qualified afterwards, in cap. xxix, infra, note i, p. 121.]
Chapter XXVIII.—Leading Chronological Epochs.
[689] [As Verus died a.d. 169, the computation of our author makes the creation, b.c. 5529. Hales, who says b.c. 5411, inspires us with great respect for Theophilus, by the degree of accuracy he attained, using (the LXX.) the same authority as his base. Slight variations in the copies used in his day might have led, one would think, to greater discrepancies.]
Chapter XXIX.—Antiquity of Christianity.
[690] Another reading gives, “both of the antiquity of our religion.”
[691] [Usher quotes this concession as to the ἀκριβεία or minute delicacy he could not attain. Ut supra, p. 119, note 1.]
[692] Berosus flourished in the reign of Alexander the Great.
Chapter XXX.—Why the Greeks Did Not Mention Our Histories.
[693] Otto prefers σύμβουλον instead of σύμβολον, on the authority of one ms. The sense then is, “that you may have a counsellor and pledge of the truth,”—the counsellor and pledge of the truth being the book written by Theophilus for Autolycus. [This has been supposed to mean, “that you may have a token and pledge (or earnest) of the truth,” i.e., in Christian baptism. Our author uses St. Paul’s word (ἀῤῥαβὼν), “the earnest of the spirit,” as in 2 Cor. i. 22, and Eph. 1.14.]
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