refused, the Theophilanthropist religion soon died of in- anition, despised by the infidel party as well as by those who still remained Christians. An attempt to revive it after the revolution of 1830 utterly failed. See Blunt, Diet, of Sects, s. v. ; Gardner, Faiths of the World, s. v. ; Gregoire, Histoire des Secies Religieuses ; Hagenbach, Hist, of the Church in the 18th and 19//t Centuries, ii, 435.
Theophilestati ( QeofpiXsffTaTot, most dear to God), a title of respect given to bishops in the early Church. This title frequently occurs in the emperor's rescript in the civil law, and was of such common use in those times that Socrates {Prooem. ad lib. vi) thinks himself obliged to make some apology for not giving it to the bishops that were then living. See Bingham, Christ. Antiq. bk. ii, ch. x, § G.
Theoph'ilus (0€o(pi\o£, friend of God), the name of two men associated with sacred history, one of them being mentioned in the New Test, and the other by Jo- sephus.
1. The person to whom Luke inscribes his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles (Luke i, 3 ; Acts i, 1). A.D. cir. 56. The important part played by Theophilus as hav- ing immediately occasioned the composition of these two books, together with the silence of Scripture con- cerning him, has at once stimulated conjecture, and left the field clear for it. Accordingly we meet with a con- siderable number and variety of theories concerning him.
1. Several commentators, especially among the fa- thers, have been disposed to doubt the personality of Theophilus, regarding the name either as that of a ficti- tious person or as applicable to ever}' Christian reader. Thus Origen {Horn. 1 in Luc.) raises the question, but does not discuss it, his object being merely practical. He says that all who are beloved of God are Theophili, and may therefore appropriate to themselves the gos- pel which was addressed to Theophilus. Epiphanius (Uteres. Ii, 429) speaks doubtfully : tlV ovv tlvi Oeo- (piX^l) roTS ypa(pioi' tXtyiv, i) iravTl aj'3pwTr({j Qibv ayanwvTi. Salvianus {Epist. 9 ad Sulonium) appar- ently assumes that Theophilus had no historical exist- ence. He justifies the composition of a work addressed Ad Ecclesiam Cafholicam, under the name of Timotheus, by the example of the evangelist Luke, who addressed his gospel nominally to a particular man, but really to " the love of God :" " Nam stent Theophili vocabulo amor, sic Timothei honor divinitatis exprimitur." Even Theophylact, who believes in the existence of Theophi- lus, takes the opportunity of moralizing upon his name: Kai TTctQ Oi dv^pwTTog SreotpiXljC, Kai KparoQ Kara ToJv Tra^uiv ai'aSit^dixevo^ O tocp iXog ten Kpa- TKTTOQ, be Kai a?(OC r(^ Ijvti tariv ciKOveiv Toij EvayyiXiov (A rc/um. in Luc). Among modern com- mentators, Hammond and Leclerc accept the allegorical view; Erasmus is doubtful, but, on the whole, believes Theophilus to have had a real existence.
2. From the honorable epithet Kpc'iTiare, applied to Theophilus in Luke i. 3, compared with the use of the same epithet as ap])lied by Claudius Lysias and Tertul- lus severally to Felix, and by Paul to Festus (Acts xxiii, 26; xxiv, 3; xxvi, 25), it has been argued with much probability, but not quite conclusively, that he was a person in high official position. Thus Theophylact (A rtjuin. in Luc.) conjectures that he was a Roman gov- ernor, or a person of senatorial rank, grounding his con- jecture expressly on the use of KpoTian. Qicumenius {Ad Act. Apost. i, 1) tells us that he was a governor, but gives no authority for the assertion. The tradi- tional connection of Luke with Antioch has disposed some to look upon xVntioch as the abode of Theophilus, and possibly as the seat of his government. Bengel be- lieves him to have been an inhabitant of Antioch, "ut veteres testantur." The belief may parti}' have grown out of a story in the so-called Recognitions of St. Clement (lib. x), which represents a certain nobleman of Antioch
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of that name to have been converted by the preaching \ of I'eter, and to have dedicated his own house as a church, in which, as we arc told, the apostle lixcd his episcopal seat. liengel thinks that the omission of Kpc'iTioTi in Acts i, 1 proves that Luke was on more fa- miliar terras with Theopliilus than when he composed his gospel.
3. In the Syriac lexicon, extracted from the Lexicon Ileptai/lot. of "Castell, and edited by Jlichaelis (p. 948), the following description of Tlicophilus is cpioted from 13ar-I5ahlul, a Syrian lexicographer of the 10th century : '• Theopliilus, primus credentium et celeberrimiis apud Alexandrienses, qui cum aliis /Egyptiis Lucam rogabat, ut eis evangelium scribcret." In the inscription of the Gospel according to Luke in the Syriac version, we are told that it was published at Alexandria. Hence it is inferred by Ilase {Bill. Bremensis Class, ch. iv, fasc. iii, diss. 4, quoted by Michaelis, Introd. to the New Test, [ed. Marsh], vol. iii, ch. vi, § 4) and by Bengel (Onlo Tem}wrum [-M ed.], p. 196) that TheophiUis was, as as- serted by IJar-Bahlul, a convert of Alexandria. This writer ventures to advance the startling opinion that Theophilus, if an Alexandrian, was no other than the celebrated Philo, who is said to have borne the Hebrew name of Jedidiah (M^'n'^'l^ i. e. Bt6<j,i\oQ). It hardly seems necessary to refute this theory, as Michaelis has refuted it, by chronological arguments.