Extracts from the Scripture commentaries can be found in the writings of
St. Jerome. The other writings are mentioned by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical
History 4, 24). St. Theophilus died sometime between 185 and 191 AD.
Extracts
To Autolycus (181 AD):
1, 12
“Are you unwilling to be anointed with the oil of God? It is on this account that we
are called Christians: because we are anointed with the oil of God.”
1, 14
“But do you also, if you please, give reverential attention to the prophetic
Scriptures, and they will make your way plainer for escaping the eternal
punishments, and obtaining the eternal prizes of God. For He who gave the mouth
for speech, and formed the ear to hear, and made the eye to see, will examine all
things, and will judge righteous judgment, rendering merited awards to each. To
those who by patient continuance in well-doing seek immortality, He will give life
everlasting, joy, peace, rest, and abundance of good things, which neither hath eye
seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. But to
the unbelieving and despisers, who obey not the truth, but are obedient to
unrighteousness, when they shall have been filled with adulteries and fornications,
and filthiness, and covetousness, and unlawful idolatries, there shall be anger and
wrath, tribulation and anguish, and at the last everlasting fire shall possess such
men.”
2, 15
“The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God,
His Word, and His Wisdom.”
2, 16
“Moreover, those things which were created from the waters were blessed by God,
so that this might also be a sign that men would at a future time receive repentance
and remission of sins through water and the bath of regeneration - all who proceed
to the truth and are born again and receive a blessing from God.”
2, 22
“But what else is this voice but the Word of God, who is also His Son? Not as the
poets and writers of myths talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with
women], but as truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the
heart of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor,
being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He
determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not
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