Theophilus of Antioch, St.

St. Theophilus, bishop of Antioch in the late second century, lived during the age when it was a capital crime in the Roman Empire to be a Christian. Of his many reported writings, only his three-book “Apology” or Defense of Christianity, addressed to Autolycus, has survived. The general purpose of his work was to explain to the pagan world the Christian understanding of God and make clear the superiority of the biblical doctrine of creation over the absurd religious myths of the Greco-Roman world. Probably the most notable distinction of St. Theophilus is that his book is the earliest writing to contain the Greek term “triados” which is the equivalent of the English word Trinity. It was a decade or two afterwards that we find in the North African writer Tertullian the Latin equivalent “Trinitas” for the first time. The date of St. Theolophilus’ death is not known, but his birth into eternal life presumably occurred before the end of the second century. Biography by Dr. Italy