ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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In the New Testament of the Bible, Theophilos is the addressee of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

Theophilos is a non-specific Christian Hellenistic proper name with the meaning “friend of God” or “love of God” since the 3rd century BC. In the Gospel of Luke, the addressee of the book is addressed with “Lightly Theophilos” (“κράτιστε Θεόφιλε”), an address used in writing and orally for Roman senators, knights and procurators, for example for Felix in and for Festus in . Thus one would have to imagine Theophilos as a noble man. From the fact that he is addressed in this way only in the Gospel of Luke, while in the Acts of the Apostles there is simply "o Theophilos" ("ὦ Θεόφιλε"), some authors conclude that Theophilos has converted between the writing of the Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. But one can also attribute the absence of the honorary predicate in Acts to the fact that it was unusual to repeat honorary predicates in cases such as these.

Theophilos is mentioned in the New Testament only in the Lucan double work. In the Recognitions, a pseudo-clementine ancient Christian novel, it is claimed that in Antioch a Theophilos who was “more respected than the most powerful men in the city” made his portico available to Peter as a sermon room. The assumption that Theophilos could have been a so-called God-fearing person, that is, a non-Jewish Greek interested in Judaism and connected to a synagogue, who should be sympathized with and familiarized with Christianity, cannot be further specified, especially since the final sentence of the proömium (Lk 1:4) rather suggests that he should be counted among the already “teachers” who had long since embraced Christianity. Hans Klein considers it conceivable that the addressee of the dedication, in addition to the help as a multiplier in the dissemination of the Scriptures, was also involved as a supporter in the drafting of the gospel, for example by lodging the writer in his house, feeding him or providing him with writing utensils.

Concerning a possible origin of Theophilos, Fritz Rienecker states that Luke apparently presupposes for his reader sub-Italia as far as Rome and Sicily as well as a journey from Antioch to Cyprus and through Asia Minor to the Troas, from which one might conclude that these places were known to Theophilos. On the other hand, Luke describes in great detail the customs and places of Judea, Crete, Macedonia and Athens, which Theophilos apparently did not know.

Already Origen and other late antique church writers argued that Theophilos was a fictitious addressee and not a real historical person; The speaking name simply means one God-loving person and addresses every Christian as a reader of the double work. Because ancient books