Theophilus°

views updated

THEOPHILUS°

THEOPHILUS °. Josephus (Apion, 1:216) includes one Theophilus in a list of Greek authors who mentioned the Jews at some length and whose writings testify to the antiquity of the Jewish people. His date and nationality are unknown but he may be identical with the Theophilus whom Alexander Polyhistor cites as a source for the story that King Solomon sent the gold left over from the building of the Temple to the king of Tyre. It is also possible that he is the Theophilus who is known to have been of the school of Zenodotus, the great Alexandrian scholar of the third century b.c.e.

More From encyclopedia.com