To Autolycus

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–2.4 · 2.5–2.15 · 2.16–2.30 · 2.31–3.6 · 3.7–3.23 · 3.24–3.30

1. 1.1Theophilus replies to his friend Autolycus, who mocked him as a Christian: he gladly confesses the name.
2. 1.2God is seen only by the eyes of a pure soul; sin clouds them, as rust clouds a mirror.
3. 1.3God's form cannot be described; every name we give him names only one of his attributes or works.
4. 1.4The titles of God explained: uncreated, unchangeable, Lord, Father, Creator, Almighty; he made all things out of nothing.
5. 1.5God, like the soul in the body or a pilot on a ship, is invisible but known by his works; creation is enclosed in God's hand like seeds in a pomegranate.
6. 1.6God is known through the order and beauty of creation, the seasons, the stars, and the storm, as the Scriptures describe them.
7. 1.7God, the Creator and Lord of all, can be seen only by a heart healed by him; the believer will see him when raised immortal in body and soul.
8. 1.8Faith comes first in every human undertaking; the God who made each person from nothing can raise them again.
9. 1.9The pagan gods were dead men, and the poets tell of their crimes and misfortunes.
10. 1.10The Egyptians worship animals and the Greeks statues of dead men; there are many Zeuses, one of whom has a tomb in Crete; all are idols and demons.
11. 1.11Christians honor the emperor, obey him, and pray for him, but worship God alone.
12. 1.12The name Christian means “anointed,” and anointing is honorable and useful; Christians are anointed with the oil of God.
13. 1.13Nature is full of pictures of resurrection: seasons, seeds, trees, the moon, and recovery from illness.
14. 1.14Theophilus himself was converted by reading the prophets; he urges Autolycus to believe and escape the eternal punishment the prophets foretold.
15. 2.1The second book continues the conversation with Autolycus, now in writing.
16. 2.2Images are worshiped by the very craftsmen who made them; the genealogies show that the gods were born as humans are.
17. 2.3If the gods were born, why are no gods born now? The true God is everywhere and contained by nothing; Zeus had a home on Ida and a tomb in Crete.
18. 2.4The philosophers disagree about God; Plato's uncreated matter would make it equal to God, but God's power is shown in creating out of nothing.
19. 2.5Homer makes the water of Ocean the origin of the gods; Hesiod asks the Muses, who were born after the world, how the world began.
20. 2.6Hesiod's account of creation begins from Chaos but never says who shaped it; only God can have made and ordered matter.
21. 2.7The Greek genealogies, such as Satyrus's descent of the Ptolemies from Dionysus, show that the gods were ancestors of men, that is, men.
22. 2.8The poets and philosophers contradict one another about providence; they spoke under the inspiration of demons, though at times they said things that agree with the prophets.
23. 2.9The Hebrew prophets, inspired by the Holy Spirit, spoke in agreement about the past, present, and future; their fulfilled prophecies guarantee the rest.
24. 2.10God made all things from nothing through his Word, whom he had within himself and “uttered” with his Wisdom before creation; this Word spoke through the prophets, and Genesis begins with “In the beginning.”
25. 2.11The whole account of the six days of creation (Gen 1:3–2:3) is quoted from the Septuagint.
26. 2.12No one can fully explain the six days of creation; the philosophers' imitations mix truth with error; the seventh day, the sabbath, is known to all peoples though they do not know why.
27. 2.13Theophilus explains the first days of creation: God began with heaven, not with foundations as a builder does; the Spirit moved over the waters to give life; the Word shone like a lamp.
28. 2.14Plants growing from seeds foreshadow the resurrection; the world is like a salt sea kept alive by God's law and prophets, with the churches as safe harbors and the heresies as deadly reefs.
29. 2.15The sun and moon are types of God and humanity; the three days before the lights are types of the “Triad” of God, his Word, and his Wisdom; the stars represent the prophets, the righteous, and the apostate.
30. 2.16The blessing of the creatures of the waters foreshadows forgiveness of sins through the water of baptism; peaceable and predatory creatures picture the righteous and the wicked.
31. 2.17The land animals were not blessed, the blessing being reserved for humanity; wild beasts became savage through human sin, and will be restored when humanity is restored.
32. 2.18Humanity alone was made by God's own hands, in his image; God's “Let us make” was spoken to his Word and his Wisdom; the first humans and animals ate only plants.
33. 2.19Genesis 2 describes how God formed the human being from dust and breathed life into him, and placed him in a garden in the east.
34. 2.20Genesis 2:8–25 is quoted: the garden, its rivers, the command about the tree of knowledge, the creation of the woman, and the first marriage.
35. 2.21Genesis 3:1–19 is quoted: the serpent's temptation, the first sin, and God's judgment on the serpent, the woman, and the man.
36. 2.22It was the Word, God's Son, who walked in the garden: always within God's heart, “uttered” before creation as the firstborn of all creation, and sent by the Father to appear in a place.
37. 2.23Childbirth pains and the serpent's crawling still bear witness to the Genesis account.
38. 2.24Paradise was a real place on earth, in the east; the first human was made neither mortal nor immortal but capable of either, and was placed there to grow toward perfection and even divinity by keeping God's command.
39. 2.25The tree of knowledge was good; Adam was a child not yet ready for it, and death came from disobedience, not from the fruit; God forbade it not from envy but to test him and keep him innocent.
40. 2.26Expulsion from paradise was a merciful discipline; death breaks the human being like a flawed vessel so that he may be remade whole at the resurrection.
41. 2.27Humanity was created neither mortal nor immortal but free to choose; obedience leads to immortality, which God now gives by grace to those who obey him.
42. 2.28God made Eve from Adam's rib to show that one God made both, and marriage fulfills Adam's prophecy; Satan, a fallen angel, deceived Eve and is still invoked in the Bacchic cry “Euan.”
43. 2.29Satan, out of envy, moved Cain to murder Abel, and so death entered the world; God gave Cain, as he had given Adam, a chance to repent.
44. 2.30The line of Cain founded the first cities, polygamy, music, and metalwork before the flood; the Scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit, are older and truer than the Greek writers.
45. 2.31The history of the first cities, the tower of Babel (confirmed by the Sibyl), the kings of Genesis 14, the first war, and Melchizedek, first priest of God Most High.
46. 2.32After Babel humanity spread gradually from Arabia and Chaldea over the whole earth, as far as Britain; the Greek writers, ignorant of this history, speculate about the world's shape.
47. 2.33The Greek poets and historians came too late to know the truth about the beginnings; only Christians, taught by the Holy Spirit through the prophets, have the truth.
48. 2.34The pagans worship images of dead men; God gave the law and the prophets so that people might know the one God and live righteously.
49. 2.35The law forbids the worship of anything created; the prophets, speaking by one Spirit, agree about the one Creator and condemn idolatry.
50. 2.36Long quotations from the Sibyl proclaim the one invisible Creator, mock the worship of animals and images, and foretell fire for idolaters and paradise for those who honor the true God.
51. 2.37The Greek poets themselves bear witness that wrongdoers will be punished and that God sees all things.
52. 2.38The prophets foretell the fiery judgment, and even the poets confess providence, judgment, and life after death; Theophilus invites Autolycus to further conversation.
53. 3.1The third book will prove the antiquity of the Christian Scriptures against Autolycus's view that they are recent.
54. 3.2The poets, historians, and philosophers gained nothing true from their works; even Orpheus is said to have renounced his many gods.
55. 3.3The philosophers contradicted themselves, and the poets taught immorality by telling of the gods' crimes.
56. 3.4Theophilus answers the slanders against Christians (promiscuity, incest, cannibalism) and the charge that their teaching is new.
57. 3.5It is the philosophers (Zeno, Diogenes, Cleanthes) and historians who describe or even recommend cannibalism, not the Christians.
58. 3.6Plato's community of wives and the incest and sodomy taught (so Theophilus says) by Epicurus and the Stoics show that the charges of immorality belong to the philosophers.
59. 3.7The philosophers contradict themselves about the gods and providence; some comic poets affirm providence and reward; readers must judge critically.
60. 3.8The philosophers and poets ascribe incest, lust, and bloodshed to their gods; so the charges of atheism, promiscuity, and cannibalism rebound on them.
61. 3.9Christians confess one God, who governs all things by providence and gave the holy law of the Ten Commandments through Moses to Israel and, through them, to the world.
62. 3.10Because Israel had been strangers in Egypt for 430 years, God's law commanded them not to oppress strangers.
63. 3.11God sent the prophets to call Israel to repentance; Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah show that God desires the sinner's return, not his death.
64. 3.12The prophets, speaking by the one Spirit, agree with the law in teaching justice, mercy, and care for the poor, the orphan, and the widow.
65. 3.13Scripture forbids unchastity even in thought; the Gospel forbids lustful looks, marrying a divorced woman, and divorce except for sexual immorality.
66. 3.14Christians are taught to love their enemies, to do good without boasting, and to obey and pray for the authorities.
67. 3.15Christians, who may not even watch gladiatorial shows or immoral plays, cannot be guilty of promiscuity or cannibalism; their life is marked by chastity, monogamy, righteousness, and the rule of God.
68. 3.16Theophilus turns to chronology: the Greek philosophers' vast ages for the world are guesswork, as Plato himself admits.
69. 3.17Since the pagan poets themselves claimed divine teaching, much more should the Christians trust the Spirit-inspired prophets, whose predictions have been fulfilled, also on chronology.
70. 3.18The Greek flood stories (Plato's partial flood, Deucalion and Pyrrha) are fables compared with Moses' account.
71. 3.19Moses tells of one universal flood, from which only Noah (the Greeks' Deucalion) and his family, eight in all, were saved in the ark.
72. 3.20From Manetho's list of Egyptian kings Theophilus shows that the Exodus under “Tethmosis” preceded famous Egyptian cities and the Greek hero Danaus.
73. 3.21Manetho's slanders (that the Hebrews were expelled lepers) are refuted, but he confirms that they were shepherds who left Egypt, long before the Trojan War.
74. 3.22The Tyrian archives, as reported by Menander of Ephesus, date Solomon's temple, built with the help of Hiram of Tyre, about 134 years before the founding of Carthage.
75. 3.23The Hebrew Scriptures are older than all Greek lawgivers and writers; Theophilus now begins a chronology from creation, based on Moses.
76. 3.24A chronology from Adam to Samuel, following the Septuagint's genealogies: 2,242 years to the flood, 3,278 to Abraham, 3,938 to the death of Moses.
77. 3.25The chronology continues from Saul through the kings of Judah to the Babylonian exile and the return under Cyrus, fulfilling Jeremiah's seventy years.
78. 3.26The Greek historians begin only with Cyrus and Darius; the Scriptures show the true age of the world, against Plato's and Apollonius's vast figures.
79. 3.27From Cyrus the chronology passes to Rome: its kings, the republic, and the emperors down to the death of “Verus” (Marcus Aurelius).
80. 3.28The total from creation to the death of Marcus Aurelius comes to 5,695 years.
81. 3.29Pagan historians (Thallus, Berossus) confirm the biblical chronology; Moses is older than Kronos, Belus, and the Trojan War, and any error in Theophilus's reckoning is a matter of decades, not of thousands of years.
82. 3.30The Greeks ignore the true history because they learned writing late and forgot God; they honor poets who mock God and persecute those who worship him.