Theophilus (Hebrew:תפלוס בר חנן)[1] was theHigh Priest in theSecond Temple inJerusalem from 37 to 41CE.[2]
Theophilus was a member of one of the wealthiest and most influentialJewish families inIudaea Province during the 1st century: he was the son ofAnanus (Hebrew:חנן) and the brother ofEleazar,Jonathan,Matthias andAnanus, all of whom served as High Priests. He was also the brother-in-law ofJoseph Caiaphas, the High Priest before whomJesus of Nazareth appeared. In addition, his sonMatthias served as the next to the last High Priest before thedestruction of the Temple by theRomans.
It has been suggested that he was theTheophilus to whom theGospel of Luke is addressed,[3] thoughTheophilus is a common enough name that there are many other possibilities for the addressee of Luke's Gospel and theActs of the Apostles.[4]
Proponents of this identification argue that the fact that in Luke Theophilus is called by the title Most Excellent (kratiste) indicates that he held a political office like high priest. If anything can be concluded from the absence o that honorific from Acts 1:1, this would suggest that theGospel of Luke was written during his high priesthood (37-41 CE) while Acts was written after him leaving the office.
Anossuary has been discovered bearing the inscription, "Yehoḥanah (Johanna) daughter of Yehoḥanan (John) son of Thefilus (Theophilus)[a] the High Priest".[5] The details of this ossuary have been published in theIsrael Exploration Journal. Therefore, Theophilus had at least one other son, named John, who fathered Johanna.
A woman calledJoanna, wife of Chuza, appears twice in the Gospel of Luke. First as a woman accompanying Jesus, after he had healed her (Luke 8:3), and later as one of the women visiting the empty tomb (Luke 24:10). It is unlikely, however, that the Johanna in the Gospel of Luke is the same Johanna as the one mentioned on the ossuary. According toRichard Bauckham, Johanna was "the fifth most popular woman's name in Jewish Palestine", and the Johanna of the Gospel of Luke was likely from Galilee, not from Jerusalem.[6] Furthermore, the High-Priest Theophilus probably turned 30 only after 18 CE, when his brother-in-law was appointed High Priest. It would have been unlikely for a son-in-law to take precedence over a son that had already reached minimum age for that office. If Theophilus was in his thirties at that time, a granddaughter of his could not have been married in the period of the Gospels around 30 CE.
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| Preceded by | High Priest of Israel 37—41 | Succeeded by |