THEOPHILUS, bishop of ALEXANDRIA. — B. in 385, d. in 412. He displayed great activity in the destruction of pagan temples and the erection of Christian churches.
A man not free from ambition and little scrupulous in his choice of means, he was the moving spirit behind the persecution of s. John Chrysostom, installed in the Byzantine see, which T. wished to reserve for some Alexandrian of his own making. The permanent Council of Constantinople, presided over by T., deposed Chrysostom in 403; he was exiled in 404. The pretext for this hostility was the hospitality granted by Chrysostom to the three monks called the «Macroadelphi», expelled by T. because they favored Origenism. Pope Innocent I, called into the matter by Chrysostom, excommunicated T., and the excommunication accompanied him until his death. T. was succeeded in the see by his nephew s. Cyril.
Little remains of T.’s copious literary legacy (ed. PG 65, 53-68). Only a small part of his 27 Paschal letters has been preserved, and rarely in the original Greek text. The same may be said of other letters of his and of the homilies, among which are that In mysticum caenam (attributed to s. Cyril: PG 77, 1016-29), that in Coptic on the Cross and the good thief (ed. F. Rossi, Papiri copti del Museo egiziano di Torino, I, Torino 1887, pp. 64-90), and another, also in Coptic, on repentance and sobriety (ed. and English translation E. Budge, Coptic Homilies in the dialect of Upper Egypt, London 1910, pp. 65 and 212). A fragment of the Paschal Canon presented by T. to Theodosius I has also been preserved. The authenticity of the Vision on the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt is doubtful (ed. Syriac translation A. Mingana, in Bulletin of John Rylands library [1929], pp. 383-474). T.’s doctrine is orthodox, and his authority was invoked during the Monophysite controversy.