Abstract

In several passages of his work, Theophilus of Antioch mentions a lost treatise not listed in the catalogue of his writings provided by Eusebius. Through a reassessment of the scholarly debate and the textual evidence, the paper attempts to reconstruct its structure and main contents. Probably arranged in two books, it developed an outline of the early history of mankind based essentially on a paraphrase of the first chapters of the book of Genesis. It was influenced by both pagan and Jewish-Hellenistic sources and represented, to the best of the evidence we have, one of the earliest writings on historiography by a Christian author.