{ "$schema": "https://paulineletters.com/data/agent/commons/v1/external-evidence.schema.json", "schemaVersion": "1.0", "version": "1.0.0", "dataset": "external-evidence", "locale": "en", "title": "Evidence outside the New Testament for Acts and Paul’s letters", "description": "Inscriptions, coins, sites, manuscripts, Jewish and Roman writers and early Christian authors that bear on Acts and the letters, each with what it establishes, what it does not, and where interpreters differ.", "method": "Drafted from primary sources and catalogue records, then independently re-checked: every quotation comes from a public-domain translation and was matched on its page (see the receipts), catalogue numbers were resolved, and an adversarial review checked for overclaiming. Modern scholarship is named at work level only. Scripture is cited by reference.", "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/", "attribution": "Pauline Letters — https://paulineletters.com", "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/data/agent/commons/v1/external-evidence.json", "scripture": "References only. No Bible translation text is included; cite the reference and read it in a licensed or public-domain edition.", "itemCount": 46, "items": [ { "id": "temple-warning-inscription", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": -23, "dateTo": 70, "corpusReferences": [ "OGIS 598", "CIIP I.1 no. 2", "CIJ II 1400", "IIP JERU0598", "IIP JERU0599" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 21:26-36", "Acts 21:28-29", "Acts 20:4", "Acts 23:26", "Acts 24:6", "Acts 24:18", "Acts 25:8", "Acts 26:21", "Ephesians 2:14-15", "Romans 15:30-31" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.trophimus", "person.lysias", "person.tertullus", "person.josephus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.jerusalem", "place.ephesus", "place.judea" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 5.193-194 (Whiston 5.5.2)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2850/pg2850.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "there was a partition made of stone all round, whose height was three cubits: its construction was very elegant; upon it stood pillars, at equal distances from one another, declaring the law of purity, some in Greek, and some in Roman letters, that \"no foreigner should go within that sanctuary\"", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 6.124-126 (Whiston 6.2.4)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2850/pg2850.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Have not we given you leave to kill such as go beyond it, though he were a Roman?", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 15.417 (Whiston 15.11.5)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the midst of which, and not far from it, was the second, to be gone up to by a few steps: this was encompassed by a stone wall for a partition, with an inscription, which forbade any foreigner to go in under pain of death.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Temple Warning inscription (Q16934222)", "locator": "Q16934222", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q16934222.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Elias J. Bickerman", "work": "The Warning Inscriptions of Herod's Temple, Jewish Quarterly Review 37", "year": "1947", "view": "Assigns the notices to Herod's temple. The Inscriptions of Israel/Palestine records of both copies take their text and translation from this article." }, { "author": "Hannah M. Cotton, Leah Di Segni, Werner Eck, Benjamin Isaac et al. (eds.)", "work": "Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, vol. I: Jerusalem, Part 1", "year": "2010", "view": "Edits the warning inscription from Herod's temple as no. 2, covering both copies, in its section of religious and public inscriptions from Jerusalem before AD 70." }, { "author": "Stephen R. Llewelyn and Dionysia van Beek", "work": "Reading the Temple Warning as a Greek Visitor, Journal for the Study of Judaism 42", "year": "2011", "view": "The Greek is not translation Greek. A Greek-speaking visitor would read the warning in terms of Hellenistic law, and the architecture of the outer court would support that reading. Such a visitor would take the warning as royal rather than priestly in authority." }, { "author": "Wilhelm Dittenberger", "work": "Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. 2", "year": "1905", "view": "Edits the Istanbul stone alongside the parallels in Josephus. Quotes Mommsen's argument that the Romans had the notices cut after AD 6. Notes that the stone says hieron, a wider term, where Josephus speaks of the hagion." }, { "author": "J. Armitage Robinson", "work": "St Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians", "year": "1903", "view": "Reads the wall image of Ephesians 2:14 as an allusion to the temple balustrade and its warning stones. Links the barrier to the charge about Trophimus in Acts 21:29." }, { "author": "Charles Clermont-Ganneau", "work": "Discovery of a Tablet from Herod's Temple (PEF Quarterly Statement)", "year": "1871", "view": "The discoverer. Holds that the tablet follows Josephus's wording closely and sheds light on the riot of Acts 21." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q16934222", "label": "Temple Warning inscription" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "687928", "label": "Ierusalem/Hierosolyma/Col. Aelia Capitolina" } ], "title": "The temple warning inscriptions from Jerusalem", "summary": "Two Greek notices from Herod's temple in Jerusalem, one complete (now in Istanbul) and one fragmentary (Israel Museum), forbid any non-Jew to pass the barrier around the inner courts and warn that a trespasser answers for his own death. With Josephus's descriptions, they make the charge against Paul in Acts 21:28-29 intelligible and grave, but they name no one and cannot show the charge was true.", "dating": "Cut at some point between Herod's rebuilding of the temple (begun c. 23-19 BC) and its destruction in AD 70. Epigraphic catalogues date both copies 23 BC-AD 70; the exact date of cutting is unknown.", "currentLocation": "Istanbul Archaeology Museums (complete stone, found 1871); Israel Museum, Jerusalem (IAA 1936-989) (fragment)", "establishes": [ "Herod's temple had a barrier around its inner courts with Greek notices on it. The notices forbade any non-Jew (allogenes) to go inside the balustrade and enclosure around the sanctuary, and warned that a trespasser who was caught would be responsible for his own death. One complete copy and one fragment survive.", "Josephus describes the barrier and its death-backed prohibition (Ant. 15.417), says the notices were in Greek and Latin (War 5.193-194), and has Titus claim that Rome let the Jews kill trespassers even if they were Romans (War 6.124-126).", "In Acts 21:28-29 Paul is accused of polluting the temple by taking Gentiles into it, on the assumption that he had taken in Trophimus of Ephesus. The charge invokes a real, publicly posted rule that treated Gentile entry past the barrier as a capital matter, which helps explain the crowd's violence (Acts 21:30-31). The garrison intervened in the resulting uproar (Acts 21:31-36).", "Josephus places the barrier at the way up from the outer court to the inner courts and says the notices barred foreigners from going further (War 5.193-194; Ant. 15.417). So the alleged offence was taking a Gentile past the barrier, not bringing one into the temple area at all." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that Paul took Trophimus, his companion from Asia (Acts 20:4), or any other Gentile past the barrier. Acts presents the charge as an inference from seeing them together in the city (Acts 21:29); Paul denies any offence against the temple (Acts 24:18; Acts 25:8). Tertullus repeats the charge before Felix (Acts 24:6), and Paul recalls being seized in the temple (Acts 26:21).", "The inscriptions name no individual. They confirm the existence and seriousness of the rule, not the arrest itself or other details of Acts 21-26, such as the part played by the commander whom Acts later names as Claudius Lysias (Acts 23:26).", "The stone's penalty falls on the Gentile intruder; it names no penalty for a Jew who brought one in. On its own, then, it does not explain why the crowd turned on Paul himself.", "It does not settle two questions: whether Ephesians 2:14 alludes to this barrier, and whether the death warning meant a court sentence, tolerated mob violence or divine punishment." ], "debate": "Several questions remain open. Who issued the notices, and when: Herod's builders, the priests, or Roman authorities after AD 6? The last is Mommsen's view, quoted in OGIS 598, based on the Latin version of the notices that Josephus reports (none survives) and on Titus's words. Did 'responsible for his own death' mean execution by a court, mob action that was tolerated, or punishment by God? How far does Titus's speech, written by Josephus, reflect actual Roman policy? Finally, does the wall image of Ephesians 2:14 allude to this barrier, or to the Law (Ephesians 2:15)? That question partly depends on the letter's disputed authorship and date.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Accurate setting, not confirmation of the event", "statement": "The rule was widely known: Josephus reports it more than once, and it was posted at the temple in Greek. A writer at some distance from the events could set the scene correctly, so the match shows that Acts knows the temple well without confirming the riot and arrest. Paul's letter does show he expected danger from unbelievers in Judea (Romans 15:30-31), though not the riot itself." }, { "label": "Ephesians 2:14 means the Law, not the balustrade", "statement": "On this reading the wall image stands for the Law with its commands, which the next verse says was set aside (Ephesians 2:15). The wall vocabulary of Ephesians also differs from the stone (tryphaktos, peribolos) and from Josephus (dryphaktos), so the temple barrier is an illustration supplied by interpreters such as Robinson (1903). If Ephesians was written after AD 70, the barrier had already been destroyed." }, { "label": "Roman origin of the notices", "statement": "Theodor Mommsen, quoted by Dittenberger at OGIS 598, held that the Romans had the notices cut after Judaea became a province in AD 6. He pointed to the Latin version Josephus reports beside the Greek (none has been found) and to Titus's words in Josephus. Others treat the notices as part of Herod's rebuilding. On either view they were standing in Paul's lifetime." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/temple-warning-inscription" }, { "id": "ephesus-theatre", "kind": "site", "dateFrom": -200, "dateTo": 117, "corpusReferences": [ "I.Ephesos 27", "SEG 15, 698", "SEG 41, 974", "GIBM III 481" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 19:23-41", "Acts 19:29-31", "Acts 19:35-41", "Acts 19:39", "1 Corinthians 15:32", "1 Corinthians 16:8-9", "2 Corinthians 1:8-10" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.demetrius", "person.gaius", "person.aristarchus", "person.alexander" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "author": "Pleiades", "work": "Theater of Ephesus", "locator": "Pleiades 818256726 (connected to Ephesus 599612)", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/818256726/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "author": "Wikidata", "work": "Theater (Ephesus)", "locator": "Q15723477", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q15723477.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. XII, sec. 5, p. 277", "url": "https://archive.org/download/paulthetraveller00ramsuoft/paulthetraveller00ramsuoft_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The scene which follows is the most instructive picture of society in an Asian city at this period that has come down to us.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "philostratus-conybeare", "author": "Philostratus", "work": "The Life of Apollonius of Tyana", "translator": "F. C. Conybeare", "year": "1912", "locator": "VA 4.10", "url": "https://archive.org/download/lifeofapollonius00philuoft/lifeofapollonius00philuoft_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And with these words he led the population entire to the theatre, where the image of the Averting god has been set up.", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Peter Ruggendorfer and Friedrich Krinzinger (eds.)", "work": "Das Theater von Ephesos: Archäologischer Befund, Funde und Chronologie (Forschungen in Ephesos)", "year": "2017", "view": "Traces the theatre through eight building or usage phases. Dates the Hellenistic stage building to the first half of the 2nd century BC but finds that the auditorium's original date and shape cannot be determined. The most extensive Roman changes (stage building, extended upper seating) are placed under Domitian, with the south wing finished under Trajan, and the whole stage facade is assigned to the late Flavian period rather than to AD 66. Only limited early-imperial work is documented before then." }, { "author": "Gudrun Styhler-Aydın", "work": "Der Zuschauerraum des Theaters von Ephesos: Baubefund und architekturhistorische Analyse", "year": "2022", "view": "The Hellenistic theatre was already one of the large theatres of Asia Minor. Building from the 1st into the first half of the 2nd century AD made it one of the largest Roman-period auditoria in the region, with a diameter close to 150 m." }, { "author": "Rudolf Heberdey, George Niemann and Wilhelm Wilberg", "work": "Das Theater in Ephesos (Forschungen in Ephesos II)", "year": "1912", "view": "The first full Austrian publication of the theatre. As reported in the 2017 volume, it reconstructed the Hellenistic auditorium as already three-tiered, seating about 23,000, and dated the first stage-facade storeys to AD 66 from an architrave inscription." }, { "author": "J. T. Wood", "work": "Discoveries at Ephesus", "year": "1877", "view": "Excavated the theatre, computed its seating at 24,500, and found the Salutaris inscription in its southern entrance." }, { "author": "E. L. Hicks", "work": "The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part III: Priene, Iasos and Ephesos", "year": "1890", "view": "Edits the Salutaris bequest as no. 481 from inscribed marble blocks that formed the wall on the right flank of the theatre's south entrance, most still in their original courses when found. Notes that its documents regulate the carrying of the images to and from the theatre and reserve a place for the city's boys at assemblies held there." }, { "author": "Guy MacLean Rogers", "work": "The Sacred Identity of Ephesos: Foundation Myths of a Roman City", "year": "1991", "view": "Edits and translates the Salutaris foundation (I.Ephesos 27) and argues that its processions of images from the Artemision into the theatre at assemblies and festivals expressed an Ephesian civic identity centred on Artemis." }, { "author": "A. N. Sherwin-White", "work": "Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament", "year": "1963", "view": "Judged the author of Acts very well informed about Ephesian municipal institutions: the town clerk's control of the gathering, the theatre as the assembly's usual meeting place (citing a Salutaris inscription), and the appeal to a properly convened assembly. Argued that a scene in which the civic assembly still mattered belongs to an era that did not outlast the Antonines." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Argues that Acts' many local and institutional details, including those of the Ephesian episode, reflect accurate knowledge of first-century conditions and support the general reliability of its narrative." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles", "year": "1987", "view": "Reads Acts' riots and crowd scenes as entertaining literary set-pieces comparable to the ancient novel. On this reading a vivid, accurate setting is not by itself evidence that the event happened." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q15723477", "label": "Theater (Ephesus)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "818256726", "label": "Theater of Ephesus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "599612", "label": "Ephesus/Arsinoe(ia)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q47611", "label": "Ephesus" } ], "title": "The great theatre at Ephesus", "summary": "The great theatre of Ephesus, cut into the slope of Panayır Dağı, is the real and still-visible venue where Acts 19:29 places the crowd. It probably already held a large crowd in the Hellenistic period, and an inscription in the theatre itself shows that the citizen assembly met there by AD 104. The site confirms the setting, not the riot, and most of the visible remains postdate Paul.", "dating": "Hellenistic stage building, first half of the 2nd century BC (the auditorium's original date and shape cannot be fixed); main Roman enlargement under Domitian and Trajan (c. AD 81-117); Salutaris inscription AD 104", "currentLocation": "In situ, Ephesus archaeological site, Selçuk (İzmir Province), Turkey; Salutaris inscription partly in situ, some blocks in the British Museum", "establishes": [ "A theatre stood at Ephesus, set into the hillside of Panayır Dağı, well before Paul's stay. Its stage building dates to the first half of the 2nd century BC and was one of the largest Hellenistic stage buildings in Asia Minor, which suggests a large auditorium, though its exact size is unknown.", "The Salutaris inscription (I.Ephesos 27, AD 104), cut on the wall of the theatre's southern entrance, provides for images of Artemis and other figures to be carried from her temple into the theatre and set up at each statutory meeting of the assembly. By then the theatre was both the citizen assembly's meeting place and a stage for devotion to Artemis, which fits the setting of Acts 19:23-41.", "The site and the inscription make sense, in Ephesian terms, of Acts' contrast between the crowd gathered in the theatre and the properly convened assembly the town clerk points to (Acts 19:39).", "Most of what visitors now see, including the stage facade and the extended upper seating (diameter close to 150 m), belongs to an enlargement dated mainly to the reigns of Domitian and Trajan (c. AD 81-117), after Paul. In the mid-50s the building was the earlier Hellenistic theatre with some early-imperial alterations.", "A 3rd-century legendary narrative has Apollonius lead the whole population of Ephesus into the theatre (Philostratus, Life of Apollonius 4.10). It is late and not independent evidence for Acts, but it shows the theatre remembered as the place where the city gathered." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not independently confirm that the riot of Acts 19:23-41 happened, or any of its details: Demetrius, the seizure of Gaius and Aristarchus, Alexander, or the two hours of shouting. Nothing found at the theatre names Paul or the disturbance.", "The capacity figures (Wood's own calculation of 24,500 in 1877; about 20,000 for the Roman cavea in the 2017 Austrian volume; up to 25,000 in Pleiades) describe the enlarged Roman building or rest on reconstructions. They do not tell us how many the theatre held in the mid-50s or how many were present, and Acts gives no number.", "The Salutaris inscription is about fifty years later than Paul's stay and uses a different Greek adjective for a scheduled assembly than Acts 19:39 does. It illustrates civic practice, not the events of the 50s. Acts also does not say that Paul entered or spoke in the theatre (Acts 19:30-31), despite some popular retellings." ], "debate": "Two questions remain open. The first is what the building looked like in Paul's day. Austrian research dates the main Roman enlargement and the stage facade to Domitian and Trajan, whereas older work dated the first facade storeys to AD 66; the 2017 excavation report also finds that the date and shape of the Hellenistic auditorium cannot be determined, so its capacity at that time is uncertain. The second is what an accurate setting implies. Sherwin-White and Hemer took the precise civic detail as a sign of well-informed tradition. Pervo reads the episode as a literary set-piece, and others note that a later, informed writer could supply such local colour, so the setting cannot by itself confirm the riot.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Accurate setting for a real disturbance", "statement": "Luke drew on reliable information about a real crisis at Ephesus. The theatre as meeting place, the assembly terminology, the town clerk and the Asiarchs fit early imperial Ephesus (Sherwin-White, Hemer); Ramsay called the scene the most instructive surviving picture of society in an Asian city. Paul's letters report severe danger at Ephesus and in Asia (1 Corinthians 15:32; 1 Corinthians 16:8-9; 2 Corinthians 1:8-10), though never a theatre riot." }, { "label": "Literary set-piece on a familiar stage", "statement": "The episode is largely Luke's dramatic composition, in the manner of the crowd scenes Pervo compares to ancient novels. The theatre, devotion to Artemis and the civic offices were public and long-lasting features of Ephesus, still prominent in AD 104, so an informed writer could set a scene there without a specific source. On this view the accurate setting neither confirms the event nor dates Acts." }, { "label": "Real trouble, composed scene", "statement": "A middle view holds that a real disturbance lies behind the account, since Paul's letters attest serious danger at Ephesus, but that Luke composed the scene and its speeches. On this view the setting supports a tradition of conflict without confirming its details." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-ephesus-theatre" }, { "id": "erastus-inscription", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 31, "dateTo": 150, "corpusReferences": [ "Corinth VIII.3 232", "AE 1930, 118", "EDH HD025815", "EDCS-32001186", "TM 177152" ], "confidence": "medium", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Romans 16:23", "Acts 19:22", "2 Timothy 4:20", "1 Corinthians 1:26" ], "personIds": [ "person.erastus", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.corinth", "place.achaia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "author": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (record last updated 2013-05-24, Cowey)", "work": "EDH inscription record: building/dedicatory inscription from Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus", "year": "2013", "locator": "EDH HD025815", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD025815", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss / Slaby", "work": "EDCS monument record (JSON data endpoint)", "locator": "EDCS-32001186", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/320/32001186.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "author": "Trismegistos", "work": "TM text relations data service", "locator": "TM 177152", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/177152", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "author": "Pleiades", "work": "Corinthus/Korinthos", "locator": "Pleiades 570182", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/570182/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae, or, The Truth of the Scripture History of St. Paul", "year": "1790 (Cambridge, Mass. edition, 1806)", "locator": "ch. II (Epistle to the Romans), No. II", "url": "https://archive.org/download/horaepaulinaeort00pale/horaepaulinaeort00pale_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Erastus was one of those who had attended St. Paul in his travels, Acts xix. 22; and when those travels had, upon some occasion, brought our apostle and his train to Corinth, Erastus staid there, for no reason so probable as that it was his home.", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Henry J. Cadbury", "work": "\"Erastus of Corinth,\" Journal of Biblical Literature 50", "year": "1931", "view": "Read the civic title in Romans as rendering arcarius rei publicae, a municipal post held by slaves or men of servile origin, and judged identification with the paving aedile improbable and close to impossible, chiefly because one career was unlikely to include both posts. Did not treat the objection that a Christian could not serve as aedile as decisive. Warned that the three New Testament Erasti are not certainly one person and that the aedile may be a later Corinthian." }, { "author": "John Harvey Kent", "work": "Corinth VIII.3: The Inscriptions, 1926-1950", "year": "1966", "view": "Corpus edition of no. 232. As summarised by Gill (1989), Kent dated the pavement to about the middle of the first century and judged the identification with the Erastus of Romans sound. He cited the rarity of the cognomen at Corinth and argued that the civic title in Romans describes a Corinthian aedile's functions." }, { "author": "Gerd Theissen", "work": "The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (English translation)", "year": "1982", "view": "As reported by Gill (1989) and Clarke (1991), equates the civic title in Romans with a junior office such as quaestor rather than aedile. Allows the identification as possible without being convinced." }, { "author": "Victor P. Furnish", "work": "Corinth in Paul's Time: What Can Archaeology Tell Us?, Biblical Archaeology Review 15", "year": "1988", "view": "As reported by Gill (1989), follows Theissen in proposing that Erastus was first quaestor and later aedile, and accepts that the aedile is the Erastus whom Paul and the author of 2 Timothy mention." }, { "author": "David W. J. Gill", "work": "\"Erastus the Aedile,\" Tyndale Bulletin 40", "year": "1989", "view": "The evidence allows neither a certain identification nor a certain rejection. The lack of space for filiation and tribe suggests the aedile was a freedman, and the civic title in Romans could correspond to aedile at Corinth. Reports the complete slab found in situ in 1929 in the paved area east of the stage building, with other pieces found in 1928 and 1947." }, { "author": "Andrew D. Clarke", "work": "\"Another Corinthian Erastus Inscription,\" Tyndale Bulletin 42", "year": "1991", "view": "Draws attention to a second-century dedication, first published by Pallas and Dantes, that probably names an Erastus at Corinth, and rejects identifying that man with Paul's associate. Holds that identifying the first-century aedile remains a significant possibility." }, { "author": "John K. Goodrich", "work": "\"Erastus, Quaestor of Corinth,\" New Testament Studies 56", "year": "2010", "view": "Argues that Erastus's civic title in Romans 16:23 corresponds to the quaestorship, a high-ranking municipal office held by the economic elite. Rejects arcarius and aedile as the Latin equivalents." }, { "author": "Alexander Weiss", "work": "\"Keine Quästoren in Korinth: Zu Goodrichs (und Theißens) These über das Amt des Erastos (Röm 16.23),\" New Testament Studies 56", "year": "2010", "view": "Argues that the municipal office of quaestor did not exist at Corinth, against Theissen and Goodrich." }, { "author": "Steven J. Friesen", "work": "\"The Wrong Erastus: Ideology, Archaeology, and Exegesis,\" in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society (Supplements to Novum Testamentum 134)", "year": "2010", "view": "As summarised in reviews and responses, argues that the inscription lies in a secondary context and was probably not commissioned before the mid-second century, so it names a non-Christian elite aedile rather than Paul's Erastus. Holds that the Erastus of Romans was a low-status public servant, possibly a slave, and probably not a believer." }, { "author": "John K. Goodrich", "work": "\"Erastus of Corinth (Romans 16.23): Responding to Recent Proposals on his Rank, Status, and Faith,\" New Testament Studies 57", "year": "2011", "view": "Responds to Weiss and Friesen, including Friesen's proposal that Erastus was an unbelieving public slave, and defends the view that Erastus was a Christian who served as a Corinthian municipal quaestor." }, { "author": "Timothy A. Brookins", "work": "\"The (In)frequency of the Name 'Erastus' in Antiquity: A Literary, Papyrological, and Epigraphical Catalog,\" New Testament Studies 59", "year": "2013", "view": "Catalogues ancient occurrences of the name and finds it rare, with very few records from first-century Greece." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "177152", "label": "Building/dedicatory inscription from Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "570182", "label": "Corinthus/Korinthos" } ], "title": "The Erastus pavement inscription at Corinth", "summary": "A Latin inscription in a paved square east of Corinth's theatre records that an Erastus laid the paving at his own expense in return for his aedileship. It places a man of that name among Roman Corinth's magistrates, the kind of civic setting Romans 16:23 describes. It does not prove he is Paul's Erastus: his full name is lost, it is disputed whether the title in Romans matches an aedileship, and the date is contested.", "dating": "Catalogued as AD 31-70 (EDH, EDCS), consistent with Kent's mid-first-century date. Friesen (2010) argues it was probably not laid before the mid-second century; the range given here ends at AD 150, the earliest point of that proposal, not its end.", "currentLocation": "Ancient Corinth archaeological site, Greece: the in-situ slab in the paved area east of the theatre; the location of the other fragments is not confirmed here.", "establishes": [ "A Latin building inscription from Roman Corinth (Kent, Corinth VIII.3 no. 232; EDH HD025815) records that a man with the cognomen Erastus paved the area at his own expense (sua pecunia) in return for his aedileship (pro aedilitate). His praenomen and nomen are lost, and only the cuttings for the inlaid metal letters survive.", "It shows that the Roman colony of Corinth, in the province of Achaia, had aediles, and that an office-holder could repay his election by paying for public paving.", "It places an Erastus in Corinth's office-holding class at some point between the mid-first century and, on the latest proposal, the mid-second century or later. A Corinthian Erastus with a civic title (Romans 16:23) therefore fits the city's documented setting." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that the aedile is the Erastus of Romans 16:23, Acts 19:22 or 2 Timothy 4:20. His praenomen and nomen are lost, it is disputed whether the civic title in Romans corresponds to an aedileship, and the date is contested.", "It does not show that the Erastus named in Acts, Romans and 2 Timothy is one person; that question rests on the texts, not on this stone. Paley (1790) argued from Acts 19:22, Romans 16:23 and 2 Timothy 4:20 that Corinth was Erastus's home; that argument predates the stone and depends on the texts.", "It does not show that Paul's Corinthian church included wealthy magistrates, or that a Christian held the aedileship; both depend on the disputed identification. Paul's remark that not many Corinthian believers were of high standing (1 Corinthians 1:26) neither excludes nor confirms an elite member." ], "debate": "Three questions remain open. Date: Kent placed the pavement around the mid-first century, and EDH and EDCS catalogue it as AD 31-70. Gill reports the complete slab found in situ in 1929, but Friesen argues that the inscription lies in a secondary context and was probably not laid before the mid-second century. Office: some equate Erastus's civic title in Romans 16:23 with aedile (Kent, Gill), others with quaestor (Theissen, Goodrich), and others (Cadbury; Friesen) read it as a low-status city post, possibly held by a slave; Weiss denies that Corinth had municipal quaestors. Identity: Brookins finds the name rare, but a probable second-century Erastus at Corinth (Clarke 1991) shows the name was not unique there, and with the praenomen and nomen lost, identification stays possible rather than demonstrated.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Same man, later career", "statement": "Kent judged the identification with the Erastus of Romans sound, and Clarke keeps it a significant possibility. Theissen equated the Romans office with a junior post such as quaestor; Furnish, following him, proposed that Erastus was quaestor around the time of the letter and later aedile. Goodrich also argues for a quaestorship, which he regards as a high-ranking post held by the elite." }, { "label": "A different, later aedile", "statement": "Friesen argues that the inscription lies in a secondary context and was probably not laid before the mid-second century. On this view it names a non-Christian member of the elite, not the Erastus of Romans, who was a low-status city functionary, possibly a slave; Friesen also doubts that the Erastus of Romans was a believer at all." }, { "label": "Undecidable on present evidence", "statement": "Gill holds that the evidence permits neither a confident identification nor a confident rejection. The pavement adds a Corinthian Erastus to the record without settling whether he is the man Paul names." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/erastus-inscription" }, { "id": "gallio-inscription", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 51, "dateTo": 52, "corpusReferences": [ "FD III 4, 286", "SIG3 801 D", "AE 2002, 1335", "Oliver, Greek Constitutions 31", "EDH HD043294", "EDCS-66400014", "PHI 240470", "SEG 32, 546 (Deiana's reading of line 17; PHI 240472)", "TM 177226" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 18:12-17", "Acts 18:1-11", "Acts 18:18", "1 Corinthians 1:1" ], "personIds": [ "person.gallio", "person.claudius", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.achaia", "place.corinth" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "work": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: public legal inscription from Delphi (Achaia)", "locator": "EDH HD043294", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD043294", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (record last updated by Cowey)", "year": "2011" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (references FDelphes 286; AE 2002, 1335; dated 52; Delphoi, Achaia)", "locator": "EDCS-66400014", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/monument/66400014", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "work": "Trismegistos Texts, text-relations service (links EDH HD043294, EDCS 66400014, PHI 240470-240472)", "locator": "TM 177226", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/177226", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Delphi Inscription", "locator": "Q5254406", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q5254406.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "collection of letter fragments written by Claudius", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "seneca-epistles-gummere", "work": "Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius (Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales), vol. 3", "locator": "Ep. 104.1", "url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_104", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "for I remembered my master Gallio’s words, when he began to develop a fever in Achaia and took ship at once, insisting that the disease was not of the body but of the place.", "role": "primary-text", "author": "Seneca", "translator": "Richard Mott Gummere", "year": "1925" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "work": "Tacitus, Annals, Book 15", "locator": "Ann. 15.73", "url": "https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Annals_(Tacitus)/Book_15", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Salienus Clemens denounced Junius Gallio, who was terror-stricken at his brother Seneca's death", "role": "primary-text", "author": "Tacitus", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb (Wikisource text based on their translation)", "year": "1876" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "work": "Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60 (Loeb vol. VII)", "locator": "60.24.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Achaia and Macedonia, which ever since the reign of Tiberius had been assigned to governors directly appointed, Claudius now made to depend upon the lot once more.", "role": "primary-text", "author": "Cassius Dio", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1924" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "work": "Cassius Dio, Roman History, Book 60 (Loeb vol. VII)", "locator": "60.17.3", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he gave notice to the governors chosen by lot, since they were slow even now about leaving the city, that they must begin their journey before the middle of April.", "role": "primary-text", "author": "Cassius Dio", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1924" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby: CIL 06, 01256 (p 3129, 3798, 4365) = ILS 218a", "locator": "EDCS-17800159 (CIL 06, 01256 (p 3129, 3798, 4365) = ILS 218a)", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/178/17800159.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Émile Bourguet", "work": "De rebus Delphicis imperatoriae aetatis capita duo", "year": "1905", "view": "First published the four fragments together as a letter of Claudius (one had earlier been drawn by Nikitsky). Without discussing Paul, he gave Gallio's year of office as AD 52 on the authority of the Prosopographia (as reported by Deissmann 1912 and SIG3)." }, { "author": "Adolf Deissmann", "work": "St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History, Appendix I (English translation of Paulus, 1911)", "year": "1912", "view": "Dated the letter between the end of 51 or, more probably, the beginning of 52 and 1 August 52, using Dessau's acclamation data and Dessau's date of 1 August 52 for the aqueduct's dedication. Argued that Gallio took office in the summer of 51 and placed Paul in Corinth from early 50 to late summer 51." }, { "author": "André Plassart", "work": "Fouilles de Delphes III.4, no. 286", "year": "1970", "view": "Edited the assembled fragments. Read line 5 as showing that Gallio had reported Delphi's depopulation, and divided line 17 to give a second-person singular pronoun, so that the recipient was an individual, probably Gallio's successor as proconsul (as reported by Oliver 1971)." }, { "author": "James H. Oliver", "work": "The Epistle of Claudius Which Mentions the Proconsul Junius Gallio (Hesperia 40)", "year": "1971", "view": "Accepted most of Plassart's text but doubted the second-person reading of line 17, preferring to take the letters as the end of a verb. Argued that Gallio appears to be proconsul when the emperor writes and that the recipient was a community, either the city of Delphi or the Amphictyonic Council." }, { "author": "Gerd Lüdemann", "work": "Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology (German original 1980)", "year": "1984", "view": "Argues that Acts 18 conflates accounts of two of Paul's visits to Corinth and dates the Gallio incident to the later visit. Reported here via Fellows 2005; not checked in the book itself." }, { "author": "Richard G. Fellows", "work": "Renaming in Paul's Churches: The Case of Crispus-Sosthenes Revisited (Tyndale Bulletin 56.2)", "year": "2005", "view": "Names Donfried, Lüdemann and Hurd as proponents of the view that Acts 18 conflates two visits, and rejects it: since Sosthenes was already a believer who had left Corinth when 1 Corinthians was written, the Gallio incident probably belongs to Paul's first visit." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q5254406", "label": "Delphi Inscription" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "177226", "label": "Letter of Claudius to Delphi naming Gallio (TM text)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q452194", "label": "Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q75459", "label": "Delphi" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "540726", "label": "Delphi" } ], "title": "The Gallio inscription at Delphi", "summary": "Fragments of a letter of Claudius inscribed at Delphi name Gallio, restored as [L. Ju]nius Gallio, as the emperor's friend and proconsul. Claudius's 26th imperatorial acclamation dates the letter most probably to the first seven months of AD 52, so Gallio governed Achaia about 51/52, possibly 52/53. It anchors the hearing of Acts 18:12-17 in time, though it never mentions Paul or the hearing.", "dating": "Most probably the first seven months of AD 52 (before 1 August); a date at the very end of AD 51 is not wholly excluded. Inscribed copy of a letter of Claudius, dated by his 26th imperatorial acclamation.", "currentLocation": "Delphi (EDH). Deissmann (1912) reports Bourguet's four fragments in the Delphi Museum (Inv. 3883, 2178, 2271, 4001); present display not verified.", "establishes": [ "A letter of Claudius inscribed at Delphi names Gallio as the emperor's friend and proconsul, in a passage about Delphi's lack of citizens that he evidently reported (the verb is restored). Of the name only '-nios Gallion' survives; 'Junius', 'friend' and 'proconsul' are restored from partial letters but generally accepted. Delphi lay in Achaia, so the letter confirms independently of Acts that Gallio governed Achaia (Acts 18:12).", "Claudius's titles keep the numeral 26 for his imperatorial acclamations. An inscription from Kys pairs the 26th with his 12th tribunician year; the Porta Maggiore aqueduct text (CIL VI 1256; EDR104278) pairs the 12th with the 27th. Since Dessau, followed by Deissmann (1912), dated that aqueduct to 1 August 52, the letter most probably falls in the first seven months of 52; late 51 is not wholly excluded.", "Proconsuls normally served for about a year, so Gallio's term overlapped the first half of 52: most likely 51/52, possibly 52/53. If Acts 18:12-17 places the hearing correctly, it falls within about 51-53. Deissmann (1912) argued for 51/52; Ramsay, as Deissmann reports, preferred 52/53.", "Tacitus (Ann. 15.73) names Gallio as Seneca's brother; Seneca (Ep. 104.1) recalls him leaving Achaia by ship when fever began, so his term may have been cut short (an inference). Dio (60.24.1) says Claudius returned Achaia to governors chosen by lot in AD 44, which fits the title proconsul in Acts 18:12." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not mention Paul, the Jews of Corinth, or any hearing. It confirms the governor named in Acts 18:12, not that the scene in Acts 18:12-17 happened as narrated.", "It gives no start or end date for Gallio's term. Choosing between 51/52 and 52/53 depends on the normal one-year tenure, on when terms began, and on whether the letter treats Gallio as the sitting proconsul.", "It cannot show where in Paul's eighteen months or more at Corinth the hearing fell (Acts 18:11 and Acts 18:18). Paul's arrival date in Corinth is therefore a further inference.", "It does not show that Acts 18:1-18 describes a single continuous visit." ], "debate": "The AD 52 date rests on the acclamation numeral that survives on the stone; the open questions come after it. The 1 August limit holds only if the Porta Maggiore text reflects the aqueduct's dedication date (EDR dates it only to 52/53), and Dessau allowed, while thinking it improbable, that the 26th acclamation fell at the very end of 51. Gallio's year could be 51/52 or 52/53. Dio (60.17.3) says that in AD 43 Claudius ordered governors chosen by lot to leave Rome before mid-April, which suggests a spring or early-summer start (an inference); Deissmann, following Mommsen, assumed a nominal 1 July. Plassart's second-person reading of line 17, known here as reported by Oliver (1971), makes the recipient Gallio's successor. Oliver preferred a community as recipient, and others divide line 17 as the verb εἴασε, which removes the pronoun (Deiana, SEG 32.546; PHI 240472). Placing the hearing early in Gallio's term, as Deissmann did, is an inference, and whether the scene happened is a separate historical judgment.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Gallio's year was 52/53", "statement": "Gallio may have taken office in spring or early summer 52, with Claudius writing before 1 August 52. The hearing would then fall in 52 or early 53 and Paul's arrival in Corinth about 51. Deissmann reports that Ramsay (1909) put the proconsulship from April 52 to April 53 and Paul's arrival in October 51, and that Babut (1911) preferred a similar range." }, { "label": "The letter was sent after Gallio's term", "statement": "Plassart, as reported by Oliver (1971), divided line 17 to give a second-person singular pronoun, making the recipient an individual, probably Gallio's successor, who is told what Gallio had reported. That would put Gallio's year at 51/52 and the hearing in 51 or early 52. Oliver doubted the reading because Claudius still calls Gallio proconsul, and Deiana's division of the line removes the pronoun." }, { "label": "Acts 18 combines two visits", "statement": "Donfried, Lüdemann and Hurd (as reported by Fellows 2005) take Acts 18 to combine two visits to Corinth, placing the Gallio incident on the later one; the inscription would then date the hearing, not Paul's arrival. Fellows replies that the incident probably belongs to the first visit: if the Sosthenes of Acts 18:17 co-sent 1 Corinthians (1 Corinthians 1:1), the incident is hard to date after that letter." }, { "label": "Office confirmed, scene unproven", "statement": "A sceptical reader can grant that Gallio governed Achaia at about this time and still treat Acts 18:12-17 as Luke's framing of the Corinth story. Deissmann reports that Loisy dated the hearing, if historical, to 52 or early 53. The inscription settles the office and the approximate date; whether the event happened needs a separate assessment of Acts." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/gallio-inscription" }, { "id": "ephesus-artemis-neokoros", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": -334, "dateTo": 244, "corpusReferences": [ "RPC I 2626", "RPC I 2627", "RPC I 2628", "IPriene 231 (= IK Priene 150)", "IEph 27B (= GIBM 481)", "IEph 27E", "IEph 300 (= CIG 2972)", "IEph 1578A (= GIBM 578; SEG 36, 1028)", "IEph 2040", "IEph 2212", "IEph 4336" ], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 19:23-41", "Acts 19:24", "Acts 19:27", "Acts 19:35" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.demetrius", "person.nero" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "pausanias-jones", "work": "Description of Greece", "author": "Pausanias", "translator": "W. H. S. Jones and H. A. Ormerod", "year": "1918", "locator": "Paus. 4.31.8", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0160%3Abook%3D4%3Achapter%3D31%3Asection%3D8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus, and individuals hold her in honor above all the gods.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895 (text read from the 1903 printing)", "locator": "ch. XII §5, 'Demetrius the Silversmith' (p. 278 in the 1903 printing)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/cu31924029332297/cu31924029332297_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The richer tradesmen made shrines in the more expensive material, and silver was evidently a favourite material among the wealthy.", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "E. L. Hicks", "work": "Demetrius the Silversmith (The Expositor, 4th series, vol. 1); Ephesus: A Postscript (The Expositor, 4th series, vol. 2)", "year": "1890", "view": "Combined fragments of an honorary list of neopoioi (GIBM 578 = IEph 1578A) and identified the Demetrios of its dating formula, whom he took as foreman of the neopoioi, with the silversmith of Acts 19. He dated the list before Vespasian, possibly to Paul's time, and preferred metal statuettes like the Salutaris images to shrines. The first article is known here through Rogers 1986; the postscript was read." }, { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "view": "The shrines were small shrines of the goddess sold for dedication: cheap ones in terracotta, costlier ones in marble or silver. Demetrius was a leading figure in these trades, and the riot reflects threatened commercial and temple interests." }, { "author": "G. M. Rogers", "work": "Demetrios of Ephesos: Silversmith and Neopoios? (Belleten 50)", "year": "1986", "view": "Doubts Hicks's dating and identification: the Demetrios of the dating formula appears to be a city official and is not definitely a neopoios, while the Demetrios of lines 6-7 certainly is, and identifying him with the silversmith is speculation. Neopoioi conferred citizenship and guarded the Artemision's dedications, including the Salutaris images; if Demetrius was one, Luke's silence about the office would reveal his narrative purpose." }, { "author": "S. J. Friesen", "work": "Twice Neokoros: Ephesus, Asia and the Cult of the Flavian Imperial Family", "year": "1993", "view": "Dates the provincial temple of the Sebastoi at Ephesus, the city's first securely attested imperial neokorate, to AD 89/90, and approves Keil's reading of the Neronian neokoroi coins as referring to Artemis. Both points are reported via Witetschek 2009 and secondary summaries, not checked in the book." }, { "author": "B. Burrell", "work": "Neokoroi: Greek Cities and Roman Emperors", "year": "2004", "view": "A comprehensive study of neokoros cities. Connects the Neronian coins with an imperial temple granted under Nero, and treats Acts 19:35 as reflecting the 50s, arguing that 'neokoros of Artemis' would not have suited Ephesus between its imperial neokorate and the early third century. Reported via Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "S. Witetschek", "work": "Artemis and Asiarchs: Some Remarks on Ephesian Local Colour in Acts 19 (Biblica 90)", "year": "2009", "view": "Acts 19:35 is the earliest clear attestation of Ephesus as neokoros of Artemis; the official title dates from Caracalla's reign. The coins alone are inconclusive, but read alongside Acts as evidence for the late first century they more plausibly show that Ephesians could already call their city neokoros of Artemis. Acts 19 is evidence mainly for Luke's own time." }, { "author": "C. J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Counts the neokoros title in Acts 19:35 among Luke's specific local knowledge. Reported via Witetschek 2009, not checked in Hemer directly." }, { "author": "J. Keil", "work": "Die erste Kaiserneokorie von Ephesos (Numismatische Zeitschrift 12)", "year": "1919", "view": "Rejected the idea of a Neronian imperial neokorate and took the neokoros title on the coins of AD 65/6 to refer to Artemis. Reported via Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "F. Kirbihler", "work": "Les grands-prêtres d'Éphèse: aspects institutionnels et sociaux de l'asiarchie (in Pathways to Power, ed. A. D. Rizakis and F. Camia)", "year": "2008", "view": "Supports a provincial neokorate granted to Ephesus under Nero, arguing that Tacitus could have passed over it. Reported via Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "R. I. Pervo", "work": "Acts (Hermeneia)", "year": "2009", "view": "Suspects that the neokoros title in Acts 19:35 may be a slight anachronism. Reported via Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "A. Burnett, M. Amandry and P. P. Ripollès", "work": "Roman Provincial Coinage I: From the Death of Caesar to the Death of Vitellius (44 BC-AD 69)", "year": "1992", "view": "Catalogues the Neronian neokoroi coins of Ephesus as RPC I 2626-2628. The online note on 2628 says its legend is mostly illegible, assigns it to the group by type and style, and allows that the bees may symbolize the Artemis temple." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q43018", "label": "Temple of Ephesian Artemis" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1553679", "label": "neocorus (temple-warden office and title)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "873985034", "label": "Temple of Artemis, Ephesus" } ], "title": "Ephesus as temple-warden of Artemis: coins, inscriptions and the miniature-shrine question", "summary": "Acts 19:35 is the earliest clear text to give Ephesus the temple-warden title for Artemis. Coins of AD 65/6 call the Ephesians neokoroi without naming the temple; inscriptions add \"of Artemis\" only from about AD 200. Inscriptions of AD 104 and of the Roman period attest temple officers, silversmiths and silver images of Artemis. The sources reviewed here identify no miniature shrine of Artemis in silver, as distinct from statuettes.", "dating": "c. 334 BC to AD 244 (a group of sources): neokoros of Artemis as a personal office c. 334 BC (IPriene 231); Neronian coins AD 65/6; Salutaris foundation AD 104; 'neokoros of Artemis' as a city title in inscriptions from AD 200/210 to 244", "currentLocation": "Site of Ephesus and the Artemision (Selçuk, Türkiye); IPriene 231 was found at Priene. The Salutaris and neopoioi inscriptions were published from British Museum stones as GIBM 481 and 578; present location not checked against a BM record. RPC records the only known specimen of RPC I 2628 in the British Museum; specimens of 2626-2627 are in several collections.", "establishes": [ "Bronze coins struck at Ephesus in AD 65/6 call the Ephesians neokoroi: RPC I 2626-2627, naming the proconsul Aviola and the magistrate Aichmokles, with 2628 assigned to the same issue by type and style. The city used the title about a decade after Paul's stay, before its first securely attested imperial neokorate (the Flavian temple, dated by Friesen to AD 89/90). The legends do not name the temple.", "Neokoros was a recognized office at the Artemision long before Paul. An inscription found at Priene, c. 334 BC, honours Megabyxos son of Megabyxos (the first name is restored) as neokoros of Artemis in Ephesus (IPriene 231).", "From about AD 200, Ephesian inscriptions call the city neokoros of Artemis beside its imperial neokorates: IEph 2040 (theatre repair, AD 200/210), IEph 300 (AD 214/217; three times neokoros, twice of the emperors, once of Artemis) and IEph 4336 (AD 244), which also names the clerk of the people and two neopoioi. IEph 2040 may slightly predate the grant under Caracalla that Witetschek treats as official.", "In AD 104 the Salutaris foundation (IEph 27) dedicated a gold image of Artemis and several silver images (the full total is restored). A council decree had them carried from the Artemision porch to assemblies and games, with neopoioi (temple officers) attending. An undated Roman-period tomb (IEph 2212) belongs to a silversmith who was also a neopoios, cared for by the silversmiths' synedrion.", "Pausanias, writing in the second century AD, says that all cities worship Artemis of Ephesus and individuals honour her above all gods (4.31.8). This later parallel to the claim about her worldwide worship in Acts 19:27 attests her renown in his day, not in the 50s." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that Demetrius, the riot in the theatre, or the town clerk's speech happened as Acts 19:23-41 narrates. It shows that the civic and religious setting is plausible.", "It does not attest miniature shrines of Artemis in silver. The Salutaris silver objects are statuettes. In 1890 Hicks knew of no metal shrines of Artemis from Ephesus, and the sources reviewed here add none. Precious-metal objects seldom survive, so this silence is weak evidence.", "It does not prove that 'neokoros of Artemis' was a formal civic title in the 50s. The Neronian coins do not name the temple, and wording that names Artemis appears in inscriptions only from about AD 200.", "IEph 1578A names a Demetrios in its broken dating formula, his office lost, and Demetrios son of Menophilos as the first neopoios listed; they may or may not be one man. Neither can be identified with the silversmith of Acts 19:24." ], "debate": "Was 'neokoros of Artemis' current in Paul's day? Keil (1919), approved by Friesen, read the Neronian coins as referring to Artemis. Burrell and Kirbihler link them to an imperial temple granted under Nero; Burrell still treats Acts 19:35 as reflecting the 50s, since he holds that the title would not have suited Ephesus between its imperial neokorate and the early third century. Witetschek finds the coins inconclusive on their own, but reads Acts 19:35 as evidence that Ephesians of Luke's late-first-century day could use the title, which in turn makes Keil's reading of the coins more plausible. Pervo suspects a slight anachronism. On Demetrius's shrines, Ramsay proposed small shrines of the goddess in terracotta, marble and silver; Hicks preferred statuettes and identified Demetrius with an officer of the neopoioi; Rogers judges that identification speculative.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Informal title already in use (Acts fits the 50s)", "statement": "Ephesus called itself neokoros of Artemis informally before any imperial temple, and the Neronian legend of AD 65/6 refers to Artemis (Keil, approved by Friesen; RPC's note on 2628 also entertains an Artemis temple). On this view the town clerk's words in Acts 19:35 fit Paul's time, although Acts is the earliest clear text to give the city this Artemis title." }, { "label": "Neronian coins refer to an imperial temple", "statement": "The coins of AD 65/6 reflect a provincial imperial temple granted under Nero and interrupted after his death (Burrell, Kirbihler). They would then say nothing about an Artemis title, and Acts 19:35 would stand alone as first-century evidence for it. Witetschek judges this theory to rest more on conjecture and gaps in the sources than on clear evidence." }, { "label": "Luke's own time, or anachronism", "statement": "The phrase reflects how Ephesians understood their city when Acts was written, in the late first century (Witetschek), or it may be a slight anachronism (Pervo). Either way it is evidence for Luke's setting rather than a record of words spoken in the 50s." }, { "label": "What were Demetrius's shrines?", "statement": "They may have been small shrines of the goddess sold for dedication: cheap ones in terracotta, costlier ones in marble or silver (Ramsay). Hicks thought metal statuettes like the Salutaris images more likely, and identified Demetrius with the Demetrios of the dating formula of IEph 1578A, whom he took as foreman of the neopoioi. Rogers regards that identification as speculation." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/ephesus-artemis-neokoros" }, { "id": "ephesus-officials", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 14, "dateTo": 114, "corpusReferences": [ "I.Ephesos 508 (PHI PH248466; McCabe, Ephesos 753)", "I.Ephesos 234 (PHI PH248454; McCabe, Ephesos 741)", "I.Ephesos 424 (PHI PH247993; McCabe, Ephesos 285)", "I.Ephesos 858 (PHI PH248477; McCabe, Ephesos 763)", "Suppl. Ephes. 241 (PHI PH255995; new fragments of the donor list I.Ephesos 1687)", "Suppl. Ephes. 142+0144 (PHI PH255972)", "SEG 57.1220 (PHI PH348884)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 19:31", "Acts 19:35-41", "Acts 19:23-41" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.demetrius" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "work": "Church History, Book 4 (quoting the Martyrdom of Polycarp), Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1", "locator": "Hist. eccl. 4.15.27", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "year": "1890", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "they cried out and asked the Asiarch Philip to let a lion loose upon Polycarp. But he said that it was not lawful for him, since he had closed the games.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (10th ed., CCEL text)", "locator": "ch. XII §5, 'Demetrius the Silversmith'", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "year": "1907 (10th ed.; first published 1895)", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Asiarchs, or High Priests of Asia, were the heads of the imperial, political-religious organisation of the province in the worship of \"Rome and the Emperors\"", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Steven J. Friesen", "work": "Asiarchs (Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 126)", "year": "1999", "view": "Uses a systematic count of attestations to argue that identifying Asiarchs with the high priests of Asia is wrong, and that Magie's conclusion that Asiarchs were a special category of agonothete is more likely. Notes that Asiarch titles begin to appear in the public record only in the late first century AD." }, { "author": "R. A. Kearsley", "work": "Asiarchs, Archiereis, and the Archiereiai of Asia (Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 27)", "year": "1986", "view": "Argues that high priestesses of Asia held a real office, not an honorary one. In at least two cases (AD 130/1 and 217/8) a husband was Asiarch while his wife was high priestess of Asia in the same year, which she argues shows that the Asiarch's office was not the provincial high priesthood." }, { "author": "Stephan Witetschek", "work": "Artemis and Asiarchs: Some Remarks on Ephesian Local Colour in Acts 19 (Biblica 90)", "year": "2009", "view": "His abstract states that the Asiarchs of Acts 19:31 call into question their identification with the provincial high priests. He grants that the office existed before AD 89/90, citing Strabo's Asiarchs at Tralles, but reads Acts 19:31 as an updating from Luke's own time, when the office had gained new prominence." }, { "author": "Jürgen Deininger", "work": "Die Provinziallandtage der römischen Kaiserzeit von Augustus bis zum Ende des dritten Jahrhunderts n. Chr.", "year": "1965", "view": "Defended the identification of Asiarchs with the high priests of Asia. Friesen (1999) calls it the last significant exposition of that view, and Witetschek (2009) cites it for the majority position." }, { "author": "M. Rossner", "work": "Asiarchen und Archiereis Asias (Studii Clasice 16)", "year": "1974", "view": "Supported the identification of Asiarchs with the high priests of Asia. Reported via Friesen 1999 and Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "D. Magie", "work": "Roman Rule in Asia Minor to the End of the Third Century After Christ", "year": "1950", "view": "Concluded that Asiarchs were a special category of agonothete (games-president), the view Friesen 1999 develops. Reported via Friesen 1999." }, { "author": "F. Kirbihler", "work": "Les grands-prêtres d'Éphèse: aspects institutionnels et sociaux de l'asiarchie (in Pathways to Power, ed. A. D. Rizakis and F. Camia)", "year": "2008", "view": "Suggests that Acts 19:31 results from a Flavian rewriting in which Luke used a term of his own time, incorrectly, for an office of Paul's time. Reported via Witetschek 2009." }, { "author": "C. J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Counted the Asiarchs of Acts 19:31 among Luke's specific local knowledge and held that their friendship with Paul should not be dismissed as highly unlikely. Reported via Witetschek 2009." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q727844", "label": "Asiarch" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q47611", "label": "Ephesus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "599612", "label": "Ephesus/Arsinoe(ia)" } ], "title": "The town clerk and the Asiarchs of Ephesus", "summary": "Inscriptions show that both titles Acts uses in the Ephesian riot were real. A decree fragment from Tiberius's reign was ratified in the year of a grammateus (clerk) of the people, name lost, and a dedication of AD 92/93 is dated by Tiberius Claudius Aristion as grammateus and 'the Asiarch'. None of these texts mentions Paul or the riot. Ephesian Asiarch inscriptions begin only in the late first century, and what Asiarchs were is still disputed.", "dating": "The date range covers the Ephesian inscriptions only, from Tiberius's reign (AD 14-37) to AD 102/114. SEG 57.1220 from Silandos in Lydia is dated by its editors to the 1st century BC but must be after 29/27 BC; others prefer the 1st century AD. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, cited through Eusebius, is mid-2nd century AD.", "currentLocation": "The Ephesian texts were found at Ephesus (Selçuk, Türkiye), except fragment c of Suppl. Ephes. 241, found at Pamucak. SEG 57.1220 comes from Silandos in Lydia (find spot Tamasis/Selmanhacılar). Present locations of the stones have not been checked. The Martyrdom of Polycarp survives as a text, cited here through Eusebius.", "establishes": [ "Ephesus had a civic official called the grammateus (clerk) of the people before Paul's stay. A decree fragment, dated by its formula to Tiberius's reign (AD 14-37), was ratified in the year of the high priest of Tiberius and a grammateus of the people (name lost), with the assent of 'the strategoi and the grammateus of the people'. Later dedications under Domitian and Trajan are dated by the grammateus.", "An Asiarch may be attested before Paul outside Ephesus. A text from Silandos in Lydia (SEG 57.1220) honours Tiberius [Iulius?] Damas as Asiarch and sebastophant. Its editors date it to the first century BC, but the Augustan cult title requires a date after 29/27 BC, and Campanile prefers the first century AD (as reported by Witetschek 2009).", "The same notables could hold both offices. Ti. Claudius Aristion is 'high priest of Asia' in AD 88/89 (I.Ephesos 234) and grammateus and 'the Asiarch' in AD 92/93 (I.Ephesos 508); Claudius Aristion, generally identified with him, is 'thrice Asiarch' in AD 102/114 (I.Ephesos 424). T. Flavius Pythion is grammateus for the second time and Asiarch in AD 104/105 (I.Ephesos 858).", "The titles in the riot narrative (Acts 19:31 and Acts 19:35) are real: grammateus at Ephesus before Paul, Asiarch at Ephesus from the late first century and possibly earlier elsewhere in Asia." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "None of these texts names Paul, Demetrius, the riot, or the unnamed town clerk of Acts 19:35. They confirm the titles and the setting, not the events Acts narrates.", "They do not settle what an Asiarch was or did. The title might be another name for the provincial imperial-cult high priest, a separate honour tied to sponsoring games, or a city office.", "Ephesian Asiarch inscriptions begin in the late Flavian period (c. AD 89/90). On their own they cannot show whether Acts 19:31 reflects the 50s or Luke's own time; among the texts cited here only SEG 57.1220 may be earlier, and its date is uncertain.", "The Martyrdom of Polycarp, quoted by Eusebius, comes from Smyrna about a century after Paul. It shows an Asiarch presiding over games there, not Ephesian practice in the 50s." ], "debate": "Many scholars, from Ramsay to Deininger and Rossner, have read 'Asiarch' as another name for the high priest of Asia's provincial imperial cult. Kearsley (1986) and Friesen (1999) argued that the titles were separate, and Friesen revived Magie's view that Asiarchs were a special class of games-presidents. The Martyrdom of Polycarp, as Eusebius quotes it, has the Asiarch Philip refuse to loose a lion because he had closed the games. A second question is dating. Witetschek grants that the office existed before AD 89/90, citing Strabo's Asiarchs at Tralles in Augustus's time, but argues that its new prominence afterwards makes Acts 19:31 an updating from Luke's own day. Kirbihler speaks of a Flavian rewriting; Hemer counted the Asiarchs among Luke's local knowledge.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Asiarch as the provincial high priest", "statement": "On this view 'Asiarch' was another title for the high priest of Asia's imperial cult. The several Asiarchs of Acts 19:31 would then be former holders who kept the title (Deininger) or the high priests of the province's temples. Witetschek objects that there were only two or three such temples, that terms lasted a year, and that former Asiarchs are styled differently in Ephesian inscriptions." }, { "label": "Asiarch as a separate honour", "statement": "On this view Asiarchs were a separate and more numerous honour. For Friesen, following Magie, they were a special category of games-presidents (agonothetes); Kearsley later proposed city magistrates (as reported by Friesen 1999). Either way, several Asiarchs could be in Ephesus at once with no link to the imperial-cult high priesthood." }, { "label": "Local colour from Luke's own time", "statement": "The Asiarchs of Acts 19:31 reflect conditions when Acts was written, after the office gained new prominence: an updating rather than an anachronism (Witetschek 2009), or a Flavian rewriting that applied a later term to an office of Paul's time (Kirbihler, as reported by Witetschek). Either way the verse is evidence for Luke's world more than for Paul's." }, { "label": "A reminiscence of Paul's time", "statement": "Asiarchs of an older kind existed before the Flavian temple, so Luke may refer to them, and their friendship with Paul need not be dismissed as unlikely (Hemer, as reported by Witetschek). Witetschek allows this as possible but prefers to read the verse as an updating." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-ephesus-officials" }, { "id": "thessalonica-politarchs", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": -27, "dateTo": 200, "corpusReferences": [ "CIG 1967", "GIBM II 171" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 17:1-9", "Acts 17:5-9", "Acts 17:6", "Acts 17:8", "Acts 19:29", "Acts 20:4", "Romans 16:21" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.silas", "person.jason" ], "placeIds": [ "place.thessalonica", "place.macedonia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "C. T. Newton (ed.)", "work": "The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part II", "year": "1883", "locator": "GIBM II no. CLXXI (171), Macedonia section", "url": "https://archive.org/download/collectionofanci00brit/collectionofanci00brit_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. X, sec. 6, p. 227", "url": "https://archive.org/download/paulthetraveller00ramsuoft/paulthetraveller00ramsuoft_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The curious and rare title \"politarchs\" was given to the supreme board of magistrates at Thessalonica, as is proved by an inscription.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Golden Gate (Thessaloniki), alias Vardar Gate", "locator": "Q96631855", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/w/api.php?action=wbgetentities&ids=Q96631855&props=labels%7Cdescriptions%7Caliases%7Cclaims%7Csitelinks&languages=en%7Cel%7Cde%7Cfr&format=json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades: Thessalonica", "locator": "491741", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/491741/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Ernest DeWitt Burton", "work": "The Politarchs, American Journal of Theology 2", "year": "1898", "view": "Collects 17 inscriptions attesting politarchs (19 with probable restorations). Shows that Thessalonica had politarchs from Augustus to Antoninus Pius, dates the Vardar Gate block after 30 BC and possibly as late as AD 143 or later, and records the office also in Thrace, Bithynia, the Bosporus and Egypt." }, { "author": "Illinois Greek Club (trans.)", "work": "Aeneas Tacticus, Asclepiodotus, Onasander (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1923", "view": "In a note on Aeneas Tacticus 26.12, observes that this rare title occurs elsewhere almost exclusively at Thessalonica and its vicinity, and suggests Aeneas met it during military service in the north Aegean." }, { "author": "Charles Edson", "work": "Inscriptiones Graecae X 2,1: Inscriptiones Thessalonicae et viciniae", "year": "1972", "view": "The standard corpus of Thessalonian inscriptions. Athanasiadis (2026) reports that Edson dated the politarch list IG X 2,1 126 to the 2nd century AD." }, { "author": "G. H. R. Horsley", "work": "The Politarchs, in D. W. J. Gill and C. Gempf (eds.), The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting", "year": "1994", "view": "Collects and analyses the non-literary evidence for politarchs; later epigraphers and New Testament scholars cite it as a standard reference on the office." }, { "author": "G. H. R. Horsley", "work": "Politarchs in Macedonia and Beyond, Mediterranean Archaeology 7", "year": "1994", "view": "Collects and analyses the non-literary evidence for politarchs in Macedonia and elsewhere; later epigraphers cite it as a standard reference on the office." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Applies epigraphic and archaeological evidence about local titles and institutions to the historicity of Acts, arguing that the author was well informed about the places he describes." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Argues that Acts was written in the early 2nd century (about AD 115). On this view, accurate local titles cannot by themselves secure an early date." }, { "author": "Manuela Mari", "work": "Istituzioni cittadine della Macedonia preromana: alcune novità epigrafiche, Historika 7", "year": "2017", "view": "Argues that the ephebarchic law from Amphipolis, a royal-period text recopied in 24/3 BC, settles that politarchs existed before the Roman settlement of 167 BC, while their spread to all Macedonian cities, and probably the growth in their numbers, belongs to the Roman period." }, { "author": "Bradley Ritter", "work": "On the 'politeuma in Heracleopolis', Scripta Classica Israelica 30", "year": "2011", "view": "Reads the petitions to the politarches in the Ptolemaic Heracleopolis papyri as addressed to that city's civic politeuma, not to the head of a Jewish association as their editors proposed. Either way, the title also occurs in Ptolemaic Egypt." }, { "author": "Giorgos Athanasiadis", "work": "Roman Rule and Local Society in the Province of Macedonia: The Case of Thessaloniki, CHS Research Bulletin 14", "year": "2026", "view": "Dates a politarch list he cites as IG X 2,1 126, described in terms that fit the Vardar Gate text (a first politarch named with his mother and his father's full Roman name, two officials surnamed Rheglos), to the early 1st century AD, saying it was rightly redated from Edson's 2nd-century date on prosopographical grounds." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q96631855", "label": "Golden Gate (Vardar Gate), Thessaloniki" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q7210123", "label": "Politarch" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q17151", "label": "Thessaloniki" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "491741", "label": "Thessalonica" } ], "title": "The politarch inscriptions of Thessalonica and the Vardar Gate stone", "summary": "Inscriptions from Thessalonica show that Acts 17:6 and 17:8 use the correct title, politarchs, for the city's chief magistrates: texts from Augustus to AD 143 list boards of five or six. A Vardar Gate block now in the British Museum lists six on the usual reading, though its date is disputed. The title is rare in literature but common in Macedonian inscriptions. The stones corroborate no event, bond or person in Acts 17:1-9.", "dating": "The Vardar Gate block carries no date formula. Burton placed it after 30 BC and possibly as late as AD 143 or later; Athanasiadis dates a list he cites as IG X 2,1 126, described in terms that fit this text, to the early 1st century AD rather than Edson's 2nd century. The other Thessalonian politarch texts run from Augustus' reign to AD 143.", "currentLocation": "British Museum, London (Vardar Gate block, presented by J. E. Blunt in 1877, per GIBM). The Augustan politarch text from the Kalamaria gate is lost (Burton).", "establishes": [ "Thessalonica's chief civic magistrates formed a board titled politarchs, the officials English versions of Acts 17:6 and 17:8 call the city's rulers. A now-lost Augustan text from the Kalamaria gate names five, a text of AD 143 names six, and the Vardar Gate block names six on the usual reading. This matches the plural board before whom Jason and other believers were brought.", "In surviving Greek literature the title occurs only in Acts; Aeneas Tacticus 26.12 (mid-4th century BC) has a related form, politarchos. Inscriptions attest the office often, overwhelmingly in Macedonia. So Acts uses a precise regional term rather than a generic word for rulers.", "The AD 143 text also names the city's council (boule) and people (demos), the civic setting Acts 17:5-9 assumes when the crowd seeks to bring the missionaries out to the people. An assembly and council were standard in Greek cities, so this detail is generic; the distinctive match is the politarch title." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not corroborate any event in Acts 17:1-9: not the synagogue preaching, the riot, Jason's hospitality, or the security taken from Jason and the others.", "The office is attested from before the Roman settlement of 167 BC (on Mari's reading of the Amphipolis ephebarchic law) into the 3rd century AD, in many Macedonian towns and beyond. A correct use of the title therefore cannot by itself date Acts or show that its author was an eyewitness.", "The block's names Sosipatros, Secundus and Gaius were common. Secundus is the first politarch's father and Gaius the first name of another politarch, Gaius Agilleius Poteitus, so they do not identify Secundus or Gaius of Acts 19:29 and 20:4, or Sosipater of Romans 16:21." ], "debate": "Open questions include the Vardar Gate block's date. Boeckh's Flavian-or-later date (not before AD 69) rested on a misread name; Burton dated it after 30 BC and possibly to AD 143 or later; Athanasiadis reports an early 1st-century redating of a list he cites as IG X 2,1 126, apparently this text, against Edson's 2nd-century date. The block lists six politarchs on the usual reading, though Mordtmann thought five possible. The larger question is how much a correct title adds to Acts' reliability: Hemer counts such details as evidence of an informed author, while Pervo dates Acts to about AD 115. Claims that scholars doubted the title until this stone surfaced are not borne out: it was published in 1740, and 19th-century New Testament lexicons already cited it (Burton).", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Informed but later author", "statement": "Burton's evidence shows politarchs into the 3rd century AD, so a well-informed author writing in the early 2nd century (as Pervo argues for Acts) could still use the title correctly. On this view the inscriptions confirm the accuracy of the setting, not an early date or eyewitness narration." }, { "label": "Accurate detail within a cumulative case", "statement": "Hemer and others treat the correct title as one of many precise local details in Acts, which together point to an author with close knowledge of the places described. Even on this view, the inscriptions confirm the title, not the episode." }, { "label": "Macedonian rather than uniquely Thessalonian", "statement": "Politarchs are attested in other Macedonian towns and also in Thrace, Bithynia and the Bosporus, and a politarches appears in Ptolemaic papyri from Heracleopolis in Egypt. The term is therefore right for a Macedonian city in general rather than an insider detail unique to Thessalonica, though Thessalonica supplies an unusually large share of the evidence." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/thessalonica-politarchs" }, { "id": "sergius-paulus-inscriptions", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 14, "dateTo": 96, "corpusReferences": [ "CIL VI 31545", "ILS 5926", "EDR127293", "TM 281782", "EDH HD046352", "AE 2002, 1457", "TM 176947", "EDH HD046353", "AE 2002, 1458", "TM 176948", "IGR III 300", "Sterrett, EJ 134,108", "JRS 3 (1913) 262,5", "IGR III 930", "ABSA 42 (1947) 201,1", "IGR III 935", "SEG 20:302", "SEG 55:1526", "Myres 1914, no. 1903" ], "confidence": "medium", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 13:6-12", "Acts 13:7" ], "personIds": [ "person.sergius-paulus", "person.paul", "person.barnabas", "person.elymas", "person.claudius" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.cyprus", "place.paphos", "place.pisidian-antioch" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby: CIL 06, 31545 (p 3796, 4362) = ILS 5926; TM 281782", "locator": "EDCS-19500065 (CIL 06, 31545 (p 3796, 4362) = ILS 5926; TM 281782)", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/195/19500065.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "work": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: honorific base of L. Sergius Paullus filius, Antiochia Pisidiae", "locator": "EDH HD046352 (AE 2002, 1457; TM 176947)", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/data/api/inschrift/suche?hd_nr=HD046352", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "work": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: fragment naming Paullus Ser[gius] and L. Serg[ius], Antiochia Pisidiae", "locator": "EDH HD046353 (AE 2002, 1458; TM 176948)", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/data/api/inschrift/suche?hd_nr=HD046353", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "John L. Myres", "work": "Handbook of the Cesnola Collection of Antiquities from Cyprus (Metropolitan Museum of Art)", "year": "1914", "locator": "no. 1903, p. 319 (appendix text p. 548)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/handbookofcesnol00metruoft/handbookofcesnol00metruoft_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. IV, p. 74", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultravellerr00rams/stpaultravellerr00rams_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "dated \"in the proconsulship of Paulus,\" who probably is the same governor that played a part in the strange and interesting scene now to be described.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "work": "Roman History (Loeb Classical Library, vol. VI)", "year": "1917", "locator": "54.4.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It was at this time that he restored to the people both Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis as districts no longer needing the presence of his armies; and thus proconsuls began to be sent to those provinces also.", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "The Bearing of Recent Discovery on the Trustworthiness of the New Testament", "year": "1915", "view": "Proposed, as a hypothesis, that the Antioch L. Sergius Paullus was the proconsul's son, whom he inferred governed Galatia about AD 72-74, and that Sergia Paulla was the proconsul's daughter. Held that Christianity passed into this female line, while the son's branch stayed pagan." }, { "author": "R. Cagnat (ed.)", "work": "Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes III", "year": "1906", "view": "Suggests that the Quintus Ser[gius] of no. 935 was perhaps proconsul of Cyprus, and doubts that the Paulus of no. 930 is L. Sergius Paullus." }, { "author": "T. B. Mitford", "work": "Notes on Some Published Inscriptions of Roman Cyprus (Annual of the British School at Athens 42)", "year": "1947", "view": "Re-edited the Soli epitaph. As reported by van Elderen, he read the Paulus year as 10, computed AD 50 at the earliest if it is a Claudian regnal year, judged the inscription probably considerably later, and thought Myres's restoration at Kythrea at least plausible." }, { "author": "Bastiaan Van Elderen", "work": "Some Archaeological Observations on Paul's First Missionary Journey, in Apostolic History and the Gospel (ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin)", "year": "1970", "view": "Held that the Soli text cannot be tied to the Acts proconsul and that the Tiber-curator identification is unproven, since nothing links L. Sergius Paullus to Cyprus. Rejected Ramsay's family theory, and thought the Kythrea fragment the most attractive candidate, with reservation." }, { "author": "Douglas A. Campbell", "work": "Possible Inscriptional Attestation to Sergius Paul[l]us (Acts 13:6-12), and the Implications for Pauline Chronology (Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 56)", "year": "2005", "view": "Restores Tiberius and Quintus Sergius Paul[l]us, probably the governor, in the Kythrea text. On that cautious restoration, Paul's first journey took place during or before AD 37, about ten years earlier than usually thought." }, { "author": "Jonathan Bernier", "work": "When Paul Met Sergius: An Assessment of Douglas Campbell's Pauline Chronology for the Years 36 to 37 (Journal of Biblical Literature 138)", "year": "2019", "view": "Judges Campbell's reconstruction not impossible on the present data, but improbable enough that it should be rejected." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2566388", "label": "Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "281782", "label": "CIL VI 31545, Tiber cippus naming L. Sergius Paullus" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "176947", "label": "Base of L. Sergius Paullus filius, Pisidian Antioch (EDH HD046352)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "423025", "label": "Roma" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "609307", "label": "Antiochia/Col. Caesarea (Pisidian Antioch)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "707624", "label": "Soloi/Aipeia? (Cyprus)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "707496", "label": "Chyt(h)roi (Kythrea, Cyprus)" } ], "title": "Inscriptions possibly naming the proconsul Sergius Paulus", "summary": "No surviving inscription securely names the proconsul Sergius Paulus of Acts 13:7. A Claudian boundary stone at Rome names a senator, L. Sergius Paullus; Pisidian Antioch has Sergii Paulli later in the century; a Soli epitaph mentions an office held under a proconsul Paulus; a Kythrea fragment is read as naming a Quintus Serg-. They show the name fits a senator of the period, but every link to Cyprus's governor rests on restoration, inference or an undated text.", "dating": "Rome cippus AD 41-54 (Claudius; EDR suggests 41-47). Kythrea fragment: first half of the 1st century in the Met's record and 1st century on letter forms (van Elderen), with the emperor restored as Tiberius or Claudius. Soli epitaph after Claudius (PHI); the Paulus year it mentions is earlier and names no era. Pisidian Antioch: Sergia Paulla text AD 81-96; the base of L. Sergius Paullus filius is undated (Ramsay put the letters of the identical Salir text at AD 60-100).", "currentLocation": "Rome, Museo Nazionale Romano, Michelangelo cloister, inv. 242 (Tiber cippus, per EDR). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cesnola Collection, accession 74.51.2425 (Kythrea fragment, per the Met's record). Present locations of the Soli and Pisidian Antioch stones not verified.", "establishes": [ "Cyprus was governed by proconsuls after Augustus returned it to the people's administration in about 22 BC (Dio 54.4.1), so Acts' title for the island's governor fits the period, as Ramsay stressed.", "A boundary cippus from the Tiber at Rome (CIL VI 31545 = ILS 5926), set up on Claudius's authority (AD 41-54), lists L. Sergius Paullus as one of five curators of the river's banks and channel. A senator bearing both names that Acts gives therefore held public office in Rome under Claudius.", "At Pisidian Antioch an undated honorific base (EDH HD046352) names L. Sergius Paullus, son of Lucius, styled filius (the younger), early in a senatorial career: road commissioner (IIIIvir viarum curandarum), military tribune of legio VI Ferrata, and quaestor. Ramsay published an identical text from a copy made at Salir in 1912. A fragment (EDH HD046353) honours the mother-in-law of a Paullus Ser[gius].", "A Greek honorific text of AD 81-96 from Pisidian Antioch (IGR III 300) names [Ser]gia(?) Paulla, daughter of Lucius, as wife of C. Caristanius Fronto, Domitian's legate of Lycia and Pamphylia; the name Sergia is partly restored. With the base, it points to a senatorial family of Sergii Paulli honoured at Antioch in the later 1st century.", "A Soli epitaph (IGR III 930) records that Apollonios, as censor, revised the council roll in the 10th year under a proconsul Paulus (title partly restored; no era named). A Kythrea fragment (IGR III 935) is read as Quintus Serg- beside an emperor whose name is lost. Editors restore it as a dating formula naming the governor, but Rigsby reads it differently." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "None of these inscriptions securely names the proconsul of Acts 13:7. The Rome stone gives no Cypriot office, the Soli text gives only Paulus, and on the Kythrea fragment the words Paulus and proconsul are wholly editorial restorations.", "They do not date Paul's visit to Cyprus. Restorations of the Kythrea text range from Tiberius (Campbell: by AD 37) to Claudius (SEG 20.302: AD 46-48), and the Soli Paulus year names no era.", "They do not show that the Antioch Sergii Paulli descend from the Cyprus governor, or that he or his relatives became Christians. Ramsay's family reconstruction rests on inference from names and from silence, and he himself called it a hypothesis. Nor do the stones confirm the Elymas episode." ], "debate": "Is the proconsul of Acts attested in any inscription? Many identify him with the Tiber curator L. Sergius Paullus, because a Cyprus proconsulship could fall before or after a Claudian curatorship. But, as van Elderen stressed, no text connects that man to Cyprus, and Acts gives no praenomen. The Soli Paulus has no family name: Mitford, as reported by van Elderen, computed AD 50 at the earliest and judged the inscription probably considerably later, whereas Ramsay's older reading took the phrase as the stone's own date. At Kythrea only Quintus Serg- survives, so Myres rejected the link. Campbell restored Tiberius and dated the visit by AD 37, a chronology Bernier judges improbable. Van Elderen rejected Ramsay's Antioch family theory as too speculative.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Tiber curator identification", "statement": "On this view the proconsul of Acts 13:7 was L. Sergius Paullus, the Claudian Tiber curator of CIL VI 31545, who governed Cyprus before or after that post. The name and date make this plausible, but no inscription links him to Cyprus, and Acts gives no praenomen." }, { "label": "Quintus Sergius at Kythrea", "statement": "On Campbell's restoration the fragment names a Quintus Serg[ius Paullus], probably the governor; Paulus and proconsul are wholly restored. Campbell restores Tiberius and so dates the Cyprus mission by AD 37, earlier than usual; the older SEG 20.302 reading restores Claudius (46-48). Myres assumed the Acts proconsul was a Lucius and rejected the link; van Elderen thought it the most attractive candidate, with reservation." }, { "label": "Ramsay's family hypothesis", "statement": "Ramsay proposed, as a hypothesis, that the Antioch L. Sergius Paullus was the proconsul's son and Sergia Paulla his daughter, and that Christianity passed through her to her son, while the male line stayed pagan. Van Elderen, citing Lake's verdict of ingenious but unconvincing combinations, rejected the scheme." }, { "label": "Not yet attested", "statement": "No surviving inscription securely names the Acts proconsul. Several senators bore the name Paullus: IGR III 939 at Palaepaphos names Paullus Fabius Maximus, who Dessau inferred had governed Cyprus. A shared name alone cannot settle the identification." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/sergius-paulus-inscriptions" }, { "id": "derbe-inscription", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 157, "dateTo": 600, "corpusReferences": [ "SEG 16.758" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "source-supported", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 14:6", "Acts 14:20-21", "Acts 16:1", "Acts 20:4" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.barnabas", "person.timothy", "person.gaius" ], "placeIds": [ "place.derbe", "place.lystra", "place.lycaonia", "place.galatia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "sterrett-wolfe-expedition", "author": "J. R. S. Sterrett", "work": "The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens III)", "year": "1888", "locator": "p. 22 (itinerary for 5 June, Bosola to Almassen)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/papersofamerican03arch/papersofamerican03arch_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I consider that the ruins of Bosola and Losta, being so near together, represent one and the same ancient city. This city I should like to call Derbe. Stephanus Byzantinus says Derbe was a fortress of Isauria, a designation which would suit this site well enough.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. VIII §5, p. 192", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultravellerr00rams/stpaultravellerr00rams_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Derbe alone is not mentioned either in the tradition (so far as my knowledge extends) or in the history of the Church until we come down to A.D. 381, when its bishop Daphnus was present at the Council of Constantinople.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. V §9, p. 120", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultravellerr00rams/stpaultravellerr00rams_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In Derbe nothing special is recorded : the same process went on as in previous cases. Here on the limits of the Roman province the Apostles turned.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades: Derbe/Claudioderbe", "locator": "Pleiades 648620", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/648620/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Derbe (ancient city)", "locator": "Q20717624", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q20717624.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "M. Ballance", "work": "The Site of Derbe: A New Inscription (Anatolian Studies 7)", "year": "1957", "view": "Published the dedication by the council and people of Derbe that he found in 1956 at Kerti Höyük, about 22 km north-north-east of Karaman, and argued that Derbe lay north-east of Laranda rather than at the western sites proposed by Sterrett and Ramsay. Van Elderen reports that he judged the block too heavy to have travelled far." }, { "author": "M. H. Ballance", "work": "Derbe and Faustinopolis (Anatolian Studies 14)", "year": "1964", "view": "Judged that the lack of Byzantine settlement at Kerti Höyük counted against it as the city site, and reported the Michael epitaph he was shown at Sudurağı (Sidrova) in 1958. Because that stone was said to come from Devri Şehri, he proposed Devri Şehri as Derbe (as reported by Van Elderen and by Wagner and Wilson)." }, { "author": "George Ogg", "work": "Derbe (New Testament Studies 9)", "year": "1963", "view": "In light of the re-siting, judged that no compelling reason had been given for placing Derbe in the province of Galatia in Paul's time, leaving it an open question (as reported by Van Elderen and by Wagner and Wilson)." }, { "author": "Bastiaan Van Elderen", "work": "Some Archaeological Observations on Paul's First Missionary Journey, in Apostolic History and the Gospel (ed. W. W. Gasque and R. P. Martin)", "year": "1970", "view": "Was told in 1962 that the Michael stone came from Kerti Höyük, and held that Derbe lay near, and probably on, that mound. Argued that Acts 14:20 dates only the departure for Derbe and need not mean a one-day journey, and that Derbe's provincial status in Paul's day could not yet be decided." }, { "author": "Gertrud Laminger-Pascher", "work": "Die kaiserzeitlichen Inschriften Lykaoniens, Faszikel I (Ergänzungsbände zu den Tituli Asiae Minoris 15)", "year": "1992", "view": "Corpus of the imperial-period inscriptions of Lycaonia; the MAMA XI overview of southern Lykaonia cites its Derbe section." }, { "author": "Peter Thonemann (ed.)", "work": "Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua XI (Journal of Roman Studies Monograph)", "year": "2013", "view": "Its overview of southern Lykaonia calls Kerti Höyük the likely site of ancient Derbe." }, { "author": "Richard J. A. Talbert (ed.)", "work": "Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World", "year": "2000", "view": "Map 66 has an entry Derbe/Claudioderbe (cited by Pleiades). Wagner and Wilson report that the map marks Derbe/Claudioderbe at Kerti Höyük and a Derbe at Devri Şehri, leaving the centre ambiguous." }, { "author": "A. H. M. Jones", "work": "The Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces", "year": "1971", "view": "As reported by Wagner and Wilson, held that Derbe probably received its Claudian prefix from Claudius himself, like Iconium and other cities refounded in his reign, and so was not in the kingdom of Antiochus IV." }, { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "The Cities of St. Paul", "year": "1907", "view": "Placed Derbe at the Gudelisin mound north-west of Karaman, arguing from surface remains, road geography and a bishopric-list gloss linking Derbe with Possala; he had no inscription naming the city." }, { "author": "Cilliers Breytenbach and Christiane Zimmermann", "work": "Early Christianity in Lycaonia and Adjacent Areas: From Paul to Amphilochius of Iconium", "year": "2018", "view": "As reported by Wagner and Wilson: both mounds lie within Derbe's territory, and the city was near the Laranda-Sidamaria road. They also hold that Derbe was under Antiochus IV of Commagene, not Roman rule, when Paul visited." }, { "author": "Bob Wagner and Mark Wilson", "work": "Why Derbe? An Unlikely Lycaonian City for Paul's Ministry (Tyndale Bulletin 70.1)", "year": "2019", "view": "Review the history of attempts to locate Derbe. They hold that the two inscriptions situate it more precisely but leave the choice between Kerti Höyük and Devri Şehri open, and report that excavation begun at Kerti Höyük in 2013 did not continue and is unpublished." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "648620", "label": "Derbe/Claudioderbe" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q20717624", "label": "Derbe (ancient city)" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "59721", "label": "Derbe (Kerti Hüyük)" } ], "title": "Inscriptions naming Derbe near Karaman (Kerti Höyük and Devri Şehri)", "summary": "Two Greek inscriptions name Derbe in the plain north-east of Karaman (ancient Laranda). One is a civic dedication to Antoninus Pius of AD 157, found on Kerti Höyük (also spelled Kerti Hüyük) in 1956. The other is a later epitaph of Michael, bishop of Derbe, seen in nearby Sudurağı. Together they place the Derbe of Acts 14:20-21 and 16:1 in this district. Neither is first-century, and the exact site of the city is still disputed.", "dating": "AD 157 for the civic dedication to Antoninus Pius (Van Elderen; Wagner and Wilson). The bishop's epitaph gives only 8 June of a fourteenth indiction year; Van Elderen judged its letters possibly late 4th to 5th century, and Wagner and Wilson give the 5th-6th century.", "currentLocation": "Konya Archaeological Museum (dedication; Van Elderen 1970, and Wagner and Wilson 2019 citing McLean 2002). Karaman Archaeological Museum garden (Michael epitaph; Wagner and Wilson 2019).", "establishes": [ "In 1956 Ballance found an inscribed limestone block on the slope of Kerti Höyük, about 22 km north-north-east of Karaman (SEG 16.758). It honours Antoninus Pius, dates to AD 157, and was set up by the council (boule) and people (demos) of Derbe; the published text restores the city's ethnic as [Claudio]derbetans.", "In the mid-2nd century Derbe was therefore a self-governing civic community with its own council and assembly, honouring the emperor in the usual Greek civic form.", "A Christian epitaph describes Michael as most God-loving bishop of Derbe and is dated only 8 June of a fourteenth indiction year. Ballance saw it at Sudurağı (Sidrova) in 1958 and Van Elderen in 1962. It attests a later bishopric of Derbe in the same district.", "Together the two texts place the Derbe of Acts 14:6, 14:20-21 and 16:1 north-east of Laranda, about 95 km in a straight line from Lystra. This displaced earlier proposals north-west of Karaman (Sterrett's Bosola and Losta, also called Zosta; Ramsay's Gudelisin), none supported by an inscription naming Derbe." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Neither inscription dates from Paul's time. The dedication is about a century later and the epitaph later still. They attest the city and its later church, not Paul and Barnabas's preaching there, the disciples made there, or Timothy's or Gaius's connection with Derbe.", "Neither stone was found in a recorded excavation. The dedication lay on the mound's slope, and the epitaph's findspot rests on conflicting reports to Ballance and Van Elderen. So the stones do not decide whether the town centre was Kerti Höyük, Devri Şehri, or a wider territory containing both.", "The city's Claudian name does not settle its status in the 40s: Breytenbach and Zimmermann (as reported by Wagner and Wilson) take it as an honour given under Antiochus IV of Commagene, while Jones took the prefix as Claudius's own grant, which would place Derbe outside Antiochus's kingdom.", "They create no conflict with Acts 14:20. The re-siting puts Derbe about 95 km from Lystra, but the verse dates only the departure, not the arrival, so it need not mean a one-day journey (Van Elderen)." ], "debate": "Ballance judged the heavy block (about a ton, per Van Elderen) unlikely to have moved far, and placed Derbe at or near Kerti Höyük. In 1964 he preferred Devri Şehri, about 4 km south-south-east, because Kerti Höyük showed no Byzantine settlement and the bishop's stone was said to come from Devri Şehri. Van Elderen was told in 1962 that it came from Kerti Höyük, noted Byzantine material on nearby mounds, and kept Kerti Höyük. Van Elderen, MAMA and the Karaman provincial site inventory favour Kerti Höyük; the Barrington Atlas, as Wagner and Wilson report, marks both. Wagner and Wilson report that excavation began in 2013 but did not continue and is unpublished. Whether Derbe lay inside Roman Galatia when Paul came remains a separate open question.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Devri Şehri as the city site", "statement": "Ballance (1964) preferred Devri Şehri, about 4 km south-south-east of Kerti Höyük, because Kerti Höyük showed no Byzantine settlement and the bishop's epitaph was said to come from Devri Şehri. Wagner and Wilson note that the IVP Atlas follows this placement." }, { "label": "One territory, centre unfixed", "statement": "As reported by Wagner and Wilson (2019), Breytenbach and Zimmermann (2018) treat both mounds as lying within Derbe's territory and place the city near the Laranda-Sidamaria road without fixing its urban centre." }, { "label": "Older north-western identification", "statement": "Before 1956, Sterrett (Bosola and Losta, also called Zosta) and then Ramsay (Gudelisin, in The Cities of St. Paul, 1907) put Derbe north-west of Karaman, nearer Lystra. Sterrett was impressed that Derbe must lie near Lystra; Ramsay relied on surface remains, road geography and a late bishopric-list gloss. Neither had an inscription naming Derbe, and recent atlases have abandoned the view." }, { "label": "Derbe outside the province in Paul's day", "statement": "Ogg (1963) argued that the re-siting left open whether Derbe lay inside the province of Galatia in Paul's time; Van Elderen added coin evidence that nearby Laranda belonged to Antiochus IV from AD 41. Breytenbach and Zimmermann (as reported) place Derbe under Antiochus IV, while Jones held its Claudian prefix came from Claudius himself. The answer bears on the South Galatian theory of Galatians." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-derbe-inscription" }, { "id": "corinth-macellum", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": -27, "dateTo": 50, "corpusReferences": [ "Corinth VIII.2 124", "Corinth VIII.2 125", "Corinth VIII.3 321", "EDH HD058881", "EDH HD058882", "EDCS-32001248", "EDCS-08200358", "TM 177612", "TM 177613" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "1 Corinthians 10:25", "1 Corinthians 10:23-33", "1 Corinthians 8:1-13", "Acts 18:1-18" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.corinth", "place.achaia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "work": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: building/dedicatory inscription from Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus (West 124 + Kent 321, copy 1)", "locator": "EDH HD058881", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD058881", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (Cowey)", "year": "2010" }, { "sourceKey": "edh-heidelberg", "work": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: building/dedicatory inscription from Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus (West 125, copy 2)", "locator": "EDH HD058882", "url": "https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/edh/inschrift/HD058882", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Epigraphic Database Heidelberg (Cowey)", "year": "2012" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby (Corinth-08-02, 00124; Corinth-08-03, 00321)", "locator": "EDCS-32001248", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/320/32001248.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby (Corinth-08-02, 00125)", "locator": "EDCS-08200358", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/082/08200358.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "work": "Trismegistos text relations: Corinth macellum dedication, copy 1", "locator": "TM 177612", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/uri/177612", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "work": "Trismegistos text relations: Corinth macellum dedication, copy 2", "locator": "TM 177613", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/uri/177613", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Henry J. Cadbury", "work": "The Macellum of Corinth (Journal of Biblical Literature 53)", "year": "1934", "view": "Cadbury believed he was the first to link the Corinthian MACELLV fragment, which he says was found in 1898, to Paul's term in 1 Corinthians 10:25. He reported West's dating to the last years of Augustus or the reign of Tiberius, questioned the assumption that both copies had identical wording and named a single Macellum Piscarium, and reported de Waele's proposal of two separate market buildings. He held that macella sold fish and other provisions as well as meat, doubted that they were necessarily close to idolatry, noted that the word's ultimate origin is disputed though it was regarded as Roman, and left the building's location open." }, { "author": "Allen Brown West", "work": "Corinth VIII.2: Latin Inscriptions, 1896-1926", "year": "1931", "view": "West published nos. 124 and 125 as dedications of a macellum by the Cornelii, with a piscarium, and on epigraphic grounds placed them in the last years of Augustus or the reign of Tiberius. Cadbury and Gill describe differently whether he inferred one combined Macellum Piscarium or a separate fish market. Known here only through their reports and the EDH and EDCS records." }, { "author": "John Harvey Kent", "work": "Corinth VIII.3: The Inscriptions, 1926-1950", "year": "1966", "view": "Kent added a thirteenth fragment of copy 1, found in the South Basilica in 1936 (no. 321), revised West's text of no. 124, read the freedman's patron as Quintus, and translated the restored text as a meat market given with a fish market. He dated it to the reign of Augustus by the tail of the letter Q." }, { "author": "Ned Nabers", "work": "A Note on Corinth VIII, 2, 125 (American Journal of Archaeology 73)", "year": "1969", "view": "As Gill (1992) summarizes it, Nabers argued that the Cornelii are unlikely to have built two buildings serving the same function. On this view the 'macellum cum ...' formula lists features of one complex, here including provision for fish." }, { "author": "David W. J. Gill", "work": "The Meat-Market at Corinth (1 Corinthians 10:25) (Tyndale Bulletin 43.2)", "year": "1992", "view": "Gill argues that the pair of Latin inscriptions establishes a Corinthian macellum, given probably in the Augustan period by a member of the local elite, with fish facilities inside one complex. He sets aside the South Stoa graffito once read as naming a butcher because Broneer revised it to a personal name. He reports de Waele's Peribolos proposal, Wiseman's note of a macellum north of Temple Hill and Ward-Perkins's description of the North Market, says the macellum has not been identified with certainty, and infers its probable form from macella at Pompeii and Lepcis Magna." }, { "author": "Gordon D. Fee", "work": "The First Epistle to the Corinthians", "year": "1987", "view": "As quoted by Gill (1992), Fee treated a Latin macellum inscription from Corinth as undoubtedly naming the very market Paul refers to, without citing the inscription." }, { "author": "Vasilis Evangelidis", "work": "Macella and Makelloi in Roman Greece: The Archaeological and Textual Evidence (Hesperia 88.2)", "year": "2019", "view": "Evangelidis surveys the evidence, mostly inscriptions and texts, for food-market buildings in Roman Greece from the 1st century BC to the 3rd century AD, treating makellos as the likely Hellenized form of Latin macellum, and asks what they reveal about Italo-Roman influence. EDCS cites this article for both Corinth texts. Only the abstract was checked." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "570182", "label": "Corinthus/Korinthos" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "177612", "label": "Corinth macellum dedication, copy 1 (Corinth VIII.2 124 + VIII.3 321)" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "177613", "label": "Corinth macellum dedication, copy 2 (Corinth VIII.2 125)" } ], "title": "The macellum (meat-market) inscriptions of Roman Corinth", "summary": "Roman Corinth had a public market building officially called a macellum, the Latin term usually linked with the market Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 10:25. One fragment preserves MACELLV[M]; a closely parallel second dedication is restored to match. Dated Augustan to Tiberian, the texts name Q. Cornelius Secundus and his family as donors, apparently with a fish facility (piscarium). They do not show where the building stood, whether it was still in use in the 50s, or what meat it sold.", "dating": "Augustan to Tiberian. EDCS gives 27 BC to AD 14; Kent dated copy 1 to the reign of Augustus by its letter forms; West, as reported by Cadbury, gave the last years of Augustus or the reign of Tiberius; the excavation records give the first half of the 1st century AD. The range 27 BC to AD 50 spans these estimates.", "currentLocation": "Corinth Excavations, Ancient Corinth (the fragments cited by inventory number, I 70 and I 27, both belong to copy 1; storage or display status not verified).", "establishes": [ "Two closely parallel Latin dedications in white marble, usually treated as copies, survive in fragments. Copy 1 (Corinth VIII.2 124, enlarged by Kent as VIII.3 321) is assembled by the editors from several fragments; copy 2 is VIII.2 125. The letters MACELLV[ survive only on copy 1; in copy 2 the word macellum is wholly restored.", "The donors are Q. Cornelius Secundus of the tribe Aemilia, his wife Maecia and their children. A freedman, Q. Maecius Cleogenes, is named in the genitive in a partly restored phrase, probably as husband of the daughter Cornelia Secunda, not as a donor.", "The surviving letters PI[ (copy 1) and ]SCARIO (copy 2) are restored as piscarium, a fish facility, given with the macellum. Whether it lay inside the macellum or beside it is debated. Either way the gift fits Cadbury's point that macella sold fish and other provisions, not only meat.", "Kent dated copy 1 to the reign of Augustus by its letter forms, and West placed both texts in the last years of Augustus or under Tiberius. A building called a macellum was therefore given to the colony before Paul's stay in Corinth (Acts 18), possibly by several decades.", "The Latin term was in official public use in the Roman colony. Paul's word in 1 Corinthians 10:25 is makellon, a term regarded in the Roman period as the Latin macellum (its ultimate origin is disputed), and, as Cadbury observed, one of very few Latin loanwords in Paul's letters." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Where the macellum stood. Kent's added fragment came from the South Basilica, and Gill says the building has not been identified with certainty. He reports Ward-Perkins's description of Corinth's North Market as a Pompeian-type market and Wiseman's note of a macellum north of Temple Hill, but nothing ties these inscriptions to either, or to any building securely in use in Paul's day.", "Whether the building was still in use when Paul wrote, or how much of the meat sold there came from temple sacrifice. The surviving text names donors and the building, not its trade or supply.", "Any event of Acts 18 or any detail of the Corinthian dispute over food offered to idols. Separately, a Greek graffito from the South Stoa once read as naming a butcher was later re-read by its excavator, Broneer, as a personal name, as Gill reports, so it is not evidence for the market." ], "debate": "Three questions remain open. First, was the piscarium part of one macellum (Nabers, followed by Gill) or a separate building? De Waele, as Cadbury reports, proposed two market buildings near the Lechaion Road; Cadbury allowed for a separate but connected fish market; and Cadbury and Gill describe West's own reading differently. Second, where did the building stand? De Waele placed it on the site of the Peribolos of Apollo beside the Lechaion Road (reported by Cadbury and Gill); Gill also notes Ward-Perkins's description of the North Market as a Pompeian-type market. None of these sites is tied to the inscriptions. Third, how sacrificial was market meat? Cadbury doubted that macella were inherently close to temple worship. Paul's instructions in 1 Corinthians 10:25-28 assume that a buyer might not know whether meat had been offered in sacrifice.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Two separate market buildings", "statement": "De Waele, in a 1934 letter reported by Cadbury, proposed a macellum on the later site of the Peribolos of Apollo and a separate piscarium north of the Roman basilica. Cadbury allowed for a separate but connected fish market. Gill says West, followed by Kent, read a separate Macellum Piscarium; Cadbury says the early reading inferred a single one." }, { "label": "One macellum with fish facilities", "statement": "Gill reports Nabers (1969) arguing that the Cornelii are unlikely to have given two buildings with the same function. Other macellum inscriptions use 'macellum cum ...' to list features of one complex, so Corinth's macellum probably included provision for fish. Gill (1992) follows this reading." }, { "label": "The very market Paul meant", "statement": "Fee (1987), as quoted by Gill, treats a Corinthian macellum inscription as naming the very market of 1 Corinthians 10:25. That is plausible if the building was still the colony's provisions market in the 50s, but the inscriptions show neither that it survived nor where it stood, nor that it was the only place meat was sold." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-corinth-macellum" }, { "id": "corinth-bema", "kind": "site", "dateFrom": -44, "dateTo": 54, "corpusReferences": [ "Corinth VIII.3 322", "Corinth VIII.2 47", "Corinth VIII.2 52", "Corinth VIII.3 157", "Corinth VIII.3 306", "Corinth VIII.3 728", "AE 1939, 110", "AE 1947, 198", "EDCS-08200272", "EDCS-15300190" ], "confidence": "medium", "epistemicStatus": "reconstructed", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 18:12-17", "Acts 25:6", "Acts 25:17", "John 19:13" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.gallio", "person.sosthenes" ], "placeIds": [ "place.corinth", "place.achaia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby", "work": "EDCS record of the rostra revetment inscription, Corinth (cites West no. 47; = Kent no. 322)", "locator": "EDCS-08200272", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/082/08200272.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss-Slaby", "work": "EDCS record of a governor's letter to Corinth with the note that it was read from the rostra (AE 1939, 110; = Kent no. 306)", "locator": "EDCS-15300190", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/153/15300190.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "author": "Pleiades", "work": "Corinthus/Korinthos", "locator": "570182", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/570182/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Oscar Broneer", "work": "Studies in the Topography of Corinth at the Time of St. Paul (Archaiologike Ephemeris)", "year": "1937", "view": "Cited by Scranton (1957) for the view that the church on the Bema commemorated Paul's trial there (bibliography only, not inspected)." }, { "author": "Robert L. Scranton", "work": "Corinth I.3: Monuments in the Lower Agora and North of the Archaic Temple", "year": "1951", "view": "Standard architectural publication of the Bema; Kent relies on it for the revetment fit and an original poros facade (bibliography only, not inspected)." }, { "author": "Allen Brown West", "work": "Corinth VIII.2: Latin Inscriptions, 1896-1926", "year": "1931", "view": "First published two of the fragments that Kent later joined into no. 322, as West nos. 47 and 52, before the fragment preserving ROST was found in 1937-1938 (known here through Kent's concordance and EDCS)." }, { "author": "John Harvey Kent", "work": "Corinth VIII.3: The Inscriptions, 1926-1950", "year": "1966", "view": "Restored scattered marble fragments as a building text naming the rostra and, matching the slab's thickness and finish to the platform's orthostates, concluded that the central structure was the Bema, officially called the Rostra, with marble revetments of the first half of the 1st century AD, probably the second quarter. He held that it first had a poros facade, and thought a 9th/10th-century text naming a church of Paul probably belonged to the church on the Bema." }, { "author": "Robert L. Scranton", "work": "Corinth XVI: Mediaeval Architecture in the Central Area of Corinth", "year": "1957", "view": "Found a church or burial chapel near the Bema from the 9th or early 10th century, and a church on the Bema certainly by the 12th. He judged that the common explanation, that the church commemorated Paul's trial, requires a continuity from antiquity that is difficult to establish." }, { "author": "Andrew Gallia (Corinth Computer Project, dir. David Gilman Romano)", "work": "Central Shops, Bema, and Temple of Hermes (Corinth Computer Project, Roman Forum ca. A.D. 150)", "year": "2007", "view": "Holds that the Rostra was likely built soon after the colony's foundation in 44 BC, its concrete core faced with poros blocks, and that its white marble decoration and flanking benched alcoves came later, tentatively in the early to mid-1st century AD. It served events such as public oratory and important legal tribunals." }, { "author": "Paul D. Scotton, Catherine de Grazia Vanderpool and Carolynn Roncaglia", "work": "Corinth XXII: The Julian Basilica: Architecture, Sculpture, Epigraphy", "year": "2022", "view": "According to the publisher's description, the Julian Basilica at the east end of the forum held one of the largest known shrines to the imperial cult and was the likely site of the imperial court of law for the province of Achaia. That makes it a possible alternative venue for formal proconsular hearings." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "570182", "label": "Corinthus/Korinthos (the ancient city; no separate Pleiades entry for the bema)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1363688", "label": "Ancient Corinth (the city; no Wikidata item found for the bema itself)" } ], "title": "The bema (rostra) in the Roman forum at Corinth", "summary": "Possibly, but not provably. The large platform in Corinth's Roman forum is a reasonable candidate for the tribunal (bēma) where Gallio refused to judge Paul (Acts 18:12-17). Kent restored scattered marble fragments as naming it the colony's rostra, and some platform probably stood there by Paul's day. No ancient source names the spot, the identification is a modern inference from the excavations, and a tribunal in the Julian Basilica is a serious alternative.", "dating": "Platform probably built soon after the colony's foundation in 44 BC, at first with a poros facade (Corinth Computer Project; Kent). An inscribed epistyle from the eastern benched alcove is tentatively Augustan (Kent 157). Kent dated the marble facing (Kent 322) by letter forms to the first half of the 1st century AD, probably the second quarter, though his building table lists it under Claudius. A church or burial chapel stood near it from the 9th or early 10th century; a church on the platform is certain by the 12th (Scranton).", "currentLocation": "Platform in situ in the Roman forum at the Ancient Corinth archaeological site, Greece. The revetment fragments of Kent 322 (Kent's inv. 285, 410, 682, 727, 1929, 2119) belong to the Corinth Excavations collection; their storage or display was not verified.", "establishes": [ "Kent joined white-marble revetment fragments, found 1901-1938 around the forum, into a building text whose surviving letters ROST he restored as rost[ra] (Corinth VIII.3 322; EDCS-08200272). Matching the slab's thickness and finish to the platform's facing, he concluded that the central platform was officially the Rostra, the Latin counterpart of the Greek bēma (tribunal).", "An inscribed epistyle from the eastern schola is tentatively Augustan (Kent 157). Kent dated the marble facing to the first half of the 1st century, probably the second quarter, though his building table lists it under Claudius. So a platform, at least in an earlier poros-faced form, probably stood in the forum when Gallio governed Achaia in the early 50s.", "Corinth had a rostra from which official letters were read around AD 170 (Kent 306; AE 1939, 110). The text does not say which structure that was, and it shows 2nd-century practice only.", "Acts 18:12, 16 and 17 place Gallio's hearing at a bēma. Excavation shows that Corinth's civic centre had a prominent public platform of that kind, so Luke's setting fits the city's layout. Any provincial capital would have had such a tribunal, so the fit is expected rather than distinctive." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "That Paul stood before this platform. No ancient text or inscription connects it with Gallio or Paul; the identification is a modern inference from the platform's location and function.", "The date or details of the hearing. Gallio's term is dated by the separate Delphi letter of Claudius, and Acts is the only account of the hearing.", "A continuous Christian memory of Paul at the spot. A church or burial chapel stood near the platform from the 9th or early 10th century and a church on it is certain by the 12th; Scranton judged the needed continuity from antiquity difficult to establish. A 9th/10th-century inscription naming a church of [Saint] Paul (Kent 728) shows a Pauline dedication by then, not a 1st-century memory." ], "debate": "Kent judged the identification of the governor's rostra assured, and later catalogues (EDCS) reproduce his restoration, though only ROST of the key word survives and Kent allowed that his restoration might not prove correct in every detail. Three questions remain open. First, did Gallio's hearing take place at this platform or at a tribunal elsewhere? According to the publisher's description of Corinth XXII (2022), the Julian Basilica was the likely seat of the province's imperial law court. Second, how much of the marble phase visible today predates Gallio's term? Third, does the medieval church on the platform preserve an ancient memory or reflect a later identification?", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Court held in a basilica", "statement": "Formal proconsular hearings may have been held in a basilica rather than on the open-air rostra. The publisher's description of Corinth XXII (2022) calls the Julian Basilica, at the east end of the forum, the likely seat of Achaia's imperial law court. Gallio's tribunal could have stood there. The description does not discuss Paul." }, { "label": "Bēma names the tribunal, not a building", "statement": "Acts uses the same term for Festus's tribunal at Caesarea (Acts 25:6; Acts 25:17), and John uses it for Pilate's at the place called the Pavement (John 19:13). A governor's tribunal is described in different settings, so Acts 18 need not mean the permanent rostra; the forum platform is one plausible candidate among others." }, { "label": "Medieval identification rather than memory", "statement": "The Byzantine church on the platform may reflect a later Christian identification of the site rather than a memory handed down from the 1st century. Scranton judged the necessary continuity difficult to establish, and the earliest attested Pauline dedication nearby (Kent 728) dates from the 9th or 10th century." }, { "label": "Earlier or unfinished structure in Paul's day", "statement": "Kent's building table places the marble facing under Claudius (AD 41-54), though his text prefers the second quarter of the century. The marble rostra may therefore have been finished just before Gallio's term or after it, and Paul may have seen the earlier platform faced with poros (local limestone)." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/corinth-bema" }, { "id": "malta-protos", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 1, "dateTo": 200, "corpusReferences": [ "IG XIV 601", "IGRR I 512", "CIG 5754", "PHI 140928", "I.Sicily ISic003683", "TM 285166", "EDR112577", "EDCS-39101548", "CIL X 7495", "ILS 5415", "EDCS-22100614", "EDR112567", "TM 285139" ], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 28:7", "Acts 28:1-10", "Acts 13:50", "Acts 28:17" ], "personIds": [ "person.publius", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.malta" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "kaibel-ig-xiv", "work": "Inscriptiones Graecae XIV: Inscriptiones Siciliae et Italiae", "author": "Georg Kaibel (ed.)", "year": "1890", "locator": "IG XIV 601, p. 142 (lemma, text and commentary)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_WNFOCQoUpq4C/page/n190", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby: IG XIV 601", "locator": "EDCS-39101548 (IG 14, 00601)", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/391/39101548.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "work": "Trismegistos text relations: IG XIV 601", "locator": "TM 285166", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/uri/285166", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby: CIL X 7495", "locator": "EDCS-22100614 (CIL 10, 07495 (p 994) = D 05415)", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/221/22100614.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "trismegistos", "work": "Trismegistos text relations: CIL X 7495", "locator": "TM 285139", "url": "https://www.trismegistos.org/dataservices/texrelations/uri/285139", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "author": "James Smith", "year": "1848", "locator": "pp. 112-114 (Malta; the title of Publius)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog/page/n168", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "may mean either that Publius was the principal person in the island, as our translators have understood it, or it may be an official title.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. XIV, sec. 9 'Malta', p. 343", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paulthetraveller00ramsuoft/page/n362", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The title \"first\" is technically correct in Melita: it has inscriptional authority.", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "First Person Narrative in Acts 27-28 (Tyndale Bulletin 36)", "year": "1985", "view": "Treats IG XIV 601 (= IGRR I 512), dated AD 14-37, as attesting the title of Malta's chief local magistrate. He judges the Latin CIL X 7495 indecisive, because its first line is usually quoted out of a mutilated context, and, citing Greek parallels, thinks primus there more likely means first to perform the benefactions listed. He notes that several commentators cite the Latin text as confirming Luke without addressing its restoration." }, { "author": "Loredana Cappelletti", "work": "Documenti epigrafici sulle istituzioni di Melita (Malta) in età romana (Gerión 42, special issue)", "year": "2024", "view": "Treats the Greek inscription's title, the title in Acts 28:7 and CIL X 7495 as one settled, official local title rooted in Melita's social and economic hierarchy, with likely municipal effects; agrees with Suhl's honorific parallels; and leaves its actual powers open. She records that modern opinion is divided between a supreme local magistracy and an honorific title, notes that IG XIV 601 is now lost, and dates Melita's municipium probably to Augustus, against Ashby's later date." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "462311", "label": "Melita/Malta (island)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "462310", "label": "Melita (town at Mdina/Rabat; findspot of both texts)" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "285166", "label": "IG XIV 601 (TM text record)" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "285139", "label": "CIL X 7495 (TM text record)" } ], "title": "Malta's 'first of the Melitans': the protos title in Greek and Latin inscriptions", "summary": "A title like the one Acts 28:7 gives Publius was used on Malta: a lost Greek inscription, known only from early-modern copies (IG XIV 601), calls the Roman knight L. Castricius Prudens first of the Melitans. A 2nd-century Latin base (CIL X 7495) has a broken, partly restored primus omni[um] whose sense is disputed. Neither text names Publius, and scholars disagree whether the title marked an office or an honour.", "dating": "IG XIV 601: 1st century AD (EDR and EDCS AD 1-100; Tiberian per Mommsen as recorded by Kaibel, and per Hemer, AD 14-37). CIL X 7495: 2nd century AD (EDR AD 100-200; EDCS AD 101-200).", "currentLocation": "IG XIV 601: lost (EDR112577; Cappelletti 2024). CIL X 7495: Museum of Roman Antiquities, Rabat, Malta (per EDR112567).", "establishes": [ "IG XIV 601, now lost and known from early-modern copies, styles a Roman knight, L. Castricius Prudens of the tribe Quirina (nomen partly restored), first of the Melitans and patron, having been archon and amphipolos (priest) of the god Augustus.", "At least one leading Melitan bore this title in the early empire, so the term Acts 28:7 applies to Publius matches local usage.", "CIL X 7495, a fragmentary 2nd-century Latin marble block from Mdina, probably a statue base, honours an unnamed benefactor of temple works, including columns, a podium and a pavement. Its broken first line reads [muni]cipi(i) Mel(itensium) primus omni[um]; the line's beginning is lost, and the sense of the surviving words is disputed.", "The Greek text shows archons, a patron and a priesthood of Augustus in the early 1st century. Of these two texts, only the 2nd-century Latin base attests decurions and municipal status. When Melita became a municipium is debated." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Neither inscription mentions Publius. Neither confirms the shipwreck, Paul's stay, the healing of Publius' father or any other event of Acts 28:1-10.", "What powers, if any, the title carried around AD 60. The texts date from the early 1st to the 2nd century AD, and the Greek text lists 'first' beside its holder's past archonship, not in place of it.", "That primus omni[um] in CIL X 7495 is a title rather than the start of a 'first of all to...' clause about the benefactions listed.", "Where on Malta the ship came ashore." ], "debate": "Two questions are open. First, what did 'first' mean on Malta? Smith and Ramsay took it as an official title; Kaibel saw a definite civic honour and linked it to Publius; Hemer read it as the title of the chief local magistrate. Others, notably Suhl, treat it as honorific. Cappelletti accepts Suhl's honorific parallels yet calls it a settled, official local title within a social and economic hierarchy, leaving its powers open. In IG XIV 601 it stands beside 'having been archon', not in its place. Second, is the broken Latin phrase in CIL X 7495 the equivalent? Hemer, citing Greek parallels, judges the Latin text indecisive and thinks primus more likely means first to perform the benefactions listed. When Melita became a municipium is also disputed: Mommsen, as Kaibel records, inferred from the Castricius text that the Melitans lacked Roman civic status under Tiberius; Cappelletti thinks the municipium probably Augustan, against Ashby's later date.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Honorific rank, not an office", "statement": "The title may rank the island's leading notable honorifically rather than name a defined magistracy. Comparable 'first of the province' and 'first of the city' titles appear in Greek inscriptions of the eastern empire, which Suhl collected and Cappelletti surveys. On this view Publius was Malta's foremost man, but the title tells us nothing about his formal powers." }, { "label": "Descriptive phrase in Acts", "statement": "Luke may simply describe Publius as the island's leading man in a non-technical sense. Luke uses the plural for leading men at Pisidian Antioch and for the Jewish leaders at Rome (Acts 13:50; Acts 28:17). Smith (1848) set out this reading, which older English translators followed, before arguing for an official title." }, { "label": "'First to do X' in CIL X 7495", "statement": "In the Latin base, primus omni[um] may begin a 'first of all to...' clause. Hemer (1985) judged the text indecisive, citing Greek parallels. Latin honorific texts with this formula exist, for example CIL XI 6054 and CIL IX 2237; these parallels come from this item's EDCS search, not from Hemer." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-malta-protos" }, { "id": "philippi-colony-magistrates", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": -42, "dateTo": 161, "corpusReferences": [ "RPC I 1649", "RPC I 1650", "RPC I 1653", "EDCS-15900071", "AE 1938, 52", "Pilhofer, Philippi II 253", "CIPh II.1, 136", "EDCS-43000131", "AE 2006, 1330", "Pilhofer, Philippi II 324a", "CIPh II.1, 121", "EDCS-24200017", "CIL III 14206,19", "Pilhofer, Philippi II 452", "CIPh II.1, 15", "EDCS-20200004", "CIL II 5439", "ILS 6087", "CIL II²/5, 1022" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 16:10-17", "Acts 16:12", "Acts 16:19-24", "Acts 16:35-39", "Acts 22:25-29", "Acts 25:10-12", "1 Thessalonians 2:2", "2 Corinthians 11:25" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.silas", "person.claudius" ], "placeIds": [ "place.philippi", "place.macedonia", "place.amphipolis" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (University of Zurich)", "work": "Funerary text for [Varin]ius Macedo, aedile, quaestor, IIvir iure dicundo at Philippi, munerarius (dated 1st century AD)", "locator": "EDCS-15900071 = AE 1938, 52 = Pilhofer, Philippi II 253 = CIPh II.1, 136", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/monument/15900071", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (University of Zurich)", "work": "Inscription for M. Figilius Pudens, holder of honorary decurional rank (ornamenta decurionalia), aedile, IIvir iure dicundo at Philippi, flamen of Antoninus (AD 138-161)", "locator": "EDCS-43000131 = AE 2006, 1330 = Pilhofer, Philippi II 324a = CIPh II.1, 121", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/monument/43000131", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (University of Zurich)", "work": "Dedication by col(onia) Philipp(iensium) to the children and grandchildren of Augustus (EDCS date 1st century AD)", "locator": "EDCS-24200017 = CIL III 14206,19 = Pilhofer, Philippi II 452 = CIPh II.1, 15", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/monument/24200017", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "author": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (University of Zurich)", "work": "Lex Coloniae Genetivae Iuliae (Urso charter), ch. 62: each duovir to have two lictors, an accensus, two scribes and two viatores", "locator": "EDCS-20200004 = CIL II 5439 = ILS 6087 = CIL II²/5, 1022, ch. LXII", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/monument/20200004", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1917", "work": "Roman History, Book 51", "locator": "51.4.6", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/51*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "To most of those who were dispossessed he made compensation by permitting them to settle in Dyrrachium, Philippi, and elsewhere", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914", "work": "Life of Claudius", "locator": "Claud. 25.3", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Those who usurped the privileges of Roman citizenship he executed in the Esquiline field.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (CCEL text of the 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. X, §3 'Accusation and Condemnation in Philippi'", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The title Prætors was not technically accurate, but was frequently employed as a courtesy title for the supreme magistrates of a Roman colony; and, as usual, Luke moves on the plane of educated conversation in such matters, and not on the plane of rigid technical accuracy.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (CCEL text of the 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. V, §4 'The Church at Pisidian Antioch'", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now, since the Roman governors whom he met were favourable to him, these beatings must have taken place in \"colonies,\" whose magistrates were attended by lictors.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (CCEL text of the 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. IX, §4 'The Entrance into Macedonia'", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Of old Amphipolis had been the chief city of the division, to which both belonged. Afterwards Philippi quite outstripped its rival; but it was at that time in such a position, that Amphipolis was ranked first by general consent, Philippi first by its own consent.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "year": "1790", "work": "Horae Paulinae (SPCK edition, 1855)", "locator": "ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. IX", "url": "https://archive.org/download/horpaulinortrut00palegoog/horpaulinortrut00palegoog_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "These particulars cannot be extracted out of the Acts of the Apostles; which proves, as hath been already observed, that the epistle was not framed from the history; yet they are consistent with it", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Cédric Brélaz", "work": "Philippes, colonie romaine d'Orient: Recherches d'histoire institutionnelle et sociale (BCH Supplément 59)", "year": "2018", "view": "Antony founded the colony, and its duoviri iure dicundo were its highest financial and judicial authority. Brélaz notes that the Greek title Acts uses commonly rendered duumvir, as in Greek inscriptions of the colony of Corinth, and that Acts applies it specifically to Philippi's duoviri, who send their lictors to the prison. He uses the episode to illustrate summary municipal justice while leaving its truth open." }, { "author": "Cédric Brélaz", "work": "Corpus des inscriptions grecques et latines de Philippes, II.1: La colonie romaine, La vie publique de la colonie", "year": "2014", "view": "Standard corpus of the colony's public inscriptions, including a section on municipal magistrates and local administration. It is the CIPh II.1 numbering used in the EDCS records cited here." }, { "author": "Peter Pilhofer", "work": "Philippi, Band 2: Katalog der Inschriften von Philippi (2nd edition)", "year": "2009", "view": "Catalogue of the inscriptions of Philippi and its territory. It is the source of the 'Philippi' catalogue numbers in EDCS concordances (e.g. no. 253, 324a, 452)." }, { "author": "Andrew Burnett, Michel Amandry and Pere Pau Ripollès", "work": "Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. I: From the Death of Caesar to Vitellius (44 BC-AD 69)", "year": "1992", "view": "Catalogues Philippi's colonial coinage, including RPC I 1649 (legend A I C V P, expanded as Antoni iussu colonia victrix Philippensis, with Q. Paquius Rufus named as legate for founding the colony), RPC I 1650 (Augustus) and RPC I 1653 (Claudius, reverse COL AVG IVL PHILIP)." }, { "author": "A. N. Sherwin-White", "work": "Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament", "year": "1963", "view": "A Roman historian's Sarum Lectures, including 'The Roman citizenship and Acts'. He discusses the Roman rules, notably the Julian law on public violence, that protected citizens from being bound or beaten, and argues that Acts' picture of Roman legal and civic procedure fits first-century conditions as far as it can be tested." }, { "author": "John Clayton Lentz Jr.", "work": "Luke's Portrait of Paul (SNTSMS 77)", "year": "1993", "view": "Sceptical. He judges it improbable that a strict Pharisee held Roman and Tarsian citizenship, and he reads Acts' citizenship motif as part of a deliberate literary portrayal of Paul's high status and virtue." }, { "author": "Ekkehard Weber", "work": "Das römische Bürgerrecht des Apostels Paulus (Tyche 27)", "year": "2012", "view": "Argues that the appeal to the emperor (Acts 25:11) implies that Paul held Roman citizenship. He leaves open how the family acquired it, either through a grant to Tarsus or through a manumitted ancestor." }, { "author": "H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, H. S. Jones", "work": "A Greek-English Lexicon (9th edition)", "year": "1940", "view": "Its entry for the Greek title Acts gives Philippi's magistrates includes the sense Roman praetor and applies the word to the duoviri, or chief magistrates, of Roman colonies. Its example for colonies is Acts 16:20 itself, so for that usage it is not independent of Acts." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "501482", "label": "Krenides/Philippi/Col. Augusta Iulia Philippensis" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q379652", "label": "Philippi (ancient city in eastern Macedonia)" } ], "title": "Philippi as a Roman colony: its coins, its duoviri and colonial lictors", "summary": "Coins, Latin inscriptions and Dio Cassius show that Philippi was a Roman colony, as Acts 16:12 says, run by two chief magistrates (duoviri). The charter of another colony, Urso in Spain, gives such magistrates lictors. That fits Acts, where the magistrates order a beating with rods and later send rod-bearing officers (Acts 16:22, 35-38). None of this verifies the episode, and Paul's citizenship is attested only in Acts.", "dating": "Colony coinage from Antony's foundation after 42 BC to Claudius (AD 41-54); Latin inscriptions naming the colony's magistrates, 1st-2nd centuries AD (the latest cited is dated AD 138-161); comparative evidence from the Urso charter (dated by EDCS to 44 BC)", "currentLocation": "Philippi (Krenides), eastern Macedonia, Greece (findspot of the Philippi inscriptions); the Urso charter comes from Osuna in southern Spain; coin specimens are held in multiple public and private collections (RPC); Dio's text survives in the manuscript tradition", "establishes": [ "Philippi was a Roman colony in Paul's day. Its coins call it a colony under Antony, whose order the legend cites (RPC I 1649), under Augustus (RPC I 1650, COL AVG IVL PHIL IVSSV AVG) and under Claudius (RPC I 1653). Dio Cassius (51.4.6) records Octavian settling dispossessed Italians there. Acts 16:12 is the only New Testament passage that calls a city a Roman colony.", "Latin inscriptions from Philippi give the colony's chief magistrates the title IIvir iure dicundo, within a Roman-style career that includes aedile and quaestor. EDCS dates one to the 1st century AD (EDCS-15900071) and another, for M. Figilius Pudens, who held honorary decurional rank (ornamenta decurionalia), to AD 138-161 (EDCS-43000131). The colony itself appears as a dedicant (EDCS-24200017).", "Colonial magistrates had lictors. The charter of the colony at Urso (ch. 62) grants each duovir two lictors, with an attendant (accensus), two scribes and two messengers (EDCS-20200004). Ramsay reasoned that Paul's beatings with rods took place in colonies, whose magistrates were attended by lictors. Acts fits this profile: officers whose title means rod-bearers, that is, lictors, carry the magistrates' messages (Acts 16:35, 38).", "Suetonius reports that Claudius had those who usurped citizenship executed (Claud. 25.3); on the usual chronology Paul's visit (c. AD 49-50) fell in his reign. Sherwin-White (1963) discussed the Roman rules, notably the Julian law on public violence, that protected citizens from being bound or beaten by magistrates. The magistrates' alarm in Acts 16:38 is therefore intelligible in Roman legal terms." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "No inscription or coin names the magistrates, the jailer, Lydia or anyone else in Acts 16, or records the arrest, beating, imprisonment or release of Paul and Silas. An accurate institutional setting does not by itself show that the episode happened as narrated.", "It does not prove that Paul was a Roman citizen. The claim appears only in Acts (Acts 16:37 and 22:25-29). Paul's letters confirm mistreatment at Philippi (1 Thessalonians 2:2) and three beatings with rods (2 Corinthians 11:25), but never mention citizenship. Some also ask why a citizen suffered three beatings with rods (2 Corinthians 11:25); the letters do not explain this.", "Philippi's own charter does not survive, so the lictor evidence comes from another colony (Urso) by analogy. The Latin inscriptions cited here use IIvir; whether Greek speakers at Philippi formally or informally called these men by the Greek title Acts uses is unresolved." ], "debate": "Open questions remain. Philippi's Latin inscriptions say IIvir (duovir). Ramsay treated Acts' title for these men, which he rendered 'praetors', as a courtesy title; Brélaz notes that the same Greek title commonly rendered duumvir, as in the Greek inscriptions of the colony of Corinth. On citizenship, Lentz doubts that a strict Pharisee would have held it and reads it as part of Luke's portrait of Paul; Weber argues that the appeal to Caesar implies it. Critics also ask why Paul invoked it only after the beating. Finally, Acts 16:12's ranking of Philippi as the leading city of its district sits awkwardly with Amphipolis's older standing as chief city of the division. Ramsay read the phrase as civic pride, a rank Philippi claimed while Amphipolis held it by general consent. Others adopt a variant or conjectural reading, printed in some modern critical editions, that makes Philippi a city of the first district, or read the ranking as a mark of honour rather than administrative rank.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Accurate setting, composed scene", "statement": "Luke or his source knew how eastern colonies worked. The correct titles and procedures show familiarity with the setting, but they are compatible with a dramatised or composed episode. On this view, the late citizenship reveal belongs to Acts' literary portrait of Paul's high status (so Lentz) rather than to a verifiable event." }, { "label": "Courtesy title, not technical error", "statement": "The magistrates were legally duoviri, as the inscriptions show. The Greek title Acts gives them reflects polite or popular usage for colonial magistrates. Ramsay judged it accurate at the level of educated conversation rather than technical precision. Brélaz treats it as a normal Greek equivalent of duumvir, and LSJ applies the word to colonial duoviri, though its example is Acts itself." }, { "label": "Well-informed narrator with partial independent support", "statement": "The first-person plural narrative reaches Philippi (Acts 16:10-17), though it stops before the arrest. Paul's own letters independently report ill-treatment at Philippi (1 Thessalonians 2:2) and beatings with rods (2 Corinthians 11:25). Paley argued that the letter was not drawn from Acts yet agrees with it; Ramsay read the narrator as locally informed. The letters still do not confirm the citizenship claim or the trial's details." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-philippi-colony-magistrates" }, { "id": "festus-coins", "kind": "coin", "dateFrom": 58, "dateTo": 59, "corpusReferences": [ "RPC I 4972", "Meshorer 35 (as cited by RPC I 4972)" ], "confidence": "medium", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 24:10", "Acts 24:27", "Acts 25:1-12", "Acts 27:9" ], "personIds": [ "person.festus", "person.felix", "person.nero", "person.claudius", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.judea", "place.jerusalem", "place.caesarea" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.182 (Whiston 20.8.9)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston+chapter%3D8%3Awhiston+section%3D9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.137-138 (Whiston 20.7.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston+chapter%3D7%3Awhiston+section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "SO Claudius sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to take care of the affairs of Judea; and when he had already completed the twelfth year of his reign, he bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.197 (Whiston 20.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston+chapter%3D9%3Awhiston+section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.200 (Whiston 20.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston+chapter%3D9%3Awhiston+section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.271 (Whiston 2.14.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D2%3Awhiston+chapter%3D14%3Awhiston+section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "NOW it was that Festus succeeded Felix as procurator, and made it his business to correct those that made disturbances in the country.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 6.300 (Whiston 6.5.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D6%3Awhiston+chapter%3D5%3Awhiston+section%3D3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1895 edition", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 6.305 (Whiston 6.5.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D6%3Awhiston+chapter%3D5%3Awhiston+section%3D3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Albinus (for he was then our procurator)", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 reprint", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 13.14 (narrative of AD 55)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D13%3Achapter%3D14", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And so Nero, furious with those who abetted such arrogance in a woman, removed Pallas from the charge of the business with which he had been entrusted by Claudius, and in which he acted, so to say, as the controller of the throne.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 reprint", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 13.23 (narrative of AD 55)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D13%3Achapter%3D23", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But the proved innocence of Pallas did not please men so much, as his arrogance offended them.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914", "work": "Lives of the Caesars: Claudius", "locator": "Claud. 45", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He died on the third day before the Ides of October in the consulship of Asinius Marcellus and Acilius Aviola, in the sixty-fourth year of his age and the fourteenth of his reign.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "work": "Church History", "locator": "HE 2.22.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Festus was sent by Nero to be Felix's successor. Under him Paul, having made his defense, was sent bound to Rome.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "work": "Notes to Eusebius, Church History (NPNF, Second Series, vol. 1)", "locator": "HE 2.22.1, note 469", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201/npnf201.iii.vii.xxiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The exact year of the accession of Festus is not known, but it is known that his death occurred before the summer of 62 a.d.; for at that time his successor, Albinus, was already procurator, as we can see from Josephus, B. J. VI. 5. 3.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (CCEL text of the 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. XIV, §3 'The Council'", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The great Fast fell in 59 on Oct. 5, and, as Paul and Aristarchus observed the Fast, Luke uses it as an indication of date.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "year": "1895", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (CCEL text of the 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "Chronological Index to the Life of St. Paul", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Imprisonment in Palestine June 57 to July 59", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Andrew Burnett, Michel Amandry and Pere Pau Ripollès", "work": "Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. I: From the Death of Caesar to Vitellius (44 BC-AD 69)", "year": "1992 (online edition 2019)", "view": "Catalogues the type as RPC I 4972, struck at Jerusalem under Nero in year 5 and dated AD 59, without naming the governor who issued it. Its Claudius year-14 issues (RPC I 4970-4971, AD 54) name Julia Agrippina, and Britannicus and Nero, but no governor." }, { "author": "Frederic W. Madden", "work": "Coins of the Jews (International Numismata Orientalia II)", "year": "1881", "view": "Lists the year-5 type (AD 58-59) under Felix and dates Festus to AD 60 to the end of 61, while reporting that de Saulcy had assigned the coin to Festus." }, { "author": "Emil Schürer", "work": "A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Division I (English translation by John Macpherson)", "year": "1890", "view": "Holds that Felix was probably recalled in AD 60, the date most investigators then preferred. Reports that Kellner (November 54) and V. Weber (summer 55) argued for an early recall from Eusebius's Chronicle and Pallas's influence, and rebuts them: the Chronicle's dates are often arbitrary, Josephus puts almost all of Felix's acts under Nero, and Pallas was acquitted before the end of 55." }, { "author": "Michael J. G. Gray-Fow", "work": "Why Festus, Not Felix? Paul's Caesarem Appello (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 59/3)", "year": "2016", "view": "Places Festus's arrival and Paul's appeal in the summer of AD 60, and calls that date approximate but traditional." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q464307", "label": "Porcius Festus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "687928", "label": "Ierusalem/Hierosolyma (mint named by RPC)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "678401", "label": "Stratonos Pyrgos/Caesarea (governor's seat)" } ], "title": "Judean coins of Nero's fifth year, attributed to Festus", "summary": "Small bronze coins struck for Judea in Nero's fifth year (AD 58/59), whose legends give only the names Nero and Caesar and the year, are often credited to Porcius Festus, the governor who replaced Felix in Acts 24:27. They fit the Roman setting of Acts 24-25, but they never name a governor, so they cannot by themselves fix when Festus arrived; proposals run from AD 54 to 61.", "dating": "Year 5 of Nero (dated L E), AD 58/59, Nero having succeeded Claudius in October 54 (Suetonius, Claud. 45); RPC dates the type to AD 59", "currentLocation": "Numerous specimens; RPC I 4972 lists 34, in public and private collections.", "establishes": [ "Small bronze coins were struck for Judea in Nero's name in his fifth regnal year (dated L E, AD 58/59). One side carries Nero's name inside a wreath; the other gives the year and the name Caesar beside a palm branch. RPC catalogues the type at Jerusalem as RPC I 4972 and dates it to AD 59.", "Judean issues dated to Claudius's year 14 (AD 54; RPC I 4970-4971), struck while Felix governed, likewise name no governor. De Saulcy attributed the year-5 type to Porcius Festus, as Madden (1881) reports, and many modern catalogues follow him. Acts 24:27 and Josephus (Ant. 20.182; War 2.271) both name Festus as Felix's successor, and Josephus says Nero sent him.", "Festus died in office before Albinus arrived (Ant. 20.197-200), and Albinus was procurator by the Feast of Tabernacles four years before the war (War 6.300-305), so Festus's term ended by AD 62." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "The coins do not name a governor. Whether they belong to Festus or Felix depends on the chronology adopted: Madden (1881) dated Festus to AD 60-61 and listed the year-5 type under Felix.", "They do not fix the year Festus arrived. Treating them as his first issue assumes that new governors struck coins soon after arriving. Josephus narrates Felix's appointment just before an event dated after Claudius had completed his twelfth year (about AD 53; Ant. 20.137), yet the Judean coins of his term with a Claudian date belong to AD 54. On that inference, minting did not necessarily follow arrival.", "They say nothing about Paul, his hearings before Felix and Festus, or how long he was held (Acts 24:27)." ], "debate": "Festus's arrival, which turns on when Felix was recalled, has been dated from AD 54 to 61. Early dates rest on Eusebius's Chronicle, whose Armenian text puts the recall in Claudius's last year and Jerome's version in Nero's second, and on Josephus's remark that Pallas, removed from office in 55, still shielded Felix (Ant. 20.182; Tacitus, Ann. 13.14). Schürer replied that the Chronicle's dates are often arbitrary, that Josephus places almost all of Felix's acts under Nero, and that Pallas was cleared of a charge before the end of 55 (Ann. 13.23). Paul's compliment on Felix's long experience as the nation's judge (Acts 24:10) also suggests a long tenure. Ramsay dated the voyage by the fast that Acts 27:9 says had passed, which in 59 fell on 5 October. If the year-5 coins are Festus's, he was in office by AD 59, which tells against 60 or 61; but that reading rests on a coin that names no governor and on an assumed minting pattern.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Early recall of Felix (AD 54-55)", "statement": "As Schürer (1890) reports, Kellner placed Felix's recall in November 54 and V. Weber in summer 55, citing Eusebius's Chronicle and Pallas's influence with Nero (Ant. 20.182). Schürer answered that Josephus places almost all of Felix's acts under Nero and that Pallas had been acquitted before the end of 55 (Tacitus, Ann. 13.23). On the early view the year-5 coins would fall mid-term." }, { "label": "Arrival in AD 59 (Ramsay)", "statement": "Ramsay dated the voyage to Rome to autumn 59 by a calendar argument, not a coin argument: the fast that Acts 27:9 says had passed fell on 5 October in 59. His chronological index puts Paul's imprisonment in Palestine from June 57 to July 59, so on his reckoning Festus arrived in 59. This agrees with attributing the year-5 coins to Festus, struck in his first months." }, { "label": "Traditional date (AD 60)", "statement": "Most investigators Schürer surveyed in 1890 put Felix's recall in 60, and McGiffert (1890), following Wieseler, gave 59-61 as the widest margin for Festus's accession. Gray-Fow (2016) still treats summer 60 as the traditional date. On this view the year-5 coins were issued under Felix, as Madden listed them in 1881, and on his listing no coins of Festus are known." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-festus-coins" }, { "id": "aretas-damascus", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": -9, "dateTo": 40, "corpusReferences": [ "RPC I 4781-4806 (civic coinage of Damascus, 37/36 BC to AD 65/6)", "RPC I 4800-4802A (Damascus under Tiberius, year 345 = AD 33/4, the last dated issue before the gap)", "RPC I 4803-4806 (Damascus under Nero, year 377 = AD 65/6)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "source-supported", "scriptureReferences": [ "2 Corinthians 11:32-33", "Acts 9:23-25", "Acts 9:26", "Galatians 1:17-18", "Galatians 1:21" ], "personIds": [ "person.aretas", "person.paul", "person.josephus", "person.claudius", "person.nero" ], "placeIds": [ "place.damascus", "place.nabatea", "place.arabia", "place.syria" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 18.109-115 (Whiston 18.5.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=18:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "So Herod wrote about these affairs to Tiberius, who being very angry at the attempt made by Aretas, wrote to Vitellius to make war upon him, and either to take him alive, and bring him to him in bonds, or to kill him, and send him his head.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 18.120-129 (Whiston 18.5.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=18:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But when on the fourth day letters came to him, which informed him of the death of Tiberius, he obliged the multitude to take an oath of fidelity to Caius; he also recalled his army, and made them every one go home, and take their winter quarters there", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 16.293-299 (Whiston 16.9.4)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=16:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=4", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "who indeed was angry that Aretas had not sent to him first before he took the kingdom", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 16.351-355 (Whiston 16.10.9)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=16:whiston%20chapter=10:whiston%20section=9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "so he admitted Aretas's ambassadors; and after he had just reproved him for his rashness, in not tarrying till he received the kingdom from him, he accepted of his presents, and confirmed him in his government.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 14.117 (Whiston 14.7.2), quoting Strabo on the Jews of Egypt", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=14:whiston%20chapter=7:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There is also an ethnarch allowed them, who governs the nation, and distributes justice to them, and takes care of their contracts, and of the laws to them belonging, as if he were the ruler of a free republic.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.93 (Whiston 2.6.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=6:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he gave the one half of Herod's kingdom to Archelaus, by the name of Ethnarch, and promised to make him king also afterward, if he rendered himself worthy of that dignity.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text of the 1895 Beardsley edition)", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 13.392 (Whiston 13.15.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=13:whiston%20chapter=15:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "reigned over Celesyria, being called to the government by those that held Damascus, by reason of the hatred they bare to Ptolemy Menneus.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1924", "work": "Roman History, Book 59", "locator": "59.12.2", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/59*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he granted to Sohaemus the land of the Ituraean Arabians, to Cotys Lesser Armenia", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "year": "1790 (London: Religious Tract Society printing, 1852)", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "locator": "ch. IV (Second Epistle to the Corinthians), No. II", "url": "https://archive.org/download/horaepaulinaeort00pale_0/horaepaulinaeort00pale_0_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The account in the Epistle of St. Paul’s escape from Damascus, though agreeing in the main fact with the account of the same transaction in the Acts, is related with such difference of circumstance, as renders it utterly improbable that one should be derived from the other.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "author": "Wikidata", "work": "Aretas IV Philopatris", "locator": "Q302986", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q302986.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "author": "Pleiades", "work": "Damascus", "locator": "Pleiades 678106", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/678106/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Rainer Riesner", "work": "\"Pauline Chronology,\" in Stephen Westerholm (ed.), The Blackwell Companion to Paul", "year": "2011", "view": "Neither literary nor numismatic evidence establishes that Gaius handed Damascus to Aretas or that the Nabataeans seized it. Aretas's official was probably the overseer of the Nabataean quarter of Damascus, as the Jewish ethnarch was at Alexandria. The only firm point is that the flight came before Aretas IV died in AD 40. Riesner dates Paul's call to 31/32 and his first Jerusalem visit to 33/34." }, { "author": "Emil Schürer", "work": "A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Division I, vol. II, Appendix II (English translation by John Macpherson)", "year": "1890", "view": "Takes 2 Corinthians 11:32 to show that Damascus then belonged to Aretas, probably restored to him by Gaius, noting that no Damascus coins with the emperor's image are known from Gaius and Claudius. Judges a forcible seizure very improbable. Reports el-Hegr inscriptions and coins of Aretas IV reaching his 48th year." }, { "author": "Benjamin W. Bacon", "work": "A Criticism of the New Chronology of Paul, II (The Expositor, 5th series, vol. 10)", "year": "1899", "view": "Argues that Aretas was probably not in control of Damascus before late AD 38. Reports Holtzmann's view that Aretas's official was only the representative of Arabian interests in the city, and doubts that such a consul-like appointee could guard a Roman-held city to stop a Roman citizen leaving. Inclines to Weizsäcker's view that the escape belongs c. AD 39, after Paul's first Jerusalem visit." }, { "author": "Douglas A. Campbell", "work": "\"An Anchor for Pauline Chronology: Paul's Flight from 'the Ethnarch of King Aretas' (2 Corinthians 11:32-33),\" Journal of Biblical Literature 121", "year": "2002", "view": "Treats the flight from Aretas's official as a fixed point on which to build a Pauline chronology from the letters, and dates it narrowly in the later 30s." }, { "author": "Laurence L. Welborn", "work": "\"The Runaway Paul,\" Harvard Theological Review 92", "year": "1999", "view": "Calls the episode important for chronology because Aretas is the only political figure named in an authentic letter of Paul, and notes that Acts 9:23-25 parallels it in partly overlapping wording, which is unusual for Acts." }, { "author": "Laurence L. Welborn", "work": "\"Primum tirocinium Pauli (2 Cor 11,32-33),\" Biblische Zeitschrift 43", "year": "1999", "view": "As Riesner (2011) reports it, argues that Gaius (Caligula) handed Damascus over to Aretas IV in 37-39." }, { "author": "Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer", "work": "Paul Between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown Years", "year": "1997", "view": "As cited by Riesner, they hold that the literary sources do not establish Nabataean rule of Damascus, and that Paul's early activity in the Nabataean kingdom may explain Aretas's hostility." }, { "author": "Zeyad Al-Salameen", "work": "\"A new Ancient North Arabian inscription with a reference to the Nabataean king Aretas,\" Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy 22", "year": "2011", "view": "Publishes an inscription from al-Hussayniah, north of Ma'an, dated to the year a king Aretas died. He takes this most likely to be Aretas IV's death in AD 40." }, { "author": "Andrew Burnett, Michel Amandry and Pere Pau Ripollès", "work": "Roman Provincial Coinage, vol. I: From the Death of Caesar to Vitellius (44 BC-AD 69)", "year": "1992 (online edition 2019)", "view": "Catalogues Damascus's civic coinage as RPC I 4781-4806 with 4802A. Dated issues under Tiberius end with year 345 (AD 33/4); the next secure issues are Nero's, of year 377 (AD 65/6), and none of Gaius or Claudius are listed." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q302986", "label": "Aretas IV Philopatris" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q3766", "label": "Damascus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "678106", "label": "Damascus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q11029653", "label": "Nabataean kingdom" } ], "title": "King Aretas IV and Paul's escape from Damascus", "summary": "Josephus attests Aretas IV, the only King Aretas whose reign fits Paul's lifetime and so the king named in 2 Corinthians 11:32. Dated inscriptions and coins put his reign at c. 9 BC-AD 40, so Paul's basket escape from Damascus came before about AD 40. Whether Aretas then controlled Damascus is unproven; the case rests on a gap in the city's coinage and on how the title of Aretas's official, a term Josephus uses for both a territorial ruler and a community head, is read.", "dating": "Reign of Aretas IV, c. 9 BC-AD 40. Paul's escape came before Aretas died and is recalled in 2 Corinthians, written in the mid-50s.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition (Josephus, Antiquities and Jewish War; Cassius Dio). The Damascus civic coins are held in several museum and private collections and catalogued in RPC.", "establishes": [ "Aretas IV is a Nabataean king attested outside the New Testament. Josephus reports that he took power when Obodas died and that Augustus confirmed him only reluctantly. Josephus also reports his defeat of Herod Antipas, and that Vitellius abandoned his march against Aretas when news came of Tiberius's death in AD 37.", "His reign is reckoned at c. 9 BC-AD 40, though the accession year is uncertain. Schürer (1890) reports el-Hegr inscriptions and coins dated to his 48th year; Al-Salameen (2011) publishes an inscription dated to the year a king Aretas died, most likely Aretas IV in AD 40.", "Paul says that King Aretas's official kept Damascus under watch to seize him, so the escape (2 Corinthians 11:32-33; compare Acts 9:23-25) came before c. AD 40. If the escape preceded Paul's first Jerusalem visit (Acts 9:23-26; Galatians 1:17-18), his conversion came no later than about AD 37.", "RPC I catalogues Damascus civic coins dated under Tiberius up to year 345 (AD 33/4). The next secure issue is under Nero (year 377, AD 65/6), and no Damascus issues of Gaius or Claudius are catalogued." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that Aretas governed Damascus. No inscription, coin or non-Christian text says so. Dio's list of Gaius's grants in AD 38 mentions Arabian territories but not Aretas or Damascus (59.12.2).", "The coin gap does not prove a change of ruler. Damascus minted only intermittently: RPC I has no dated issues between 4/3 BC and AD 13/14. The gap is an argument from silence.", "It does not fix the year of the escape, and it does not make Acts and 2 Corinthians fully independent witnesses. Scholars defend dates from the early 30s to AD 39/40, and the two accounts share some wording.", "Acts and Paul name different pursuers: in Acts the Jews keep watch at the gates (Acts 9:23-24), while Paul names Aretas's official (2 Corinthians 11:32). Any harmonisation, such as cooperation between them, is inference." ], "debate": "The open question is what Aretas's official in Damascus was. Schürer (1890) took Paul's words to mean that Damascus then belonged to Aretas, probably restored to him by Gaius, and pointed to the gap in the city's coinage; as Riesner (2011) reports, Welborn argued for a handover by Gaius in 37-39. Bacon (1899) put any such control no earlier than late 38. Riesner, citing Hengel and Schwemer among others, finds neither a grant nor a seizure established. Holtzmann, as reported by Bacon (1899), read the official as the representative of Arabian interests in Damascus; Riesner reads him as overseer of the city's Nabataean quarter, like the head of Alexandria's Jews whom Josephus, quoting Strabo, calls an ethnarch (Ant. 14.117). Campbell treats the escape as a fixed point for Pauline chronology.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Nabataean rule of the city, c. AD 37-40", "statement": "Aretas briefly governed Damascus through his official, perhaps by a grant from Gaius after Tiberius died. Those holding Damascus had once called an earlier Aretas to rule Coele-Syria (Ant. 13.392), and Josephus gives the same title to Archelaus as ruler of half of Herod's kingdom (War 2.93). The coin gap then fits, the escape falls c. AD 37-40, and with Galatians 1:18 Paul's conversion moves to the mid-30s." }, { "label": "Official as community head or royal agent", "statement": "Damascus stayed a city of Roman Syria. Aretas's official was either the head of the local Nabataean community (Riesner) or an agent representing the king's interests (Holtzmann, as reported by Bacon). Either way he could watch for Paul without ruling the city, so the escape can fall earlier in the 30s. Bacon (1899) doubted that such an appointee could guard a Roman-held city to stop someone leaving." }, { "label": "A narrow anchor date", "statement": "Campbell makes the flight from Aretas's official the anchor of a chronology built from the letters and dates it narrowly in the later 30s. Riesner (2011) counters that Nabataean authority over Damascus cannot be established, so the only certain point is that the flight preceded Aretas's death in AD 40." }, { "label": "Escape later than Acts places it", "statement": "Weizsäcker, as reported and tentatively followed by Bacon (1899), placed the escape in a later stay at Damascus c. AD 39, after Paul's first Jerusalem visit (Acts 9:26), during his work in Syria and Cilicia (Galatians 1:21). On this view Acts 9 misplaces the episode." }, { "label": "Shared tradition or literary dependence", "statement": "Paley (1790) set the two accounts side by side, one with the king's official guarding the city and the other with the Jews keeping watch at the gates, and judged that they differ too much in circumstance for one to derive from the other. Welborn notes that they agree partly in wording, unusual between Acts and the letters. Whether Acts used Paul's letter or a common tradition remains open." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-aretas-damascus" }, { "id": "aratus-epimenides-menander", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": -343, "dateTo": -274, "corpusReferences": [ "Aratus, Phaenomena 5 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0653.tlg001)", "Menander, Thais fr. 218 Kock", "Euripides fr. 1013 Nauck (cross-reference given by Allinson 1921)", "Callimachus, Hymn 1 (To Zeus) 8", "Diogenes Laertius 1.109-112 (Epimenides)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 17:28", "Acts 17:22-31", "1 Corinthians 15:33", "Titus 1:12-13", "Acts 22:3" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.luke", "person.titus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.athens", "place.areopagus", "place.crete", "place.corinth", "place.tarsus" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "aratus-mair", "author": "Aratus", "work": "Phaenomena (English translation, Loeb Classical Library)", "translator": "G. R. Mair", "year": "1921", "locator": "Phaen. 4-6 (English translation)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/callimachuslycop0000wmai/callimachuslycop0000wmai_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "always we all have need of Zeus. For we are also his offspring; and he in his kindness unto men giveth favourable signs and wakeneth the people to work", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "aratus-mair", "author": "Aratus", "work": "Phaenomena (Greek text, ed. G. R. Mair)", "year": "1921", "locator": "Phaen. 5", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0483", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "τοῦ γάρ καὶ γένος εἰμέν", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "aratus-mair", "author": "G. R. Mair", "work": "Introduction to Aratus, in Callimachus and Lycophron; Aratus (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1921", "locator": "Introduction to Aratus, p. 360 (birthplace)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/callimachuslycop0000wmai/callimachuslycop0000wmai_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Aratus of Soli in Cilicia—as distinct from Soli in Cyprus—was the son of Athenodorus and Letophila", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "aratus-mair", "author": "G. R. Mair", "work": "Introduction to Aratus, in Callimachus and Lycophron; Aratus (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1921", "locator": "Introduction to Aratus, p. 363 (date of the Phaenomena)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/callimachuslycop0000wmai/callimachuslycop0000wmai_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "This must have been between 276-274, because in the latter year this literary circle was broken up by the invasion of Pyrrhus", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "clement-alexandria-stromata-anf", "author": "Clement of Alexandria", "work": "Stromata, Book I (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2)", "translator": "William Wilson", "year": "1885", "locator": "Strom. 1.14 (Epimenides)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "others, Epimenides the Cretan, whom Paul knew as a Greek prophet, whom he mentions in the Epistle to Titus", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "clement-alexandria-stromata-anf", "author": "Clement of Alexandria", "work": "Stromata, Book I (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2)", "translator": "William Wilson", "year": "1885", "locator": "Strom. 1.14 (Greek poems; 1 Corinthians line)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "is not ashamed, when discoursing for the edification of some and the shaming of others, to make use of Greek poems. Accordingly to the Corinthians (for this is not the only instance), while discoursing on the resurrection of the dead, he makes use of a tragic Iambic line", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "clement-alexandria-stromata-anf", "author": "Clement of Alexandria", "work": "Stromata, Book I (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2)", "translator": "William Wilson", "year": "1885", "locator": "Strom. 1.19 (Aratus)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Whence it is evident that the apostle, by availing himself of poetical examples from the Phenomena of Aratus, approves of what had been well spoken by the Greeks", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "diogenes-laertius-hicks", "author": "Diogenes Laertius", "work": "Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book I (Epimenides)", "translator": "R. D. Hicks", "year": "1925", "locator": "1.110 (date of Epimenides' visit to Athens)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D10", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And he came in the 46th Olympiad", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "diogenes-laertius-hicks", "author": "Diogenes Laertius", "work": "Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book I (Epimenides)", "translator": "R. D. Hicks", "year": "1925", "locator": "1.111 (works ascribed to Epimenides)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0258%3Abook%3D1%3Achapter%3D10", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He wrote a poem On the Birth of the Curetes and Corybantes and a Theogony", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Francis G. Allinson", "work": "Menander: The Principal Fragments (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1921", "view": "Prints the line of 1 Corinthians 15:33, in its elided form, as Menander, Thais fr. 218 Kock, and cross-references Euripides fr. 1013 Nauck." }, { "author": "A. W. Mair", "work": "Callimachus: Hymns, in Callimachus and Lycophron; Aratus (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1921", "view": "Prints Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, whose line 8 opens with the same three words as Titus 1:12, and annotates the saying as proverbial and attributed to Epimenides." }, { "author": "J. Rendel Harris", "work": "The Cretans Always Liars (The Expositor, 7th series, vol. 2)", "year": "1906", "view": "Argues from a passage in the Syriac Gannat Busame, which he took to come from Theodore of Mopsuestia, that the first clause of Acts 17:28 also derives from Epimenides." }, { "author": "Martin Dibelius", "work": "Paulus auf dem Areopag", "year": "1939", "view": "Reads the Areopagus speech as a Lukan literary composition in a Hellenistic philosophical idiom, not as a record of Paul's own words." }, { "author": "Bertil Gärtner", "work": "The Areopagus Speech and Natural Revelation", "year": "1955", "view": "Argues against Dibelius that the speech's thought is rooted in Old Testament and Jewish tradition, with the Greek citations used in its service." }, { "author": "Clare K. Rothschild", "work": "Paul in Athens: The Popular Religious Context of Acts 17 (WUNT 341)", "year": "2014", "view": "Argues that popular second-century traditions about Epimenides make sense of the Athens episode, including the unknown-god altar and the first clause of Acts 17:28, and that scholars have overlooked them in favour of the philosophers named in the chapter." }, { "author": "Erkki Koskenniemi", "work": "The Famous Liar and the Apostolic Truth (Filología Neotestamentaria 24)", "year": "2011", "view": "Argues that the Cretan-liar proverb came first, was turned into a logical paradox, and was attached to Epimenides only later and ahistorically, so the verse in Titus does not prove that its writer knew classical literature well." }, { "author": "John Granger Cook", "work": "Titus 1,12: Epimenides, Ancient Christian Scholars, Zeus's Death, and the Cretan Paradox (Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 25)", "year": "2021", "view": "Reads Titus 1:12 in its history-of-religions context rather than as a liar's paradox." }, { "author": "I. Howard Marshall (with Philip H. Towner)", "work": "A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles (ICC)", "year": "1999", "view": "Holds that a Pauline associate wrote the Pastorals under Paul's name without deceptive intent ('allonymity'), rather than Paul himself." }, { "author": "William D. Mounce", "work": "Pastoral Epistles (Word Biblical Commentary 46)", "year": "2000", "view": "Defends Pauline authorship of the Pastorals and explains their stylistic differences partly by an amanuensis." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q180671", "label": "Aratus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q42194191", "label": "Phaenomena (poem by Aratus)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q319406", "label": "Epimenides of Crete" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q118992", "label": "Menander" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q192417", "label": "Callimachus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1992415", "label": "Stromata (Clement of Alexandria)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q4789055", "label": "Areopagus sermon" } ], "title": "Greek poets quoted in Acts and Paul's letters: Aratus, Menander and 'Epimenides'", "summary": "Three lines in Acts and the Pauline letters reproduce Greek verse. Acts 17:28 matches the first half of line 5 of Aratus' Phaenomena (3rd century BC). 1 Corinthians 15:33 matches, apart from one unelided vowel, an iambic trimeter printed as Menander's, from his lost comedy Thais. Titus 1:12 is a hexameter that Clement of Alexandria credited to the Cretan seer Epimenides. The lines show a Greek literary horizon, but not that Paul read these poets or that the Athens speech is verbatim.", "dating": "Poems: Diogenes Laertius places Epimenides in the 46th Olympiad (596-593 BC), a legendary date, and no work of his survives intact; Menander 343/42-292/91 BC (Allinson); Aratus' Phaenomena c. 276-274 BC (Mair's inference); Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus, 3rd century BC. Earliest Christian attribution cited: Clement of Alexandria, Stromata (around AD 200).", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "The words that Acts 17:28 credits to Greek poets match the first half of line 5 of Aratus' Phaenomena; the Greek differs only in the verb form (Aratus has the epic εἰμέν). Aratus came from Soli in Cilicia and, on Mair's 1921 dating, composed the poem c. 276-274 BC.", "1 Corinthians 15:33 matches, apart from one unelided vowel, an iambic trimeter that Allinson (1921) prints as Menander, Thais fr. 218 Kock. The play is lost, so the ascription rests on ancient testimony rather than surviving text. Clement of Alexandria already called the verse a borrowed 'tragic Iambic line'.", "Titus 1:12 cites a hexameter as the saying of a Cretan prophet. Its first three words also open line 8 of Callimachus' Hymn to Zeus (3rd century BC), which Mair's 1921 Loeb annotates as a proverbial saying attributed to Epimenides. Clement identifies the prophet of Titus as Epimenides (Strom. 1.14).", "Clement of Alexandria cites all three lines across Stromata 1.14 and 1.19. He says Paul was not ashamed to use Greek poems, and argues from the Aratus citation that Paul approved what the Greeks had said well." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "That Paul read Aratus, Menander or Epimenides at first hand. Each line is short and quotable, and the Corinthians line is called 'tragic' by Clement but printed among Menander's fragments by Allinson, who also cross-references Euripides. That fits circulation as a maxim.", "That Epimenides wrote the Cretan line. No work of his survives intact, and the earliest attribution cited here (Clement, around AD 200) comes about eight centuries after the date Diogenes Laertius gives him.", "Who wrote Titus, or how closely Acts 17 reproduces Paul's words at Athens. The quotations are compatible with Pauline authorship, with Lukan composition of the speech, or with a later Pauline writer." ], "debate": "Five questions remain open. First, did Luke compose the Areopagus speech in a Hellenistic idiom (Dibelius), or do its Greek citations serve a biblical theology (Gärtner)? Second, does the first clause of Acts 17:28 also draw on Epimenides? Harris argued so from a Syriac commentary he took to preserve Theodore of Mopsuestia, and Rothschild from popular Epimenides traditions. Third, did Epimenides write the Cretan line, or was his name attached later to a proverb that had become a logical paradox (Koskenniemi)? Cook reads the line in its history-of-religions setting rather than as a paradox. Fourth, is the Corinthians line Menander's, a tragedian's or common stock? Fifth, did Paul (Mounce) or an associate (Marshall) write Titus?", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Paul's own citations", "statement": "Paul, a Greek-speaking Jew from Tarsus (Acts 22:3), drew on school-level familiarity with Greek poets and chose lines suited to his audiences. Clement read the lines this way (Strom. 1.14; 1.19), and for Titus, Mounce defends Pauline authorship." }, { "label": "Proverbial circulation", "statement": "The lines were common maxims, so their use shows familiarity with Greek gnomic tradition rather than study of the poets' works. The uncertain source of the Corinthians line, Menander's comedy or a tragedy as Clement's 'tragic' implies, points this way." }, { "label": "Lukan composition at Athens", "statement": "The Aratus citation belongs to Luke's literary shaping of a Hellenistic-style speech (Dibelius). On this view it shows the education of the author of Acts, not necessarily Paul's." }, { "label": "Epimenides as a later attribution", "statement": "The Cretan hexameter may be anonymous verse that was credited to Epimenides after it had become a proverb and a logical puzzle (Koskenniemi). Callimachus' use of its opening words shows only that the half-line was current by the 3rd century BC." }, { "label": "Post-Pauline Titus", "statement": "If an associate wrote Titus after Paul's death (Marshall's 'allonymity'), its quotation shows the literary horizon of the Pauline circle rather than of Paul himself." }, { "label": "Euripides or shared stock rather than Menander", "statement": "Clement calls the Corinthians line 'tragic', and Allinson cross-references Euripides fr. 1013 Nauck. The line may have been used by more than one poet, or may have been proverbial before Menander." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-aratus-epimenides-menander" }, { "id": "josephus-agrippa-death", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 93, "dateTo": 94, "corpusReferences": [ "Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae 19.343-350 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001)", "Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 2.218-219 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg004)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 12:19-23", "Acts 12:1-4", "Acts 11:27-30", "Acts 12:24-25" ], "personIds": [ "person.herod-agrippa-i", "person.josephus", "person.claudius", "person.barnabas", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.caesarea", "place.judea", "place.tyre", "place.sidon" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.343 (Whiston 19.8.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now when Agrippa had reigned three years over all Judea, he came to the city Cesarea, which was formerly called Strato's Tower; and there he exhibited shows in honor of Caesar", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.344 (Whiston 19.8.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "On the second day of which shows he put on a garment made wholly of silver, and of a contexture truly wonderful, and came into the theater early in the morning", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.345 (Whiston 19.8.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "presently his flatterers cried out, one from one place, and another from another, (though not for his good,) that he was a god", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.346 (Whiston 19.8.2; no rebuke and the owl)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Upon this the king did neither rebuke them, nor reject their impious flattery. But as he presently afterward looked up, he saw an owl", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.346 (Whiston 19.8.2; the owl as messenger)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "immediately understood that this bird was the messenger of ill tidings, as it had once been the messenger of good tidings to him", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.347 (Whiston 19.8.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I, whom you call a god, am commanded presently to depart this life; while Providence thus reproves the lying words you just now said to me", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 19.350 (Whiston 19.8.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "when he had been quite worn out by the pain in his belly for five days, he departed this life, being in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh year of his reign", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 18.200 (owl omen, 18.195-202; Whiston 18.6.7)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=18:whiston%20chapter=6:whiston%20section=7", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But do thou remember, when thou seest this bird again, that thou wilt then live but five days longer.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 17.168-169 (Whiston 17.6.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=17:whiston%20chapter=6:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But now Herod's distemper greatly increased upon him after a severe manner, and this by God's judgment upon him for his sins", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.101 (Whiston 20.5.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Under these procurators that great famine happened in Judea, in which queen Helena bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that were in want", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.267 (Whiston 20.11.3)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Cæsar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.218-219 (Whiston 2.11.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=11:whiston%20section=6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "but his death, which happened at Cesarea, before he had raised the walls to their due height, prevented him. He had then reigned three years, as he had governed his tetrarchies three other years.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1)", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.10.6", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But after a little, looking up, he saw an angel sitting above his head.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1)", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.10.10", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the time at least and the events show that the same person is meant, whether the change of name has been caused by the error of a copyist, or is due to the fact that he, like so many, bore two names", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Agrippa I", "locator": "Q298636", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q298636.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades place: Stratonos Pyrgos/Caesarea", "locator": "678401", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/678401/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Max Krenkel", "work": "Josephus und Lucas: der schriftstellerische Einfluss des jüdischen Geschichtschreibers auf den christlichen", "year": "1894", "view": "Argues that Luke drew on Josephus in many passages, but for Acts 12 judges it doubtful: the Tyre and Sidon embassy and Blastus point to a source other than Josephus. He takes the acclamation at Caesarea and the sudden fatal illness as a shared historical core, and the owl, the angel and the worms as legend." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament (2nd ed.)", "year": "2003", "view": "Lists Agrippa's death among the points where Luke-Acts agrees with Josephus and finds it easier to believe that Luke knew something of Josephus's work than that the agreements arose independently, while granting that this cannot be proved. On this view Luke-Acts postdates the Antiquities." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Argues that the author of Acts knew Josephus's later writings and that Acts is better dated to the second century, around 115." }, { "author": "O. Wesley Allen Jr.", "work": "The Death of Herod: The Narrative and Theological Function of Retribution in Luke-Acts (SBL Dissertation Series 158)", "year": "1997", "view": "Reads Acts 12:19b-24 against death-of-tyrant scenes in biblical and Greco-Roman literature. He treats the death as divine retribution for Herod's failure to give glory to God, a theme that does literary work across Luke-Acts." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Defends the historical reliability of Acts in general by comparing its details with literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence from its setting." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q298636", "label": "Agrippa I" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q319242", "label": "Caesarea Maritima" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1232616", "label": "Antiquities of the Jews" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q134461", "label": "Josephus" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "678401", "label": "Stratonos Pyrgos/Caesarea" } ], "title": "Josephus on the death of Agrippa I at Caesarea", "summary": "Josephus, a non-Christian historian, reports the death of Acts 12:19-23 in outline. In Antiquities 19.343-350 (completed AD 93/94), Agrippa I, the Herod of Acts 12, dies at Caesarea after accepting acclaim as a god and being seized by sudden pain. His regnal figures are usually read as placing the death in AD 44. The accounts differ on the occasion, the omen and the illness, and whether Luke knew Josephus is debated.", "dating": "Antiquities completed in Domitian's thirteenth year and Josephus's fifty-sixth (Ant. 20.267), that is AD 93/94. The death is usually placed in AD 44, a modern reconstruction from Josephus's regnal counts; Josephus gives no calendar year.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus, who was not a Christian, records that Agrippa I died at Caesarea after appearing at shows held there in Caesar's honour, and that pain in his belly killed him after five days (Ant. 19.343-350). His War also places the death at Caesarea (War 2.219).", "Josephus and Acts 12:19-23 share a core sequence: the king appears in public at Caesarea in royal dress, is acclaimed as a god, does not refuse the honour, and falls suddenly and fatally ill. Acts says an angel of the Lord struck him for not giving God the glory; Josephus has Agrippa read his pain as fate (Whiston: 'Providence') refuting the flatterers.", "Josephus says Agrippa had reigned three years over all Judea and died in the seventh year of his reign (Ant. 19.343, 350; War 2.219). These counts, taken with the start of Claudius's reign, are usually read as placing the death in AD 44. That year is a modern reconstruction; Josephus gives no calendar date.", "The king Acts calls 'Herod' is the man Josephus calls Agrippa, that is, Agrippa I. Eusebius already argued that the time and the events show the same person is meant (HE 2.10.10)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not corroborate the details only Luke gives: the embassy from Tyre and Sidon, Blastus, the speech, the angel of the Lord and death by worms. Josephus has imperial shows, an owl omen and five days of abdominal pain instead.", "It does not by itself make the two accounts independent witnesses. Whether Luke knew the Antiquities, or both writers drew on common report, is debated, so their agreement should not be counted twice.", "It does not date the famine-relief visit of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:27-30; 12:25). Josephus places the great famine in Judea under the governors who followed Agrippa (Ant. 20.101), so Acts may set the death inside that story by topic rather than in strict sequence." ], "debate": "Scholars have argued since the nineteenth century over whether Luke knew Josephus. Krenkel (1894) argued for Luke's use of Josephus in many passages and raised the idea that Luke replaced the owl, which Josephus calls a 'messenger' (Greek angelos), with an angel. For Acts 12, though, he judged the Tyre and Sidon embassy and Blastus to come from another source, which made use of Josephus here doubtful, and he read the owl, the angel and the worms as legend around a shared historical core. Mason (2003) lists Agrippa's death among agreements that make Luke's knowledge of Josephus easier to believe than coincidence, and Pervo (2006) argues for that knowledge and a second-century Acts. Eusebius's citation of the passage (HE 2.10.6) reads 'angel' where Josephus's manuscripts have the owl. Both narratives also follow a stock pattern for impious rulers, so it remains open how much of each is report and how much is literary shaping.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Luke adapted Josephus", "statement": "The author of Acts knew the Antiquities (completed AD 93/94) and reshaped its account for Christian readers, so that the angel and the worms take the place of the owl omen. Mason (2003) finds Luke's knowledge of Josephus easier to believe than coincidence, and Pervo (2006) argues for it. On this view Acts was written after the mid-90s." }, { "label": "Independent reports of a public death", "statement": "Luke and Josephus each drew on reports of a death many people witnessed at Caesarea. They differ on the occasion, several details and the king's name, which tells against literary borrowing; Krenkel, who argued for Luke's use of Josephus elsewhere, judged it doubtful here. If so, their agreement on the setting, the acclamation and the sudden illness is independent corroboration." }, { "label": "Convention shaped both accounts", "statement": "Both writers told the death through a familiar pattern of retribution against rulers who accept divine honours. Josephus himself describes Herod the Great's fatal illness, with worms, as God's judgment for his sins (Ant. 17.168-169), and 2 Maccabees 9 tells of Antiochus IV in the same way. The shared outline may owe as much to this convention as to separate knowledge of the event (cf. Allen 1997 on Acts)." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-agrippa-death" }, { "id": "athens-altar-unknown-god", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 150, "dateTo": 250, "corpusReferences": [ "Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.1.4; 5.14.8 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001)", "Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 1.110 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0004.tlg001)", "Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana 6.3 (CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0638.tlg001)" ], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "source-supported", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 17:23", "Acts 17:16-34" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.luke" ], "placeIds": [ "place.athens", "place.areopagus" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "pausanias-jones", "author": "Pausanias", "work": "Description of Greece", "translator": "W. H. S. Jones", "year": "1918", "locator": "1.1.4", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=1:chapter=1:section=4", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Here there is also a temple of Athena Sciras, and one of Zeus some distance away, and altars of the gods named Unknown, and of heroes, and of the children of Theseus and Phalerus", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "pausanias-jones", "author": "Pausanias", "work": "Description of Greece", "translator": "W. H. S. Jones", "year": "1918", "locator": "5.14.8", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0160:book=5:chapter=14:section=8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "An account of the great altar I gave a little way back; it is called the altar of Olympian Zeus. By it is an altar of Unknown Gods", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "diogenes-laertius-hicks", "author": "Diogenes Laertius", "work": "Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book I (Epimenides)", "translator": "R. D. Hicks", "year": "1925", "locator": "1.110 (nameless altars)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0258:book=1:chapter=10", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "offer a sacrifice to the local divinity. And thus, it is said, the plague was stayed. Hence even to this day altars may be found in different parts of Attica with no name inscribed upon them, which are memorials of this atonement.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "diogenes-laertius-hicks", "author": "Diogenes Laertius", "work": "Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Book I (Epimenides)", "translator": "R. D. Hicks", "year": "1925", "locator": "1.110 (46th Olympiad)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0258:book=1:chapter=10", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And he came in the 46th Olympiad", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "philostratus-conybeare", "author": "Philostratus", "work": "Life of Apollonius of Tyana", "translator": "F. C. Conybeare", "year": "1912", "locator": "6.3", "url": "https://archive.org/download/lifeofapollonius02philuoft/lifeofapollonius02philuoft_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "a much greater proof of wisdom and sobriety to speak well of all the gods, especially at Athens, where altars are set up in honour even of unknown gods.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "1.9", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03121.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I find, no doubt, that altars have been lavished on unknown gods; that, however, is the idolatry of Athens. And on uncertain gods; but that, too, is only Roman superstition.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "clement-alexandria-stromata-anf", "author": "Clement of Alexandria", "work": "Stromata, Book I (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 2)", "translator": "William Wilson", "year": "1885", "locator": "Strom. 1.19 (the unknown God)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02101.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "intimates that, by the unknown God, God the Creator was in a roundabout way worshipped by the Greeks", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Eduard Norden", "work": "Agnostos Theos: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede", "year": "1913", "view": "Finds no attested dedication of an altar to a single unknown god; the pagan reports use the plural. He quotes Jerome's comment on Titus 1:12 about a plural inscription and assigns that fuller wording to a different, probably Roman, altar. He argues that the Areopagus speech depends on a literary account of Apollonius of Tyana at Athens, the change to the singular showing which text is dependent, and rejects Blass's plural conjecture and Usener's memory-slip view." }, { "author": "Adolf Deissmann", "work": "St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History", "year": "1912", "view": "Holds that anonymous altars and altars to unknown gods were not altogether rare. He argues that a Pergamon altar, probably of the second century AD and restored by Hepding as a torchbearer's dedication to unknown gods, makes Pausanias and Philostratus credible, while granting that certainty is unattainable. In his view the altar Paul read was probably one Athenian's thank-offering to a single unknown god." }, { "author": "Clare K. Rothschild", "work": "Paul in Athens: The Popular Religious Context of Acts 17 (WUNT 341)", "year": "2014", "view": "Popular second-century traditions about the Cretan seer Epimenides, which Rothschild connects with the altar to an unknown god, explain the apparently ad hoc features of Acts 17 and reinforce Luke's theme of cult transfer." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q114315369", "label": "Unknown Gods" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q3825645", "label": "Description of Greece" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1225196", "label": "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1282359", "label": "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q319406", "label": "Epimenides of Crete" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q4789055", "label": "Areopagus sermon" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "580072", "label": "Phaleron" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "579885", "label": "Athenae" } ], "title": "Altars to unknown gods at Athens: Pausanias, Philostratus and Diogenes Laertius", "summary": "Non-Christian writers of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD report altars to unknown gods at Athens and its harbour Phalerum, but always in the plural; none attests the singular dedication of Acts 17:23. Pausanias lists altars of gods 'named Unknown' at Phalerum. Philostratus has Apollonius mention such altars at Athens, and Diogenes Laertius tells of nameless altars across Attica. The setting fits Acts; the exact wording remains unconfirmed.", "dating": "2nd-3rd century AD (Pausanias, 2nd century; Philostratus and Diogenes Laertius, 3rd century). Christian comment from Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian (around AD 200); Jerome's later report of a plural inscription (late 4th century) is known here through Norden.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Pausanias (2nd century AD) records altars of gods 'named Unknown' at Phalerum, a harbour of Athens, and an altar of Unknown Gods beside the altar of Olympian Zeus at Olympia (1.1.4; 5.14.8).", "Philostratus (3rd century AD) has Apollonius of Tyana, in a conversation set in Egypt, advise speaking well of all gods, 'especially at Athens, where altars are set up in honour even of unknown gods' (Life of Apollonius 6.3). The Greek speaks of unknown daimones, which Conybeare renders 'gods'.", "Diogenes Laertius (1.110) preserves a tradition that Epimenides ended a plague at Athens with sacrifices at spots chosen by wandering sheep, and that nameless altars from that purification could still be found in Attica.", "Acts 17:23 describes an altar of a kind that non-Christian writers attest, but only in the plural. Tertullian, in a passage that mentions neither Acts nor Paul, is another plural witness: he calls altars to unknown gods the idolatry of Athens (Against Marcion 1.9). Clement of Alexandria takes Paul to imply that the Greeks worshipped God the Creator indirectly through the unknown god (Strom. 1.19)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "None of these writers describes an altar dedicated to a single unknown god. They support the kind of altar, not the exact singular dedication Acts reports.", "They cannot locate or identify the altar Paul is said to have seen. A correct local detail does not by itself verify the Areopagus speech or the rest of the scene.", "Diogenes' nameless altars are not called altars to unknown gods, and his Epimenides story is a legend set in the 46th Olympiad, early in the 6th century BC." ], "debate": "The open question is the singular. Pausanias, Philostratus and Tertullian speak of unknown gods in the plural. Norden (1913) quotes Jerome's comment on Titus 1:12, which says the inscription was plural, naming the gods of Asia, Europe and Africa with unknown and foreign gods, and that Paul made it singular for his argument. Norden assigned that fuller wording to a different altar, probably at Rome, and read the singular in Acts as a reworking of a plural motif from an Apollonius tradition. Deissmann (1912) thought one worshipper could have dedicated an altar to a single unknown god, pointing to a Pergamon altar whose restoration as a dedication to unknown gods is itself uncertain.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "A plural formula, adapted", "statement": "Jerome held that the real inscription was plural and that Paul quoted it in the singular because his argument needed one God. On this view Acts adapts a real dedication type. Norden, who quotes Jerome, judged his fuller wording to come from a different altar, probably at Rome, that an earlier interpreter had wrongly identified with the Athenian one." }, { "label": "Literary borrowing", "statement": "Norden argued that the Areopagus speech depends on a literary account of Apollonius of Tyana speaking at Athens, and that the change from plural to singular shows Acts is the borrower. The argument depends on reconstructing an earlier account of Apollonius from Philostratus's 3rd-century work." }, { "label": "A genuine singular dedication", "statement": "Deissmann judged it likely that an individual, grateful to a deity he could not name, dedicated an altar to one unknown god, much as a priest of Demeter at Pergamon apparently did to unknown gods in the second century AD. On this view Acts may report the wording accurately, though no singular altar survives and the Pergamon restoration is uncertain." }, { "label": "Epimenides traditions as the frame", "statement": "Rothschild argues that popular traditions about the Cretan seer Epimenides, which she connects with the altar of Acts 17:23, explain the apparently ad hoc features of the Athens episode and serve Luke's theme of cult transfer." }, { "label": "Textual corruption or memory slip", "statement": "Norden reports that Blass conjectured Acts originally read the plural, and that Usener thought Paul misremembered the inscription. Norden rejected Blass's conjecture because only the singular fits the speech's argument, and dismissed Usener's view as giving up on any solution." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-athens-altar-unknown-god" }, { "id": "josephus-felix-drusilla", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 75, "dateTo": 122, "corpusReferences": [ "urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001 (Josephus, Antiquities)", "urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg004 (Josephus, Jewish War)", "urn:cts:latinLit:phi1351.phi004 (Tacitus, Histories)", "urn:cts:latinLit:phi1351.phi005 (Tacitus, Annals)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 23:24-24:27", "Acts 24:24", "Acts 24:27", "Acts 25:14" ], "personIds": [ "person.felix", "person.drusilla", "person.herod-agrippa-i", "person.agrippa", "person.bernice", "person.festus", "person.paul", "person.claudius", "person.nero", "person.josephus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.caesarea", "place.judea", "place.jerusalem" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Ant. 20.137 (Whiston 20.7.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=7:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "SO Claudius sent Felix, the brother of Pallas, to take care of the affairs of Judea", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Ant. 20.141-144 (Whiston 20.7.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=7:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Accordingly she acted ill, and because she was desirous to avoid her sister Bernice's envy, for she was very ill treated by her on account of her beauty, was prevailed upon to transgress the laws of her forefathers, and to marry Felix", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Ant. 19.354 (Whiston 19.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=19:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "three daughters; one of which, Bernice, was married to Herod, his father's brother, and was sixteen years old; the other two, Mariamne and Drusilla, were still virgins; the former was ten years old, and Drusilla six.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Ant. 20.160-166 (Whiston 20.8.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Felix also bore an ill-will to Jonathan, the high priest, because he frequently gave him admonitions about governing the Jewish affairs better than he did", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Ant. 20.182 (Whiston 20.8.9)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "War 2.247 (Whiston 2.12.8)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=12:whiston%20section=8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "War 2.252-253 (Whiston 2.13.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=13:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "but over the rest of Judea he made Felix procurator. This Felix took Eleazar the arch-robber, and many that were with him, alive, when they had ravaged the country for twenty years together, and sent them to Rome", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "War 2.271 (Whiston 2.14.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=14:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "NOW it was that Festus succeeded Felix as procurator, and made it his business to correct those that made disturbances in the country.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-histories-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "The Histories", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1873 (Perseus text: Random House reprint, 1942)", "locator": "Hist. 5.9", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0080:book=5:chapter=9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave. He had married Drusilla, the granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, and so was the grandson-in-law, as Claudius was the grandson, of Antony.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "The Annals", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "19th-century translation (Perseus text: Random House reprint, 1942)", "locator": "Ann. 12.54", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=12:chapter=54", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Not equally moderate was his brother, surnamed Felix, who had for some time been governor of Judæa, and thought that he could do any evil act with impunity, backed up as he was by such power.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "The Annals", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "19th-century translation (Perseus text: Random House reprint, 1942)", "locator": "Ann. 13.14", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=13:chapter=14", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Nero, furious with those who abetted such arrogance in a woman, removed Pallas from the charge of the business with which he had been entrusted by Claudius", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "The Lives of the Caesars: Claudius", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914", "locator": "Claud. 28.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He was equally fond of Felix, giving him the command of cohorts and of troops of horse, as well as of the province of Judaea; and he became the husband of three queens.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "William Whiston", "work": "Translator's note to Antiquities 20.7.2", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)", "locator": "Note 1 to Ant. 20.142 (Whiston 20.7.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=7:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It is probable that Tacitus may say true, when he informs us that this Felix (who had in all three wives, or queens, as Suetonius in Claudius, sect. 28, assures us) did once marry such a grandchild of Antonius and Cleopatra", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895 (CCEL text: 10th edition, 1907)", "locator": "Ch. 13 (The Voyage to Jerusalem), note 56", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/r/ramsay/paul_roman/cache/paul_roman.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The remarkable contradiction between Josephus (who makes Cumanus governor of Palestine 48-52, Felix being his successor in 52), and Tacitus (who makes Felix governor of Samaria [and probably of Judea], contemporary with Cumanus as governor of Galilee", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Lists the points where Acts agrees with independently known first-century people, offices and places, the Caesarea trial chapters among them, and argues that these show an author well informed about the period." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament", "year": "1992 (2nd ed. 2003)", "view": "Argues that Luke probably knew Josephus's narrative, pointing to shared material such as Theudas, Judas the Galilean and the Egyptian prophet. He concedes that the case cannot be proved, and it bears on how independent Acts and Josephus are." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to about AD 115 and argues that its author used Josephus's Antiquities among his sources." }, { "author": "Frederick E. Brenk and Filippo Canali De Rossi", "work": "\"The 'Notorious' Felix, Procurator of Judaea, and His Many Wives (Acts 23-24)\", Biblica 82", "year": "2001", "view": "Argue that the sources are confused about Felix's family name and wives, and that 'Antonius' and 'Claudius' may both be correct. They hold that the inscription used to fix his name and career has serious problems, that none of his wives may descend from Cleopatra VII (if one did, she was more likely a great-granddaughter), and that his 'notorious' reputation should be treated with caution." }, { "author": "Roman Deiksler", "work": "\"Żony Feliksa, prokuratora Judei\" (The Wives of Felix, Procurator of Judea), Res Historica 49", "year": "2020", "view": "Re-examines Felix's wives and, against common scholarly scepticism, argues that Tacitus was right to make Drusilla of Mauretania a granddaughter of Cleopatra VII. Treats Agrippa I's daughter as a second, separate wife." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q316915", "label": "Antonius Felix" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q255778", "label": "Drusilla, daughter of Agrippa I" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q5309410", "label": "Drusilla of Mauretania (Tacitus's Drusilla)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q298636", "label": "Agrippa I" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q464307", "label": "Porcius Festus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q319242", "label": "Caesarea Maritima" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "678401", "label": "Stratonos Pyrgos/Caesarea" } ], "title": "Felix and Drusilla in Josephus and Tacitus", "summary": "Josephus confirms the officials and family ties that Acts 23-25 assumes. He names Felix, brother of Pallas, as procurator of Judea under Claudius and Nero, says that Drusilla, a daughter of Agrippa I, left her husband to marry Felix, and names Porcius Festus as his successor. Tacitus and Suetonius confirm Felix's post. No source outside Acts mentions Paul's hearings, and whether Acts is independent of Josephus is debated.", "dating": "Josephus: Jewish War c. AD 75-79 (conventional dating); Antiquities completed AD 93/94 (Ant. 20.267). Tacitus and Suetonius: early second century AD. Events described: from Agrippa I's death (AD 44) to Festus's succession, whose year is debated.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus (Ant. 20.137; War 2.247) and Tacitus (Hist. 5.9; Ann. 12.54), whose accounts differ in detail, record that Felix, brother of Pallas, governed in Judea under Claudius. Josephus adds that Nero confirmed him in office (War 2.252). This is the governor before whom Acts 23:24-24:27 sets Paul's hearings in Caesarea.", "Josephus says Drusilla was a daughter of Agrippa I, aged six at his death (Ant. 19.354). Agrippa II married her to Azizus of Emesa, who agreed to be circumcised; while Felix was procurator she left Azizus for him, which Josephus calls a breach of ancestral law (Ant. 20.139-143). Acts 24:24 likewise presents Drusilla as Felix's Jewish wife.", "Josephus records that Nero sent Porcius Festus to succeed Felix (Ant. 20.182; War 2.271 names only Festus), the succession Acts 24:27 reports. He adds that leading Jews of Caesarea went to Rome to accuse Felix, who escaped punishment through his brother Pallas's influence.", "The non-Christian sources portray Felix harshly. Josephus says he seized the bandit Eleazar by treachery, arranged the murder of the former high priest Jonathan, and sent troops against the Egyptian prophet's followers and rioting Jews at Caesarea (Ant. 20.160-178; War 2.253). Tacitus charges him with cruelty and lust (Hist. 5.9). Acts' governor who hoped for money fits this reputation." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "No source outside Acts mentions Paul, his hearings before Felix, his private audiences with Felix and Drusilla, or his two years in custody. The agreement confirms the officials, their family ties and the setting. It does not confirm the events Acts narrates.", "The sources do not fix exact dates. Both the start of Felix's rule (Tacitus says he governed Samaria alongside Cumanus and had held office 'for some time' by AD 52) and the year Festus replaced him are debated.", "Tacitus's Drusilla, a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, is not the Jewish daughter of Agrippa I, so Tacitus does not corroborate Acts 24:24 on who Drusilla was." ], "debate": "Three questions remain open. Chronology: Tacitus has Felix governing Samaria while Cumanus held Galilee before AD 52, whereas Josephus makes Felix Cumanus's successor; the year Festus arrived is also debated. The answer depends partly on whether Pallas, who Josephus says shielded Felix, kept that influence after Nero removed him from office around AD 55 (Ann. 13.14), and partly on whether the two years of Acts 24:27 measure Paul's custody or Felix's term. Wives: Tacitus's Drusilla descends from Antony and Cleopatra, and Suetonius credits Felix with three queens. Independence: some scholars argue that Luke knew Josephus's Antiquities. If he did, the agreement counts for less as separate corroboration.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Acts draws on Josephus", "statement": "Richard Pervo, and more tentatively Steve Mason, argue that the author of Acts knew Josephus's writings; if so, the agreement is not independent corroboration. Against borrowing here: Drusilla's marriage appears only in the Antiquities (AD 93/94), which many scholars date after Acts, and Acts shares none of Josephus's distinctive details (Azizus; the Cypriot magician, Atomos in Niese's Greek, Simon in Whiston's English)." }, { "label": "Tacitus preferred on Felix's career and wives", "statement": "Ramsay reported that Mommsen preferred Tacitus to Josephus on Felix's early command. Roman Deiksler (2020) argues that Tacitus was right to make one of Felix's wives a descendant of Cleopatra. Neither view excludes Felix also marrying Agrippa's daughter, since Suetonius credits him with three royal wives. The question bears on Josephus's precision, not on Acts 24:24." }, { "label": "Felix's bad reputation may be overdrawn", "statement": "Brenk and Canali De Rossi (2001) argue that Felix's 'notorious' reputation should be treated with caution. Editorial observation: Tacitus writes with open scorn for imperial freedmen, and Josephus is explaining the road to the Jewish war. A hostile portrait in both therefore does not by itself confirm Acts' picture of a governor who wanted money." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-felix-drusilla" }, { "id": "lystra-inscription", "kind": "inscription", "dateFrom": 14, "dateTo": 100, "corpusReferences": [ "CIL III 6786", "MAMA VIII 5", "AE 1888, 89", "EDCS-27800574", "Sterrett, The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor (1888), no. 242" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 14:6-21", "Acts 16:1-2", "2 Timothy 3:11" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.barnabas", "person.timothy" ], "placeIds": [ "place.lystra", "place.derbe", "place.iconium", "place.galatia" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "sterrett-wolfe-expedition", "author": "J. R. Sitlington Sterrett", "work": "The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 3)", "year": "1888", "locator": "No. 242, p. 142", "url": "https://archive.org/details/papersofamerican03arch/page/142/mode/1up", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Divum Aug(ustum) Col(onia) Iul(ia) Fe-lix Gemina Lustra conse-cravit d(ecreto) d(ecurionum).", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "sterrett-wolfe-expedition", "author": "J. R. Sitlington Sterrett", "work": "The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 3)", "year": "1888", "locator": "Itinerary entry for 10 July (Maï to Khatün Serai), p. 141", "url": "https://archive.org/download/papersofamerican03arch/page/n152_w500.jpg", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "sterrett-wolfe-expedition", "author": "J. R. Sitlington Sterrett", "work": "The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor (Papers of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, vol. 3)", "year": "1888", "locator": "p. 15 (itinerary entry for 1 June, at Serpek)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/papersofamerican03arch/page/15/mode/1up", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The site was thought to be that of Derbe, as long as Lystra was supposed to be at Bin Bir Kalesi", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "edcs", "work": "Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby", "locator": "EDCS-27800574 (CIL 03, 06786; MAMA 08, 00005; AE 1888, 00089; place: Hatunsaray / Katin Serai / Lystra)", "url": "https://edcs.hist.uzh.ch/data/monument/278/27800574.json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "Ch. V, Note 2 ('Declension of Lystra'); p. 129 in the 1895 first edition", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.viii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Incidentally we notice that the name of the city is spelt Lustra, not Lystra (like Prymnessos), on coins and inscriptions. That is an indication of Latin tone, and of the desire to make the city name a Latin word.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places", "locator": "Place 648699 (Lystra/Col. Iulia Felix Gemina)", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/648699/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata", "locator": "Q535982 (Lystra)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q535982.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "The Historical Geography of Asia Minor", "year": "1890", "view": "Credits Sterrett's inscription with proving Leake's earlier identification of Lystra near Khatün Serai." }, { "author": "Barbara Levick", "work": "Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor", "year": "1967", "view": "Treats Lystra as one of the Augustan veteran colonies of southern Galatia and draws on its inscriptions and coins to reconstruct that colonial programme." }, { "author": "Stephen Mitchell", "work": "Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor", "year": "1993", "view": "Places Lystra within the Augustan colonisation and Roman organisation of southern Galatia and Lycaonia." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Argues that many incidental local details in Acts, including the Lycaonian setting of Acts 14, fit first-century conditions and support the book's historical value." }, { "author": "Cilliers Breytenbach", "work": "Paulus und Barnabas in der Provinz Galatien", "year": "1996", "view": "Reads Acts 13-14 against the epigraphy and geography of the Roman province of Galatia, including Lystra. Argues that the churches Paul addressed as Galatian lay in this southern region." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to the early second century. On this view, the author's knowledge of local conditions does not imply eyewitness or early composition." }, { "author": "H. Bahar, T. Çay, Ö. Koçak and F. Işcan", "work": "A Plan for Archaeological Excavation of Lystra (Zoldura Höyük), CIPA 2005 XX International Symposium", "year": "2005", "view": "Report surveys since 1994 that found material from the Chalcolithic to the Roman period on the Zoldura mound north of Hatunsaray. State that Sterrett's inscription is in the Konya Archaeological Museum." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "648699", "label": "Lystra/Col. Iulia Felix Gemina" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q535982", "label": "Lystra (historic settlement in Konya, Turkey)" }, { "scheme": "trismegistos", "id": "16230", "label": "TM Geo 16230 (Lystra), place id as cross-referenced by Pleiades; not a text id" } ], "title": "The Latin dedication that located Lystra", "summary": "This inscribed Latin pedestal is the main evidence for locating Lystra, the Lycaonian town of Acts 14 and 16, on the Zoldera mound near Hatunsaray. Dedicated to the deified Augustus by the colony \"Iulia Felix Gemina Lustra\", it shows that Lystra was a Roman colony at some date after AD 14. J. R. S. Sterrett copied it in July 1885. It does not mention Paul or confirm any event Acts narrates there.", "dating": "Not closely dated. It is later than AD 14, since Augustus is called divus; the catalogue records consulted give no date, and dateTo 100 is a conventional upper bound. Sterrett copied it in July 1885 and published it in 1888.", "currentLocation": "Reported to be in the Konya Archaeological Museum, Turkey (Bahar et al. 2005, citing MAMA VIII); no museum catalogue record has been confirmed.", "establishes": [ "J. R. S. Sterrett copied a large four-sided pedestal in July 1885 on the Zoldera mound, about fifteen minutes north of Khatün Serai (modern Hatunsaray). It carries a Latin dedication by the \"Colonia Iulia Felix Gemina Lustra\" (Sterrett no. 242; CIL III 6786).", "A civic dedication of this size, found on the mound itself, is the main evidence for placing Lystra there, in the Lycaonian plain south-south-west of Konya (ancient Iconium). In The Historical Geography of Asia Minor (1890), Ramsay credited Sterrett with finding the proof that Leake's earlier identification was right.", "When the dedication was made, Lystra was a Roman colony whose decurions (town council) publicly honoured the deified Augustus. The text therefore dates after AD 14.", "The location fits Acts, which groups Lystra with Derbe as cities of Lycaonia and links it with nearby Iconium (Acts 14:6, 14:19-21; 16:1-2)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It names no Christian. It cannot confirm the healing, the acclamation of Barnabas and Paul as Zeus and Hermes, or Paul's stoning (Acts 14:8-20).", "It is not closely dated. It does not show when the colony was founded or what the town was like when Paul visited.", "Acts never calls Lystra a colony, so the stone gives background rather than confirming a specific statement in Acts. Correct geography alone does not show that the author was an eyewitness, or when Acts was written." ], "debate": "Before 1885 Lystra had been placed elsewhere; Sterrett notes that it was supposed to be at Bin Bir Kalesi. Ramsay (1890) credits Leake with the correct identification and Sterrett with proving it, and the Pleiades gazetteer and the epigraphic catalogues follow it. Surveys since 1994 report material from the Chalcolithic to the Roman period on the mound (Bahar et al. 2005), although a single stone could in principle have been moved. The open question is how to interpret it. Some take Acts' accurate Lycaonian setting as a sign of informed, early reporting. Others point out that Lystra existed for centuries and that accurate local colour does not verify the episode that Acts narrates.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Older site proposals", "statement": "Before Sterrett's find, Lystra had been placed elsewhere; Sterrett notes that it was supposed to be at Bin Bir Kalesi. Modern gazetteers and epigraphic catalogues (Pleiades, EDCS) follow the Zoldera identification, which rests chiefly on this dedication and where it was found, supported by survey finds on the mound." }, { "label": "Later-composition reading of Acts", "statement": "Richard Pervo and others date Acts to the early second century and read many of its episodes as literary composition, so accurate local colour shows that the author knew the region, not that he was an eyewitness. Interpreters also compare the Zeus-and-Hermes scene with Ovid's Jupiter and Mercury visiting Phrygia (Metamorphoses 8), read either as literary modelling or as a regional legend that the crowd in Acts shares." }, { "label": "Historical-reliability reading", "statement": "Ramsay, Hemer and others argue that Acts handles Lycaonian geography and politics precisely, which suggests informed and probably early reporting. They treat the confirmed location of the colony as part of a cumulative case. The stone itself, however, bears only on the setting." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-lystra-inscription" }, { "id": "josephus-ananias", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 75, "dateTo": 94, "corpusReferences": [ "urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001 (Josephus, Antiquities)", "urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg004 (Josephus, Jewish War)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 23:2-5", "Acts 24:1", "Acts 9:10-19", "Acts 22:12-16", "Acts 5:1-11" ], "personIds": [ "person.ananias-high-priest", "person.paul", "person.felix", "person.tertullus", "person.claudius", "person.agrippa", "person.josephus", "person.ananias" ], "placeIds": [ "place.jerusalem", "place.caesarea", "place.rome" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.103 (Whiston 20.5.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But now Herod, king of Chalcis, removed Joseph, the son of Camydus, from the high priesthood, and made Ananias, the son of Nebedeu, his successor.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.131 (Whiston 20.6.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=6:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "but still he sent away Ananias the high priest, and Ananus the commander [of the temple], in bonds to Rome, to give an account of what they had done to Claudius Caesar.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.162 (Whiston 20.8.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Felix also bore an ill-will to Jonathan, the high priest, because he frequently gave him admonitions about governing the Jewish affairs better than he did", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.179 (Whiston 20.8.8)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.205 (Whiston 20.9.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "had obtained the favor and esteem of the citizens in a signal manner; for he was a great hoarder up of money: he therefore cultivated the friendship of Albinus, and of the high priest [Jesus], by making them presents", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.206 (Whiston 20.9.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he also had servants who were very wicked, who joined themselves to the boldest sort of the people, and went to the thrashing-floors, and took away the tithes that belonged to the priests by violence, and did not refrain from beating such as would not give these tithes to them.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "William Whiston", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews, translator's note to 20.9.2", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Whiston's note on Ant. 20.205 (Whiston 20.9.2 n. 1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "This Ananias was not the son of Nebedeus, as I take it, but he who was called Annas or Ananus the elder", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.213 (Whiston 20.9.4)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=4", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But Ananias was too hard for the rest, by his riches, which enabled him to gain those that were most ready to receive.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.243 (Whiston 2.12.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=12:whiston%20section=6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "both Jonathan and Ananias, the high priests", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.426 (Whiston 2.17.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=17:whiston%20section=6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The others then set fire to the house of Ananias the high priest, and to the palaces of Agrippa and Bernice", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.441 (Whiston 2.17.9)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=17:whiston%20section=9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But on the next day the high priest was caught where he had concealed himself in an aqueduct; he was slain, together with Hezekiah his brother, by the robbers", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "James C. VanderKam", "work": "From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile", "year": "2004", "view": "Gathers and assesses the surviving evidence for each high priest of the Second Temple period down to about AD 70, including Ananias son of Nedebaeus." }, { "author": "Martin Goodman", "work": "The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66-70", "year": "1987", "view": "Argues that the Rome-backed ruling class of Judaea, including the high-priestly families, lacked popular legitimacy and that its rivalries helped bring on the revolt of AD 66." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament", "year": "1992 (2nd ed. 2003)", "view": "Introduces Josephus for New Testament readers and argues that the author of Luke-Acts probably knew Josephus's writings, which bears on whether their agreements are independent." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to the early second century and argues that its author drew on Josephus." }, { "author": "F. F. Bruce", "work": "The Book of the Acts (New International Commentary on the New Testament, rev. ed.)", "year": "1988", "view": "Identifies the high priest of Acts 23:2 with Ananias son of Nedebaeus and uses Josephus's account of his greed and violent death as background to the scene." }, { "author": "Craig S. Keener", "work": "Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 3 (15:1-23:35)", "year": "2014", "view": "Sets Acts 23:1-5 against Josephus's evidence for Ananias and surveys the explanations proposed for Paul's statement that he did not know Ananias was high priest." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q485854", "label": "Ananias ben Nedebaios" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "687928", "label": "Ierusalem/Hierosolyma/Col. Aelia Capitolina" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "678401", "label": "Stratonos Pyrgos/Caesarea" } ], "title": "Josephus on the high priest Ananias son of Nedebaeus", "summary": "Josephus confirms that a high priest named Ananias son of Nedebaeus was appointed about AD 47/48, remained rich and powerful, courted the governor Albinus with gifts, and was killed by rebels in AD 66. This fits the name and office Acts gives the high priest who has Paul struck and accuses him before Felix (Acts 23:2-5; 24:1). Josephus never mentions Paul and gives no end date for Ananias's tenure.", "dating": "Jewish War c. AD 75-79 (conventional dating); Antiquities completed AD 93/94 (Ant. 20.267); the events described run from c. AD 47 to 66.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus names a high priest, Ananias son of Nedebaeus, appointed by Herod of Chalcis about AD 47/48 (Ant. 20.103). About AD 52 the governor of Syria, Quadratus, sent him to Claudius, in bonds according to the Antiquities (Ant. 20.131; War 2.243). Acts names the high priest at Paul's hearing, about AD 57, as Ananias (Acts 23:2; 24:1).", "Josephus describes Ananias as wealthy and well connected: esteemed by the citizens, a 'hoarder up of money', and winning over the governor Albinus with gifts, while his servants seized the priests' tithes and beat those who refused (Ant. 20.205-207, 213). Other high priests did the same (Ant. 20.207). Acts' brief picture of a high priest who has a prisoner struck is consistent with this.", "Josephus reports that in AD 66 rebels burned Ananias's house and then killed him with his brother Hezekiah (War 2.426, 441). A high priest of this name therefore belonged to Jerusalem's leadership from the late 40s until the revolt." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Josephus does not mention Paul, the council hearing, the order to strike him or the case before Felix. The scenes in Acts 23-24 are not themselves corroborated.", "Josephus gives no end date for Ananias's tenure. Acts calls him high priest about AD 57; Josephus neither confirms nor contradicts this, and he also gives the title to men no longer in office (Jonathan at Ant. 20.162; Ananias himself under Albinus at Ant. 20.205).", "Acts does not narrate Ananias's murder in AD 66. Reading Paul's rebuke in Acts 23:3 as a fulfilled prediction is interpretation, not historical evidence.", "Josephus's evidence concerns only the high priest, not the Ananias of Damascus (Acts 9:10-19; 22:12-16) or Sapphira's husband (Acts 5:1-11)." ], "debate": "Josephus never dates the end of Ananias's tenure. He calls Jonathan, who had held office in AD 36-37, 'the high priest' when Jonathan is murdered under Felix (Ant. 20.162), and he records Ishmael's appointment later (Ant. 20.179). From Josephus alone, Ananias's holding office about AD 57 is therefore an inference; Acts states it. Paul says he did not know Ananias was high priest (Acts 23:5). Albert Barnes's nineteenth-century note on the verse surveys irony, an apology for speaking in haste, unfamiliarity after long absence, and Ananias's not sitting or dressed as high priest, before preferring a vacancy in the office. Scholars who think Luke knew Josephus ask whether the two accounts agree independently. Josephus's hostile portrait also reflects his own aristocratic and apologetic interests.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Ananias out of office in AD 57", "statement": "Josephus gives no end date for Ananias's tenure. Some nineteenth-century commentators, such as Albert Barnes on Acts 23:5, held that the office was then vacant and Ananias presided by courtesy, which would explain Paul's reply. Josephus's silence does not prove a gap, and the Jonathan he calls 'the high priest' at Ant. 20.162 had held office only in AD 36-37 (Ant. 18.95, 123)." }, { "label": "Luke drew on Josephus", "statement": "Richard Pervo, and more tentatively Steve Mason, argue that the author of Acts knew Josephus's works. If so, Acts could have taken Ananias's name and office from Josephus rather than from independent knowledge. Others date Acts before the Antiquities (AD 93/94), or find no sign of borrowing here, since the hearing in Acts 23 has no counterpart in Josephus." }, { "label": "A composed scene", "statement": "Some critical commentators treat Acts 23:1-10 as a scene Luke composed around his own themes, such as Paul's respect for the Law and the dispute between Pharisees and Sadducees over resurrection. On this reading the correct name and office show that Luke knew the period, but they do not confirm that the hearing took place as told." }, { "label": "Whiston's identification at Ant. 20.205", "statement": "In a note to his 1737 translation, Whiston took the wealthy 'high priest Ananias' of Ant. 20.205-213 to be Annas the elder. Josephus's text names him Ananias there, as Whiston's own translation prints, while his usual form for Annas is Ananus." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-ananias" }, { "id": "josephus-festus", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 75, "dateTo": 94, "corpusReferences": [ "CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities)", "CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg004 (Josephus, Jewish War)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 24:27-26:32", "Acts 24:10", "Acts 21:18", "Galatians 1:19" ], "personIds": [ "person.festus", "person.felix", "person.agrippa", "person.nero", "person.josephus", "person.paul", "person.james" ], "placeIds": [ "place.judea", "place.caesarea", "place.jerusalem", "place.rome" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.182 (Whiston 20.8.9)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=9", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now when Porcius Festus was sent as successor to Felix by Nero, the principal of the Jewish inhabitants of Cesarea went up to Rome to accuse Felix; and he had certainly been brought to punishment, unless Nero had yielded to the importunate solicitations of his brother Pallas", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.185-188 (Whiston 20.8.10)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=10", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "So Festus sent forces, both horsemen and footmen, to fall upon those that had been seduced by a certain impostor, who promised them deliverance and freedom from the miseries they were under, if they would but follow him as far as the wilderness.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.189-196 (Whiston 20.8.11)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=11", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "At these doings both king Agrippa, and principally Festus the procurator, were much displeased; and Festus ordered them to pull the wall down again: but the Jews petitioned him to give them leave to send an embassage about this matter to Nero", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.197 (Whiston 20.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "AND now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.200 (Whiston 20.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=9:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.267 (Whiston 20.11.3)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Cæsar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.271-272 (Whiston 2.14.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=14:whiston%20section=1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Festus succeeded Felix as procurator, and made it his business to correct those that made disturbances in the country. So he caught the greatest part of the robbers, and destroyed a great many of them. But then Albinus, who succeeded Festus, did not execute his office", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 6.300 (Whiston 6.5.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=6:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 6.305 (Whiston 6.5.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=6:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And when Albinus (for he was then our procurator) asked him, Who he was? and whence he came? and why he uttered such words?", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 13.14", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=13:chapter=14", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Nero, furious with those who abetted such arrogance in a woman, removed Pallas from the charge of the business with which he had been entrusted by Claudius", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 13.23", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=13:chapter=23", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But the proved innocence of Pallas did not please men so much, as his arrogance offended them.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 14.65", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=14:chapter=65", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Nero was believed to have destroyed by poison two of his most powerful freedmen, Doryphorus, on the pretext of his having opposed the marriage with Poppæa, Pallas for still keeping his boundless wealth by a prolonged old age.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.22.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Festus was sent by Nero to be Felix's successor. Under him Paul, having made his defense, was sent bound to Rome.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.23.21", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But the emperor, when he learned of the death of Festus, sent Albinus to be procurator of Judea.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "A. C. McGiffert", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1), note on HE 2.21", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.21.3, note 468", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Valesius and Heinichen proceed on the erroneous assumption that Festus succeeded Felix in the second year of Nero", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "A. C. McGiffert", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1), note on HE 2.22", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.22.1, note 469", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The widest possible margin for his accession is from 59–61.", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Emil Schürer", "work": "A History of the Jewish People in the Time of Jesus Christ, Division I, vol. 2 (English translation of the second German edition)", "year": "1890", "view": "Dates Festus AD 60-62. Records the case for recalling Felix early in Nero's reign (Jerome's Chronicle; Pallas's fall in 55) and answers that Josephus puts most of Felix's acts under Nero and that Pallas was acquitted before the end of 55." }, { "author": "Roger Pearse and others (trans.)", "work": "Jerome, Chronicle (Latin version of Eusebius's Chronicle)", "year": "2005", "view": "Enters Festus's succession to Felix under Nero's second year, which the translator's column equates with AD 56." }, { "author": "A. N. Sherwin-White", "work": "Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament", "year": "1963", "view": "Tests Acts against Roman law and administration, including a lecture on Paul before Felix and Festus, and judges the trial narratives consistent with Roman provincial practice of the period." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Examines literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence and argues that Acts is a coherent and consistent product of its first-century Hellenistic setting." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament (2nd ed.)", "year": "2003", "view": "Argues that Luke probably knew Josephus's narrative. Overlaps between Acts and Josephus may therefore reflect Luke's reading rather than independent knowledge." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to about AD 115 and argues that its author knew Josephus's writings." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q464307", "label": "Porcius Festus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q316915", "label": "Antonius Felix" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q134461", "label": "Josephus" } ], "title": "Josephus on the governor Porcius Festus", "summary": "Josephus names Porcius Festus as Nero's appointee who succeeded Felix in Judea. He shows Festus siding with King Agrippa II in a dispute over a Temple wall, and reports that Festus died in office and was replaced by Albinus. This matches the succession and cast of Acts 24:27-26:32. Josephus never mentions Paul and gives no year. Festus's arrival, usually dated c. AD 59-60, is a reconstruction.", "dating": "Jewish War usually dated c. AD 75-79; Jewish Antiquities completed AD 93/94 (Ant. 20.267); describes events of c. AD 59-62", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus names Porcius Festus as the governor Nero sent to succeed Felix in Judea (Ant. 20.182; War 2.271). Acts 24:27 gives the same full name and the same order of succession.", "Josephus puts Festus and King Agrippa II on the same side over Jerusalem affairs. Both objected to a wall that blocked the king's view into the Temple and the Roman guards' view from its western cloisters. Festus ordered it pulled down but let a Jewish embassy appeal to Nero (Ant. 20.189-196). Acts 25:13-26:32 likewise has Festus consult Agrippa on a Jewish religious dispute.", "Festus died in office. Nero sent Albinus on hearing of it, and in the interval the high priest Ananus had James, 'the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ', and others condemned to stoning (Ant. 20.197-203). Most identify him with the James of Acts 21:18 and Galatians 1:19; the passage is widely, though not universally, accepted as authentic.", "Josephus presents Festus as an active governor of a troubled province. Festus sent cavalry and infantry against the followers of a wilderness impostor (Ant. 20.185-188), and the War credits him with catching most of the robbers, unlike his successor Albinus (War 2.271-272)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Josephus never mentions Paul. The hearings before Festus, the appeal to Caesar and the audience with Agrippa and Bernice (Acts 25:1-26:32) rest on Acts alone.", "Josephus gives no year for Festus's arrival and no length for his term. The usual dates (arrival c. AD 59-60, death c. AD 62) are reconstructions. An earlier arrival, c. AD 55-56, rests on a fourth-century chronicle entry (Jerome's Latin version of Eusebius's Chronicle, under Nero's second year), whose basis is unknown, and on an argument from Pallas's loss of office in 55.", "Agreement on a governor's name, his place in the succession and his dealings with Agrippa shows that Acts fits this political setting. It does not prove the speeches or events Acts narrates. If Luke used Josephus, the agreement would not count as independent confirmation.", "Eusebius's notices (HE 2.22.1; 2.23.21) draw on Acts and on Josephus, whom he quotes. They repeat those witnesses rather than add an independent one." ], "debate": "Two questions are open. Chronology: most scholars date Festus's arrival to about AD 59-60; McGiffert (1890) allowed 59-61 at the widest, and Schürer (1890) gave 60. They cite Paul's remark that Felix had judged the nation for many years (Acts 24:10) and the Felix-era events Josephus places under Nero (Ant. 20.160-181). The end date rests on War 6.300-305, which has Albinus governing when Jesus son of Ananus, whose cries began at Tabernacles four years before the war, was brought before him. A minority prefer AD 55-56. They cite Jerome's version of Eusebius's Chronicle, and argue that Pallas, who Josephus says was then in the greatest honour with Nero and saved Felix (Ant. 20.182), lost his office in 55 (Tacitus, Ann. 13.14). Others reply that Pallas kept his standing after losing his post: he was acquitted of conspiracy later in 55 (Ann. 13.23) and lived until 62 (Ann. 14.65). Dependence: some argue Luke used Josephus; others judge Acts independent of him.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Early chronology", "statement": "Festus arrived c. AD 55-56. Jerome's Latin version of Eusebius's Chronicle places the change of governor in Nero's second year, and Josephus's remark that Pallas saved Felix has been read as requiring a date before Pallas lost office in 55. The editors Valesius and Heinichen assumed this date, and Schürer (1890) names Kellner and Weber among later defenders of a recall early in Nero's reign. On this view Paul's custody at Caesarea and his voyage to Rome move several years earlier." }, { "label": "Luke drew on Josephus", "statement": "If Acts was written after the Antiquities (AD 93/94) and its author used Josephus, the shared name, succession and link with Agrippa would show Luke's use of a source rather than independent confirmation. Critics of this view note that Acts' Festus scenes contain much that Josephus lacks, and none of Josephus's own Festus episodes: the sicarii, the wilderness impostor and the Temple wall." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-festus" }, { "id": "josephus-egyptian", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 75, "dateTo": 94, "corpusReferences": [ "CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg004 (Josephus, Jewish War)", "CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 21:37-39", "Acts 22:1-21", "Acts 23:24-26" ], "personIds": [ "person.josephus", "person.felix", "person.paul", "person.lysias" ], "placeIds": [ "place.jerusalem", "place.judea", "place.mount-of-olives" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.261-262 (Whiston 2.13.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=13:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "got together thirty thousand men that were deluded by him; these he led round about from the wilderness to the mount which was called the Mount of Olives, and was ready to break into Jerusalem by force from that place", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.263 (Whiston 2.13.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=13:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the Egyptian ran away, with a few others, while the greatest part of those that were with him were either destroyed or taken alive", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 2.254 (Whiston 2.13.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=2:whiston%20chapter=13:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "there sprang up another sort of robbers in Jerusalem, which were called Sicarii, who slew men in the day time, and in the midst of the city", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.169 (Whiston 20.8.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "advised the multitude of the common people to go along with him to the Mount of Olives, as it was called, which lay over against the city", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.171-172 (Whiston 20.8.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He also slew four hundred of them, and took two hundred alive. But the Egyptian himself escaped out of the fight, but did not appear any more.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.267 (Whiston 20.11.3)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Cæsar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.21.3", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Josephus relates these events in the second book of his History. But it is worth while comparing the account of the Egyptian given here with that contained in the Acts of the Apostles.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "A. C. McGiffert", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1), note on HE 2.21", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.21.3, note 466 (the three figures)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the Egyptian escaped with a small number (i.e. small in comparison with the thirty thousand), who may well have been the four thousand mentioned by the author of the Acts", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "A. C. McGiffert", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1), note on HE 2.21", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.21.3, note 466 (on numerals)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "numbers are so treacherous in transcription that the difference may really have been originally less than it is. Whenever the main elements of two accounts are in substantial agreement, little stress can be laid upon a difference in figures.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "A. C. McGiffert", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1), note on HE 2.21", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.21.3, note 468", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Josephus in both of his accounts relates the uproar among events which he expressly assigns to Nero’s reign", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament (2nd ed.)", "year": "2003", "view": "Argues that Luke probably knew Josephus's writings. On Acts 21:38 judges the link of the Egyptian with the sicarii too close to the War's sequence to be coincidence." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q134461", "label": "Josephus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q44276", "label": "The Jewish War" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1232616", "label": "Antiquities of the Jews" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q316915", "label": "Antonius Felix" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q205976", "label": "Mount of Olives" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q282586", "label": "Sicarii" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "687928", "label": "Ierusalem/Hierosolyma/Col. Aelia Capitolina" } ], "title": "Josephus on the Egyptian prophet in Acts 21:38", "summary": "Josephus twice describes an unnamed Egyptian prophet who, while Felix governed Judea, led a following to the Mount of Olives and escaped when Felix's troops attacked. In Acts 21:38 the Roman tribune asks whether Paul is that man. Josephus attests the episode the question presupposes, not Paul's arrest itself, and the figures differ: about 30,000 followers in the War, 400 killed and 200 captured in the Antiquities, 4,000 men in Acts.", "dating": "Episode in the mid-50s AD, under Felix and after Nero's accession (54); reported in the Jewish War (usually dated c. AD 75-79) and the Antiquities (completed AD 93/94, Ant. 20.267)", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus, a non-Christian historian, twice reports that while Felix governed Judea a self-styled prophet known only as 'the Egyptian' led a following to the Mount of Olives, was routed by Felix's troops, and escaped (War 2.261-263; Ant. 20.169-172).", "The premise of the tribune's question in Acts 21:38 matches Josephus: the same governor (Acts 23:24-26), the same nickname, a movement associated with the wilderness, though in a different direction (War 2.262), and a leader who escaped and did not reappear (Ant. 20.172).", "Acts 21:38 uses the Latin loanword sicarii, the term Josephus gives the dagger-men he places in Jerusalem under Felix (War 2.254-257), so Acts' wording fits the 50s as Josephus describes them (on dependence, see below).", "Josephus's own accounts are hard to square: the War has about 30,000 followers and says most of those with the Egyptian were killed or captured, while the Antiquities counts 400 killed and 200 taken. Acts' 4,000 is a third figure, not a clash with one fixed number." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not corroborate Paul's arrest, his exchange with the tribune, or the speech that follows (Acts 22:1-21); it attests the earlier episode the question presupposes.", "It does not settle which figure is right, or whether Luke knew Josephus, relied on common report, or had his own source. Josephus's two accounts are one witness, not two.", "Josephus never links the Egyptian with the sicarii. He describes the dagger-men, the wilderness prophets and the Egyptian as separate troubles (War 2.254-263), so that link appears only in Acts.", "The accounts differ in direction: Josephus brings the Egyptian's followers from the wilderness (War) or from the city (Antiquities) to the Mount of Olives, while Acts 21:38 speaks of men led out into the wilderness." ], "debate": "Two questions stay open. On the numbers, the War's 30,000 may be a round or inflated crowd estimate. McGiffert (1890), citing Tholuck, instead read 30,000 as the rabble that dispersed, 600 as the robbers Felix killed or captured and 4,000 as the small number who escaped with the Egyptian, adding that numerals are easily miscopied. On dependence, Steve Mason argues that Luke knew Josephus, since joining the Egyptian to the sicarii, whom the War describes just before him, follows the War's sequence too closely to be coincidence. Others reply that Acts' 4,000, its direction of march and its wording match neither Josephan account, suggesting independent knowledge of a notorious recent rising.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Acts drew on Josephus", "statement": "Luke knew Josephus and attached the sicarii, described just before the Egyptian in War 2.254-263, to the Egyptian's movement. On this view Acts was written after the War, or after AD 93/94 if Luke used the Antiquities." }, { "label": "Independent memory of the rising", "statement": "Luke, or his source, could have joined a notorious recent rising to the dagger-men of the same years without reading Josephus. The figure, the direction of the march and the phrasing in Acts follow neither Josephan account, which points to separate knowledge rather than copying." }, { "label": "Harmonised figures", "statement": "The three numbers count different groups: a crowd of 30,000 that scattered, some 600 killed or captured, and a band of 4,000 that escaped with the leader. McGiffert (1890), citing Tholuck, proposed this while allowing that numerals are easily miscopied. This requires reading the War's statement that he escaped with a few others as few relative to 30,000." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-egyptian" }, { "id": "josephus-famine", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 93, "dateTo": 94, "corpusReferences": [ "CTS urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0526.tlg001 (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 11:27-30", "Acts 12:25", "Acts 12:20-23", "Acts 5:36-37", "Galatians 2:1-10" ], "personIds": [ "person.josephus", "person.claudius", "person.agabus", "person.barnabas", "person.paul", "person.herod-agrippa-i" ], "placeIds": [ "place.jerusalem", "place.judea", "place.antioch", "place.alexandria", "place.cyprus", "place.rome" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.51-53 (Whiston 20.2.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=2:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "for whereas a famine did oppress them at that time, and many people died for want of what was necessary to procure food withal, queen Helena sent some of her servants to Alexandria with money to buy a great quantity of corn", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.101 (Whiston 20.5.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Under these procurators that great famine happened in Judea, in which queen Helena bought corn in Egypt at a great expense, and distributed it to those that were in want, as I have related already.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.102 (Whiston 20.5.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the sons of Judas of Galilee were now slain; I mean of that Judas who caused the people to revolt, when Cyrenius came to take an account of the estates of the Jews", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.103-104 (Whiston 20.5.2)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And now it was that Cumanus came as successor to Tiberius Alexander; as also that Herod, brother of Agrippa the great king, departed this life, in the eighth year of the reign of Claudius Caesar.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.17 (Whiston 20.2.1)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "About this time it was that Helena, queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.97 (Whiston 20.5.1)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Now it came to pass, while Fadus was procurator of Judea, that a certain magician, whose name was Theudas", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 3.320 (Whiston 3.15.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=3:whiston%20chapter=15:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "a little before the beginning of this war, when Claudius was emperor of the Romans, and Ismael was our high priest, and when so great a famine", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.179 (Whiston 20.8.8)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=8:whiston%20section=8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "About this time king Agrippa gave the high priesthood to Ismael, who was the son of Fabi.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.267 (Whiston 20.11.3)", "url": "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2848/pg2848.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "which is the thirteenth year of the reign of Cæsar Domitian, and the fifty-sixth year of my own life", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "The Lives of the Caesars: Claudius", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914", "locator": "Claud. 18.2", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "When there was a scarcity of grain because of long-continued droughts, he was once stopped in the middle of the Forum by a mob and so pelted with abuse and at the same time with pieces of bread", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 12.43", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=12:chapter=43", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Scanty crops too, and consequent famine were regarded as a token of calamity.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 12.41", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=12:chapter=41", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the fifth consulship of Tiberius Claudius with Sextius Cornelius Orfitus for his colleague", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1914–1927", "locator": "Dio 60.10.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Claudius was now consul with Gaius Largus.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1914–1927", "locator": "Dio 60.11.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "On the occasion of a severe famine he considered the problem of providing an abundant food-supply, not only for that particular crisis but for all future time.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.8.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Under him the world was visited with a famine, which writers that are entire strangers to our religion have recorded in their histories.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.11.3-2.12.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Besides this he also makes mention of the famine, which took place in the reign of Claudius, in the following words.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "orosius-latin", "author": "Orosius", "work": "Historiae adversus paganos", "locator": "Hist. 7.6.12", "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/orosius/orosius7.shtml", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. III §3 (Schürer's verdict)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.vi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Luke’s brief statement about the famine is declared by Dr. Schürer to be unhistorical, improbable, and uncorroborated by other evidence.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. III §3 (date of the famine)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.vi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The great famine in Palestine occurred probably in A.D. 46.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. III §3 (Galatians and the relief visit)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.vi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But we are not reduced to this single account of the mission to Jerusalem. Paul, in writing to the Galatians, also mentions it", "role": "early-study" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "view": "Dates the Palestinian famine probably to AD 46 and reads Acts as claiming dearth across the Roman world in different years of Claudius's reign. Treats Orosius's date as one year too early, placing the famine's onset in 45. Reads Acts 12 as a digression between the sending and the delivery of the relief, and identifies the relief visit with Galatians 2:1-10." }, { "author": "Kenneth S. Gapp", "work": "The Universal Famine under Claudius (Harvard Theological Review 28)", "year": "1935", "view": "Uses Egyptian papyri pointing to a failed wheat harvest c. AD 45-46, after a very high Nile, to argue that the universal famine cannot be explained as a mere sequence of local famines; dates the Judean famine to AD 46 or 47 under Tiberius Alexander." }, { "author": "Joachim Jeremias", "work": "Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (ET)", "year": "1969", "view": "Dates the Judean famine's height to AD 47-48, aggravated by a sabbatical year." }, { "author": "Emil Schürer (rev. Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar)", "work": "The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135), vol. 1", "year": "1973", "view": "Treats the view that a world-wide famine occurred under Claudius as improbable." }, { "author": "Bruce W. Winter", "work": "Secular and Christian Responses to Corinthian Famines (Tyndale Bulletin 40)", "year": "1989", "view": "Argues the Claudian dearth was widespread though not felt everywhere at once, citing repeated grain shortages at Corinth." }, { "author": "Peter Garnsey", "work": "Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World: Responses to Risk and Crisis", "year": "1988", "view": "Distinguishes frequent, usually local food shortages from rarer true famines. This is a caution against reading ancient famine reports as a single empire-wide catastrophe." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament (2nd ed.)", "year": "2003", "view": "Argues that Luke probably knew Josephus's Antiquities. On that view, parallels such as the Theudas and Judas notices beside the famine report would be literary dependence rather than independent corroboration." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1232616", "label": "Antiquities of the Jews" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q134461", "label": "Josephus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2655769", "label": "Helena of Adiabene" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q3047056", "label": "Izates bar Monobaz" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q459841", "label": "Cuspius Fadus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q361357", "label": "Tiberius Julius Alexander" } ], "title": "Josephus on the famine in Judea under Claudius", "summary": "Josephus, a Jewish historian writing c. AD 93/94, reports a severe famine in Jerusalem and Judea under Claudius, under Fadus or, on the Greek printed by Niese, his successor Tiberius Alexander (c. AD 44-48). Queen Helena of Adiabene's grain purchases eased it. This matches Acts' famine in Claudius's reign with need in Judea. But Josephus never mentions Christians, Agabus, Barnabas or Saul, and no source records a single famine across the whole Roman world.", "dating": "Antiquities completed AD 93/94 (Ant. 20.267). The famine it reports falls under Cuspius Fadus or Tiberius Alexander, c. AD 44-48; proposed dates for its height range from AD 46 to 47/48.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Josephus was a Jewish historian, not a Christian. He reports a severe famine in Jerusalem and Judea in Claudius's reign, in which many died (Ant. 20.51, 20.101), under Fadus or, on the Greek printed by Niese, his successor Tiberius Alexander (c. AD 44-48). Cumanus replaced Tiberius Alexander about the time Herod of Chalcis died, in Claudius's eighth year (Ant. 20.103-104).", "Help for Jerusalem came from outside Judea. Helena of Adiabene, who had adopted Jewish customs (Ant. 20.17), had grain bought in Alexandria and dried figs in Cyprus. Her son Izates sent money to Jerusalem's leading men (Ant. 20.51-53). So outside relief for Jerusalem in this famine is attested apart from Acts.", "Roman writers record repeated grain shortages at Rome under Claudius. Dio reports a severe famine in his account of AD 42 (Dio 60.10.1, 60.11.1). In AD 51, after poor harvests, Rome had food for fifteen days and a crowd mobbed the emperor in the Forum (Tacitus, Ann. 12.41, 12.43; cf. Suetonius, Claud. 18.2).", "Acts dates a famine to Claudius's reign and has relief sent to Judea (Acts 11:28-30). This agrees with Josephus on the reign and region. Acts gives no year, and its placement near Herod Agrippa I's death (AD 44; Acts 12:20-23) fits Josephus's c. 44-48 only approximately; Ramsay read Acts 12 as a digression." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Josephus says nothing about Christians, Agabus's prophecy, the Antioch collection, or the journey of Barnabas and Saul (Acts 11:30; 12:25). Those details rest on Acts alone. Getting the famine and the reign right does not by itself confirm the visit.", "No source describes one simultaneous famine across the Roman world. Attested shortages fall in different years and places (Rome 42 and 51; Egypt c. 45-46; Judea c. 44-48). Whether they amount to one widespread scarcity or Acts generalises is debated.", "The famine's exact year cannot be fixed. Ant. 20.101 can be read as covering both procurators or only Tiberius Alexander. Josephus's other famine notice (Ant. 3.320) names a high priest Ismael, but Book 20 has Agrippa II appoint an Ismael only after it reports Claudius's death (Ant. 20.179).", "Later Christian writers add no independent evidence. Eusebius quotes Josephus (HE 2.11.3-2.12.1), and Orosius (Hist. 7.6.12) puts a famine throughout Syria in Claudius's fourth year and makes Helena a convert to Christ, contrary to Josephus. If Luke used Josephus, Acts' famine notice would not be independent either." ], "debate": "Dating: Whiston renders Ant. 20.101 'under these procurators', covering Fadus and Tiberius Alexander; the Greek printed by Niese reads the singular, which would narrow the famine to Tiberius Alexander (c. 46-48). Proposed dates range from 46 (Ramsay) or 46/47 (Gapp, from Egyptian papyri) to 47/48 (Jeremias, a sabbatical year). Scope: Ramsay and Gapp read Acts' worldwide famine as real, though differently; Schürer judged it an unhistorical generalisation. Dependence: Ant. 20.97-102 reports Theudas and then the sons of Judas, so some argue Luke read Josephus; others find the differences too great. The visit: some identify it with Galatians 2:1-10; others think Galatians 1-2 leaves no room for it.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Luke generalized a local famine", "statement": "Ramsay reports that Emil Schürer judged Luke's statement about the famine unhistorical, improbable and uncorroborated, and the revised Schürer (1973) still treats a world-wide famine as improbable. On this view Acts turned Judea's famine into a world event. Some critics, reading Paul's own account of his Jerusalem visits in Galatians 1-2, also treat the relief visit by Barnabas and Saul as Luke's construction rather than a separate journey." }, { "label": "A reign of successive regional shortages", "statement": "Ramsay argued that Acts claims famine across the Roman world during Claudius's reign, not in a single year. On his reading, dearths at Rome and elsewhere in different years, together with Judea's famine (which he dated probably to AD 46), satisfy that claim." }, { "label": "One widespread scarcity", "statement": "Gapp (1935) argued from Egyptian papyri that a very high Nile made wheat-growing in Egypt unprofitable in 45-46, and that the universal famine cannot be explained as a mere sequence of local famines. Winter (1989) likewise judged the dearth widespread, though not felt everywhere at once." }, { "label": "Acts drew on Josephus", "statement": "Antiquities 20.97-102 reports Theudas under Fadus and then the execution of the sons of Judas the Galilean, recalling Judas's revolt. Acts 5:36-37 mentions Theudas and then Judas, so some argue Luke followed Josephus's sequence. Others reply that Acts places Theudas before Judas's revolt of AD 6, with a different following, which a reader of Josephus would hardly produce." }, { "label": "The relief visit is Galatians 2", "statement": "Ramsay, like many who accept the relief visit as historical, identified it with Paul's private Jerusalem meeting in Galatians 2:1-10, noting the request there to remember the poor. Others equate Galatians 2 with the council of Acts 15 and reconcile the relief visit with Galatians in other ways, or doubt that it happened." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-famine" }, { "id": "josephus-agrippa-bernice", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 75, "dateTo": 130, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 25:13-26:32", "Acts 25:13-22", "Acts 25:23", "Acts 26:3", "Acts 26:30-32" ], "personIds": [ "person.agrippa", "person.bernice", "person.festus", "person.paul", "person.josephus", "person.herod-agrippa-i", "person.claudius", "person.nero" ], "placeIds": [ "place.caesarea", "place.jerusalem", "place.rome" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.145-147 (Whiston 20.7.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D7%3Awhiston%20section%3D3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "when the report went that she had criminal conversation with her brother, [Agrippa, junior,] she persuaded Poleme, who was king of Cilicia, to be circumcised, and to marry her, as supposing that by this means she should prove those calumnies upon her to be false", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.137-140 (Whiston 20.7.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D7%3Awhiston%20section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he bestowed upon Agrippa the tetrarchy of Philip and Batanea, and added thereto Trachonites, with Abila; which last had been the tetrarchy of Lysanias; but he took from him Chalcis, when he had been governor thereof four years.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.158-159 (Whiston 20.8.4)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D8%3Awhiston%20section%3D4", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Caesar also bestowed on Agrippa a certain part of Galilee, Tiberias, and Tarichae, and ordered them to submit to his jurisdiction. He gave him also Julias, a city of Perea, with fourteen villages that lay about it.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.189-196 (Whiston 20.8.11)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D8%3Awhiston%20section%3D11", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "At these doings both king Agrippa, and principally Festus the procurator, were much displeased; and Festus ordered them to pull the wall down again", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 20.222-223 (Whiston 20.9.7)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D20%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D9%3Awhiston%20section%3D7", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But king Agrippa, who had the care of the temple committed to him by Claudius Caesar", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 19.354 (Whiston 19.9.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0146%3Abook%3D19%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D9%3Awhiston%20section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But he left behind him a son, Agrippa by name, a youth in the seventeenth year of his age, and three daughters; one of which, Bernice, was married to Herod, his father's brother, and was sixteen years old;", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.342-344 (Whiston 2.16.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D2%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D16%3Awhiston%20section%3D3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He therefore called the multitude together into a large gallery, and placed his sister Bernice in the house of the Asamoneans, that she might be seen by them,", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.402-404 (Whiston 2.16.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D2%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D16%3Awhiston%20section%3D5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "When Agrippa had spoken thus, both he and his sister wept, and by their tears repressed a great deal of the violence of the people;", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.405-407 (Whiston 2.17.1)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D2%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D17%3Awhiston%20section%3D1", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "THIS advice the people hearkened to, and went up into the temple with the king and Bernice, and began to rebuild the cloisters;", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Wars of the Jews", "locator": "War 2.426 (Whiston 2.17.6)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0148%3Abook%3D2%3Awhiston%20chapter%3D17%3Awhiston%20section%3D6", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The others then set fire to the house of Ananias the high priest, and to the palaces of Agrippa and Bernice;", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "juvenal-ramsay", "author": "Juvenal", "work": "Satires (Satire 6)", "locator": "Sat. 6.156-159", "url": "https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/juvenal_satires_06.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "a diamond of great renown, made precious by the finger of Berenice. It was given as a present long ago by the barbarian Agrippa to his incestuous sister, in that country where kings celebrate festal sabbaths with bare feet", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "G. G. Ramsay", "year": "1918" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-histories-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Histories", "locator": "Hist. 2.2", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D2", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Some supposed that he retraced his steps for love of Queen Berenice, nor was his young heart averse to her charms, but this affection occasioned no hindrance to action.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1873 (reprinted 1942, as given by Perseus)" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-histories-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Histories", "locator": "Hist. 2.81", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080%3Abook%3D2%3Achapter%3D81", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Queen Berenice too, who was then in the prime of youth and beauty, and who had charmed even the old Vespasian by the splendour of her presents, promoted his cause with equal zeal.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1873 (reprinted 1942, as given by Perseus)" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "Lives of the Caesars: Titus", "locator": "Tit. 7.1", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Titus*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "his notorious passion for queen Berenice, to whom it was even said that he promised marriage.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History (Epitome)", "locator": "66.15.3-4 (Boissevain numbering, as in the LacusCurtius section anchors; printed in Cary's Loeb as Book 65)", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/65*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Berenice was at the very height of her power and consequently came to Rome along with her brother Agrippa. The latter was given the rank of praetor, while she dwelt in the palace, cohabiting with Titus.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1925" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Max Krenkel", "work": "Josephus und Lucas", "year": "1894", "view": "Argued at length that Luke-Acts depends on Josephus' writings. This classic case for literary dependence would make Acts' agreement with Josephus derivative." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Argued that the accuracy of Acts' local and official details reflects early, independent knowledge. He rejected the case for Luke's dependence on Josephus." }, { "author": "Steve Mason", "work": "Josephus and the New Testament", "year": "1992", "view": "Argues that Luke probably knew Josephus' writings, since the overlaps between them, including Agrippa II and Bernice, would otherwise be a near-incredible series of coincidences. He grants that this cannot be proved." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to the early second century and argues that its author used Josephus' Antiquities." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q313419", "label": "Agrippa II" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q466696", "label": "Berenice (daughter of Agrippa I)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1232616", "label": "Antiquities of the Jews" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q44276", "label": "The Jewish War" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q7426233", "label": "Satire VI (Juvenal)" } ], "title": "King Agrippa II and Bernice in Josephus and Juvenal", "summary": "Josephus confirms that Agrippa II was a Roman client king entrusted with the Jerusalem temple, and he shows Agrippa's sister Bernice beside him in public, as Acts 25:13-26:32 does at Caesarea. He also reports a rumour of incest between them, which Juvenal repeats as satire. These sources confirm the pair and their standing, not Paul's hearing, and some scholars think Luke drew on Josephus.", "dating": "Josephus' Jewish War c. AD 75-79 and Antiquities AD 93/94 (completed in Domitian's thirteenth year, Ant. 20.267); Juvenal's Satire 6 early second century. The events described run from AD 44 to the 70s. Tacitus and Suetonius (early second century) fall within the dateFrom-dateTo range; Dio (early third century) is a later supporting witness outside it.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Agrippa II, son of Agrippa I, held a Roman-granted kingdom during the years of Acts 25-26. Claudius gave him Philip's former tetrarchy in place of Chalcis, and Nero added Tiberias, Taricheae and Julias (Josephus, Ant. 19.354; 20.138, 20.159). The royal title Acts gives him fits this record.", "Josephus shows Agrippa and the procurator Festus both involved in a dispute over the Jerusalem temple. He says Claudius had committed the care of the temple to Agrippa, who appointed and removed high priests (Ant. 20.189-196, 20.222-223). This fits Acts' picture of Festus laying a Jewish religious dispute before him (Acts 25:13-22; 26:3).", "Bernice, Agrippa's sister and the widow of Herod of Chalcis (Ant. 20.145), appears beside him publicly in AD 66. She is placed where the Jerusalem crowd can see her during his speech, weeps with him, and goes up to the temple with him. Rebels burn 'the palaces of Agrippa and Bernice' (War 2.344, 402, 405, 426). Acts shows her with the king at Caesarea (Acts 25:13, 23; 26:30).", "Ancient writers passed on a rumour of incest between Bernice and her brother. Josephus reports it, along with her attempt to disprove it by marrying Polemo, king of Cilicia (Ant. 20.145-146), and Juvenal repeats it as a satirical jibe (Sat. 6.156-159). This shows the pair's reputation, not the truth of the charge." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "None of these sources mentions Paul or the hearing at Caesarea. They confirm the people and their standing, not the event, speeches or verdict narrated in Acts 25:13-26:32.", "They do not prove the incest charge. Josephus presents it as hearsay that Bernice treated as calumny. Juvenal is a satirist writing decades later, in a Rome that had been hostile to the eastern queen linked with Titus (Tacitus, Hist. 2.2; Suetonius, Tit. 7.1; Dio 66.15.3-4).", "Agreement with Josephus does not by itself show that Luke was independent of him. Correct names and titles could come from general knowledge of a prominent royal pair, and some scholars argue that Luke knew Josephus' works." ], "debate": "Two questions remain open. First, how Acts relates to Josephus. Some scholars argue that Luke used the Antiquities, which would make the agreement about Agrippa and Bernice derivative rather than independent. Others point to differences elsewhere, and to how prominent the pair were in the 50s and 60s, and see independent knowledge. Second, what lay behind the incest rumour. It may be hostile gossip about a widowed queen who lived at her brother's court and later scandalised Rome with Titus, or it may be a belief widely held at the time. No source offers more than reputation.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Luke drew on Josephus", "statement": "If Acts was written after AD 93/94, its picture of Agrippa and Bernice could come from Josephus' Antiquities, as Max Krenkel (1894) and Richard Pervo (2006) argued. On that view the agreement shows Luke's source, not independent corroboration. Steve Mason (1992) argues that Luke probably knew Josephus, though he grants this cannot be proved." }, { "label": "Independent early knowledge", "statement": "Colin Hemer (1989) and others hold that Acts' handling of Roman officials and client royalty reflects early, independent knowledge. On this view Agrippa and Bernice were prominent public figures whose joint appearances would have been widely known in Judea and Syria, so Luke needed no literary source to name them correctly." }, { "label": "Rumour as slander or as belief", "statement": "Josephus frames the charge as a report that Bernice tried to refute, and Juvenal's line is invective, so many readers treat the rumour as gossip. Others note that Josephus, who was well disposed to Agrippa, still chose to record it, and that he says Bernice left Polemo, 'as was said', with impure intentions (Ant. 20.146). They take this to mean the belief circulated widely, though it remains unproven." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-josephus-agrippa-bernice" }, { "id": "claudius-expulsion", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 119, "dateTo": 122, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 18:1-3", "Acts 18:12-17", "Romans 16:3-5", "Acts 28:17" ], "personIds": [ "person.claudius", "person.aquila", "person.priscilla", "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.corinth" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "Life of Claudius (Lives of the Caesars)", "locator": "Claud. 25.4", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "J. C. Rolfe", "work": "Loeb Suetonius, editor's note 75 on Claud. 25.4", "locator": "Claud. 25.4, note 75", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Another form of Christus; see Tert. Apol. 3 (at the end). It is uncertain whether Suetonius is guilty of an error in chronology or is referring to some Jew of that name. The former seems probable because of the absence of quodam.", "role": "early-study", "year": "1914" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "Divus Claudius (Latin text as printed in the Loeb Classical Library, 1913)", "locator": "Claud. 25.4", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Claudius*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantis Roma expulit.", "role": "edition", "year": "1913" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "J. C. Rolfe", "work": "Suetonius, vol. 1 (Loeb Classical Library), Introduction", "locator": "Introduction, 'The Life and Works of Suetonius'", "url": "https://archive.org/download/suetonius01suet_0/suetonius01suet_0_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Of all these the only work which has come down to us entire, or nearly so, is the Lives of the Caesars, published in 120.", "role": "early-study", "year": "1913" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "J. C. Rolfe", "work": "Suetonius, vol. 1 (Loeb Classical Library), Introduction", "locator": "Introduction, 'The Life and Works of Suetonius'", "url": "https://archive.org/download/suetonius01suet_0/suetonius01suet_0_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "probably during the period when his friend and patron Gaius Septicius Clarus was a prefect of the praetorian guard (119 to 121).", "role": "early-study", "year": "1913" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "Life of Nero (Lives of the Caesars)", "locator": "Nero 16.2", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History", "locator": "60.6.6", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "he did not drive them out, but ordered them, while continuing their traditional mode of life, not to hold meetings.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1924" }, { "sourceKey": "orosius-latin", "author": "Paulus Orosius", "work": "Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII", "locator": "7.6.15", "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/orosius/orosius7.shtml", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Anno eiusdem nono expulsos per Claudium urbe Iudaeos Iosephus refert. sed me magis Suetonius mouet, qui ait hoc modo: Claudius Iudaeos inpulsore Christo adsidue tumultuantes Roma expulit", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "orosius-latin", "author": "Paulus Orosius", "work": "Historiarum adversum paganos libri VII", "locator": "7.6.16", "url": "https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/orosius/orosius7.shtml", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "quod, utrum contra Christum tumultuantes Iudaeos coherceri et conprimi iusserit, an etiam Christianos simul uelut cognatae religionis homines uoluerit expelli, nequaquam discernitur.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "locator": "Ant. 18.81-84 (Whiston 18.3.5)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=18:whiston%20chapter=3:whiston%20section=5", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "ordered all the Jews to be banished out of Rome; at which time the consuls listed four thousand men out of them, and sent them to the island Sardinia", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737 (Perseus text: Auburn and Buffalo, 1895)" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 15.44", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 (Random House reprint, as given by Perseus)" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Gerd Lüdemann", "work": "Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology", "year": "1984 (German original 1980)", "view": "Dates Claudius's edict to AD 41, treating Suetonius's notice and Dio 60.6.6 as one measure and setting aside Orosius's date. On that basis he argues for an early Pauline mission in Greece, including Corinth, before the Jerusalem meeting, and reads Acts 18 as combining material from more than one visit." }, { "author": "Rainer Riesner", "work": "Paul's Early Period: Chronology, Mission Strategy, Theology", "year": "1998 (German original 1994)", "view": "Defends AD 49 for the expulsion and reads Chrestus as Christ. Treats Dio's ban on meetings as an earlier, separate measure, consistent with Acts 18:2." }, { "author": "H. Dixon Slingerland", "work": "Claudian Policymaking and the Early Imperial Repression of Judaism at Rome", "year": "1997", "view": "Argues that 'Chrestus' is not Christ and that the burden of proof lies with those who identify them. Holds that Claud. 25.4 and Dio 60.6.6 describe different events, and suggests Chrestus may have been someone, perhaps a freedman adviser, who prompted Claudius to act. Reads Claudius's measures as Roman repression of Judaism, not as evidence about the Roman church." }, { "author": "Peter Lampe", "work": "From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries", "year": "2003 (German original 1987)", "view": "Reads Chrestus as Christ and rejects dating the edict to AD 41. Disputes over Jesus within Rome's synagogues led Claudius to expel those involved, not the whole Jewish community." }, { "author": "Robert E. Van Voorst", "work": "Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence", "year": "2000", "view": "Judges Chrestus most likely an error for Christus, reflecting Suetonius's misunderstanding of disputes about Christ among Roman Jews." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q5129460", "label": "Claudius' expulsion of Jews from Rome" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1411", "label": "Claudius" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q11085604", "label": "Priscilla and Aquila" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q220", "label": "Rome" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "423025", "label": "Roma" } ], "title": "Claudius's expulsion of Jews from Rome (Suetonius, Claudius 25.4)", "summary": "Suetonius, a non-Christian Roman biographer, reports that Claudius expelled Jews from Rome because they kept causing disturbances 'at the instigation of Chrestus' (Claud. 25.4). This is independent evidence for the kind of order Acts 18:2 mentions. Suetonius gives no date. The usual AD 49 comes only from the fifth-century Orosius, Dio reports only a ban on meetings in AD 41, and whether 'Chrestus' means Christ is disputed.", "dating": "Main witness: Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars, c. AD 119-122. Rolfe (1913) dates their publication to 120 and puts the prefecture of their dedicatee, Septicius Clarus, at 119-121; dateFrom and dateTo give this composition window. Event window: Claudian measure(s) of AD 41 to c. 49. Dio (early 3rd century) puts a ban on Jewish meetings among Claudius's first-year acts (AD 41); Orosius (early 5th century) dates the expulsion to Claudius's ninth year (c. AD 49).", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Suetonius (Claud. 25.4), a non-Christian Roman biographer, reports that Claudius expelled Jews from Rome because they kept rioting at the instigation of someone called 'Chrestus'. This is independent evidence for a Claudian expulsion like the one Acts 18:2 gives as the reason Aquila and Priscilla had recently come from Italy. That it is the same order is likely but depends on the disputed date.", "Dio Cassius (60.6.6) lists among Claudius's first-year acts (AD 41) a measure about the Jews. He says they were too numerous to bar from the city without a tumult, so Claudius did not drive them out but let them keep their traditional way of life and forbade them to hold meetings. Whether this is the same action reported differently or a separate measure is disputed.", "Orosius (Hist. adv. pag. 7.6.15) gives the only explicit date: Claudius's ninth year, c. AD 49. He attributes the report to Josephus, but no such passage is known in Josephus's surviving works. Those works describe an earlier expulsion of Jews from Rome under Tiberius (Ant. 18.81-84).", "Ancient writers mixed up the two spellings. Orosius quotes Suetonius as 'inpulsore Christo' and reads it as Christ, though he says he cannot tell whether Claudius meant the Jews rioting against Christ or Christians as well (7.6.16). Rolfe's note calls Chrestus 'another form of Christus' and points to Tertullian's complaint about the pagan mispronunciation 'Chrestianus' (Apol. 3). This makes the Christ reading plausible but does not prove it." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that 'Chrestus' was Jesus, or that the riots were disputes over Christian preaching. Suetonius says neither. The Latin text printed in the Loeb reads 'Chresto', and Suetonius uses 'Christiani' for the group punished under Nero (Nero 16.2).", "It does not show how many Jews left Rome, or for how long. Acts describes an order covering all Jews, while Dio's notice of AD 41 says Claudius did not expel them. Prisca and Aquila (if Romans 16 was addressed to Rome) and Rome's Jewish leaders are in the city again later (Romans 16:3-5; Acts 28:17).", "It does not give a secure AD 49 date. Suetonius gives no date and places the notice among unrelated measures, and the authority Orosius cites cannot be checked." ], "debate": "Many historians take 'Chrestus' as a Roman misspelling of Christus. On that view, preaching Jesus as Messiah caused conflict in Rome's synagogues, and the people involved were expelled. Acts does not say whether Aquila and Priscilla were already believers. Others, such as Slingerland, note that Chrestus was a common personal name, that Suetonius knows the word 'Christiani', and that Tacitus, writing at about the same time, uses the correct form 'Christus' (Ann. 15.44). On that view Chrestus was someone else: a local agitator, or someone who prompted Claudius to act. On the date, many accept Orosius's AD 49 and treat Dio's ban on meetings as an earlier step in 41. Others think the two reports describe one event and distrust Orosius's appeal to Josephus, which cannot be checked.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Chrestus as someone other than Christ", "statement": "Suetonius may mean a man actually named Chrestus. Rolfe's 1914 note raised this possibility ('some Jew of that name'), though he judged the Christ reading more probable. H. Dixon Slingerland (1997) rejects the Christ reading and suggests that Chrestus was someone, perhaps a freedman adviser, who prompted Claudius to act. Either way the passage confirms a Claudian expulsion but says nothing about believers in Rome." }, { "label": "A single measure in AD 41", "statement": "Suetonius and Dio describe one action early in Claudius's reign, and Orosius's 49 is unreliable. If so, Aquila and Priscilla's recent arrival in Corinth requires either an earlier Pauline visit there, as in Lüdemann's chronology, or a looser reading of Acts 18:1-3." }, { "label": "Two measures: AD 41 and c. AD 49", "statement": "Dio describes a first ban on Jewish meetings in 41. Suetonius, Acts and Orosius describe a later expulsion around 49, possibly limited to those involved in the disturbances. This fits Paul reaching Corinth shortly before Gallio's proconsulship (Acts 18:12-17)." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-claudius-expulsion" }, { "id": "tacitus-neronian-persecution", "kind": "literary-non-christian", "dateFrom": 110, "dateTo": 120, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 28:15", "Acts 28:30-31", "Romans 1:7-8" ], "personIds": [ "person.nero", "person.paul", "person.peter" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.judea" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 15.44", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=44", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 (Random House reprint, as given by Perseus)" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 15.38", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=38", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "A disaster followed, whether accidental or treacherously contrived by the emperor, is uncertain, as authors have given both accounts", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 (Random House reprint, as given by Perseus)" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "locator": "Ann. 15.41", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=15:chapter=41", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Some persons observed that the beginning of this conflagration was on the 19th of July, the day on which the Senones captured and fired Rome.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1942 (Random House reprint, as given by Perseus)" }, { "sourceKey": "suetonius-rolfe", "author": "Suetonius", "work": "Lives of the Caesars: Nero", "locator": "Nero 16.2", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Suetonius/12Caesars/Nero*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. C. Rolfe", "year": "1914" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History (epitome of Book 62)", "locator": "62.16.1 (fire narrative 62.16-18; Christians not mentioned)", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/62*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "After this Nero set his heart on accomplishing what had doubtless always been his desire, namely to make an end of the whole city and realm during his lifetime.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1925" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Clement of Rome (traditional attribution)", "work": "1 Clement", "locator": "1 Clem. 5.5-6", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius (quoting Tertullian)", "work": "Church History", "locator": "HE 2.25.4", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "locator": "HE 2.25.5", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "locator": "HE 2.22.2", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Thus after he had made his defense it is said that the apostle was sent again upon the ministry of preaching, and that upon coming to the same city a second time he suffered martyrdom.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-prescription-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "The Prescription against Heretics", "locator": "Prescr. 36 (of the church at Rome)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Brent D. Shaw", "work": "The Myth of the Neronian Persecution (Journal of Roman Studies 105)", "year": "2015", "view": "Contests the conventional picture of a state persecution under Nero, including the mass execution after the fire and the deaths of Peter and Paul. Holds that Annals 15.44 is probably genuine Tacitus but reflects ideas current when Tacitus wrote, not the realities of the 60s." }, { "author": "Christopher P. Jones", "work": "The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw (New Testament Studies 63)", "year": "2017", "view": "Holds that there are no grounds for doubting Tacitus's report of the persecution. Notes that later sources dating the deaths of Peter and Paul to Nero's reign have no bearing on whether Tacitus's account is true." }, { "author": "Richard Carrier", "work": "The Prospect of a Christian Interpolation in Tacitus, Annals 15.44 (Vigiliae Christianae 68)", "year": "2014", "view": "Argues that the arguments for a late interpolation have no strong rebuttal, so the sentence referring to Christ should be considered suspect." }, { "author": "Henry Furneaux, rev. H. F. Pelham and C. D. Fisher", "work": "The Annals of Tacitus, vol. 2: Books XI-XVI (Oxford, 2nd ed.)", "year": "1907", "view": "Defends the passage as genuine on grounds of its Tacitean style and its partial transcription by Sulpicius Severus, while calling it a narrative necessarily at second hand. Judges that Suetonius follows a different authority, that Tertullian shows no knowledge of the passage, and that only Sulpicius Severus unmistakably follows Tacitus's narrative. Describes the second Medicean manuscript (latter half of the 11th century, Laurentian Library) as containing all that survives of Books 11-16." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q564358", "label": "Annals (Tacitus)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q7673903", "label": "Tacitus on Christ" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q215231", "label": "Great Fire of Rome" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2161", "label": "Tacitus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1413", "label": "Nero" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "423025", "label": "Roma" } ], "title": "Tacitus on Nero's punishment of Christians after the fire of Rome (Annals 15.44)", "summary": "Tacitus's Annals 15.44, written in the early second century, is the only independent detailed account of Nero blaming Rome's Christians for the fire of July 64 and killing many of them; Sulpicius Severus's later version depends on it. It implies a sizeable Christian group in the Rome of Romans and Acts 28. It names no apostle and says nothing about Paul's death, and a minority of historians argue that it reflects Tacitus's own day more than the 60s.", "dating": "Written in the early 2nd century AD: the Annals are conventionally dated c. 110-120, and Furneaux (1907) puts their completion fully fifty years after the persecution. Reports events that followed the fire of 19 July AD 64 (Ann. 15.41).", "currentLocation": "Text tradition. Annals 11-16 survive through the second Medicean manuscript (latter half of the 11th century), now in the Laurentian Library, Florence (Furneaux 1907)", "establishes": [ "Tacitus was a Roman senator and historian, and he was hostile to the movement. He reports that after the fire of July 64 Nero shifted the blame onto people the crowd called Christians, and that a great number were convicted and killed in spectacles in Nero's gardens (Ann. 15.44; the fire's date is at 15.41).", "On Tacitus's account, the Christians in Rome were numerous and visible enough by 64 to be singled out. This fits the established community of believers in Rome that Romans 1:7-8 presupposes and whose members come out to meet Paul in Acts 28:15.", "Suetonius separately lists the punishment of Christians among Nero's police measures (Nero 16.2). Furneaux judged that he follows a different authority; he does not connect it with the fire. So Nero-era action against Christians at Rome does not rest on Tacitus alone, but the link to the fire does: Dio's account of the fire does not mention Christians (Dio 62.16-18).", "The passage gives the non-Christian setting for the Christian tradition that Paul died at Rome under Nero. 1 Clement 5 (conventionally c. AD 96) says Paul bore witness before rulers and departed this world, without naming Nero. Tertullian names Nero as the first persecutor and places Paul's death at Rome; Eusebius dates it under Nero (HE 2.25.4-5; Prescr. 36). That tradition developed largely without Tacitus." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It names neither Paul nor Peter nor any individual Christian, so it is not evidence that Paul died in the reprisals of 64. The link between Nero and Paul's death comes from Christian writers. Among ancient Christian writers, only Sulpicius Severus (c. AD 400) clearly follows Tacitus's narrative (Furneaux 1907), and he goes on to date the condemnation of Paul and Peter to that period (Chron. 2.29).", "It does not fix the year, the place in Rome or the manner of Paul's death. Tertullian implies a beheading ('a death like John's') and Eusebius reports it; Tacitus says nothing of it. Whether Paul was released after the custody of Acts 28 is a separate question.", "It does not show that Christians set the fire, or that Nero did: Tacitus says the cause was uncertain (Ann. 15.38). Nor does it show that a general law against Christians, or a persecution across the empire, existed in 64." ], "debate": "Most historians accept Annals 15.44 as genuine Tacitus. Brent Shaw (2015) thinks it is probably genuine but argues that it reflects the ideas of Tacitus's own day. He disputes a mass execution ordered by Nero and the deaths of Peter and Paul under Nero. Christopher P. Jones (2017) replies that there are no grounds to doubt Tacitus's report. Richard Carrier (2014) argues that the sentence naming Christus should be considered a suspected later insertion. A separate open question is whether Paul died in the reprisals of 64, before them, or later in Nero's reign after a release.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Genuine but anachronistic (Shaw)", "statement": "The chapter is probably Tacitus's own work, but its link between the Christians and the fire reflects early-second-century assumptions. On this view Nero ordered no mass execution of Christians in 64, and the passage does not secure the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul under Nero." }, { "label": "Suspect Christus sentence (Carrier)", "statement": "The sentence identifying Christus as executed under Pontius Pilate may be a later Christian addition and should be treated as suspect. The challenge concerns that sentence, not the report of Nero's punishments as such." }, { "label": "Paul's death apart from the fire", "statement": "Paul may have died before 64, at the end of the two-year custody of Acts 28:30-31. Or he may have died later in Nero's reign, after a release and a second Roman imprisonment, which Eusebius reports as tradition ('it is said', HE 2.22.2). On either view Tacitus supplies the general setting, not the event." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-tacitus-neronian-persecution" }, { "id": "polycarp-paul", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 110, "dateTo": 140, "corpusReferences": [ "CPG 1040" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 16:11-40", "Acts 2:24", "Philippians 1:5", "Philippians 2:16", "2 Thessalonians 1:4", "1 Corinthians 6:2", "1 Corinthians 6:9-10", "Galatians 4:26", "Galatians 6:7", "Ephesians 2:8-9", "Ephesians 4:26", "1 Timothy 2:1-2", "1 Timothy 6:7-10", "2 Timothy 4:10" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.philippi" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 3.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "able to follow the wisdom of the blessed and glorious Paul, who when he came among you taught face to face with the men of that day the word which concerneth truth carefully and surely; who also, when he was absent, wrote a letter unto you", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 9.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "which also ye saw with your own eyes in the blessed Ignatius and Zosimus and Rufus, yea and in others also who came from among yourselves, as well as in Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 9.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "being persuaded that all these ran not in vain but in faith and righteousness, and that they are in their due place in the presence of the Lord, with whom also they suffered.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 11.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "as Paul teacheth?", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 11.3", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "among whom the blessed Paul labored, who were his letters in the beginning. For he boasteth of you in all those churches which alone at that time knew God; for we knew Him not as yet.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 12.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "For I am persuaded that ye are well trained in the sacred writings, and nothing is hidden from you. But to myself this is not granted. Only, as it is said in these scriptures,", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Letter to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 13.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Moreover concerning Ignatius himself and those that were with him, if ye have any sure tidings, certify us.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 3, note 358", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.iii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The form is plural, but one Epistle is probably meant.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 1, note 341", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.i.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Acts ii. 24. Literally, “having loosed the pains of Hades.”", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 10, note 391", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.x.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "This and the two following chapters are preserved only in a Latin version.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 11, note 401", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.xi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Some read, “named;” comp. Phil. i. 5.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 13, note 414", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.xiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Henceforth, to the end, we have only the Latin version.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 13, note 415", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.xiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Latin version reads “are,” which has been corrected as above.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (translators' notes)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: The Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "ch. 13, note 416", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.ii.xiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Polycarp was aware of the death of Ignatius (chap. ix.), but was as yet apparently ignorant of the circumstances attending it.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Ante-Nicene Fathers translators", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: Introductory Note to the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "year": "1885", "locator": "Introductory Note (original Introductory Notice), on chapter 13", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.i.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "While there is no ground for supposing, as some have done, that the whole Epistle is spurious, there seems considerable force in the arguments by which many others have sought to prove chap. xiii. to be an interpolation.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Ante-Nicene Fathers translators", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1: Introductory Note to the Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "year": "1885", "locator": "Introductory Note (original Introductory Notice), on the date", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.iv.i.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "We shall not, however, probably be far wrong if we fix it about the middle of the second century.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.36.13", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Polycarp also mentions these letters in the epistle to the Philippians which is ascribed to him.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.36.15", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "For they comprise faith and patience, and every kind of edification that pertains to our Lord. So much concerning Ignatius.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 4.14.9", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But Polycarp, in his above-mentioned epistle to the Philippians, which is still extant, has made use of certain testimonies drawn from the First Epistle of Peter.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus of Lyons", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "AH 3.3.4 (Polycarp's letter)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There is also a very powerful Epistle of Polycarp written to the Philippians, from which those who choose to do so, and are anxious about their salvation, can learn the character of his faith, and the preaching of the truth.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus of Lyons", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "AH 3.3.4 (Polycarp and Marcion)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And Polycarp himself replied to Marcion, who met him on one occasion, and said, Do you know me? I do know you, the first-born of Satan.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "locator": "Q914111 (P7988 Clavis Patrum Graecorum ID 1040)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q914111.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades place record: Krenides/Philippi/Col. Augusta Iulia Philippensis", "locator": "501482", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/501482/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part II: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp", "year": "1885", "view": "Defended the authenticity and integrity of Polycarp's letter as a single letter written soon after Ignatius passed through Smyrna and Philippi, and used it as key external evidence for the Ignatian letters." }, { "author": "P. N. Harrison", "work": "Polycarp's Two Epistles to the Philippians", "year": "1936", "view": "Influential partition theory: chapter 13 (with 14) is an early covering note sent with Ignatius's letters, and chapters 1–12 are a separate, later letter of about 135." }, { "author": "Hans von Campenhausen", "work": "Polykarp von Smyrna und die Pastoralbriefe", "year": "1951", "view": "Proposed that Polycarp or his circle composed the Pastoral Epistles, a minority view that would explain the 1 Timothy parallels as common origin rather than reception." }, { "author": "Kenneth Berding", "work": "Polycarp of Smyrna's View of the Authorship of 1 and 2 Timothy (Vigiliae Christianae)", "year": "1999", "view": "Argues that because allusions to 1 and 2 Timothy follow Polycarp's explicit references to Paul, Polycarp probably regarded those letters as Paul's." }, { "author": "Kenneth Berding", "work": "Polycarp and Paul: An Analysis of Their Literary and Theological Relationship in Light of Polycarp's Use of Biblical and Extra-Biblical Literature", "year": "2002", "view": "Finds Polycarp heavily indebted to the Pauline letters, with Pauline allusions clustering near his mentions of Paul, and argues he knew most of the Pauline corpus, including the Pastorals." }, { "author": "Paul Hartog", "work": "Polycarp and the New Testament: The Occasion, Rhetoric, Theme, and Unity of the Epistle to the Philippians and Its Allusions to New Testament Literature", "year": "2002", "view": "Defends the unity of the letter against the two-letter theory and assesses its allusions to New Testament writings." }, { "author": "Michael W. Holmes", "work": "Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament, in A. F. Gregory and C. M. Tuckett (eds.), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers", "year": "2005", "view": "Grades each proposed parallel by probability instead of counting every verbal echo, separating very likely uses of Pauline letters from merely possible ones." }, { "author": "Timothy D. Barnes", "work": "The Date of Ignatius (Expository Times)", "year": "2008", "view": "Argues that Ignatius's letters belong to the 140s rather than Trajan's reign. If accepted, this would also move the date of Polycarp's letter, which is tied to Ignatius." }, { "author": "Kirsopp Lake", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1 (Loeb Classical Library)", "year": "1912", "view": "Edition and translation that renders the plural of 3.2 as letters and describes the textual basis: defective Greek manuscripts, Eusebius's quotations and the Latin version. Named here as further reading; not cited as a source." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q914111", "label": "Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q192371", "label": "Polycarp" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "501482", "label": "Krenides/Philippi/Col. Augusta Iulia Philippensis" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "550893", "label": "Smyrna/Eurydikeia" } ], "title": "Polycarp's Letter to the Philippians on Paul and his letters", "summary": "Polycarp of Smyrna's letter to the church at Philippi (c. AD 110–140) recalls that Paul taught there in person and later wrote to them (3.2; 11.3). It counts Paul among apostles who suffered (9.1–2), attributes to him a teaching found in 1 Corinthians, and echoes Ephesians and 1 Timothy, so these letters and memories were in use early. It does not settle who wrote Ephesians or 1 Timothy, and it adds no events to Acts.", "dating": "c. AD 110–140. Usually dated soon after Ignatius passed through Smyrna and Philippi on his way to Rome; on Harrison's two-letter theory, chapters 1–12 belong to about 135. The translators' notice in the Ante-Nicene Fathers placed the letter about the middle of the second century, and a minority, following a 140s date for Ignatius (Barnes), would place it later.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Polycarp tells the Philippians that Paul taught among them in person, wrote to them when he was absent, and 'labored' among them (3.2; 11.3). This is an early second-century church memory consistent with Acts 16 and Paul's Letter to the Philippians.", "He attributes to Paul ('as Paul teacheth') the teaching found in 1 Corinthians 6:2 (11.2). He closely parallels 1 Timothy 6:7 and 6:10 (4.1), Ephesians 2:8–9 (1.3) and Ephesians 4:26 (12.1), so the wording of Ephesians was very probably, and that of 1 Timothy probably, known at Smyrna when he wrote.", "Further wording resembles Galatians 4:26 (3.3), Galatians 6:7 (5.1), 1 Corinthians 6:9–10 (5.3), Philippians 2:16 and 2 Timothy 4:10 (9.2), and 1 Timothy 2:1–2 (12.3). These are editorial comparisons of phrasing; they show familiarity with Pauline language, not which letters Polycarp held or how he regarded them.", "He sets 'Paul himself and the rest of the Apostles' beside Ignatius and Philippian believers as examples of endurance, people who suffered with the Lord and are now with him (9.1–2).", "The letter is attested early. Irenaeus commends it by c. 180 (Against Heresies 3.3.4). Eusebius later quotes 9.1–2 and 13.1–2 in Greek, stopping before the request for news of Ignatius, and notes its use of 1 Peter (Church History 3.36.13–15; 4.14.9)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Polycarp names no letter by title and puts no author's name to the 1 Timothy or Ephesians wording. The parallels show that the wording was in use, not that Paul wrote those letters.", "It adds no independent detail about Paul's mission at Philippi or about his death. 9.2 says the apostles suffered and are with the Lord, but not how, when or where Paul died.", "The Greek plural behind 'a letter' in 3.2 does not on its own show that Paul wrote the Philippians more than one letter.", "Chapters 10–12, the close of chapter 13 and chapter 14 survive only in Latin (Eusebius preserves chapter 9 and most of chapter 13 in Greek), so the exact wording there, including the 'are' of 13.2 and the attribution to Paul in 11.2, is uncertain." ], "debate": "Unity and date: 9.1–2 places Ignatius among those now with the Lord, yet 13.2 asks for news of him and those with him. P. N. Harrison therefore split the text into an early covering note (ch. 13, perhaps with 14) and a later letter of about 135 (chs. 1–12). Lightfoot before him, and Hartog since, defend one letter written soon after Ignatius's journey. Some earlier critics instead treated ch. 13 as an interpolation, a view the Ante-Nicene Fathers translators' notice found forceful. Reference: whether the plural in 3.2 means one letter or several. Dependence: whether the Ephesians and 1 Timothy parallels are literary borrowing, and whether Polycarp thought those letters were Paul's.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Two letters (Harrison)", "statement": "P. N. Harrison (1936) read chapter 13 as an early covering note sent with Ignatius's letters while his fate was still unknown; the Latin of 13.2 speaks of those who 'are' with him. He read chapters 1–12 as a later letter of about 135, possibly answering teaching like Marcion's, a link others dispute. Defenders of one letter reply that Polycarp could know of Ignatius's death before learning its circumstances." }, { "label": "What the plural in 3.2 means", "statement": "The Greek plural may mean a single letter, as the Ante-Nicene translators note and as Lightfoot translates. It may reflect more than one letter to Philippi, as some partition theories of canonical Philippians propose. Or it may loosely include Paul's letters to Thessalonica and Corinth, as a bracketed editorial note in that edition suggests; Paul's boasting of the Philippians among the churches (11.3) resembles 2 Thessalonians 1:4." }, { "label": "The wording of 11.3", "statement": "The Latin of 11.3 is obscure. Lightfoot renders it as the Philippians having been Paul's 'letters in the beginning'; the Ante-Nicene translators render it as their being commended at the beginning of his Epistle and compare Philippians 1:5. Either way it recalls Paul's correspondence with Philippi without adding a new fact." }, { "label": "Shared tradition or shared authorship, not citation", "statement": "The 4.1 sayings about love of money and bringing nothing into the world echo moral maxims that were current more widely, so some judge dependence on 1 Timothy probable rather than certain. Hans von Campenhausen (1951) proposed that Polycarp or his circle wrote the Pastoral Epistles; the parallels would then show common origin rather than reception, but most scholars have not adopted this." }, { "label": "Ephesians called Scripture?", "statement": "In 12.1, which survives only in Latin, Polycarp introduces the wording of Psalm 4:4 and of Ephesians 4:26 with the phrase as it is said in these scriptures. Some take this as treating Ephesians as Scripture. Others think Polycarp believed both lines came from the Old Testament, or that a translator's wording cannot bear the inference." }, { "label": "Knowledge of Acts?", "statement": "In 1.2, Polycarp's phrase about God loosing the pangs of Hades closely resembles Acts 2:24, as the Ante-Nicene translators noted. It may reflect knowledge of Acts or a shared early formula about the resurrection, so it is not secure evidence that Acts circulated at Smyrna." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-polycarp-paul" }, { "id": "first-clement-paul", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 70, "dateTo": 140, "corpusReferences": [ "CPG 1001", "Gregory-Aland 02 (Codex Alexandrinus), London, British Library, Royal MS 1 D VIII, 5th century; 1 Clement incomplete (a leaf lost near the end)", "Codex Hierosolymitanus 54 (Jerusalem, Holy Sepulchre collection), dated AD 1056, 1 Clement on fols. 51b-70a; formerly no. 456 in the Holy Sepulchre library at Constantinople (Lightfoot 1890)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "1 Corinthians 1:10-12", "1 Corinthians 3:4-6", "2 Corinthians 11:23-25", "Acts 13:50", "Acts 14:19", "Romans 15:24", "Romans 15:28", "Acts 28:30-31" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.peter", "person.apollos" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.corinth" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 5.6", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "After that he had been seven times in bonds, had been driven into exile, had been stoned, had preached in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown which was the reward of his faith", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 5.7", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 5.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "let us come to those champions who lived very near to our time. Let us set before us the noble examples which belong to our generation.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "1 Clem. 5.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "By reason of jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted, and contended even unto death.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 47.1-3", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle. What wrote he first unto you in the beginning of the Gospel? Of a truth he charged you in the Spirit concerning himself and Cephas and Apollos, because that even then ye had made parties.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 6.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast multitude of the elect, who through many indignities and tortures, being the victims of jealousy, set a brave example among ourselves.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 1.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "By reason of the sudden and repeated calamities and reverses which are befalling us, brethren, we consider that we have been somewhat tardy in giving heed to the matters of dispute that have arisen among you", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Church of Rome (traditionally Clement of Rome)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. inscription (salutation)", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 2", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on 1 Clem. 5 ('the extreme west'), p. 30", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0102clem/apostolicfathers0102clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the Epistle to the Romans (xv. 24) S. Paul had stated his intention of visiting Spain. From the language of Clement here it appears that this intention was fulfilled.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 2", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on 1 Clem. 5 ('the extreme west'), p. 31", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0102clem/apostolicfathers0102clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But it is incredible that a writer living in the metropolis and centre of power and civilization could speak of it as ‘the extreme west,’", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 2", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on 1 Clem. 5 ('seven times'), p. 29", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0102clem/apostolicfathers0102clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the imprisonment at Philippi is the only one recorded in the Acts before the date of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. Clement therefore must have derived his more precise information from some other source.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 1", "year": "1890", "locator": "Part I, vol. 1, p. 27", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0101clem/apostolicfathers0101clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the date of this epistle, as determined by internal and external evidence alike, is about A.D. 95 or 96", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 1", "year": "1890", "locator": "Part I, vol. 1, p. 118 (Alexandrian MS)", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0101clem/apostolicfathers0101clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In addition to this, a leaf is wanting towards the close of the First Epistle, between fol. 167 and fol. 168,", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome, vol. 1", "year": "1890", "locator": "Part I, vol. 1, p. 122 (Constantinople MS)", "url": "https://archive.org/stream/apostolicfathers0101clem/apostolicfathers0101clem_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The date A.M. 6564 is here given according to the Byzantine reckoning, and corresponds to A.D. 1056, which is therefore the date of the completion of the ms.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus of Lyons", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "AH 3.3.3", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the time of this Clement, no small dissension having occurred among the brethren at Corinth, the Church in Rome dispatched a most powerful letter to the Corinthians, exhorting them to peace, renewing their faith, and declaring the tradition which it had lately received from the apostles", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.16", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There is extant an epistle of this Clement which is acknowledged to be genuine and is of considerable length and of remarkable merit. He wrote it in the name of the church of Rome to the church of Corinth, when a sedition had arisen in the latter church.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea, quoting Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170)", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 4.23.11", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Today we have passed the Lord's holy day, in which we have read your epistle. From it, whenever we read it, we shall always be able to draw advice, as also from the former epistle, which was written to us through Clement.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.25.5", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea, quoting Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170)", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.25.8", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-prescription-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "The Prescription against Heretics", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Praescr. 36", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Muratorian Fragment (Canon Muratorianus)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "year": "1886", "locator": "§2 in ANF numbering (on Acts)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "by the omission of the passion of Peter, and also of the journey of Paul, when he went from the city — Rome — to Spain.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 15.44", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D15%3Achapter%3D44", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste: GA 02 (Codex Alexandrinus)", "locator": "docID 20002 (GA 02; London, British Library, Royal 1 D.VIII; 5th century)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20002&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "author": "Wikidata", "work": "First Epistle of Clement", "locator": "Q10993949 (P7988 Clavis Patrum Graecorum ID 1001)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q10993949.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "author": "Wikidata", "work": "Codex Hierosolymitanus", "locator": "Q2724904 (inventory Codex Hierosolymitanus 54; inception 1056)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q2724904.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part I: S. Clement of Rome (2 vols., 2nd ed.)", "year": "1890", "view": "Dated the letter about AD 95 or 96. Read 'the extreme west' as Spain, which implies Paul was released after the Roman custody of Acts. Held that the seven imprisonments must come from information beyond Acts. Rejected identifying the author with the Clement of Philippians 4:3." }, { "author": "Oxford Society of Historical Theology (committee)", "work": "The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers", "year": "1905", "view": "Judged it beyond doubt that 1 Clement 47 refers to 1 Corinthians, citing the references to Cephas and Apollos and actual quotations from the letter." }, { "author": "George Edmundson", "work": "The Church in Rome in the First Century", "year": "1913", "view": "Dated the letter to the beginning of AD 70, reading the calamities of 1.1 as the troubles of AD 69. Took Clement as a contemporary witness that Paul travelled to the far West after his acquittal." }, { "author": "John A. T. Robinson", "work": "Redating the New Testament", "year": "1976", "view": "Followed Edmundson in placing 1 Clement around AD 70, before the fall of the temple." }, { "author": "Andreas Lindemann", "work": "Paulus im ältesten Christentum", "year": "1979", "view": "Treats 1 Clement as a key early witness to how Paul and his letters, especially 1 Corinthians, were received and used as authority." }, { "author": "L. L. Welborn", "work": "On the Date of First Clement (Biblical Research 29)", "year": "1984", "view": "Argued that the 'calamities' of 1.1 do not show a Domitianic persecution, so the conventional 95-96 date lacks a firm anchor and the letter can be placed only within a broader window." }, { "author": "L. L. Welborn", "work": "Clement, First Epistle of (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 1)", "year": "1992", "view": "Treats the delay formula of 1.1 as a convention of letters on concord and, from internal evidence and second-century references, places the letter between AD 80 and 140." }, { "author": "Odd Magne Bakke", "work": "'Concord and Peace': A Rhetorical Analysis of the First Letter of Clement", "year": "2001", "view": "Reads the letter as deliberative rhetoric urging concord at Corinth. Its examples, including Peter and Paul, serve that argument." }, { "author": "Andrew F. Gregory", "work": "1 Clement and the Writings that Later Formed the New Testament, in The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers (ed. Gregory and Tuckett)", "year": "2005", "view": "Judges 1 Clement's use of 1 Corinthians secure and assesses its possible use of other New Testament writings case by case." }, { "author": "Thomas J. Herron", "work": "Clement and the Early Church of Rome: On the Dating of Clement's First Epistle to the Corinthians", "year": "2008", "view": "Argues for a date around AD 70, before the temple's destruction." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q10993949", "label": "First Epistle of Clement" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q42887", "label": "Clement of Rome (traditional author)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2724904", "label": "Codex Hierosolymitanus" } ], "title": "First Clement on Paul's death and his letter to Corinth", "summary": "On its usual dating (c. AD 95–97), First Clement, sent by the church at Rome to the church at Corinth, is the earliest text outside the New Testament to report the end of Paul's life, after imprisonments, exile, stoning and testimony before rulers. It is also the earliest to send readers back to his letter on Corinthian factions (1 Corinthians). It does not say where, when or how he died.", "dating": "Usually c. AD 95–97, late in Domitian's reign or just after it (Lightfoot: about AD 95 or 96). Proposals run from c. AD 70 (Edmundson, Robinson, Herron) to as late as c. 140 (Welborn's outer limit). The oldest surviving copy is in Codex Alexandrinus (5th century).", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "A letter sent in the name of the church at Rome presents Peter and Paul as 'champions' of its own generation who were persecuted and 'contended even unto death' (1 Clem. 5.1–7). On the usual dating, the Roman church a generation later treated Paul's death as known recent history.", "It summarizes Paul's career and its end: seven times in bonds, driven into exile, stoned, preaching in east and west, reaching 'the farthest bounds of the West', bearing testimony 'before the rulers', and then departing from the world 'unto the holy place' (1 Clem. 5.6–7).", "It tells the Corinthians to 'take up the epistle of the blessed Paul' and recalls his rebuke of the parties formed around himself, Cephas and Apollos (1 Clem. 47.1–3). This matches 1 Corinthians 1:10–12 (compare 1 Corinthians 3:4–6) and shows that Rome knew the letter and assumed Corinth still had it.", "Its hardship list agrees with Paul's own catalogue and with Acts on the stoning (2 Corinthians 11:25; Acts 14:19), on repeated imprisonments (2 Corinthians 11:23), and on expulsions like the one in Acts 13:50. Its count of seven imprisonments is more than Acts narrates, so the list is not simply a digest of Acts." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It names no place, date, emperor or manner of death. Rome is inferred from 6.1; Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170, in Eusebius, Church History 2.25.8) links Peter and Paul with Rome and says they taught in Italy and were martyred at the same time. Beheading is implied by Tertullian (c. 200), and Eusebius places it at Rome under Nero.", "'The farthest bounds of the West' does not by itself prove a mission to Spain or a release after Acts 28. Many read Spain (compare Romans 15:24, 28), and the Muratorian Fragment later speaks of Paul going from Rome to Spain (its date is debated). Others read Rome or rhetorical universality, and the phrase may derive from Romans 15 rather than independent knowledge.", "The letter does not name its author or give its own date. The attribution to Clement and the c. 95–97 date rest on second-century testimony (Dionysius of Corinth, Hegesippus, Irenaeus) and on inference from the text." ], "debate": "Three questions are live. Date: most scholars place the letter c. 95–97, reading the 'sudden and repeated calamities' (1.1) against Domitian's reign. Edmundson, Robinson and Herron argue for c. 70, and Welborn for a looser window of AD 80–140. Geography: Lightfoot held that 'the farthest bounds of the West' must mean Spain, which implies Paul was released after Acts 28. Others read Rome, rhetorical universality, or an echo of Romans 15:24. Detail: does 'seven times in bonds' preserve independent tradition or a conventional number? And does 'borne his testimony' already mean martyrdom, or only witness at a trial? Many also link the 'vast multitude' of victims in 6.1 with the Neronian persecution Tacitus describes (Annals 15.44), though the letter names no emperor.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Early date (c. AD 70)", "statement": "Edmundson (1913) argued that the calamities of 1.1 fit the upheavals of AD 69 and that the letter was written at the beginning of AD 70. Robinson (1976) and Herron (2008) also defend a date around 70. On this view the witness comes within a few years of Paul's death." }, { "label": "Looser or later window", "statement": "Welborn (1984; 1992) argued that 1.1 need not refer to a persecution under Domitian, so the traditional date has no firm anchor. On this view the letter could fall anywhere between about AD 80 and 140, so its distance from Paul's death is uncertain." }, { "label": "'Bounds of the West' as Rome or rhetoric", "statement": "Some hold that Paul died at the end of the Roman custody in Acts 28. They read the phrase as Rome, the western limit of his own work, or as a rhetorical pair with 'the whole world'. Lightfoot listed such readings and rejected them, because a writer in Rome would hardly call Rome 'the extreme west'." }, { "label": "Seven as a conventional number", "statement": "The figure of seven imprisonments may be a rounded or symbolic number in an exemplary hardship list written to urge concord, not a count drawn from records." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-first-clement-paul" }, { "id": "second-peter-pauls-letters", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 60, "dateTo": 150, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland P72 (P. Bodmer VIII, Vatican Library; 2 Peter 3:11-18 on pp. 35-36)" ], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "2 Peter 3:15-16", "2 Peter 3:1", "2 Peter 1:14", "Colossians 4:16", "1 Thessalonians 5:27", "Galatians 2:9", "Galatians 2:11-14", "Acts 15:7-11", "1 Corinthians 6:2" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.peter" ], "placeIds": [], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History, Book III", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.3.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But we have learned that his extant second Epistle does not belong to the canon; yet, as it has appeared profitable to many, it has been used with the other Scriptures.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History, Book III", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.25.3", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Among the disputed writings, which are nevertheless recognized by many, are extant the so-called epistle of James and that of Jude, also the second epistle of Peter", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea (quoting Origen, Commentary on John, Book 5)", "work": "Church History, Book VI", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 6.25.8", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "has left one acknowledged epistle; perhaps also a second, but this is doubtful.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Ephesians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1891", "locator": "Eph. 12.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-ephesians-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Ye are associates in the mysteries with Paul, who was sanctified, who obtained a good report, who is worthy of all felicitation; in whose foot-steps I would fain be found treading, when I shall attain unto God; who in every letter maketh mention of you in Christ Jesus.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Epistle to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 3.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the blessed and glorious Paul, who when he came among you taught face to face with the men of that day the word which concerneth truth carefully and surely; who also, when he was absent, wrote a letter unto you", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Epistle to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "locator": "Phil. 11.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "as Paul teacheth?", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Clement of Rome (the church at Rome to the church at Corinth)", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1890", "locator": "1 Clem. 47.1-2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/lightfoot/pt1vol2/translation1.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Take up the epistle of the blessed Paul the Apostle. What wrote he first unto you in the beginning of the Gospel?", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, Münster", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (NTVMR), P72", "locator": "docID 10072 (P72; P. Bodmer VIII, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana: 1 Pet 1:1-5:14, 2 Pet 1:1-3:18; P. Bodmer VII, Bibliotheca Bodmeriana: Jude); date III/IV (200-399)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10072&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung, Münster", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (NTVMR), P46", "locator": "docID 10046 (P46; Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, CBL BP II, and Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Library, Inv. 6238; date III (A), 200-225)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata entity: Second Epistle of Peter", "locator": "Q131178", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q131178.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata entity: Papyrus 72", "locator": "Q673569", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q673569.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Michael J. Kruger", "work": "\"The Authenticity of 2 Peter,\" Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42/4", "year": "1999", "view": "Argues that the case for pseudonymity is too incomplete to justify the scholarly consensus. On his reading, Paul's letters in 3:16 need mean only the letters known to Peter at the time, and the affectionate yet self-deprecating way Paul is described fits Peter better than a pseudepigrapher." }, { "author": "Richard J. Bauckham", "work": "Jude, 2 Peter (Word Biblical Commentary 50)", "year": "1983", "view": "Treats 2 Peter as pseudepigraphal but holds that the device was not a fraudulent claim to apostolic authority; it claimed to pass on the apostolic message faithfully. He also regards evidence that the Apocalypse of Peter used 2 Peter as ruling out a late date. (View as quoted in Kruger 1999.)" }, { "author": "J. N. D. Kelly", "work": "A Commentary on the Epistles of Peter and of Jude", "year": "1969", "view": "Regards 2 Peter as pseudonymous and describes that verdict as almost universally held in his day. (As quoted in Kruger 1999.)" }, { "author": "Jörg Frey, Matthijs den Dulk and Jan van der Watt (eds.)", "work": "2 Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter: Towards a New Perspective", "year": "2019", "view": "Frey's lectures argue that 2 Peter depends literarily on the Apocalypse of Peter and read the letter within second-century Christianity. Respondents, including Richard Bauckham, assess the proposal." }, { "author": "Harry Y. Gamble", "work": "The New Testament Canon: Its Making and Meaning", "year": "1985", "view": "States that Hippolytus is the first writer to show any knowledge of 2 Peter (as quoted by Kruger 1999)." }, { "author": "David Trobisch", "work": "Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins", "year": "1994", "view": "Bibliography-only further reading: the publisher's description says the book uses textual criticism to trace the growth of the Pauline corpus and suggests that Paul himself played a major role in publishing the first collection of his letters. The argument was not checked against the book." }, { "author": "Benjamin P. Laird", "work": "The Pauline Corpus in Early Christianity: Its Formation, Publication, and Circulation", "year": "2022", "view": "Argues that at least three archetypal editions of Paul's letters (10, 13 and 14 letters) were collected and edited as early as the first century. They circulated side by side until 14-letter editions became nearly universal by the fourth century." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q131178", "label": "Second Epistle of Peter" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q673569", "label": "Papyrus 72" } ], "title": "2 Peter 3:15-16: an early reference to Paul's letters as a group", "summary": "In 2 Peter 3:15-16 the writer, speaking as Peter, calls Paul a dear brother, refers to Paul's letters as a body his readers already know, and implicitly ranks them with scripture. It is among the earliest witnesses to several of Paul's letters being known together, though it names none of them, and its weight depends on a disputed date: mid-60s if Peter wrote it, later if pseudonymous.", "dating": "Debated: mid-60s AD if written by Peter; late first to second century if pseudonymous (the upper bound of 150 is a round figure for second-century proposals). Earliest manuscript P72 (3rd/4th century); first named, with doubts, by Origen (3rd century, quoted by Eusebius).", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "2 Peter 3:15-16 refers to Paul's letters in the plural, as a body its readers already know, and not only to a letter sent to them. This assumes that copies of several of Paul's letters had travelled beyond their first recipients; Paul's own instructions that letters be read to all the believers and passed to a neighbouring church (1 Thessalonians 5:27; Colossians 4:16) make such circulation plausible.", "The passage implicitly classes Paul's letters with the scriptures; most readers take the phrase that way, though a minority reads it as other writings generally. It says that some things in them are difficult and that untaught, unstable readers distort them, so the interpretation of Paul was already contested when it was written.", "It is one of several early witnesses to Paul's letters being read beyond their first destinations. 1 Clement 47 points Corinth back to 1 Corinthians. Polycarp (Philippians 3.2; 11.2) knows that Paul wrote to Philippi and attributes to him a teaching found in 1 Corinthians 6:2. Ignatius (Ephesians 12.2) says Paul mentions the Ephesians in every letter, a hyperbole implying he knew several.", "The earliest surviving manuscript of the passage is P72 (P. Bodmer VIII, now in the Vatican Library), dated by the INTF to the 3rd or 4th century; its pages 35-36 cover 2 Peter 3:11-18. For comparison, P46 (INTF date c. 200-225), an early codex of Paul's letters and Hebrews, does not contain 2 Peter." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not say which or how many of Paul's letters the writer knew. It is therefore not evidence of an edited collection, of a fixed thirteen- or fourteen-letter corpus, or of a closed canon.", "It does not settle its own authorship or date. If 2 Peter is pseudonymous, the passage shows how a later writer presented Peter's view of Paul, not Peter's own words.", "It says nothing about Paul's travels and gives no independent corroboration of Acts' itinerary or chronology." ], "debate": "Most critical scholars regard 2 Peter as pseudonymous. They point to its style and vocabulary, which differ from 1 Peter's; its close parallels with Jude; its slow and doubtful early reception (Origen's hesitation, and Eusebius placing it among the disputed books); and this very reference to Paul's letters as a group ranked with scripture. Defenders of Petrine authorship reply that the plural need mean only the letters the writer knew, and that the warm but candid tone suits Peter. A further dispute is whether 2 Peter used the Apocalypse of Peter or was used by it.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Petrine, mid-60s", "statement": "Peter, perhaps using a secretary, wrote shortly before his death under Nero. The passage would then show Paul's letters being copied and read across churches within a few years of their writing, and an apostle who had once clashed with Paul (Galatians 2:11-14), but had also endorsed the Gentile mission (Galatians 2:9; Acts 15:7-11), commending him." }, { "label": "Pseudonymous, post-apostolic", "statement": "A later writer used Peter's name, presenting the letter as Peter's second and as a farewell testament (2 Peter 3:1; 2 Peter 1:14). The passage then attests several of Paul's letters with authoritative standing in the generation after the apostles, together with a remembered picture of Peter and Paul in agreement." }, { "label": "Second-century, after the Apocalypse of Peter", "statement": "Jörg Frey argues that 2 Peter depends on the Apocalypse of Peter. That would place the letter well into the second century, so it would witness to how Paul's letters were treated in that period rather than in the apostolic age." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-second-peter-pauls-letters" }, { "id": "ignatius-paul", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 105, "dateTo": 150, "corpusReferences": [ "CPG 1025.1 (Ignatius, Ad Ephesios)" ], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 9:15", "Acts 10:41", "Acts 19:1-41", "Acts 20:17-38", "Acts 28:14-31", "Romans 1:7-15", "1 Corinthians 1:18-20", "1 Corinthians 4:13", "1 Corinthians 6:9-10", "1 Corinthians 15:8-9", "1 Corinthians 15:32", "1 Corinthians 16:8", "Ephesians 1:1", "1 Timothy 1:3", "2 Timothy 1:18", "2 Timothy 4:12" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.peter" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus", "place.rome", "place.antioch", "place.syria" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Ephesians", "locator": "Ign. Eph. 12.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-ephesians-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Ye are associates in the mysteries with Paul, who was sanctified, who obtained a good report, who is worthy of all felicitation; in whose foot-steps I would fain be found treading, when I shall attain unto God; who in every letter maketh mention of you in Christ Jesus.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer", "year": "1891" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Romans", "locator": "Ign. Rom. 4.3", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-romans-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I do not enjoin you, as Peter and Paul did. They were Apostles, I am a convict; they were free, but I am a slave to this very hour.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer", "year": "1891" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Romans", "locator": "Ign. Rom. 9.2 (echo of 1 Cor 15:8-9)", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-romans-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But for myself I am ashamed to be called one of them; for neither am I worthy, being the very last of them and an untimely birth: but I have found mercy that I should be some one, if so be I shall attain unto God.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer", "year": "1891" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Ephesians", "locator": "Ign. Eph. 18.1 (echo of 1 Cor 1:18-20; 4:13)", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-ephesians-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "My spirit is made an offscouring for the Cross, which is a stumbling-block to them that are unbelievers, but to us salvation and life eternal.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer", "year": "1891" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-lightfoot", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Smyrnaeans", "locator": "Ign. Smyrn. 3.3", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/ignatius-smyrnaeans-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And after His resurrection He [both] ate with them and drank with them as one in the flesh", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer", "year": "1891" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-anf", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch", "work": "Epistle to the Ephesians, shorter (middle) recension, ANF 1", "locator": "Ign. Eph. 12 (shorter version)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.xii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Ye are initiated into the mysteries of the Gospel with Paul, the holy, the martyred, the deservedly most happy, at whose feet", "role": "edition", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-anf", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch (long recension, 4th-century revision)", "work": "Epistle to the Ephesians, longer recension, ANF 1", "locator": "Ign. Eph. 12 (longer version)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.ii.xii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "with Paul, the holy, the martyred, inasmuch as he was “a chosen vessel;”", "role": "edition", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-anf", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch (Syriac abridgment)", "work": "Epistle to the Romans, Syriac version, ANF 1", "locator": "Ign. Rom. 4 (Syriac version)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.xii.iv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I do not, like Peter and Paul, issue orders unto you.", "role": "edition", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-anf", "author": "Ignatius of Antioch (long recension, 4th-century revision)", "work": "Epistle to the Romans, longer recension, ANF 1", "locator": "Ign. Rom. 4 (longer version)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.v.iv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "They were apostles of Jesus Christ, but I am the very least [of believers]:", "role": "edition", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "ignatius-anf", "author": "ANF editors (A. Roberts, J. Donaldson; A. C. Coxe)", "work": "Introductory Note to the Epistles of Ignatius, ANF 1", "locator": "ANF 1, Introductory Note to the Epistles of Ignatius", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.v.i.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Of the seven Epistles which are acknowledged by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iii. 36), we possess two Greek recensions, a shorter and a longer. It is plain that one or other of these exhibits a corrupt text", "role": "early-study", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Ecclesiastical History", "locator": "HE 3.36.10", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And when he had left Smyrna he wrote again from Troas to the Philadelphians and to the church of Smyrna; and particularly to Polycarp, who presided over the latter church.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp of Smyrna", "work": "Epistle to the Philippians", "locator": "Pol. Phil. 13.2", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The letters of Ignatius which were sent to us by him, and others as many as we had by us, we send unto you, according as ye gave charge; the which are subjoined to this letter; from which ye will be able to gain great advantage.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus of Lyons", "work": "Against Heresies", "locator": "Haer. 5.28.4 (quoting Ign. Rom. 4.1)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103528.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "As a certain man of ours said, when he was condemned to the wild beasts because of his testimony with respect to God: I am the wheat of Christ, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God.", "role": "primary-text", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians", "locator": "Q65051525 (P7988 CPG 1025.1)", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q65051525.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Letters of Ignatius", "locator": "Q350126", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q350126.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Theodor Zahn", "work": "Ignatius von Antiochien", "year": "1873", "view": "Defended the authenticity of the seven letters in the middle recension. Schoedel credits Zahn and Lightfoot as the basis of today's majority view." }, { "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "The Apostolic Fathers, Part II: S. Ignatius, S. Polycarp", "year": "1885 (2nd ed. 1889)", "view": "Defended the middle recension as Ignatius's genuine letters, treating the long recension as a later expansion and the Syriac as an abridgment. The 1891 Lightfoot-Harmer translation quoted here derives from this edition." }, { "author": "William Cureton", "work": "The Ancient Syriac Version of the Epistles of St. Ignatius to Polycarp, the Ephesians, and the Romans", "year": "1845", "view": "Argued that the three abridged Syriac letters come closest to what Ignatius actually wrote. Later scholarship has largely rejected this." }, { "author": "Robert Joly", "work": "Le dossier d'Ignace d'Antioche", "year": "1979", "view": "Disputes the authenticity of the seven letters, treating them as a later composition. This is the main modern minority position, and Schoedel cites it." }, { "author": "William R. Schoedel", "work": "Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia)", "year": "1985", "view": "Standard critical commentary. It accepts the middle recension as Ignatius's own work and reads it against his journey under guard from Syria to Rome." }, { "author": "William R. Schoedel", "work": "\"Ignatius, Epistles of,\" Anchor Bible Dictionary, vol. 3", "year": "1992", "view": "The middle recension is generally accepted as authentic. The long recension is a fourth-century revision with added spurious letters, and the Syriac 'short recension' is only an abridgment. The letters fit the second half of Trajan's reign or a little later." }, { "author": "Paul Foster", "work": "\"The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch and the Writings that later formed the New Testament,\" in A. F. Gregory and C. M. Tuckett (eds.), The Reception of the New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers", "year": "2005", "view": "Assesses, writing by writing, which texts later in the New Testament Ignatius knew." }, { "author": "Timothy D. Barnes", "work": "The Date of Ignatius (The Expository Times 120)", "year": "2008", "view": "Argues that Ignatius knew the writings of the Gnostic teacher Ptolemaeus and that the letters were probably written in the 140s, treating Eusebius's placement of Ignatius under Trajan as not authoritative." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q44170", "label": "Ignatius of Antioch" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q350126", "label": "Letters of Ignatius" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q65051525", "label": "Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q7811305", "label": "Epistle of Ignatius to the Romans" } ], "title": "Ignatius of Antioch's letters on Paul", "summary": "Ignatius of Antioch's letters, conventionally dated c. AD 110 and written under guard on the way to Rome, show Paul honoured early as apostle and letter-writer but add no new facts about his career. In Ign. Eph. 12.2 he calls the Ephesians Paul's fellow initiates, whom Paul mentions \"in every letter\". In Ign. Rom. 4.3 he contrasts Peter and Paul, apostles who could command, with himself, a condemned man.", "dating": "Conventionally c. AD 105-117 (late in Trajan's reign) or somewhat later; Barnes (2008) argues for the 140s. dateFrom and dateTo cover the authentic-letter view only; the forgery hypothesis would place the letters later in the second century.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "In the middle recension, which most scholars accept, Ignatius calls Paul sanctified and \"worthy of all felicitation\", hopes to be found in his footsteps, and says Paul mentions the Ephesians \"in every letter\" (Ign. Eph. 12.2). A Syrian bishop thus already knew Paul as a letter-writer closely tied to Ephesus, and on the usual reading as the author of several letters.", "Ign. Rom. 4.3 names Peter and Paul together as apostles who could give the Roman church commands, which Ignatius, a condemned prisoner, declines to do. The passage is in all three surviving forms of the text: the Syriac abridgment, the middle recension and the long recension.", "Ignatius reuses wording from 1 Corinthians. Eph. 18.1 echoes 1 Cor 1:18-20 and 4:13; Rom. 9.2, where he calls himself \"the very last\" and \"an untimely birth\", echoes 1 Cor 15:8-9; Eph. 16.1 and Phld. 3.3 echo 1 Cor 6:9-10. Taken together, these make 1 Corinthians the clearest case of a Pauline letter he knew.", "The letters themselves are attested early and from outside. Polycarp (Phil. 13.2) speaks of collecting and forwarding Ignatius's letters. Irenaeus (Haer. 5.28.4) quotes Ign. Rom. 4.1 without naming him, and Eusebius (HE 3.36.12) attributes the quotation to Ignatius. Eusebius names the seven letters that make up the middle recension across HE 3.36.5-10." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It is not an independent check on Acts. Ignatius never clearly cites Acts. The nearest parallel, Smyrn. 3.3 with Acts 10:41, may come from shared tradition and does not show he read Acts. The \"chosen vessel\" phrase (Acts 9:15) enters Eph. 12 only in the fourth-century long recension. His picture of Paul's tie to Ephesus is not a separate witness to Acts 19-20.", "\"In every letter\" cannot be taken literally, because Ephesus is named in only some letters attributed to Paul (for example 1 Corinthians 15:32; 16:8; 1 Timothy 1:3; 2 Timothy 1:18; 4:12). The phrase does not show how many Pauline letters, or which ones, Ignatius had, and it does not settle whether Ephesians 1:1 originally named Ephesus.", "Rom. 4.3 does not say that Peter and Paul died in Rome, founded the Roman church, or what commands they gave; those are later inferences and traditions. In Eph. 12.2 the word Lightfoot translates \"who obtained a good report\" is \"the martyred\" in Roberts-Donaldson, so it is not secure evidence for Paul's martyrdom." ], "debate": "Most scholars, following Zahn and Lightfoot, accept the seven-letter middle recension as genuine and date it late in Trajan's reign or somewhat later; Barnes argues for the 140s. A minority, notably Joly, treat the letters as a later forgery. On Eph. 12.2, readers ask whether \"in every letter\" is exaggeration, means \"throughout a letter\", or reflects a known collection of Paul's letters; whether the word describing Paul means \"well attested\" or \"martyred\"; and how many letters besides 1 Corinthians Ignatius actually used.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Later forgery", "statement": "The seven letters are a pseudonymous work of the later second century (Joly 1979 is the best-known statement). On this view Eph. 12.2 and Rom. 4.3 still show how Paul was remembered in the second century, but they are no longer a witness from within a generation or two of his death." }, { "label": "Exaggeration and limited knowledge", "statement": "\"In every letter\" is rhetorical exaggeration, and Ignatius may have known little more than 1 Corinthians. Some of the Pauline-sounding phrases could come from spoken church tradition rather than from reading written letters." }, { "label": "Syriac short form as the original", "statement": "Cureton (1845) argued that only the three abridged Syriac letters are genuine. The Syriac Ephesians has no chapter 12, so on his view the \"in every letter\" passage would not be Ignatius's own words. Most later scholarship treats the Syriac as an abridgment of the middle recension." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-ignatius-paul" }, { "id": "muratorian-fragment", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 170, "dateTo": 400, "corpusReferences": [ "CLA III 352" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 1:1-2", "Colossians 4:14", "Colossians 4:16", "Romans 15:24-28", "1 Corinthians 1:10-12", "Galatians 5:2-6", "1 Timothy 1:1-2", "2 Timothy 1:1-2", "Titus 1:1-4", "Philemon 1:1-3" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.luke", "person.timothy", "person.titus", "person.philemon", "person.peter" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.spain", "place.corinth", "place.ephesus", "place.philippi", "place.colossae", "place.galatia", "place.thessalonica" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "work": "Canon Muratorianus, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (printed among the Fragments of Caius)", "year": "1886", "locator": "Canon Muratorianus 3, on Philemon, Titus and Timothy (ANF 5:603)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He wrote, besides these, one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy, in simple personal affection and love indeed; but yet these are hallowed in the esteem of the Catholic Church, and in the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "work": "Canon Muratorianus, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (printed among the Fragments of Caius)", "year": "1886", "locator": "Canon Muratorianus 3, on Laodiceans and Alexandrians (ANF 5:603)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There are also in circulation one to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, forged under the name of Paul, and addressed against the heresy of Marcion; and there are also several others which cannot be received into the Catholic Church", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "work": "Canon Muratorianus, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (printed among the Fragments of Caius)", "year": "1886", "locator": "Canon Muratorianus 2, on Acts and Theophilus (ANF 5:603)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Moreover, the Acts of all the Apostles are comprised by Luke in one book, and addressed to the most excellent Theophilus, because these different events took place when he was present himself", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "work": "Canon Muratorianus, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (printed among the Fragments of Caius)", "year": "1886", "locator": "Canon Muratorianus 2, on Peter's passion and Paul's journey to Spain (ANF 5:603)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "by the omission of the passion of Peter, and also of the journey of Paul, when he went from the city—Rome—to Spain.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "Anonymous (Muratorian Fragment)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "work": "Canon Muratorianus, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5 (printed among the Fragments of Caius)", "year": "1886", "locator": "Canon Muratorianus 4 (ANF 5:604)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/caius/fragments/anf05.v.iii.iii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Pastor, moreover, did Hermas write very recently in our times in the city of Rome, while his brother bishop Pius sat in the chair of the Church of Rome.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "author": "ANF vol. 5 editors (editorial headnote)", "work": "Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 5, note to 'Canon Muratorianus'", "year": "1886", "locator": "ANF 5:603, headnote (CCEL note 4977)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/caius/fragments/anf05.v.iii.iii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "was discovered by Muratori in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, and published by him in his Antiquitates Italicæ in 1740. This manuscript belongs to the seventh or eighth century.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "work": "Against Marcion, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "work": "Against Marcion, in Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.17", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title (of Laodicean), as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Muratorian fragment", "locator": "Q692665", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q692665.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Albert C. Sundberg Jr.", "work": "Canon Muratori: A Fourth Century List (Harvard Theological Review 66)", "year": "1973", "view": "Dates the list to the 4th century and places its origin in the East rather than Rome." }, { "author": "Everett Ferguson", "work": "Canon Muratori: Date and Provenance (Studia Patristica 17)", "year": "1982", "view": "Answers Sundberg. Argues that the absence of Hebrews, the 2nd-century heresies named and other features point to a western, late-2nd-century setting." }, { "author": "Geoffrey Mark Hahneman", "work": "The Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon", "year": "1992", "view": "Builds out Sundberg's case and dates the list c. 375, with a Syrian or Palestinian provenance." }, { "author": "Charles E. Hill", "work": "The Debate over the Muratorian Fragment and the Development of the Canon (Westminster Theological Journal 57)", "year": "1995", "view": "Rebuts Hahneman's reasons for setting aside the fragment's own claim about Hermas and Pius, and favours the earlier date." }, { "author": "Joseph Verheyden", "work": "The Canon Muratori: A Matter of Dispute (in The Biblical Canons, BETL 163)", "year": "2003", "view": "Finds none of the Sundberg-Hahneman arguments for a 4th-century eastern origin convincing. Places the author in the West at the end of the 2nd or beginning of the 3rd century." }, { "author": "Lee Martin McDonald", "work": "The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority", "year": "2007", "view": "Leans toward Sundberg and Hahneman and favours a date after the mid-4th century in the East, while cautioning that this cannot be insisted on." }, { "author": "Eckhard J. Schnabel", "work": "The Muratorian Fragment: The State of Research (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 57)", "year": "2014", "view": "Surveys the research, judges the case for a 4th-century date unconvincing, and treats the fragment as written c. 200." }, { "author": "Clare K. Rothschild", "work": "The Muratorian Fragment as Roman Fake (Novum Testamentum 60)", "year": "2018", "view": "Argues that the fragment is a late-antique forgery made to look as if it came from the 2nd century." }, { "author": "Christophe Guignard", "work": "The Muratorian Fragment as a Late Antique Fake? An Answer to C. K. Rothschild (Revue des sciences religieuses 93)", "year": "2019", "view": "Rejects the forgery thesis. Holds that the fragment most likely dates from the second half of the 2nd century, or at the latest the early 3rd." }, { "author": "Johann Peter Kirsch", "work": "Muratorian Canon, The Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 10", "year": "1911", "view": "Says the codex came from Bobbio and is now in the Ambrosiana (Cod. J 101 sup.), dates it to the 8th century, places the text at Rome c. 180-200, probably translated from Greek, and notes that a few sentences survive in Monte Cassino codices of Paul's letters." }, { "author": "E. A. Lowe", "work": "Codices Latini Antiquiores, Part III: Italy, Ancona-Novara", "year": "1938", "view": "Catalogues the Milan codex as CLA III 352: a mid-8th-century uncial, probably written at Bobbio." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q692665", "label": "Muratorian fragment" } ], "title": "The Muratorian Fragment's list of Paul's letters", "summary": "The Muratorian Fragment, a Latin list of New Testament books usually dated c. 170-200 (some argue for the 4th century), receives thirteen letters of Paul, including Philemon, Titus and two to Timothy, and rejects letters \"to the Laodiceans\" and \"to the Alexandrians\" as forgeries. It survives complete only in a mid-8th-century manuscript in Milan. It shows how Paul's letters were received, not who wrote them.", "dating": "Text probably composed in the late 2nd century (c. 170-200, or at the latest the early 3rd). A minority date it to the 4th century, and one recent argument makes it a late-antique fake. dateTo 400 covers the 4th-century view but not the forgery thesis. The only full copy is mid-8th century (Lowe, CLA III 352: 'VIII med').", "currentLocation": "Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan (I 101 sup., also cited as J 101 sup.)", "establishes": [ "The surviving text receives thirteen letters under Paul's name. There are letters to seven churches (Corinthians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians, Romans), with a second letter each to the Corinthians and the Thessalonians, plus one to Philemon, one to Titus and two to Timothy. The fragment implies this count but never states it, and it does not mention Hebrews.", "It describes the letters to Philemon, Titus and Timothy as personal letters that the Catholic (that is, universal) Church nevertheless holds sacred and uses for church discipline. It rejects letters \"to the Laodiceans\" and \"to the Alexandrians\" as forged under Paul's name in connection with Marcion's heresy. Its author therefore drew a line between received Pauline letters and pseudonymous ones.", "It assigns \"the Acts of all the Apostles\" to Luke, the physician whom Paul took as his companion, and says the book is addressed to Theophilus. It explains why Acts says nothing of Peter's death or of Paul's journey from Rome to Spain: Luke, it claims, recorded only what he himself witnessed.", "The only full copy is an 8th-century Latin uncial codex from the Bobbio library, now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan. Lowe's CLA judges it mid-8th-century and probably written at Bobbio. Muratori published it in 1740 (ANF headnote). A few sentences also survive in Monte Cassino manuscripts of Paul's letters." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It shows which letters its author and his community received as Paul's, at the list's debated date and place. It does not by itself settle who wrote the Pastoral letters or any other disputed letter.", "Its statement that Paul went from Rome to Spain reports a belief its writer held, used to explain how Acts ends. It is not independent evidence that the journey happened.", "It is not a first-century witness, and its date and provenance are contested, so it cannot prove a closed canon by AD 200. Its historical remarks are also schematic: it has Paul following \"his predecessor John\" in writing to seven churches, which is not reliable chronology." ], "debate": "The late-2nd-century date rests mainly on two things: the claim that Hermas wrote the Shepherd \"very recently, in our times\" under Pius, bishop of Rome in the mid-2nd century, and the groups the list rejects (Marcion, Valentinus, the Montanists). Sundberg (1973) and Hahneman (1992) argue for a 4th-century eastern list, and Rothschild (2018) for a late-antique fake. Ferguson, Hill, Verheyden, Schnabel and Guignard reply that a western setting c. 200 fits best. Schnabel's 2014 survey judges most responses to Hahneman critical. The phrase the 1886 ANF translation renders \"addressed against the heresy of Marcion\" is more usually read as forged in support of Marcion's heresy.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Fourth-century eastern list", "statement": "Sundberg and Hahneman read \"very recently, in our times\" loosely and group the text with 4th-century canon catalogues. Hahneman places it c. 375 in Syria or Palestine. On this view the list shows 4th-century reception of the same thirteen Pauline letters, not 2nd-century reception." }, { "label": "Late-antique fake", "statement": "Rothschild argues that the list was composed later and made to look early, so its reference to Pius is a literary device. Guignard replies that Chromatius of Aquileia (d. 407) used the text, and that a Greek original is hard to fit with a late western forgery." }, { "label": "Identity of the rejected letters", "statement": "Some take the rejected \"Laodiceans\" to be Marcion's title for the letter the church called Ephesians (Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.17). Others think of a separate pseudonymous letter, such as the short Latin Epistle to the Laodiceans found in later Latin Bibles. The letter \"to the Alexandrians\" is unknown, and identifying it with Hebrews is speculation." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-muratorian-fragment" }, { "id": "dionysius-gaius-martyrdom", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 165, "dateTo": 326, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "tradition", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 18:1-11", "Acts 22:25-28", "Acts 28:16", "Acts 28:30-31", "1 Corinthians 1:12", "1 Corinthians 3:6-10", "1 Corinthians 4:15", "Romans 1:13", "Romans 15:20-23", "Romans 15:24-28", "Philippians 1:25-26", "Philippians 2:24", "Philemon 1:22", "2 Timothy 4:6-8", "2 Timothy 4:16-18" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.peter", "person.nero" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.corinth", "place.italia", "place.spain" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.25.6-7", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.25.8", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "For both of them planted and likewise taught us in our Corinth. And they taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.25.5", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 2.22.2", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250102.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Thus after he had made his defense it is said that the apostle was sent again upon the ministry of preaching, and that upon coming to the same city a second time he suffered martyrdom.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 4.23.9", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There is extant also another epistle written by Dionysius to the Romans, and addressed to Soter, who was bishop at that time.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius of Caesarea", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 6.20.3", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There has reached us also a dialogue of Caius, a very learned man, which was held at Rome under Zephyrinus, with Proclus, who contended for the Phrygian heresy.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-prescription-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "The Prescription against Heretics", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Praescr. 36, on Peter and Paul", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! Where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's! Where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-prescription-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "The Prescription against Heretics", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Praescr. 36, on the apostle John", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0311.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-prescription-anf", "author": "ANF editors", "work": "The Prescription against Heretics, ANF vol. 3, footnote", "year": "1885", "locator": "Praescr. 36, ANF footnote on 'a death like John's' (CCEL note 2235)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf03.v.iii.xxxvi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Baptist’s.", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "work": "Church History of Eusebius, NPNF2 vol. 1, notes", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on HE 2.22.2 (CCEL footnote 474), opening", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Eusebius is the first writer to record the release of Paul from a first, and his martyrdom during a second Roman imprisonment.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "work": "Church History of Eusebius, NPNF2 vol. 1, notes", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on HE 2.22.2 (CCEL footnote 474), on the second imprisonment", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxiii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Scholars are greatly divided as to the fact of a second imprisonment. Nearly all that defend the genuineness of the Pastoral Epistles assume a second imprisonment", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "work": "Church History of Eusebius, NPNF2 vol. 1, notes", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on HE 2.25.8 (CCEL footnote 555)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxvi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Whatever may be the truth of Dionysius’ report as to Peter’s martyrdom at Rome, he is almost certainly in error in speaking as he does of Peter’s work in Corinth.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "work": "Church History of Eusebius, NPNF2 vol. 1, notes", "year": "1890", "locator": "Note on HE 2.25.8 (CCEL footnote 556)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf201.iii.vii.xxvi.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "allows some margin in time and does not necessarily imply the same day. Dionysius is the first one to connect the deaths of Peter and Paul chronologically, but later it became quite the custom.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-baptism-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "On Baptism", "translator": "S. Thelwall", "year": "1885", "locator": "De bapt. 17", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0321.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul's name, claim Thecla's example as a licence for women's teaching and baptizing, let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "first-clement-lightfoot", "author": "Clement of Rome", "work": "First Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1891", "locator": "1 Clem. 5", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/1clement-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Caius (early 3rd-century Christian author)", "locator": "Q2441699", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q2441699.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "pleiades", "work": "Pleiades place record: Via Ostiensis", "locator": "390205932", "url": "https://pleiades.stoa.org/places/390205932/json", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Brent D. Shaw", "work": "The Myth of the Neronian Persecution (Journal of Roman Studies 105)", "year": "2015", "view": "Disputes the conventional view that a state persecution under Nero after the fire of 64 included the deaths of Peter and Paul. He takes the Tacitus passage to be probably genuine but argues it reflects the ideas of Tacitus's own day." }, { "author": "Christopher P. Jones", "work": "The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw (New Testament Studies 63)", "year": "2017", "view": "Argues that there are no grounds for doubting Tacitus's report of the persecution. He notes that the later sources dating the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul to Nero's reign have no bearing on whether Tacitus is accurate." }, { "author": "Otto Zwierlein", "work": "Petrus in Rom: Die literarischen Zeugnisse", "year": "2009", "view": "Argues that the literary evidence does not show Peter was ever in Rome, martyred or buried there. He treats the Roman Peter tradition, including its pairing of Peter with Paul, as a second-century development." }, { "author": "Oscar Cullmann", "work": "Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr (German original 1952)", "year": "1953", "view": "Judges Peter's journey to Rome and martyrdom there under Nero probable from the literary evidence, but holds that the Vatican excavations do not settle where his grave was." }, { "author": "J. M. C. Toynbee and J. B. Ward-Perkins", "work": "The Shrine of St. Peter and the Vatican Excavations", "year": "1956", "view": "Describe the Vatican excavations and identify the modest mid-second-century shrine under St Peter's with the Vatican 'trophy' Gaius mentions." }, { "author": "Sean McDowell", "work": "The Fate of the Apostles: Examining the Martyrdom Accounts of the Closest Followers of Jesus", "year": "2015", "view": "Assesses the martyrdom traditions apostle by apostle. Finds very good historical reason to think Paul died as a martyr in the mid-to-late 60s, and judges his beheading more probable than not but less certain." }, { "author": "M. R. James", "work": "The Apocryphal New Testament", "year": "1924", "view": "Translates the Martyrdom of Paul from the Acts of Paul, in which Nero orders Paul beheaded." }, { "author": "John Chapman", "work": "St. Dionysius, The Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 5", "year": "1909", "view": "Dates Dionysius of Corinth about 170, because he wrote to Pope Soter, whom it dates c. 168-176 (noting Harnack's 165-67 to 173-5)." }, { "author": "John Chapman", "work": "Tertullian, The Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 14", "year": "1912", "view": "Dates the Prescription against Heretics to about 200." }, { "author": "Francis Joseph Bacchus", "work": "Eusebius of Caesarea, The Catholic Encyclopedia vol. 5", "year": "1909", "view": "Holds that the Church History grew in stages: the ninth book was finished between 312 and 314, and the tenth was completed between the defeat of Licinius in 323 and the disgrace of Crispus in 326." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q679837", "label": "Dionysius of Corinth" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2441699", "label": "Caius (Gaius), early 3rd-century Christian author" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1235854", "label": "Church History (Eusebius)" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q142999", "label": "Eusebius of Caesarea" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q174929", "label": "Tertullian" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "423025", "label": "Roma" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "570182", "label": "Corinthus/Korinthos" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "463398874", "label": "Vaticanus Mons" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "390205932", "label": "Via Ostiensis" } ], "title": "Dionysius, Gaius and Tertullian on Paul's death in Rome", "summary": "Paul's execution in Rome rests on church tradition, not on Acts, which ends before his trial is decided. Dionysius of Corinth (c. 170) says Peter and Paul were martyred about the same time. Gaius of Rome (c. 200) points to the apostles' \"trophies\" on the Vatican and the Ostian Way, and Tertullian (c. 200) implies beheading. The main earlier witness, 1 Clement 5 (usually dated c. 96), names no place. Eusebius (early 4th century) first states a release and second imprisonment outright.", "dating": "Dionysius c. AD 170 (letter to the Roman church under Bishop Soter); Gaius and Tertullian c. AD 200; Eusebius's Church History was compiled in stages and finished in the 320s. The words of Dionysius and Gaius survive only as quotations in Eusebius.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition", "establishes": [ "Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, wrote to the Roman church in Bishop Soter's time (c. AD 170). He said Peter and Paul planted and taught at Corinth, taught together in Italy and were martyred \"at the same time\" (Church History 2.25.8; the letter is dated at 4.23.9). McGiffert notes that the Greek phrase allows some margin in time and need not mean the same day.", "Gaius, a Roman churchman active under Bishop Zephyrinus around AD 200, said in a dispute with Proclus, a Montanist (the \"Phrygian heresy\"), that he could show the \"trophies\" of the apostles at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way (Church History 2.25.6-7; 6.20.3). So by about AD 200 the Roman church linked the apostles to two specific memorials.", "Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 36 (c. AD 200), says Paul won his crown at Rome \"in a death like John's\", glossed by the ANF editors as the Baptist's, that is, beheading. The same sentence has John the apostle plunged unhurt into boiling oil, so this is Roman tradition, not checked fact. Paul's citizenship (Acts 22:25-28) would also lead one to expect beheading, so the detail could be inference.", "In his account of Nero's persecution, Eusebius states that Paul was beheaded in Rome (Church History 2.25.5). He also reports that Paul was released after his defence and martyred on a second visit to Rome (2.22.2-8), introducing this with \"it is said\" and arguing it from 2 Timothy 4. McGiffert (1890) judged him the first writer to record this explicitly." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "None gives the charge, the trial or the place of execution, and none dates the death except by tying it to Peter or to Nero. Dionysius and Gaius reach us only as excerpts chosen by Eusebius. Tertullian knew, and rejected as forged, a Paul and Thecla writing, usually identified with the Acts of Paul, whose Martyrdom also has Nero behead Paul; a shared tradition cannot be ruled out.", "Gaius does not say the trophies were graves, or which site belonged to which apostle. Reading them as burial places is Eusebius's interpretation. Assigning the Ostian Way to Paul comes from Roman tradition, not from Gaius's words.", "No writer before Eusebius states a release and second imprisonment outright, though 1 Clement 5 (\"the farthest bounds of the West\") and the Muratorian Fragment's Spain journey may imply work after Acts 28. The reconstruction leans on 2 Timothy being Paul's and written after Acts, both debated.", "Dionysius is not reliable in every detail. His claim that Peter and Paul together planted the churches of Corinth and Rome sits uneasily with Acts 18:1-11 and Paul's own letters (1 Corinthians 3:6-10; 4:15; Romans 1:13; 15:20-23). McGiffert thought the Corinthian part of the tradition probably grew partly from the Cephas group of 1 Corinthians 1:12." ], "debate": "Most historians accept that Paul died in Rome. The open question is how much each witness adds independently. Gaius's \"trophies\" could mark tombs or places of execution. A release and second imprisonment stand or fall largely with 2 Timothy being Paul's own letter, written after Acts, which many scholars doubt. Brent Shaw disputes that a persecution under Nero killed Peter and Paul. Christopher Jones defends Tacitus's report of that persecution. Otto Zwierlein disputes that Peter was ever in Rome, which affects Dionysius's claim that the two were martyred together.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Release, further mission, death under Nero", "statement": "Paul was released after the two years of Acts 28:30-31 and worked further, perhaps in the east and perhaps in Spain (Romans 15:24, 28), before a second arrest and execution under Nero in the mid-60s. This is Eusebius's account, usually held by those who accept 2 Timothy as Paul's. If Philippians and Philemon come from the Roman custody, Paul there expects release (Philippians 1:25-26; 2:24; Philemon 1:22)." }, { "label": "One Roman custody ending in death", "statement": "In this view Paul was never released. The custody that Acts 28 describes ended in his execution, and the second imprisonment was inferred from the Pastoral Letters. McGiffert (1890) already noted that most scholars who deny the Pastorals' authenticity also reject a second imprisonment." }, { "label": "Roman death without a Neronian persecution", "statement": "Brent Shaw argues that Tacitus's account of Nero persecuting Christians reflects ideas from Tacitus's own time. If so, the link between the apostles' deaths and Nero may be a later construction. Christopher Jones replies that there are no grounds for doubting Tacitus's report." }, { "label": "Peter's Roman martyrdom as later construction", "statement": "Otto Zwierlein argues that Peter never reached Rome. He treats the paired Peter-and-Paul tradition, including Dionysius's letter, as a second-century literary development. This bears on the joint-martyrdom claim more than on Paul's death in Rome, since Acts itself brings Paul there." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-dionysius-gaius-martyrdom" }, { "id": "papyrus-46", "kind": "papyrus", "dateFrom": 175, "dateTo": 250, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland P46", "INTF Liste docID 10046", "Chester Beatty Library BP II", "University of Michigan Library inv. 6238" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Romans 15:33", "Romans 14:24-26", "Romans 16:1-23", "Ephesians 1:1", "1 Thessalonians 5:23-28" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.phoebe", "person.priscilla", "person.aquila" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.corinth", "place.ephesus", "place.galatia", "place.philippi", "place.colossae", "place.thessalonica", "place.cenchreae", "place.egypt" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF NTVMR, page-level record)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P46 (INTF docID 10046)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "chester-beatty-library", "work": "Chester Beatty online exhibition page: New Testament (label for the Pauline Epistles leaf)", "locator": "CBL BP II f.61", "url": "https://chesterbeatty.ie/exhibitions/fragments/new-testament/", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "csntm", "work": "CSNTM manuscript record: P46", "locator": "GA P46", "url": "https://manuscripts.csntm.org/manuscript/View/GA_P46", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF NTVMR transcription of P46", "locator": "P46 folio 20r", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10046&pageID=210&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF NTVMR transcription of P46", "locator": "P46 folio 21v", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10046&pageID=240&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF NTVMR transcription of P46", "locator": "P46 folio 75r", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10046&pageID=1310&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 6.14.2", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He says that the Epistle to the Hebrews is the work of Paul, and that it was written to the Hebrews in the Hebrew language; but that Luke translated it carefully and published it for the Greeks", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 6.20.3", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He mentions only thirteen epistles of the holy apostle, not counting that to the Hebrews with the others. And unto our day there are some among the Romans who do not consider this a work of the apostle.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Papyrus 46", "locator": "Q1513469", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1513469", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Frederic G. Kenyon", "work": "The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, Fasciculus III Supplement: Pauline Epistles", "year": "1936", "view": "Edited the Chester Beatty leaves and dated the codex to the early third century (the first half of that century). Using its page numbering, he reconstructed it as a single-quire codex and judged that the lost final leaves were too few to hold the Pastoral Letters." }, { "author": "Henry A. Sanders", "work": "A Third-Century Papyrus Codex of the Epistles of Paul", "year": "1935", "view": "Edited the University of Michigan leaves and, as the title states, dated the codex to the third century." }, { "author": "Young Kyu Kim", "work": "Palaeographical Dating of P⁴⁶ to the Later First Century (Biblica 69)", "year": "1988", "view": "Argued from comparative handwriting that the codex was copied in the later first century. Most palaeographers have not accepted this." }, { "author": "Bruce W. Griffin", "work": "The Paleographical Dating of P-46", "year": "1996", "view": "Rejected Kim's first-century date and argued for a range of roughly AD 175-225." }, { "author": "Philip W. Comfort and David P. Barrett", "work": "The Text of the Earliest New Testament Greek Manuscripts", "year": "2001", "view": "Favoured an earlier date, around the middle of the second century." }, { "author": "Pasquale Orsini and Willy Clarysse", "work": "Early New Testament Manuscripts and Their Dates: A Critique of Theological Palaeography (Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 88)", "year": "2012", "view": "Argued that several early New Testament papyri had been dated too early and proposed more cautious ranges. They placed this codex in the early third century, in line with the INTF catalogue." }, { "author": "Jeremy Duff", "work": "P⁴⁶ and the Pastorals: A Misleading Consensus? (New Testament Studies 44)", "year": "1998", "view": "Argued that the scribe was fitting more text onto later pages and could have added leaves, so the codex may have been planned to include the Pastoral Letters." }, { "author": "T. W. Manson", "work": "St. Paul's Letter to the Romans - and Others", "year": "1948", "view": "Used the papyrus's placing of the doxology after Romans 15 to argue that a fifteen-chapter form went to Rome and that chapter 16 belonged to a copy sent to Ephesus." }, { "author": "Harry Y. Gamble", "work": "The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans", "year": "1977", "view": "Argued that the sixteen-chapter letter is original and the shorter forms are secondary, treating the doxology as a later addition." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1513469", "label": "Papyrus 46" } ], "title": "Papyrus 46 (P46), the earliest extensive manuscript of Paul's letters", "summary": "P46 is the earliest extensive manuscript of Paul's letters: 86 leaves of a Greek papyrus codex from Egypt, dated around AD 200, now split between Dublin and Ann Arbor. It shows Romans, Hebrews, 1-2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and 1 Thessalonians being copied together as one book. Its date rests on handwriting and is debated, and its lost leaves leave open whether it held 2 Thessalonians, Philemon or the Pastoral Letters.", "dating": "About AD 200, dated by its handwriting alone. INTF gives the early third century (200-225), CSNTM the late second or early third century (c. 200), and a Chester Beatty Library exhibition label the third century CE. Published proposals run from the later first century to the third century.", "currentLocation": "Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (BP II, 56 leaves); University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor (inv. 6238, 30 leaves)", "establishes": [ "Eighty-six leaves of one Greek papyrus codex of Paul's letters survive, divided between the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (BP II, 56 leaves) and the University of Michigan Library, Ann Arbor (inv. 6238, 30 leaves). The catalogues date it to around AD 200 on palaeographic grounds. It comes from Egypt: a Chester Beatty Library exhibition label gives Egypt and the third century CE for one leaf (BP II f.61).", "The surviving leaves contain, in this order: Romans (from 5:17, with gaps), Hebrews, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians and 1 Thessalonians (fragmentary, breaking off in 5:28). These letters were therefore being copied together as a single book, with Hebrews placed directly after Romans.", "Romans in P46 already contains chapter 16, with the commendation of Phoebe of Cenchreae and the greetings to Prisca, Aquila and others (16:1-23). But it puts the closing doxology after 15:33 and runs straight from 16:23 into the title of Hebrews. The doxology is 16:25-27 in critical editions and 14:24-26 in the WEB numbering.", "Its Ephesians is headed as a letter to the Ephesians, yet the greeting at Ephesians 1:1 names no destination city. P46 is therefore an early witness to that form of the verse." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Whether the codex ever held 2 Thessalonians, Philemon or the Pastoral Letters. Its opening and final leaves are lost, and judgments about how much text the missing leaves could have held are estimates.", "Who wrote any letter it contains. Including Hebrews shows that the codex's users grouped it with Paul's letters. That is evidence of their opinion, not of who wrote it. Opinion differed: Clement of Alexandria called Hebrews Paul's work, while at Rome Caius counted only thirteen letters of Paul (Eusebius, Church History 6.14.2; 6.20.3).", "An exact date, or the events of Acts. The date comes from handwriting, not from any statement in the manuscript. The codex attests the letters' text and circulation, not the history they describe or Acts' account of it." ], "debate": "Three questions are open. Date: most palaeographers place the hand about AD 200; INTF, and Orsini and Clarysse, put it in the early third century, and Griffin argued for roughly 175-225. Kim proposed the later first century (little followed) and Comfort and Barrett the mid-second, while Sanders, first editor of the Michigan leaves, assigned it to the third century. Contents: Kenyon judged the lost final leaves too few for the Pastoral Letters, while Duff argued the scribe was compressing the text and could have added leaves. Marcion's edition also lacked them (Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.21), but that is an analogy from a different region and group, not evidence about this codex. Romans: does the doxology after 15:33 mark a fifteen-chapter edition (Manson), or a secondary placement in an original sixteen-chapter letter (Gamble)?", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Earlier dating", "statement": "Kim (1988) dated P46 to the later first century, and Comfort and Barrett (2001) to the mid-second. If either is right, the collection is older still. Most palaeographers prefer about AD 200, and any date from handwriting has a margin of several decades." }, { "label": "Pastorals planned or added (Duff)", "statement": "Duff (1998) argued that the scribe was compressing the text in the later pages and may have planned extra leaves, so the codex may have been meant to include the Pastoral Letters. Kenyon's contrary judgment rests on estimating the space the lost leaves offered. The surviving leaves cannot settle the question either way." }, { "label": "Fifteen-chapter Romans", "statement": "Manson read the doxology after 15:33 as the end of a fifteen-chapter edition sent to Rome, with chapter 16 belonging to a copy for Ephesus. Gamble argued the sixteen-chapter letter is original. P46 itself still copies chapter 16 as part of Romans." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence/papyrus-46" }, { "id": "marcion-apostolikon", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 138, "dateTo": 161, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "source-supported", "scriptureReferences": [ "Colossians 4:16", "Ephesians 1:1", "Ephesians 2:12", "1 Timothy 6:7", "1 Timothy 6:10" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.timothy", "person.titus", "person.philemon" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus", "place.colossae" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.17.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "We have it on the true tradition of the Church, that this epistle was sent to the Ephesians, not to the Laodiceans. Marcion, however, was very desirous of giving it the new title (of Laodicean), as if he were extremely accurate in investigating such a point.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.11.12", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I here pass over discussion about another epistle, which we hold to have been written to the Ephesians, but the heretics to the Laodiceans.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.13.4", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But what serious gaps Marcion has made in this epistle especially, by withdrawing whole passages at his will, will be clear from the unmutilated text of our own copy.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 1.19.2", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03121.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Of this teacher there is no doubt that he is a heretic of the Antonine period, impious under the pious. Now, from Tiberius to Antoninus Pius, there are about 115 years and 6-1/2 months.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 1.15", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03121.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "no creation of His at all has been discovered up to the fifteenth of the Emperor Severus", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 1.27.2", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103127.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In like manner, too, he dismembered the Epistles of Paul, removing all that is said by the apostle respecting that God who made the world, to the effect that He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 4.11.9 (quoting Justin)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And there is a certain Marcion of Pontus, who is even now still teaching his followers to think that there is some other God greater than the Creator.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "work": "Muratorian Fragment (Canon Muratorianus)", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "year": "1886", "locator": "Muratorian Fragment, sec. 3 (ANF 5 numbering)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "There are also in circulation one to the Laodiceans, and another to the Alexandrians, forged under the name of Paul, and addressed against the heresy of Marcion", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-lightfoot", "author": "Polycarp", "work": "Epistle of Polycarp to the Philippians", "translator": "J. B. Lightfoot", "year": "1891", "locator": "Phil. 4.1", "url": "https://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/polycarp-lightfoot.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But the love of money is the beginning of all troubles.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF NTVMR transcription of P46", "locator": "P46 folio 75r", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10046&pageID=1310&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Adolf von Harnack", "work": "Marcion: Das Evangelium vom fremden Gott", "year": "1921 (2nd ed. 1924)", "view": "Reconstructed Marcion's Gospel and Apostolikon from patristic citations. He treated Marcion as a deliberate editor who removed what he took to be Judaizing additions, and saw his canon as a major stimulus to the church's New Testament." }, { "author": "Karl Holl (ed.)", "work": "Epiphanius, vol. 2: Panarion haer. 34-64 (Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 31)", "year": "1922", "view": "Critical edition of the Greek text. In it Panarion 42 lists Marcion's ten letters from Galatians to Philippians, with Philemon ninth and Philippians tenth, and says Marcion also had parts of a so-called 'Laodiceans'." }, { "author": "John Knox", "work": "Marcion and the New Testament: An Essay in the Early History of the Canon", "year": "1942", "view": "Argued that Marcion's two-part scripture, a Gospel and the Apostle, was the catalyst for the formation of the catholic New Testament." }, { "author": "Hans von Campenhausen", "work": "Die Entstehung der christlichen Bibel", "year": "1968", "view": "Argued that Marcion was the first to create a defined Christian scripture, and that the church's New Testament took shape partly in response." }, { "author": "Hans von Campenhausen", "work": "Polykarp von Smyrna und die Pastoralbriefe", "year": "1951", "view": "Proposed that the Pastoral Letters were written in the mid-second century, possibly by Polycarp, partly against Marcion-like teaching." }, { "author": "John J. Clabeaux", "work": "A Lost Edition of the Letters of Paul: A Reassessment of the Text of the Pauline Corpus Attested by Marcion", "year": "1989", "view": "Argued that many readings attributed to Marcion are pre-Marcionite, shared with other early text forms, so Marcion edited an inherited collection less than his critics claimed." }, { "author": "Ulrich Schmid", "work": "Marcion und sein Apostolos: Rekonstruktion und historische Einordnung der marcionitischen Paulusbriefausgabe", "year": "1995", "view": "Re-examined the patristic evidence critically. Concluded that Marcion used an existing edition of Paul's letters and that demonstrably tendentious changes are relatively few." }, { "author": "David Trobisch", "work": "Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins", "year": "1994", "view": "Argued that collecting Paul's letters began with Paul's own editing of some of them, so letter collections predate Marcion." }, { "author": "Jason D. BeDuhn", "work": "The First New Testament: Marcion's Scriptural Canon", "year": "2013", "view": "Offers an English reconstruction of Marcion's Gospel and Apostolikon, presents it as the first New Testament, and treats patristic charges of mutilation with caution." }, { "author": "Judith M. Lieu", "work": "Marcion and the Making of a Heretic: God and Scripture in the Second Century", "year": "2015", "view": "Stresses that Marcion is known only through polemical portraits, and cautions against confident reconstruction of his text or motives." }, { "author": "Luke Timothy Johnson", "work": "The First and Second Letters to Timothy (Anchor Bible 35A)", "year": "2001", "view": "Defends Pauline authorship and a first-century date for 1–2 Timothy, against the view that they were written in the second century." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q201346", "label": "Marcion of Sinope" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q754941", "label": "Marcionism" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q731974", "label": "Panarion" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q174929", "label": "Tertullian" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1231095", "label": "Epistle to the Laodiceans" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q408673", "label": "Epistle to the Ephesians" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q369042", "label": "pastoral epistles" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "638955", "label": "Laodicea ad Lycum/Diospolis/Roas" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "599612", "label": "Ephesus/Arsinoe(ia)" } ], "title": "Marcion's ten-letter edition of Paul (the 'Apostolikon')", "summary": "Marcion of Pontus, a mid-second-century teacher, used an edition of ten Pauline letters headed by Galatians. It lacked 1–2 Timothy and Titus, and according to Tertullian it gave Ephesians the title 'To the Laodiceans'. It is lost and known only through opponents, chiefly Tertullian (from c. 207) and Epiphanius (later fourth century). It shows that ten letters had been gathered into one edition by the mid-second century. It cannot by itself date the Pastorals.", "dating": "Mid-second century. Tertullian places Marcion under Antoninus Pius (138–161); the edition's own date is unknown and may be earlier. The 138–161 range given here is that window of Marcion's activity, not a date for the edition.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition (lost; reconstructed from quotations by Tertullian, Epiphanius and others)", "establishes": [ "Marcion was active in the mid-second century. Justin Martyr, quoted by Eusebius (Church History 4.11.9), describes him as still alive and teaching. Tertullian calls him a heretic of the reign of Antoninus Pius, 138–161 (Against Marcion 1.19.2). Irenaeus already accuses him of cutting from Paul's letters whatever named the world's Maker as Christ's Father (Against Heresies 1.27.2).", "Tertullian refutes ten letters in this order in Against Marcion book 5: Galatians, 1–2 Corinthians, Romans, 1–2 Thessalonians, 'Laodiceans' (Ephesians), Colossians, Philippians and Philemon. Epiphanius (Panarion 42), a later witness who says he argues from Marcion's own text, gives the same ten with Galatians first, but names Ephesians and puts Philemon ninth and Philippians tenth.", "1–2 Timothy and Titus were not in the edition. Tertullian says Marcion accepted the short personal letter to Philemon but rejected the letters to Timothy and Titus (Against Marcion 5.21.1). Hebrews appears in neither list.", "In Marcionite use the letter the church knew as Ephesians was titled 'To the Laodiceans'. Tertullian, discussing Ephesians 2:12, says the heretics hold it was written to the Laodiceans, and blames the new title on Marcion (Against Marcion 5.11.12; 5.17.1). Epiphanius (Panarion 42) instead lists Ephesians, but says Marcion also had parts of a so-called 'Laodiceans'." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not give Marcion's exact wording. The text survives only in hostile quotation and paraphrase, so modern reconstructions differ, and some readings blamed on Marcion may be older variants he inherited.", "It does not show when or by whom the Pastoral Letters were written. Their absence fits Tertullian's claim that Marcion rejected them. It is also compatible with Marcion not knowing them, or with their being written later.", "It does not show that Ephesians was originally sent to Laodicea. Marcion's title may be an inference from Colossians 4:16 applied to a copy without the Ephesus address. Tertullian treats the title as Marcion's innovation.", "It does not show that Marcion invented the Pauline letter collection, or that the church's New Testament was merely a reaction to him." ], "debate": "Three questions remain open. First, did Marcion compile this edition or inherit it, and how much did he change? His critics allege deliberate cuts (Tertullian, Against Marcion 5.13.4). Clabeaux and Schmid argue that many of his readings were already in circulation, so he worked on a collection he inherited. Second, does the absence of 1–2 Timothy and Titus mean he rejected them, as Tertullian says? He may not have known them, or they may not yet have been written. Third, does 'Laodiceans' preserve a real address for a letter whose Ephesus address is missing from at least one early copy (P46)? Or did Marcion infer it from Colossians 4:16?", "alternatives": [ { "label": "An inherited edition, lightly edited", "statement": "Clabeaux (1989) and Schmid (1995) argue that Marcion used an existing edition of Paul's letters. Many readings his critics blamed on him also appear in other early forms of the text. On this view his deliberate changes were fewer than Tertullian and Epiphanius imply." }, { "label": "Pastorals written in Marcion's time (von Campenhausen)", "statement": "A minority view, argued by von Campenhausen (1951), dates 1–2 Timothy and Titus to the mid-second century and proposes Polycarp or a contemporary as their author, writing partly against Marcion-like teaching. On this view the letters were absent from Marcion's edition because they were new or not yet in circulation." }, { "label": "Pastorals existed before Marcion", "statement": "Whether written by Paul (as Johnson argues) or by a later follower around the turn of the first and second centuries, the letters already existed and Marcion excluded them, as Tertullian says. If Polycarp's letter to the Philippians (4.1) echoes 1 Timothy 6:7 and 6:10, 1 Timothy was known before Marcion, though a shared proverb could explain the overlap." }, { "label": "'Laodiceans' as a real address", "statement": "At least one early copy of Ephesians (P46) names no city in the opening verse, so some scholars take the letter as a circular, or as meant for Laodicea, identifying it with the letter of Colossians 4:16. The Muratorian Fragment mentions a forged 'Laodiceans' linked to Marcion's heresy, perhaps a different letter. Salmond renders the Latin as 'addressed against'; other translators take it as written to further Marcion's heresy." }, { "label": "Marcion as catalyst for the canon", "statement": "Harnack, Knox and von Campenhausen saw Marcion's two-part scripture, a Gospel and the Apostle, as a decisive stimulus for the church's New Testament. Trobisch and others argue that Paul's letters were being collected well before Marcion. On that view his edition reflects an existing practice rather than starting one." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-marcion-apostolikon" }, { "id": "papyrus-32", "kind": "papyrus", "dateFrom": 200, "dateTo": 299, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland P32", "P.Ryl. 1 5", "Manchester, John Rylands Library, Gr. P. 5" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Titus 1:11-15", "Titus 2:3-8", "Titus 3:10", "1 Timothy 3:13-4:8", "Acts 28:30-31" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.titus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.crete", "place.rome" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF online catalogue)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P32", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10032&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF online catalogue)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P133", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10133&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF online catalogue)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P46", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 1)", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Against Heresies 3.3.3-4", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103303.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy.", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Arthur S. Hunt", "work": "Catalogue of the Greek Papyri in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, vol. 1: Literary Texts (Nos. 1-61)", "year": "1911", "view": "Published the fragment as No. 5 and dated it to the third century, comparing the hand to the Oxyrhynchus Genesis (P.Oxy. 656) and judging it perhaps the later of the two. He placed it at the bottom of a leaf from a papyrus book, noted an early variant at Titus 2:7 without treating it as original, and named no find-spot, which by his preface means the provenance was not assured." }, { "author": "Raymond E. Brown", "work": "An Introduction to the New Testament", "year": "1997", "view": "Sets out the arguments both for Paul's direct authorship of Titus and 1 Timothy and for later authorship within the Pauline tradition, in the section 'Who Wrote Titus and I Timothy?'" } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2051055", "label": "Papyrus 32" } ], "title": "Papyrus 32: an early fragment of the letter to Titus", "summary": "P32 is a small papyrus fragment in Manchester (P.Ryl. 1 5) preserving parts of Titus 1:11-15 and 2:3-8 from a codex leaf. Dated by handwriting to the third century (INTF: AD 200-225; Hunt thought it perhaps later than a comparable third-century hand), it is with P133 among the oldest surviving manuscripts of the Pastoral Letters. It shows Titus was being copied in book form by then; it cannot settle who wrote the letter or when.", "dating": "Third century by handwriting (Hunt 1911, who thought it perhaps later than the third-century hand he compared it with); early third century, AD 200-225, in the INTF catalogue. The range 200-299 covers both judgments.", "currentLocation": "John Rylands Library, University of Manchester (Gr. P. 5)", "establishes": [ "A fragment about 10.6 by 4.9 cm from the foot of a papyrus codex leaf preserves parts of Titus 1:11-15 on one side and Titus 2:3-8 on the other. A. S. Hunt published it in 1911 as P.Ryl. 1 5, and it is catalogued as Gregory-Aland P32 (Manchester, Gr. P. 5).", "Its date rests on handwriting alone. Hunt (1911) compared the hand to the Oxyrhynchus Genesis papyrus (P.Oxy. 656), assigned it to the third century and thought it perhaps the later of the two. The INTF catalogue gives AD 200-225.", "With P133 (1 Timothy 3:13-4:8, catalogued as third century), it is among the oldest known manuscripts of the Pastoral Letters. None of the three Pastorals appears in the surviving leaves of P46, the early-third-century papyrus codex of Pauline letters.", "Hunt (1911) noted an early one-letter variant in a word at Titus 2:7 that he otherwise knew only as a variant recorded in two ninth-century manuscripts. He cautioned that its age does not prove it original." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show who wrote Titus or when. A copy made more than a century after Paul fits both Pauline authorship and composition in Paul's name after his death.", "It is not the earliest evidence that Titus existed. Irenaeus, writing in the later second century, already attributes Titus 3:10 to Paul and mentions Paul's letters to Timothy (Against Heresies 3.3.3-4).", "It cannot show what else its codex contained (Titus alone, the three Pastorals or a wider Pauline collection), or where it was copied or found. Hunt names no find-spot, and by his own stated practice that means the provenance was not securely known." ], "debate": "Two questions are open. The first is date. P32 is dated only by handwriting, so any date is an estimate: Hunt said third century, perhaps later than the hand he compared it with, and the INTF catalogue says AD 200-225. The second is significance. Tertullian reports that Titus was missing from Marcion's mid-second-century collection, and it does not appear in what survives of P46. Some explain those absences as rejection or omission; others read them as signs of later composition. P32 shows Titus being copied as a book by the third century, but it cannot decide authorship.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Written by Paul", "statement": "Many evangelical and some other scholars hold that Paul wrote Titus, possibly with a secretary, after a release from the Roman custody of Acts 28:30-31, which Acts does not narrate but which this view reconstructs from the letters and later tradition. P32 is consistent with this view but cannot prove it, because it is a copy made long after Paul's lifetime." }, { "label": "Written later in Paul's name", "statement": "Many critical scholars regard the Pastoral Letters as the work of a follower writing in Paul's name after his death. They point to vocabulary, church order and the letters' absence from Marcion's collection. A third-century copy is equally compatible with this view." }, { "label": "A wider date window for the fragment", "statement": "Because P32 is dated only by comparing handwriting, its date is an approximate window rather than a fixed point. Hunt himself thought it perhaps later than the third-century Genesis papyrus he compared it with, so a date later in the third century cannot be ruled out." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-papyrus-32" }, { "id": "irenaeus-paul", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 176, "dateTo": 189, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "1 Timothy 1:4", "1 Timothy 6:7", "1 Timothy 6:10", "1 Timothy 6:20", "2 Timothy 4:10-11", "2 Timothy 4:21", "Titus 3:10", "Colossians 4:14", "Galatians 2:1-2", "Acts 9:15-16", "Acts 11:27-30", "Acts 15:1-4", "Acts 16:8-13", "Acts 20:5-6", "Acts 27:1-28:16" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.luke", "person.timothy", "person.titus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.rome", "place.troas", "place.philippi", "place.jerusalem", "place.puteoli" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 1, preface 1 (ANF editors' note identifies 1 Tim 1:4)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.ii.i.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "as certain men have set the truth aside, and bring in lying words and vain genealogies, which, as the apostle says,", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.1.1", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.ii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Luke also, the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.3.3", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.iv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The blessed apostles, then, having founded and built up the Church, committed into the hands of Linus the office of the episcopate. Of this Linus, Paul makes mention in the Epistles to Timothy.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.3.4 (Titus 3:10 cited as Paul's)", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.iv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Such was the horror which the apostles and their disciples had against holding even verbal communication with any corrupters of the truth; as Paul also says,", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.13.3", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xiv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "If, then, any one shall, from the Acts of the Apostles, carefully scrutinize the time concerning which it is written that he went up to Jerusalem on account of the forementioned question, he will find those years mentioned by Paul coinciding with it.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.14.1", "url": "https://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.iv.xv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "As Luke was present at all these occurrences, he carefully noted them down in writing, so that he cannot be convicted of falsehood or boastfulness", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 3.15.1", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103315.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "For neither can they contend that Paul was no apostle, when he was chosen for this purpose; nor can they prove Luke guilty of falsehood, when he proclaims the truth to us with all diligence.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 1.16.3 (Titus 3:10 cited as Paul's command)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103116.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "irenaeus-against-heresies-anf", "author": "Irenaeus", "work": "Against Heresies", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and William Rambaut", "year": "1885", "locator": "Haer. 5, preface (the work's title adopts the phrase of 1 Tim 6:20)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103500.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 5.5.9", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the third book of his work Against Heresies he has inserted a list of the bishops of Rome, bringing it down as far as Eleutherus (whose times we are now considering), under whom he composed his work.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 5.6.1 (Greek text of Haer. 3.3.3)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Paul speaks of this Linus in his Epistles to Timothy.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 5.7.1 (title Irenaeus gave his five books)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 5.8.3 (Greek text of Haer. 3.1.1)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "and Luke, the attendant of Paul, recorded in a book the Gospel which Paul had declared.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 5.22", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250105.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the tenth year of the reign of Commodus, Victor succeeded Eleutherus, the latter having held the episcopate for thirteen years.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "Against Marcion", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus, which all treat of ecclesiastical discipline.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "work": "Muratorian Fragment", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "year": "1886", "locator": "Muratorian Fragment, section 2 (printed in ANF 5 among the 'Fragments of Caius')", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Moreover, the Acts of all the Apostles are comprised by Luke in one book, and addressed to the most excellent Theophilus", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "muratorian-fragment-anf", "work": "Muratorian Fragment", "translator": "S. D. F. Salmond", "year": "1886", "locator": "Muratorian Fragment, section 3 (printed in ANF 5 among the 'Fragments of Caius')", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0510.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He wrote, besides these, one to Philemon, and one to Titus, and two to Timothy", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "polycarp-philippians-anf", "author": "Polycarp", "work": "Epistle to the Philippians", "translator": "Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson", "year": "1885", "locator": "Phil. 4.1 (parallels 1 Tim 6:7, 10 without naming Paul)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0136.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Joseph B. Tyson", "work": "Marcion and Luke-Acts: A Defining Struggle", "year": "2006", "view": "Proposes that Acts and the final form of Luke's Gospel were published around 120–125, with the need to counter Marcion as a prominent motive." }, { "author": "Bart D. Ehrman", "work": "Forged: Writing in the Name of God", "year": "2011", "view": "Argues that a number of New Testament writings bearing apostles' names were written by later authors, and counts the Pastoral Epistles among them." }, { "author": "Stanley E. Porter", "work": "The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text", "year": "2023", "view": "Defends Paul's authorship of the Pastoral Epistles in a detailed linguistic commentary on the Greek text." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q182123", "label": "Irenaeus" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1281900", "label": "Against Heresies (Irenaeus)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "167717", "label": "Lugdunum (Lyon), Irenaeus's see" } ], "title": "Irenaeus of Lyons on the Pastoral Letters and the authorship of Acts", "summary": "Irenaeus of Lyons, writing Against Heresies around AD 180, cites the letters to Timothy and Titus explicitly as Paul's and says that Luke, whom he calls Paul's inseparable companion, wrote both the Gospel and Acts. He is among the earliest datable witnesses to both attributions. That shows how these books were received by then; it does not settle authorship, since his case for Luke's companionship draws partly on Acts itself.", "dating": "c. AD 180 (Book III written while Eleutherius was bishop of Rome; Eusebius gives him thirteen years ending in Commodus's tenth year, c. 189)", "currentLocation": "Text tradition (complete only in an ancient Latin translation; Greek portions survive in quotations by Hippolytus, Epiphanius and Eusebius)", "establishes": [ "By about AD 180 the letters to Timothy and Titus were read as Paul's in the churches Irenaeus speaks for. He names Paul when citing 2 Timothy (Against Heresies 3.3.3; 3.14.1) and Titus (1.16.3; 3.3.4), cites 1 Timothy 1:4 as the words of \"the apostle\" in his opening preface, and gives the work a title taken from 1 Timothy 6:20 (5, preface; Eusebius, Church History 5.7.1).", "Irenaeus names Luke, whom he calls Paul's companion, as author of the Third Gospel (3.1.1) and treats Acts as Luke's work. He quotes the we-passages of Acts 16 and 20 and summarizes the rest of the journey, through the voyage to Puteoli and Rome, as Luke's own record of events he witnessed (3.14.1). He also credits Luke with Acts' accounts of Paul's call (3.15.1).", "He reads Acts alongside Paul's letters. He argues that the Jerusalem visit of Galatians 2:1-2 is the one Acts 15:2 records, made over the circumcision question, so that Paul's statement agrees with Luke's account (3.13.3). Whether Galatians 2 matches Acts 15 or the famine visit of Acts 11:27-30 is still debated.", "Book III can be dated to the episcopate of Eleutherius. Its list of Roman bishops runs from Linus, whom Irenaeus identifies with the Linus of the letters to Timothy, to Eleutherius as the current bishop (3.3.3). Eusebius quotes the list in Greek and, drawing on it, says the work was composed under Eleutherius (Church History 5.5.9; 5.6.1)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not by itself prove that Paul wrote the Pastorals or that Luke wrote Acts. Irenaeus writes more than a century after Paul, in the middle of an argument against heretics, and his case for Luke's companionship rests partly on the 'we' passages of Acts, Colossians 4:14 and 2 Timothy 4:11 themselves.", "It is not the first trace of these books. Polycarp's letter to the Philippians (4.1) has earlier parallels with 1 Timothy, though it does not name Paul. Irenaeus marks explicit attribution, not first use. Nor is he alone: the Muratorian Fragment, whose date is disputed, also assigns Acts to Luke and lists one letter to Titus and two to Timothy among Paul's.", "His succession list, with Linus as Rome's first bishop, is late-second-century church tradition. It does not independently confirm how the Roman church was organized in Paul's lifetime." ], "debate": "Scholars divide over what Irenaeus's testimony proves. Many critical scholars regard the Pastorals as pseudonymous and doubt that a companion of Paul wrote Acts; some date Acts into the second century, Tyson linking it to the Marcion controversy. On that view Irenaeus attests reception, not origin. Others hold that his consistent attributions preserve earlier tradition that fits the texts. Tertullian says Marcion rejected the Pastorals; scholars dispute whether Marcion rejected them or never knew them.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "A later consensus", "statement": "By c. 180 these attributions were settled in the churches Irenaeus knew in Gaul, Rome and Asia, but decades of circulation could produce that consensus. On this view the Pastorals may be post-Pauline and Acts the work of a later author, and Irenaeus attests reception only." }, { "label": "Earlier tradition preserved", "statement": "Irenaeus says he saw Polycarp in his youth and appeals to churches founded by apostles. On this view he passes on a tradition that was already established. Together with the 'we' passages of Acts, it supports Luke's authorship of Acts and is compatible with Paul's authorship of the Pastorals." }, { "label": "Partly an inference from the texts", "statement": "Irenaeus may have identified Luke by reading the 'we' passages of Acts alongside Colossians 4:14 and 2 Timothy 4:11. If so, his testimony is not wholly independent of the New Testament evidence it is used to support." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-irenaeus-paul" }, { "id": "acts-paul-thecla", "kind": "literary-early-christian", "dateFrom": 150, "dateTo": 200, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "tradition", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 13:50-51", "2 Timothy 1:15-18", "2 Timothy 2:17-18", "2 Timothy 3:11", "2 Timothy 4:10", "2 Timothy 4:19", "2 Corinthians 10:10", "Galatians 4:13-14" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.titus", "person.demas", "person.onesiphorus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.iconium", "place.lystra", "place.pisidian-antioch", "place.myra" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "acts-paul-thecla-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Acts of Paul and Thecla (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8)", "translator": "Alexander Walker", "year": "1886", "locator": "Acts of Paul and Thecla 1 (section numbers as in James 1924): Paul goes up to Iconium", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "As Paul was going up to Iconium after the flight from Antioch, his fellow-travellers were Demas and Ermogenes, full of hypocrisy", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "acts-paul-thecla-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Acts of Paul and Thecla (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8)", "translator": "Alexander Walker", "year": "1886", "locator": "Acts of Paul and Thecla 3 (section numbers as in James 1924): Onesiphorus waits on the road to Lystra", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And he went along the road to Lystra, and stood waiting for him, and kept looking at the passers by according to the description of Titus.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "acts-paul-thecla-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Acts of Paul and Thecla (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8)", "translator": "Alexander Walker", "year": "1886", "locator": "Acts of Paul and Thecla 3 (section numbers as in James 1924): description of Paul", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And he saw Paul coming, a man small in size, bald-headed, bandy-legged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace. For sometimes he seemed like a man, and sometimes he had the countenance of an angel.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "acts-paul-thecla-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Acts of Paul and Thecla (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8)", "translator": "Alexander Walker", "year": "1886", "locator": "Acts of Paul and Thecla 14 (section numbers as in James 1924): Demas and Hermogenes on the resurrection", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "And we shall teach you that the resurrection of which this man speaks has taken place, because it has already taken place in the children which we have", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "acts-paul-thecla-anf", "author": "Anonymous", "work": "Acts of Paul and Thecla (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 8)", "translator": "Alexander Walker", "year": "1886", "locator": "Acts of Paul and Thecla, editor's note introducing the alternative ending from Grabe's manuscript", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0816.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Instead of the last two sections, the ms. which Dr. Grabe used has the following:", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-baptism-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "On Baptism (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)", "translator": "S. Thelwall", "year": "1885", "locator": "On Baptism 17.5 (Thecla's example)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0321.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But if the writings which wrongly go under Paul's name, claim Thecla's example as a licence for women's teaching and baptizing", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-baptism-anf", "author": "Tertullian", "work": "On Baptism (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)", "translator": "S. Thelwall", "year": "1885", "locator": "On Baptism 17.5", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0321.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "let them know that, in Asia, the presbyter who composed that writing, as if he were augmenting Paul's fame from his own store, after being convicted, and confessing that he had done it from love of Paul, was removed from his office.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II vol. 1)", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.25.4", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Among the rejected writings must be reckoned also the Acts of Paul, and the so-called Shepherd, and the Apocalypse of Peter", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Abraham J. Malherbe", "work": "A Physical Description of Paul (Harvard Theological Review 79)", "year": "1986", "view": "Argues that Greek influence is visible in early Christian reflection on Paul's physical appearance, and reads the Thecla portrait in that light." }, { "author": "Dennis Ronald MacDonald", "work": "The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon", "year": "1983", "view": "Argues that legends about Paul and Thecla were transmitted orally before being written into the Acts of Paul, and that the author of the Pastoral Epistles knew such legends and wrote in Paul's name partly to counter them." }, { "author": "Stephen J. Davis", "work": "The Cult of Saint Thecla: A Tradition of Women's Piety in Late Antiquity", "year": "2001", "view": "Reconstructs the cult of Thecla in Asia Minor and Egypt from literary, artistic and archaeological evidence, and argues that it consistently promoted virginity and pilgrimage in ways that strengthened women's religious authority." }, { "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "The Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170", "year": "1893", "view": "Holds that the plain portrait of Paul embodies very early tradition and that the tale's Royal Road toward Lystra shows a writer who knew the localities, while disclaiming that the events narrated are historical." }, { "author": "M. R. James", "work": "The Apocryphal New Testament", "year": "1924", "view": "Dates the Acts of Paul to about AD 160 from Tertullian's report, treats Queen Tryphaena as a historical personage, and reports that Ramsay's theory of an earlier written Thecla story was not generally accepted." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q1282652", "label": "Acts of Paul and Thecla" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q764765", "label": "Acts of Paul" } ], "title": "The Acts of Paul and Thecla and the earliest description of Paul", "summary": "The Acts of Paul and Thecla shows how second-century Christians remembered and imagined Paul; it is not an independent record of his journeys. This romance, one episode of the Acts of Paul that also circulated separately, contains the earliest known description of Paul's appearance. Tertullian, writing about AD 200, says a presbyter in Asia composed a Thecla writing under Paul's name from love of Paul and was removed from office.", "dating": "Composed before Tertullian's On Baptism (about AD 200; Ramsay put it about 195), probably c. AD 150-200; M. R. James (1924) suggested about AD 160. Surviving manuscripts are much later.", "currentLocation": "Text tradition (Greek, with Coptic, Latin, Syriac and other versions)", "establishes": [ "By about AD 200 a writing under Paul's name used Thecla's example to defend women teaching and baptizing. Tertullian says a presbyter in Asia composed it as if adding to Paul's fame and, after being convicted and confessing he had done it from love of Paul, was removed from office (On Baptism 17.5).", "It gives the earliest known description of Paul's appearance: small, bald, bow-legged, sturdily built, with meeting eyebrows and a longish nose, full of grace, sometimes seeming a man and sometimes having an angel's face (Acts of Paul and Thecla 3).", "It opens with Paul going up to Iconium after a flight from Antioch, as in Acts 13:50-51, while Onesiphorus waits for him on the road to Lystra (compare 2 Timothy 3:11). It uses names also found in 2 Timothy (Demas, Hermogenes, Onesiphorus, Titus), and it gives Demas and Hermogenes the teaching that the resurrection has already happened, which 2 Timothy 2:17-18 ascribes to Hymenaeus and Philetus.", "By the early fourth century Eusebius counted the Acts of Paul among the \"rejected\" writings, outside the accepted books (Church History 3.25.4)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show what Paul looked like. The portrait was written perhaps ninety years or more after his death, and its stated informant, Titus, belongs to the story itself.", "It is not an independent witness to Acts. Its places and names can derive from Acts and 2 Timothy, so agreeing with them adds no separate corroboration.", "It does not confirm Thecla's trials, her miracles or Queen Tryphaena's part in them. Even if Tryphaena is the historical client queen James and Ramsay identified, naming a real person does not authenticate the episode.", "Tertullian identifies the work only by its use of Thecla's example. That his text matched the surviving Acts of Paul and Thecla episode by episode is not shown; the manuscripts are much later, and the witnesses differ (Walker's edition prints an alternative ending from Grabe's manuscript)." ], "debate": "Two questions remain open. First, does the portrait of Paul preserve memory? Ramsay judged its plain, unflattering details to embody very early tradition and its local geography to show a writer who knew the area; others read the features through Greek conventions for describing body and character, which would make it a literary portrait. Second, how does the story relate to 2 Timothy, whose names it shares? Its author may have borrowed them from the letter, or, as MacDonald argued, both may reflect contested oral stories about Paul.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Early local memory", "statement": "W. M. Ramsay (1893) argued that the plain, unflattering portrait embodies very early tradition, and that the story's 'Royal Road' to Lystra, a name he held fell out of use after AD 74, shows a first-century writer who knew the area. Ramsay himself did not claim the events were historical. M. R. James (1924) reported that Ramsay's theory of an earlier written Thecla story was not generally accepted." }, { "label": "Literary portrait", "statement": "The features follow Greek conventions for describing a person's body and character, the context in which Abraham Malherbe (1986) read the portrait. On this reading it shows how second-century Christians pictured Paul, not how he looked. If the features are conventional, their apparent plainness is no guarantee of early memory." }, { "label": "Inference from the letters", "statement": "Later writers could have imagined an unimpressive figure from Paul's own letters, where critics call his bodily presence weak (2 Corinthians 10:10), he recalls a bodily weakness in Galatia, and he says the Galatians received him as an angel of God (Galatians 4:13-14), a possible source for the portrait's angelic face." }, { "label": "Oral legend behind the Pastorals", "statement": "Dennis MacDonald (1983) argued that stories of Paul and Thecla circulated as oral legends before they were written into the Acts of Paul, and that the Pastoral Epistles were written partly to counter such legends. On this view the story did not simply borrow its names from 2 Timothy." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-acts-paul-thecla" }, { "id": "papyrus-30", "kind": "papyrus", "dateFrom": 200, "dateTo": 399, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland P30", "P. Oxy. XIII 1598", "Ghent University Library Inv. 61", "INTF Liste docID 10030" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "1 Thessalonians 4:12-13", "1 Thessalonians 4:16-17", "1 Thessalonians 5:3", "1 Thessalonians 5:8-10", "1 Thessalonians 5:12-18", "1 Thessalonians 5:25-28", "2 Thessalonians 1:1-2", "Acts 17:1-10" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.silvanus", "person.timothy" ], "placeIds": [ "place.thessalonica" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P30 (docID 10030)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10030&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "csntm", "work": "CSNTM manuscript record: P30", "locator": "GA P30", "url": "https://manuscripts.csntm.org/manuscript/View/GA_P30", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item: Papyrus 30", "locator": "Q2051048", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q2051048.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt", "work": "The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, Part XIII", "year": "1919", "view": "Edit P. Oxy. 1598, place the hand probably in the late third century while heading it late third or fourth, find the text eclectic, and suggest from the surviving page numbers that the codex was a collection of Paul's letters." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2051048", "label": "Papyrus 30" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q622640", "label": "Oxyrhynchus (find-place)" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "736983", "label": "Oxyrhynchus/Pemje (find-place)" } ], "title": "Papyrus 30 (P. Oxy. 1598), fragments of 1 and 2 Thessalonians at Ghent", "summary": "P30 shows that by about the third century 1 and 2 Thessalonians were copied one after the other, probably within a collection of Paul's letters. Its fragments, from a codex found at Oxyrhynchus and now in Ghent, preserve parts of 1 Thessalonians 4-5 and the opening of 2 Thessalonians, with page numbers 207-208 that its first editors thought pointed to such a collection. It cannot show when, where or by whom the letters were written.", "dating": "Third century in CSNTM's record and at shelf level in INTF's Liste, whose header reads \"E II - A III\" (end of second to beginning of third century). The first editors put the hand probably in the late third century, heading it late third or fourth.", "currentLocation": "Ghent University Library, Inv. 61", "establishes": [ "A papyrus codex from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt contained 1 Thessalonians and was copied in the third century; its first editors allowed the fourth. Four fragments from two consecutive leaves and an unidentified scrap survive, one column of about 34 lines a page. The leaves preserve 1 Thessalonians 4:12-13, 4:16-17, 5:3, 5:8-10, 5:12-18 and 5:25-28, with large gaps.", "In this codex 2 Thessalonians came directly after 1 Thessalonians. One column holds, in sequence, the end of 1 Thessalonians, the closing title of the first letter, the opening title of the second, and its greeting (2 Thessalonians 1:1-2). Part of the greeting survives, including part of the name Silvanus.", "The page numbers 207 and 208 survive, so about 206 pages came before 1 Thessalonians 4:12. Grenfell and Hunt (1919) noted that the usual order of Paul's letters from Romans to 1 Thessalonians would exactly fill those pages, and suggested that the book was a collection of Paul's letters. That is their inference.", "The text is mixed. The first editors found it agreeing sometimes with Codex Vaticanus and sometimes with Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus. On their reading, 1 Thessalonians closes with the short title found in Sinaiticus and the first hand of Vaticanus. It lacks the subscriptions that other manuscripts add, one of which says the letter was written from Athens." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not date or place the writing of either letter. It is a copy made about two centuries later, and the missing 'from Athens' subscription neither confirms nor refutes any view of where Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians.", "It does not settle who wrote 2 Thessalonians. It shows only that, by the third century, this codex carried it as the second letter to the Thessalonians, directly after the first and probably inside a Pauline collection.", "It does not verify Acts' account of Paul's mission in Thessalonica (Acts 17:1-10).", "The contents and order of the 206 lost pages are worked out from page arithmetic; nobody has seen them." ], "debate": "The date rests on handwriting alone. Grenfell and Hunt placed the hand probably in the late third century but headed their entry as late third or fourth. CSNTM gives the third century, as does INTF's Liste at shelf level, whose header reads \"E II - A III\" (end of second to beginning of third century). The idea that the codex was a collection of Paul's letters rests on page arithmetic. About 206 lost pages fit the usual sequence from Romans to 1 Thessalonians, but other contents of similar length cannot be ruled out. Whether Paul wrote 2 Thessalonians is debated; the papyrus bears on how the letter was copied, not on who wrote it.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "A somewhat later copy", "statement": "The first editors headed the papyrus late third or fourth century, though they preferred the late third. If the later end of that range is right, the contents are unaffected, but P30 would be a slightly later witness." }, { "label": "A somewhat earlier copy", "statement": "INTF's Liste header dates P30 \"E II - A III\", the end of the second to the beginning of the third century. The date still rests on handwriting alone, and the contents are unaffected." }, { "label": "Not necessarily a full Pauline corpus", "statement": "The page numbers prove only that about 206 pages came before 1 Thessalonians 4:12. A different selection or order of texts of similar length could fill the same space. 'A collection of Paul's letters' is the editors' probable inference, not something anyone has observed." }, { "label": "2 Thessalonians as pseudonymous", "statement": "Many critical scholars hold that 2 Thessalonians was written in Paul's name by a later author. On that view P30 still shows that by the third century the letter was copied straight after 1 Thessalonians as the second letter to the Thessalonians. The papyrus fits either view of authorship." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-papyrus-30" }, { "id": "papyrus-87", "kind": "papyrus", "dateFrom": 200, "dateTo": 299, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland P87", "INTF Liste docID 10087", "Köln, Institut für Altertumskunde, Inv. Nr. 12", "P.Köln IV 170" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Philemon 1:13-15", "Philemon 1:24-25" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.philemon", "person.onesimus" ], "placeIds": [], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (INTF NTVMR): manuscript record P87", "locator": "P87 (docID 10087)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10087&detail=page&format=xml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF transcription of P87, folio 1r", "locator": "P87 f. 1r (Phlm 13-15)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10087&pageID=10&format=teiraw", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "INTF transcription of P87, folio 1v", "locator": "P87 f. 1v (Phlm 24-25)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10087&pageID=20&format=teiraw", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (INTF NTVMR): manuscript record P139", "locator": "P139 (docID 10139)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10139&detail=page&format=xml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (INTF NTVMR): manuscript record 01 (Codex Sinaiticus)", "locator": "01 (docID 20001)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20001&detail=page&format=xml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste (INTF NTVMR): manuscript record P46", "locator": "P46 (docID 10046)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung" }, { "sourceKey": "csntm", "work": "CSNTM manuscript catalogue: GA P87", "locator": "GA P87", "url": "https://manuscripts.csntm.org/manuscript/View/GA_P87", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Papyrus 87", "locator": "Q571588", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q571588.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "tertullian-against-marcion-anf", "work": "Against Marcion (Ante-Nicene Fathers vol. 3)", "locator": "Adv. Marc. 5.21", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/03125.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "To this epistle alone did its brevity avail to protect it against the falsifying hands of Marcion. I wonder, however, when he received (into his Apostolicon) this letter which was written but to one man, that he rejected the two epistles to Timothy and the one to Titus", "role": "primary-text", "author": "Tertullian", "translator": "Peter Holmes", "year": "1885" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Cornelia Römer (editor of no. 170), in Bärbel Kramer, Cornelia Römer, Dieter Hagedorn and others", "work": "Kölner Papyri (P. Köln), Band 4 (Papyrologica Coloniensia VII)", "year": "1982", "view": "Edits the fragment as P.Köln IV 170. The University of Cologne's collection record for this edition dates it to the early third century and gives its origin as unknown." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q571588", "label": "Papyrus 87" } ], "title": "Papyrus 87, a Cologne fragment of Philemon", "summary": "Papyrus 87 is a small fragment of a codex page, now in Cologne, preserving parts of Philemon 13-15 on one side and 24-25 on the other. Catalogued as third century, it is the oldest known manuscript of Philemon and shows the letter being copied in book form by then. Only scattered letters survive, and it says nothing about who wrote the letter or where.", "dating": "Third century AD, dated by handwriting (INTF: 200-299; CSNTM: third century). The Cologne collection's record for its edition (P.Köln IV 170, ed. C. Römer) places it early in that century.", "currentLocation": "Institut für Altertumskunde, University of Cologne (Inv. Nr. 12)", "establishes": [ "A papyrus fragment at the Institut für Altertumskunde, University of Cologne (Inv. Nr. 12), registered by INTF as Gregory-Aland P87, preserves parts of Philemon 13-15 on one side and Philemon 24-25 on the other.", "Both sides carry parts of the same letter in sequence, so the fragment comes from a codex leaf, not a roll. INTF records parts of eight lines on one side and two on the other, and estimates the original page at 32 lines.", "INTF dates it to the third century (AD 200-299). In the INTF list it is the only manuscript of Philemon dated before the fourth century. The next oldest, P139 and Codex Sinaiticus, are both fourth century.", "It is physical evidence that Philemon was being copied by the third century. Evidence that the letter circulated earlier is literary: Tertullian, writing in the early third century, reports that Marcion's second-century collection of Paul's letters included it." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show who wrote Philemon, when, or during which imprisonment. Rome, Ephesus and Caesarea have all been proposed, and those questions are argued from the letter itself.", "Much of the text in the INTF transcription is editorial restoration. On the side with verses 24-25 the name Demas is wholly restored and only two letters of Luke's name are read, one of them uncertain, so the fragment does not attest those names on its own.", "It does not show whether its codex held Philemon alone or a collection of Paul's letters, or where it was copied. The catalogue records consulted give no find-place." ], "debate": "The date rests on handwriting alone. INTF and CSNTM catalogue the fragment as third century, and the Cologne collection's record for its edition narrows this to the early third century; dates based on literary handwriting usually allow decades either way. So few letters survive that any claim about its text type goes beyond what the fragment shows. The same is true of any claim that it came from a collected edition of Paul's letters like P46, whose surviving leaves, as INTF indexes them, contain no part of Philemon. Most scholars accept Philemon as Paul's on other grounds; where he wrote it from is still disputed.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Minimal reading", "statement": "A fragment of about ten partial lines shows only that someone copied Philemon in a codex by the third century. It cannot confirm the letter's setting or the people it names. Those questions depend on the letter itself and its links with Colossians and Acts." }, { "label": "A narrow lead in age", "statement": "Dates from handwriting are estimates. If P87 was copied late in the third century and P139 or Codex Sinaiticus early in the fourth, the oldest surviving copies of Philemon would be close in age. P87 would remain the earliest by catalogue date, but its lead could be a matter of decades." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-papyrus-87" }, { "id": "codex-vaticanus-paul", "kind": "manuscript", "dateFrom": 300, "dateTo": 399, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland 03 (B)", "Vat. gr. 1209", "INTF Liste docID 20003", "Gregory-Aland 1957 (15th-century supplement, Vat. gr. 1209 pp. 1519-1536)" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Romans 1:1-16:24", "1 Corinthians 1:1-16:24", "2 Corinthians 1:1-13:14", "Galatians 1:1-6:18", "Ephesians 1:1-6:24", "Philippians 1:1-4:23", "Colossians 1:1-4:18", "1 Thessalonians 1:1-5:28", "2 Thessalonians 1:1-3:18", "Hebrews 1:1-9:14" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 03 (docID 20003)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20003&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 1957 (docID 31957)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=31957&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana", "work": "DigiVatLib manuscript record, Vat.gr.1209", "locator": "Vat.gr.1209", "url": "https://digi.vatlib.it/mss/detail/Vat.gr.1209", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 01 (docID 20001)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20001&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 02 (docID 20002)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20002&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments (INTF, New Testament Virtual Manuscript Room)", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P46 (docID 10046)", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata: Codex Vaticanus", "locator": "Q209285", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q209285.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "F. H. A. Scrivener", "work": "A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament", "year": "1861", "view": "Reports that the older, continuous section numbers in Vaticanus's Pauline letters end Galatians at 58, begin Ephesians at 70 and begin Hebrews at 59, and infers they were copied from an older manuscript with Hebrews before Ephesians." }, { "author": "Caspar René Gregory", "work": "Canon and Text of the New Testament", "year": "1907", "view": "Notes that in Vaticanus Hebrews follows Thessalonians, yet the continuous chapter numbers of Paul's letters show that Hebrews stood immediately after Galatians in the book where they were first assigned." }, { "author": "Umberto Benigni", "work": "Codex Vaticanus, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4", "year": "1908", "view": "Calls the codex's original home uncertain: Hort placed it at Rome, Rendel Harris and Armitage Robinson in Asia Minor, and a more common opinion in Egypt." }, { "author": "Bruce M. Metzger and Bart D. Ehrman", "work": "The Text of the New Testament: Its Transmission, Corruption, and Restoration (4th ed.)", "year": "2005", "view": "Standard handbook on how the New Testament text was copied and transmitted, including a survey of the principal Greek manuscripts." }, { "author": "Bruce M. Metzger", "work": "The Canon of the New Testament: Its Origin, Development, and Significance", "year": "1987", "view": "Traces how the New Testament canon took shape and considers the differences in the sequence of its books." }, { "author": "David Trobisch", "work": "Paul's Letter Collection: Tracing the Origins", "year": "1994", "view": "Traces the growth of the collection of Paul's letters and suggests that Paul himself may have played a major role in publishing its first collection." }, { "author": "T. C. Skeat", "work": "The Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus and Constantine (Journal of Theological Studies)", "year": "1999", "view": "Argues that both codices were produced at Caesarea in connection with Constantine's order for Bibles from Eusebius. The proposal is debated." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q209285", "label": "Codex Vaticanus" } ], "title": "Codex Vaticanus (B) and Paul's letters", "summary": "Codex Vaticanus (Vat. gr. 1209, Gregory-Aland 03), a fourth-century Greek Bible, preserves Romans through 2 Thessalonians and Hebrews to 9:14, where its original leaves stop. Scrivener (1861) reported that its continuous Pauline section numbers jump from Galatians (58) to Ephesians (70) and start Hebrews at 59, pointing to an older copy with Hebrews after Galatians. The lost ending cannot show whether 1–2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon followed.", "dating": "Fourth century (INTF Liste \"IV\"; Vatican Library \"sec. IV\"); Hebrews 9:14 to the end and Revelation were supplied in the fifteenth century", "currentLocation": "Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican City (Vat. gr. 1209)", "establishes": [ "A fourth-century Greek codex in the Vatican Library (Vat. gr. 1209, Gregory-Aland 03) preserves Romans, 1–2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1–2 Thessalonians and Hebrews 1:1–9:14. These come after the Gospels, Acts and the Catholic Letters, on pp. 1445–1518 of the codex.", "Hebrews begins on the same page where 2 Thessalonians ends (p. 1512), so in this codex it follows directly on Paul's letters to the Thessalonians and belongs to the Pauline section.", "As Scrivener (1861) reported, Paul's letters carry one continuous series of section numbers in the older of the codex's two section systems: Galatians ends at 58, Ephesians begins at 70 and Hebrews begins at 59. He and Gregory (1907) concluded that the numbering was made for an older copy in which Hebrews stood between Galatians and Ephesians.", "The original hand ends at Hebrews 9:14. The rest of Hebrews and Revelation (pp. 1519–1536) is a fifteenth-century supplement, catalogued separately as Gregory-Aland 1957." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Whether the codex contained 1–2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon. The final quires are lost and the number of missing leaves is unknown, so the codex is silent on the Pastoral Letters and Philemon. It is not evidence against them.", "That Paul wrote Hebrews. Its place among Paul's letters shows how fourth-century copyists grouped a letter that names no author. It does not show who wrote it.", "When or by whom the continuous section numbers were first made, or the date and place of the earlier copy whose order they reflect." ], "debate": "The surviving contents are not in dispute, and the jump in the section numbers has been reported since the nineteenth century; its interpretation is less settled. When and by whom the continuous numbers were made, and whether they came from the codex's own textual ancestor or another copy, are uncertain. The lost quires' contents are inferred: Sinaiticus and Alexandrinus both run from Hebrews to 1–2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, but P46, with Hebrews after Romans, shows early collections differed. The codex's date within the fourth century and its origin remain debated: by 1908 Rome, Asia Minor and Egypt had been proposed, and Skeat later argued for Caesarea.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Inherited numbering (the usual reading)", "statement": "The continuous section numbers were copied from an older manuscript in which Hebrews followed Galatians. The codex itself placed Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians, the order also found in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus." }, { "label": "Numbering from a different source", "statement": "The section system may have come from a different copy than the one that supplied the text. If so, it records the order in that system's source, not in the codex's direct textual ancestor." }, { "label": "Contents of the lost ending", "statement": "The Pastoral Letters and Philemon, and perhaps Revelation, probably followed Hebrews, as in Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus. That is a reasonable inference from comparable Bibles, but no surviving leaf confirms it for this codex." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-codex-vaticanus-paul" }, { "id": "paley-horae-paulinae", "kind": "study", "dateFrom": 1790, "dateTo": 1790, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Romans 15:24-28", "Acts 20:2-3", "Acts 20:16", "Acts 24:17-19", "1 Corinthians 16:1-4", "2 Corinthians 8:1-4", "2 Corinthians 9:2", "1 Corinthians 4:17-19", "1 Corinthians 16:10-11", "Acts 19:21-22", "Acts 16:1", "2 Timothy 1:5", "2 Timothy 3:15", "Galatians 2:1-10", "Acts 15:1-29" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.timothy", "person.erastus" ], "placeIds": [ "place.macedonia", "place.achaia", "place.jerusalem", "place.corinth", "place.ephesus", "place.lystra" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 1 (Exposition of the Argument); Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 132", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In examining, therefore, the agreement between ancient writings, the character of truth and originality is undesignedness: and this test applies to every supposition", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 1 (Exposition of the Argument); Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 133", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "As to the history, it extends to these points:—It proves the general reality of the circumstances: it proves the historian's knowledge of these circumstances.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 1 (Exposition of the Argument); Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 139", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "If the reader, therefore, meets with a number which contains an instance that appears to him unsatisfactory, or founded in mistake, he will dismiss that number from the argument, but without prejudice to any other.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 2 (Romans), no. 1; Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 145", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Here therefore, at length, but fetched from three different writings, we have obtained the several circumstances we inquired after, and which the Epistle to the Romans brings together", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 3 (First Corinthians), no. 3; Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 178", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "One thing at least concerning it is certain: that if this passage of St. Paul's history had been taken from his letter, it would have sent Timothy to Corinth by name, or expressly however into Achaia.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 5 (Galatians), no. 2; Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 235", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "the discrepancy in the two accounts is so considerable, that it is not without difficulty they can be adapted to the same transaction: so that upon this supposition, there is no place for suspecting that the writers were guided or assisted by each other.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae", "year": "1790", "locator": "ch. 12 (Second Timothy), no. 2; Works (London, 1819) vol. 2, p. 355", "url": "https://archive.org/details/paleyworks02paleuoft", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Here we have a fair unforced example of coincidence.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "paley-horae-paulinae", "author": "William Paley", "work": "Horae Paulinae (Dublin printing)", "year": "1790", "locator": "Title page and contents, Dublin printing of 1790 (Princeton Theological Seminary Library copy)", "url": "https://archive.org/details/horaepaulinaeo00pale", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "edition" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Lydia McGrew", "work": "Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts", "year": "2017", "view": "Revives the long-neglected argument from undesigned coincidences, applying it within the Gospels and between Acts and Paul's letters, and argues that such puzzle-like fits are best explained by authors who knew the truth about the events and point to honest eyewitness sources." }, { "author": "J. J. Blunt", "work": "Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testament, an Argument of their Veracity", "year": "1847", "view": "Applies the method of undesigned coincidences to the books of Moses, the Gospels and Acts, and other books of Scripture. The book rearranges studies Blunt published from 1828 onward." }, { "author": "F. C. Baur", "work": "Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi", "year": "1845", "view": "Accepts only Galatians, 1-2 Corinthians and Romans as authentic and reads Acts as a later account that embellished its traditions and drew artificial parallels between Peter and Paul. This undercuts Paley's premise of thirteen genuine letters and a well-informed Acts." }, { "author": "John Knox", "work": "Chapters in a Life of Paul", "year": "1950", "view": "Treats Paul's letters as the primary source for his life and Acts as a secondary one; where the two conflict, the letters are to be followed. Paley instead treats them as independent witnesses that check each other." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dates Acts to about 115 and argues that its author used Josephus and a collection of Paul's letters, the kind of dependence Paley's test is meant to rule out." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q433739", "label": "William Paley" } ], "title": "William Paley's Horae Paulinae (1790): undesigned coincidences between Acts and Paul's letters", "summary": "William Paley's Horae Paulinae (1790) compares Paul's letters with Acts and argues that apparently unplanned agreements show both rest on real events. His lead case is the Jerusalem collection, which Romans 15 states in one place while Acts and 1-2 Corinthians supply it in scattered pieces. It is an argument from internal comparison, not new evidence, and holds only if the agreements are unplanned and independent, which some scholars contest.", "dating": "1790 (first published); quotations here are from the 1819 collected Works", "currentLocation": "Printed book; the 1790 Dublin printing and the 1819 Works are digitized on archive.org", "establishes": [ "Paley's test (ch. 1): agreement between a history and letters counts as evidence only when it looks unplanned. A history compiled from the letters, letters forged from the history, or both drawn from one common source would all produce designed agreement. He applies the test to Acts and thirteen letters and numbers each instance so that a reader can reject a weak one without discarding the rest.", "His lead example (ch. 2, no. 1) rests on a sound textual observation. Romans 15:25-26 links Macedonian and Achaian gifts to an imminent Jerusalem trip. Acts 20:2-3 and 20:16 give the Greek stay and the push to Jerusalem but no collection, which Acts mentions only in Paul's defence before Felix (24:17). 1 Corinthians 16:1-4 and 2 Corinthians 8:1-4 and 9:2 supply the Achaian and Macedonian giving.", "A second example (ch. 3, nos. 3-4): Acts 19:21-22 sends Timothy and Erastus into Macedonia ahead of Paul. 1 Corinthians 4:17 says Timothy has already been sent, while 16:10-11 treats his arrival in Corinth as uncertain. Paley reconciles the two with a route through Macedonia. That route is his own inference, and he presents it as probable, not stated.", "Both lead examples depend only on letters almost all scholars accept as Paul's (Romans, 1-2 Corinthians)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "That Acts is accurate throughout. The fits concern travel plans, companions and a collection, not the speeches, the miracles or the narrator's interpretation of events.", "That all thirteen letters Paley used are Paul's. His examples from disputed letters, such as 2 Timothy, are only as strong as the case for dating those letters to Paul's lifetime.", "That the agreements are independent beyond doubt. If the author of Acts knew the letters, some of the fits would be dependent rather than corroborating." ], "debate": "Paley's inference holds only if the agreements are independent. Since F. C. Baur, many critical scholars have read Acts as a later, shaped account, and most accept only seven letters as certainly Paul's. Richard Pervo argued that Acts dates from the early second century and used Paul's letters, the very dependence Paley's test sets out to exclude. The method's answer, from Paley to Lydia McGrew, is that the fits are too oblique to be borrowings: in Paley's examples Acts barely mentions the collection and at 19:22 sends Timothy only into Macedonia. Whether such silences are accidental or deliberate is itself disputed. Many scholars think the author of Acts did not know the letters, which grants Paley's independence premise. They answer instead that agreements on travel and companions show good information about Paul's movements, not the accuracy of Acts' speeches or theology, and they give the letters priority where the two conflict (Knox).", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Acts used the letters", "statement": "Some scholars, notably Richard Pervo, hold that the author of Acts knew several of Paul's letters. On that view some agreements are borrowings, not independent confirmations. The loose fit Paley points to (Acts almost silent on the collection, Timothy sent only into Macedonia) would then mean that the letters were used freely rather than copied." }, { "label": "The silence is deliberate", "statement": "Some commentators explain Acts' near-silence on the collection as deliberate reticence, for instance if the gift was coolly received or became entangled with Paul's arrest. That would make the omission designed rather than accidental. It would still imply that the author knew about the collection." }, { "label": "A later letter used Acts", "statement": "Many critical scholars regard 2 Timothy as written after Paul's lifetime. A later writer could have taken Timothy's Jewish mother from Acts 16:1, which Paley offers as an undesigned coincidence with 2 Timothy 1:5 and 3:15 (ch. 12, nos. 2-3). These examples therefore carry weight only for readers who already date the letter to Paul." }, { "label": "Fits counted, tensions set aside", "statement": "Critics of the method argue that a list of fits can overstate the case unless tensions, such as those between Galatians 1-2 and Acts over Paul's Jerusalem visits, are weighed alongside them. Paley himself discusses the gap between Galatians 2 and Acts 15 and argues that it shows neither writer drew on the other; his defenders add that each coincidence must be judged on its own terms." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-paley-horae-paulinae" }, { "id": "codex-sinaiticus-paul", "kind": "manuscript", "dateFrom": 300, "dateTo": 399, "corpusReferences": [ "Gregory-Aland 01", "INTF Liste docID 20001", "British Library Add. MS 43725" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "attested", "scriptureReferences": [ "Romans 1:1-16:24", "1 Corinthians 1:1-16:24", "2 Corinthians 1:1-13:14", "Galatians 1:1-6:18", "Ephesians 1:1-6:24", "Ephesians 1:1", "Philippians 1:1-4:23", "Colossians 1:1-4:18", "1 Thessalonians 1:1-5:28", "2 Thessalonians 1:1-3:18", "Hebrews 1:1-13:25", "1 Timothy 1:1-6:21", "2 Timothy 1:1-4:22", "Titus 1:1-3:15", "Philemon 1:1-25" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul" ], "placeIds": [ "place.ephesus", "place.caesarea" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "About the Codex: Content", "locator": "About the Codex: Content (surviving books; New Testament order, Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians, Acts between the Pastoral and Catholic Epistles)", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/content.aspx", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "About the Codex: Date", "locator": "About the Codex: Date (fourth century, sometimes mid-century, by palaeography; Vaticanus of similar date)", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/date.aspx", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "About the Codex: Significance", "locator": "About the Codex: Significance (corrections from the fourth to the twelfth century; order of books)", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/significance.aspx", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "About the Codex: History", "locator": "About the Codex: History (holdings: British Library 347 leaves; Leipzig 43 leaves; parts of six leaves in St Petersburg; further leaves at St Catherine's)", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/en/codex/history.aspx", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "Transcription of Codex Sinaiticus, quire 36, folio 5 recto", "locator": "Quire 36, folio 5 recto: colophon after 2 Esdras stating that the text was collated with a very old copy corrected by the martyr Pamphilus", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/handler/transcription.ashx?q=36&f=5&s=r&type=0", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "museum-record", "author": "Codex Sinaiticus Project", "work": "Transcription of Codex Sinaiticus, quire 37, folio 3 recto", "locator": "Quire 37, folio 3 recto: colophon after Esther stating that the text was collated with a very old copy corrected by the martyr Pamphilus, whose own subscription cites Origen's Hexapla", "url": "https://www.codexsinaiticus.org/handler/transcription.ashx?q=37&f=3&s=r&type=0", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste record and page index: GA 01", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 01 (docID 20001): IV century; British Library Add. 43725; page index Romans from 261r to Philemon at 298r, Hebrews 288v-293v, Acts from 299r", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20001&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "NTVMR transcription of GA 01, folio 280v", "locator": "GA 01 folio 280v (pageID 1620), Ephesians 1:1: first hand omits the place-name; corrector supplies it", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=20001&pageID=1620&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste record and page index: GA 03", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 03 (docID 20003): IV century; Vat. gr. 1209; page index has Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians and ends at Hebrews 9:14", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20003&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "NTVMR transcription of GA 03, page 1493", "locator": "GA 03 page 1493 (pageID 2620), Ephesians 1:1: first hand omits the place-name; corrector supplies it", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=20003&pageID=2620&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste record and page index: P46", "locator": "Gregory-Aland P46 (docID 10046): dated 200-225; page index Romans, Hebrews, 1-2 Corinthians, Ephesians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=10046&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "NTVMR transcription of P46, folio 75r", "locator": "P46 folio 75r (pageID 1310), Ephesians 1:1: no place-name", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/transcript/get/?docid=10046&pageID=1310&format=xhtml", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "ntvmr-liste", "author": "Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung", "work": "Kurzgefasste Liste record and page index: GA 02", "locator": "Gregory-Aland 02 (docID 20002): V century; British Library Royal 1 D.VIII; page index has Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians", "url": "https://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/community/vmr/api/metadata/liste/search/?docID=20002&detail=page", "publicDomain": false, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History, Book III", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 3.3.5", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Paul's fourteen epistles are well known and undisputed. It is not indeed right to overlook the fact that some have rejected the Epistle to the Hebrews, saying that it is disputed by the church of Rome, on the ground that it was not written by Paul.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History, Book VI", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 6.25.11-14", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250106.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "But who wrote the epistle, in truth, God knows. The statement of some who have gone before us is that Clement, bishop of the Romans, wrote the epistle, and of others that Luke, the author of the Gospel and the Acts, wrote it.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History, Book VII", "translator": "Arthur Cushman McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "HE 7.32.24-25 (Pamphilus a presbyter of the church at Caesarea in Palestine)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250107.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In his time we became acquainted with Pamphilus, that most eloquent man, of truly philosophical life, who was esteemed worthy of the office of presbyter in that parish.", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "D. C. Parker", "work": "Codex Sinaiticus: The Story of the World's Oldest Bible", "year": "2010", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry. A book-length introduction to the codex by the director of the University of Birmingham (ITSEE) team on the Codex Sinaiticus Project. The book's existence and authorship were verified; its arguments were not checked, and it is not cited here as support for any claim." }, { "author": "T. C. Skeat", "work": "The Codex Sinaiticus, the Codex Vaticanus and Constantine (Journal of Theological Studies 50)", "year": "1999", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry. The article discusses the two codices in relation to Constantine. Its title and journal were verified, but its argument was not checked against the text, so it is not cited here as support for any position on where the codex came from." }, { "author": "J. F. Fenlon", "work": "Codex Sinaiticus (The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 4)", "year": "1908", "view": "Reports that the codex's origin had been assigned to Rome, southern Italy, Egypt and Caesarea but could not be determined. Dates the corrector who added the Pamphilus note at the end of 2 Esdras probably to the seventh century, and notes that, although some linked the codex with Constantine's fifty copies, there is no sign it was ever at Constantinople." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q152962", "label": "Codex Sinaiticus" } ], "title": "Paul's letters in Codex Sinaiticus", "summary": "Codex Sinaiticus, a Greek Bible copied in the fourth century and now mostly in the British Library, is the oldest known manuscript containing all thirteen letters that bear Paul's name, with Hebrews placed among them after 2 Thessalonians. It shows how Paul's letters were collected and read roughly three centuries after him; as a corrected copy, it neither fixes every original reading nor settles who wrote Hebrews.", "dating": "4th century AD (dated by handwriting; sometimes placed more precisely in the middle of the century)", "currentLocation": "British Library, London (Add. MS 43725, which includes the whole New Testament); other leaves at Leipzig University Library, the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, and St Catherine's Monastery, Sinai", "establishes": [ "A Greek parchment codex dated by its handwriting to the fourth century preserves the whole New Testament. Its Pauline section runs Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1-2 Thessalonians, Hebrews, 1-2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon, and Acts follows directly (British Library Add. MS 43725, folios 261r-298r in the INTF page index).", "It is the oldest known manuscript that holds every letter bearing Paul's name. Papyrus 46 (c. 200-225), as it survives, has no 2 Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus or Philemon. Codex Vaticanus, of similar date, breaks off at Hebrews 9:14, so whether it ever held 1-2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon is unknown.", "In both great fourth-century Greek codices, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus, Hebrews was copied inside the Pauline collection; here it stands between 2 Thessalonians and 1 Timothy. Eusebius, in the same century, counts fourteen letters of Paul but reports that some rejected Hebrews because the Roman church disputed that Paul wrote it.", "At Ephesians 1:1 the first hand lacks the phrase naming Ephesus, and a later corrector supplied it. Papyrus 46 and the first hand of Codex Vaticanus also lack the phrase, so the codex is one of the earliest witnesses to that textual question." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "Who wrote Hebrews. The letter's position shows how fourth-century copyists grouped it, not who wrote it. Origen, as Eusebius reports him, thought the ideas were Paul's and the wording someone else's, and said only God knows who the writer was.", "The original wording at every point. Sinaiticus is a single witness, corrected by many hands from the fourth century to the twelfth, and its readings have to be weighed against the papyri and other manuscripts.", "Where it was copied, who paid for it, or whether any event in Acts or the letters happened. A proposal, made since Tischendorf, links it to the fifty copies Constantine ordered from Eusebius (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4.36), but no record documents the link, and an accurate copy of a letter attests its text, not the history the text describes." ], "debate": "Origin: nothing in the codex records where or for whom it was first copied. Notes by a later corrector after 2 Esdras and Esther say the text was checked against a very old copy corrected by the martyr Pamphilus, a presbyter at Caesarea, which links the codex with Caesarea some centuries after it was copied (Fenlon in 1908 put that corrector probably in the seventh century). Caesarea, Egypt (often Alexandria), Rome and southern Italy have all been proposed as its place of origin. A proposal, made since Tischendorf, links it to the fifty copies Constantine ordered from Eusebius (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4.36), but no record documents the link. Date: the handwriting places it in the fourth century, sometimes mid-century, but dating by script is approximate. Order: Codex Vaticanus and the fifth-century Codex Alexandrinus also put Hebrews after 2 Thessalonians, Papyrus 46 puts it after Romans, and modern Western Bibles put it after Philemon. Text: scholars disagree whether the place-name at Ephesians 1:1 was original and lost early, or added later.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Hebrews read as Paul's", "statement": "Some interpreters, ancient and modern, take Hebrews' place among Paul's letters as support for Pauline authorship, or for a writer from Paul's circle. The grouping does show that much of the Greek-speaking church counted Hebrews with Paul's letters. Sources from the same period also record doubts at Rome and Origen's view that the wording is not Paul's, so the placement cannot settle authorship by itself." }, { "label": "Constantine's commission", "statement": "A proposal, made since Tischendorf, links Sinaiticus, and sometimes Codex Vaticanus, to the fifty parchment copies of the Scriptures that Constantine ordered from Eusebius for the churches of his new city (Eusebius, Life of Constantine 4.36). The codex's scale and date make this possible, but no surviving record ties this manuscript to that order, and Fenlon (1908) noted no sign that it was ever at Constantinople." }, { "label": "Ephesians as a circular letter", "statement": "Several early witnesses, including the first hand of this codex, lack the place-name at Ephesians 1:1. On that basis some hold that the letter was meant for several churches. Others regard the name as original and its absence as an early change in copying, which this codex's own corrector reversed." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-codex-sinaiticus-paul" }, { "id": "smith-acts-27-seamanship", "kind": "study", "dateFrom": 1848, "dateTo": 1848, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "reconstructed", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 27:12", "Acts 27:13-20", "Acts 27:21-26", "Acts 27:27-29", "Acts 27:39-44", "Acts 28:1" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.luke" ], "placeIds": [ "place.crete", "place.fair-havens", "place.malta" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Introduction, p. ix, note", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I question if modern science has ever done more to confirm an antient author than Captain Smyth's survey of St. Paul's Bay has done in the present case. The soundings alone would have furnished a conclusive test of the truth of the narrative.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Introduction, p. xiii", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "My knowledge of these subjects is only that of an amateur, yet a yacht sailor of more than thirty years' standing can scarcely fail to have acquired some skill in those principles of nautical science which are common to all times", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Introduction, p. xix", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "no man not a sailor could have written a narrative of a sea voyage so consistent in all its parts, unless from actual observation.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 60", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "In the dissertation on the wind Euroclydon I have stated my reasons for preferring the reading of the most ancient manuscripts and versions, Euro-aquilo, which must be between Eurus and Aquilo, or E. N. E.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 64", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Upon reaching it they availed themselves of the smooth water under its lee, to prepare the ship to resist the fury of the storm.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 81", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "on the 10th of August, 1810, the Lively, frigate, coming from the westward with a fair wind, made the land of Gozo, and the west end of Malta, before it was dark.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 82", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "This was upon the point of Koura, the very spot where a ship driving from the east into St. Paul's Bay must have seen and heard the breakers, and the only spot where she could have done so.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 85", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The mean of these extremes is thirty-three miles in twenty-four hours, and the mean of both estimates is thirty-six and a half miles in twenty-four hours.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "Crete to Melita, p. 87", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I admit that a coincidence so very close as this is, is to a certain extent, accidental, but it is an accident which could not have happened had there been any inaccuracy on the part of the author of the narrative", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "smith-voyage-shipwreck-1848", "author": "James Smith", "work": "The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul", "year": "1848", "locator": "The Shipwreck, p. 102", "url": "https://archive.org/details/voyageandshipwr01smitgoog", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I am, however, inclined to think that the point of appulse was in the creek, which has no longer a sandy beach, but which must have had one formerly, although now worn away by the wasting action of the sea", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. XIV, p. 326", "url": "https://archive.org/details/stpaultravellerr00rams", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Smith tries to interpret the Greek words in that sense; but it must be observed that Luke never saw the harbour, and merely speaks on Paul's report of the professional opinion.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. XIV, p. 329", "url": "https://archive.org/details/stpaultravellerr00rams", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "I must with Smith believe that cables were passed underneath round the ship transversely to hold the timbers together. This is a possible operation in the circumstances, and a useful one.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. XIV, p. 334", "url": "https://archive.org/details/stpaultravellerr00rams", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Luke seems to have had the landsman's idea that they drifted to and fro in the Mediterranean. A sailor would have known that they drifted in a uniform direction", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1896", "locator": "ch. XIV, p. 341", "url": "https://archive.org/details/stpaultravellerr00rams", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "one of the completest services that has ever been rendered to New Testament scholarship is James Smith's proof that all these circumstances are united in St. Paul's Bay. The only difficulty to which he has applied a rather violent solution is the sandy beach", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata", "locator": "Q6143365", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6143365", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "First Person Narrative in Acts 27-28 (Tyndale Bulletin 36)", "year": "1985", "view": "Rejects Robbins's proposed first-person sea-voyage genre and builds on Smith, while conceding that nautical precision alone shows only that the writer had made such a voyage." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Tests details of Acts against literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, including records of the Alexandrian grain fleet, and presents Acts as a coherent product of its day (publisher's description). Its treatment of the voyage was not checked for this entry." }, { "author": "C. J. Hemer", "work": "Euraquilo and Melita (Journal of Theological Studies)", "year": "1975", "view": "Defends the wind-name read by the oldest manuscripts at Acts 27:14 and the Malta identification, in reply to Acworth's case for Mljet." }, { "author": "A. Acworth", "work": "Where was St. Paul Shipwrecked? A Re-examination of the Evidence (Journal of Theological Studies)", "year": "1973", "view": "Argues for Mljet, the Adriatic Melita, as the island of the shipwreck rather than Malta, as reported by Hemer (1985); the article itself was not checked." }, { "author": "Vernon K. Robbins", "work": "By Land and by Sea: The We-Passages and Ancient Sea Voyages (in C. H. Talbert, ed., Perspectives on Luke-Acts)", "year": "1978", "view": "Argues that first-person plural narration was a convention of ancient sea-voyage accounts, so the we-passages need not indicate an eyewitness (thesis as reported and contested by Hemer 1985)." }, { "author": "Dennis R. MacDonald", "work": "The Shipwrecks of Odysseus and Paul (New Testament Studies 45)", "year": "1999", "view": "According to its abstract, argues that Acts 27-28 repeatedly points to Odysseus's shipwrecks in Odyssey books 5 and 12, and that Luke related Paul's shipwreck to them to exalt Paul and his God by comparison." }, { "author": "Heinz Warnecke", "work": "Die tatsächliche Romfahrt des Apostels Paulus (Stuttgarter Bibelstudien 127)", "year": "1987", "view": "Argues that the shipwreck took place on Kephallenia in western Greece rather than on Malta." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles", "year": "1987", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry; argument not checked." }, { "author": "Lionel Casson", "work": "Ships and Seamanship in the Ancient World", "year": "1971", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry; argument not checked." }, { "author": "Brian M. Rapske", "work": "Acts, Travel and Shipwreck (in D. W. J. Gill and C. Gempf, eds., The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting)", "year": "1994", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry; argument not checked." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q6143365", "label": "James Smith" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q20922918", "label": "St Paul's Bay" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q755984", "label": "St Paul's Island" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q213895", "label": "Gavdos" }, { "scheme": "pleiades", "id": "589858", "label": "Kaudos (island)" } ], "title": "James Smith's nautical analysis of Paul's voyage and shipwreck (1848)", "summary": "In The Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul (1848), James Smith of Jordanhill, a Scottish yachtsman and geologist, tested Acts 27 against hydrographic charts, sailing directions and naval officers' advice. He argued that the gale, the shelter under Cauda, the undergirding, the drift and the soundings all fit a landfall at St Paul's Bay, Malta. That shows nautical coherence, though some inputs were drawn from Acts itself. It cannot prove authorship or every event.", "dating": "1848 (first edition; later editions 1856, 1866 and 1880)", "currentLocation": "Published book; the 1848 first edition is digitised on the Internet Archive from a Harvard College Library copy", "establishes": [ "Smith reconstructed the storm of Acts 27:13-17 as a gale from east-north-east, preferring at Acts 27:14 the wind-name of the most ancient manuscripts and versions, which he took to name a wind between east and north-east, to the later reading. It drove the ship from off south-central Crete to the lee of Cauda (modern Gavdos), where the crew could hoist the boat and pass cables round the hull.", "Smith took a mean drift of about thirty-six and a half miles a day from two Royal Navy captains' estimates. On that rate, a ship hove-to from Cauda would cover the 476.6 miles to Koura Point, Malta, in just over thirteen days. That fits the fourteenth night of Acts 27:27, and the calculated heading matches the bearing of St Paul's Bay.", "Smith matched the soundings of twenty, then fifteen fathoms (Acts 27:28) to Captain Smyth's survey of St Paul's Bay, and cited the 1810 court-martial on the frigate Lively, whose look-out saw surf at Koura Point before he saw land (Acts 27:27). He placed the grounding near Salmonetta (St Paul's Island), and conceded that the drift agreement was partly accidental and that the creek's sandy beach is gone.", "Ramsay (1895) called Smith's case for St Paul's Bay one of the completest services ever rendered to New Testament scholarship and sided with him on transverse undergirding, but judged his vanished-beach solution rather violent. He also rejected Smith's construal of the Greek on Phoenix and on the drift: Luke, who never saw Phoenix, relayed a garbled description, and wrote of the drift with a landsman's idea." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It is not an independent witness to the voyage. Smith derived the wind direction from the narrative's own geography, took the drift rate from nineteenth-century officers' estimates and used the traditional Maltese endpoint. The match therefore shows that the account is coherent with real winds, charts and coasts; it does not confirm each detail from outside evidence.", "It does not show that Luke wrote as an eyewitness, or that events beyond nautical testing occurred, such as the angelic message and Paul's assurances in Acts 27:21-26. Smith's claim that no non-sailor could write so consistently without actual observation is an inference from the narrative's consistency, and others contest it. Even Ramsay held that Luke relayed Phoenix second-hand and described the drift as a landsman would.", "It does not fix the exact landing spot or settle every technical point. Smith's chosen creek needs a beach that no longer exists, and both the method of undergirding and the aspect of the harbour at Phoenix remain disputed." ], "debate": "Smith's admirers, from Ramsay to Colin Hemer, read the narrative's nautical coherence as a mark of first-hand reporting. Others reply that first-person sea-voyage narration was a literary convention (Vernon Robbins), or that Acts 27-28 imitates the shipwrecks of Odysseus (Dennis MacDonald). On those readings, accuracy may show seafaring knowledge rather than presence aboard. Hemer replied that Robbins's parallels do not establish such a convention, while conceding that nautical precision alone shows only that the writer had made such a voyage. Technical questions also remain open: whether the undergirding cables ran across or along the hull, which way Phoenix faced, and whether Melita was Malta at all. Heinz Warnecke argued for Kephallenia, and A. Acworth and O. F. A. Meinardus for Mljet.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Literary convention", "statement": "Vernon Robbins argues that first-person plural narration belonged to the conventions of ancient sea-voyage accounts. On that reading, Smith's tests show that the author knew how ships and Mediterranean winds behave, not that he was aboard. Hemer answered that Robbins's examples do not establish such a genre." }, { "label": "Homeric imitation", "statement": "Dennis MacDonald argues that Acts 27-28 repeatedly points to the shipwrecks of Odysseus, sharing nautical imagery, a divine promise of safety and a hero welcomed by islanders, in order to exalt Paul and his God by comparison. Its shape would then be literary even where its geography is realistic." }, { "label": "Another island", "statement": "Heinz Warnecke placed the wreck on Kephallenia, off western Greece. An older view, rebutted by Smith and revived by A. Acworth (1973) and O. F. A. Meinardus, placed Melita at Mljet (Meleda) in the Adriatic. Malta, and St Paul's Bay in particular, remains the majority identification." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-smith-acts-27-seamanship" }, { "id": "ramsay-acts-accuracy", "kind": "study", "dateFrom": 1895, "dateTo": 1896, "corpusReferences": [], "confidence": "medium-high", "epistemicStatus": "debated", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 13:49", "Acts 14:1-7", "Acts 14:11", "Acts 16:6", "Acts 18:23", "Galatians 1:2", "Galatians 3:1" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.barnabas", "person.luke" ], "placeIds": [ "place.iconium", "place.lystra", "place.derbe", "place.galatia", "place.pisidian-antioch" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895 (tenth edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. 1 §1 (Trustworthiness)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.iv.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "On the contrary, I began with a mind unfavourable to it, for the ingenuity and apparent completeness of the Tübingen theory had at one time quite convinced me.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895 (tenth edition, 1907)", "locator": "ch. 5 §6 (The Cities of Lycaonia)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.viii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "it was accurate at the period when Paul visited Lycaonia; that it was accurate at no other time except between 37 and 72 A.D.; and that its only meaning is to distinguish between the Roman part of Lycaonia and the non-Roman part ruled by Antiochus.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895 (tenth edition, 1907)", "locator": "Preface to the second edition (dated 25 March 1896)", "url": "https://ccel.org/ccel/ramsay/paul_roman/paul_roman.iii.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "With the Galatian question the date and authorship of Acts are bound up: the more I study, the more clearly I see that it is impossible to reconcile the “North-Galatian theory” with the first-century origin and Lukan authorship of Acts", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "wikidata", "work": "Wikidata item for William Mitchell Ramsay", "locator": "Q326308", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:EntityData/Q326308.json", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "catalogue-record" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "W. Ward Gasque", "work": "Sir William M. Ramsay: Archaeologist and New Testament Scholar", "year": "1966", "view": "A sympathetic survey. It counts the reliability of Luke-Acts, the South Galatian identification and the stress on historical context as Ramsay's lasting contributions. It reports that Ramsay's 1915 retelling made Acts 14:5-12 the first prompt for his change of mind, and it concedes that the South Galatian case cannot be proved to every scholar's satisfaction." }, { "author": "F. F. Bruce", "work": "Foreword to W. W. Gasque, Sir William M. Ramsay: Archaeologist and New Testament Scholar", "year": "1966", "view": "Says the nineteenth-century Ramsay, if inclined to overstate his case, had a good case to overstate, and that his later role as a popular apologist harmed his scholarly reputation." }, { "author": "Stephen Neill", "work": "The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1961", "year": "1964", "view": "As reported by Gasque, names two abiding results of Ramsay's work: his case for the accuracy of the Lukan writings and his South Galatian identification. Notes that many German scholars had little first-hand acquaintance with the archaeological evidence." }, { "author": "Ernst Haenchen", "work": "Die Apostelgeschichte (English translation: The Acts of the Apostles, 1971)", "year": "1956", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry; argument not checked." }, { "author": "C. K. Barrett", "work": "Luke the Historian in Recent Study", "year": "1961", "view": "According to Gasque, suggests a date for Acts as late as AD 95-115." }, { "author": "J. C. O'Neill", "work": "The Theology of Acts in Its Historical Setting", "year": "1961", "view": "Dates Acts to the second century. Gasque cites the book as an example of the position Ramsay had abandoned." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Tests details of Acts against literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence and presents Acts as a coherent product of its day (publisher's description). Secondary summaries report that it dates Acts to about AD 62; the chapters were not checked for this entry." }, { "author": "J. B. Lightfoot", "work": "Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians", "year": "1865", "view": "The classic defence, in Ramsay's day, of the North Galatian view: Paul's Galatians were the Gaulish population of central Asia Minor (as summarised by Gasque; the first-edition preface is dated February 1865)." }, { "author": "James Moffatt", "work": "An Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament", "year": "1911", "view": "Defends the North Galatian destination against Ramsay's South Galatian case (checked in the revised third edition of 1918). Gasque calls him Ramsay's faithful antagonist on this question." }, { "author": "F. H. Chase", "work": "The Galatia of the Acts (articles in The Expositor)", "year": "1893-1894", "view": "Criticised Ramsay's South Galatian argument. Ramsay credited this criticism with prompting the renewed work behind St Paul the Traveller." }, { "author": "Hans Dieter Betz", "work": "Galatians (Hermeneia)", "year": "1979", "view": "Bibliography only for this entry; argument not checked." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q326308", "label": "William Mitchell Ramsay" } ], "title": "W. M. Ramsay's St Paul the Traveller (1895) and the case for the accuracy of Acts", "summary": "In St Paul the Traveller (1895), the Aberdeen classicist W. M. Ramsay wrote that he had once accepted the Tübingen view of Acts as a second-century work. Years of work on Asia Minor convinced him that its regional terms fit first-century Roman Galatia, as in the flight from Iconium into Lycaonia (Acts 14:6). Where his readings hold, they show the author knew the region; they do not verify each event, and his dating window and South Galatian case remain debated.", "dating": "First published 1895 (dedication dated 17 September, preface 23 September 1895); quotations checked against the tenth edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1907", "currentLocation": "Published book; the tenth edition (Hodder and Stoughton, 1907) is digitised by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library", "establishes": [ "In 1895 Ramsay wrote that the Tübingen theory had once fully convinced him and that he had treated Acts as a second-century composition. He said his view changed gradually as he used Acts as a source for the topography, antiquities and society of Asia Minor.", "He argued that Acts 14:6 marks a real frontier. On his account Iconium belonged to the Phrygian district of the province of Galatia, while Lystra and Derbe lay in its Roman ('Galatic') part of Lycaonia. He held that this description was accurate only between AD 37 and 72.", "Ramsay held that the South Galatian reading of Galatians was bound up with the first-century origin and Lukan authorship of Acts. His Galatian case was contested from the start, by Dr Chase in the Expositor (1893-94), and later by James Moffatt. Even a sympathetic assessor, F. F. Bruce (1966), judged that he was inclined to overstate his case, though it was a good case to overstate." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "It does not show that the events, speeches or miracles in Acts happened as narrated. A correct frontier, title or district shows that the author knew the setting, not that each episode is historical.", "Ramsay's account of his change of mind is evidence that he changed his mind, not independent confirmation of Acts. In his 1915 retelling, as Gasque summarises it, the Lycaonian episode of Acts 14:5-12 is the turning point. The 1895 text instead stresses the dispute over whether Paul travelled through North Galatia or through Lycaonia.", "It does not settle the South Galatian destination of Galatians, or an early date and Lukan authorship of Acts. All three remain debated." ], "debate": "Three questions remain open. First, does exact local knowledge point to a companion of Paul (Ramsay, Hemer), or does it fit a later, well-informed author who shaped events theologically? Proposed dates for Acts run from the early 60s (Hemer) through the commonly held 80s to the second century (O'Neill); Gasque reports Barrett allowing a date as late as 95-115. Second, did Paul's Galatians live in the southern cities of the Roman province or in ethnic Galatia to the north (Lightfoot, Moffatt)? Third, is Ramsay's 37-72 window, which rests on the division between Roman and Antiochian Lycaonia, as decisive as he claimed, given his own admission that the evidence for the province's districts was scanty?", "alternatives": [ { "label": "A later, well-informed author", "statement": "Accurate geography and administrative terms could come from sources, travel knowledge or regional usage that lasted a long time. They therefore fit an author writing late in the first century or after, who shaped the story for theological ends. On this view Ramsay showed that the author knew Asia Minor, not that he was Paul's companion." }, { "label": "North Galatian reading", "statement": "J. B. Lightfoot, the view's classic defender in Ramsay's day, took Paul's Galatians to be the Gaulish people of central Asia Minor, visited on the journeys of Acts 16:6 and 18:23. Moffatt kept the view against Ramsay, as, Gasque reports, did most German scholarship. Its defenders also use Acts for Paul's route, so Ramsay's claim that their view cannot fit a first-century, Lukan Acts is his own inference." }, { "label": "Ramsay refined, not overturned", "statement": "Sympathetic successors such as Gasque and Hemer keep his method of testing Acts against inscriptions and geography. Gasque judges the South Galatian case favoured by the evidence but not provable to every scholar's satisfaction. Bruce, in his foreword to Gasque, judged that Ramsay's later role as a popular apologist harmed his scholarly reputation." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-ramsay-acts-accuracy" }, { "id": "lukan-titles-overview", "kind": "study", "dateFrom": -22, "dateTo": 160, "corpusReferences": [ "IG XIV 601" ], "confidence": "high", "epistemicStatus": "source-supported", "scriptureReferences": [ "Acts 13:6-12", "Acts 16:12-40", "Acts 17:5-9", "Acts 18:12-17", "Acts 19:29-41", "Acts 21:30-40", "Acts 22:24-29", "Acts 23:10-30", "Acts 24:22", "Acts 28:7-10" ], "personIds": [ "person.paul", "person.silas", "person.sergius-paulus", "person.gallio", "person.claudius", "person.jason", "person.lysias", "person.publius" ], "placeIds": [ "place.cyprus", "place.paphos", "place.achaia", "place.corinth", "place.macedonia", "place.thessalonica", "place.philippi", "place.ephesus", "place.malta", "place.jerusalem" ], "sources": [ { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1917", "locator": "54.4.1 (22 BC)", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/54*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "It was at this time that he restored to the people both Cyprus and Gallia Narbonensis as districts no longer needing the presence of his armies; and thus proconsuls began to be sent to those provinces also.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "tacitus-annals-church-brodribb", "author": "Tacitus", "work": "Annals", "translator": "A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb", "year": "1876", "locator": "Ann. 1.76 (AD 15)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.02.0078:book=1:chapter=76", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Achaia and Macedonia, on complaining of their burdens, were, it was decided, to be relieved for a time from pro-consular government and to be transferred to the emperor.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "dio-cassius-cary", "author": "Cassius Dio", "work": "Roman History", "translator": "Earnest Cary", "year": "1924", "locator": "60.24.1 (AD 44)", "url": "https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/60*.html", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "Achaia and Macedonia, which ever since the reign of Tiberius had been assigned to governors directly appointed, Claudius now made to depend upon the lot once more.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. X sect. 3, p. 218 (praetors at Philippi)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The title Praetors was not technically accurate, but was frequently employed as a courtesy title for the supreme magistrates of a Roman colony; and, as usual, Luke moves on the plane of educated conversation in such matters, and not on the plane of rigid technical accuracy.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "eusebius-history-mcgiffert", "author": "Eusebius", "work": "Church History", "translator": "A. C. McGiffert", "year": "1890", "locator": "Hist. eccl. 4.15.27 (quoting Mart. Pol. 12.2)", "url": "https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/250104.htm", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "they cried out and asked the Asiarch Philip to let a lion loose upon Polycarp. But he said that it was not lawful for him, since he had closed the games.", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. XII sect. 5, p. 281 (Asiarchs)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Asiarchs, or High Priests of Asia, were the heads of the imperial, political-religious organisation of the province in the worship of \"Rome and the Emperors\"", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. XII sect. 5, p. 281 (town clerk)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The Clerk was probably the most important official in Ephesus, and therefore in close contact with the court of the proconsul, who generally resided in that city", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "ramsay-st-paul-traveller", "author": "W. M. Ramsay", "work": "St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen", "year": "1895", "locator": "ch. XIV sect. 9, p. 343 (Malta)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog/stpaultraveller02ramsgoog_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "The title \"first\" is technically correct in Melita: it has inscriptional authority.", "role": "early-study" }, { "sourceKey": "kaibel-ig-xiv", "author": "G. Kaibel", "work": "Inscriptiones Graecae XIV: Inscriptiones Siciliae et Italiae", "year": "1890", "locator": "IG XIV 601 (p. 112)", "url": "https://archive.org/download/bub_gb_WNFOCQoUpq4C/bub_gb_WNFOCQoUpq4C_djvu.txt", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "", "role": "edition" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-war-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "The Jewish War", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "War 5.243-244 (Whiston 5.5.8; his 'legion' renders a general Greek word for a military unit)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0148:book=5:whiston%20chapter=5:whiston%20section=8", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "it had passages down to them both, through which the guard (for there always lay in this tower a Roman legion) went several ways among the cloisters, with their arms, on the Jewish festivals, in order to watch the people, that they might not there attempt to make any innovations", "role": "primary-text" }, { "sourceKey": "josephus-antiquities-whiston", "author": "Flavius Josephus", "work": "Antiquities of the Jews", "translator": "William Whiston", "year": "1737", "locator": "Ant. 20.136 (Whiston 20.6.3)", "url": "https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0146:book=20:whiston%20chapter=6:whiston%20section=3", "publicDomain": true, "quote": "He also gave order that Celer the tribune should be carried back to Jerusalem, and should be drawn through the city in the sight of all the people, and then should be slain.", "role": "primary-text" } ], "modernScholarship": [ { "author": "Ernest DeWitt Burton", "work": "The Politarchs (American Journal of Theology 2)", "year": "1898", "view": "Collected the known politarch inscriptions, chiefly Macedonian with a few from Thrace, Bithynia, the Bosporus and Egypt and none from Greece proper. Found the office at Thessalonica from Augustus to the mid-second century, and noted that the form used in Acts was otherwise unknown in surviving literature, a related form appearing in Aeneas Tacticus." }, { "author": "E. L. Hicks", "work": "The Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum, Part III: Priene, Iasos and Ephesos", "year": "1890", "view": "From the Ephesian inscriptions, including the Salutaris bequest of AD 104, found the clerk of the people drafting decrees with the strategoi and managing public business, and judged Acts 19:35-41 one more instance of Luke's accuracy with titles. Treated Asiarch as another title of the provincial high priest of Asia." }, { "author": "A. N. Sherwin-White", "work": "Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament", "year": "1963", "view": "Writing as a Roman historian, argued that Acts' picture of provincial government, civic and colonial magistrates and legal procedure fits the first century AD closely, and judged its historicity in such matters strongly confirmed." }, { "author": "Colin J. Hemer", "work": "The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History", "year": "1989", "view": "Examined numerous details of Acts against literary, epigraphic and papyrological evidence, official titles among them, presenting Acts as a coherent and consistent product of its own day; defended Lukan authorship and a date before AD 70." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Profit with Delight: The Literary Genre of the Acts of the Apostles", "year": "1987", "view": "Compared Acts with ancient novels, arguing that it shares their blend of edification and entertainment; noted that many novels also feature real persons and historiographical techniques, and treated historicity as a question separate from genre." }, { "author": "Richard I. Pervo", "work": "Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists", "year": "2006", "view": "Dated Acts to about AD 115, arguing among other points that its author knew Josephus's later writings, so accurate period detail is compatible with a late date." }, { "author": "Stephan Witetschek", "work": "Artemis and Asiarchs: Some Remarks on Ephesian Local Colour in Acts 19 (Biblica 90)", "year": "2009", "view": "Argued that the Asiarchs of Acts 19:31 call into question their identification with the high priests of the provincial imperial cult, and that Acts' Ephesian local colour is a source less for Paul's time than for Luke's own." } ], "authorityIds": [ { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q40309", "label": "Acts of the Apostles" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q2912782", "label": "proconsul" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q7210123", "label": "Politarch" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q727844", "label": "Asiarch" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q59671", "label": "lictor" }, { "scheme": "wikidata", "id": "Q849288", "label": "military tribune" } ], "title": "Official titles in Acts, city by city", "summary": "Acts gives a title that fits each place it describes: proconsuls in Cyprus and Achaia, politarchs at Thessalonica, praetors with lictors at the colony of Philippi, Asiarchs and a town clerk at Ephesus, a \"first man\" on Malta and a Roman tribune in Jerusalem. Inscriptions and ancient writers attest most of these; at Philippi \"praetors\" was a courtesy usage. This shows good local knowledge or sources; it does not prove each event happened or date Acts.", "dating": "Usages attested from 22 BC (Cyprus returned to proconsuls) to the mid-second century AD (the Asiarch Philip at Smyrna, c. 155-160 on the usual dating; Ephesian decrees to AD 160). Some reporting sources are later (Cassius Dio, early third century; Eusebius, early fourth). The Acts scenes fall c. AD 46-60 on the usual chronology.", "currentLocation": "Not applicable: an overview of several texts and inscriptions; see the linked items for each object's location.", "establishes": [ "Acts' proconsuls in Cyprus and Achaia (Acts 13:7; Acts 18:12) match each province's status at the time. Augustus restored Cyprus to the people in 22 BC, after which proconsuls governed it (Dio 54.4.1). Achaia passed to the emperor in AD 15 and returned to proconsuls chosen by lot under Claudius in AD 44 (Tacitus, Annals 1.76; Dio 60.24.1), before Gallio's proconsulship, usually dated to the early 50s.", "Politarch (Acts 17:6 and 17:8) was chiefly a Macedonian civic title. In 1898 Burton noted that, outside Acts, this form of the word was then known only from inscriptions (a related form occurs in Aeneas Tacticus). His list was mostly Macedonian, with a few examples from Thrace, Bithynia, the Bosporus and Egypt and none from Greece proper; at Thessalonica they run from Augustus to the mid-second century.", "At the Roman colony of Philippi (Acts 16:12), Acts calls the magistrates by the usual Greek term for praetors and gives them lictors (Acts 16:20-38). Ramsay judged \"praetors\" not the technically accurate title but a courtesy title often used for a colony's supreme magistrates, with Luke writing \"on the plane of educated conversation\" rather than with rigid technical accuracy.", "At Ephesus, Acts' Asiarchs (Acts 19:31) bear a provincial title attested outside Acts: in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, quoted by Eusebius (Church History 4.15.27), the crowd at Smyrna asks the Asiarch Philip to set a lion on Polycarp. Ramsay judged the town clerk probably Ephesus's most important official; Hicks's 1890 edition of its inscriptions shows the clerk drafting decrees and managing public business.", "On Malta, a Greek inscription (IG XIV 601) styles a Roman knight protos Melitaion, \"first of the Maltese\", and Kaibel's note compares Acts 28:7. In Jerusalem, Josephus says a Roman unit was always quartered in the Antonia fortress, with passages down to the temple porticoes that it used at festivals (War 5.243-244). He also names a tribune (chiliarch), Celer, in Judea under Claudius (Ant. 20.136)." ], "doesNotEstablish": [ "That a given scene happened as narrated. A correct title for the officials of Thessalonica or Malta does not confirm the attack on Jason's house or the healing of Publius's father; each episode needs its own assessment.", "A date or author for Acts on its own. Most of these titles stayed in use for generations (politarchs at Thessalonica into the second century, Asiarchs still in the mid-second century), so a later writer with good sources could also get them right.", "Uniform technical precision. At Philippi \"praetors\" was, in Ramsay's judgment, a courtesy title rather than the colony's formal one, and Acts also uses a general word for rulers there (Acts 16:19). The accuracy is that of informed, educated usage, not legal terminology.", "That each named official is independently identified, or that each title had one fixed meaning. Whether any inscription names the proconsul Sergius Paulus, what exactly the Asiarchs were, and whether Malta's \"first\" was a formal office or an honorific rank (Kaibel's note says only that a definite civic distinction is meant) all remain debated." ], "debate": "Ramsay, Sherwin-White and Hemer took the run of accurate local details, titles among them, as cumulative evidence that Acts rests on early, well-informed knowledge; Ramsay argued for Luke as Paul's companion, and Hemer defended Lukan authorship and a date before AD 70. Pervo answers that ancient novels also used real persons and historiographical techniques, and he dated Acts to about 115; Witetschek reads its Ephesian local colour as evidence more for Luke's own time than for Paul's. Narrower questions stay open, notably whether an Asiarch was simply the high priest of Asia (Ramsay's view, shared by Hicks in 1890) or something else, a doubt Witetschek draws from Acts 19:31 itself.", "alternatives": [ { "label": "Well-informed companion", "statement": "The range of correct, place-specific titles reflects an author who travelled with Paul or knew these cities at first hand, as Ramsay and Hemer argued. This fits the 'we' passages, but it is an inference from accuracy, not proof of authorship." }, { "label": "Later author with good sources", "statement": "A writer of the late first or early second century, drawing on travel notes, local informants or earlier accounts, could reproduce titles still current in his own day. On this view the titles vouch for the quality of the sources, or for the author's own time, more than for an early date (Pervo; Witetschek)." }, { "label": "Literary realism", "statement": "Ancient novels also used real persons, places and historiographical techniques, so correct local colour shows competence but cannot by itself separate history from fiction. Each episode has to be judged on its own evidence." } ], "canonicalUrl": "https://paulineletters.com/explore/evidence#evidence-lukan-titles-overview" } ], "contentDigest": "dd90b3e27dfcb0505265b077669d2818d81cfe4173dfdcbcc79fb13485f9e218" }