1Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2to the assembly of God which is at Corinth—those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints, with all who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, both theirs and ours: 3Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
4I always thank my God concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, 5that in everything you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge— 6even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you— 7so that you come behind in no gift, waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8who will also confirm you until the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful, through whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
10Now I beg you, brothers, through the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfected together in the same mind and in the same judgment. 11For it has been reported to me concerning you, my brothers, by those who are from Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. 12Now I mean this, that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” “I follow Apollos,” “I follow Cephas,” and, “I follow Christ.” 13Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized into the name of Paul? 14I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, 15so that no one should say that I had baptized you into my own name. 16(I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I don’t know whether I baptized any other.) 17For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the Good News—not in wisdom of words, so that the cross of Christ wouldn’t be made void. 18For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are dying, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.
I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”
20Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21For seeing that in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom didn’t know God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of the preaching to save those who believe. 22For Jews ask for signs, Greeks seek after wisdom, 23but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Greeks, 24but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God; 25because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; 27but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong. 28God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that don’t exist, that he might bring to nothing the things that exist, 29that no flesh should boast before God. 30Because of him, you are in Christ Jesus, who was made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, 31that, as it is written, “He who boasts, let him boast in the Lord.”
Erastus Inscription in Corinth
Three persons by the name of Erastus are mentioned in the New Testament. One is mentioned alongside Timothy as a helper of Paul in Ephesus (Acts 19:22), and another is said by Paul to have remained at Corinth (2 Tim 4:20), though Paul continued his trip. Since Paul mentions him in his epistle, Timothy likely knew him. Last of all, Paul sent greetings from a man known as Erastus to the recipients of the apostle’s letter to the Romans, “Erastus, the city treasurer, and our brother Quartus greet you.” (Rom 16:23b HCSB). Paul identified this person as the ὁ οἰκόνομος τῆς πολεῶς, (ho oikonomos tes poleos) the treasurer, manager, or administrator of the city.1 The first and second Erastus listed above very likely are the same person because of the nexus with Timothy, and persons two and three are the same because of the connection to Corinth. Consequently, all three are probably the same person.2
Gillman has argued that the latter Erastus may have been a city slave,3 the likelihood is that Erastus had an important status in Corinth to warrant Paul’s mention of him as the οἰκόνομος, in the view of Thiessen.4 The Roman colony of Corinth would have had a Roman municipal structure, with the οἰκονομος as the Greek equivalent of the Latin office of aedilis.
One finds at Corinth a startling connection with Romans 16:23 in a grassy area not normally visited by tour groups today. At the head of a pavement is a long slab about a person named Erastus. Scholars agree that the inscription dates to the middle of the first century A.D. The pavement is located east of the city theater. An aedilis was commissioned with the task to manage public markets. If indeed this builder of the pavement is the same person mentioned by Paul, Erastus and Paul may have become acquainted while Erastus was about his duties of collecting rent or taxes, according to Murphy-O’Connor.5
The inscription regarding Erastus reads, “Erastus laid this pavement at his own expense, in appreciation of his appointment as aedile.”6 Only two of the three slabs of the inscription have been found. The central slab found in situ in April 1929, reads:
ERASTUS.PRO.AED
S.P.STRAVIT
Two portions of right slab were found in March 1928 and August 1947, allowing more complete reading,
ERASTUS.PRO.AEDILITatE
S.P.STRAVIT7
Thus the extant text reads in Latin,
ERASTUS PRO AEDILITATE
S.P. STRAVIT
However, Clarke, with likely wording of missing first slab, renders the inscription “Praenomen nomen Erastus in return for his aedileship laid (the pavement) at his own expense.”8
This entry is based on an article I wrote on the Erastus Inscription for a book edited by Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler, The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and the Bible: Discoveries That Confirm the Reliability of Scripture (2013), 358-359. I have retained copyright in the article. © 2013 H. Wayne House. All Rights Reserved.
BDAG defines οἰκονόμος as public treasurer, treasurer ὁ οικ. τῆς πόλεως the city treasurer (SIG 1252 πόλεως Κῳων οἰκονόμος; other exx. in PLandvogt, Epigr. Untersuchungen üb. den oi˙kono/moß, diss. Strassb. 1908; HCadbury, JBL 50, ’31, 47ff) Ro 16:23. BDAG, 698. ↩︎
G. A. Lee in Geoffrey W. Bromiley, The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, Revised (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1988; 2002). ↩︎
Florence Morgan Gillman Associate Professor, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA David Noel Freedman, The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1996). ↩︎
G. Theissen, 1982: 76. Theissen, G. 1982. The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity. Essays on Corinth. Philadelphia. ↩︎
(Murphy-O’Connor, 1984: 155) Murphy-O’Connor, J. 1984. The Corinth That Saint Paul Saw. BA 47: 147–59. ↩︎
A. F. Walls, in D. R. W. Wood and I. Howard Marshall, New Bible Dictionary (3rd ed.; Leicester, England; Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 332. ↩︎
“S.P is a standard abbreviation for sua pecunia, ‘with his own money’ (See J.H. Kent, Corinth—Inscriptions, #231 for a similar inscription celebrating a benefaction given sua pecunia).” ↩︎
For a more complete study of Erastus and the Erastus inscription, see Andrew D. Clarke, Secular & Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-Historical & Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1-6 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993), 46-57. ↩︎
Pavement Funded by Erastus, with Inscription at the Far End
The Erastus Inscription
