1While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper country, came to Ephesus and found certain disciples. 2He said to them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?”
They said to him, “No, we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
3He said, “Into what then were you baptized?”
They said, “Into John’s baptism.”
4Paul said, “John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Christ Jesus.”
5When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6When Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke with other languages and prophesied. 7They were about twelve men in all.
8He entered into the synagogue and spoke boldly for a period of three months, reasoning and persuading about the things concerning God’s Kingdom.
9But when some were hardened and disobedient, speaking evil of the Way before the multitude, he departed from them and separated the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. 10This continued for two years, so that all those who lived in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
11God worked special miracles by the hands of Paul, 12so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were carried away from his body to the sick, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out. 13But some of the itinerant Jews, exorcists, took on themselves to invoke over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.” 14There were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did this.
15The evil spirit answered, “Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you?” 16The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. 17This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived at Ephesus. Fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. 18Many also of those who had believed came, confessing and declaring their deeds. 19Many of those who practiced magical arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. They counted their price, and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver. 20So the word of the Lord was growing and becoming mighty.
21Now after these things had ended, Paul determined in the Spirit, when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia, to go to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must also see Rome.”
22Having sent into Macedonia two of those who served him, Timothy and Erastus, he himself stayed in Asia for a while. 23About that time there arose no small disturbance concerning the Way. 24For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, brought no little business to the craftsmen, 25whom he gathered together with the workmen of like occupation, and said, “Sirs, you know that by this business we have our wealth. 26You see and hear that not at Ephesus alone, but almost throughout all Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away many people, saying that they are no gods that are made with hands. 27Not only is there danger that this our trade come into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be counted as nothing and her majesty destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worships.”
28When they heard this they were filled with anger, and cried out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” 29The whole city was filled with confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, having seized Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia, Paul’s companions in travel. 30When Paul wanted to enter in to the people, the disciples didn’t allow him. 31Certain also of the Asiarchs, being his friends, sent to him and begged him not to venture into the theater. 32Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was in confusion. Most of them didn’t know why they had come together. 33They brought Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. Alexander beckoned with his hand, and would have made a defense to the people. 34But when they perceived that he was a Jew, all with one voice for a time of about two hours cried out, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
35When the town clerk had quieted the multitude, he said, “You men of Ephesus, what man is there who doesn’t know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great goddess Artemis, and of the image which fell down from Zeus? 36Seeing then that these things can’t be denied, you ought to be quiet and to do nothing rash. 37For you have brought these men here, who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of your goddess. 38If therefore Demetrius and the craftsmen who are with him have a matter against anyone, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. Let them press charges against one another. 39But if you seek anything about other matters, it will be settled in the regular assembly. 40For indeed we are in danger of being accused concerning today’s riot, there being no cause. Concerning it, we wouldn’t be able to give an account of this commotion.” 41When he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly.
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
