Erastus

Friend and associate of the apostle Paul.  ”Erastus” is mentioned three times in the New Testament and scholars debate whether the three individuals refer to the same person:

•  Acts 19.22: Paul sent “into Macedonia two of those who ministered to him, Timothy and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a time.”
• 2 Timothy 4.19-21: “Greet Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus. Erastus stayed in Corinth, but Trophimus I have left in Miletus sick.”
• Romans 16.23:  “Gaius, my host and the host of the whole church, greets you. Erastus, the treasurer [oikonomos] of the city, greets you, and Quartus, a brother.”

A later tradition linked the Erastus of the New Testament with a martyr named Erastus bishop of Paneas (Palestine), celebrated in the Orthodox church on Jan. 4 and Nov. 10, and in the western church calendar on July 26.  Patristic and later Byzantine authors comment briefly on Erastus.

Finally, there is an Erastus named as aedile in a Roman pavement found east of the theater in Ancient Corinth.  This inscription, uncovered in the late 1920s, reads “Erastus for his aedileship paved (this) at his own expense.”

Erastus stands at the center of a  contemporary debate among New Testament scholars about the social status of the earliest Christians, and hinges on the interpretation of the Greek word oikonomos of Romans 16.23 (the word translated in the NJKV above as “treasurer”) as well as the tangential connection of the Erastus of the New Testament to Erastus the aedile. For recent developments in this debate, see “The Search for the Historical Erastus” – including comments from Goodrich, Weiss, and D’Hautcourt.

Bibliography:

Cadbury, H.J., “Erastus of Corinth,” JBL 50 (1931), 42-58.

Clarke, A.D., Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-Historical and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1-6, Leiden 1993, pp. 46-56.

Clarke, A.D., “Another Corinthian Erastus Inscription,”  TynBul 42 (1991), 146-151.

D’Hautcourt, A. “Corinthe : financement d’une colonisation et d’une reconstruction”, in J.-Y. Marc, J.-C. Moretti and D. Viviers (eds.), Constructions publiques et programmes édilitaires en Grèce entre le IIe siècle av. J.-C. et le Ier siècle ap. J.-C. (Athens, 2001) (=BCH Suppl. 39), p. 427-438.

Friesen, S.J., “The Wrong Erastus: Ideology, Archaeology, and Exegesis,” in S.J. Friesen, D.N. Schowalter, and J.C. Walters, Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, Leiden 2010, 231-256: Brill.

Gill, D.W.J., “Erastus the Aedile,” TynBul 40 (1989), 293-301.

Goodrich, J., “Erastus, Quaestor of Corinth: The Administrative Rank of ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως (Rom 16.23) in an Achaean Colony,” New Testament Studies 56, 90-115.

Goodrich, J., “Erastus of Corinth (Rom 16.23): Responding to Recent Proposals on His Rank, Status, and Faith,” New Testament Studies 57.3 (2011), forthcoming.

Meeks, W.A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, New Haven 1983, 51-73: Yale University Press.

Meggitt, J.J., “The Social Status of Erastus (Rom. 16.23),” NovT 38 (1996), 218-23.

Theissen, G., The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, Philadelphia 1982, 69-119: Fortress Press.

Thomas, W.D., “Erastus: The V.I.P. at Corinth,” ExpTim 95 (1984), 369-370.

Weiss, A., “Keine Quästoren in Korinth: Zu Goodrichs (und Theißens) These über das Amt des Erastos (Röm 16.23),” New Testament Studies 2010, 576-581.

Weiss, A., Sklave der Stadt: Untersuchungen zur öffentlichen Sklaverei in den Städten des Römischen Reiches, Franz Steiner, 2004, pp. 50-59.

Winter, B.W., Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Grand Rapids 1994), pp. 179-97.

D’Hautcourt, A. “Corinthe : financement d’une colonisation et d’une reconstruction”, in J.-Y. Marc, J.-C. Moretti and D. Viviers (eds.), Constructions publiques et programmes édilitaires en Grèce entre le IIe siècle av. J.-C. et le Ier siècle ap. J.-C. (Athens, 2001) (=BCH Suppl. 39), p. 427-438.