THE BOOK OF ACTS IN ITS FIRST CENTURY SETTING

VOLUME 2

The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting

Edited by

David W. J. Gill and Conrad Gempf

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

Grand Rapids, Michigan

The Paternoster Press

Carlisle

Copyright © 1994 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503

First published 1994 jointly

in the United States by

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company

and in the U.K. by

The Paternoster Press,

P.O. Box 300, Carlisle, Cumbria CA3 0QS

All rights reserved

Eerdmans ISBN 0-8028-4847-8

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Paternoster ISBN 0-85364-564-7

THE BOOK OF ACTS IN ITS FIRST CENTURY SETTING

I. The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting

II. The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting

III. The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody

IV. The Book of Acts in Its Palestinian Setting

V. The Book of Acts in Its Diaspora Setting

VI. The Book of Acts in Its Theological Setting

Bruce W. Winter

Series Editor

I. Howard Marshall • David W. J. Gill

Consulting Editors

‘Marcus Aurelius Parthenius, son of Secunda the daughter of Barannias, whom the Lady, having set out in her divine power, brought from Rome, dedicated (this) in thanks to Ourania full of mercy’. ‘Marcus Aurelius Parathenius to Ourania full of mercy’.

This Greek text reflects a confluence of Greek, Roman and Judaic elements in the Early Empire. The dedicator, Marcus Aurelius Parthenius, has a mixed background: his name, with Latin and Greek elements, indicates that he was a slave named Parthenius who owed his freedom to the emperor Marcus Aurelius; his mother’s name, Secunda, is Roman but not her descent, since the father’s name was Aramaic—she will have been a slave of a Roman household.

The dedication is made to Aphrodite/Venus under her name Ourania (‘Heavenly’) and the term ‘Lady’ (κυρία) is used of her: she was the ancestor of the Julio-Claudian imperial family, the ‘high’ goddess in the pantheon of Rome or other major cities, but here a local deity well-known to her dedicator, who is thanked for taking the trouble to leave her sanctuary to protect him on his journey from Rome. It is possible that a bronze coin (perhaps a contemporary sestertius) bearing a Venus-type on its reverse was set in the bottom depression of this inscription which is in the form of a tabula ansata (‘winged-tablet’), commonly used for votive offerings although an additional depression at the bottom is unusual.

Graham Joyner

Macquarie University

An unpublished late second century A.D. inscription probably from Levant, MU 2893, was given by Mrs Monica Anderson and reproduced by permission of the Macquarie University Ancient History of Teaching Collection.