Should this conjecture be well founded, it would help to settle the vexed question of whether five synagogues are specified in the list, or two, or only
696
LIBERTINES
LIBERTY
one. The present writer agrees with Hort [loc. cit.; cf. ISM'ete, The ApiJearances of our Lord after the Passion, 114) that onlj- one synagogue is mentioned, that of the Libertines, and tliat the following names are simply descriptive of origin, the members of the synagogue being partly from Cyrene and Alexandria, partly from Cilicia and Proconsular Asia. Possibly St. Stephen and St. Paul both belonged to this synagogue, but of this we cannot be sure.
The synagogue of the Ai^epTivoi doubtless con- sisted, at least in the first instance, of Jews who had been prisoners of war, and had afterwards been set free and admitted to Koman citizen- ship (Chrysostom, Hoin. on Acts : ol"Pwfj.aiwv dweXev- depoi.). Pliilo tells us {Leg. ad Caiiim, 23) that most of the Jews of Rome were enfranchised captives, and the passages usually quoted from Tacitus {Ann. ii. 85) and Suetonius {Tiberius, 36) agree with this. Those freedmen who had re- turned to Palestine, and their descendants, must have formed a synagogue to which they gave their name, and most probably Jews from other parts of the world came in time to be athliated to them. Although this statement is not supported by in- dependent historical evidence, it may be regarded as a just inference from the text, when conjoined with other known facts. A large part of the population of Jerusalem consisted of foreign Jews, who had come to reside permanently there, that they might be near the Temple, and might be buried in the land of their fathers. Others came for their education, like St. Paul. Those .Jews were most zealous in fulfilling their ritual obliga- tions, and attached themselves to ' the straitest sect' of the Jews of Palestine (Ac 26^ Gal l''* ; cf. Zahn, Introduction to the NT, i. 39 f., 60 f. ; J. Moffatt in EBi iv. 4788 ; J. Patrick in HDB iii. 110). The first accusation brought against our Lord was based upon a misrepresentation of words of His about the Temple (Jn 2", JMk 14^8), and in Ac 6 '3- " V^-^ we see that St. Stephen had not kept off this dangerous ground.
It is uncertain whether we should read tt)s XeyojjLivrjs (TR) or rCov Xeyofi^vcav (Tisch. ) in Ac 6^ ; but, whichever reading be preferred, the sense is not affected. The absence of various readings in the substance of the text bars the way to any attempt to reconstruct it. Certain Armenian VSS and Sj^riac commentaries seem to have read Ai^viov (cf. the unique NT reference to Libya, Ac 2^"), and this paved the way for the most famous conjectural emendation — that of Ai^vcrrivuv for Ai^eprlvusv. J. Rendel Harris, in his art. in the Expositor, 6th ser. vi. 378 f . , has traced the history of this emendation in an interesting manner from Beza (1559) to Blass (1898). From Beza's Annotationes he quotes the following sentence, in which the main difficulty of the text is well stated : ' Neque enim video qua ratione Lucas Lstos [Libertinos] a])pellet ex condi- tione, ctcteros vero ex gente ac patria.' Blass, in his Philology of the Gospels, 69 f., was not aware that tiie emendation had been proposed by any- one before himself, and he expressed his certainty that Ai^va-Tivcov was the true reading. This word, whicii is used by Catullus (Ix. 1, moyitibus Liby- stinis), would have been quite suitable for desig- nating the toM-ns lying westwards from Cyrene, had it been snp])orted by good MS autliority (cf. EBi iii. 2793, 2794; ExpTix. 437''). The deriva- tion of Libertini from a town Libertum in N. Africa is much less plausible, as no town of that name seems to iiave been known in the 1st century.
Among tiie older expositors, Bengel {G)i onion of NT) strongly maintains tliat tlie whole description of Ac 6'' is that of one flourishing synagogue, com- posed of Europeans, Africans, and Asiatics, to which Saul belonged. His note is still worth reading.
Literature. — J. A. Bengel, Gnomon of XT, ed. Berlin, 1S60, p. 2S7 ; Th. Beza, Annotationes, 1559; Fr. Blass, Philuloriy of the Gospels, London, 1898, p. 69 f.; HDB, art. 'Libertines' (J. Patrick); EBi, artt. 'Libertines,' 'Libja" (W. J. Wopd- house), 'Stephen' (J. Moffatt); Expositor, 5th ser. ii. [1S95] (W. M. Ramsay), 6th ser. vi. [1902] (J. Rendel Harris); il'a:pTix. [1S97-9S]437'^; Grimm-Thayer2, 1890,s.u. Ai^epra'os; A. Harnack, Luke the Physician, Eng. tr., London and New York, 1907, p. 153, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. tr., do. 1909, pp. xxxiv, 70, 71 n., 120, 175, ISS, 192, 196,219, 245; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christiaiiity, London, 1894, p. 50 ; H. A. W. Meyer, Com. on Acts, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1877, i. 173 f. ; E. Schiirer, IIJP, Eng. tr., ii. ii. [do. 1885] 276 ; H. B. Swete, The Apiiearances of otir Lord after the Passion, London, 1907, p. 114 ; Th. Zahn,' Introd. to the XT, Eng. tr., Edinburgh, 1909,
i. 39f., 60fE. James Donald.
LIBERTY. — Liberty (iXevOepia) occupies a promi- nent i)lace in the thought of NT writers and ap- pears in a variety of significations. —
1. In the political sense. — As denoting the status of a free citizen and in direct contrast with the state of slavery, the word figures in one of the great dichotomies used by the apostolic writers in classifying men from the standpoint of their age (Col 3'' — 'bondman, freeman'). We have no means of knowing even aiiproximately in what proportions the churches of the apostolic and sub- apostolic times were made up of freemen and of slaves. Everytiiing certainly goes to show that many of the latter class became Christians ; in all probability, too, thej- usually formed the majority. It is precarious, however, to find positive evidence of this, as A. Deissmann does witli regard to the Colossian Church, in the mere fact that (Col 3^8_4i) counsels addressed to slaves are given in ampler terms, those to masters quite briefly {St. Paul, Eng. tr., 1912, p. 216). Similar reasoning might argue from 1 P 3^'^- ' tliat wives were in a majority and husbands in a minority !