Tyrannus

VIEW:19 DATA:01-04-2020
a prince; one that reigns
Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary


TYRANNUS.—This man is mentioned only in Act_19:9. St. Paul in Ephesus preached before the Jews and proselytes in the synagogue for three months. Finding them determinedly hostile, he resorted to the ‘school of Tyrannus,’ where he reasoned every day. The expression is somewhat enigmatical to us, as we have no other reference to this institution by which to illustrate it. The Greek word may be translated either ‘school’ or ‘lecture room,’ and Tyrannus may have been either a schoolmaster or what we call a professor. There is the further difficulty that Tyrannus may have been dead at the time, and that the building may have been merely known as ‘Tyrannus’s school,’ in memory of a once famous teacher who taught there. All the probabilities are in favour of this having been the name of a noted public building in Ephesus. Permission to use this building was given to Paul; perhaps it was hired by him or his friends. All this may be inferred from what is the generally accepted text of the passage in the present day. The Western and other texts have touched up this simpler text, and changed the situation considerably. They have inserted the word ‘a certain’ before ‘Tyrannus,’ and this at once converts the public building into a private one. The person Tyrannus would then be unknown to the readers, and would be one not unfavourable to St. Paul, who lent him his own building with or without fee. The most notable MS of the Western text adds the words: ‘from the fifth hour till the tenth.’ This addition is all of a piece with the idea that Tyrannus was a schoolmaster or professor, whose work, according to the ancient custom, would be over early in the day, thus leaving the building free for the rest of the day. Juvenal describes to us how the boys read their lessons to the master even before dawn. Augustine, himself a professor, tells us that his lecturing work was over early in the day. The experience of moderns in southern countries confirms this: the early morning is the time for brain work in the South, as the young Julius Charles Hare and his brother found when resident as boys in Italy. The hall was free to Paul at the hottest period of the day, when it must have been hard for people to listen, and yet harder for him to preach. All this is conveyed by the reading of the chief representative of the Western text, but the present writer has no doubt that here, as elsewhere, the reviser has been endeavouring to remove obscurity from the narrative. Almost all the Western variants can be explained by a greater or less effort to smooth difficulties of various sorts. The shorter reading discussed in the earlier paragraph is the genuine one.
A. Souter.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909


Act_19:9. In whose school at Ephesus Paul discussed (dielegeto, "reasoned"; same Greek, Act_17:2) gospel truths with disciples and inquirers (having withdrawn from cavilers) daily for two years. A private synagogue (called beet midrash by the Jews), or rather the hall of a Gentile sophist or lecturer on rhetoric and philosophy; his name is Greek, and the "one" prefixed implies that there was no definite leaning to Christianity in him. He probably hired out his school when not using it himself. Paul in leaving the synagogue would be likely to take a Gentile's hall to gain access to the Gentiles.
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.


Tyran'nus. (sovereign). The name of a man in whose school, or place of audience, Paul taught the gospel for two years, during his sojourn at Ephesus. See Act_19:9. (A.D. 52, 53). The presumption is tha, t Tyrannus himself was a Greek, and a public teacher of philosophy or rhetoric.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863


It is said in Act_19:9, that St. Paul being at Ephesus, and seeing that the Jews to whom he preached, instead of being converted, were rather more hardened and obstinate, he withdrew from their society, nor went to preach in their synagogue, but taught every day in the school of one Tyrannus. It is inquired, Who was this Tyrannus? Some think him to have been a prince or great lord, who accommodated the Apostle with his house, in which to receive and instruct his disciples. But the generality conclude, that Tyrannus was a converted Gentile, a friend of St. Paul, to whom he withdrew.
Biblical and Theological Dictionary by Richard Watson
PRINTER 1849.


tı̄-ran?us (Τύραννος, Túrannos): When the Jews of Ephesus opposed Paul's teaching in the synagogue, he withdrew, and, separating his followers, reasoned daily in the school of Tyrannus. ?This continued for the space of two years? (Act_19:9, Act_19:10). D Syriac (Western text) adds after Tyrannus (Act_19:9), ?from the 5th hour unto the 10th.? Scholḗ is the lecture-hall or teaching-room of a philosopher or orator, and such were to be found m every Greek city. Tyrannus may have been (1) a Greek rhetorician or (2) a Jewish rabbi.
(1) This is the common opinion, and many identify him with a certain Tyrannus, a sophist, mentioned by Suidas. Paul would thus appear to be one of the traveling rhetors of the time, who had hired such a hall to proclaim his own peculiar philosophy (Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveler, 246, 271).
(2) Meyer thinks that as the apostle had not passed wholly to the Gentiles, and Jews still flocked to hear him, and also that as Tyrannus is not spoken of as a proselyte (sebómenos tón Theón), this scholē is the bēth Midrāsh of a Jewish rabbi. ?Paul with his Christians withdrew from the public synagogue to the private synagogue of Tyrannus, where he and his doctrine were more secure from public annoyance? (Meyer in the place cited.).
(3) Another view (Overbeck) is that the expression was the standing name of the place after the original owner.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.


Tyran?nus a sophist or rhetorician of Ephesus, who kept one of those schools of philosophy and eloquence so common at that period. St. Paul preached for two years daily in his school after quitting the synagogue (Act_19:9). This proves that the school was Greek, not Jewish. It does not appear whether Tyrannus was himself a convert or not; for it may be that he let to the apostle the house or hall which he used: but it is more pleasant to suppose that he was a convert, and that the apostle was hospitably entertained by him and obtained the use of the hall in which he himself taught.




The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.



(Τύραννος, sovereign), the name of a man in whose school or place of audience Paul taught the Gospel for two years, during his sojourn at Ephesus (see Act_19:9). A. D. 52, 53. The halls or rooms of the philosophers were called σχολαί among the later Greeks (Liddell and Scott, s.v.); and as Luke applies that term to the auditorium in this instance, the presumption is that Tyrannus himself was a Greek, and a public teacher of philosophy or rhetoric. He and Paul must have occupied the room at different hours; whether he hired it out to the Christians or gave them the use of it (in either case he must have been friendly to them) is left uncertain. Meyer is disposed to consider that Tyrannus was a Jewish rabbi, and the owner of a private synagogue or house for teaching (בֵּית מַדְרָשׁ). But, in the first place, his Greek name, and the fact that he is not mentioned as a Jew or proselyte, disagree with that supposition; and, in the second place, as Paul repaired to this man's school after having been compelled to leave the Jewish synagogue (Act_19:9), it is evident that he took this course as a means of gaining access to the heathen; an. object which he would naturally seek through the co-operation of one of their own number, and not by associating himself with a Jew or a Gentile adherent of the Jewish faith. In speaking of him merely as a certain Tyrannus (Τυρ®ννου τινός), Luke indicates certainly that he was not a believer at first; though it is natural enough to think that he may have become such as the result of his acquaintance with the apostle. Hemsen (Der Apostel Paulus, p; .218) throws out the idea that the hall may have belonged to the authorities of the city, and have derived its name from the original proprietor. See Seelen, De Schola Tyranni, in his Medit. Exeg. 3 615 sq.; Wallen Acta Pauli Ephesin. (Gryph. 1783). SEE PAUL.



CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.





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