libertines Summary and Overview

This word, which occurs once only in the New Testament-- #Ac 6:9| --is the Latin libertini, that is, "freedmen." They were probably Jews who, having been taken prisoners by Pompey and other Roman generals in the Syrian wars, had been reduced to slavery and had afterward been emancipated, and returned, permanently or for a time, to the country of their fathers.

LIB'ERTINES , mentioned only in Acts 6:9, were Jews who, having been taken prisoners in the Syrian wars, were carried to Rome and reduced to slavery, but afterward emancipated. That their number was considerable is apparent from the fact that 4000 of them were banished from Rome in a.d. 19. In Jerusalem they had a synagogue, and there they came in collision with Stephen.

Acts 6:9. Descendants of Jews who, having been taken prisoners by Pompey and other Roman generals in the Syrian wars, were enslaved and afterward emancipated, and who returned to their native land. Many Jews at Rome were freedmen allowed by Augustus to settle beyond the Tiber. Four thousnd freedmen were expelled to Sardinia, others were to leave Italy unless they game up Judaism (A.D. 19 under Tiberius (Tacitus, Annals ii. 85; Josephus, Ant. 18:3, section 5; Philo Legat. ad Caium). Humphrey conjectures that, having made their way to Jerusalem, they naturally were Stepben's bitterest opponents as having suffered so much for that religion which Christianity was supplanting. They had a synagogue at Jerusalem.