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Bible Dictionaries
Aristarchus
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Ἀρίσταρχος)
A Macedonian Christian and a native of Thessalonica who became one of the companions of St. Paul on his third missionary journey. He is first mentioned on the occasion of the riot in Ephesus, where along with another companion of the Apostle named Gaius (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ), probably of Derbe, he was rushed by the excited multitude into the theatre (Acts 19:29). He seems to have been an influential member of the Church of Thessalonica, and was deputed along with Secundus (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) to convey the contributions of the Church to Jerusalem (Acts 20:4). He was thus present in the city at the time of St. Paul’s arrest, and seems to have remained in Syria during the two years of the Apostle’s imprisonment in Caesarea, for we find him embarking with the prisoner on the ship bound for the West (Acts 27:2). It is not certain that he accompanied St. Paul to Rome. He may, as Lightfoot supposes (Phil.4 34), have disembarked at Myra (Acts 27:5). On the other hand, Ramsay (St. Paul3, 316) believes that both Aristarchus and St. Luke accompanied the Apostle on the voyage as his personal slaves. In any case Aristarchus was present in Rome soon after St. Paul’s arrival, and it is not impossible that he came later with contributions from the Philippian Church to the Apostle. When the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon were written, Aristarchus was with the Apostle in Rome. In the former (Colossians 4:10) he is called the ‘fellow-prisoner’ (συναιχμάλωτος) of the writer, and we find the same term, which usually indicates physical restraint, applied to Epaphras (q.v. [Note: quod vide, which see.] ) in Philemon 1:23. While the idea in the Apostle’s mind may be that Aristarchus, like himself, was taken captive by Jesus Christ, it is more probable that Aristarchus shared St. Paul’s prison in Rome, either as a suspected friend of the prisoner or voluntarily as the Apostle’s slave-a position which he and Epaphras may have taken alternately. In Philemon 1:24 he is called ‘fellow-labourer’ of the writer. Nothing is known of his subsequent history. According to tradition he suffered martyrdom under Nero.
Literature.-W. M. Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller3, London, 1897, pp. 279, 316; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon 1:3, do. 1879, p. 236, Philippians 4, do. 1878, p. 34; articles in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) and in Encyclopaedia Biblica ; R. J. Knowling, in Expositor’s Greek Testament ii. [1900] 414.
W. F. Boyd.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Aristarchus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/a/aristarchus.html. 1906-1918.
