the Week of Proper 25 / Ordinary 30
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Bible Dictionaries
Manaen
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Heb. Menaḥçm)
As St. Luke prefaces his account of the Church of Jerusalem (Acts 1-5) by giving a list of the apostles who were its chiefs and leaders (1:23), so he prefaces his account of the Church of Antioch, and the missionary activity of which it was the centre, by a list of the most noted prophets and teachers who were connected with it: they were Barnabas, and Symeon called Niger, and Lucius the Cyrenian, and Manaen, the foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul (13:1). What brought Manaen to Antioch we do not know. As foster-brother or playmate of Herod Antipas (for the Greek term bears either meaning) he must have been brought up mainly at Jerusalem. The connexion between Manaen and the Herod family seems to have been hereditary. Josephus tells (Ant. XV. x. 5) the story of an elder Manaen, father or uncle of the present one, a noted Essene, who made a prophecy to Herod the Great that he would become king of Judaea; and when the prophecy was fulfilled Herod treated Manaen, and the Essene sect to which he belonged, with great consideration. If, as tradition asserts, St. Luke was a native of Antioch and a resident there, he may well have known Manaen personally and have learnt from him the many details respecting the Herod family which he has introduced into both his Gospel and the Acts. Of Manaen’s subsequent career we know nothing.
W. A. Spooner.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Manaen'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/m/manaen.html. 1906-1918.
