Bible Lexicons

Λιβερτῖνος, Λιβερτινου, ὁ, a Latin word,libertinus, i. e. either one who has been liberated from slavery, a freedman, or the son of a freedman (as distinguished fromingenuus, i. e. the son of a free man): ἡ συναγωγή ἡ λεγομένη (or τῶν λεγομένων Tdf.) Λιβερτίνων, Acts 6:9. Some suppose these libertini (A. V. Libertines) to have been manumitted Roman slaves, who having embraced Judaism had their synagogue at Jerusalem; and they gather as much from Tacitus, Ann. 2, 85, where it is related that four thousand libertini, infected with the Jewish superstition, were sent into Sardinia. Others, owing to the names Κυρηναίων καί Ἀλλεξανδρεων that follow, think that a geographical meaning is demanded for Λιβερτινοι, and suppose that Jews are spoken of, the dwellers in Libertum, a city or region of proconsular Africa. But the existence of a city or region called Libertum is a conjecture which has nothing to rest on but the mention of a bishop with the prefix libertinensis at the synod of Carthage A.D. 411. Others with far greater probability appeal to Philo, leg. ad Gaium § 23, and understand the word as denoting Jews who had been made captives by the Romans under Pompey but were afterward set free; and who, although they had fixed their abode at Rome, had built at their own expense a synagogue at Jerusalem which they frequented when in that city. The name Libertines adhered to them to distinguish them from the free-born Jews who had subsequently taken up their residence at Rome. Cf. Winers RWB under the word Libertiner; Hausrath in Schenkel iv., 38f; (B. D. under the word . Evidence seems to have been discovered of the existence of a synagogue of the libertines at Pompeii; cf. De Rossi, Bullet. di Arch. Christ. for 1864, pp. 70, 92f.)