Greek word · G3032
Λιβερτῖνος
libertinos
Freedman
A Greek spelling of the Latin libertinus: a freed slave, or in older Latin usage the son of a freedman. It was a Roman legal status. A freedman stayed tied to his former owner (his patron) by duties of loyalty, and often took the owner's family name.
Appears once in the Greek New Testament. ·
What it means
Λιβερῖτνος, -ου, ὁ (Lat. libertinus),
a freedman: ἡ συναγωγὴ ἡ λεγομένη Λιβερτίνων Acts 6:9 (Bl. thinks the original reading was Λιβυστίνων, Phil. Gosp., 69 f.).†
(AS)
From G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (1922), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
A Greek spelling of the Latin libertinus: a freed slave, or in older Latin usage the son of a freedman. It was a Roman legal status. A freedman stayed tied to his former owner (his patron) by duties of loyalty, and often took the owner's family name.
- Against the English
KJV transliterates it as 'Libertines'. Modern versions (NIV, ESV, NASB, BSB) give 'Freedmen'. NLT has 'Freed Slaves'.
- How it drifted
From the 16th–17th centuries English 'libertine' came to mean a freethinker, and later a sexually dissolute person. The KJV wording therefore suggests a 'synagogue of the immoral' to a modern reader, which the word never meant.
- Used elsewhere in the period
This is the word's only New Testament use. Philo (Embassy to Gaius 155) says most Jews living in Rome across the Tiber were Roman freedmen: they had been brought to Italy as war captives and then set free by their owners. Many were taken in Pompey's capture of Jerusalem in 63 BC. Tacitus (Annals 2.85) records 4,000 'of the freedman class' who followed Jewish and Egyptian rites being sent to Sardinia in AD 19. The Theodotus inscription, found in Jerusalem in 1913, records a synagogue with lodgings 'for those from abroad'. It was built by Theodotus son of Vettenus, a Latin-sounding family name, and some scholars link it to this synagogue. That link is possible but unproven.
Where it appears
Acts · 1
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Acts 6:9 Λιβερτίνων Freedmen
But resistance arose from what was called the Synagogue of the Freedmen, including Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and men from the provinces of Cilicia and Asia. They disputed with Stephen,
Here: Former slaves, or descendants of slaves, freed under Roman law. Most likely Jews whose families were taken to Rome as war captives and later set free. The Latin loanword itself points to Rome.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.