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Bible Dictionaries
Tyrannus
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or (Τύραννος)
In the narrative of St. Paul’s sojourn at Ephesus we are told that after he had spent three months in arguing with the Jews in the synagogue he succeeded in rousing the hostility of their rulers to such an extent that he was compelled to withdraw from the synagogue altogether, and that he remained in the city for a period of two years, ‘reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus’ (Acts 19:9). The reference here is extremely vague, and it is not impossible that the first readers were more familiar with the situation alluded to than we can be.
There is a remarkable variation in the Greek text, and the original reading is doubtful. Some of the best Manuscripts (e.g. אAB), several cursives (13, 27, 29, 81), and a number of the ancient versions (Sah. Boh. Syr. Pesh. Vulg. [Note: Vulgate.] followed by Tisch. WH [Note: H Westcott-Hort’s Greek Testament.] Revised Version Weiss and Wendt) omit τινος (‘a certain’ Tyrannus), which we find in Textus Receptus . Probably τινος is an addition by some early copyist, to whom Tyrannus was merely a name. Another variation is found in the addition by D and T and several versions of ἀπὸ ὥρας πέμπτης ἕως δεκάτης, which is accepted as original by several critics, including Blass, Belser, Nestle, Zöckler, while Wendt sees in it a passage in which D has retained some elements of the original text, otherwise lost. B. Weiss (Der Codex D, in der Apostelgeschichte (TU [Note: U Texte and Untersuchungen.] xvii. 1 [Leipzig, 1897]), 110) thinks it may have been added according to an old oral tradition. Ramsay (The Church in the Roman Empire, p. 152, St. Paul, p. 270 f.) expresses the view that the phrase is probably part of the original text or at least that the tradition gives an actual account of the real state of affair’s. He quotes Martial, ix. 68, xii. 57, Juvenal, vii. 222-226, to prove that schools opened at daybreak, and that by the fifth hour, 11 a.m., the pupils would be dismissed and the place free for the use of the Apostle.
The word σχολή, translation ‘school,’ means originally ‘leisure,’ then ‘the products of learned leisure,’ ‘treatises,’ and lastly ‘the place where literary instruction is given,’ a ‘school.’ The ‘school of Tyrannus’ was in all probability some such place, where instruction was given, and more definitely where philosophic lectures were delivered. The question here arises, Is Tyrannus to be conceived of as a lecturer in philosophy in Ephesus at the date of the Apostle’s visit, who gave his lecture-room for the use of the Christians? Two explanations are possible.
(1) If the reading τινος of Textus Receptus , etc., be correct, the most probable theory is that Tyrannus was a private teacher in Ephesus who granted the use of his building to St. Paul either free or for hire. This view is strengthened if we accept the other addition to the text which we find in Codex Bezœ, ‘from the fifth to the tenth hour.’ Tyrannus would thus be a teacher or lecturer who used his schola for the early hours of the day and left it free for the Apostle from one hour before noon to two hours before sunset. From Greek and Latin sources we find that the hours for teaching, and, in fact, for the general business of the day, were the early hours of the forenoon (cf. Ramsay’s allusions to Juvenal and Martial referred to above). Ramsay (Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) iv. 822) expresses the opinion that the full Western text establishes the meaning of an otherwise obscure passage, giving a natural and satisfactory sense. He sees no reason to account for the additions to the text, but thinks that there was considerable temptation to allow the words to drop out, as they seemed quite unimportant to 3rd cent. students. But may not the words have been inserted by one who did not understand the reference to the school of Tyrannus and who desired to make it more intelligible?
It is impossible to settle the question whether this Tyrannus supposed to be teaching at Ephesus at the date of the Apostle’s visit was a Jew or a Gentile. It is unlikely that an unconverted Jew would give his building for the Apostle’s use and thus incur the hatred of his co-religionists, and the reference seems to imply that St. Paul had left the unbelieving Jews behind him in the synagogue and taken his adherents with him to the new meeting-place.
(2) The only other possible explanation is that the ‘school of Tyrannus’ was the name of some public building in Ephesus which had either belonged to or been used by a person named Tyrannus some time before, and been gifted to the city as a place of public instruction. Teachers of philosophy frequently gave lectures in public buildings or open spaces available to the whole population. Thus the apostle Paul himself addressed the Athenians in the Areopagus, while in an ancient Pompeiian painting a schoolmaster is represented as teaching in the open forum. On the other hand, it is doubtful if the Apostle could have continued to teach for the period of two years in a public building unless he had received the sanction of the civic authorities to do so, and it is far from probable that he either sought or obtained such permission. At the same time, we have evidence that he was on friendly terms with the Asiarchs (cf. Acts 19:31; Acts 19:37), and it is not impossible that he may have been allowed to teach without any formal permission or recognition being granted. If the text of the best Manuscripts , which has been adopted in the Revised Version , be correct, then it does seem more than likely that the ‘school of Tyrannus’ was a public or semi-public place of resort and that the phrase would nave as its modern equivalent some such expression as ‘the McEwan Hall,’ or ‘the Trades Hall,’ or the like. But the whole matter remains in uncertainty, and there is perhaps more to be said for the view implied in the Western text, that Tyrannus was a teacher lecturing in Ephesus at the date of the Apostle’s visit.
Literature.-R. J. Knowling, Expositor’s Greek Testament , ‘Acts,’ 1900, p. 404; W. M. Ramsay, The Church in the Roman Empire, 1893, p. 152, St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen, 1895, p. 270f., article ‘Tyrannus’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible (5 vols) ; A. C. McGiffert, History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age, 1897, p. 285; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christianity, 1894, p. 93.
W. F. Boyd.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Tyrannus'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/t/tyrannus.html. 1906-1918.
