Dictionaries :: Tyrannus

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Tyrannus:

prince, a Greek rhetorician, in whose "school" at Ephesus Paul disputed daily for the space of two years with those who came to him (Act 19:9). Some have supposed that he was a Jew, and that his "school" was a private synagogue.

Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary

Tyrannus:

a prince; one that reigns

International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia

Tyrannus:

ti-ran'-us (Turannos):

When the Jews of Ephesus opposed Paul's teaching in the synagogue, he withdrew, and, separating his followers, reasoned daily in the school of Tyrannus. "This continued for the space of two years" (Ac 19:9,10). D Syriac (Western text) adds after Tyrannus (Ac 19:9), "from the 5th hour unto the 10th." Schole is the lecture-hall or teaching-room of a philosopher or orator, and such were to be found m every Greek city. Tyrannus may have been

(1) a Greek rhetorician or

(2) a Jewish rabbi.

(1) This is the common opinion, and many identify him with a certain Tyrannus, a sophist, mentioned by Suidas. Paul would thus appear to be one of the traveling rhetors of the time, who had hired such a hall to proclaim his own peculiar philosophy (Ramsay, Paul the Traveler, 246, 271).

(2) Meyer thinks that as the apostle had not passed wholly to the Gentiles, and Jews still flocked to hear him, and also that as Tyrannus is not spoken of as a proselyte (sebomenos ton Theon), this schole is the beth Midrash of a Jewish rabbi. "Paul with his Christians withdrew from the public synagogue to the private synagogue of Tyrannus, where he and his doctrine were more secure from public annoyance" (Meyer in the place cited.).

(3) Another view (Overbeck) is that the expression was the standing name of the place after the original owner.

Written by S. F. Hunter

Nave's Topical Bible

Tyrannus: Definition Of

An Ephesian man

Tyrannus: Paul Taught in the School Of

For two years,

Act 19:9, 10.

Smith's Bible Dictionary

Tyrannus:

(sovereign) the name of a man in whose school or place of audience Paul taught the gospel for two years, during his sojourn at Ephesus. See Acts 19:9. (A.D. 52, 53) The presumption is that Tyrannus himself was a Greek, and a public teacher of philosophy or rhetoric.