When I rented a motorcycle and
drove to Corinth from Athens, I had no idea how easy it was to get lost in the
city of Athens. The fact that driving in Athens is a complete nightmare aside,
the people I rented the motorcycle from told me the day before I was going to
rent the motorcycle that I would definitely have a GPS unit on the bike. When I
arrived to pick it up, they said they didn’t have any more GPS units available.
Lucky me.
So, having burned the image of the
country of Greece into my mind before traveling there, I figured my graciously
enduring wife and I could make it to Corinth with moderate ease.
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| Here is the tiny rented motorcycle with 88,000 miles on it. |
Corinth is located west of the great
city of Athens exactly 86.8 kilometers (53.9 miles). Knowing this from the map
in my head, I figured I would use the sun to get there. If I found a main
highway I would keep the sun in the left of my scope of vision (because it was
close to noon), and I would be driving west, toward Corinth. Once I kept seeing
signs that said “To Corinth,” I knew the worst was behind me… for that part of
the journey at least (On the way back to our home in Athens, we didn’t have the
sun anymore, which knowing the right highway was helpful, but once you’re in
the city without GPS again, it’s like trying to find a needle in a haystack). In
any event, I was thankful to God for a beautiful, sunny day on the way to
Corinth (and that we safely made it back home).
After getting off the motorcycle
and stretching, I eventually found and went to the information booth where
there were pamphlets available in all sorts of different languages. I asked the
lady in the booth, in English, where the Erastus Inscription was located, and
although she spoke perfect English, she had no clue what I was talking about.
The Erastus Inscription is an
ancient inscription found on the pavement among a bunch of ruins about one
minute’s walk due north from the Archaeological Museum of Ancient Corinth. I
found it after doing some hunting, because clues to its precise location is not
easy to find. We were the only people among the ruins in this area, possibly
because tour guides do not know what is there so they just point to “some more
old ruins” for the tour groups.
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| The lonely ruins near the Erastus Inscription. |
They are missing out. The Erastus
Inscription is highly significant. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, during his
second missionary journey, came from Athens to Corinth and stayed there for at
least a year and a half (see Acts 18:11 and 18:18). One benefit to Paul staying
in Corinth was that people would come to Corinth from other distant parts of
the ancient world. To avoid going the whole way around the country (for
instance, from Venice to Athens) in a sailboat, where dangerous winds and rocks
would destroy the boat, the sailors would travel over the thinnest part of land
in Corinth, called the isthmus, moving the entire ancient vessel via the Diolkos,
which was almost like a railway, to the opposite sea port (where the Corinthian
Canal exists today). Thus, they would avoid what could be days’ worth of
sailing, and possible death.
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| The Erastus Inscription with Acrocorinth in the background. |
With people from all over the
ancient world traveling through here, in order to save time, money and lives,
Paul must have seen this as a great strategy for getting the gospel to the
gentile world. In any event, his stay in Corinth would eventually cause him to
meet some of the locals. One of the locals was a man named Erastus, who was clearly
“the city’s director of public works” during the first century A.D. (See NIV Romans
16:23). Erastus apparently wanted to be voted into this position, and made
pledges during an election to pave the area in between the nearby plaza and the theater (Garland). After being voted in, he wanted to make it obvious that he
keeps his promises, so he had an inscription engraved in the stone slab that
was laid at the edge of the pavement. It reads in Latin:
ERASTUS PRO AEDILITATE S.P. STRAVIT
The ancient inscription means in
English, “Erastus laid this pavement at
his own expense, in appreciation of his appointment as aedile.” Since the
Corinthians embraced the Roman customs, this was probably the reason it was written
in Latin rather than Greek. Also, oikonomos is the Greek equivalent that
Paul used in Romans 16:23 to describe Erastus of the Latin aedilis, both meaning the same thing, which is basically the maintainer of public buildings in the
city.
There are other mentions of Erastus
as well. One can be found in 2 Timothy 4:20, where Paul is telling Timothy that
when he left Corinth, Erastus stayed there in Corinth, which makes sense, because
of the occupation of Erastus. He needed to stay there if he wanted to keep his
job. Also, in Acts 19:22, the author of Acts, Luke, explains that Paul sent Erastus
with Timothy to Macedonia, which gives the reason why Paul felt the need to
explain to Timothy where Erastus was.
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| The Erastus Inscription |
In sum, Paul was in Corinth with
Erastus, writing to the Romans. The significance of this lies in the fact that
there is a stone slab in Corinth with Erastus’ name on it, giving strength to
the argument that the New Testament writers have proven themselves to be
historically reliable, not only for the books that Paul wrote, but also the
books that Luke wrote, since he clearly records Paul's journeys accurately. The
New Testament mentions the maintainer of public buildings, Erastus, from
Corinth, and in the ancient ruins of Corinth, we find today, the stone slab
dated uncontested to the first
century, with his name and occupation on it.
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| The upper left star is the location of the Erastus Inscription, The bottom left is the museum, the bottom right is the Bema, the judgment seat, where Paul was judged by Gallio in Acts 18:12-17. The top right star is a good place to park, if you rent a car or motorcycle from Athens. Just make sure you have GPS. |
Feel free to reply or ask questions to this post, or on the A&E facebook page.
Written by Nace Howell through the grace of the Lord Jesus
© Nace Howell, 2022
Garland, David E. 1 Corinthians: Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2003) 11.
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