The politarchs of Thessalonica
The unusual civic title Acts uses for Thessalonica's magistrates is the title the city's own inscriptions use.
Confirmed by the groundInscription1st century BC – 2nd century AD
Acts says Paul's accusers dragged Jason before the "politarchs" of the city — a title found in no classical literary text, and once treated as Luke's mistake. Inscriptions from Macedonia have since produced dozens of examples of exactly that office, in exactly that region.
…they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of the city.
- Found
- Thessalonica and Macedonia, Greece — Recorded from the nineteenth century onward; dozens now known
- Now held at
- Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and others
- Language
- Greek
- How it reached us
- Dug up, or still standing where it was built.
What it shows
This confirms the terminology and the local setting, not the episode.
How historians use it
A standard example in classical epigraphy of inscriptions supplying an office absent from literary sources.
In Scripture
Connects to
Sources
- Horsley, "The Politarchs", in The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting (1994)
These summaries are written in English for now. Translations follow.