Libertine

Found only Acts 6:9, one who once had been a slave, but who had been set at liberty, or the child of such a person. In this case the name probably denotes those descendants of Jews who had been carried captives to Rome as prisoners of war by Pompey and other Roman generals in the Syrian wars, and had afterwards been liberated. In A.D. 19 these manumitted Jews were banished from Rome. Many of them found their way to Jerusalem, and there established a synagogue.

Mention is made of the synagogue of the Libertines, Acts vi, 9; concerning whom there are different opinions, two of which bid fairest for the truth. The first is that of Grotius and Vitringa, that they were Italian Jews or proselytes. The ancient Romans distinguished between _libertus_ and _libertinus_. _Libertus_ was one who had been a slave, and obtained his freedom; _libertinus_ was the son of a _libertus_. But this distinction in after ages was not strictly observed; and _libertinus_ also came to be used for one not born, but made free, in opposition to _ingenuus_, or one born free. Whether the _libertini_ mentioned in this passage of the Acts were Gentiles, who had become proselytes to Judaism, or native Jews, who having been made slaves to the Romans were afterward set at liberty, and in remembrance of their captivity called themselves _libertini_, and formed a synagogue by themselves, is differently conjectured by the learned. It is probable the Jews of Cyrenia, Alexandria, &c, built synagogues at Jerusalem at their own charge, for the use of their brethren who came from those countries; as the Danes, Swedes, &c, build churches for the use of their own countrymen in London; and that the Italian Jews did the same; and because the greatest number of them were _libertini_, their synagogue was therefore called the synagogue of the Libertines. The other opinion, which is hinted by Œcumenius on the Acts, and mentioned by Dr. Lardner, as more lately advanced by Mr. Daniel Gerdes, professor of divinity in the university of Groningen, is this, that the Libertines are so called from a city or country called Libertus, or Libertina, in Africa, about Carthage. Suidas, in his Lexicon, on the word λιβερτινος, says it was ονομα εθνους, _nomen gentis_. [The name of a nation.] And the _glossa interlinearis_, of which Nicolas de Lyra made great use in his notes, hath over the word _libertini, e regione_, denoting that they were so styled from a country. In the acts of the famous conference with the Donatists at Carthage, A. D. 411, there is mentioned one Victor, bishop of the church of Libertina: and in the acts of the Lateran council, which was held in 649, there is mention of _Januarius gratiâ Dei episcopus sanctæ ecclesiæ Libertinensis_; [Januarius by the grace of God bishop of the holy church of Libertina;] and therefore Fabricius, in his Geographical Index of Christian Bishoprics,” has placed Libertina in what was called Africa Propria, or the proconsular province of Africa. Now, as all the other people of the several synagogues, mentioned in this passage of the Acts, are denominated from the places from whence they came, it is probable that the Libertines were so too; and as the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, who came from Africa, are placed next to the Libertines in that catalogue, it is probable they also belonged to the same country. So that, upon the whole, there is little reason to doubt of the Libertines being so called from the place from whence they came; and the order of the names in the catalogue might lead us to think, that they were farther off from Jerusalem than Alexandria and Cyrenia, which will carry us to the proconsular province in Africa about Carthage.