Silas
A leading member of the Jerusalem church who carried the council’s letter to Antioch and then travelled with Paul through Asia Minor, Macedonia and Greece. Paul’s letters call him Silvanus.
Silas was one of two “chief men among the brothers” whom the apostles and elders in Jerusalem sent to Antioch with the letter of the Council of Jerusalem. Acts calls him a prophet (Acts 15:22, 27, 32). After the break with Barnabas, Paul chose him as his companion for the journey that took them to Macedonia (Acts 15:40). At Philippi the two were beaten and imprisoned, and Acts counts Silas, like Paul, as a Roman citizen (Acts 16:19–40). He shared the work at Thessalonica and Beroea and rejoined Paul at Corinth (Acts 17:1–15) (Acts 18:5). See Paul Carries the Gospel into Europe.
Paul names a Silvanus beside Timothy as his fellow preacher at Corinth and as co-sender of 1 Thessalonians, in the same places and at the same time as the Silas of Acts, and the two are generally taken to be one man (2 Corinthians 1:19) (1 Thessalonians 1:1). The opening of 2 Thessalonians names him too (2 Thessalonians 1:1). 1 Peter is sent “through Silvanus, our faithful brother” (1 Peter 5:12).
In the timeline
- about AD 49 to AD 52, estimated datePaul Carries the Gospel into Europe
With Silas and Timothy, Paul crosses from Asia Minor to Macedonia and founds churches at Philippi, Thessalonica and Corinth. Acts brings him before the proconsul Gallio at Corinth, whose year of office an inscription at Delphi puts at about AD 51–52.