Erastus of Corinth

Saint Erastus the Apostle was one of the Seventy apostles and a disciple of the Apostle Paul, the steward of the city of Corinth. The Orthodox Church remembers him on 10 November, on 4 January, in the Synaxis of the Seventy, and on 26 July.

Saint Paul mentions him in the Epistle to the Romans 16:23: “Erastus the steward of the city greeteth you.” An Erastus mentioned in 2 Timothy 4:20 and Acts 19:22 is often taken to be the same. Erastus was probably from Corinth, a Greek by birth. The office of steward (treasurer) of the city shows that he came from a noble family and was of an honourable age, otherwise such an office in a great city would not have been entrusted to him. Most likely he first heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ from Saint Paul himself, on his first visit to Corinth, coming from Athens. He went with Paul to Jerusalem and probably lived there for a time, serving the local Church. Greek and Latin writers call him steward of the Church of Jerusalem, and in the list of the Seventy by Dorotheus it is said: “Erastus was steward of the Church of Jerusalem.”

According to the Eastern tradition he was bishop of Paneas (a city in northern Palestine) and died in peace, at a great age. The Catholic Church venerates him as a martyr and holds him to be bishop of Caesarea Philippi, successor of Epaphroditus. Some scholars have asked whether it is even possible to conclude from the New Testament that he was a Christian; he could have been a wealthy patron of the Church without being a believer himself. In 1928-1929 and 1947, parts of an inscription mentioning an Erastus were found near a paved area northeast of the theatre of Corinth: “Erastus, in return for his aedileship, paved it at his own expense.” Some scholars have identified this aedile with the Erastus of the Epistle to the Romans, but others dispute it.