Tribune(1) Claudius Tiberius Epaphroditus 11?-95 is a saint of the Orthodox Church(2), a saint of the Catholic Church, first Bishop of Philippi, and of Andriacia in Asia Minor(3), and first Bishop of Terracina, Italy. There is little evidence that these were all the same man. February 2006 : ← - January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → 28 February 2006 (Tuesday) Al Askari Mosque bombing: Sixty-eight people have been killed so far today in Baghdad, Iraq. ... Centuries: 1st century BC - 1st century - 2nd century Decades: 0s BC - 0s - 10s - 20s - 30s - 40s - 50s - 60s - 70s - 80s - 90s - 100s Years: 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 // Events Frontinus is appointed superintendent of the aqueducts (curator aquarum) in Rome. ... Several Christian Churches or church bodies are commonly referred to as Orthodox. Most of them are identifiable as part of Eastern Christianity. ... The name Catholic Church can mean a visible organization that refers to itself as Catholic, or the invisible Christian Church, viz. ... A bishop is an ordained member of the Christian clergy who, in certain Christian churches, holds a position of authority. ... Map of Greece showing Philippi Philippi (in Ancient Greek / Philippoi) was a city in eastern Macedonia, founded by Philip II in 356 BC and abandoned in the 14th century after the Ottoman conquest. ... Terracina is a comune and episcopal see of the province of Latina - (until 1934 of the province of Rome), Italy, 76 km SE of Rome by rail (56 km by the Via Appia). ...

Biography

A fellow missionary of Paul's, Epaphroditus was founder of churches at Colossae, Lodicea, Hierapolis and Andriacia, Asia Minor.

An Imperial Freedman(4) of Emperor Claudius, he was appointed Secretary a libellus(5) for Emperor Nero by First Minister(6) Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger and promoted by Nero to the rank of Tribune for discovering Piso's Plot(7) to assassinate Nero. For other Romans named Claudius see Claudius (gens). ... Nero Claudius Cæsar Augustus Germanicus (December 15, 37–June 9, 68), born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, also called Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, was the fifth and last Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (54–68). ...

While serving in Caesar's palace Epaphroditus wrote "Philippians" for Paul. He was aedile or treasurer of Corinth while Nero was there, his Roman name was Erastus. Epaphroditus helped Nero, outlawed by the Senate, to die. Nero feared being beaten to death but could not bring himself to commit suicide.

Epaphroditus was owner, educator, and perhaps father of Epictetus of Hierapolis, a Stoic philosopher (see Stoicism) taught by Musonius Rufus. Epictetus is quoted a hundred times in the New Testament. Epictetus (c. ... A restored Stoa in Athens. ... See New Covenant for the concept translated as New Testament in the KJV. The New Testament, sometimes called the Greek Testament or Greek Scriptures, and, in recent times, also New Covenant, is the name given to the part of the Christian Bible that was written in the first centuries of...

Epaphroditus was sponsor and publisher of Josephus in writing Jewish History and the Jewish War. Epaphroditus was the author of Luke and Acts and appointed Secretary a libellis by Emperor Domitian who executed him 14 years later probably for Heresy against Roman religion. Heresy, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is a theological or religious opinion or doctrine maintained in opposition, or held to be contrary, to the Catholic or Orthodox doctrine of the Christian Church, or, by extension, to that of any church, creed, or religious system, considered as orthodox. ...

Epaphroditus' aim was that the Jews become Christians, submissive subjects of the Roman Empire, and that the Romans all become Stoics.

The result was that the Jews became neither Christian nor submissive and that the Romans became Christians in a religion that had absorbed Stoicism. This Christianity gave social stability to the Empire enabling it to survive for 13 1/2 centuries after his death, marked by the fall of Constantinople in 1453. A restored Stoa in Athens. ... Map of Constantinople. ...

Footnotes

1. Tribunes were of two types, civilian and military. This office was a military rank for Epaphroditus (three tribunes commanded a legion of the Roman army) but unique in that it had no military duties. Nero granted it to him because of the great income it carried.
2. Orthodox Church is the assumed name of the Eastern Christian Church headed by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, Moscow, Georgia, Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria, Constantinople is first among equals (For them the Pope of Rome is the Patriarch of the West.)
3. That part of present Turkey between the Black and Mediterranean Seas.
4. An Imperial Freedman was a former slave freed by the emperor himself and almost always a member of the emperor's staff.
5. a libellus was a secretary in charge of the petitions directed to the emperor and thus controlled tremendous political and economic power as the a libellus would decide whether of not to let the emperor know of the petition.
6. A First Minister was the top executive officer in the administration of the Roman Empire and as Nero began his reign as a teenager he was in effect acting emperor.
7. Piso's Plot - Caius Piso served as the head of a conspiracy against Emperor Nero by the many disaffected to assassinate him.
8. The assertion that Epaphroditus may have been Epictetus' father is probably false. There is little historical evidence to support such a claim.
9. The assertion that Epictetus is quoted in the New Testament has been investigated and found to be unlikely. A couple of resemblances in phrasing are probably coincidence.

MAIN SOURCES - James the Brother of Jesus by Robert Eisenmann, Josephus, Seneca, Musonius Rufus, Tacitus, Claudius by Levick, Agrippina by Barrett, Vespasian by Levick, Domitian by Southern, the Bible, the Catholic Encyclopedia and others.