Difference between revisions of "Agabus"

<p> <translit> ag´a </translit> - <translit> bus </translit> ( <span> Ἂγαβος </span> , <i> <translit> Ágabos </translit> </i> ): <links> A C </links> hristian prophet of Jerusalem, twice mentioned in Acts. (1) [[In]] <span> Acts 11:27 </span> , we find him at [[Antioch]] foretelling "a great famine over all the world," "which," adds the historian, "came to pass in the days of Claudius." This visit of [[Agabus]] to Antioch took place in the winter of 43-44 ad, and was the means of urging the [[Antiochian]] [[Christians]] to send relief to the brethren in [[Judea]] by the hands of [[Barnabas]] and Saul. [[Two]] points should be noted. (a) The gift of prophet's here takes the form of prediction. The prophet's chief function was to reveal moral and spiritual truth, to "forth-tell" rather than to "foretell"; but the interpretation of God's message sometimes took the form of predicting events. (b) The phrase "over all the world" (practically synonymous with the [[Roman]] Empire) must be regarded as a rhetorical exaggeration if strictly interpreted as pointing to a general and simultaneous famine. But there is ample evidence of severe periodical famines in various localities in the reign of [[Claudius]] (e.g. [[Suet]] <i> Claud </i> . 18; Tac. <i> [[Ann]] </i> . xii.43), and of a great dearth in Judea under the procurators [[Cuspius]] Fadus and [[Tiberius]] Alexander, 44-48 ad ( <i> Ant. </i> , XX, ii, 6; v, 2), which probably reached its climax circa 46 ad. (2) In <span> Acts 21:10 </span> we find Agabus at [[Caesarea]] warning Paul, by a vivid symbolic action (after the manner of [[Old]] [[Testament]] prophets; compare <span> [[Jeremiah]] 13:1 </span> ; Ezek 3; 4) of the imprisonment and suffering he would undergo if he proceeded to Jerusalem. (3) In late tradition Agabus is included in lists of the seventy disciples of Christ. </p>