Aristarchus

Aristarchus of Thessalonica was a first-century Christian from Macedonia and a close companion of the Apostle Paul. The Acts of the Apostles identifies him as a Macedonian of Thessalonica. He first appears in the narrative of Paul's work at Ephesus, where he and Gaius were seized by a hostile crowd during the riot stirred up by the silversmith Demetrius, who feared that Christian preaching threatened the cult of Artemis and the trade associated with it. Aristarchus is later named among those who accompanied Paul from Greece through Macedonia toward Asia, and he is explicitly said to have sailed with Paul from Caesarea when Paul, as a prisoner, was sent to Rome.

In the Pauline letters he is remembered with particular warmth. In the Epistle to the Colossians he is called Paul's fellow prisoner, a phrase that indicates he shared in some measure the apostle's captivity, whether at Rome or at an earlier stage. The same letter groups him with Mark and Jesus called Justus among the Jewish-Christian coworkers then with Paul. In the letter to Philemon he is listed among Paul's fellow workers who send greetings. These notices, though sparse, place him in the inner circle of Paul's missionary company in the middle decades of the first century.

Beyond the New Testament, later Christian tradition assigned Aristarchus an episcopal office and a martyr's death, but the details are not uniform and cannot be verified from contemporary sources. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 4 August as a disciple of Paul who was ordained bishop of the Thessalonians and who, after long sufferings under Nero, was crowned with martyrdom. Eastern tradition more commonly numbers him among the Seventy Apostles and presents him as bishop of Apamea in Syria; he is commemorated in the Byzantine calendar on 15 April together with Pudens and Trophimus, and again on 4 January with the rest of the Seventy. Neither the date nor the place of his death is established by early, independent evidence.

Nothing reliable is known of his family, marriage, or burial. He was not Bishop of Rome, nor did he hold a patriarchal see. Veneration of Aristarchus belongs to the ancient, pre-congregational cult of the apostolic companions of Paul, and no later formal canonization or specific list of patronages is securely attached to his name in the major martyrologies. His historical importance rests on the New Testament witness that a Thessalonian Christian shared both the dangers of the Ephesian riot and the hardships of Paul's journey to Rome.