MNASON

na'-son, m'-na'-son (Mnason): All that we know of Mnason is found in Acts 21:16. (1) He accompanied Paul and his party from Caesarea on Paul's last visit to Jerusalem; (2) he was a Cyprian; (3) "an early disciple," an early convert to Christianity, and (4) the one with whom Paul's company was to lodge. The "Western" text of this passage is very interesting. Blass, following Codex Bezae (D), the Syriac, reads, for "bringing," etc., "And they brought us to those with whom one should lodge, and when we had come into a certain village we stayed with Mnason a Cyprian, an early disciple, and having departed thence we came to Jerusalem and the brethren," etc. Meyer-Wendt, Page and Rendell render the accepted text, "bringing us to the house of Mnason," etc. However, giving the imperfect transitive of anebainomen, "we were going up" to Jerusalem (21:15), we might understand that the company lodged with Mnason on the 1st night of their journey to Jerusalem, and not at the city itself. "Acts 21:15, they set about the journey; Acts 21:16, they lodged with Mnason on the introduction of the Cesarean disciples; Acts 21:17, they came to Jerus" (Expositor's Greek Testament, in the place cited.).

S. F. Hunter

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.