Apollos
15 CE · Alexandria
Apollos was a Jewish teacher from Alexandria in Egypt. Acts describes him as eloquent and 'mighty in the Scriptures'. When he came to Ephesus he was already teaching accurately about Jesus, though he 'knew only the baptism of John'. After hearing him in the synagogue, Priscilla and Aquila took him aside and explained the way of God to him more fully (Acts 18:24-26). He then went to Corinth with letters of recommendation and became an effective preacher there (Acts 18:27-19:1). His influence was such that some Corinthian believers rallied behind him as others did behind Paul or Peter ('I follow Apollos', 1 Corinthians 1:12). Paul rejects the factions but treats Apollos as a partner: 'I planted. Apollos watered. But God gave the increase' (1 Corinthians 3:6). Later, Paul urged him to revisit Corinth, but he was unwilling to go just then (1 Corinthians 16:12). The Letter to Titus, whose authorship is disputed, also mentions him (Titus 3:13). No writings of his survive. In the 16th century Martin Luther suggested that Apollos wrote Hebrews, but that remains a conjecture.
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AlexandriaEgypt
What they did here
Acts introduces Apollos as 'an Alexandrian by race', an eloquent man well versed in the Scriptures (Acts 18:24). Nothing is known of his life there.
About Alexandria
Alexandria is the main Mediterranean port of northern Egypt and the country's second city. Founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE, it became the capital of the Ptolemies, whose Museum and Great Library made it the leading centre of Hellenistic learning. It also held one of the largest Jewish communities of antiquity, where the Greek Bible translation known as the Septuagint was produced and Philo wrote. Church tradition traces its patriarchate to Mark the Evangelist, and its catechetical school was led by Clement and Origen. Arab forces under Amr ibn al-As took the city in 641, and it remained a commercial and scholarly hub of the Islamic world; the Sufi master Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari was born there.
In Alexandria at the same time
Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Apollos’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
In the same tradition
Mary Magdalene, Paul the Apostle, Priscilla, Aquila, Timothy, Mark the Evangelist
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Apollos’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.