Tertius
Ter'tius (Τέρτιος, Graecized from the Lat. tertius, third; Vulg. Tertius) was the amanuensis of Paul in writing the Epistle to the Romans (16, 22). A.D. 55. He was at Corinth, therefore, and Cenchrese, the port of Corinth, at the time when the apostle wrote to the Church at Rome. It is noticeable that Tertius intercepts the message which Paul sends to the Roman Christians, and inserts a greeting of his own in the first person singular (ἀσπάζομαι ἐγὼ Τέρτιος). Both that circumstance and the frequency of the name among the Romans may indicate that Tertius was a Roman, and was known to those whom Paul salutes at the close of the letter. Secundus (Ac 20:4) is another instance of the familiar usage of the Latin ordinals employed as proper names. The idle pedantry (indulged in by Burmann, Exercit. Theol. 2, 161 sq.) which would make him and Silas the same person because tertius and שׁלַישַׁי mean the same in Latin and Hebrew, hardly deserves to be mentioned (see Wolf,. Curae Philologicae, 3, 295); and equally idle is Roloffs conjecture (De Trib. Nomin. Pauli [Jen. 1731]) and Storck's (Exercit. de Tertio, in the Fortges. niutzl. Samml. p. 23) that Tertius is but a pseudonym for Paul himself. In regard to the ancient practice of writing letters from dictation, see Becker's Gallus, p. 180. No credit is due to the writers who speak of him as bishop of conium (see Fabricius, Lux Evangelica, p. 117). — Smith. See also Briegleb, De Tertio (Jen. 1754); Eckhard, De Signo Pauli (Viteb. 1687); Hertzog, De Subscriptionibus Pauli (Lips. 1703). SEE PAUL.
