Acts 19:9

Acts 19:9. But when divers were hardened... but spake evil of that way before the multitude, he departed from them. It was the old story which in Paul's weary life-work had so often been enacted and re-enacted, as at Thessalonica and Corinth, and in many another centre of his devoted work. His own countrymen, either spurred on by advices from Jerusalem and the Holy Land, or themselves jealous and disturbed at the thought of the hated Gentile sharing in their loved hopes, set themselves to mar and spoil his labours. Here, as in other places, these opposing Jews seemed to have worked upon the easily excited feelings of the multitude, those of the lower class, so often discontented, usually so ripe for an uproar.

He departed from them, and separated the disciples, disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus. Paul at once leaves the Jewish centre where he had been working, and separating his own disciples, Jew as well as Gentile, from the hostile Jews, he began daily to teach in the private synagogues, for this is most probably what the ‘school of Tyrannus' was, Beth-Midrasch it would have been termed by the Jews, a school where rabbinical traditions were taught. Some have suggested that this was a school and lecture hall of a Greek teacher of rhetoric or philosophy hired by Paul. Professor Plumptre states the name ‘Tyrannus' was not an uncommon one among slaves and freedmen, and suggests that he was a physician, and not improbably a friend of Luke. The name Tyrannus has been found in the Columbarium of the household of Livia on the Appian Way, and as belonging to one described as a ‘Medicus.' Both names and professions, he remarks, were very commonly hereditary; hence the suggestion. The MS. Codex D (Bezæ) has a very singular addition here; after the word Tyrannus or Tyrannias it reads ‘from the sixth to the tenth hour,' thus particularizing the exact hour of Paul's public teaching.