Acts 6:9

There are said to have been no less than 480 synagogues in Jerusalem, and the Cyrenians and Alexandrians, at any rate, would have been sufficiently numerous to have synagogues of their own. Libertines] lit. 'freed-men.' These were descendants of those Jews who, having been carried by the Romans, particularly by Pompey, to Rome as prisoners of war, had afterwards been emancipated from slavery. Cyrenians] A fourth part of the inhabitants of Cyrene, the capital of Upper Libya, consisted of Jews. Alexandrians] At Alexandria (founded by Alexander the Great, 332 b.c.) two of the five parts into which the city was divided were inhabited by Jews, who were ruled over by a Jewish officer called an alabarch. At Alexandria the OT. had been translated into Greek. Here flourished a Jewish-Greek philosophy of which Philo is the chief exponent. Apollos was an Alexandrian (Acts 18:24). Tradition makes St. Mark the first bishop of Alexandria. Cilicia] To this synagogue St. Paul probably belonged. Asia] The Roman province, not the continent. It embraced Lydia, Mysia, Caria, part of Phrygia. Its three chief towns were Ephesus, Smyrna, and Pergamos.