Libertine: Found only
(Acts 6:9) one who once had been a slave, but who had been set
at liberty, or the child of such a person. In this case the name
probably denotes those descendants of Jews who had been carried
captives to Rome as prisoners of war by Pompey and other Roman
generals in the Syrian wars, and had afterwards been liberated. In
A.D. 19 these manumitted Jews were banished from Rome. Many of
them found their way to Jerusalem, and there established a synagogue.
