Mnason

From BibleEncyclopedia.Net

nā´son, m'nā´son (Μνάσων, Mnásōn, "Reminding," or "remembrancer"):

All that we know of Mnason is found in Acts 21:16.

(1) a Christian of Jerusalem who accompanied Paul and his party from Caesarea on Paul's last visit to Jerusalem;

(2) he was a Cyprian; he was apparently a native of Cyprus, like Barnabas (Acts 11:19, Acts 11:20), and was well known to the Christians of Caesarea (Acts 4:36);

(3) he was an “old disciple” (R.V., “early disciple”), an early convert to Christianity, i.e., he had become a Christian in the beginning of the formation of the Church in Jerusalem, and

(4) the one with whom Paul's company was to lodge Acts 21:16).

The “Western” text of this passage is very interesting. Blass, following Codex Bezae (D), the Syriac, reads, for “bringing,” etc., “And they brought us to those with whom one should lodge, and when we had come into a certain village we stayed with Mnason a Cyprian, an early disciple, and having departed thence we came to Jerusalem and the brethren,” etc. Meyer-Wendt, Page and Rendell render the accepted text, “bringing us to the house of Mnason,” etc. However, giving the imperfect transitive of anebaínomen, “we were going up” to Jerusalem (Acts 21:15), we might understand that the company lodged with Mnason on the 1st night of their journey to Jerusalem, and not at the city itself. “Acts 21:15, they set about the journey; Acts 21:16, they lodged with Mnason on the introduction of the Cesarean disciples; Acts 21:17, they came to Jerus” (Expositor's Greek Testament, in the place cited.).