Three questions have remained central to the Erastus debate (Ἔραστος ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλɛως, Rom 16.23): the date of IKorinthKent 232, the nature of the office of οἰκονόμος (τῆς πόλɛως), and the frequency of the name ‘Erastus’ in antiquity. The present article focuses on the third issue. Moving beyond Meggitt's earlier research (1996, 1999), the author here furnishes a comprehensive catalog of literary, papyrological, and epigraphical occurrences of the name (in Greek and in Latin) in antiquity. The chief payoff of the catalog is two-fold: (1) it provides, for the first time, comprehensive quantitative evidence that the name was in fact rare; and (2) it reveals a significant dearth of attestations from first-century Greece.

Studies on Erastus, the Corinthian oikonomos (Rom 16.23), continue to dispute the fundamental make up of his identity, including his administrative rank, socio-economic standing, even his status as a believer. Ultimately seeking to defend the view that Erastus was a Christian who served as a Corinthian municipal quaestor, this article responds separately to two recent essays, replying initially to Weiss' charge that Corinth did not have the municipal quaestorship, then critiquing Friesen's claim that Erastus was an unbelieving public slave.

Erastus (Rom 16.23) has featured prominently in the ongoing debate over the social and economic make-up of the early Pauline communities, since how one renders his title (ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως) dramatically affects the range of economic stratification represented in the Corinthian church. Relying chiefly on epigraphy, including an important new inscription from the Achaean colony of Patras, this article engages the scholarly dialogue about the Latin equivalent of Erastus' title, rebutting the arguments in favour of arcarius and aedilis, and contends that he served as quaestor, a high-ranking municipal position exclusively occupied by the economic elite.