SOSTHENES

(Sosʹthe·nes) [from roots meaning “save” and “strength”].

The presiding officer of the Corinthian synagogue during Paul’s visit in Corinth; possibly the successor of Crispus, who became a Christian. When Proconsul Gallio declined to hear the Jews’ charges against Paul’s religious teaching, the crowd took Sosthenes and beat him. Certain manuscripts say the crowd was composed of anti-Jewish “Greeks”; others read “Jews.” Both, however, are interpolations, since the three oldest manuscripts do not tell us which partisan group attacked Sosthenes.​—Ac 18:8, 12-17.

It is possible that this bad experience suffered by Sosthenes led to his conversion to Christianity and later association with Paul at Ephesus, for in the salutations at the outset of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul includes those of a certain Sosthenes (a not-too-common Greek name), speaking of him as “our brother.”​—1Co 1:1.