PROVINCE (vi n ; N. T. grapxfa, and LX X. ; Vulg. Provincia). T I. This word, which occurs most frequently in the book of Esther, is derived from judgment, and is generally applied to the Persian satrapies (Esther i. r, et passim). The returning exiles are called sons of the provinces' (Ezra ii. I ; Neh. vii. 6). It is also used of the Babylonian (Ezra iv. 15; Dan. iii. 12, ff.) and of the Median provinces (Ezra vi. 2), and is applied to Elam (Dan. viii. 2), to Egypt (Dan. xi. 24 ; Lam. i. I), and even apparently to some districts of the kingdom of Samaria, in the obscure ex pression, ' young men of the princes of the pro vinces' (I Kings xx. passim). The word is also twice used in a general sense in Eccles. ii. 8 ; v. 8.
In Esther i. 1, the kingdom of Ahasuerus is said to consist of 127 provinces, and as the number of satrapies in the Persian empire was only 20 (Herod. iii. 95), it is clear that the provinces were subdivisions of satrapies under governors who were subordinate to the satraps. The min or governor (N. T. irye,u6v ; Luther, of a province seems to have stood in nearly the same on to the satrap apll;rit.t ; Luther, Lana'vogt ; Esther . .
viii. 9), as the procurator of a Roman province (A. V. governor) did to the proconsul (A. V. Deputy ; PROCURATOR). Thus both Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, who were sub-prefects of Judxa (Haggai i. 14; Ezra ii. 63, etc.), had to submit to the counsels and decisions of the satrap of the district beyond the Euphrates [TATNAI], who, on important occasions, was advised by a council of assessors (Neh. iv. 7), and who could appeal for a ratification of his acts to the three superior ministers (of whom Daniel was one ; Dan. vi. 3), or to the great king himself (Ezra v.) The title of the `governor' was Tirshatha, a Persian word meaning the dreaded' (cf. Gestrenger Herr, Gesen. s. v.) The various particulars respecting the management of Persian provinces which we learn from the Book of Esther may all be corro borated by the statements of Herodotus and Xeno phon [GOVERNOR, vol. ii. p. 166; ACHASHDAR PENIM, etc.] 2. In the N. T. the word brapxla occurs but twice—Acts xxiii. 34 ; xxv. I—being there applied to Cilicia and Judaea ; but, as we shall see, a study of the manner in which the Roman provinces were organised will confirm in a very remarkable manner the accuracy and trustworthiness of St. Luke.
Strabo, in the locus classicus respecting this sub ject, informs us that Augustus, on coming to the empire, divided all the provinces into two classes. For his own management he reserved all those half-civilised and disturbed districts which needed the protection of military garrisons, and these were called provincia Casaris, or imperatoria., and were governed by a prmses or legatos (ryei..cthy) and by procurators (Stouorai). To the care of the senate he delivered the peaceful provinces (` inermes pros.'), which required an easier government, and were called senatoria or popular-es, two of which were governed by proconsuls (civOtirraroL) and ten by pro-prretors and which were hence distinguished as enrevrucai and arpaTnyucat (Strabo, xvii. 840, cf. Suet. Octay. 47 ; Dio Cass. liii. 12.). Now, the word etv0i5raroL, with the verb thrthswarciuo, occurs three times in the N. T.—viz., in Acts xix. 38, of Asia Minor ; in Acts xiii. 7, 8,
of Cyprus, where Sergius Paulus was proconsul ; and in Acts xviii. 12, of Achaia, where Gallio was proconsul. The A. V. renders it by deputy,' a word they may have chosen, not (as has been suggested) from some doubt as to the accuracy of the term proconsul' in the two latter cases, hut as Professor Plumptre has pointed out, from the use of the title in Queen Elizabeth's time of Lord Deputy of Ireland.' Grotius, Hammond, and other commentators, distinctly impugned the ac curacy of St. Luke ; because in the lists of the provinces given by Strabo and Dio Cassius, both Cyprus and Achaia are assigned to the emperor, and therefore could not have been governed by proconsuls, but by legati or procurators. A little more diligent research turned the historical error into an undesigned coincidence' with fact. For Dio Cassius (H. 12,1i5'. 4) distinctly adds that Cyprus afterwards became a senatorial province, since it was given to the senate with Gallia Narbonensis in exchange for Dalmatia (Bishop Marsh, Lec tures, p. 85). There is similar evidence respecting Achaia. In the original division (Dio Cass., liii. 12) it had been assigned to the senate, but on the growth of various complaints, Tiberius took it under his own care (Tac. Ann. i. 76), and it was then governed by a legatos ; it was, however, in the reign of Claudius that St. Paul visited Achaia, and Claudius, as we find from a notice fortunately preserved by Suetonius (Claud. 25), restored both it and Macedonia to the senate. That Gallio—the dulcis Gallio' of his brother Seneca's affectionate address—was proconsul of Achaia at this time is indisputable (Tac. Ann. xv. 73 ; xvi. Sen. Nat. Quart. prcf. 4, etc.) The statements of his torians are confirmed in the case of Cyprus by other and unsuspicious evidence. Both in inscrip tions (Boeckh, No. 2632 ; Gruter, ccclx. 3 ; Brotier in Tat. xii. 45) and on coins of the period (Aker man, Nis:num. Illust. of the N. T., p. 41) the pro consuls of Cyprus have recorded their dignity. To avoid all chance of error, it should be observed that, although of the senatorial provinces Asia and Africa were alone necessarily governed by men of proconsular rank, yet the governors of all these provinces were called proconsuls, as is expressly asserted by Dio Cassius (liii. 13. See Conybeare and Howson's Life of St. Paul, i. p. 154, where the original passages are given at length). It is to be regretted that the extreme accuracy with which these terms, ilyekulw and cipet'nraTos, are used in the N. T., in spite of the complex arrangements of the Roman provincial system, is obscured in the A. V. by the vague renderings `governor' and deputy. The word prmtor (arpanry6s) does not occur in the N. T. except as the ambitious title assumed by the duurriviri (A. V. magistrates ') of the colony of Philippi (Acts xvi. 20), who also have their attendant lictors id.) The chiefs of Asia' .Acriapxoc), mentioned in Acts xix. 31, had an office very similar to that of the Roman mdiles, and were the presidents of the public games. For further information on the manner in which the provinces were organized, see Walther, Gesell. der Rom. Rechts ; Merival, Roman Empire, ch. xxxi. ; Diet, of Antiquities, p. 967 ; Winer, s. v. Lanoyeger, etc.—F. W. F.