Aristarchus

Aristarchus is a named companion of Paul who appears in the closing greeting-lists of two captivity letters. The UPDV preserves only those two notices in its canon (the Acts narrative is not carried), and both fix him in the same setting: with the apostle in bonds, sending greetings under the descriptors "fellow-prisoner" and "coworker."

A Companion in Bonds

The Colossians greeting-list opens with Aristarchus, and the qualifying title attached to his name is "my fellow-prisoner." He is paired immediately with Mark, the cousin of Barnabas: "Aristarchus my fellow-prisoner greets you⁺, and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas (concerning whom you⁺ received commandments; if he comes to you⁺, receive him)" (Col 4:10).

The Philemon list does not repeat the prisoner-tag for Aristarchus directly, but the surrounding context locates him in the same captivity setting. Epaphras is the one named "fellow-prisoner in Christ Jesus" in the immediately preceding verse (Phm 1:23), and Aristarchus follows in the next breath as one of "my coworkers": "[and so do] Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, Luke, my coworkers" (Phm 1:24). The two letters together exhibit Aristarchus as a man sharing the apostle's place of bonds.

One of the Coworkers

In Philemon, Aristarchus stands second in a four-name sequence — between Mark and Demas — and the collective tag "coworkers" is attached to the whole group (Phm 1:24). The Colossians notice goes a step further. After the greetings from Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus called Justus, the apostle adds the qualifier: "who are of the circumcision: these [are my] only coworkers to the kingdom of God, men who have been a comfort to me" (Col 4:11). Aristarchus is therefore named in both letters under the same descriptor, "coworker," and in Colossians he is identified as one of the Jewish coworkers — among those said to have been a comfort to the apostle in his imprisonment.