Lysanias

LISANIA. – Abilene (v.), mentioned by Lc. 3:1 in the fifteenth year of the emperor Tiberius.

D. F. Strauss (Leben Jesu, I, 4th ed., Tübingen 1835, p. 341) accused Luke of having committed a chronological error by placing in the time of Tiberius an L. who, according to Josephus (Antiq. Iud., XV, 4, 1), had been condemned to death by Antony at Cleopatra’s instigation. The inscriptions discovered at Abila have vindicated St. Luke (Corpus inscriptionum Graecarum, III, no. 4524, addenda p. 1174; cf. R. Savignac, Texte complet de l'inscription d'Abila relative a Lysanias, in Rev. bibl., 9 [1912], pp. 533–40). Josephus too (Antiq. Iud., XX, 7, 1) knows that “the tetrarchy of L.” was later assigned by the Roman emperors to Agrippa I and II.