στρατηγός

Summary

στρατηγός ("general, magistrate") appears in the Manning papyrus — one of the earliest possible uses of authenteō — establishing the civic and legal context of the document. The papyrus describes a commercial dispute involving a boatman, contractor, and civic official, not a religious authority context. The egalitarian reading: authenteō here means asserting authority in a transaction, not exercising ongoing positional authority over another person.

In the Hellenistic and Roman period it also designated a civilian magistrate or administrative official — roughly equivalent to a police captain, magistrate, or provincial administrator. In the NT, Acts 16:20–38 uses stratēgoi for the magistrates of Philippi. In the WIM context, stratēgos appears in article 340 in the analysis of a papyrus letter (the Manning papyrus) that contains what may be an early use of authenteō. The letter mentions a stratēgos to whom a complaint has been brought — establishing the legal and civic context of the document. The egalitarian reading of the Manning papyrus (Bartlett/Williams, following Manning himself) is that authenteō in this context means "to assert/exercise authority in a transaction" — not the exercise of ongoing positional authority over another person. The stratēgos detail grounds the social context: this is a commercial dispute involving a boatman, a contractor, and a civic official, not a religious or household authority context. Complementarian readers (Wolters, Winger) use the same papyrus to argue for a positive "exercise authority" meaning of authenteō.