1. "a 'legatus Caesaris,' an officer administering a province in the name and with the authority of the Roman emperor; the governor of a province": Matthew 10:18; Mark 13:9; Luke 21:12; 1 Peter 2:14.

2. a procurator (Vulg.praeses; Luth.Landpfleger), an officer who was attached to a proconsul or a propraetor and had charge of the imperial revenues; in causes relating to these revenues he administered justice, (called ἐπίτροπος, διοικητής, in secular authors). In the smaller provinces also, which were so to speak appendages of the greater, he discharged the functions of governor of the province; and such was the relation of the procurator of Judaea to the proconsul of Syria (cf. Krebs, Observations, p. 61ff; Fischer, De vitiis lexamples etc., p. 432ff; Winers RWB under the word Procuratoren; Sieffert in Herzog 2 under the word Landpfleger; Krenkel in Schenkel 4:7; (BB. DD. under the word )); so of Pilate, Felix, Festus: Matthew 27:2, 11, 14f, (R G L Tr marginal reading), ; ; Luke 20:20; Acts 23:24, 26, 33; Acts 24:1, 10; Acts 26:30; Πιλᾶτος ὁ τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἡγεμών, Josephus, Antiquities 18, 3, 1; (Tacitus, ann. 15, 44 Christus Tiberio imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat).

3. first, leading, chief: so of a principal town as the capital of the region, Matthew 2:6, where the meaning is, 'Thou art by no means least among the chief cities of Judah;' others less aptly (Bleek also ((where?); in his (posthumous) Synoptative Erklärung etc. 1:119 he repudiates this interpretation (ascribed by him to Hofmann, Weiss. u. Erfüll. 2:56))), 'Thou shalt by no means be regarded as least among i. e. by the princes, the nobles, of the state.' The saying is taken from Micah 5:2 (1), where the Hebrew בְּאַלְפֵי (which the Sept. give correctly, ἐν χιλιασι) seems to have been read בְּאַלֻּפֵי by the Evangelist (cf. Edersheim, Jesus the Messiah, i. 206).