Silvanus was one of the Seventy Apostles, those followers of Jesus sent out by him in Luke 10. Little is known about him, except for his mention in the New Testament (Acts, various letters of Paul, and 1 Peter) as a co-writer or transcriber of some of these works. He is probably the same person as Silas, also mentioned in various places in the New Testament. If this is so, then probably he was born Silas, but took on the Roman name Silvanus for evangelical reasons. Outside of the Bible, all that is really known about him is that he later became Bishop of Thessalonika