05.04 - SAULUS PAULUS

4. SAULUS PAULUS. In Acts 13:9 the words ΣαῦλοςὁκαὶΠαῦλος, are quite abruptly introduced to designate the Apostle who has always hitherto been spoken of as Σαῦλος, and from this place onwards in the book the name Παῦλος is always used. The passage has given rise to the most extraordinary conjectures; it has even been asserted that the narrator meant the ὁκαὶΠαῦλος to indicate that the change of name had some sort of connection with the conversion of the Proconsul Sergius Paulus described immediately before. It must not be forgotten, in investigating the point, that it is not said that the Apostle made the change; it is the narrator who does so: by means of the ὁκαί he makes the transition from the previously-used Σαῦλος to the Παῦλος to which he henceforth keeps. We have never yet seen the fact recorded in connection with this passage¹⁰⁴² that the elliptically-usedκαίwith double names is an exceedingly common usage in N.T. times. W. Schmid,¹⁰⁴³ in his studies on Atticism (of great importance for the history of the language of the Greek Bible), has recently shown from the Papyri and Inscriptions how widespread this usage was in all quarters; he names an Inscription of Antiochus Epiphanes as his first authority. “As qui et is similarly used in Latin in the case of familiar designations . . . , we might suspect a Latinism, had the Antiochus Inscription not made it more likely that the Latin usage is really a Graecism.”¹⁰⁴⁴ W. Schmid seems to think that certain passages from AElianus and Achilles Tatius are the earliest instances of this construction in the literature. But even in the literature the usage, most likely derived from the popular speech, can be shown to go much farther back. We find the reading ἌλκιμοςὁκαὶἸάκιμος, in 1Ma 7:5, 1Ma 7:12, 1Ma 7:20 ff., 1Ma 9:54 ff., 2Ma 14:3, at least in Codd. 64, 93, 19 (also 62 in the last passage). But even should this reading not be the original, yet we need not be at a loss for literary authorities; a relatively large number are supplied by Josephus.¹⁰⁴⁵ The Jewish historian, in giving double names, employs not only the fuller forms of expression, such as Σίμωνὁκαὶδίκαιοςἐπικληθείς (Antt. xii. 2 4), ἌλκιμοςὁκαὶἸάκιμοςκληθείς (Antt. xii. 9 7), ἸωάννηντὸνκαὶΓαδδὶνλεγόμενον (Antt. xiii. 1 2), ΔιόδοτοςὁκαὶΤρύφωνἐπικληθείς (Antt. xiii. 51), ΣελήνηἡκαὶΚλεοπάτρακαλουμένη (Antt. xiii. 16 4), ἈντίοχοςὁκαὶΔιόνυσοςἐπικληθείς (Bell. Jud. 47), but he often simply connects the two names by ὁκαὶ : ἸανναῖοντὸνκαὶἈλέξανδρον (Antt. xiii. 12 1),¹⁰⁴⁶ἸώσηποςὁκαὶΚαϊάφας (Antt. xviii. 2 2)¹⁰⁴⁷Κλεόδημοςὁ καὶΜάλχος (Antt. i. 15), ἌρκηἡκαὶἘκδείπους (Antt. v. 1 22), ἸούδαςὁκαὶΜακκαβαῖος (Antt. xii. 6 4), Πακόρῳτῷκαὶπρεσβυτέρῳ (Antt. xx. 3 3). When Acts 13:9 is placed in this philological context, we see that it cannot mean “Saul who was henceforth also called Paul”; an ancient reader could only have taken it to mean “Saul who was also called Paul”.¹⁰⁴⁸ Had the writer of Acts intended to say that Paul had adopted the Graecised Roman name in honour of the Proconsul, or even that he now adopted it for the first time, he would have selected a different expression. The ὁκαί admits of no other supposition than that he was called Saulos Paulos before he came to Cyprus; he had, like many natives of Asia Minor, many Jews and Egyptians of his age, a double name. We know not when he received the non-Semitic name in addition to the Semitic one. It will hardly be demanded that we should specify the particular circumstance which formed the occasion of his receiving the surname Paulos. The regulations of Roman Law about the bearing of names cannot in this question be taken into consideration. If in Asia Minor or on the Nile any obscure individual felt that, in adopting a non-barbaric surname, he was simply adapting himself to the times, it is unlikely that the authorities would trouble themselves about the matter. The choice of such Graaco-Roman second names was usually determined by the innocent freedom of popular taste. But we can sometimes see that such names as were more or less similar in sound to the native name must have been specially preferred.¹⁰⁴⁹ In regard to Jewish names this is the case with, e.g., Ἰάκιμ—Ἄλκιμος (Joseph. Antt. xii. 9 7), ἸησοῦςὁλεγόμενοςἸοῦστος (Colossians 4:11), Ἰωσὴφ. . .ὃςἐπεκλήθηἸοῦστος (Act. 1:23);¹⁰⁵⁰ of Egyptian names, we have noticed ΣαταβοὺςὁκαὶΣάτυρος (Pap. Berol. 7080, Col. 2, Fayyum, 2nd cent. A.D.).¹⁰⁵¹ Thus, too, in the case of the Tarsian Σαούλ,¹⁰⁵² when he received a non-Semitic second name (we do not know the exact time, butit must have been before Acts 13:9) the choice of Παῦλος may have been determined by nothing more than the fact that Παῦλος had a sound somewhat similar to the name made venerable by association with his fellow-tribesman of old.¹⁰⁵³ So far as we know, there has hitherto been no evidence to show that the name Παῦλος was adopted by any other Jew; it is therefore of interest that the recently-published Papyrus fragments relating to the Jewish war of Trajan¹⁰⁵⁴ several times mention an Alexandrian Jew called Παῦλος,¹⁰⁵⁵ who seems to have been the leader of a deputation which negotiated with the emperor. The question why the narrator calls the Apostle Σαῦλος previous to Acts 13:9, and Παῦλος afterwards, has nothing to do with the science of names, or with the history of Paul; it is altogether a question of literary history. The most satisfactory solution so far (unless we are willing to go back to a difference in the sources) is the supposition¹⁰⁵⁶ that the historian uses the one or the other name according to the field of his hero’s labours; from Acts 13:1 the Jewish disciple Σαῦλος is an apostle to the whole world: it is high time, then, that he should be presented to the Greeks under a name about which there was nothing barbaric, and which, even before this, was really his own.

ΣαῦλοςὁκαὶΠαῦλος only as such perhaps did many of his brethren of the same race understand him; from his own confessions we know that he was rather a Παῦλοςὁ καὶΣαῦλος—a man who laboured for the future and for humanity, though as a son of Benjamin and a contemporary of the Caesars. Christians in later times would often have fain called him Saul only; but on this account it is the name Paul alone which in history is graven above the narrow gate at which Augustine and Luther entered in.¹⁰⁵⁷