Category: Biblical Studies

In a future post I will address a relatively recent paper that discusses the origin of the name of Paul in Acts. Since that paper will refer to an older publication that is not readily accessible I am posting a translation of that earlier work here, along with another note making a revision in the light of a subsequent archaeological find. This post is background preparation for another soon to come. 

The translated article below discusses Sergius Paulus of Acts 13.  Readers will be interested to learn that…

Original text:

Title: Der Name des Apostels Paulus 
Author(s): H. Dessau
Source: Hermes, 45. Bd., H. 3 (1910), pp. 347-368
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4473239

347

The Name of the Apostle Paul

Many of the Orientals mentioned in the New Testament bore a second name in addition to their original one, often to distinguish themselves from others with the same name. Sometimes this second name was adopted for interactions with the “Hellenes” or the government, to avoid the difficulty of their foreign and hard-to-pronounce names. Additionally, it occasionally occurred that individuals, at a turning point in their lives, adopted a new name to outwardly signify this change.

In practice, the usage of the two names varied widely in individual cases. Sometimes the new name entirely replaced the old one, while at other times the old name eventually prevailed. In some cases, both names were regularly used side by side, and this fluctuating usage is also reflected in the writings of the New Testament.

The Apostle Thomas is simply called Thomas, although the Gospel of John consistently notes at each new mention (11:16, 20:24, 21:2) that he was also called Didymus. Regarding Barnabas, Acts 4:36 reports that this name was given to him by the original apostles, while his real name was Joseph; thereafter, the text exclusively uses his new name. In the case of John, the cousin of Barnabas, the same text repeatedly (12:12, 12:25, 15:37) adds the clarification, “who was also called Mark” (ὁ ἐπικαλούμενος Μᾶρκος). During one narrative (15:39), he is referred to once simply as Marcus, and in two other instances (13:5, 13), this clarification is omitted altogether.

Simon, who was named Cephas or Peter by Jesus himself, is referred to as Simon in the Gospels of Mark and Luke until the point where the conferring of the new name is mentioned (Mark 3:16; Luke 6:14). From then on, he is called Peter, except that Luke once places both names side by side (5:8). Both Luke and Mark subsequently allow the acting persons, particularly Jesus himself, to use the old name.

Matthew, who does not narrate the conferral of the name by Jesus, initially presents the two names in a way that makes Peter appear as the surname (4:18; 10:2 Σίμων ὁ λεγόμενος Πέτρος), or simply juxtaposes them (16:16 Σίμων Πέτρος). However, from 8:14 onward, and consistently from 14:29, 15:15, and 16:22, he uses the name Peter alone, except for one instance where Jesus himself addresses the disciple as Simon (17:25).

The Gospel of John, by contrast, uses the double name Simon Peter from the very beginning, at every new mention. This clearly reflects a deliberate intention. Among the other evangelists, one notices a tension and overlap between their striving for accuracy—avoiding the use of the new name prematurely—and their desire to orient the reader as quickly as possible about the individual, alongside their habitual use of the younger name.

348

The Apostle Paul’s name usage is quite peculiar. In his epistles, he consistently refers to himself as Paul, not only in the introductory greetings and closing notes (e.g., 1 Cor. 16:21) but also within the text itself (e.g., Eph. 3:1; 1 Cor. 3:4 ff.; Col. 1:23). However, in the Acts of the Apostles, he is initially called Saulos (9:4, 17; in the vocative Saoul). Suddenly, during a dramatic encounter with the proconsul of Cyprus, Sergius Paulus, which reportedly made a strong impression on the proconsul, the text states that Saulos was also called Paulos (13:9, Σαῦλος δὲ καὶ Παῦλος). From that point onward, only the name Paulos is used, except in the literal retelling of earlier events, where Saoul reappears in direct speech (22:7, 13).

Any perceptive reader must conclude that the narrator believed a name change occurred here. It would have seemed obvious to speculate that the adoption of the new name was connected to the proconsul’s name, as the apostle reportedly converted him to the faith. This assumption was first explicitly made, to my knowledge, by Jerome.¹ Augustine later adopted it in one of his later writings, whereas Rufinus, Jerome’s old adversary, refuted it with arguments that remain compelling today.²

Jerome, at the beginning of his commentary on the Epistle to Philemon (Commentarius in Philemonem, 7, p. 746 Vall., 7, p. 640 Migne), wrote:

“Just as Scipio, after subduing Africa, took the name Africanus for himself, and Metellus, having conquered Crete, brought the title Creticus to his family, and just as Roman generals even now receive names like Adiabenicus, Parthicus, or Sarmaticus from the peoples they conquer, so too Saulus, sent to preach to the Gentiles, bore the trophies of his victory from his first conquest, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, and raised his banner to be called Paulus instead of Saulus.”

He expressed a similar idea in De viris illustribus 5 and hinted at it in his commentary on Isaiah (Book 7, ch. 17, 1; 4, p. 278 Vall., 4, p. 2481 Migne). Augustine, in Confessiones 8:4, said:

“When the proconsul Paulus was brought under Christ’s yoke through his (Paul’s) ministry… Paul also chose to be called Paulus instead of Saulus, as a mark of his great victory.”²

Rufinus countered this in an appendix to the preface of Origen’s commentary on Romans (Origen, p. 460 de la Rue, Patrologia Graeca XIV, p. 836):

“Some believe that the Apostle adopted the name of the proconsul Paulus, whom he converted to Christ on Cyprus, just as kings are named Parthicus or Gothicus after their victories over the Parthians or Goths. Thus, they claim the Apostle, having brought Paulus into submission, was named Paulus himself. While this interpretation cannot be entirely dismissed, it lacks precedent in the divine scriptures. It is better to seek understanding from examples provided in them.”

¹ It is a common misconception, shared by figures like Mommsen (Gesammelte Schriften III, p. 434), that Origen referred to this hypothesis, which first appears in Jerome. The relevant passage in the preface to Origen’s commentary on Romans is from the Latin editor. Jerome explicitly claimed the theory as his own (In Philem.):

“No scripture records why Saul was called Paul. Therefore, I will boldly, but perhaps truthfully, assert my suspicion based on Acts of the Apostles.”

¹ See below, p. 364.

² Originally, Augustine held a different view (De spiritu et littera 7:12, 10, p. 207 Migne): “The Apostle Paul, formerly called Saulus, seems to have chosen this name to show his humility, as though he were the least of the apostles,” a theme he repeated often in sermons. Nonetheless, Augustine always believed a name change had occurred.

349 – from bottom of page: “Er bringt dann…”

He then presents several examples of dual names from the Old and New Testaments and concludes:

“According to this custom, it seems to us that Paul also used two names. While he ministered to his own people, he was called Saulus, as this name appeared more native to his homeland. However, he was called Paulus when he wrote laws and instructions to the Greeks and Gentiles. For even the scripture that says, ‘Saulus, who is also called Paulus,’ does not indicate that the name Paulus was newly given to him at that time, but rather shows that it was an older appellation.”

Recently, this question has been revisited. For a long time, the prevailing opinion was that the Apostle had changed his name—an idea often linked, without sufficient basis, not precisely to his conversion but at least to events surrounding it.¹ However, leading scholars today—including Deißmann,² Ramsay,³ and Mommsen⁴—believe that the Apostle carried both names from his youth.⁵

The main reason for this view is that it seems unusual for a provincial to adopt the cognomen of a prominent Roman, such as the proconsul in this case. Such an event was as rare as the frequent adoption of a Roman gentilicium, which usually occurred upon obtaining Roman citizenship. Paul, however, apparently already possessed Roman citizenship when he arrived in Cyprus.¹ It demonstrates a significant misunderstanding of Roman customs when proponents of the older view² refer to the example of the historian Josephus, who received the name Flavius from his patron Vespasian.

In my opinion, Jerome was essentially correct: Paul adopted this name in Cyprus, following his acquaintance with the proconsul Sergius Paulus.

¹ For example, John Chrysostom in a sermon (vol. III, p. 122, 133, ed. Montfaucon; Patrologia Graeca LI, p. 137, 148). While the preacher spoke for three full days on the Apostle’s name (see the second cited passage), I find no clear explanation of the name’s origin, only a rejection of false etymologies (Σαῦλος from σαλεύειν, Παῦλος from παύσασθαι, etc.; see p. 110 Montf., p. 126 Migne).

² Bibelstudien (1895), p. 181.

³ St. Paul the Traveller and the Roman Citizen (3rd ed., 1897), p. 30 ff.

⁴ “Die Rechtsverhältnisse des Apostels Paulus,” Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft II (1901), p. 81 ff.; reprinted in Gesammelte Schriften III, p. 431 ff., on which the following citations are based.

⁵ Schwartz, Charakterköpfe aus der antiken Literatur, 2nd ed., p. 117, also considers, albeit cautiously, the Apostle’s dual name as one of the common Jewish practices of the time. Advocates of the perspective discussed on p. 355 regarding the Acts of the Apostles would need to ask why Acts refers to Paul as Saulus at the beginning of his ministry. They might answer that the author erroneously identified Paul with a Saul involved in Stephen’s stoning.

¹ See below, p. 356.

² Max Krenkel, Beiträge zur Aufhellung der Geschichte des Apostels Paulus (1890), p. 18.

351

First, it must be emphasized that it would have been an extraordinary coincidence if the first prominent man, the first representative of the Roman state with whom the Apostle came into contact during his travels, had borne the same name as he did. Such a coincidence would undoubtedly have struck the proconsul himself. While it might not have been surprising for him to meet someone named Paulus in Corinth, Carthage, Syracuse, or even Ephesus, hearing his own name in Cyprus from a Jewish sage or miracle worker must have seemed unusual.

And how could Paul, before his acquaintance with the proconsul, or how could his parents, if they had indeed given him this name, have chosen it? It is true that in the circles Paul came from, it was not uncommon to adopt a second name suitable for interaction with the “Hellenes” and the authorities. However, Greek names were the obvious and most abundant choice for this purpose. The adoption of a Latin name at that time, while not unheard of, was much rarer and, unless it involved certain common names of generally transparent meaning (see below, p. 367), must have had a specific rationale in each case. The name Paulus, while not exceedingly rare, was not very common either and held an air of the highest distinction.

352 from top: “‘Weil dein Vater etwas mehr war als der eines deiner Collegen….”

“Because your father was somewhat more than that of one of your colleagues (namely, a freedman and not one who died as a slave): hoc tibi Paulus et Messala videris?” says Horace (Satires I 6, 41), addressing the son of a freedman who had attained public office—though this was two generations before the period with which we are concerned. Even two generations later, in Juvenal (8, 21), Paulus remained a distinguished name. While there were always individuals in Italy who bore the name in humble positions, the influx from rural areas and from circles unfamiliar with urban customs prevented the aristocracy from monopolizing this otherwise unassuming name.

In the East, however, the prestige of the name remained unblemished after it became widely known through the conqueror of Macedonia. A few Roman governors who later bore the name did not vulgarize it. The name remained rare in the East until the triumph of Christianity.¹

It is often assumed that the similarity to the Hebrew name influenced the choice of the Latin name, but this assumption is based on the spelling of the names, and in reality, no such similarity exists. The Hebrew name appears to be reasonably accurately rendered by Σαούλ—the Greek form of the name of the king of Israel, whose tribe Paul claimed as his own. However, Σαῦλος is also Hellenized, aside from the ending. As for the other name, it was certainly pronounced Póllos rather than Paúlos. The Greek simply followed the Roman spelling, which, as is well known, did not reflect pronunciation.²

If a similar-sounding name were chosen, it would depend on the pronunciation, not on how the two names, imperfectly transcribed into Greek, appeared side by side.¹

¹ For example, aside from Roman governors, the name does not appear in the third volume of Cagnat’s Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes, which includes Greek inscriptions from Roman times covering much of Asia Minor, Cilicia, Syria, and Arabia. In the West, it was somewhat different. A noble Batavian in Roman service could call himself Julius Paulus (Tacitus, Histories 4, 12), but for him, Greek names were irrelevant, unlike for the Jew from Tarsus, for whom they were the most natural choice.

² The corresponding female name, found in fewer inscriptions, is almost always written as Polla in Latin and Πώλλα in Greek (see Eckinger, Die Orthographie lateinischer Wörter in griechischen Inschriften, p. 14).

¹ Franz Delitzsch, in his Hebrew translation of the New Testament, rightly gave the two names a completely different appearance. The meticulous care with which the distinguished scholar, in this work he regarded as sacred, considered the Hebrew transcription of Παῦλος can be seen in the introduction and notes to his translation of the Epistle to the Romans (Leipzig, 1870, p. 73) and in Zeitschrift für lutherische Theologie 38 (1877), p. 12.

353

Now, even if we set aside the difficulties of assuming that Paul bore this name from a young age, the question remains as to why the Acts of the Apostles only begins to use the name from his encounter with the proconsul Sergius Paulus onward. Some have tried to attribute the change in name usage to a change in source material or to different traditions. The passages with Saulus are thought to stem from a Jewish-Christian tradition, while those with Paulus are believed to come from a Pauline tradition.²

But how oblivious would the author of Acts have had to be to the reports before him if he failed to substitute the name familiar to him and his readers consistently—or at least to introduce the name at the beginning of the narrative to orient the reader? If, as is quite possible, the author drew his knowledge of Paul’s earlier years from oral reports in the Aramaic language, then he should naturally have replaced the Hebrew name with the Greek equivalent when writing his account in Greek.

The hypothesis of different traditions or sources completely fails here, as it is implausible to suggest that the author switched sources in the middle of the account of Paul’s stay in Cyprus. We would expect to see the second name used as early as Acts 13:2 (at the commissioning from Antioch) or at least in 13:7.

A widely held opinion is that the author of Acts aligned the name change of his protagonist with Paul’s own practice: that while Paul had the name Paulus from the beginning, he only began to use it more frequently or consistently as the Apostle to the Gentiles. Put simply, Paul was called Paulus from the start but only began using the name regularly from his incidental encounter with the proconsul Paulus onward.

It may be reasonable to assume that the Apostle used his Roman name more frequently after the start of his major missionary journeys. However, there can hardly be any doubt that Paul would still have found himself in situations after his time in Cyprus where it would have been fitting to use his Hebrew name—for example, during his later visits to Jerusalem. If Paul himself merely began using his Roman name more frequently from Cyprus onward and the narrator simply reflected this reality, we would still expect the name Saulus to appear occasionally in the second half of the narrative.

One cannot argue that stylistic reasons required avoiding frequent name changes; after all, no one objects to reading in the Gospel of Mark (14:37): λέγει (Ἰησοῦς) τῷ Πέτρῳ· Σίμων, καθεύδεις (“Jesus said to Peter, ‘Simon, are you sleeping?'”). Cicero, in his speech on behalf of the poet Archias, skillfully alternates between the names A. Licinius and Archias depending on whether he is discussing his client’s claims to Roman citizenship or his claims to poetic fame.

The opinion that the “compiler of Acts” somehow “misused the otherwise unobjectionable encounter with the proconsul of the same name in an inappropriate way” (Mommsen, Gesammelte Schriften III, p. 435) seems entirely dismissible. For what purpose would this have been done? Presumably to create the impression that Paul’s name was linked to the encounter with the proconsul, as Jerome suggested (see above, p. 349). However, Jerome may have been justified in forming such an opinion based on the report available to him, and he presented it as a hypothesis. By contrast, the author of Acts supposedly left his unfounded and erroneous assumption unspoken but hinted at it through the arbitrary removal of one name from earlier sections and the other from later sections of the narrative—an equally peculiar, crafty, and high-handed method.

² C. Weizsäcker, Das apostolische Zeitalter, p. 67.

354 from bottom: Nun soll zwar, nach…..

Now, according to many scholars, the author of the Acts of the Apostles is said to have allowed himself considerable liberties and is accused of having committed numerous peculiarities. However, none of these liberties could compare to the one supposed here. According to many,¹ the author belonged to a later period and lacked a proper understanding of the events he narrates. He is said to have expressed his own views, reflecting the outlook of his time, in the book, which naturally resulted in some peculiarities. Given the abundance of material, he sometimes became confused and, for instance, treated different accounts of the same event as though they referred to different events, resorting to forced interpretations during his compilation.

He is also accused of indulging his biases, allegedly softening or obscuring conflicts between his various protagonists to an improper degree. And there are other such accusations.

But what could this author—or indeed anyone at any time—have intended by removing the name Paulus from earlier reports of the Apostle’s activity and, from the time of the proconsul Sergius Paulus, replacing it with Saulus? Did he believe he was elevating or making his protagonist more intriguing by leading his readers to think that the Apostle owed his well-known name to a Roman proconsul?

Moreover, how skillfully and consistently must this author, otherwise prone to arbitrary treatment of his material, have proceeded! He is said to have made many errors, such as leaving traces of other interpretations intact. No, everything points to the conclusion that the author of Acts found the transition from one name to the other already indicated in the sources available to him, precisely at the point where he notes it. According to his understanding, even if he does not explicitly state it, the Apostle arrived in Cyprus as Saul and left the island as Paul.

¹ For a characterization of this view of the Acts of the Apostles, see now Harnack, Die Apostelgeschichte> (1908), pp. 19 ff.

355

Now, this is by no means as unbelievable or entirely without analogy as is often assumed today. It should naturally be considered—and modern scholars have consistently taken this into account—that according to a statement made by the Apostle during a remarkable conversation with the Roman garrison commander in Jerusalem, the cohort tribune Claudius Lysias,¹ he was a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22:28). In any case, he arrived in Cyprus as a Roman citizen.

As a Roman citizen, he was entitled to bear a Roman gentilicium (family name)—though whether he ever did so remains an open question.² His common name, since the praenomen had lost its significance, followed the gentilicium according to the prevailing custom and functioned as a cognomen.³ Thus, adopting the name Paulus involved changing the cognomen.

Now, while it was by no means common, it was not unheard of for an adult Roman citizen to change their cognomen. We happen to know of an upstart from the Caesarian period who, when preparing to run for public office, abandoned his previous cognomen, Quintio, and adopted a more distinguished-sounding one, Sabinus.

¹ Paul not only, as earlier in Philippi (Acts 16:22, 37), allowed himself to be arrested in Jerusalem without revealing his Roman citizenship but only invoked it later. This prompted Renan (Saint Paul, 1869, p. 526, note 1) to doubt his Roman citizenship. Furthermore, in the second case, when the arresting commander asked about his identity, Paul identified himself as a Jew and a citizen of Tarsus in Cilicia (Acts 21:39), thus deliberately concealing his Roman citizenship. Various explanations could be offered for this. The most curious aspect, however, is that the commander, without any provocation, confesses to his prisoner that he purchased his own Roman citizenship. This seems more objectionable than many issues Schwartz criticized in Göttinger Nachrichten (1907, pp. 288 ff.). Yet, this does not indicate interpolation or a late addition but rather reflects how the narrator envisioned the situation. (The scenario itself is plausible; Lysias may have been among those who purchased citizenship and officer posts during Messalina’s time.)

² In the Delphic proxeny list from the first half of the 2nd century BCE (see the following note), there is mention of a Νίκανδρος Μενεχράτεος Ῥωμαῖος (Nicander, son of Menecrates, a Roman), who apparently did not exercise his right to bear a Roman gentilicium.

³ The earliest documented example of this usage appears in the Delphic proxeny list from the first half of the 2nd century BCE, with the entry from 190/189 BCE: Μᾶρκος Ὀαλέριος Ὁμοπτῶνης. This refers to the Numidian Muttines, who was granted Roman citizenship by the consul M. Valerius Laevinus (see my Inscriptiones selectae 8764, line 84, annotation 7).

¹ Catalect. Vergil. 10 (8) v. 8 (Baehrens Poetae Lat. min. II p. 171); Cic. ep. 15, 20, 1. Vgl. Buecheler Rhein. Museum XXXVIII 1883 S. 518., Mommsen in dies. Ztschr. XXVIII 1893 S. 605 (= Ges. Sehr. IV S. 175).

357 from 3rd line, Von einem gewissenlosen Ehrgeizigen einer….

Cicero (Pro Cluentio 26, 72) recounts the case of an unscrupulous social climber from an earlier period, a certain Staienus, who selected one of the cognomina of the noble gens Aelia. However, this case was different insofar as Staienus appears to have entered the Aelian family through a fictitious adoption (Cic. Brutus 68, 240). Nevertheless, it seems that changing one’s cognomen was not so rare among individuals of lower status aiming to ascend socially.

At the beginning of Augustus’ reign, such ambitions were likely shared by the freedman L. Crassicius of Tarentum. After humble beginnings on public stages, he transitioned to scholarly writing and replaced his cognomen Pasicles with the more distinguished-sounding Pansa (cognomine Pasicles, mox Pansam se transnominavit, Suet. De gramm. 12). Whether the choice of this name was influenced by its similarity in sound—evidenced by the spelling Pasa on reliable inscriptions of that era²—or by connections to a noble Pansa remains unknown.

A different motive prompted a freedman of Emperor Vespasian, named Cerylus (likely Flavius Cerylus), to replace his cognomen with the no more distinguished-sounding Laches (Suet. Vesp. 23). He sought to obscure his origins and reduce his patron’s claims to his inheritance. Such fraudulent name changes could be punished.³ However, a name change that did not infringe on anyone’s rights was explicitly permitted.⁴

In the case of the Apostle, it was not a simple name change, nor the adoption of a random noble cognomen, but rather the adoption of the cognomen of a specific prominent man—a sitting proconsul—with whom the Apostle had either a temporary or newly established relationship. Yet even the names of the most prominent individuals did not enjoy legal protection against such appropriations, with one significant exception: freedmen.

Freedmen, who upon their emancipation and acquisition of Roman citizenship typically adopted the gentilicium of their patron (and, from the early imperial period, also their praenomen¹), were prohibited from adopting noble cognomina, particularly those of their patrons. This restriction extended, to some extent, to the sons of freedmen. It was entirely unacceptable for a freedman to give his son the cognomen of his former master, as this would make the offspring of the slave indistinguishable from the noble master.

Had this been permissible, we would frequently encounter the ancient, illustrious Roman names—the patrician gentilicia with their associated cognomina—which, as we know, nearly all disappeared.² For instance, a freedman of the highly aristocratic M. Aurelius Cotta, a consul in AD 20, named M. Aurelius Zosimus, named his son Cottanus, presumably in grateful remembrance of his former master.³ Calling him Cotta, however, would have been a laughable presumption.

² For example, the tomb inscription of the consul from 43 BCE uses Pasa (Notizie degli Scavi 1899, p. 435).

³ Paulus (Sententiae 5, 25, 11): <Qui sibi falsum nomen imposuerit, genus parentesve finxerit, quo quid alienum interciperet possideret, poena legis Corneliae de falsis coercetur.

⁴ Codex Iustinianus 9, 25, 1.

¹ Mommsen, Staatsrecht III, p. 427.

² The Cornelii Scipiones, Cornelii Dolabellae, Caecilii Metelli, and other noble families, some of which survived into Augustus’ reign only through adoptions, disappeared during or by the end of the 1st century. It never occurred to freedmen of these families to propagate the noble names by giving them to their offspring. Conversely, a certain M. Tullius from (likely) Paestum, who had no connection with Cicero of Arpinum (as evidenced by his tribus), amusingly adopted the cognomen Cicero, naming himself M. Tullius M. f. Cicero, like the orator (CIL X 482, 483; Inscriptiones selectae 6448, 6449). The Fabii Maximi reappear in the 4th century, likely without any connection to the patrician house of the same name.

³ See this journal, p. 25.

359

—— A similar restraint may also have been imposed on provincials who were granted Roman citizenship. For example, when a man from Gades (modern Cádiz), who later played an extremely influential role in Rome under the name L. Cornelius Balbus during Caesar’s time, was granted Roman citizenship by Pompey in 72 BCE, he took the name L. Cornelius—likely in honor of the young L. Cornelius Lentulus, whom we later see as a supporter of Pompey, or another distinguished L. Cornelius to whom he owed his recommendation to Pompey. As a cognomen, he chose Balbus, since he did not wish to use his (unknown) native name—likely Punic—which would have constantly reminded the Romans of his foreign origin.

Similarly, other Punic individuals, as well as Iberians, Gauls, and members of non-Hellenized peoples of the East, when granted Roman citizenship and wishing to be regarded as Romans—not merely using or abusing their citizenship occasionally—might have adopted some Roman cognomen. However, they typically chose neutral and non-distinguished names rather than the names of their noble patrons.¹

By contrast, Greeks and Hellenized Asians, upon receiving Roman citizenship, and even with ongoing connections to Romans, rarely felt the need to adopt a Latin cognomen. Their Greek names were generally sufficient for Roman interactions.² It is more likely, one might think, that such fully Romanized Greeks or Asians would give their children Roman names, occasionally even those of Roman statesmen to whom they owed their citizenship, directly or indirectly. However, this was certainly uncommon. Otherwise, names like Scaevola, Sulla, or Lucullus would frequently appear among inhabitants of the province of Asia, while in fact they are rare or entirely unheard of.³

(The adoption of Roman names was hindered not only by lingering patriotism, which clung to such symbolic expressions, but also by linguistic sensibilities.) Even in the imperial era, when Roman gentilicia and cognomina began to spread among Greeks and Asians alongside Roman citizenship, the names of prominent governors² were by no means the most popular. Generally, people opted for names of neutral sound and meaning, such as Quadratus, Rufus, or Severus.

It is possible, for example, that a Pergamene named Ti. Claudius Vetus³ owed his cognomen to one of the two proconsuls of Asia named Antistius Vetus. This might have been because the cognomen was bestowed on him or an ancestor in admiration of the proconsul, or because an ancestor adopted the cognomen upon receiving Roman citizenship during the Claudian dynasty. However, such conjectures are often entirely speculative, particularly since in almost all such cases we cannot be sure whether we are dealing with native citizens of Hellenic cities or rather with Romans or Italians who had settled in Asia and obtained local citizenship in those cities.

¹ In most cases, especially when the new citizens did not plan to relocate to Rome but remained in their original communities, they likely used their native names as Roman cognomina. For example, the Haeduan C. Iulius Vercondaridubnus, the first priest of the altar of Augustus in Lugdunum in 12 BCE (Livy, Periochae139).

² Conversely, Romans and Italians who moved to Greece often had their names Hellenized or allowed them to be rendered in Greek form (e.g., omission of the gentilicium and identification solely by their first name and their father’s name in the genitive case; later, even omitting terms like νίός or ἀπελεύθερος). See Mommsen, Eph. epigr. VII, p. 452 ff.

³ See Ath. Mitt. 1896, p. 117, regarding a Σμίρνας Σμύρνας, Asiarch and “most admirable orator” from Philadelphia in Lydia. Plutarch’s friend Sulla came from the Latin half of the empire, specifically from Carthage (Prosopography of the Roman Empire III, pp. 239 and 4961).

² King Herod notably named his grandson, born in 10 BCE, Agrippa after the recently deceased imperial administrator. This Agrippa later named one of his sons the same, while also naming two other children after members of the imperial household: Drusus and Drusilla. The latter, Iulia Drusilla, born in 38 CE (Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, 13, p. 573), bore the same name as Emperor Caligula’s recently deceased favorite sister. Through the Herodian dynasty, the name Agrippa spread further in the East. If the name Drusilla in Tac. <Hist. 5, 9 is accurate, another royal house of that time also borrowed cognomina from the imperial family.

³ Fränkel, Inschriften von Pergamon 466.

361 from 5th line.. Vollends seit Vespasian, seit dem häufiger werden­…

Especially since the time of Vespasian, with the increasing entry of Asians into the state career and the Senate¹ and the inevitable intermarriages between the local aristocracy of Asia and the Roman imperial aristocracy, Roman cognomina became increasingly common in the East. Attempting to trace their origin or the circumstances of their adoption is generally futile.

I will only mention that Apollonius of Tyana² lamented the frequent adoption of Roman names by the Greeks of Asia. By contrast, Plutarch, despite his Roman citizenship and his close ties to many distinguished Romans, did not give any of his children a Latin given name. Even the gentilicium adopted by new Roman citizens from Greece and the East was usually not that of the governor or patron who secured their Roman citizenship but rather that of the emperor, who was the sole authority granting it, though the former practice still occurred occasionally.³

However, it was particularly rare for a subject to adopt or introduce all three Roman names (praenomen, gentilicium, cognomen) of a governor into their family. Yet this did happen, and it occurred in the same location where, in my opinion, Paul adopted the name of the governor: in Cyprus, at Paphos, shortly before Paul’s presence there.

One of Sergius Paulus’ immediate predecessors as proconsul of Cyprus, and the last whose name we know, was C. Ummidius Quadratus, who later became governor of Syria.¹ This name appears in a prominent Paphian family of the 1st century. According to two inscriptions,² seemingly from the temple of the Paphian Aphrodite, a certain C. Ummidius Quadratus and his wife Claudia Rhodoclea, a high priestess, dedicated a statue of their son C. Ummidius Pantauchus Quadratianus to the goddess. Another inscription records the dedication of a statue of C. Ummidius Quadratus himself, who also bore the additional surname Pantauchianus. The statue was dedicated by his grandmother Claudia Appharion, a high priestess of Demeter for all Cyprus.

The exact relationship between the individuals mentioned in these two inscriptions is unclear; in particular, it is uncertain whether we are dealing with one or two men named C. Ummidius Quadratus. The most likely scenario is that a man named Pantauchus, who received Roman citizenship through the mediation of the proconsul C. Ummidius Quadratus, named himself C. Ummidius Pantauchus and his son C. Ummidius Quadratus. The latter was occasionally referred to as ὁ καὶ Παντανχεανός (Pantauchianus).

From this, we see that it was not unheard of in Cyprus at that time for provincials to adopt even the cognomen of a Roman governor. Thus, there is no reason to doubt that the Apostle, if he wished to adopt a new name around that time for any reason, could have taken the cognomen of the sitting governor.

¹ See this journal, p. 16 f.

² Epigraphica 71, 72 (I, p. 365, ed. Kayser, 1870).

³ Plutarch, as is well known, received his Roman family name from his friend, the later proconsul of Asia, L. Mestrius Florus. The fact that a number of distinguished Lycians in the 2nd century CE bore the name Q. Veranius (Cagnat, Inscr. Graec. ad res Rom. pert. III, nos. 589, 628, 704; I, 739, ch. 63) clearly stems from the fact that their ancestors obtained Roman citizenship under Claudius through the mediation of the imperial governor Q. Veranius (cf. Prosopography of the Roman Empire III, p. 399, no. 266).

¹ On this man, see Prosopography of the Roman Empire III, p. 468, no. 600 (his primary inscription, the sole evidence of his proconsulship in Cyprus, is also Inscr. sel. 972). His full nomenclature also included a second gentilicium (Durmius), though this was usually omitted.

² Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum2637 = Waddington 2801 (= Cagnat, Inscr. Graec. ad res Rom. pert. III, 950; also no. 951).

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The sequence of events may be imagined roughly as follows: Saul, who had managed perfectly well with this one name in Tarsus, Antioch, Damascus, and Jerusalem,¹ likely made little to no use of the Roman gentilicium he was entitled to bear as a Roman citizen.³ During his first major missionary journey, upon arriving in the capital of Cyprus and already considering further travel to Pamphylia and Pisidia, he felt the need for a name more familiar to Greeks and Romans.

His Roman citizenship did not hinder this choice, any more than it did for Quintio during the Caesarian era, Pasicles in the Augustan period, or Cerylus in Vespasian’s time when adopting new cognomina. The proconsul’s name, given that Saul had been introduced to him and treated in an especially cordial manner, naturally presented itself. Any other Greek or Latin name could have served the same purpose.

It was not the similarity between Paulus and Saul—which did not exist—nor the original meaning of the Latin name, which was probably unknown to him and to most of those he initially interacted with, that influenced his choice.² However, he surely chose the name willingly, as it reminded him of his first successful engagement with a representative of the wider world. In this limited sense, Jerome’s hypothesis (see p. 349) seems entirely accurate.

It should not be thought, though, that Paul chose the name to remind others of his acquaintance with the proconsul—nor should we draw inappropriate comparisons to Roman victory titles. If the Apostle sought the proconsul’s permission to adopt his cognomen, this permission would have been granted without hesitation; after all, not long before, a predecessor of Sergius Paulus, C. Ummidius Quadratus, had permitted Cypriots to adopt his full Roman name.

¹ See p. 356.

² Later, the original meaning of the name played a significant role among the Latins, as seen in Augustine’s writings before he encountered Jerome’s explanation (see above, p. 349). Augustine states in Sermon 168, §7 (5, p. 914, Migne): quid est Paulus? minimus (“What does Paul mean? Small, for paullum in Latin means little”). He connects this to 1 Cor. 15:9 (Ἐγώ γάρ εἰμι ὁ ἐλάχιστος τῶν ἀποστόλων, “For I am the least of the apostles”), as in Sermon 101, §1 (5, p. 605, Migne) and elsewhere.

³ His Roman citizenship neither required him to adopt a Roman cognomen (see this journal, p. 17, note A) nor obligated his parents to give him one.

364 from top … Vielleicht hat aber….

It is possible, however, that the Apostle did not seek such permission at all. What was considered permissible in Cyprus in this regard could have been conveyed to him either by his friend Barnabas, a native Cypriot who had brought him to the island and was now at his side, or by other acquaintances he undoubtedly made among the Cypriots. In another provincial capital, such as Ephesus, the adoption of the cognomen of the sitting proconsul by a provincial might have been considered inappropriate by some of the many Romans residing there or might have been ridiculed by both Greeks and Romans.

In Cyprus, however, neither the proconsul, who would soon leave the island never to return, nor the Romans conducting business there, nor the locals cared in the slightest if a Saul adopted the cognomen of the patrician Aemilii or Sergii families. Paul, of course, did not abandon or deny his original name. He likely continued to use it where he spoke Aramaic or Hebrew, for example, during his subsequent visits to Jerusalem. However, our narrator consistently and appropriately uses the new name from the moment in the story when it became relevant, except when quoting earlier direct addresses to the Apostle (22:7, 13), where exact wording was crucial.

One might criticize the narrator for not explicitly recounting the Apostle’s adoption of his new name, as this indeed was not done. The words Σαῦλος ὁ καὶ Παῦλος² merely serve as a necessary link between the sections using Saul and those using Paul. The narrator contented himself with briefly highlighting the identity of the person during the transition from one name to the other. Why he proceeded in this way is unclear; perhaps he did not consider the matter important, or perhaps he was not fully aware of the motives and circumstances. During Paul’s long sea voyages and his time in captivity, he had more pressing matters to teach his companions than how he came by his second name.

The narrator’s treatment of Paul’s deeds was generally subjective. Incidentally, even the Gospel of Matthew does not explicitly recount the much more significant name change of Peter.¹

¹ Similarly, modern historians in analogous cases would mark the transition from Bonaparte to Napoleon or from Disraeli to Lord Beaconsfield at the point where the person adopted (or, like Napoleon, emphasized) the second name, unless specific intent or narrative structure disrupted this natural approach.

² Deißmann is correct in Bibelstudien (1895, p. 183) in observing this, but he errs when he continues (cf. Rufinus above, p. 350): “The ὁ καί allows no other conclusion than that he was already called Saulus Paulus before his arrival in Cyprus.” The phrase ὁ καί says nothing about the timing or manner of the adoption of the second name.

¹ The Gospel of Matthew similarly glosses over Simon’s renaming as Peter in 10:2 with the words Σίμων ὁ λεγόμενος Πέτρος—at the same point in the narrative where Mark and Luke explicitly report the renaming—just as Acts 13:9 does with Σαῦλος ὁ καὶ Παῦλος.

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I must not fail to point out that the foundation of both the above and all earlier investigations into the name of Paul has recently been shaken. Like all my predecessors, I assumed that the Acts of the Apostles marks the name change in chapter 13:9, at Paul’s appearance before the proconsul of Cyprus. However, a Latin version of Acts, preserved in a 13th-century manuscript, places the change slightly earlier, in chapter 12:25. Similarly, it seems that a Greek manuscript of Acts, used by a 7th-century Syrian scholar, followed this pattern.

According to Blass,¹ this and many other variations stem from the first edition of Acts, which was later replaced by a second edition by the author himself. There is no need to pass judgment here—or at all—on the attempt to reconstruct an original version from fragments of various kinds and origins, claiming it to be the original in comparison to the received text.²

However, a word should be said about Blass’s explanation of why the name Paulus appears earlier in the supposedly first edition than in the later one. Originally, according to Blass, the author introduced the name Paulus in chapter 12:25, a particularly fitting point. But in chapter 13:7, he reverted to the old name to avoid confusion with the proconsul Sergius Paulus, who is mentioned there. Only in chapter 13:9 does the new name reappear, first alongside the old one, before fully taking over.

The author, upon reviewing his work, supposedly disliked this arrangement and in a second edition definitively moved the introduction of the new name to chapter 13:9. However, it seems to me that if, for any reason, the Apostle had already been called Paul before chapter 13, the single mention of another Paul—or rather Sergius Paulus, the proconsul—could not have caused any misunderstanding. For instance, the mention of another Simon, distinct from Peter, in Luke 7:40ff, is far more prone to misunderstanding.

It is unwarranted to assume that the author, fearing such confusion, shifted the name change from one point he deemed appropriate to another. The textual variant concerning the name of the Apostle Paul² has even less claim than any other to be considered ancient.³

¹ In his edition of Acts, secundum formam quae videtur Romanam, preface, p. IX.

² Cf. Harnack, Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, 1895, p. 491; 1899, pp. 150, 316; 1900, p. 12; H. v. Soden, Die Schriften des Neuen Testaments in ihrer ältesten erreichbaren Textgestalt (1902), I, p. 12; Harnack, Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1907, p. 401.

³ See also Ramsay, Expositor, Series V, 6 (1897), p. 460.

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Finally, a few words must be said about other instances of double (or multiple) names from the circles and time of Paul, in which the second (or final) name was Latin. I know of four such cases explicitly attested in the New Testament: Jesus, who is called Justus (Col. 4:10); Joseph Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus (Acts 1:23); John, who was also called Mark (see above, p. 347); and Symeon, who was called Niger (Acts 13:1).

It can be stated with confidence that the three Latin names appearing here (Justus twice) had a far more ordinary and modest connotation than Paulus. Each of these names also appears elsewhere among Jews of the time. For example, Justus was the name of the well-known rival of the historian Josephus,¹ Niger was one of the leaders of the revolt of 66 CE (Josephus, Bell. 2, 19, 2), and Marcus was the son of an alabarch of Alexandria (Josephus, Ant. 19, 5, 1).

Two of these names, Justus and Niger, carry self-explanatory meanings, which account for their popularity or emergence. Marcus was one of the Roman praenomina that, having nearly lost their original significance in Rome and becoming restricted to familial use, reemerged in the East as primary names. Mommsen² discussed this phenomenon in connection with the jurist Gaius. Similarly, the New Testament mentions a Gaius (Acts 20:4), a Lucius (Acts 13:1), and a Titus.

While names like Justus were popular and Niger at least not unknown among Jews of that time, both were foreign to the old Roman aristocracy. Until then, no representative of the Roman state with the name Niger or Justus had traveled to the East.³ As for Marcus, it was a common name shared by many proconsuls and legates as well as their servants and clients. These four cases clearly demonstrate that Paul’s situation was unique.

A unique situation also applied to a bearer of a double name who was particularly close to Paul, though his double name is not explicitly attested. It is generally assumed, and likely correctly, that Silas, Paul’s companion on his second major journey—who allowed himself to be arrested with Paul in Philippi and later invoked his Roman citizenship (Acts 16:37)—is identical to Silvanus, who co-signed Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians.

Like Paulus, Silvanus was not a widespread or overused name at the beginning of the imperial period. It was primarily associated with a patrician family, the Plautii, which had been represented in the Senate and among provincial governors for several generations (Prosopography of the Roman Empire III, p. 46, no. 361 ff.).¹ It is reasonable to assume that some connection to a noble Roman named Silvanus helped Paul’s companion acquire his name,² whether it was given to him in his youth or adopted as an adult.³

Nothing has been handed down about these connections. However, in Paul’s case, we know of his relationship with a proconsul of that name, and we should not overlook the minor yet significant detail that, as Paul took his first steps beyond the provinces familiar to him from his youth into new regions, he adopted the cognomen of a Roman proconsul.

¹ Justus was also the name of a geisiarch (synagogue leader) mentioned in a recently discovered inscription near Ostia, Notizie degli scavi< 1906, p. 411 (with commentary by Ghislanzoni), Eph. epigr. 9, 583 (printed edition).

² Gesammelte Schriften II, p. 27.

³ By the Neronian period, this had changed; under Nero, we find a procurator of Thrace named T. Iulius Iustus and a proconsul of Asia named Vettius Niger.

¹ Also found among a noble Pompeian and possibly a member of the Pomponii family of the time (Prosopography III, pp. 71, 495; 80, 565), but not among the common people.

² The external similarity of the names undoubtedly played a role, but neither Silas himself nor his parents would have chosen Silvanus entirely on their own. It is therefore unlikely, as Ramsay (St. Paul, p. 176) suggests, that Silvanus was the original name and Silas the abbreviated form.

³ An older but noteworthy case is the Pharisee Pollio (Josephus, Ant. 15, 1, 1; 10, 4). Whether or not this man is identical to the Abtalion mentioned in Jewish sources (Schürer, Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes i, II³, p. 358), his name likely became known in Judea through Herod’s close relationship with C. Asinius Pollio (Josephus, Ant. 15, 10, 1).

Charlottenburg

H. DESSAU

Dessau, H. “Der Name Des Apostels Paulus.” Hermes 45, no. 3 (1910): 347–68.

Groag, E. “L. Sergius Paullus.” In Paulys Real-Encyclopadie Der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, II, A,2:cols 1715-18, 1923. http://archive.org/details/PWRE51.

Harrer, G. A. “Saul Who Also Is Called Paul.” The Harvard Theological Review 33, no. 1 (1940): 19–33.