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  • From: "Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Gaius Titius Justus a.k.a. Stephanas
  • Date: Wed, 04 Aug 2004 08:52:04 -0400

At 03:50 PM 8/3/2004 +0100, Doug Chaplin wrote:
>In short, it may be possible that Paul gave new names to a handful of
>people, but the case is hardly persuasive to a sceptic like me. Since
>nothing of significance seems to me to hang on it, I just think we can all
>afford to be reserved in our judgement about it.

It may seem that the kind of prosopography Richard is doing is just
a dry parlor game, but I think that if his conclusion about the number
of rich people in Corinth is correct, then his work will have profound
implications about the church in Corinth, Paul's letter to that group,
and Paul's relationship with Christians in Jerusalem, particularly
with regard to the collection for the saints that seemed to have
consumed Paul's attention during the time the chief epistles of the
Pauline corpus were composed.

Some of the identifications Richard Fellows proposes or supports
I accept and others I am still not quite convinced of, but I do
believe that a lot renaming and use of multiple names were
going on and taken for granted with little attempt to explain
it to outsiders.

I do wish we had a better grasp of the background on the onomastics
in the first century, both in the Roman Empire at large and with
Christian groups in particular. Nevertheless, we have considerable
evidence many early Christian possessed, and used, different names
(Simon - Cephas - Peter; James & John - Boanerges; Joseph - Barsabbas -
Justus; Joseph - Barnabas ["to whom the apostles gave the name to"] -
Judas Barsabbas; John - Mark; Saul - Paul; Tabitha - Dorcas; Jesus
who is called Justus; Ignatius - Theophorus; etc.). There is also
evidence that some early Christians were interested in and played
with the meanings of names: Paul on the name Onesimus in Phlm 11;
Matt 1:21 on the name Jesus; Matt 16:18 on the name Peter.

Early Christians were by no means unique in this regard. The use of
different names, often with some similarity in sound or meaning, or
the different parts of a multiple Roman name in different contexts
is well attested. Furthermore, many of the meaningful names among
early Christians are probably slave names selected by their masters,
e.g. Onesimus ("useful"), Polycarp ("fruitful"), etc.

Romans also changed their names at the time of adoption, which
was more frequent than in our own society and happened to adults.
The Gallio mentioned in Acts 18:12, for example, was originally
L. Annaeus Novatus and later took that name when he was adopted
his teacher L. Junius Gallio. When when see Paul in Rom 8:15,
Gal 4:5 analogizing acquiring a Christian identity with adoption
at least in some respects (a connection that certainly continued
among his followers, cf. Eph 1:5ff.), we have to be on guard for
the possibility that other aspects of adoption, including change
of name, were also operative.

My frustration, especially from reading Acts, is that the names
that are used for individuals change back and forth, often with
little warning to outsiders. Hence, we have a "John, whose other
name is Mark" (Acts 12:12, 25), then "John" (13:13), back to
"John called Mark" (15:37), and then finally "Mark" (v39). Some
of these require background knowledge in addition to context to
figure out, for instance to equate the "Symeon" of Acts 15:14
with the Simon who is called Peter. In these cases, we happen
to have enough information, derived from the context, other
contemporary texts, and our state of the background knowledge, to
recognize these identifications as fairly obvious, but what about
those cases in which the evidence is quite so salient?

It is a question of evidence, and, yes, one is justified in
insisting on a certain level of evidence before we go ahead and
identify two different names with the same person. On the other
hand, I would also insist that we should be wary of presuming
that two different names refer to two different people without
good reason too. It may well be the case that the evidence Richard
presented is, in the end, insufficient to persuade us that there
were so few rich households associated with the Corinthian church.
I would also argue that the lack of evidence here (if it should
come to that) does not mean that there were actually more such
households than those few, however. (E.g. "not guilty" does not
mean "innocent.") At best, we have a range of possibilities, and
our understanding of the Corinthian congregation needs to have the
flexibility to accommodate a greater range of possibilities in
this regard than previously thought.

Stephen Carlson
--
Stephen C. Carlson mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
Weblog: http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/hypotyposeis/blogger.html
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words." Shujing 2.35





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