Corpus-Paul

[Richard Fellows <rfellows AT shaw.ca>]

George, thanks for the comments.

 

George wrote:

<<Richard, Am I misunderstanding you?  Do you actually suggest that Titus and Timothy were one and the same person?>>

 

Yes.

 

<<I think that this fails on several counts.

1.  In 2 Corinthians both names are given, seemingly not interchangeably.

      2 Cor 1.1, 19; 2.13; 7.6, 13, 14; 8.6, 16, 23; 12.18>>

 

It was not uncommon in the ancient world to use different names for the same person in the same text. Paul himself does this with Cephas-Peter in Galatians. D. Allison (Peter and Cephas: one and the same JBL 1992) argues that names could be switched for purely stylistic reasons.  There are reasons why Paul might wish to switch to 'Titus' at 2 Cor 2:13 in particular. I argue that 'Titus' was his original name and that the name 'Timothy' (honouring God or honoured by God) was given to him to reflect his role in the church. Now, when someone has received a new name, the old name is often still used, especially by people who knew them before the new name was given. Sometimes the original name is used to allude to the fact that the user knew the person before the new name was given. The use of the original name has the effect of expressing familiarity with the person in question. It is therefore possible that Paul switches to 'Titus' at 2 Cor 2:13 to allude to the fact that Timothy was a companion of long standing. So, by choosing the name 'Titus', he may in effect be saying, "my mind could not rest because I did not find my brother of long standing, Timothy, there". Paul was anxious to meet his old friend and an allusion to the age of the relationship would be fitting. In a recent email I argued that Paul does a similar thing when selecting the name "Peter" in Gal 2:7-8. In that case the name expresses the role of Cephas in building the church. In the rest of 2 Cor Paul does not switch back to using 'Timothy', perhaps to avoid cumbersome repetition of the longer name.

 

There are many possible reasons for the switch and it does not represent a problem for the Titus-Timothy theory. Does this answer your concern, George?

 

Another reason for using an original name in a case where someone has been renamed is to avoid an anachronism when refering to events before the new name was given. I have argued that both Paul and Luke call Sosthenes by his original name, Crispus, when refering to him before his renaming. Paul perhaps selects the name 'Titus' in Galatians because the events were before he was given the name "Timothy".

 

<<2.  Timothy is said to be of mixed Jewish and Greek parentage (Acts 2.1-3) with his mother being Jewish.  There may be some problem with accepting Acts as being totally accurate, but I tend to think that in such matters it would be though it might be in error regarding Paul's itinerary.  If his mother was in fact Jewish, Timothy would be considered Jewish and therefore liable to circumcision -- at least in the eyes of the Jewish-Christian party.

3.  Titus, on the other hand, is stated by Paul to be Greek and was therefore not circumcised (Gal 2.3).>>

 

It used to be thought that Timothy was a Jew through his mother, but we now know that the matrilineal principle post-dates the first century. See e.g. Cohen, "Was Timothy Jewish...." JBL 105/2 (1986). Timothy was a Gentile. It is then valid to ask why Timothy was circumcised and this is a complicated question. I will just make an observation that may shed some light. I have argued that Timothy was a native of Antioch (though the T-T hypothesis does not require this). Now, Josephus tells us that in Antioch the Jews "were constantly attracting to their religious ceremonies multitudes of Greeks, and these they had in some measure incorporated with themselves” (BJ 7.45). Now, if Timothy was from Antioch, he should be seen as one of those Greeks who attended the ceremonies and was incorporated with the Jews. I therefore suggest that an Antiochian who had a Jewish mother would be the most Jewish of Gentiles, and this may explain why he was circumcised. In Antioch he had had access to Jewish communal life, but the same degree of access would not be possible in Galatia unless he was circumcised. By circumcising Timothy, Paul was not so much changing his status, as allowing him the same access to Jewish audiances that he had always had in Antioch. In that sense Paul was following his principle of status quo, not contradicting it.

 

Do you have other concerns about the T-T theory, George?

 

Richard.