Paul

Act_13:9
It is in recording the transaction with Bar-Jesus
that Luke gives to the apostle of the Gentiles the
name of Paul, which he always afterwards
uses. Then Saul (who also is called Paul), filled
with the Holy Ghost, etc.
This change of name, at this turning point of the
history, which henceforth becomes almost
exclusively the record of Pauls proceedings, has
excited a good deal of speculation, and the
opinions have been very various. The most
prominent notion ascribed the change to the
conversion of Sergius Paulus, whose name the
apostle assumed in commemoration of so
important an event. Although this notion had so
ancient an upholder as Jerome, and one so
recent as Olshausen, Christian feeling seems
instinctively to recoil from it, as adverse to the
character of Paul, who was not want to glory
after this sort in his spiritual victories. Besides,

this would be all inversion of the natural order

of things. He that teacheth is greater than he
who is taught. In the relation in which they
stood to each other, Paul was greater than
Sergius Paulus; and although there have been
examples of a servant assuming the name of his
master, or a disciple that of his teacher, there is
none of a teacher taking the name of his pupil.
Still more objectionable even, as it seems to us,
to offensive puerility, is the notion of
Chrysostom and others, that, seeing Simon
Peter had two names, Saul was determined not
to be, even in this respect, behind the very
chiefest of the apostles. We apprehend that
those who have studied the character of this
great apostle, as a whole, will not hesitate to
reject both these explanations with some feeling
of disgust. Better in religious feeling, and more
in unison with the apostles character, but
scarcely more satisfactory to the instructed
judgment, is that which Augustine applies, with
much rhetorical effect, in various of his
writings, where he alludes to the literal meaning

of the name Paulus (little), and contrasts Saul,

the tall king, the proud, self-confident,
persecutor of David, with Paul, the lowly and
the penitent, who deliberately wished thus to
indicate by his very name that he was the least
of the apostles, and less than the least of all
saints. This is really a pretty fancy, and the
imagination entertains it with some pleasure.
Others, still dwelling upon the signification of
the name of Paul, imagines that it was bestowed
upon him as a sort of nickname by the Gentiles
on account of the lowness of his stature. That he
was of small stature is a very general tradition
in the Church; but it is quite likely that this
tradition itself had no better foundation than
the meaning of the name. But not then, any
more than now, was every one who bore the
name of Paul necessarily of small stature; for at
the time in view, as now among ourselves,
current names were applied among the Jews,
the Greeks, and the Romans, with little regard
to their literal signification. That, however, Paul
was of small stature, whether his name had any

relation to the fact or not, is thought by some to

be indicated in 2Co_10:10, where he speaks of
his bodily presence as weak. A better
explanation is that which Doddridge gives after
Beza, and which has since been fully enforced
by Kuinoel. Doddridge says: I think Bezas
account of the matter most easy and probable
that having conversed hitherto chiefly with
Jews and Syrians, to whom the name of Saul
was familiar, and now coming among Romans
and Greeks, they would naturally pronounce his
name Paul; as one whose Hebrew name was
Jochanan would be called by the Greek and
Latins Johannes, by the French Jean, by the
Dutch Hans, and by the English John. Beza
thinks that the family of the proconsul might be
the first who addressed or spoke to him by the
name of Paul.
The analogy between the names Saul and Paul
is too remarkable not to suggest that it was
adapted to the practice of the Romans of
distinguishing foreigners, and especially
Orientals, by softened forms of their names, or

by names of their own most nearly resembling

them in sound. Grotius has brought together
several examples, as Jason for Jesus; Pollio for
Hillel; Menelaus for Onias; Silvanus for Silas;
Alcimus for Jakin, and others. But this practice
exists among most nations, and among none
more than our own, in proper names both of
places and persons, and even in the signs of
inns; arising manifestly from the craving of
those to whom the original terms are unknown,
to reduce them into current or significant
forms. The instances that we call to mind, being
created by uneducated persons, are mostly of a
ludicrous character, and are therefore
somewhat unsuitable here; but we may yet
point out a few for illustrationAbraham
Parker for Ibrahim Pasha; Leather Rollin for
Ledru Rollin, as recorded in the newspapers
some years ago: Billy Ruffian for Bello-rophon;
Andrew Mackay for Andromache, and other
nautical corruptions of names of ships; not
without significant application to the subject
are such instances in the signs of inns, as Bull

and Gate and Bull and Mouth, for Boulogne

Gate and Boulogne Mouth (mouth of Boulogne
harbor); Bag of Nails for Bacchanals; Cat and
Wheel, for Catherine Wheel; and the like. Note:
As respects this species of corruption in signs,
there is much curious information in Brands
Popular Antiquities, edited by Sir. Henry Ellis,
ii. 351-358. Bohn. Lond. 1849.
But we return to the extract from Doddridge, to
remark that the observation with which it
closes, that Paul first heard himself so called by
the family of Sergius Paulus, is scarcely tenable;
for Tarsus, where Paul was born and reared,
was as much a Gentile place as Paphos, and the
same reasons existed at the former place as at
the latter for the name being imposed.
We have repeatedly alluded to the fact that the
Jews residing in foreign parts had two names,
one Jewish, and the other Greek or Roman.
Indeed, this was the practice to a considerable
extent even in Palestine itselfat least in
Galilee, where the population was of a mixed

character. It is therefore likely, almost to

certainty, that Saul, being a native of Tarsus,
from the first had two names. Saul was, as we
know, his Hebrew name; and that Paul was the
other is rendered probable, not only by the fact
of its being the one now brought forward, but by
its resemblance to that of Saul, and by the fact
that his being a born citizen of Rome would
probably be indicated by his Gentile name being
Roman rather than Greek. Indeed, that the
name of Saul does from this point altogether
disappear from historythat the apostle calls
himself Paul exclusively throughout his
Epistles, and that Peter, in the only place where
he mentions him, calls him by the same name
would together strongly intimate that this name
was now first assumed.
We are, upon the whole, then, led to conclude
that the apostle had always borne the two
names of Saul and Paul. Hitherto the first name
only has been used, as the historian has chiefly
had to relate his proceedings in connection with
Jews. But now finding himself called Paul by

the people about the proconsular court, and

being aware that henceforth his intercourse
would mainly be among persons who would
distinguish him by that name, he thinks it
proper to sink his Jewish designation, and
adhere to that which already belonged to him,
by which he would hereafter be best known, and
which suited well with that career, as the
apostle of the Gentiles which he had now
efficiently commenced.
A recent writer Note: Howson, in Life and
Writings of St. Paul, quoting Zunzs Namen der
Juden (Names of the Jews), Leipzig, 1837, a
work we have not ourselves seen. has well
remarked, that the adoption of a Gentile name
is so far from being alien to the spirit of a
Jewish family, that a similar practice may be
traced through all the periods of Hebrew
history.
Beginning with the Persian epoch, we find such
names as Nehemiah, Schammai, Belteshazzar,
which betray an Oriental origin, and show that

Jewish appellatives followed the growth of the

living language. In the Greek period we
encounter the names of Philip, Note: Mat_10:3;
Act_6:5; Act_21:8; Josephus, Antiquities, xiv.
10, 22. and his son Alexander, Note: Act_19:3334; see 2Ti_4:14. and of Alexanders successors,
Antiochus, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, Antipater.
Note: 1Ma_12:16; 1Ma_16:11; 2Ma_4:29-30.
Josephus, Antiquities, xiv. 10. The names of
Greek philosophers, such as Zeno and Epicurus;
Note: Zunz adduces these names from the
Mishna and the Berenice inscription. even
Greek mythological names, such as Jason and
Menelaus. Note: Jason, Josephus, Antiquities,
xii. 10, 6, perhaps Act_17:5-9; Rom_16:21.
Menelaus, Josephus, Antiquities, xii. 5, 1; see
2Ma_4:13. Some of these names will be
recognized as occurring in the New Testament
itself. When we mention Roman names adopted
by the Jews, the coincidence is still more
striking. Crispus, Note: Act_18:8. Justus, Note:
Act_1:23. Niger, Note: Act_13:1. are found in
Josephus, Note: Josephus, Vit., 68, and 65; B.J.

iv. 6, 1; compare 1Co_1:14; Act_18:7; Col_4:11.

as well as in the Acts. Drusilla and Priscilla
might have been Roman matrons. The Aquila of
St. Paul is the counterpart of the Apella of
Horace. Note: Hor. 1 Sat., v. 100. Priscilla
appears under the abbreviated form of Prisca.
2Ti_4:19. Nor need we end our survey of the
Jewish names with the early Roman empire; for
passing by the destruction of Jerusalem, we see
Jews in the earlier part of the middle ages
calling themselves Basil, Leo, Theodosius,
Sophia, and in the latter part, Albert, Crispin,
Denys.
To this we may add that the same process is still
in operation. Among the familiar names of Jews
in London, there are numbers which indicate
the countries from which the families they
belong to cameSpanish and Portuguese, as De
Castro, Garcia, Lopes, Mendoza; Italian, as
Montefiore; German, as Herschell, Rothschild,
Goldsmid; besides a number of Polish names
ending in ski. English names are as yet few, or,
being English names, we do not well distinguish

them as belonging to Jews. Davis is, however, a

very common name among them.