The life and work of St. Paul

200 THE LIFE AND WORK OP ST. PAUL,
hear of the very few who at this period like Flavins Clemens of Flavia Domi-
tilla joined the Church from the ranks of the noble or the mighty.
The question has been often asked why it is at this point in the narrative
that the name Saul is finally replaced by the name PauL1 The old answer
supplied by St. Jerome, that he took the name as a trophy of his conversion of
there would have
Sergius Paulus, has long and deservedly been abandoned ;
been in it an element of vulgarity impossible to St. Paul. Nor is there anything
to urge in favour of the fancy that he took the name as a token of
his humility, to signify that he was " 2
the least of the Apostles." It is much
more probable that he had either possessed from the first an alternative
name for facility of intercourse among the heathen, or that this Roman
designation may point to his possession of the Roman franchise, and perhaps
to some bond of association between his father or grandfather and the
./Emilian family, who bore the cognomen of Paulus. If he adopted the name
on the present occasion it may have been because it was to a slight extent
alliterative with his Hebrew name Shaul, which would, in its Grecised form,
be represented by Saulos ; but that was a form which he could not use
in intercourse with the Greeks, owing to the fact that the word in Greek
would be a sort of slang term for " uppish," or wanton. The mere changing
of his name was so little unusual that it had been from the earliest ages
a custom among his countrymen. Joseph had been known to the Egyptians
as Zaphnath Paaneah ; Daniel to the Assyrians as Belteshazzar ; Hadassah to
the Persians as Esther; Jesus, Hillel, Onias, Joseph, Tarpho to the Greeks
as Jason, Pollio, Menelas, Hegesippus, and Trypho. When not assonant the
name was sometimes a translation, as Peter is of Cephas, and Didymns
of Thomas. Sometimes, however, this name for use among the Gentiles was
due to accidental relations, as when Josephus took the praenomem of Flavins
in honour of Vespasian. Of this we have other instances, in the Acts of the
Apostles, in the persons of John and Joses, who were known by the Latin
designations of Marcus and Justus. In Paul's case, however, as ancient
Christian writers have pointed out, the change of name marks also a total
" Paul suffers what Saul had inflicted ;
change in all the conditions of his life.
Saul stoned, and Paul was stoned; Saul inflicted scourgings on Christians,
and Paul five times received forty stripes save one ; Saul hunted the Church
of God, Paul was let down in a basket ; Saul bound, Paul was bound." 8
1 " A primo ecclesiae spolio Proo. Serg. Paulo victoriae suae trophaea retulit, erexitque
vexillum ut Paulus a Saulo vocaretur " (Jer. ad Philem. 1). In the Toldoth Jeshu the
name is connected with
"
^Q, he worked." If so, both words being passive participles,
the change would be like a change from "sought" to "wrought;" and I cannot nelp
thinking that the true explanation may lie here. Heinrichs explains SavAo? 6, 6 u
DaOXos der auch, so wie der Proconsul, ebenfalls Paulus hiess."
2 Paulus. a contraction of Pauxillus, means "least." "Paulus enim parvus " (Aug.
"
Serm. clxix.). Non ob aliud, quantum mihi videtur hoc nomen elegit nisi ut se osten-
deret tamquam minimum Apostolorum" (Aug. De Spir. et Lit. xii.). With his usual
exuberancei>f fancy he contrasts the " little " Saul of Benjamin, with the tall persecuting
king. But in Conf. viii. 4 he leans to the other theory, "Ipse minimus Apostolorum
tuorum, &c. . . . Paulus vocari amavit ob tarn magnae insigne victoriae.
Ap. Aug. Append, Serm. 204.