[342] "Paul" (Little) is merely the Hellenized or Latinized form for his Hebrew name "Saul" (Desired), and has nothing whatever to do either with his own conversion, or with the conversion of Sergius Paulus of Cyprus. There are many similar instances of double names among the Jews of that time, as Hillel and Pollio, Cephas and Peter, John and Mark, Barsabbas and Justus, Simeon and Niger, Silas and Silvanus. Paul may have received his Latin name in early youth in Tarsus, as a Roman citizen; Paulus being the cognomen of several distinguished Roman families, as the gens AEmilia, Fabia, Julia, Sergia. He used it in his intercourse with the Gentiles and in all his Epistles. See Hist. Apost. Ch., p. 226, and my annotations to Lange on Romans 1:1, pp. 57 and 58.
[343] When Paul wrote to Philemon, a.d. 63, he was an aged man (presbutes, Phil. 9), that is, about or above sixty. According to Hippocrates a man was called presbutes from forty-nine to fifty-six, and after that geron, senes. In a friendly letter to a younger friend and pupil the expression must not be pressed. Walter Scott speaks of himself as "an old grey man" at fifty-five. Paul was still a "youth" (neanias, Acts 7:58) at the stoning of Stephen, which probably took place in 37; and although this term is likewise vaguely used, yet as he was then already clothed with a most important mission by the Sanhedrin, he must have been about or over thirty years of age. Philo extends the limits of neanias from twenty-one to twenty-eight, Xenophon to forty. Comp. Lightfoot on Philemon, v. 9 (p. 405), and Farrar, I., 13, 14.
[344] Phil. 3:5. A Hebrew by descent and education, though a Hellenist or Jew of the dispersion by birth, Acts 22:3. Probably his parents were Palestinians. This would explain the erroneous tradition preserved by Jerome (De vir. ill. c. 5), that Paul was born at Giscala in Galilee (now El-Jish), and after the capture of the place by the Romans emigrated with his parents to Tarsus. But the capture did not take place till a.d. 67.
[345] Comp. the sublime passage, Phil. 3:8-10, and 1 Cor. 2:1, 2.
[346] Gal. 4:14: "I made progress in Judaism beyond many of mine own age in my nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers."
[347] Scripture references and allusions abound in the Galatians, Romans, and Corinthians, but are wanting in the Thessalonians, Colossians, and Philemon, and in his address to the heathen hearers at Athens, whom he referred to their own poets rather than to Moses and the prophets.
[348] As the reasoning from the singular or rather collective sperma(zera)in Gal. 3:16, the allegorical interpretation of Hagar and Sarah, 4:22 sqq., and the rock in the wilderness, 1 Cor. 10:1-4. See the commentaries.
[349] Comp. Gal. 1:21; Acts 9:30; 11:25.
[350] 1 Cor. 15:33. phtheirousin ethe chresta homiliai kakai. "Evil associations corrupt good manners."
[351] Tit. 1:12. Kretes aei pseustai, kaka theria, gasteres argai. "Cretans are liars alway, bad beasts, and indolent gluttons." As Epimenides was himself a Cretan, this contemptuous depreciation of his countrymen gave rise to the syllogistic puzzle: "Epimenides calls the Cretans liars; Epimenides was a Cretan: therefore Epimenides was a liar: therefore the Cretans were not liars: therefore Epimenides was not a liar," etc.
[352] Acts 17:28. Tou [poetic for toutou] gar kai genos esmen. "For we are also His (God's) offspring." The passage occurs literally in the Phoenomena of Aratus, v. 5, in the following connection: ...." We all greatly need Zeus, For we are his offspring; full of grace, he grants men Tokens of favor .... The Stoic poet, Cleanthes (Hymn. in Jovem, 5) uses the same expression in an address to Jupiter: Ek sou gar genos esmen, and in the Golden Poem, theion gar genos esti brotoisin. We may also quote a parallel passage of Pindar, Nem. VI., which has been overlooked by commentators: Hen andron, hen theon genos, ek mias de pneomen matros amphoteroi. " One race of men and gods, from one mother breathe we all." It is evident, however, that all these passages were understood by their heathen authors in a materialistic and pantheistic sense, which would make nature or the earth the mother of gods and men. Paul in his masterly address to the Athenians, without endorsing the error, recognizes the element of truth in pantheism, viz., the divine origin of man and the immanence of God in the world and in humanity.
[353] ta stoicheia tou kosmou, Gal. 4:3, 9. So Hilgenfeld, Einleitung, p. 223. Thiersch assumes (p. 112) that Paul was familiar with the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, and that his dialectics is classical rather than rabbinical; but this is scarcely correct. In Romans 5:16, 18, he uses the word dikaioma in the Aristotelian sense of legal adjustment (Rechtsausgleichung). See Eth. Nicom. v. 10, and Rothe's monograph on Rom. 5:12-21. Baur compares Paul's style with that of Thucydides.
[354] Farrar, I. 629 sq., counts "upwards of fifty specimens of thirty Greek rhetorical figures in St. Paul," which certainly disprove the assertion of Renan that Paul could never have received even elementary lessons in grammar and rhetoric at Tarsus.
[355] Cor. 9:1 refers to the vision of Christ at Damascus. In 2 Cor. 5:16: though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more," he particles ei kai (quamquam, even though, wenn auch) seem to chronicle a fact, as distinct from kai ei (etiam si, even if, selbst wenn), which puts an hypothesis; but the stress lies on the difference between an external, carnal knowledge of Christ in his humility and earthly relations or a superficial acquaintance from hearsay, and a spiritual, experimental knowledge of Christ in his glory. Farrar (I. 73 sqq.), reasons that if Paul had really known and heard Jesus, he would have been converted at once.
[356] He is called a tent-maker, skenopoios, Acts 18:3. Tents were mostly made of the coarse hair of the Cilician goat (Kilikios tragos, which also denotes a coarse man), and needed by shepherds, travellers, sailors, and soldiers. The same material was also used for mantelets, shoes, and beds. The Cilician origin of this article is perpetuated in the Latin cilicium and the French cilice, which means hair-cloth. Gamaliel is the author of the maxim that " learning of any kind unaccompanied by a trade ends in nothing and leads to sin."
[357] Acts 23:16.
[358] In 1 Cor. 9:5 (written in 57) he claims the right to lead a married life, like Peter and the other apostles, and the brethren of the Lord; but in 1 Cor. 7:7, 8 he gives for himself in his peculiar position the preference to single life. Clement of Alexandria, Erasmus, and others supposed that he was married, and understood Syzyge, in Phil. 4:3, to be his wife. Ewald regards him as a widower who lost his wife before his conversion (VI. 341). So also Farrar (I. 80) who infers from 1 Cor. 7:8 that Paul classed himself with widowers: "I say, therefore, to the unmarried [to widowers, for whom there is no special Greek word] and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I." He lays stress on the fact that the Jews in all ages attached great importance to marriage as a moral duty (Gen. 1:28), and preferred early marriage; he also maintains (I. 169) that Paul, being a member of the Sanhedrin (as he gave his vote for the condemnation of the Christiana, Acts26:10), must have had, according to the Gemara, a family of his own. Renan fancies (ch. VI.) that Paul contracted a more than spiritual union with sister Lydia at Philippi, and addressed her in Phil. 4:3 as his suzuge gnesie, that is, as his true co-worker or partner (conjux), since it is not likely that he would have omitted her when he mentioned, in the preceding verse, two deaconesses otherwise unknown, Euodia and Syntyche. The word suzugos, as a noun, may be either masculine or feminine, and may either mean generally an associate, a co-worker ("yoke -fellow" in the E. V.), or be a proper name. Several persons have been suggested, Epaphroditus, Timothy, Silas, Luke. But Paul probably means a man, named Suzugosand plays upon the word: "Yokefellow by name and yoke-fellow in deed." Comp. a similar paronomasia in Philem. 10, 11Onesimon, i.e., Helpful,-achreston, euchreston , unprofitable, profitable). See the notes of Meyer and Lange (Braune and Hackett) on these passages.
[359] This sublime loneliness of Paul is well expressed in a poem, Saint Paul, by Frederic W. H. Myers (1868), from which we may be permitted to quote a few lines: "Christ! I am Christ's! and let the name suffice you; Aye, for me, too, He greatly hath sufficed; Lo, with no winning words I would entice you; Paul has no honor and no friend but Christ. " Yes, without cheer of sister or of daughter-- Yes, w ithout stay of father or of son, Lone on the land, and homeless on the water, Pass I in patience till the work be done. "Yet not in solitude, if Christ anear me Waketh Him workers for the great employ; Oh, not in solitude, if souls that hear me Catch from my joyance the surprise of joy. Hearts I have won of sister or of brother, Quick on the earth or hidden in the sod Lo, every heart awaiteth me, another Friend in the blameless family of God."
[360] 2 Cor. 10:10 he parousia tou somatos asthenes , kai ho logos exouthenemenos, or, as Cod. B. reads, exoudenemenos, which has the same meaning. Comp. 10:1, where he speaks of his " lowly" personal appearance among the Corinthians (kataprosopon tapeinos). He was little, compared with Barnabas (Acts 14:12).
[361] This is from the tradition preserved in the apocryphal Acts of Thecla. See the description quoted above, p. 282. Other ancient descriptions of Paul in the Philopatris of pseudo-Lucian (of the second, but more probably of the fourth century), Malala of Antioch (sixth century), and Nicephorus (fifteenth century), represent Paul as little in stature, bald, with a prominent aquiline nose, gray hair and thick beard, bright grayish eyes, somewhat bent and stooping, yet pleasant and graceful. See these descriptions in Lewin's St. Paul, II. 412. The oldest extant portraiture of Paul, probably from the close of the first or beginning of the second century, was found on a large bronze medallion in the cemetery of Domitilla (one of the Flavian family), and is preserved in the Vatican library. It presents Paul on the left and Peter on the right. Both are far from handsome, but full of character; Paul is the homelier of the two, with apparently diseased eyes, open mouth, bald head and short thick beard, but thoughtful, solemn, and dignified. See a cut in Lewin, II. 211. Chrysostom calls Paul the three-cubit man (ho tripechus anthropos, Serm. in Pet. et Paul.). Luther imagined: "St. Paulus war ein armes, dürres Männlein, wie Magister Philippus "(Melanchthon). A poetic description by J. H. Newman see in Farrar I. 220, and in Plumptre on Acts, Appendix, with another (of his own). Renan (Les Apôtres, pp. 169 sqq.) gives, partly from Paul's Epistles, partly from apocryphal sources, the following striking picture of the apostle: His behavior was winning, his manners excellent, his letters reveal a man of genius and lofty aspirations, though the style is incorrect. Never did a correspondence display rarer courtesies, tenderer shades, more amiable modesty and reserve. Once or twice we are wounded by his sarcasm (Gal. 5: 12; Phil. 3:2). But what rapture! What fulness of charming words! What originality! His exterior did not correspond to the greatness of his soul. He was ugly, short, stout, plump, of small head, bald, pale, his face covered with a thick beard, an eagle nose, piercing eyes, dark eyebrows. His speech, embarrassed, faulty, gave a poor idea of his eloquence. With rare tact he turned his external defects to advantage. The Jewish race produces types of the highest beauty and of the most complete homeliness (des types de la plus grande beauté et de la plus complète laideur); but the Jewish homeliness is quite unique. The strange faces which provoke laughter at first sight, assume when intellectually enlivened, a peculiar expression of intense brilliancy and majesty (une sorte d'éclat profond et de majesté).