PAUL does not tell us where he was born, but a number of texts contain an important hint. ‘I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin’ (Rom. 11: 1); ‘circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews’ (Phil. 3: 5). Such concern to affirm his Jewish credentials betrays the expatriate, i.e. a Jew living in the Diaspora.1 Only the descendants of those who emigrated from Ireland to the United States find it necessary to insist that they are Irish. Those who were born and bred in Ireland take it for granted. If this hypothesis is correct, one would expect a particularly passionate outburst when Paul is challenged by opponents of Jewish Palestinian origin, and this is precisely what we find in 2 Corinthians 11: 2, ‘Are they Hebrews? So am I! Are they Israelites? So am I! Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I!’
Where in the Diaspora? The letters offer only one slender clue. After his first visit to Jerusalem as a Christian, Paul goes to ‘the districts of Syria and Cilicia’ (Gal. 1: 21). His use of ‘districts’ in 2 Corinthians 11: 10 (cf. Rom. 15: 23) suggests that he is thinking, not in terms of the Roman provinces, but of smaller non-political areas.2 That he should have been drawn to Syria is understandable. Its capital, Antioch, was in many ways similar to the Damascus which he was forced to leave (2 Cor. 11: 32–3), and it might already have had a Christian presence (Acts 11: 19–21). It certainly offered many opportunities for ministry. Why, then, did he go to Cilicia? The simplest answer is that there was some personal connection.
Such considerations tend to confirm Luke’s information that Paul came from Tarsus (Acts 9: 11, 30; 11: 25; 21: 39; 22: 3), which was the capital of Cilicia. Luke, moreover, would have no interest in inventing a Diaspora origin for Paul.3 From the perspective of his theologico-historical program—‘You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria and to the end of the earth’ (Acts 1: 8)—Luke would have certainly preferred Paul to be a Jerusalemite.4 He does in fact attempt to make Paul a Jerusalemite by adoption, by suggesting that, although born in Tarsus, Paul was not only educated but nurtured in Jerusalem (Acts 22: 3; cf. 26: 4).5 The subtlety of the ploy does nothing to enhance its credibility.6
In the fourth century BC Xenophon called Tarsus ‘a great and prosperous city’,7 a description which remained true well beyond the time of Paul, as Dio Chrysostom testifies in speaking to the Tarsians,
Your home is in a great city and you occupy a fertile land, because you find the needs of life supplied for you in greatest abundance and profusion, because you have this river flowing through the heart of your city; moreover, Tarsus is the capital of all the people of Cilicia. (Discourses 33.17; cf. 34. 7; trans. Crosby)
Its merchants had always efficiently exploited both its navigable river and its position ‘on one of the great trade routes of the ancient world; the easiest and most frequented land route from Syria and the east to Asia Minor and the Aegean crossed the Amanus by the Syrian Gates, and the Taurus by the Cilician Gates’.8 The surrounding fertile plain produced cereals and grapes, and above all the flax which provided the raw material for the linen industry, whose product was of such quality that the production of the whole region was named for it.9
Tarsus had had a long history before Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC) in 171 BC conferred on it the status of a Greek city-state governed by its own elected magistrates and issuing its own coins.10 Its name was changed to Antiocheia-on-the-Cydnus (which did not last for long), and Greek and Jewish colonists were brought in to increase the productivity of the oriental population.11 The continuity of Jewish presence into the first century AD is well attested.12
Absorbed into the Roman system when Pompey reorganized Asia Minor in 66 BC, Tarsus opposed Cassius, the murderer of its patron Julius Caesar.13 In 42 BC Mark Antony rewarded its loyalty by granting it freedom and immunity,14 This rare privilege for a city which was not a colony was renewed after the battle of Actium (31 BC) by Augustus, who conferred upon it ‘land, laws, honour, control of the river and of the sea in your quarter of the world, and this is why your city grew rapidly’.15 Such marks of Roman interest are of considerable relevance for the question of Paul’s Roman citizenship. Ramsay points out that they were likely to have been accompanied by grants of Roman citizenship to a certain number of citizens by Julius Caesar, Antony, and Augustus.16
In some respects, however, the city was decidedly oriental rather than Western.17 Whereas the most primitive barbarian, according to Dio Chrysostom, would immediately have discerned the Greek character of Rhodes,18 he would have had problems at Tarsus, ‘Would he call you Greeks, or the most licentious of Phoenicians?’19 The two features singled out as illustrations of this tendency by Dio Chrysostom are music and women’s attire. The first he reprobates, ‘Now it is Phoenician airs that suit your fancy and the Phoenician rhythm that you admire most.’20 The second he heartily approves,
And yet many of the customs still in force reveal in one way or another the sobriety and severity of deportment of those earlier days. Among these is the convention regarding feminine attire, a convention which prescribes that women should be so arrayed and should so deport themselves when in the street that nobody could see any part of them, neither of the face nor of the rest of the body, and that they themselves might not see anything off the road. (Discourses 33. 48; trans. Crosby)
The unlikelihood of the oriental character of Tarsus being a late development—Dio was writing at the beginning of the second century AD—is confirmed by his recognition that the wearing of the all-enveloping black chador there was an ancient custom which must go back to the original indigenous population.
Although firmly rooted in the soil of the east, Tarsus had a Hellenic respect for education, and the means to pay for it. Ramsay rightly considers Philostratus’ low estimate of its educational system21 to be a deduction from the criticisms of Dio Chrysostom and of no evidential value for the early first century.22 Strabo, on the contrary, was an eyewitness,
The people at Tarsus have devoted themselves so eagerly, not only to philosophy, but also the whole round of education in general, that they have surpassed Athens, Alexandria, or any other place that can be named where there have been schools and lectures of philosophers. But it is so different from the other cities that there the men who are fond of learning are all natives, and foreigners are not inclined to sojourn there. Neither do these natives stay there, but they complete their education abroad. And when they have completed it, they are pleased to live abroad, and but few go back home.… Further the city of Tarsus has all kinds of schools of rhetoric, and in general it not only has a flourishing population but also is the most powerful, thus keeping up the reputation of the mother-city. (Geography 14. 5. 13; trans. Jones)
A close reading of this encomium reveals that what struck Strabo about Tarsus was not the superiority or antiquity of its university, which attracted no students from abroad, but the enthusiastic seriousness with which the Tarsians sought education, even to the extent of leaving their homeland in pursuit of further knowledge. Ramsay is in all probability correct in correlating this situation with the badly needed administrative reforms introduced by Athenodorus23 around 10 BC and reinforced by his successor Nestor.24
The city, therefore, into which Paul was born was well governed and prosperous.25 Its Greek orientation had to struggle with a strong Eastern spirit. It stood on the frontier of east and west, and its citizens were prepared to function in both.
Our information is sparse. Paul tells us that he was ‘a Hebrew born of Hebrews’ (Phil. 3: 5). Luke adds that he was a Roman citizen by birth (Acts 22: 27–8; cf. 16: 37; 23: 27), in addition to being a citizen of Tarsus (Acts 21: 39), and that he had a sister and a nephew in Jerusalem (Acts 23: 16).26
The most extensive use of Hebraios in first-century Greek is in the works of Philo. In the majority of instances, it means a member of the Jewish people either by birth, e.g. ‘the descendants of Hebrews’ (Jos. 42), or by conversion, e.g. ‘an Egyptian by birth but a Hebrew by choice’ (Abr. 251). An element of contrast is apparent on occasion, thus ‘they call Moses an Egyptian, Moses who was not only a Hebrew but of the purest Hebrew blood’ (Mut. 117; cf. Mig. 141). This is intensified in a series of texts in which Hebrew and Greek meanings are contrasted, e.g. ‘a place which in the tongue of the Hebrews is called Shinar and in that of the Greeks “shaking out”’ (Conf. 68).27
The hint that ‘Hebrew’ carried, not merely religious or ethnic overtones, but also a linguistic connotation is confirmed by the response to Ptolemy’s request for translators to render the Law into Greek. The high priest ‘sought out such Hebrews as he had of the highest reputation, who had received an education in Greek as well as in their native lore, and joyfully sent them’ (Mos. 2. 32). The implication of this passage, whose emphasis is not knowledge of the Law but on linguistic ability, is that, while few Jews, if any, in the Diaspora knew Hebrew, only some of the Jews in Palestine could write Greek.
Against this background it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the division of the early church in Jerusalem into ‘Hebrews’ and ‘Hellenists’ (Acts 6: 1) was based on the fact that the former spoke Hebrew and the latter Greek. This, however, implies other differences. Since the Twelve, who all come from Galilee, admit their responsibility for the Hebrews (Acts 6: 2), it would seem that ‘Hebrew’, because of its linguistic connotation, implied a relationship to Palestine in a way which ‘Hellenist’ did not. Even though these latter may have been Greek-speaking Jews of Jerusalem,28 use of the ancestral language created a deeper bond with the land.
These considerations create a presumption that when Paul uses ‘Hebrew’ he intends to imply a positive relationship to Palestine through the use of a Semitic language;29 it is not a mere synonym for Israelite. This is confirmed by J. B. Lightfoot’s perceptive insight that Paul’s privileges in Philippians 3: 5 are arranged on an ascending scale.30 A child circumcised on the eighth day could still be descended from proselytes. But Paul is of the race of Israel. Some Israelites were unable to provide proof of their genealogy.31 But Paul knew he was of the tribe of Benjamin.32 The land of Benjamin, however, included Jerusalem33 where the influence of Hellenism was particularly manifest in the many Jews who spoke Greek. But Paul came of a family which, despite its location in the Diaspora, retained the ancient tongue of the Jews.34
The hypothesis of a highly conservative and deeply religious family ever concerned to keep pagan influences at bay is not impossible in itself, but it cannot be harmonized with the type of education that Paul received. One might argue with slightly greater probability that the family needed the language for frequent commercial contacts with Palestine,35 but it is difficult to conceive of Palestinian Jews in the export-import business failing to learn Greek. The simplest hypothesis is that Paul’s ancestors had emigrated from Palestine within living memory.
Certainly it is the one adopted by Jerome to explain Philippians 3: 5 and 2 Corinthians 11: 22,
We have heard this story. They say that the parents of the Apostle Paul were from Gischala, a region of Judaea and that, when the whole province was devastated by the hand of Rome and the Jews scattered throughout the world, they were moved to Tarsus a town of Cilicia; the adolescent Paul inherited the personal status of his parents. (Comm. in Ep. ad Philem. on vv. 23–4)36
In this text it is not clear whether Paul had been born at the time of his parents emigration. The ambiguity no longer exists in Jerome’s second reference, written some five years later:37
Paul the apostle, previously called Saul, was not one of the Twelve Apostles; he was of the tribe of Benjamin and of the town of Gischala in Judaea; when the town was captured by the Romans he migrated with his parents to Tarsus in Cilicia. (De viris illustribus 5)38
These testimonies have no support in either the letters or the Acts, and contain serious internal contradictions.
In the second text Paul was born in Gischala, in the first probably not. In the first Gischala is a region but in the second a town. In the first the migration of Paul’s parents appears to have been involuntary, whereas in the second it was voluntary. Manifestly the two accounts cannot be reconciled. A choice, therefore, has to be made. In view of the widespread criticism of Famous Men,39 one’s preference must go to the Commentary on Philemon as the assertion which merits historical testing.
The note in the Commentary on Philemon cannot be dismissed on the grounds that the only known Gischala is located in Galilee not Judaea,40 because even in the New Testament ‘Judaea’ is used to mean the whole of Palestine (e.g. Luke 1: 5; 23: 5). This usage was reinforced with the establishment of the Roman province of Judaea after the failure of the First Revolt, and particularly from the 120s when a governor of consular rank controlled two legions, the Sixth Ferrata stationed in the north and the Tenth Fretensis based in the south.41 It would have been natural, therefore, for Jerome and his contemporaries to think of Palestine as Judaea.42
Apart from his pilgrimage with Paula, which brought them only as far north as Capernaum,43 Jerome had little personal knowledge of places in Palestine, and certainly did not seek out local traditions.44 His information, therefore, is secondary. There is evidence that he knew Josephus thoroughly,45 which might explain how he came across the name of Gischala, whose inhabitants fled when the Romans attacked.46 But in this case it is almost certain that he would have located Gischala in Galilee, and the hypothesis cannot explain why he associated the city with Paul. Theodore Zahn has argued that Jerome’s source was Origen’s commentary on Philemon, which is no longer extant.47 Within the space of a few months in 387 or 388 Jerome wrote commentaries on Philemon, Galatians, Ephesians, and Titus in that order; he explicitly admits his dependence on Origen’s commentaries on Galatians and Ephesians, which makes it likely, in Zahn’s view, that he also drew on Origen in expounding Philemon and Titus.48 The argument is rather tenuous, but it has the advantage of explaining why Jerome notes Paul’s parentage apropos of Philemon 24–25.
Where Origen got his information is even more mysterious. The likelihood that he or any earlier Christian invented the association of Paul’s family with Gischala is remote. The town is not mentioned in the Bible. It had no connection with Benjamin. It had no associations with the Galilean ministry of Jesus. And there is no evidence that it had Christian inhabitants in the Byzantine period. It would seem, therefore, that Origen relied on an oral tradition, whose authority Jerome accepted. His classification of the story as a fabula does not necessarily imply that he distanced himself from his source.49
Jerome implies that Paul’s parents were forced to move to Tarsus by the Romans. The latter took control of Palestine in 63 BC, and subsequently there were a number of occasions (61, 55, 52, 4 BC, AD 6) when Jews from various parts of the country were enslaved and shipped abroad.50 Terrible as this was, there were advantages, as Philo records, ‘The large district of Rome beyond the Tiber was owned and inhabited by Jews. The majority of them were Roman freedmen, who had been brought to Rome as prisoners-of-war and were manumitted by their owners’ (Leg. ad Gaium, 155). That Paul’s father was equally fortunate is the simplest explanation of the Apostle’s inherited Roman citizenship.
Luke’s assertion that Paul was a Roman citizen cannot be ascribed to his propagandizing intention because he found it in one of his sources, namely, the Travel Document.51 Moreover, Paul’s voyage to Rome, which is presented as a privilege of his citizenship (Acts 25: 11–12; 26: 32; 28: 19),52 cannot be ascribed to Lucan invention because it is not exploited. Nothing happens in Rome. The one sermon preached there is very mediocre by comparison with others in Acts, and produces only a highly ambiguous result (Acts 28: 24–5). On the other hand, however, nothing in the Pauline letters confirms the Apostle’s citizenship. At times they have even been considered to contain a decisive refutation.53
Paul notes that three times he was beaten with rods (2 Cor. 11: 25). This punishment is distinguished from the 39 lashes inflicted on him by Jews (2 Cor. 11: 24), and is in fact a specifically Roman punishment whose infliction on Roman citizens was forbidden.54 At times, however, this law was more honoured in the breach than in the observance, and there are well-documented instances in which individuals whose citizenship is beyond question were beaten and even executed by Roman authorities.55 The reality of the situation is well formulated by J. C. Lentz, ‘A Roman citizen in the provinces was a privileged person. His citizenship could, at times, save him from non-Roman provincial justice. Yet only those citizens who also possessed wealth and prestige as well as the citizenship were in the position to procure any certain legal advantages.’56
What Paul says about his social status is also considered an objection. On the basis of certain statistics, which do not derive from Tarsus, it would appear that Roman citizens in the east belonged to the provincial aristocracy.57 Paul, however, presents himself as an itinerant manual labourer.58 The postulated incompatibility is severely diminished, if not eliminated, both by Paul’s educational attainments, which suggest a background infinitely superior to that of the average artisan,59 and by his rather upper-class view of manual labour as ‘slavish’ (1 Cor. 9: 19) and ‘demeaning’ (2 Cor. 11: 7).60 This attitude makes it probable that it was the imperative of his missionary strategy which led Paul to master a trade.61
Paul’s failure to mention his citizenship is also construed as an objection. In this form the argument from silence has no value. Not only was there no reason why Paul should mention his status in letters to communities whom he wanted to convince that ‘our citizenship is in heaven’ (Phil. 3: 20), but to claim citizenship risked incurring the challenge to prove his right. Documentation had to be produced, and this would not have been easy for someone far from his home base and continuously on the move. The small wooden diptych containing the certificate was too precious to carry around, and if it were contested by the magistrate the original witnesses who signed had to be produced.62
‘To speculate how and when the family of Paul acquired the citizenship is a fruitless task, though lack of evidence has not deterred the ingenious.’ This observation by Sherwin-White remains as true as when he wrote it thirty years ago,63 but something has to be said in order to counter a more subtle objection to Paul’s Roman citizenship. It is seldom explicitly articulated, but is latent in the length of discussions regarding the means of acquiring Roman citizenship and the liberality with which it was accorded. The impression is often given of a complexity so great that no real clarity is possible. In fact in the first century BC when, according to Luke (Acts 22: 27–8), Paul’s father or more remote ancestor would have acquired citizenship the matter was not very complicated.64
The competition for support during the civil wars after 49 BC led to ‘liberal offers of individual enfranchisement in the East’.65 The predominance of the oriental element in Tarsus, of which the Jews would have been a part, has been noted above, and thus it is far from impossible that some leading members of the Jewish community were seduced to Antony’s side by the gift of Roman citizenship.66 The simplest possibility, as already noted, is that Paul’s father had been a slave who was set free by a Roman citizen of Tarsus, and who thereby acquired a degree of Roman citizenship which improved with each succeeding generation.67
Finally, it has been thought that the obligations of citizenship might conflict with the demands of the Jewish faith of Paul’s parents. The reason for thinking them to be strictly religious is Luke’s assertion that Paul was ‘a son of Pharisees’ (Acts 23: 6). We shall see that this is most improbable.68 Moreover, the Roman tribe in which the new citizen was enrolled had a merely legal existence; its members never met and no liturgies were ever performed.69 Finally, in Roman law, codified in this respect by Julius Caesar, Jews were exempt from any obligations which conflicted with the demands of their faith,70 which inevitably gave rise to accusations of having their cake and eating it.71
To sum up. Since there is no evidence of Lukan creativity and no objection based on the epistles, Paul’s Roman citizenship should be admitted, particularly since the history of his parents constitutes a plausible historical context for its conferral.72
As a Roman citizen Paul had a tri-part Roman name,73 made up of praenomen ( = the given name), the nomen ( = the gens, denoting the ultimate founder of the Roman family), and the cognomen ( = the family name), e.g. Marcus Tullius Cicero. When a slave or foreigner was granted citizenship, the practice was that he retained his own name as the cognomen, and took as his own the praenomen and nomen of the Roman who obtained the citizenship for him. Thus Cicero’s freedman, Tiro, became Marcus Tullius Tiro, and Demetrius Megas, a Greek of Sicily, became P. Cornelius Megas because P. Cornelius Dolabella had been his sponsor.74
Paulos is the Greek form of the Latin Paul(l)us, which is attested for the time of Paul both as a praenomen, e.g. Paullus Fabius Maximus and Paullus Aemilius Lepidus,75 and as a cognomen, e.g. L. Sergius Paullus (Acts 13: 8). The former is as rare as the latter is common, and in the Roman world the cognomen was the name most frequently used because it was the most specific.76 The force of such observations is to suggest that Paul(l)us was Paul’s cognomen. It is impossible, however, that such a typically Roman name, borne by the great senatorial families of the Aemilii, the Vettenii, and the Sergii, should be the cognomen of a Jew, whose family had acquired citizenship only a generation earlier.
Sherwin-White suggests a way out of this dilemma: ‘The most likely explanation of the cognomen Paulus is that it was chosen as the most similar Latin name to the Hebraic name of Saul.’77 This hypothesis obviously depends on the reading Saulos, which appears in the received text of Acts (7: 58; 8: 1, 3; 9: 1) with the exception of the vocative case where the form is consistently Saoul (Acts 9: 4, 17; 22: 7, 13; 26: 14). This latter form, however, is used exclusively in all references in P45, and the scribe’s awareness that he was using an indeclinable non-Greek name is formally indicated by an apostrophe after the last letter.78 The Semitic name, however, cannot be assumed to be the original form, because Sa(o)ulos appears frequently as a proper name in Josephus, despite the connotation of effeminacy attached to the adjective saulos.79 It is not surprising, therefore, that Silas should appear, perhaps through Aramaic, as a Greek form of Saul.
The name Saul, however, is known to us only through Luke, whose credibility unfortunately cannot be taken for granted, because his usage smacks of artificiality. In Acts 13: 9 we find the formula ‘Saul who is also known as Paul’, which is the transition from the exclusive use of ‘Saul’ previously and the exclusive use of ‘Paul’ subsequently. The symbolism is evident; a Semitic name while Paul worked among Jews and a Gentile name when he worked among Gentiles. Had Luke known the name ‘Paul’ and needed to create a Semitic correspondent, ‘Saul’ would be a rather obvious choice (Acts 13: 21).
Attractive as is this hypothesis, it is not likely that Luke invented the name of Saul. Not only is it found in one of his sources,80 but it is most probable that a Diaspora-born ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’ should have a Semitic name; it would have been the obvious way of affirming linguistic identity. Gaelic speakers in Ireland—an endangered species—invariably give their children distinctively Irish names. Paul’s parents, of course, had a wide choice, but Saul was the name of the best-known member of the tribe of Benjamin.
Thus there is a lot to be said for Sherwin-White’s hypothesis which, however, needs to be refined a little. He does not make it clear that Saul may have been the name of Paul’s father or grandfather, or evoke the possibility that Paulus was not a true cognomen, but rather a signum or supernomen, which may have been in the family prior to the Apostle’s birth, and was used regularly in their relations with Gentiles. The signum began as an informal name used among family and friends, but became so much part of the person’s identity that it appeared frequently in public inscriptions where it is introduced by ho kai in Greek or qui et in Latin.81
A beautiful illustration of the preceding discussion is furnished by an undated inscription on a tombstone found in Naples, to which C. J. Hemer has drawn attention,82
To the spirits of the dead. Lucius Antonius Leo, also called Neon, son of Zoilus, by nation a Cilician, a soldier of the praetorian fleet at Misenum, from the century the trireme ‘Aesclepius’, lived 27 years, served 9 years. Gaius Julius Paulus his heir undertook the work (of his burial).83
Like Paul, Leo was both from Cilicia and had an alternative name, whose similarity of sound recalls that between Paul and Saul. Were his heir a kinsman, he would also be a Cilician with a name which might have been Paul’s own, since the grants of citizenship in Tarsus were by Pompey, Caesar, and Antony. Consequently, the probable praenomina and nomina of those freed at that period were Gnaeus Pompeius or Gaius Julius or Marcus Antonius.84 Lest the importance of this inscription be exaggerated, Hemer is careful to point out that not all who boasted the three names were necessarily Roman citizens. Leo presumably acquired his merely as a matter of naval administration since sailors did not get citizenship on enrolment.85
Augustine believed that Paul, ‘the least of all the apostles’ (1 Cor. 15: 9) chose his name because the Latin adjective paullus means ‘small, little’. This view has nothing to recommend it, except as an opportunity for rhetorical piety. As we have seen above, Paul(l)us had been well known as a proper name for centuries. The phenomenon of proper names which are also adjectives is found in many languages, e.g. Small, Petit, and Klein.
It is far from improbable, however, that the etymology of Paul’s name influenced the famous description in the late second century AD Acts of Paul.
He saw Paul coming, a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs, in a good state of body, with eyebrows meeting and a nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness; for now he appeared like a man, and now he had the face of an angel. (3. 1)86
The fact that this description does not conform to our canons of beauty has led many scholars to accept its truth.87 It was first questioned by R. M. Grant, who argued that the intention was to present Paul as a general.88 Despite its exaggeration, this study had the value of drawing attention to the idealization inherent in the description. In a world where quickness of response in public debate demanded the ability to sum up the personality of an opponent quickly, there were those who taught their clients how to deduce character traits from physical features. Manuals of physiognomy circulated.89 The style may be illustrated by Pliny’s citation from Paul’s contemporary Pompeius Trogus,
When the forehead is large it indicates that the mind beneath it is sluggish; people with a small forehead have a nimble mind, those with a round forehead an irascible mind.… When people’s eyebrows are level this signifies that they are gentle, when they are curved at the side of the nose, that they are stern, when bent down at the temples, that they are mockers, when entirely drooping, that they are malevolent and spiteful. If people’s eyes are narrow on both sides, this shows them to be malicious in character; eyes that have fleshy corners on the side of the nostrils show a mark of maliciousness; when the white part of the eyes is extensive it conveys an indication of impudence; eyes that have a habit of repeatedly closing indicate unreliability. Large ears are a sign of talkativeness and silliness. (NH 11. 275–6; trans. Rackham)
Applying such criteria to the description of Paul, Malherbe showed that ‘Meeting eyebrows were regarded as a sign of beauty, and a person with a hooked nose was thought likely to be royal or magnanimous. Tallness was preferred; nevertheless, since men of normally small height had a smaller area through which the blood flowed, they were thought to be quick.’90 Bowed legs showed a man to be firmly planted, i.e. highly realistic. Baldness is given no prominence in the manuals of physignomy, but for Pliny it was a distinctively human trait; no animal went bald (NH 11. 131). The strong probability of idealization in the Acts of Paul’s portrait of the Apostle makes its historical value doubtful.
According to Luke, Paul had a married sister whose son alerted the Roman authorities in Jerusalem to a plot to assassinate his uncle (Acts 23: 16). The historicity of this information is difficult to judge. It is unlikely that Paul was an only child, and the permanent or temporary presence of a married sister in Jerusalem could be explained in a number of plausible ways, e.g. commerce or pilgrimage. It is curious, however, that a grown-up nephew91 with Roman citizenship should appear at just the moment when it was necessary to have immediate access to, and forceful influence on, the senior Roman officer in Jerusalem. Truth, of course, is often stranger than fiction, but the very neatness of the story, and the facility with which a fictional nephew can be disposed of, leave lingering doubts.92
In Romans 16: 13 Paul says, ‘Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine’. According to Baslez, the reference is to Paul’s natural mother, who after being widowed entered a second marriage which produced Rufus, who was now responsible for her.93 Attractive as this imaginative portrait may be, it is unlikely to be correct. ‘Mother’ is well attested in the metaphorical sense as applied to those whose comportment commands respect.94 If Paul had his real mother in mind one would expect him to mention her at the head of the list, and not to slip her in casually halfway through, as a mere adjunct to her son. Moreover, a significant number of commentators on the epistle to the Romans identify this Rufus as the son of Simon of Cyrene (Mark 15: 21).95 The consensus among commentators is perfectly brought out by the NRSV paraphrase, ‘greet his mother—a mother to me also’. She was a woman who, like Phoebe (Rom. 16: 2), had befriended Paul; where and when remain a mystery.96
Even less likely is the interpretation which Baslez gives to syngenês in Romans 16: 7, 11, and 20. She understands it as meaning ‘relative’ in the strict sense of blood relationship, and on this basis creates an elaborate portrait of an extended family displaying various degrees of assimilation (the different names), but none the less co-operating in the textile business.97 There is no denying that syngenês can have this sense,98 but the meaning intended by Paul is unambiguously indicated by his first use in Romans 9: 3, ‘I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh. They are Israelites.’ If Paul can use such intimate language of fellow-Jews with whom he has no blood relationship, then the weaker unqualified ‘relative’ cannot be interpreted in the strict sense.
While it is an accurate interpretation of Acts 22: 3, we have seen that van Unnik’s view that Paul received all his education in Jerusalem fails to meet the objection that it was in Luke’s interest to attach Paul as closely as possible to the city which Luke saw as the culmination of Jesus’ ministry and the starting-point of all missions.99 There is some justification for Luke’s sleight of hand, because Paul did receive part of his education in Jerusalem. Where he received the rest is important only from a biographical point of view, because van Unnik’s sharp distinction between a ‘Jewish’ education in Jerusalem and a ‘pagan’ education in Tarsus is untenable. Jerusalem had been heavily Hellenized for several centuries, and educational facilities similar to those in Tarsus were also available in Jerusalem.100 Know your enemy and fight him with his own weapons had become a fundamental principle of Jewish apologetic.
In the absence of any evidence regarding Paul’s youth, we must presume the normal, namely, that Paul was already grown when he left his home in Tarsus. He ventured out into the world, as young men have ever done, only when he had finished his basic education. Strabo, as we have seen, offers express witness for this custom at Tarsus.101
Paul himself tells us nothing about his youth. We are forced to make deductions based on the existing educational systems in Tarsus and the traces of Paul’s background which can be discerned in the letters.102
There were certainly pagan and Jewish elementary schools, which children entered at the age of 6. Both schools trained their pupils in the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, while at the same time inculcating knowledge of and respect for the institutions of state and religion.103 As members of a religious minority, however, Jewish children carried a greater burden than their pagan contemporaries; they had to live in two worlds.
On the one hand, they had to learn the observances which were the basis of their identity, and which they were bound to obey from the age of 13,104
All men are eager to preserve their own customs and laws, and the Jewish nation above all others; for looking upon theirs as oracles directly given to them by God himself, and having been instructed in this doctrine from their earliest infancy they bear in their souls the images of the commandments. (Philo, Legatio ad Gaium 210; trans. Yonge)
That we have to do with an educational principle is made clear, despite the hyperbole, by Josephus’ use of almost identical language,
Should anyone of our nation be questioned about the laws, he would repeat them all more readily than his own name. The result, then, of our thorough grounding in the laws from the first dawn of intelligence is that we have them, as it were, engraved on our souls.
(Against Apion 2. 178; trans. Whiston and Margoliouth)105
It is in this context that Paul would have come to know the Septuagint, the Bible of Greek-speaking Jews. At the beginning it was merely a textbook, from which a little boy learned to read and had to memorize parts (2 Tim. 3: 15), but it became a perennial source of insight which ever informed his teaching;106 his letters contain almost 90 explicit citations. Given his stress on being a ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’ (Phil. 3: 5), Paul must also have learnt Hebrew and/or Aramaic. Knowledge of the former was rare in the Diaspora,107 but commitment, and the availability of personal copies of the Scriptures (1 Macc.1: 56–7), mean that it cannot be excluded apriori. Aramaic was current among the Semitic population of Syria and the eastern part of Asia Minor.108 Whether it was learnt at home or at school remains an open question.
On the other hand, Jewish students in Tarsus had to learn how to function in the Hellenistic world to which they belonged. The Greek they learnt at home had to be refined into the ability to read and write. Their basic curriculum would have been that of pagan children their age. These latter would certainly not have used the LXX as a reader, but Jewish children in addition read Euripides or Homer.109 If Homer was read in first century Pharisaic circles in Palestine,110 there can be little doubt that it was on the curriculum of a Diaspora school frequented by the son of a Roman citizen. There Paul learnt to trace letters and eventually to write. There too he learnt to count and presumably mastered the intricate hand signs which enabled his contemporaries to express every number from one to a million.111
Secondary studies began as soon as the student could read and write easily, normally about the age of 11.112 The focus of Hellenistic education was not the development of a critical spirit, but the transmission of a whole culture in the works of such writers as Homer, Euripides, Menander, and Demosthenes. While one might presume that Jewish students in the Diaspora might offer some resistance to the total acceptance of the ideas of the textbooks studied by their pagan contemporaries, the system was so widespread and the method of instruction so consistent that it must have influenced even Jewish teachers.113
In a school that had more than one manuscript of a classical author, the first step involved some rudimentary textual criticism if there were differences. Next came the reading of the text, a much more difficult operation than we imagine. It demanded careful preparation because words were not separated from one another and there was no punctuation.114 Such meticulous analysis created a solid basis for the interpretation of the text, which was expected to contribute to the moral development of the students. As the pupils’ knowledge increased they practised literary composition. Though the types of composition were varied, each was expected to reflect the four basic qualities of brevity, clarity, probability, and grammatical correctness, at the same time as it integrated agent, action, time, place, mode, and cause.115
In first-century Palestine a Jewish boy finished his obligatory studies at the age of 12 or 13, when he technically became a responsible person.116 The Greek secondary school normally went a year or two longer. Then began the equivalent of today’s undergraduate university course. What Philostratus tells us of Apollonius is typical, ‘When he reached his fourteenth year, his father brought him to Tarsus, to Euthydemus the teacher from Phoenicia’ (Life of Apollonius 1.7). Less typical was the refusal of Apollonius to stay for long. The value of his criticism of the instruction at Tarsus has already been discussed,117 but the note that his frivolous fellow-students sat like so many water-fowl along the bank of the river confirms Strabo’s observation that at Tarsus the Cydnus ‘flows past the gymnasium of the young men’ (Geography 14. 5. 11).
Jewish attitudes towards the gymnasium and the education it offered differed according to the self-confidence of individuals and communities.118 Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of Paul, had no doubt about its benefits, and took it for granted that Jews who were of a certain social class would be educated there:
For who can be more completely the benefactors of their children than parents, who have not only caused them to exist, but have afterwards thought them worthy of food, and after that again of education both in body and soul, and have enabled them not only to live, but also to live well, training their body by gymnastic and athletic rules so as to bring it into a vigorous and healthy state, and giving it an easy way of standing and moving not without elegance and becoming grace, and educating the soul by letters, and numbers, and geometry, and music and every kind of philosophy.
(Spec. Leg. 2. 229–30; trans. Yonge)119
In theory the gymnasium catered for the whole person, but in practice only the body was well trained; the educational programme was wide but superficial.120 Tarsus, however, had ‘all kinds of schools of rhetoric’, according to Strabo, who also noted the consequence, namely ‘the facility prevalent among the Tarsians whereby he could instantly speak offhand and unceasingly on any given subject’ (Geography 14. 5. 13–14).
From this perspective Tarsus is the perfect illustration of Marrou’s thesis, ‘For the great majority of students higher studies meant attending the lectures of an orator, and learning with him the art of eloquence.’121 Oratorical skills were the key to advancement in an essentially verbal culture. The acquisition of such skills fell into three parts.122 The base was the theory of discourse, which included letter-writing.123 Techniques, rules, formulae, etc. were discussed ad infinitum. As divisions and sub-divisions multiplied, the complexity of the theory made it more and more irrelevant. The second stage was a little more practical in so far as it involved the study of the speeches of the great masters of rhetoric. What techniques were used, how did they produce their effects, could they have been bettered? The final stage was the writing of practice speeches, for the most part devoted to topics more fantastic than useful.
Was Paul formed in such techniques? His social position argues in the affirmative, but he himself appears to deny it. He was not sent, he claims, to preach the gospel ‘with eloquent words of wisdom’ (1 Cor. 1: 17). He asserts ‘my speech and my proclamation were not in persuasive words of wisdom’ (1 Cor. 2: 4), and concedes that ‘I am unskilled in speaking’ (2 Cor. 11: 6). The truth of such self-assessment appears to be confirmed by the Corinthians who said, ‘his speech is beneath contempt’ (2 Cor. 10: 10).
Neither Paul’s protestations, however, nor the criticism of the Corinthians should be taken at face value.124 The latter admitted that his letters were bareitai kai ischyrai (2 Cor. 10: 10). While these adjectives could be rendered negatively as ‘oppressive and severe’, the consensus of scholars and translations is that they should be translated positively, e.g. ‘weighty and strong’ (RSV), ‘impressive and moving’.125 In other words, his vigorous style was reinforced by the careful presentation expected of a well-trained writer. G. A. Kennedy’s assertion that Paul was ‘thoroughly at home in the Greek idiom of his time and in the conventions of the Greek epistles’126 is borne out by the evidence of rhetorical arrangement, not only in the organization of whole letters, but also in the parts of 1 Corinthians when he is dealing with different subjects.127 Manifestly he was so well trained that his skill was no longer conscious but instinctive.
Paul’s disclaimer in 2 Corinthians 11: 6 is a rhetorical convention.128 Note his assertion that the way he preached was a matter of choice—‘I decided’ (1 Cor. 2: 2)—and the reason is clearly stated, ‘that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ (1 Cor. 2: 5). Choice necessarily implies the reality of the alternative. Paul knew that he could have done otherwise; he could have used the persuasive techniques of rhetoric to proclaim the gospel.129 His conscious control, however, collapsed in the heat of anger, and in the Fool’s Speech (2 Cor. 11: 1 to 12: 13) deeply engrained qualities become evident.130 C. Forbes, after a detailed analysis, rightly concludes, ‘What we have seen of Paul’s rhetoric suggests a mastery and an assurance unlikely to have been gained without long practice, and possibly long study as well.’131 It was in the context of the school of rhetoric that Paul was exposed to the various strands of Greek philosophy, which formed part of the intellectual equipment of every educated person. The presence of Stoic teachers in Tarsus is noted by Strabo.132
In order to balance this stress on Paul’s Hellenistic education, it is important to remember that throughout this whole formative period of his life (age 15–20) he would also have frequented the synagogue of Tarsus. There he was exposed to the tradition of Hellenized Judaism, whose towering figure was his contemporary Philo of Alexandria.133 How deeply this tradition impregnated his thought is clear from the extensive parallels in his letters to the writings of the Jewish philosopher, despite their very different personalities and concerns.134