The Solution to the Problem of 'Paul'

[Blood]

Spin has been resurrected!

[spin]

Sorry Stephan, but where does this come from: 'phaulos' (= Hebrew אביון or 'ebion')? You've said it yourself: faulos is the opposite of xrestos. That makes faulos bad, evil, not stupid. EBYWN clearly means "poor" (as in "needy") and is frequently used in contexts that makes out those so described to be positive. I don't see anything in what you are saying.

[spin]

Spin has been resurrected!

And for my next trick, I'll pull a biblical historian out of my hat.

[Blood]

Interesting, but here is - I think - confirmation of my earlier line of investigation:

It is possible that Amelius has misunderstood an allusion to the Demiurge, who, according to Diogenes Laertius, 5.1.63 was called phaulos ("simple" rather than "feeble") in the Platonic tradition. http://books.google.com/books?id=hmE5fU ... ge&f=false

The author here gives the wrong reference so it took me a while to track down the reference. It is actually 3.63. But I think this is the jackpot. Diogenes Laertius writes:

Plato has employed a variety of terms in order to make his system less intelligible to the ignorant. But in a special sense he considers wisdom to be the science of those things which are objects of thought and really existent, the science which, he says, is concerned with God and the soul as separate from the body. And especially by wisdom he means philosophy, which is a yearning for divine wisdom. And in a general sense all experience is also termed by him wisdom, e.g. when he calls a craftsman wise. And he applies the same terms with very different meanings. For instance, the word φαῦλος is employed by him in the sense of ἁπλοῦς (simple, honest), just as it is applied to Heracles in the Licymnius of Euripides in the following passage:

Plain (φαῦλος), unaccomplished, staunch to do great deeds, unversed in talk, with all his store of wisdom curtailed to action.

But sometimes Plato uses this same word (φαῦλος） to mean what is bad, and at other times for what is small or petty. Again, he often uses different terms to express the same thing. For instance, he calls the Idea form (εἶδος), genus (γένος), archetype (παρά-δειγμα), principle (ἀρχή) and cause (αἴτιον). He also uses contrary expressions for the same thing. Thus he calls the sensible thing both existent and non- existent, existent inasmuch as it comes into being, non-existent because it is continually changing. And he says the Idea is neither in motion nor at rest; that it is uniformly the same and yet both one and many. And it is his habit to do this in many more instances.

I think that's the jackpot. If Marcion and the early Christians borrowed from Plato - which we know they did - they certainly identified Yahweh with the Demiurge and thus ὁ φαῦλος θεός when juxtaposed to Philo's Elohim who was as aforementioned ὁ χρηστὸς θεός.

Now I am starting to wonder whether Philo also knew that Yahweh ὁ φαῦλος θεός. For my original assumption that the epithet ὁ φαῦλος derived from a Marcionite negation or devaluation of Elohim's partner. But I am not so sure. It would seem that the Platonists already identified the Demiurge as ὁ φαῦλος θεός in some form so maybe - given the fact that the Platonists didn't have this 'other god' (as Celsus repeatedly notes) in their system, ὁ χρηστὸς was actually the innovation. But the innovation was pre-Christian as Philo demonstrates.

I don't see where Plato uses φαῦλος in connection to the Demiurge. Diogenes Laertius just says that Plato uses φαῦλος to mean different things.

[Stephan Huller]

But Diogenes had a wider body of Platonic texts to deal with. Still at soccer practice.

[DCHindley]

Spin has been resurrected!

And for my next trick, I'll pull a biblical historian out of my hat.

Oops! Wrong hat!

DCH

[Stephan Huller]

Having a delicious lamb Bolognese. But there are a range of meanings and chrestoi designated the Athenian nobility just as phauloi represented the lower classes. The evyonim are similarly designated at Purim among the Jews

[Stephan Huller]

So this is what I have settled on (remember I only had this idea two days ago). There are only a few places that Παῦλος appear in our Catholic versions of the epistles. In the Marcionite original they read φαῦλος. As Tertullian notes, there is no information given about their apostle. These are generic references reworked by Irenaeus who either wrote or used Syriac texts of the New Testament (cf. Harvey). The genesis of Παῦλος derives from deliberate manipulations of the original Greek text in Syriac by Irenaeus. The original (Marcionite) references were presumably to φαῦλος, changed in Irenaeus's falsified Syriac text or perhaps re-invented as Παῦλος in his now standardized Greek text. But the idea for the 'switch' originated in Syriac presumably:

ἐγὼ Παῦλος διάκονος = φαῦλος διάκονος (Col 1:23 cf. 1 Cor 3:5)
Παῦλος δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ = φαῦλος δοῦλος (Rom 1:1, Tit 1:1)
Παῦλος ἀπόστολος Χριστοῦ = φαῦλος ἀπόστολος (2 Cor 1:1, Gal 1:1, Eph 1:1, Col 1:1, 1 Tim 1:1, 2 Tim 1:1, cf. 1 Cor 1:1)
Παῦλος δέσμιος Χριστοῦ = φαῦλος δέσμιος (Phil 1:1 cf. Eph 3:1)
ἀδελφὸς Παῦλος = ἀδελφὸς φαῦλος ?

Harvey on Irenaeus's familiarity with the Syriac recension of the NT - "A point of some interest will be found of frequent recurrence in the notes; which is, the repeated instances that Scriptural quotations afford, of having being made by one who was as familiar with some Syriac version of the New Testament, as with the Greek originals. Strange variae lectiones occur, which can only be explained by referring to the Syriac version. It will not be forgotten that S. Irenaeus resided in early life at Smyrna; and it is by no means improbable that he may have been of Syrian extraction, and instructed from his earliest infancy in some Syriac version of Scripture. It is hoped also that the Hebrew attainments of Irenaeus[4] will no longer be denied." (Praef)

[Stephan Huller]

The use of as an adjective is quite common in Greek writings. Some examples for everyone:

And yet Themistocles, during the Persian wars, to prevent a worthless man (φαῦλος ἄνθρωπος) from ruining the city as one of its generals [Plut. Comp. Nic. Crass. 3.3]

“And still easier, haply,” I said, “is this that we mentioned before when we said that if a degenerate offspring (φαῦλος ἔκγονος) was born to the guardians he must be sent away to the other classes, [Plat. Rep. 4.423c]

That is no honest and decent defence against specific charges; it is, however, an accusation against me; for if I acted as he says, I am a worthless person (φαῦλός εἰμ᾽ ἄνθρωπος); but that is far from making his actions a whit better. [Dem. 19 202]

And these are not the only motives which induce me to fight this case; but what grieves me is the possibility of being thought so worthless man (φαῦλος ἄνθρωπος) as not to be able to find a friend in his right senses, but only a madman, to adopt me. [Isaeus 2 43]

τοῖς δεομένοις προέμενος ἐκτησάμην αὐτὰ παρὰ θεῶν πολλαπλάσια καίπερ ὢν φαῦλος χρηματιστής (worthless moneygetter) [Epistle of Julian]

φαῦλος ἀνὴρ (worthless man) πίθος ἐστὶ τετρημένος, εἰς ὃν ἁπάσας ἀντλῶν τὰς χάριτας, εἰς κενὸν ἐξέχεας. [Pseudo-Lucianus]

[Stephan Huller]

It's also curious to compare the section in Colossians with the two emphatic 'ego' appearances:

This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which have become I, Paul, a servant (ἐγὼ Παῦλος διάκονος). Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church. Whereof became I, minister (ἐγὼ διάκονος) according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me.

It is so rare to find the name 'Paul' in the main body of any of the letters. It's unusual that the 'Paulos' is just inserted into one of these structures especially when what immediately follows is a reference to his lowliness. Compare the substitution of φαῦλος for a moment within the broader context:

This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which have become I, a lowly servant (ἐγὼ φαῦλος διάκονος). Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Chrestos's sufferings, for the sake of his body, which is the church. Whereof became I, minister (ἐγὼ διάκονος) according to the dispensation of God which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Chrestos in you, the hope of glory. He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Chrestos. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Chrestos so powerfully works in me.

I don't know, but φαῦλος is certainly fits the context and notice that it fits the very juxtaposition of chrestos and phaulos mentioned earlier. The apostle is saying that he is a lowly, worthless wretch before chrestos filled up his soul with light and goodness. I am not claiming this is decisive evidence but I happen to find the phaulos/chrestos juxtaposition here quite interesting and appealing.