The Amazing Name Paul: Meaning And Etymology

There are two men named Paulos (that's Greek), Paulus (that's Latin) or Paul (that's English) in the New Testament, namely (1) Sergius Paulus, a Roman proconsul of Cyprus who hosted the Jewish pseudo-prophet Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:7), and of course (2) the evangelist Paul of Tarsus. These two men have the same name, even though in English Bibles the name of the evangelist is commonly truncated to Paul, whereas the name Sergius Paulus is given in its un-truncated Latin form.

The apostle Paul, who authored pretty much half of the New Testament, started his career as Saul of Tarsus (Acts 21:39), and was known as Saul until Acts 13:9, where he begins to be called Paul. The Roman author of the Vulgate, Jerome, proposed that this name change was due to Saul having converted the original proconsul Paul (a common mechanism that also allowed the Jewish historian Yosef ben Matiyahu to adopt the name Titus Flavius Josephus, after the general and future emperor Titus Flavius Vespasianus). It's a compelling proposal, also because Saul rhetorically asks Bar-Jesus: "Will you not cease (παυω, pauo, see below) to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?" In Biblical terms, however, the primary association of the Saul-to-Paul name-change is with the Torah's name-change-theme (Genesis 17:5, 17:15, 32:28).

Saul, a Benjaminite and Hellenistic Jew was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5) trained by Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). He fiercely opposed Christianity at first. He assisted during the stoning of Stephen (Acts 7:58; see 2 Kings 10:22 and 22:14) and severely persecuted Christians (Acts 8:3). But he had an encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus and was blind for three days because of it (Acts 9:3, 9:9; note the curious parallel with Sergius Paulus' protégé Bar-Jesus: Acts 13:11). While Saul's eyesight was coming back, he embraced the gospel. He traveled all over the known world, often alone but also accompanied by John-Mark (Acts 13:13), Luke (Colossians 4:14), Silas (Acts 15:40), Timothy and others (Acts 20:4).

The Lord appeared to Paul a second time and told him that he had to go to Rome and witness of him there (Acts 23:11). Paul achieved this by appealing to Caesar while being heard by Porcius Festus (Acts 25:12). According to Ignatius of Antioch, Paul was martyred. That happened probably in the second half of the sixties, on orders of emperor Nero.

The name Paul occurs 163 times in the New Testament; see full concordance.