Talk:Sergius Paulus

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If my oral family history is correct, Sergius was exiled from Rome to Germania for his faith. This might explain why Paul does not salute him in the Letter to the Romans. This is only an oral history that has been passed down for quite a few generations. I do not swear that it actually occurred, but evidence of the Church being in the region of Germany to which he was supposedly exiled prior to AD 100 does tend to support it though.

Oral history handed down almost 2 millennia; that is impressive. -- llywrch (talk) 07:54, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So, is it Paulus or Paullus?

It seems like many sources give the name as Paullus, a spelling that also appears in the painting by Raphael and in the article itself. Aviad2001 (talk) 09:26, 19 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Lucius or Quintus?

Mitford's article in Annual of the British School at Athens has an interesting passage: "The problem is further complicated by an inscription from Kythrea of the Julio-Claudian period, which raises the possibility that a Sergius Paulus, with however the praenomen Quintus, was proconsul of Cyprus." The inscription is IGR iii.935. Acts 13:6-12 does not provide a praenomen for the Sergius Paullus who was interested in Paul's preaching; there is no good reason for calling him Lucius, except that's what the older scholars told us it was.

Maybe the older scholars got his name wrong all along. -- llywrch (talk) 08:11, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I stuck a reference to that information in a footnote. I'd be happy for you to improve it. John Foxe (talk) 21:37, 7 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I was thinking this might require a re-write of the whole article. The author of Acts implies that Paul converted the proconsul Sergius Paulus (I say "imply" because had a Roman Senator embraced Christianity, it would have been a notorious scandal that might have destroyed his family -- who yet appear afterwards as consuls), which would be one article. Another article, perhaps, to discuss the family of the Sergii Pauli, who thrived for at least another century; it is possible that the famous Anicii of the 4th century are their distant descendants. I'm just not confident I know enough to untangle what is in this article & reweave the information I have found in the relevant secondary literature about the Sergii Pauli. -- llywrch (talk) 16:48, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I can imagine scenarios in which Paul's Sergius Paulus was converted but without subsequent scandal—as for instance, if he had died shortly thereafter. If the man had had the faintest of reputation thereafter, I'd expect some early Christian stories about him. I mean, if Longinus can be a saint then why not Sergius Paulus? Also, a strange coincidence I never noticed before is that Acts 13 begins by calling the protagonist "Saul," he's called "Paul" for the first time while in the presence of Sergius Paulus, and he remains "Paul" ever after.John Foxe (talk) 21:11, 8 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]