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Sosthenes was Crispus
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Sosthenes was Crispus

rfellows@intergate.ca rfellows@intergate.ca 

Fellow listers,

Back in 1992 Dale Allison showed that ancient writers often referred to the same person by different names in the same text, sometimes in a way that seems strange to the modern ear (1). My own work confirmed this (2). Examples from the NT are Cephas-Peter in Galatians, Titus-Timothy in 2 Corinthians, and John-Mark in Acts.

I propose that Crispus-Sosthenes is another example.

The name "Crispus" appears at Acts 18:8 and 1 Cor 1:4. He was the ARCISUNAGWGOS and was baptized by Paul. The name "Sosthenes" appears at Acts 18:17 and 1 Cor 1:1. He was the ARCISUNAGWGOS and he (or another Sosthenes) became a believer.

By equating Sosthenes with Crispus we can finally make sense of Acts 18:1-17. Luke is saying that Paul set up a rival congregation right next to the Synagogue, and Crispus-Sosthenes, the Synagogue official, defected to Paul's camp, and many others followed. This was hard for the non-defecting Jews to take, so they made an attack on Paul. When this failed they vented their anger on Crispus-Sosthenes, who was one of Paul's most important allies.

I suggest that by using the word ARCISUNAGWGOS again in 18:17, and by using the article again, Luke signals to the reader that "Sosthenes" is to be equated with the aforementioned Crispus.

The Crispus-Sosthenes hypothesis has the following advantages over the usual two-person hypothesis:

1) It disambiguates Acts 18:17. If the reader is not to understand Sosthenes to be Crispus then the passage is hopelessly ambiguous. We are left to guess why Sosthenes was beaten. Why didn't Luke clarify?

2) It makes the person who was beaten up a believer, and this fits the pattern of all the other similar passages in Acts. Luke tells many stories of believers being attacked, but very few of non-believers being attacked. A particularly close parallel can be found in Acts 17:1-9. There too we are told that the Jews became jealous and tried to attack Paul, that they failed, and that they then vented their anger on one of Paul's associates. If, on the other hand, Sosthenes is not to be equated with Crispus, then Luke surely intends for the reader to assume that Sosthenes is not a believer in Christ, and this would make the passage unprecedented in Acts.

3) It removes the coincidence of having two ARCISUNAGWGOI in the same passage. 

4) It removes the coincidence of having two Corinthians called Sosthenes. (or two ARCISUNAGWGOI who became believers). For the Sosthenes of 1 Cor 1:1 is a believer.

5) If Sosthenes is not be be understood to be Crispus then 18:17 seems to contradict 18:8. In one verse we are told that Crispus is the ARCISUNAGWGOS, while in the other we are told that Sosthenes is the ARCISUNAGWGOS. This is odd. Why doesn't Luke clarify by writing something like "the official of another synagogue", or "the next official of the synagogue"? (This problem has led some scholars to propose that Luke combined different stories here, and this has led them to some novel chronologies of Paul's life).

6) Crispus-Sosthenes left Corinth and moved to Ephesus where he appears with Paul in 1 Cor 1:1. This explains why the name "Crispus" is not mentioned in Romans.

How, then, did one person acquire the names "Crispus", and "Sosthenes". I suggest that Crispus adopted the name "Sosthenes" at or around the time of his baptism. Sosthenes means saviour, strong, or powerful. Perhaps Paul named Crispus "strong" in much the same way that Jesus named Simon "rock".

(1) "Peter and Cephas: one and the same", JBL 111, p489-495.
(2) "Was Titus Timothy?", JSNT 81 (2001) p33-58.

Richard Fellows
Winnipeg
Canada