1. Scholarly Solutions for Onomastic Overlap

The underlying problem concerning the named figures in the Acts of Paul can be stated briefly. There are five characters in the Thecla narrative (Acts Paul 3–4), apart from Paul himself, who overlap with characters of the same name elsewhere in the Pauline tradition: Onesiphorus, Demas, Hermogenes, Alexander and Tryphaena.Footnote ³ The first four of these appear notably in 2 Timothy. When one looks closely, however, the details of the characters in their various presentations do not neatly align. Onesiphorus appears to be located in Ephesus in 2 Tim 1.15 (cf. 4.19), while the Onesiphorus of the Acts of Paul is met in Iconium (Acts Paul 3.1). Demas is mentioned positively as sending his greetings with Paul, Luke and others in Col 4.14 and Phlm 24 while the Demas of 2 Tim 4.10 has abandoned Paul for love of the world and is ‘full of hypocrisy’ and pretending love for Paul in Acts Paul 3.1. In 1 Tim 1.20, a certain Alexander has been put out of the community, ‘handed over to Satan’, by Paul, and the Alexander of 2 Tim 4.14 is specified as a bronze smith (ὁ χαλκεύς) and has evidently caused great harm.Footnote ⁴ In the Acts of Paul, however, Alexander is a leader in Antioch, unaffiliated with the Christian community.Footnote ⁵ Finally, Hermogenes is associated with a certain Phygelus in 2 Tim 1.15 and numbered among those who abandoned Paul in Asia, though no other moral or personal failings are specified, while in Acts Paul 3.1 he is specified as a coppersmith (ὁ χαλκεύς) and also associated with Demas, rather than Phygelus, as one ‘full of hypocrisy’.

Given the clear overlap, some relationship between the figures in each text appears difficult to avoid. But is the problem one of confusion, conflation, alternative traditions or something else? Dennis MacDonald has famously argued for the common use of oral tradition so that the ‘variations can be attributed to the vagaries of the storytelling process’.Footnote ⁶ Hermogenes and Demas are, in this view, doubled characters common to orally transmitted folk tales.Footnote ⁷ The presence of a different ‘smith’ in 2 Tim 4.14 and its transferral to Hermogenes is only indicative of different uses of generally circulating and fluid oral traditions. MacDonald's corollary argument is that an identification of Hermogenes as a ‘smith’ after the composition of the Pastorals would necessarily be mistaken. His broader analysis has been forcefully criticised by numerous scholars – for its selective reading of gender roles in the Acts of Paul and its difficulty in explaining the composition of the work from oral legends after the Pastoral Epistles had gained canonical status, among other things – although it remains difficult to discount the possibilities around oral tradition entirely.Footnote ⁸ MacDonald acknowledges, however, that the Thecla narrative, as the literary work we have, was written after the Pastoral Epistles.Footnote ⁹ What is not explained in his view, however, is why a ‘mistaken’ identification of Hermogenes as a smith would be kept in a work put into literary form after the Pastorals had gained widespread acceptance. As will become clear, once the smith-notice is situated in its early Christian and narrative contexts, no correlation between different ‘smiths’ need be sought nor does the ‘smith’ characterisation of Hermogenes after 2 Timothy necessarily fall under the category of ‘mistake’.

A different confusion model is adopted, often implicitly, by other scholars as part of a broader construal of the relation between the Pastorals and the Acts of Paul. Peter Dunn, for instance, argues that ‘2 Timothy seems to have provided the inspiration’ for Demas and Hermogenes, who are representatives of false teaching more generally, conflating the failures of each character in 2 Timothy along with broader patterns of false-teachers in the Pastorals.Footnote ¹⁰ In a similar way, Elizabeth Esch-Wermeling argues that the ‘final’ form of the Thecla narrative is generally dependent on 2 Timothy for the characters and the pattern of Thecla's actions in the Iconium episode.Footnote ¹¹ More specifically, it is often noted that Demas, a positive figure in Philemon and Colossians, is treated negatively in 2 Timothy,Footnote ¹² along with other opponents such as Hermogenes and Alexander the coppersmith. While this solution – confusion within direct literary dependence of the Acts of Paul on 2 Timothy – neatly accounts for similarities, MacDonald rightly notes that it has more difficulty accounting for the differences.Footnote ¹³ The question ‘Why does the author of the Acts of Paul alter these characterisations and associations?’ remains open here.Footnote ¹⁴ Most commonly, in opting for a soft ‘confusion’ solution, the differences are either subsumed generally under the deliberately hazy category of ‘inspiration’ or dismissed as products of a careless composer.Footnote ¹⁵ On the other hand, in a rare narrative solution to the problems posed by Demas and Hermogenes, Richard Bauckham has argued for a much more deliberate act of conflation in which all of the opponents of Paul in 2 Timothy are collapsed into the figures of Demas and Hermogenes for ‘effective storytelling technique’ that was also evident in ancient Jewish exegesis of scripture.Footnote ¹⁶

The confusion/conflation solutions work on a general level – particularly with reference to Demas and Hermogenes as generally representative figures – though why the author used those two specifically is impossible to say for sure. One might argue that the selection was helped, intentionally or not, by the relative commonness of the names. According to the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names, Hermogenes occurs 594 times and Demas 25 times.Footnote ¹⁷ By comparison, Phygelus occurs only twice. Even if this were the case, however, it is harder to explain why Hermogenes alone is described as a coppersmith if both Demas and Hermogenes are cyphers for more general opposition.Footnote ¹⁸ Indeed, ancient scribes evidently experienced some confusion about the referent of the coppersmith-notice and attempted to fix it in various ways.Footnote ¹⁹

Bauckham's argument that the author of the Acts of Paul has deliberately conflated Alexander the coppersmith with Demas and Hermogenes appears to suggest that he has signalled this conflation by transferring the description ‘coppersmith’ to Hermogenes as an individual, despite the fact that Bauckham notes the closer link in 2 Timothy between Demas and Alexander.Footnote ²⁰ His appeal to Jewish exegetical practices, while suggestive in general terms, provides no precedent that I am aware of for such a transfer. On Bauckham's analogy, it is more likely that the author would have expanded the information about Demas and Hermogenes on the basis of their description and suggestive silences about them in Paul's letters rather than the descriptions of other unrelated persons.

In support of a soft ‘confusion’ view, one might point further to other early Christian texts which introduce discrepancies when reworking on their (often authoritative) base narrative. Works such as the Pseudo-Clementine homilies, Infancy Gospels and several Apocryphal Acts all build on preceding narratives and characters by filling in perceived narratological gaps or omissions that invite rumination on what happens ‘offstage’ – either between or after narrated events. They normally draw on a range of texts and traditions, at times with a harmonising impulse and at times selecting one account over another, thus producing a new narrative.Footnote ²¹ The Protevangelium of James, for example, which is clearly drawing on the shorter birth traditions in Matthew and Luke, expands numerous elements of the story to produce a compelling hagiographical account of Mary's and Jesus’ birth. New figures and plot points are added, from Mary's birth and upbringing to the ill-considered examination of her postpartum virginity. Even certain geographical elements appear to shift – the birth in Bethlehem and laying of Jesus in the manger becomes a birth just outside Bethlehem in a cave. These additions and changes, however, are perhaps best read as efforts to interpret the base narratives, to clarify their significance and expand on perceived emphases, correlating exegetical insights and (potentially) circulating tradition.Footnote ²² The impulses that give rise to these additions and differences are several – e.g. harmonisation, hagiographical exaggeration, the needs of the newly expanded narrative. Even so, there do not appear to be any instances where characteristics of omitted characters are transferred to those in the narrative. Rather, already named characters are given further imaginative expansion based on their profile in the Matthean and Lukan accounts. Other examples could be added.Footnote ²³

Similarly, the Acts of Paul can be seen to work exegetically in its portrayal of Paul and his ministry, expanding on perceived textual invitations and lacunae.Footnote ²⁴ The Ephesus episode (Acts Paul 9), for instance, appears to develop from Paul's passing comments about fighting beasts in Ephesus in 1 Cor 15.32. Within the Thecla narrative, exegetical and harmonising tendencies are evident in the presentation of Paul's teaching: the discussion of sexual renunciation in 1 Cor 7 is combined with the form of and some material from the sermon on the mount in Matt 5 (see Acts Paul 3.6). It is not clear, however, whether characterisation functions as exegetical expansion or harmonisation in the same way. Certainly it does not do so for all characters. Thecla, for instance, is not an exegetical expansion of other figures in the Pauline tradition. In the case of Demas and Hermogenes, their minimal presence in letters attributed to Paul may well provide space for creative portrayal, but transferring an attribute from a specific and evidently omitted figure (Alexander) onto one of the named figures still remains unprecedented. In fact, such a solution to the smith-notice is also unnecessary once the narrative characterisation in the Thecla narrative is clarified.

2. Narrative Characterisation in Acts of Paul 3–4

If, then, appeals to common traditions, garbled literary dependence on 2 Timothy and Jewish exegetical practices do not account satisfactorily for Hermogenes’ description, a third option must be explored. The question must be asked, what is the internal, literary function of Hermogenes being a ‘coppersmith’ and how might that relate to similar personal details in the text more broadly? Moreover, we must ask what that detail is likely to have communicated to a Christian audience in the late second century (and later). Indeed, these questions need to be asked before any attempt is made to draw on such characterisations for evidence of textual relationships.

Undoubtedly the most famous description in the Thecla narrative is the description of Paul supplied when Onesiphorus sees him on the road: ‘a short man, with a bald head, bow-legged, sturdy, with meeting eyebrows and a moderately long nose – full of grace. Now he appeared as a man, and now he had the face of an angel’ (Acts Paul 3.3). It hardly needs to be said that this description owes nothing to either the Pauline letters or to Acts for the physical details included. While it is just possible that some oral tradition regarding Paul's general appearance had survived, the specific details are in keeping with the enduring Greco-Roman interest in physiognomy and are not normally taken to provide anything of historical value. In the context of the Thecla narrative more broadly, the description does at least three things. First, it highlights the ‘spiritual’ sensitivity of Onesiphorus who was only working from a second-hand description when looking for Paul. On one hand he is able to recognise the physical features that (presumably) were described to him by Titus. On the other hand, his recognition of Paul's simultaneous visage of man and angel builds on the fact that Onesiphorus, we were told earlier, ‘had not seen him in the flesh but only in the spirit’ (3.2). When Onesiphorus is later confronted by Demas and Hermogenes for his lack of welcome for them, he responds, ‘I did not see the fruit of righteousness in you’ (3.4), a further indication of his spiritual discernment which sees beyond the façade of Paul's two (ostensibly) loving companions. Second, the physical details function as physiognomic markers that characterise Paul for the readers, perhaps as a great general or an ideal philosopher.Footnote ²⁵ Third, the fact that Paul is angelic and ‘full of grace’ indicates that his merits go well beyond his physical appearance, however that is construed, which is later picked up as Thecla is enthralled by his teaching before ever laying eyes on him (3.7).Footnote ²⁶

When we meet Thecla, we are told that she is ‘a virgin, the daughter of Theocleia’ and ‘engaged to a man, Thamyris’ (3.7). Each of these details forms a crucial part of the characterisation of Thecla. Identifying her as a virgin links her with Paul's previous beatitudes (3.5–6) and places her in the same category as the virgins whom she sees visiting Paul. Furthermore, her virginity and her relations to Theocleia and Thamyris provide the necessary foundation for the narrative in Iconium. Theocleia and Thamyris are not described when they are introduced again in 3.8, though Theocleia is both named and identified as ‘her mother’ as she condemns Thecla to burn at the stake (3.20). This detail, which is already known to the reader, is nevertheless introduced for literary effect: to increase the pathos of the situation. After Thecla is delivered from her first trial in Iconium, she is discovered by one of Onesiphorus’ children as she wanders around looking for Paul: ‘When the child was going to buy food, he saw Thecla, his neighbour, and he was astounded …’ (3.23). Although one could surmise from the description of Thecla at her window that she lived fairly near Onesiphorus, the reader is here told that she was his neighbour, which explains how it is that the child recognised her. If the boy had been outside the city during the execution-attempt, with his parents and Paul, and not privy to the trial itself, how else would he have recognised her? The narrator does not leave the reader with any questions on that point. Again the biographical detail fulfils a specific role within the narrative.

This pattern continues in the Antioch episode. Alexander is described as a ‘Syriarch’ and/or ‘a leader among the Antiochenes’ (4.1). The textual difficulties at this point need not detract from the fact that both descriptions provide the context for understanding the narrative that follows.Footnote ²⁷ As Syriarch, Alexander wears a wreath that indicated his status and his responsibilities towards the imperial cult, among other things.Footnote ²⁸ Thecla's removal of his crown thus produces shame for which he must seek retribution. His status indicates that he has the resources to have her condemned ad bestias and to finance the spectacle in the theatre.

Tryphaena, when first introduced, is identified as a wealthy woman whose daughter has died (4.2). As with the previous examples, these details serve a narrative purpose. Tryphaena's wealth, and perhaps royalty which also features later in the narrative, serve to explain how it is that she could harbour Thecla between her trial and execution: she had the resources and status to make good on Thecla's request to remain a virgin. Her dead daughter provides motive for her to rescue Thecla as well as explaining her immediate and deep attachment to the condemned foreign girl.

3. Hermogenes among Early Christian Smiths

From these examples, it is evident that the author of the Thecla narrative uses biographical details about the characters for literary purposes. Each detail either picks up on some already extant narrative thread – as in the case of reminding the audience that Thecla's mother was calling for her execution and the clarification that the boy and Thecla were neighbours – or lays the groundwork for later narrative developments. If this is the case for other such personal material, it stands to reason that it is also probably the case for Hermogenes, to whom I now return. At first blush, there appears to be a complete lack of interest in Hermogenes’ craft subsequent to the notice in 3.1. What is developed instead is the description following the coppersmith-notice: being full of hypocrisy and only feigning love for Paul. Such a characterisation, it turns out, is in keeping with the dubious status of smiths in early Christianity.

In the early church, those who formed images for a living were associated in the first place with idolatry. Inheriting a ubiquitously negative assessment of idols from Jewish scriptures and tradition, the early Christians were evidently unanimous in their rejection of idolatry. Anti-idolatry teaching featured as part of the earliest Christian instruction among Greeks and Romans, seen in the fact that Paul told his Corinthian converts that idolaters will not inherit the kingdom of heaven (1 Cor 6.9); consequently they should ‘flee idolatry’ (10.14).Footnote ²⁹ This rejection of idolatry is found throughout the Pauline letters and elsewhere within the emerging New Testament canon.Footnote ³⁰ Moreover, one finds warnings against idolatry from the Didache at the beginning of the second century to Tertullian and beyond.Footnote ³¹ Not content to leave a criticism of idol-production implicit in the condemnation of the product, some writers specifically criticised bronze and silver workers as those responsible for such manufacture. In the Epistula ad Diognetum, the author engages in anti-idol polemic, following a scriptural model.Footnote ³²

Even more forcefully, Tertullian states bluntly that images of worldly things are idols and that ‘whatever idolatry is committed [viz. in the consecration of images] is necessarily imputed to every manufacturer of every idol’.Footnote ³⁴ He goes on later in the same tractate to deplore the election of artifices idolorum to ecclesiastical office (Idol. 7.3). It is unclear whether those artifices who were being elected in fact made idols, since Tertullian's definition includes all images of the natural world, whether consecrated or not (4.1). In any case, his concern is matched by the later Apostolic Tradition, which maintained the early Christian anxiety around idols by restricting entry to the community.Footnote ³⁵ In its discussion of the initial interview for admission to the catechumenate, one's vocation and social status was of great importance. If one were to be ‘a fabricator of figures or a painter, let them be taught not to make idols. They shall cease or they shall be cast away.’Footnote ³⁶

Closer to home for Pauline reception, Paul's message had run afoul of smiths at least twice in his recorded career, and both of these instances featured as part of his emerging scriptural portrait by the end of the second century. In Acts 19, Demetrius the silversmith instigated a riot when he felt that his profession was being endangered by Paul's ministry, and in 2 Tim 4.14 we are told that a certain Alexander, who was a smith, caused Paul great trouble.Footnote ³⁷ Moreover, early readers may well have understood this Alexander as once having been part of the community (1 Tim 1.20). Tertullian's exclusion of smiths from authority positions in the church and the Apostolic Tradition’s restriction of entry for smiths would thereby have some scriptural grounding here: a smith who infiltrated the Christian community and then caused Paul great distress. This suggestion should not be confused with Bauckham's argument, noted above, that the author of the Acts of Paul has conflated the Alexander of 2 Tim 4.14 specifically with Hermogenes. Rather, the point here is that the scriptural accounts of Paul's ministry contribute to the atmosphere of distrust towards smiths in the early centuries of Christianity.

Given that biographical information in the Thecla narrative consistently has a narrative function, the dubious status of smiths in the early church takes us some way towards understanding the function of the coppersmith-notice. When the general anxiety around smiths is combined with multiple episodes in which Paul has run-ins with smiths during his own ministry, the narrative function of the notice becomes clear. This renders unnecessary theories of reception in which Hermogenes is either mistakenly or deliberately conflated with Alexander the coppersmith. It is, rather, better seen as sounding an ominous note at the beginning of their introduction: a (dubious) smith is involved, who is full of hypocrisy and only feigning love for Paul … The audience now knows how that relationship will turn out! Much like a musical theme for a vaudeville villain, Hermogenes is thus introduced to the reader. In the words of the later reworking of this story by Pseudo-Basil, ‘these two were not good men’.Footnote ³⁸