Marking Scriptural Figures as Sacred Names

Abstract

The use of scriptural names is a basic building block of ancient paideia as it is represented by Philo and Christian ecclesiastical writers after him. After learning letters, and then syllables, students would learn words (ὀνόματα), including through lists of onomastica intended to aid students both in learning to write and in ordering the world. I argue that the grammatical-ethical instruction that is found in Philo’s and early Christian writers’ investment in the practice of writing names in the process of paideia is also evident in the paratextual practice of marking sacred names. Lists variously attributed to Pseudo-Dorotheus, Pseudo-Epiphanius, and Pseudo-Hippolytus attest to the onomastic tradition preserved in manuscripts, while the names of scriptural figures have been marked almost as nomina sacra in the texts of 3 Corinthians, Jude, and 1 and 2 Peter, which were bound with the Bodmer Composite Codex.

1. Introduction

Philo begins his treatise On Abraham noting that Genesis is an account of the creation of the world, but it also includes “numberless other matters.” It tells of “peace and war, fruitfulness and barrenness, of dearth and plenty; how fire and water wrought great destruction of what is on earth; how on the other hand plants and animals were born and throve through the kindly tempering of the air and the yearly seasons, and so too men, some of whom lived a life of virtue, others of vice” (De Abr. 1–2; trans. Colson, Philo 1935a, pp. 4–5). As part of his consideration of “the law,” Philo explains, he examines the ἀρχέτυπον—the originals of the so-called copies of the laws. “These are,” he goes on, “such men as lived good and blameless lives, whose virtues stand permanently recorded in the most holy scriptures, not merely to sound their praises but for the instruction of the reader and as an inducement to him to aspire to the same” (De Abr. 4; trans. Colson, Philo 1935a, pp. 6–7). The remainder of the treatise is a an allegorical-philosophical-theological retelling of Abraham’s history through a narrative lineage of archetypal exemplars, including Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and lastly Moses, to whom the authorship of Genesis is attributed. The treatise ends with the statement that Abraham, having been taught not by written words but through “unwritten nature,” both obeyed the law and was “himself a law and an unwritten statute” (De Abr. 276; trans. Colson, Philo 1935a, pp. 134–35). Elsewhere in Philo’s corpus, Moses, “the greatest and most perfect man that ever lived,” provides “the monument of his own life like an original design to be [a] beautiful model [παράδειγμα καλόν]” (Virt. 51; trans. Colson, Philo 1939, pp. 194–95). “Happy are those who imprint, or strive to imprint [ἐναπομάσσω], that image in their souls” (Mos. 1.158–9; trans. Colson, Philo 1935b, pp. 358–59).1 Sarah and Hagar and Leah and Rachel are also allegorically contrasted to illustrate education toward virtue (Congr. 23–33; trans. Colson and Whitaker, Philo 1932, pp. 468–75).2

Paideia is central to Philo’s efforts to build Jewish tradition into the philosophical, theological, and political landscape of Hellenism (Najman 2010a).3 In combining these ancient phenomena, paideia provides a strategically malleable method wherein Jewish scriptural figures come to stand in for various Hellenistic principles of virtue or vice in the process of educating and enculturating students into a life of moral practice. These archetypes are intended to be timeless models of both the learning process itself and acting virtuously. I argue here that grammatical-ethical instruction is not only evident in Philo’s and early Christian writers’ interest in paideia, but also in paratextual features such as prophet/apostle/disciple lists and the scribal marking of scriptural figures in a similar way to nomina sacra. The stages of ancient paideia, including the use of names in the process of learning, has been widely studied, but the material evidence, particularly that found in the marginal and paratextual material in New Testament manuscripts, has received much less attention.

Philo commonly uses τύπος in reference to scriptural examples, for instance with reference to Cain and Abel as archetypes, though a variety of “model” vocabulary is found throughout his corpus. He insists that when Cain murdered Abel, “he has slain that which shared Abel’s name, the specimen (εἶδος), the part (μέρος), the impression (τύπον) stamped to resemble him, not the original (ἀρχέτυπον), not the class (γένος), not the pattern (ἰδέαν)… (Det. 78; trans. Colson and Whitaker, Philo 1929, pp. 254–55). Hindy Najman refers to two main dimensions of this kind of typological language: the copying dimension indicating that a τύπος is a copy or imprint of some original example, and the psychological dimension by which a τύπος is a character trait learned through education and practice (Najman 2010b, pp. 211–12). Figures from the scriptural past are deployed as ideal characterizations of particular virtues and vices, and this ethical-historical aspect is central to exemplarity, the use and characterization of a figure of prestige for rhetorical effect, particularly in the exhortation to act (or not act) as they did. Indeed, as Najman expounds: “the laws themselves are described as tupoi, images or impressions which the Israelites are told to stamp upon their hearts. Cosmologically speaking, the law of Moses is a copy of the law of nature… [p]sychologically speaking, to observe Mosaic law is to efface the evil that results from transgression and foolishness, and to restamp one’s soul with the character of goodness and virtue” (Najman 2010b, p. 212). Exemplary figures are not just illustrations of virtue, they are models from the past for readers to imitate in the present. This is paraenesis at its most substantial: exemplary models leave an impression that changes not only the actions but also the character of their imitator. That ancient Judaism and Hellenism are mutually-informed in Philo’s conception of paideia is also reflected in the practice of students learning Greek by writing Jewish scriptural names.

2. Names and Models in Ancient Paideia

The vocabulary for describing the use of models in an educational setting is often described in moral terms, and the use of names features as a stage in the process of language acquisition. In the glossary of the Hermeneumata Pseudodositheana, a likely third-century collection of glossaries, short didactic scenes, and bilingual aids for teaching Greek and Latin, the term ὑπογραμμός is translated into Latin as exemplar as well as praescriptum (Goetz 1892, p. 225; Dickey 2012, pp. 105–6; Cribiore 1996, p. 122). In the colloquiua of the Hermeneumata, a student describes arriving at school and rubbing out their work from the previous day, before copying some text and showing it to the teacher. The text is arranged in bilingual columns (with an English translation provided in Dickey 2012, pp. 105–6):

παραγράφω	praeduco	I rule lines
πρὸς τὸν ὑπογραμμόν	ad praescriptum	following the model4

In the Hermeneumata, then, several terms in both Greek and Latin can describe the educational use of a model, and these are applied to the materials used by students in their process of learning language.

Clement of Alexandria refers to ὑπογραμμοὶ παιδικοί, models for children to copy writing from, noting specifically strings of χαλινοί, literally bits or reins (Strom. 5.8.48.4–9; 49.1).5 While χαλινοί are typically nonsensical strings of “words” containing all the letters in the alphabet, Clement imbues his with meaning: of the third string of “tongue twisters” he says that it signifies the necessity of arranging the elements and the world to advance toward knowledge, offering an interpretive take on each word in the string, such as that ζβυχθηδόν means “difficulty” (χαλεπότητα; Strom. 5.8.49.1–50.3; cf. Quintilian, Inst. 1.1.37; trans. Russell, Quintilian 2002, pp. 80–83). The connection between learning to write and “securing eternal salvation” (περιγινομένης τῆς αἰωνίου σωτηρίας) is a live one for Clement (Strom. 5.8.49.1).

In a letter to Lucilius, Seneca notes that pueri ad praescriptum discunt, “children learn according to a model,” (Epist. 94.51; trans. Gummere, Seneca 1925, pp. 44–45; Cribiore 1996, p. 122). According to Seneca, an adult first holds the child’s fingers and draws the letters, and then the child is told to copy the model. This is presented as an example of why the mind and soul require instruction and guidance: similarly to the child learning letters, says Seneca, “the mind is helped if it is taught according to direction (praescriptum)” (Epist. 94.52; trans. Gummere, Seneca 1925, pp. 44–45). Quintilian uses the same term in reference to a carved wooden model that could be traced without an adult’s help, and which was said to be more effective than similar models made from wax (Inst. or. 1.1.27–28; trans. Russell, Quintilian 2002, pp. 76–79; Cribiore 1996, p. 122). Prior to this, Quintilian complains that some children are taught the alphabet before the shape of the letters, noting that, “it will be best therefore for them to be taught the appearance and the name side by side: it is like recognizing people” (Inst. or. 1.1.25–26, emphasis mine; trans. Russell, Quintilian 2002, pp. 76–77). The comparison of letters to people is an apt one for my purposes here—Quintilian essentially personifies the basic building blocks of grammatical instruction. As we will see, the use of scriptural figures and their names is also a tool for inscribing both language learning and moral education.

The use of scriptural names is a basic building block of ancient paideia as it is represented by Philo and Christian ecclesiastical writers after him (Colson 1917, pp. 151–62).6 After learning letters, and then syllables, students would learn words (ὀνόματα, also the word for names), including through lists of onomastica intended not only to aid students in learning to write but also in ordering the world, as was clear from Philo’s introduction to his treatise On Abraham.7 Describing the stages of elementary education, the famed first-century Latin rhetorician and teacher Quintilian notes that, “when the child (according to the usual practice) begins to write names… I should like to suggest that the lines set for copying should not be meaningless sentences, but should convey some moral lesson” (Inst. 1.1.35–36; trans. Russell, Quintilian 2002, pp. 80–81; cf. Larsen 2017, p. 162). In the effort to tie grammatical and moral formation education, famous figures came to play a key role in early education.

Using similar vocabulary as these Greco-Roman grammarians, the first and/or second-century New Testament epistles 1 and 2 Peter, James, and Jude describe exempla from the Jewish scriptural past as both positive and negative exemplary models.8 In 1 Peter, Jesus is said to have left behind an example, ὑπολιμπάνων ὑπογραμμόν, which refers to Jesus’ ethical legacy as one who suffered unjustly on behalf of others (2:21). Here, Jesus is described as the Isaianic Suffering Servant (cf. 1 Pet 2:21–25 and Isa 53:4–9). Ὑπογραμμόν also appears in 2 Maccabees where it refers to guidelines or an imprint with regard to the creative license of an author summarizing another’s work (2 Macc 2:28). Ὑπόδειγμα, model or pattern, is used in James in reference to the prophets who serve as models of suffering (Jas 5:10) and in 2 Peter to describe Sodom and Gomorrah’s justly-deserved destruction that serves as an example to anyone who would do as they did (2 Pet 2:6). Also in the context of Sodom and Gomorrah, Jude refers to these cursed cities as a δεῖγμα of the destruction of eternal fire (Jude 7). Only these two terms, ὑπόδειγμα and δεῖγμα, are used in reference both to positive and negative exemplars in the Catholic Epistles. Words related to τύπος are less commonly attributed to scriptural figures in the New Testament, but there are a few examples. In 1 Peter 3:21, regarding the “days of Noah” during which eight souls were saved and their “salvation through water” corresponds to (ἀντίτυπον) baptism. Though not in relation to a particular figure, in Hebrews 9:23–24, ἀντίτυπα means something like “copies”—also called the ὑποδείγματα τῶν ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς, representations of the heavenly things—corresponding to the “true” [ἀληθινῶν] tabernacle, even “heaven itself.”9 In the New Testament, then, we again find a variety of terminology related to models and exemplars that correspond to copies and ethical imitation. The link between listing, marking, and calling special narrative attention to scriptural figures, particularly with regard to moral formation, is a common one.

Centuries after both Philo and the penning of the New Testament letters, Jerome advises a noblewoman named Laeta to give her daughter, Paula, toy letters to play with, so that she will become familiar with them and can eventually learn to write as part of the process of training her soul. He writes that the words chosen for her continuing education in forming sentences “should not be taken at haphazard but be definitely chosen and arranged on purpose,” so wordlists should include “the names of the prophets and the apostles, and the whole list of patriarchs from Adam downwards, as Matthew and Luke give it” (Epist. 107.4; trans. Wright, Jerome 1933, pp. 346–47; cf. Larsen 2017, p. 162). Later, Jerome lists a number of scriptures to read so that the growing Paula might learn life lessons from proverbs of Solomon and virtue and patience from Job (Epist. 107.12; trans. Wright, Jerome 1933, pp. 364–65). Scriptural figures serve as a key element for Paula’s education in both language and living. Basil also recommends the use and memorization of names from the scriptures (ὀνόμασιν αὐτοὺς τοῖς ἐκ τῶν γραφῶν κεχρῆσθαι), sentences from Proverbs, and Christian stories in place of “myths” in monastic education (παιδεύειν, Reg. fus. 15; Migne 1885, pp. 953–54; cf. Larsen 2017, p. 158, 162–63).10

3. Pseudo-Dorotheus and Onomastic Traditions

One form that the suggested listing of scriptural figures takes is a broad tradition of onomastica and the cataloguing of prophets, apostles, and disciples. Such lists are found in a number of manuscripts and are variously attributed to Pseudo-Dorotheus, Pseudo-Hippolytus, and Pseudo-Epiphanius (see Allen 2020, pp. 172–75; Turner 1913, pp. 53–65; Schermann 1907).11 Lists attributed to Pseudo-Hippolytus, preserved in at least 46 Greek New Testament manuscripts ranging from the tenth to the eighteenth century, list the disciples along with where they preached and “where they met their end.”12 Eusebius describes a learned fourth-century Antiochene priest and eunuch named Dorotheus from Tyre who could fluently read and exposit the Hebrew scriptures from their original language. According to Eusebius, he was also “by no means unacquainted with the most liberal studies and Greek primary education [προπαιδείας],” that is, he was knowledgeable about Greek paideia (Hist. eccl. 7.32.1–4; trans. Oulton, Eusebius 1932, pp. 226–29).

Eusebius’s characterization of Dorotheus as knowledgeable about the Hebrew scriptures and about Greek paideia along with the traditional attribution of disciple and apostle lists attributed to him provides a link between the copying and marking of Jewish scriptural exempla and the cataloguing of early Christian leaders, their ministries, and their martyrdom. It may even be the case that such Christian lists are intentional appropriations of Jewish tradition, as there are a number of significant “catalogues” of Jewish scriptural exempla in a diversity of Jewish and early Christian works that use many of the same figures.13 In some manuscripts, the apostle and disciple lists are juxtaposed with a similar list of the lives of the prophets. Like the disciple and apostle lists which detail the lives and ministries of the apostles and “where they met their end,” the prophet lists, too, detail “the names of the prophets, where they were, where they died, and how and where they were buried.”14 Eusebius’s characterization of Dorotheus of Tyre as learned in both Hebrew and Greek and the fact that some commentators assert that the prophet list was originally a Jewish composition could help explain why lists of prophets from the Jewish scriptural past are juxtaposed alongside the disciple and apostle lists. Their collation under a Christian ecclesiastical pseudonym brings us full circle: both Jewish and Christian scriptural figures are specially marked and listed in manuscripts of New Testament works, reflecting not only a keen interest in preserving tradition associated with such figures but also in providing a systematic catalogue to remember their lives, works, and deaths.15 Listing out such figures was an educational exercise, inscribing the basic building blocks of written language and grammar as well as an ethical example of good living.

The Pseudo-Dorothean material, included as it is in a significant number of manuscripts containing parts or all of the canonical New Testament collection, is intertwined with the textual tradition itself, both drawing on the text, for example, the list of disciples in Matthew 10:2–4 or the reference to Jesus sending out seventy-two apostles in Luke 10:1–24, and expanding on the canonical information provided about Jesus’s disciples (sometimes including Paul) and apostles. Paratextual features such as these lists of apostles and disciples substantially change the material presentation of the canonical text by imposing a paratextual frame. While the lists draw on scriptural tradition and narrative to contextualize the names mentioned, the perpetuation of scriptural tradition for these manuscripts also depends on the extension and expansion of tradition associated with these named figures.

The disciple and apostle lists also establish a line of apostolic succession, both in their catalogue of early church leaders and in their traditional and varied attribution: Hippolytus was a disciple of Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John; (pseudo-)Epiphanius of Salamis was a fourth century bishop; and (pseudo-)Dorotheus, as Eusebius described, was a fourth-century learned man from Tyre who impressed the Antiochene episcopate with his knowledge of Hebrew language and scripture and Greek education.

The tradition of cataloguing and occasionally providing narrative context and etymologies for both Jewish and Christian names goes even deeper.16 Some manuscripts containing New Testament works include lexical lists of biblical names, sometimes in addition to Pseudo-Dorothean material.17 Ecclesiastical writers also made use of onomastic tradition. Eusebius’s Onomasticon included his translation into Greek of foreign names, cities, places, etc., with a treatise on the names found in the Hebrew scriptures (Notley and Safrai 2005). Jerome translated Eusebius’s work into a Latin Book of Hebrew Places and Names (Liber de situ et nominibus locorum hebraicorum) around the year 388–390 CE, apparently in preparation for his translation of the Vulgate, which he began in 391. He also composed his own Book of Hebrew Names (Liber interpretationis hebraicorum nominum), in part inspired by Philo, “the most erudite man among the Jews,” whose work Jerome initially intended to translate but which he found preserved in a prohibitively discordant state (see Grabbe 1988).

To his own composition Jerome added words and names from the New Testament, along with their meanings, noting that, “I wished also in this to imitate Origen, whom all but the ignorant acknowledge as the greatest teacher of the Churches next to the Apostles; for in this work, which stands among the noblest monuments of his genius, he endeavored as a Christian to supply what Philo, as a Jew, had omitted” (Nom. hebr., trans. Fremantle, Jerome 1893, pp. 485–86).18 Jerome presents himself here as standing in a stream of tradition, imitating both Philo and Origen but aligning himself with Origen. While the lists of Jerome and Eusebius are perhaps intended more as translation aids between Hebrew and Greek, rather than as a list of moral exemplars worth emulating, the link stands: they also imbue the names with interpretive meaning intended to aid in their translation, usage, and even imitation.

4. The Use of Scriptural Figures in Monastic Paideia

Outside a Hellenistic Greek or Latin speaking environment, monks continued to adopt and adapt Greek paideia to an Egyptian and Coptic monastic context (Larsen 2017).19 In one significant example of monastic innovation, the classical figures of antiquity were replaced by scriptural and ecclesiastical ones. Lillian Larsen writes, “as the patriarchs of Hebrew Scripture displace classical heroes, prophets and apostles oust Greek gods and goddesses, and illustrious abbas and ammas effectively double as philosophers and/or civic leaders, alternate content melds with established forms, and imbues well-honed structures with a Christian and/or monastic veneer” (Larsen 2017, p. 173). Classical methods were overlayed with “an alternate canon of biblical and monastic content,” and the basic building blocks of grammatical instruction fluidly adapted to monastic source material like alphabets, word and name lists, monastic sayings, and sermons (Larsen 2017, p. 173). Larsen also references the material example of the use of scriptural figure lists in a Coptic context, preserved at Beni Hasan, an ancient Egyptian cemetery, where there are sets of inscriptions including Coptic word lists of biblical names: Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, John, Daniel, Ananias, Michael, and Azarias (Larsen 2017, pp. 160–61). Pachomius, the great abba of Coptic monasticism, also writes that novice monks should be given scriptures to copy, and as they learn to write, in addition to the fundamentals of the syllable, they should also write out verbs and nouns (nomina; Praec. 139; Boon 1932, pp. 49–50; cf. Larsen 2017, p. 158). Listing out the names of scriptural figures was therefore a recommended exercise in the process of monastic paideia.

Evagrius of Pontus expanded the use of scripture figures in the context of monastic paideia, encouraging the practice of ethopoeia, which is “extended and often affectively charged speaking in the persona of a character drawn from literature” (Muehlberger 2018, p. 183). This includes the use of scriptural citations, but also the creative imitation of scriptural figures beyond their “own” words, based on familiar biographical details (Muehlberger 2018, pp. 184–85). According to Aphthonius of Antioch, a late fourth-century rhetorician, ethopoeia is imitation of character (μίμησις ἤθους): “ethopoeia has a known person as speaker and only invents the characterization [ἠθοποιία μὲν ἡ γνώριμον ἔχουσα πρόσωπον]” (trans. Muehlberger 2018, p. 187). Ethopoeia was, like the uses of scriptural figures we have already encountered, a practice of both practical and moral formation.

So, we again come full circle: paideia is the link in the chain of onomastic traditions that specifically highlight, mark, and repeat the names of scriptural figures from both the Jewish and Christian scriptural pasts. Philo is a significant connecting thread, providing one expression of the substantial use of scriptural figures for educational, and therefore formational, purposes, even, in a roundabout way, inspiring Jerome’s list of New Testament figures (via Origen) which possibly extended to lists attributed to pseudo-Dorotheus, -Epiphanius, and -Hippolytus. Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome all attest to their inspiration by Philo for their records and commentary on Hebrew names. And, crucially, Philo’s use of many of the same Jewish scriptural figures is meaningfully intertwined with his sense of paideia. But even Philo himself was also inspired by even more ancient Greek philosophy and Homeric allegory. The practice of using scriptural names in a monastic context contributed to paideia both as writing exercises for novice learners and as ethical examples for creative textual imitation. The use of sacred figures as a tool of instruction is a significant and broad literary practice. In a material context, the common use of scriptural figures may even have manifested in the marking of these figures as nomina sacra, literally “sacred names,” for example in the Bodmer Composite Codex.

5. Nomina Sacra and the Bodmer Composite Codex

The Bodmer Composite Codex provides another version of the marking of scriptural figures—possibly, I want to suggest, because of scribal familiarity with paideia. Nomina sacra as the abbreviation of sacred names is not the only way that the manuscript tradition preserves and marks the importance of scriptural and divine figures. This codex, commonly dated to the third or fourth century, is comprised of a variety of Jewish and early Christian scriptural material, including, in order, the Protevangelium of James (titled in the manuscript Nativity of Mary/Apocalypse of James), 3 Corinthians, the Eleventh Ode of Solomon, Jude, Peri Pascha (an Easter Sermon of Melito of Sardis), a fragmented hymn, the Apology of Phileas, Psalms 33 and 34 (LXX), and 1 and 2 Peter.20 It has since been disassembled, with parts held in the Vatican21 and the Bodmer Library in Geneva.22 I am particularly interested here in the texts of Jude (P.Bodmer VII), 1 and 2 Peter (P.Bodmer VIII), and 3 Corinthians (P.Bodmer X), which were all likely copied by the same scribe.23 All four texts make use of a number of exempla from the Jewish scriptural past, marked nearly as if they are nomina sacra, a method of marking and abbreviation typically reserved for names for God and a few other sacred terms in early Christian literature.24 Conventional nomina sacra include ΘΣ/ΘΥ (God), ΙΣ/ΙΥ (Jesus), ΧΣ/ΧΥ (Christ), ΚΣ/ΚΥ (Lord), and ΠΝA/ΠΝΣ (Spirit). Less common nomina sacra include ΔAΔ (David), ΙHΛ (Israel), and (Jerusalem).25

According to Cribiore, when nomina sacra appear in school exercises, as in scriptural texts they are typically contracted. Cribiore states that nomina sacra “cannot be considered real abbreviations” since they are not to save space or time but rather to “mark off sacral words from the rest of the text” (Cribiore 1996, p. 86). Apostrophes were another way of marking abbreviation and typically signaled elision. For example, apostrophes are consistently used in a collection of teachers’ models of Homeric passages intended for student copying, where the apostrophe is used to separate words and is the only lectional sign consistently used in this context (Cribiore 1996, p. 84). With the scriptural figures marked in the Bodmer Composite Codex, however, neither the use of a supralinear line nor an apostrophe indicates abbreviation or elision. It is as if they are partway there—scriptural figures are marked similarly to the common nomina sacra through either a supralinear line or an apostrophe, but they are not abbreviated.

Common nomina sacra are abbreviated and covered with a supralinear line covering all of the characters. The scriptural figures marked nearly as nomina sacra in the Bodmer Composite codex, however, are not abbreviated—the full names are written out, but many are also marked in such a way as to call special attention to the names of scriptural figures. Michael the archangel, for example, is not abbreviated but the name “Michael” (Μιχαηλ26) is marked in Jude 9 with a supralinear line covering all six characters. The same is true for David (Δαυιδ) and Israel (Ισρλ), both marked with a full supralinear line in 3 Corinthians, but not abbreviated. Other names are also marked with a supralinear line, but all the others are marked only with a partial line: Enoch (Ενωχ, Jude 14–15), Sarah (σαρρα, 1 Pet 3:6), Abraham (αβρααμ, 1 Pet 3:6), and Noah (Νωε, 1 Pet 3:20; 2 Pet 2:5).

The figures marked with an apostrophe play a more ambiguous role as scriptural exempla. While Lot is identified by 2 Peter as “righteous Lot” (2 Pet 2:7–8), and said to be distressed by lawlessness and lust, his characterization in Genesis would seem to suggest that he was spared not because of his righteousness, but because God held up his end of the deal he made with Abraham (Gen 18:23–19:29). To complicate matters, following their escape from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot’s daughters devise a plan to get him drunk and have sex with him since “there is no man around to give [them] children” (Gen 19:30–38). It is also possible that 2 Peter reflects tradition found, for example, in 1 Clement about Lot’s hospitality (1 Clem 11:1; Alexander 1985, pp. 289–91). Balaam is similarly characterized variously as a rather neutral prophetic mouthpiece who cannot help but speak from God (cf. Num 22–24); as a more subtly malevolent figure and false prophet-for-hire who aided the manipulation of Israel (cf. 2 Pet 2:14–16; Jude 11; Num 31:8; Deut 23:5; Josh 13:22, 24:9–10; Neh 13:2; and see Robker 2019); and even at Qumran as a prophet of the messiah (4Q175; 1QM 11:5–6; CD 7:14–21; see García Martínez 2008). 2 Peter identifies him as Balaam “son of Bosor,” who is also marked in 2 Peter 2:15 (βαλλααμ᾽ του βοσορ᾽). Numbers 22 names his father as “Beor,” and Bosor may be a play on basar (Hebrew for “flesh”; Bauckham [1983] 2014, p. 258–59, 267; Fornberg 2008, p. 268), given Balaam’s characterization as a lover of money and the tradition that he suggested to Balak the use of Moabite women to deceive the Israelites into debauchery and apostasy.27 Elisha is also marked with an apostrophe in 3 Corinthians 32 (ελεισαιου᾽), but not abbreviated. It is less clear in this case why Elisha is marked in this way, but two other names marked in 3 Corinthians, David and Israel, are both marked with a full supralinear line. Also in 3 Corinthians, “Jonah, the son of Amathios” is marked with supralinear dots as ϊωνας ¨ο¨αμαθιου υϊος (3 Cor 29). Scriptural names are marked throughout these four texts bound with the Bodmer Composite Codex, then, but they are not marked as conventional nomina sacra.

This seems to represent a bespoke hierarchy of marking scriptural figures in the Bodmer Composite Codex. The full supralinear lines appear to be reserved for the most important (or divine?) figures; the partial lines for positive scriptural exempla; the apostrophes and supralinear dots for more neutral or even questionable figures. As far as the reasons for marking these names in such a way, it is perhaps the case that marking these names helped readers and/or scribes to locate themselves within the text and its narrative: scanning a page for a quickly recognizable name would help one looking for a particular point in the text. They would also be more recognizable to people who did not know Greek well or who were still in the process of learning, particularly as names were the first significant words students were encouraged to copy out. Furthermore, if, as Hugo Lundhaug has argued, the Bodmer Composite Codex was found among the Dishna Papers in a monastic environment shared with the Nag Hammadi Codices and, as Ellen Muehlberger and Lillian Larsen both show, paideia was far from incompatible with monastic settings but rather monastic figures play a key role in transforming paideia for their context, it could perhaps be the case that the hand that copied Jude (P.Bodmer VII), 1 and 2 Peter (P.Bodmer VIII), 3 Corinthians (P.Bodmer X) provides further evidence of monastic paideia through the paratextual features in this material witness (Lundhaug 2018; Muehlberger 2018; Larsen 2017).

6. Conclusions

The textual transmission of the New Testament includes the codocological juxtaposition of New Testament works alongside lexica and name lists, often attributed to figures such as Pseudo-Dorotheus or Cyril. Other ecclesiastical writers are credited with the creation, translation, and transmission of lexical aids for going between Greek and Hebrew, including Eusebius and Jerome. The use of names as a methodological tool for early paideia is also widely attested. I add to these traditions another paratextual aspect of the special use of names in Christian material culture: the marking of scriptural figures nearly as nomina sacra in the Bodmer Composite Codex.

While it is difficult to say anything too certainly about whether the marking by the Bodmer scribe is affected by their own experience of paideia, I would like to suggest that these paratextual features nevertheless function similarly to cause scribes and readers to pay special attention to scriptural figures, calling them out from the main text. Paideia provides a link between text and figure: figures such as Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Michael the archangel, Balaam, or Cain serve as representatives of both positive and negative scriptural teachings (or law, for Philo), and indeed even of scripture itself. The scribal marking of scriptural figures in manuscripts like the texts of 3 Corinthians or Jude in the Bodmer Composite Codex is another example, like the common use of name lists, of explicit attention being given to scriptural figures in a material context. Perhaps the marking is a remnant from the scribe’s paideia, which likely included a stage of writing out names as one of the earliest instances of writing full words. This context highlights the overlap of Jewish, Greek, and Christian identities, and likely scribal practice and paideia. From the Greco-Roman world into the monastic realm of Coptic Egypt, scriptural figures were carved into students’ and scribes’ consciousnesses through their work with texts. Educational exercises and copying contributed both to the copyist’s grammatical and ethical instruction—that is, their formation through paideia. Elements like the lists attributed to Pseudo-Dorotheus, -Epiphanius, and -Hippolytus and the nomina sacra-like marking of scriptural figures in the Bodmer Composite Codex are a paratextual imposition on scriptural texts that aid and expand interpretation, marking scriptural figures as sacred names.