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.