Sosthenes meaning

Meaning

Safe In Strength, Securely Strong

Savior Of The People

Etymology

From (1) the adjective σως (sos), safe, (2) the noun σθενος (stenos), strength, and (3) -ης (-es), an adjectival suffix.

From (1) the verb σωσω (soso), to save, (2) the noun εθνος (ethnos), people or race (3) -ης (-es), an adjectival suffix.

Related names

• Via σως (sos): Sopater

The name Sosthenes occurs in the Bible in Acts 18:17 and 1 Corinthians 1:1 only, but it's not clear whether this covers one or two men. The one-man theory is plausible because the scene in Acts plays in 51-52 AD and the First Letter to the Corinthians was written in 53-54 AD. This letter opens with a customary salute from Paul (the undisputed author) and Sosthenes "the brother" (compare the second Corinthian letter, which speaks of Timothy "the brother"). Some commentators have suggested that Sosthenes was a mere scribe who penned down Paul's words, but that doesn't seem likely. Scribes were very common in that time and none would mention their own name along with the words of the actual author. Instead, these letters to the Corinthians probably derived from lengthy discussions Paul had with Sosthenes and Timothy about issues that concerned the community in Corinth, regardless of who was doing the actual writing.

The Sosthenes whom Luke mentions is a synagogue-chief, somewhere in Achaia, but it's not clear where exactly. In the scene prior, the synagogue-chief of Corinth is called Crispus (Acts 18:8). Perhaps his other name was Sosthenes, or Sosthenes was the chief of a whole other synagogue, but this leads the reader to wonder why the story doesn't explain these things (while following the rest of Paul's journey in minute detail). All the story tells is that Jews rose up against Paul and dragged him in front of proconsul Gallio, who ignored their concerns, which incited them to fall upon Sosthenes and beat him in front of Gallio. But why didn't they simply beat Paul? Perhaps because he was a Roman citizen? One could not beat a citizen and get away with it. But why not Crispus, who had allowed Paul to work in his synagogue for a year and a half?

Many of the Jews rightfully feared the political implications of the gospel. Anybody who declared that Jesus was their king committed high treason against the Roman State and the penalty for that was death (by decapitation for citizens and crucifixion by non-citizens). This is probably also the reason why the Jews had called out for Jesus' crucifixion, to clearly indicate that they had no desire of being mistaken for rebels and pay the ultimate price.

The Romans tortured millions of people to death, so the remarkable thing about Sosthenes' beating is not so much the beating itself but rather that he was beaten by fellow Jews. The very nature of Jews is to find ways to disagree, so that the ensuing debate may fortify the knowledge of the Torah and even the very Hebrew language that kept the Jews together. So, resorting to physical violence was precisely the opposite of what defined a Jew (and note the obvious nod to Exodus 2:13), which means that while debate defined and fortified the nation, physical violence would destroy it.

Sure enough, Josephus claims that during the siege of Jerusalem (a decade and a half after the Sosthenes incident), general Titus pleaded for a reasonable surrender, while Jewish Zealots within the city would beat and kill whichever fellow Jews they disagreed with. And this while the Roman army outside the city caught and crucified anybody who tried to escape from the city. Josephus writes that the Zealots, not the Romans, ultimately set fire to the temple and destroyed their own capital, and with that the land of Israel.

Moreover, the word συναγωγη (sunagoge), meaning synagogue — from συν (sun), together, and αγω (ago), to lead — was back then not reserved for a gathering of religious Jews but rather described any kind of governmental gathering of community elders: an autonomous republican government in contrast to the centralized Imperial government of Rome. In our article on the name Jesus we argue that the gospels are greatly concerned with the disastrous tendency of Jewish communities to embrace the Greek Septuagint and abandon the Hebrew Scriptures. When Jesus decreed that the things of Caesar should be rendered onto Caesar and the things of God onto God, he also seems to have suggested that Jewish communities should surrender their political sovereignty to Rome for the sake of their religious integrity (compare Jeremiah 29:4-7), and not embrace the Greek compromise that made them chattel of Rome and blind to God.

Here at Abarim Publications we doubt that the primary function of the story of Sosthenes was to report what "really happened". Instead, we suspect that the name Sosthenes in both Acts and the Corinthian Letter serves as a deliberate nod to Sosthenes of Macedon (whose name everybody back then knew): a third century BC general who appears to have rejected his army's invitation to become king (and see John 6:15).

The name Sosthenes is one of a large cluster of names that express the Greek obsession with salvation, that is: the creation of a perfect society and the establishment of democracy's highest ideal of ελευθερια (eleutheria), or freedom-by-law. Some other such names are: Σωσικρατης (Sosicrates), Σωσιμενης (Sosimenes), Σωσινομος (Sosinomos), Σωσιππος (Sosippos), Σωσιπτολις (Sosiptolis), Σωσιγενης (Sosigenes), Σωσικοσμος (Sosikosmos), and Σωσιανδρος (Sosiandros).

The first part of all these names comes either from the adjective σως (sos), safe, or its parent verb σωσω (soso), to save:

Where the second part of our name comes from isn't entirely clear, but an obvious candidate is the noun σθενος (stenos), strength:

Another plausible origin of the second part of our name is the noun εθνος (ethnos), people or race:

The name Sosthenes appears to be specifically designed to convey two meanings at once, namely Saving Strength and Savior Of The People — and note the subtle contrast with the name Nicolas, which means Victor Over The People. Also note that the first meaning of our name is the radical opposite of what YHWH says through the prophet Zechariah: "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit" (Zechariah 4:6).

Everybody in Corinth of Paul's time would have remembered Sosthenes of Macedon and receiving a letter of Paul "in conversation with" brother Sostenes would surely have been interpreted as a polemic against too much enthusiasm for an earthly kingdom, especially if that enthusiasm would only bring about the destruction of what already existed, and which was only a shadow of the heavenly kingdom to come.