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The Name-versus-Title Debate

In the case of χριστος in Paul, the particular uses of the word that have been deemed possible and significant are use as a title and use as a proper name. As a result, scholarly discussion of the messiahship of Jesus in Paul has long centered on the question whether Paul uses χριστος as a title (“the Messiah”) or a proper name (“Christ”), the critical assumption being that use of the word as a title that would indicate a particularly messianic Christology, while use of the word as a proper name would indicate no such Christology or, indeed, noting at all. Wener Kramer’s statement of the question is representative: “It is uncertain to what extent Christos has the meaning of Messiah in Paul’s writings, and to what extent it is simply the proper name of a particular person or of him who died and rose again for our salvation.”

A sizeable majority of modern interpreters have ruled that Paul uses χριστος as a name, not a title, and that consequently the messiahship of Jesus plays little or no role in Paul’s thought. There is some variety in the particular terminology used; χριστος in Paul is variously referred to ασ a name, a surname, a cognomen, a personal name, and most often a proper name. Βut the same category is almost invariably meant by all of these terms, a category defined by its contrast term—it is not a title. So, in his influential study, Nilas Dahl concludes, “Paul’s letters represents a strikingly advanced state in the evolution that transformed Christos from a messianic designation to Jesus’ second proper name.” Therefore, the frequency of the word notwithstanding, “Paul’s christology can be stated almost without referring to the messiahship of Jesus.” Following Dahl, George Macrae comments, “Christos is never or virtually never used by Paul as a title in the sense of Messiah, but only as a proper name.” It follows, then, that for Paul “the Christian message does not hinge, at least primarily, on the claim that Jesus was or is the Messiah.” In fact, for Paul, “the Messiahship of Jesus is simply not an issue.” More recently, Andrew Chester has reasoned, “Paul uses χριστος. . . almost entirely as a proper name (often in combination with ‘Ιησους), not as a title as such. To whatever extent the word is a proper name, “to this extent reference to the ‘Messiah’ drops out,” so that “Paul appears to say almost nothing otherwise that is distinctly messianic.” This is to cite just a few leading lights on the subject; examples could be multiplied.

Meanwhile, the minority who have argued for a robust account of the messiahship of Jesus in Paul have done so by staking out exactly the opposite position on the name-versus-title debate. Especially, N. T. Wright has argued in a number of places that “this consensus is wrong.” Instead, Wright argues, “Χριστος in Paul should regularly be read as ‘Messiah’.” That is to say, “Χριστος still bears, for Paul, the titular sense.” Moreover, because it is a title, not a name, right contends, “the tie is ripe for a re-assessment of Messiahship as a major category within Pauline theology.” Wright’s former student S. A. Cummins, building on Wright’s case for reading χριστος as a title in Paul, concludes that “Paul’s understanding of Jesus as Messiah lies at the very heart of this theology, ecclesiology, and eschatology.”

It is essential to note that, for both sides of the debate, the interpretive question of the role of messiaship in Paul’s thought takes as its starting point the philological question whether Paul uses χριστος as a title or as a name. If he uses the word as a title (“the Mesiah”), then the messiahship of Jesus is a substantial part of his thought and is likely to bear on a number of other problems in Pauline theology. If, however, he uses the word as a proper name (“Christ”), then he is either unconsciously neglecting or consciously downplaying the messiahship of Jesus, which therefore plays no significant part in his thought.

Amid this debate, however, there have occasionally been hints in the secondary literature that something is amiss, that χριστος in Paul is not quite what scholars mean by “name” and not quite what scholars mean by “title.” Nils Dahl, the most important twentieth-century advocate χριστος in Paul as a proper name, actually qualifies his argument at a crucial point. He writes that although χριστος in Paul is a proper name, “it is not a colorless proper name, however, but an honorific designation, whose content is supplied by the person and work of Jesus Christ.” A name, but not a colorless one. This caveat depends, of course, on the assumption that names are generally colorless but titles colorful; therefore, Dahl has to make room for a different kind of name, a name that is not colorless. Similarly, Udo Schnelle accepts the name-versus-title rubric but is unable to conclude on one side or the other: “For Paul, Χριστος ‘Ιησους is a titular name, both title and name. . . . When combined with ‘Ιησους Χριστος is thus to be understood as a cognomen (surname) that also always has the overtones of its original titular significance.”

However, these hints of discontent with the terms of the debate have not been adequately heeded even by those who have expressed them. The fact that interpreters are forced to invoke or invent awkward concepts like “not colorness names” and “titular names” should have suggested that something was wrong with the question itself. In fact, the question as commonly posed—Is χριστος in Paul a name or a title?—rests upon two questionable assumptions: one an assumption about what names and titles are and how they work and the other an assumption about the onomastic categories that were available to Paul. Both assumptions, it turns out, are false.

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