Marcion and the Use of Diminutives With Saint Names

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Mordecai is a hypocorism

Mor'de-cai [perhaps, Persian, signifying little man, or the common Babylonian name, a diminutive or hypocoristic form of Merodach (see Esther).]

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Jose (יוסי) is a hypocorism for Joseph

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Early sources confusing preserve the heretic Artemon is various hypocoristic forms

https://books.google.com/books?id=XVBjU ... sm&f=false

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Apollo in Acts and the second centry martyr

This figure is not known from any other sources, but the name itself is common in Byzantine Egypt, with over 80 attestations in Diethart 1980: s.v.Απολλῶς, being a hypocoristic form of a pagan theophoric such as Apollodorus. https://books.google.com/books?id=TPjYA ... gQ6AEIGzAA

Within the Greek text, Apollonius is regularly styled "Apollos, otherwise known as Sakkeas." Musurillo observes that this "cognomon is obscure and may suggest `the man in sackcloth' . . . especially since the Armenian version translates it as `the ascetic'" (1972:xxiv). But we can equally denote that the consistent usage of the hypocoristic "Apollos" reminds us of that New Testament figure from Alexandria - the eloquent "Jew" whose preaching and baptizing at Corinth and at Ephesus preceded the work of the Apostle Paul.

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A Jew named Ισιων = hypocorism for Isaac

https://books.google.com/books?id=y2nXd ... in&f=false

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The familiar rabbinic list of disciples of Jesup (b. Sanh. 43a) is a rhyming list of hypocorisms

https://books.google.com/books?id=QQzjD ... us&f=false

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An interesting theory about the missue of hypocorisms in the orthodox edition of Paul

Here I make the case that Luke (Philemon 24), Lucius (Rom 16:21) and the author of Acts were one and the same person. The argument has a triangular structure, with each element strengthening the other two. A three-fold cord is not quickly broken (Ecclesiastes 4:12).

Luke was Lucius
I have shown in recent posts (here, here, here, and here) that Paul uses informal name forms for those from whom he sends greetings in Philemon 23-24, so it is probable that "Luke" (Λουκᾶς) was not his full name, but was an abbreviation. This is confirmed by the rarity of the name "Luke". The 6 volumes of the Lexicon of Greek Personal Names (LGPN) has just 11 Lukes. The name "Luke" (Λουκᾶς) was a short form of the name "Lucius" (Λούκιος) (see A. Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East), so it is almost certain that the Luke of Philemon 24 was known formally as "Lucius".

Was he the Lucius of Rom 16:21? The LGPN lists 286 Lucii out of 300,584 people, which is just 0.1%. Admittedly, Latin names of this kind are rather over-represented among Paul's companions, for whatever reasons. We have a Mark (Acts 12:25), two Gaii (Acts 19:29; 20:4), and a Titus (Gal 2:3), though all but one of these were from the east. However, those who sent greetings in Paul's letters were part of a rather small group of close companions of Paul, since their names frequently recur elsewhere (consider Timothy, Jason, Sopater/Sosipater, Gaius, Erastus, Epaphras/Epaphroditus, Aristarchus, Prisca and Aquila). It therefore seems likely that the Luke of Philemon 24 was the Lucius of Rom 16:21.

A counter-argument is often put forward. It is said that the Lucius of Rom 16:21 was a Jew and that Luke was a Gentile. This argument rests on the assumption that συγγενεῖς in Rom 16:21 means "relative", and that it applies to Lucius as well as to Jason and Sosipater. It also rests on the assumption that we can infer from Col 4:11,14 that Luke was a Gentile. However, I have argued that the author of Colossians did not have accurate information on Paul's companions. He merely copied the names of the greeters in Philemon and naively left them in their hypocoristic forms. He probably misread "Jesus" in Philemon 23, and misidentified Mark. He was not a careful historian with good information, so we cannot assume that Luke was a Gentile.

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In the Apocalypse of James Miryai is certainly a hypocoristic form of Mariam, Miriam, Maria, Mary.

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A parallel curiousity in Samaritan Aramaic developed from a suggestion by Moshe Florentin. The reason that names from Greek and Latin have the suffix [e] in Samaritan Aramaic as in Marqe (Marcus) Tûte (Titus) and others is that the they were taken over in the form of the vocative case (Marce, Μάρκε). The masculine vocative case ending is [e] in both Greek and Latin. The nominative case ending is [os] in Greek and [us] in Latin. In modern Greek a final remains in most dialects but not all. Markos is still Markos.

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The use of the vocative form of Marcus in Irenaeus's citation of Polycarp's (the presbyter) poem

εἰδωλοποιὲ Μάρκε καὶ τερατοσκόπε,
ἀστρολογικῆς ἔμπειρε καὶ μαγικῆς τέχνης,
δι' ὧν κρατύνεις τῆς πλάνης τὰ διδάγματα,
σημεῖα δεικνὺς τοῖς ὑπὸ σοῦ πλανωμένοις,
ἀποστατικῆς δυνάμεως ἐγχειρήματα,
ἃ σοὶ χορηγεῖ σὸς πατὴρ Σατὰν ἀεὶ
δι' ἀγγελικῆς δυνάμεως Ἀζαζὴλ ποιεῖν,
ἔχων σε πρόδρομον ἀντιθέου πανουργίας