Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: Reasoned Answer to Ray Comfort · Great Bishop of Geneva!: Was Simon Peter Ever Called Niger?
Clue 1:
Haydock comment on Acts 13:3 contain the passage:
Arator, sub-deacon of the Church of Rome, who dedicated in the year 544 his version of the Acts of the Apostles into heroic verse to Pope Virgilius, attributes this imposition of hands to S. Peter:
———Quem mox sacravit euntem
Imposita Petrus ille manu, cui sermo magistri
Omnia posse dedit.———
— See his printed poems in 4to. Venice, an. 1502. Arator was sent in quality of ambassador from Athalaric to the emperor Justinian.
Clue 2:
Greek Petros is in Latin normally "Petrus" - but the correct way of treating it as a cognate is "Peter" - like Greek agros, Latin ager (both meaning ploughable field).
The colour name "ater" sounds a bit like "Peter" and a bit like "pater". Now, "ater" means black and so does "niger".
Clue 3:
Rock in Greek is really petra, not petros, but yet it was adapted as petros for the new name of Simon. Because, obvuously, petra sounds like a feminine name, is not used of men but of women.
Similarily "ater" could be adapted as "niger" since "ater" meaning soot black is not used of men but of objects (notably soot or garments used for mourning).
If this is the case "Simon who was called Niger" doesn't mean "this is another Simon than Peter, this one was called Niger" it means instead "Simon (Peter) who was (here and now) called Niger" .... and his being mentioned after Barnabas would imply that to avoid detection, he also avoided to be seen as foremost, even if in fact he was that. Or simply that Paul recalled Barnabas, as his previous (Acts 11) and now again companion before even the ordainer.
If Simon here is not Peter, St. Paul could have been ordained back in Acts 11. Otherwise, if he is, if my guess is correct, he and Barnabas in Acts 11 served as lay or simply priest catechists and other deaconal work - or simply as deacons./HGL
