Although Paul had just written a letter of defense, the disastrous, painful visit that followed brought him face to face with the gravity of the situation and the urgent need for a further, second defense. Again, as earlier, the usual markers of a letter opening have been removed to attach this letter to the broader collection. The letter is organized around a broad attack on his accusers. Paul’s strategies are multiple: the use of martial imagery (10:1- 11), deep irony (10:12-18), a fool’s speech (11:1–12:13), as well as the promise of an apostolic parousia to clothe a final appeal and warning (12:14–13:10). These challenges forced Paul not only to defend his apostolic ministry but also to recast it to provide a theological alternative to the interpretation of his critics.
Appeal through Assurance of Tenderness and Threats (10:1-11)
With v. 1 the letter opens minus the stereotypical salutation and thanksgiving that a later redactor removed to make the awkward fit with 9:1-15. The emphatic, “I myself Paul,” is followed by an appeal, “beseech (parakalō) you” (NRSV: “appeal to you”) and connects to the phrase
“through the gentleness and kindness of Christ” (AT). Such constructions (beseech/parakalō) either signal a movement to a new section of a letter (Furnish 1985, 455 and Bjerkelund 1967, 153-54) or often mark the beginning of the body of the letter and telegraph its purpose (2:8; Phlm 8- 9).
While Paul cites fewer than ten sayings of Jesus and primarily focuses on Jesus’ suffering, abuse, and death, he here appeals to the ministry of Jesus and to the “meekness and gentleness of Christ”—words that sound almost surreal coming on the heels of the ugly exchange during the “painful visit.” In a smooth rhetorical move Paul thus begins with the positive, i.e., what he shares with his readers—namely, the meek and gentle spirit of Christ in which they have all been baptized. But the dam cannot long hold back his raging and sarcastic response to a critic’s taunt: “I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away” (v. 1b)!
Paul when present was so timid, but from a safe distance he was so brave and defiant, “they” say. Later we hear an accuser mocking: “His letters are weighty and strong, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech is of no account” (v. 10, RSV). Thus the opening paragraph lays out the charges against Paul that cry out for a response, i.e., that he is a bully in his letters but cowardly and ineffectual in person.
Paul’s response booms with a bellicose rhetoric (vv. 2-6). How can he mix his gestures of tenderness (v. 1a) with the fiery martial threats that follow? How can he combine such apocalyptic thunder with appeals to “the meekness and gentleness of Christ”? It is hard to reconcile such dissonant rhetorical shifts. It is true that Paul elsewhere mixes hard and soft rhetoric.
In 1 Cor 4:14-15, for example, his assurances that his “children” are
“beloved” mingle with his threats to thrash the “daylights” out of those misbehaving “children” if he has to come with a switch (4:21). It is their choice: do they wish him to come in the spirit of love and gentleness or with a rod poised for a beating? As coercive as was that rhetoric, this language lacks the familial location that allows for such tensions and is therefore more extreme. Let us listen to Paul’s rhetoric and attempt to understand it.
When Paul here conjures metaphors of “war” (strateuometha), not worldly (ou kata sarka, v. 3) but conducted with weapons of “divine potency” (v. 4, NEB), he sets the reader above the ramparts of a city to observe it under siege and, simultaneously, within the city to experience the full force of this assault. The martial metaphors spin with allegorical abandon. Above the ramparts, the addressees watch and listen as the terror of holy war escalates. They hear the war-cries of the attackers, the pounding of the battering ram, the collapse of ramparts, and the blood curdling assault onto the “sophistry” (logismos) and “arrogance” (hypsōma) of the enemy
(vv. 4-5). They view the city’s inhabitants taken captive, revenge inflicted on all disobedience, and captives forcibly brought under the rule of Christ (v. 5). And all the while Paul makes them both spectators and victims.
Such a language of war bent to religious ends grates against our sensibilities, and the threatened vengeance (v. 6) brings shudders to current readers. How can one, after all, be forced at sword’s point into the service of Christ? For Paul to make obedience to Christ compulsory, to our mind, cheapens that obedience and borders on making an idolatrous demand. Is not such a demand itself a contradiction?
One may say this is only bombastic rhetoric, yet the line between rhetorical and existential violence may at times be fuzzy. What makes this explosion of martial imagery so strange is its stark combination with Paul’s opening appeal in the “meekness and gentleness of Christ” (v. 1). Perhaps, however, the clue to understanding its otherness can be found in Paul’s apocalypticism and his conviction that at the end of history a final accounting would occur that would vindicate God’s righteousness and reclaim a sinful world. In that vernacular God’s love was often joined with reprisals to be visited on wrongdoers and even destruction of the “other” (e.
g., the “War Scroll” of Qumran and the book of Revelation). Paul’s letters are laced with the language of terror drawn from that apocalyptic mythology (e.g., 5:10; Rom 2:6-16), a language that he used to warn that absent a change of heart a ferocious and violent reprisal lay ahead. As an apostle, Paul does, in the name of Christ, claim the right to pronounce a judgment that is a precursor of that denouement (1 Cor 5:3-5; 16:22; Gal 1:8-9). His rhetorical strategy is peppered with this apocalyptic symbolism, which he used to persuade a rebellious community, to confute antagonists, to win obedience, and to proffer a hopeful and just outcome to history.
Although to us such a strategy sounds fundamentally counterproductive, the sanctified violence of this language is, nevertheless, a barometer of Paul’s heart-rending disappointment with the Corinthians and his anger at being so misunderstood. Given his intense hurt and the desperate need to defend and, if possible, vindicate his mission and gospel, such an appeal that springs from his apocalyptic gospel is understandable—even if to us it sounds unacceptable. Later in vv. 8-9 we shall see Paul squirming uncomfortably under the weight of this rhetoric. Upon reflection, he perhaps recognized that his martial imagery was too harsh and too extreme.
Some of the force of that rhetoric taints the following lines. In v. 7, he employs an imperative blepete to issue an order or, if read as an indicative, to indict his readers. If read as an imperative it runs, “look at what is before your eyes (ta kata prosôpon)” (NRSV). If understood as an indicative it accuses, “you [Corinthians] look only on appearances” (lit: according to the face) (similarly NIV: “You are looking only on the surface of things,” AT).
The ambiguity of the verb may be intentional, for it allows either or both meanings.
The indictment of his accuser, however, seems more consistent with the words following in the verse: “If anyone” (not NRSV’s “you”) privileges himself to be of Christ in a special way, then a result is implied. Then in Paul’s defense follows “let him [not NRSV’s “you”] recognize concerning himself that as he is of Christ so also are we” (v. 7, AT). Who was this anonymous person (tis or “anyone”) of v. 7? The NRSV translators render the tis as if it refers to Paul’s addressees (plural), i.e., as a singular indefinite pronoun with an inclusive meaning. In light of v. 10, however, which directly quotes an individual critic, the indefinite “anyone” (NIV) is the better translation. Might this ”anyone” here singled out for rebuttal be the adversary who publicly confronted Paul on his recent disastrous visit to Corinth (2:1-4) and who was later fingered for correction by the “majority”
(2:5)? Might this “one” be a follower of the “super apostles” claiming a privileged status with Christ and seeking followers in Corinth (11:13, 23)?
Or might this be an indefinite reference to “anyone” in the congregation under the influence of Paul’s rivals?
Probably this antagonist was a partisan of the now departed “super apostles,” a spokesperson for a faction following the different “Jesus,”
different “gospel,” and other “spirit” of the “super apostles” (11:4) and who thinks Paul is dishonest, duplicitous, lacks “proof” of his apostleship, and may be a charlatan (13:3). So in this paragraph Paul attacks this opponent and his allies.
In vv. 7-9, under the guise of addressing an offender, Paul scolds all believers in Corinth for judging “by appearances” (literally “according to the face”) (v. 7). By lumping them all together, he not only accuses the partisans of the “super apostles” but also indicts those who acquiesce in or tolerate their vision. He takes umbrage at all who assign to themselves special prerogatives in Christ and who claim an authority coming directly from the Lord. He claims the same authority (v. 8) with a difference. He
uses his authority to build up not to tear down the assembly, and for that, he says unapologetically, “I shall not be put to shame” (RSV), an assertion resonating with multiple eschatological associations with God as an implied actor. Note the strong eschatological nuance missing from the active voice translation of the NRSV: “I will not be ashamed of it.”
With v. 8 Paul shifts the tone. He allows that he may “boast a little too much,” a charge we have already heard in 5:12, but he draws back from the bellicose rhetoric he so recently used. His denial, however, that he wrote to threaten people is disingenuous (v. 9), for that is precisely what he appears to have done. But this backhanded apology sounds like an admission that his language may have been too extreme.
In v. 10 the target of Paul’s remarks becomes clear: “He [not “they” as in NRSV] says [phēsin], ‘the letters [of Paul] are weighty and strong but his bodily presence is weak and his speech is despicable’ ” (v. 10). This charge arouses Paul’s ire once more and thus provokes a sharp retort threatening to do when present what he has just written when absent (v. 11). And from this threat, he segues into a fuller discussion of boasting.
Good and Bad Boasting (10:12-18)
My topical separation of 10:12-18 from 10:7-11 is artificial but, nevertheless, useful in showing Paul’s shift of gaze from his antagonists to himself and a justification of his mission strategy. The paragraph offers a window onto the culture war between Paul and his attackers. The cultural mindset imposed on urban dwellers the duty—even necessity—of comparing and evaluating the messages of itinerant teachers and philosophers. Drawing contrasts that obviously advantaged themselves, rival apostles claimed legitimacy and sowed suspicions about Paul’s honesty, lack of rhetorical skill, cowardice, duplicity, sincerity, and ministerial legitimacy. These attacks on Paul are obviously intended to advantage their own persona, gospel, and ministry at his expense.
In vv. 12-14, Paul rejects this strategy and refuses such insidious comparisons that put him in a special status in a class by himself (v. 12).
Comparisons, he claims, are valid when they encourage a higher level of activity, e.g., his appeal to Macedonian generosity to encourage Corinthian participation in the Jerusalem offering (8:1-7). But when comparisons advantage one’s own position over another’s, they are negative and wrong
(v. 12b). Such comparisons offended Paul, who believed Christ commissioned him directly. Focused on personal achievement and not on the action of the Lord Jesus, they were perverse.
By limiting boasting to his own circle of converts, Paul implicitly criticized those wandering proselytizers who invaded his territory and claimed an apostolic legitimacy at his own expense (10:13-15). The apostle studiously avoided previously evangelized areas, but other missionaries hardly shared this mission strategy. Since the “super apostles” deemed their gospel superior, they probably felt obligated to enter Paul’s “territory” and correct his “misguided” message. Paul, however, viewed them as agents of Satan poaching on his assembled converts. In this-free-for-all with no adjudicatory agency to decide, the decision inevitably would go to the person or group offering the most persuasive case on religious, moral, and theological grounds.
As a rebuke of those “commending themselves” (v. 18) and a differentiation of his ministry from that of his opponents or their partisans, Paul cites Jeremiah, one of his favorite prophets (v. 17). Whether he considered himself a Jeremiah redivivus, set aside from his “mother’s womb” for this great task and condemned to celibacy in a similar moment of historical crisis, we cannot say (Gal 1:15; Jer 1:4). But his appeal to Jeremiah shares in the prophet’s outrage at the tendency of the wealthy, the powerful, and the educated to boast of their superiority (Jer 9:23-24). In contrast to this odious bragging based not only on a sense of personal entitlement, superiority, privileged status, or wealth but also on the false presumption that these agencies of power guarantee the future, Jeremiah advocated another type of boasting. The boast he advocated, and that Paul follows, is a boast on Yahweh that is acutely conscious of human weakness, vulnerability, and mortality. Paul thus follows Jeremiah, who draws a sharp divide between true and false boasting: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord” (v. 17, cf. Jer 9:24).
This form of legitimate boasting was an exact antithesis to that of the rivals, who, in Paul’s view, boast in their own powers. They seek the approval, plaudits, and support of the Corinthian assembly and boast “in outward appearance and not in the heart” (5:12). If marks of validation
could be visibly displayed, they would obviously be easy to recognize and to credit. Paul, however, appeals to a higher jurisdiction, namely that of the
“Lord.” In his words it is hardly self-promotion that gains divine approval or passes the test (dokimos) of authenticity, and that the Lord commends (vv. 12, 18). Moreover, for Paul, one’s position before God can hardly be secured by self-promotion, but only by God’s righteous and gracious act in Christ (8:9). In something of a contradiction Paul does commend himself (6:4-10) by appealing to validating external signifiers, but only in the most ironic way. He appeals to his beatings, imprisonments, his being maligned as an impostor, and his suffering all kinds of privations. Later he will mythically locate his abuse, shame, and vindication in the story of Jesus (12:9) and hold them up as the marks of a true apostle.
Although the “super apostles” and their acolytes may also “boast in the Lord,” in the short term the jury deciding the case will be the assembly itself. The outcome of that decision stood to influence Paul’s mission beyond the assembly’s borders (vv. 15-16). In the short term, their decision about whose ministry is authentic, who is trustworthy, what is true or false, and whether the charges against Paul are valid or spurious stood to be epochal. But in the long term, Paul sternly warned, this jury stood under a higher authority—namely, the dominion of the Lord who will eventually decide what is true and who passes the test.
Paul Plays the Fool (11:1–12:13)
In this section, Paul offers a vigorous, creative defense of his apostolic ministry, his fiscal integrity, his gospel, and his view of the spirit. Given the oversized nature of the boasts of his attackers and the force of their propaganda, a strategy that traded boast for boast would have been understood and tolerated in the Hellenistic culture, but Paul’s defense takes a surprising turn when he assumes the role of a fool.
Hans Windisch first suggested that Paul was familiar with the dramatic presentation of the fool’s speech (Narrenrede) used to entertain and serve as a cultural critique, and that he adopted it, not as an artifice of play-acting or as a temporary expedient, but as a portrait of his apostolate. He took the dramatic role seriously and used it to clothe his boasts with biting sarcasm and bitter irony, and to offer “proof” (dokimē) of his apostolic integrity. The fool’s speech here parodies the rivals’ pretensions and mocks their claims
by boasting like a fool of the horrors and humiliations Paul has endured (Windisch 1924, 316). Although the exact parameters of the fool’s speech are somewhat vague, its powerful rhetorical effect, its ability to provoke and to persuade, we shall explore below. While it is suffused with biting sarcasm and caustic irony, it also offers a quite radical and perhaps novel basis for legitimating Paul’s apostolic claim.
Plea for Tolerance and Rebuke of Rival Apostles (11:1-15): In the introduction (vv. 1-5), the prologue to the “fool’s” speech opens (v. 1) with a plea followed by an imperative ordering the church to tolerate Paul’s foolish, even objectionable, display. Elsewhere he takes upon himself the fool persona (11:16, 17, 19). Here he begins the prologue with a poignant story of the hurt inflicted by the Corinthian betrayal when they deserted him for other apostles or refused to defend him. He draws on a paternalistic custom to weave an intricate conceptual web (vv. 2-3). As their father in Christ (1 Cor 4:14-15) he jealously safeguarded the sexual purity of his daughter betrothed to Christ in order to present her as a virgin bride to Christ at his parousia (coming). But now in his absence he fears the daughter will compromise her purity. Going beyond the Genesis story, Paul recalls a Hebrew legend that had Satan seduce (phtharē), not deceive, Eve by posing as an angel of light (Vita 10). From the earliest myths of the eastern Mediterranean world, the serpent was a phallic symbol of renown intimately associated with the mystery of regeneration and new life. Paul’s caustic observation of the Corinthians’ willing submission (v. 4) to
“anyone” who comes preaching “another Jesus,” or a “different gospel,” or
“another spirit” emphasizes their complicity in their “seduction” and profligacy. Moreover, his expansion of the sexual metaphor to include covenant violation echoes the androcentric message of prophets like Hosea (chaps. 1–3) and Ezekiel (chap. 16), who present Israel as the adulteress in her relationship with Yahweh. The passage is dripping with sarcasm and deep pathos. There is sarcasm embedded in his portrayal of his “children”
as sexually loose, quite willing to go to bed, metaphorically, with any itinerant preacher. There is also deep pathos in the hurt the father feels when a child betrays him and refuses to vouch for him when he, their father, is attacked by intruders. And the pathos only grows deeper when he is
forced by his children to defend himself. So, although Paul’s analogy sounds sexist to modern ears, its target is gender neutral including women and men as offenders.
We lack even a brief summary of the alternative gospel or different Jesus preached by the intruders whom Paul sarcastically dismisses as “super apostles” (v. 5) and who have gained a following at his expense. He derides them as “false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” but who in reality are agents of Satan (vv. 13-15). He heatedly defends himself against these powerful rivals. Their origin is unknown, and given the absence of any discussion of the law in any of the letter fragments, it is unlikely they came from the Jerusalem church. No defensible case can be made for their being Gnostic evangelists. It is conceivable that they came from Antioch, the arena of the fiery exchange between Peter and Paul (Gal 2:11-14), but the evidence is weak. Paul’s sketch of their profile suggests that they probably were Hellenistic Jews of uncertain origin. As to their identity we dare not say more.
There would have been no need for Paul to insist that he was “not in the least inferior to these super apostles” (v. 5) had no comparison been made that disadvantaged him. His claim to be an apostle of Christ was admittedly weak. He acknowledges that he was the “least of the apostles” (1 Cor 15:8- 9). In an earlier letter he lamented, “If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord” (1 Cor 9:2).
He knew not the earthly Jesus from whom he could claim a commission (Gal 1:12). Now he further admits to being “unskilled” (idiotēs) in speech (v. 6), even if he excels in “knowledge” (gnōsis).
In v. 6 Paul begins a slashing attack. Against the charge that his inept speech proved his apostolic claim fraudulent, he objected that he made up for what he lacked in rhetorical skill with spiritual knowledge and insight.
He heatedly defended his honesty. In vv. 7-11 he directly confronted the growing doubt and distrust of him. Given the cultural habits of mind, his refusal of Corinthian aid while accepting patronage from Macedonian believers who were “dirt poor” (8:1-3) would have, at the very least, appeared inconsistent, and, at worst, have been as insulting as a refused handshake. Moreover, his claim to preach a gospel “free of charge” while accepting patronage from Phoebe in nearby Cenchreae (Rom 16:1) was bound to raise hackles. Such proud claims to independence while simultaneously accepting local and imported patronage sounded devious.