Paul, Samson Occom, and the Constraints of Boasting: A Comparative Rereading of 2 Corinthians 10–13

Abstract

Few texts in the Pauline corpus have been subjected to such extensive and varied comparative analysis as 2 Cor 10–13. Since Hans Windisch's influential designation of the passage as aNarrenrede(“fool's speech”), wherein Paul apes the boastful fool (ὁ ἀλαζών) of the Greek mime, exegetes have assembled a remarkable array of additional comparanda: theperistasisor hardship catalogues of Cynic and Stoic philosophers; Augustus'sRes gestae; apologies epistolary, forensic, and Socratic; conventions forperiautologia(self-praise) as attested by Quintilian and Plutarch and as demonstrated by Demosthenes; conventions forsynkrisis(comparison) as preserved in theProgymnasmata. Despite the diversity of the evidence adduced, methodologically these studies have much in common. In general, their explanatory mode is formal and genealogical—that is, they elucidate the characteristics of Paul's boasting by identifying and describing the literary or rhetorical forms to which he is indebted.