The Language of War (2 Cor. 10:1-6) and the Language of Weakness (2 Cor. 11:21b-13:10)

Abstract

AbstractThis essay seeks to engage the broader discussion of religious violence by focusing on the language of war of the Apostle Paul in 2 Cor. 10:1-6. By viewing this paragraph of martial rhetoric and its afterlife through the lens provided by two theoretical models, the disciplinary and emancipatory, this essay wonders if Paul's own second thoughts and apologies for his hurtful speech and fumbling attempts to find an alternative led him to offer an alternative. The paper suggests that the mockery of his opponents of his bodily presence as weak, in other words, womanish, once adopted by Paul, provided the inspiration for the fool's speech and a new model of manhood, in other words, power, in weakness that offered a directed reading of the scars on his back as the primary rebuttal of attacks on his apostolic legitimacy and that of his gospel. The threats and bullying that remain, however, show that Paul had neither repudiated threatening speech nor thought through the implications of his inspired model of the fool. That was left to others who made this model central to martyrological traditions that subverted the prevailing ideology of manhood.