(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.) Scholars have long puzzled over diction and imagery that Paul employs in 2 Cor 2:14-17, where, from an attempt to account for his prior travels, shifts abruptly into prayer of thanksgiving. 14But thanks be to God, who in Christ always us in and through us spreads fragrance of knowledge of him everywhere. 15For we are aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, 16to one fragrance from death to death, to other fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word; but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in sight of God we speak in Christ.1 Most exegetes concentrate their attention on word ... in 2:14, rendered above as leads . . . in triumph, and on relationship, if any, between this word and odor imagery that pervades vv. 15-16. Comparatively little attention has been lavished on peddlers (...) of v. 17, and almost none on what role image of peddler might play in connection with scene detailed in preceding verses.2 Harold W. Attridge's article on passage offers both generally persuasive explanation of 2:14-16 and rare if very cursory attempt to integrate v. 17.3 According to Attridge, building especially on work of Paul Brooks Duff, v. 14 references not military triumph but religious processions partly modeled on triumph and undertaken in veneration of likes of Isis and Dionysius.4 Incense and unguents figured importantly in such processions as means of honoring or making manifest deity. Paul thus imagines himself as a slave to triumphing deity, but slave in his ongoing service, heralding deity's approach by strewing incense, or possibly even as the vessel in which fragrant ointment is contained.5 And what of peddlers? In article's final footnote, Attridge ventures that Paul means to underline that he is part of procession itself, not on sidelines working, as ... [sic], for gain.6 While not discounting latter possibility, I argue in this note for different understanding of relationship between 2:14-16 and 2:17. Paul's reference to peddlers in v. 17 depends, I suggest, on prominence of spices in inventory of goods furnished by peddlers. To illustrate their prominence, I draw on evidence from rabbinic literature, which paints vivid portrait of small-scale commerce that is, to all appearances, typical of Mediterranean world in which Paul operated. Greek ... enters into rabbinic literature as ..., shopkeeper or tavern keeper.7 But it and related verbal form ... cover wide range of mercantile activities, indeed, most anything short of wholesale trade. The itinerant peddler falls within this range.8 Thus, nothing precludes us from supposing that Paul has in mind specifically peddler. The positive evidence for this possibility lies in close connection between peddler (lkwr) and aromatics in rabbinic literature.9 Let us consider two illustrative texts, in both of which aromatics serve, as in 2 Cor 2:14-17, as metaphor for knowledge. The first comes from Abot R. Nat. A, ch. 18 (ed. Schechter, 34a). [R. Judah Patriarch] called R. Eleazar b. Azarya peddler's bundle. And to what was R. Eleazar comparable? To peddler who took up his bundle and entered town, and people of town came and said to him: Have you fine oil? Have you spikenard oil [...]?10 Have you balsam [...)]? And they found everything on him. So was R. Eleazar b. Azarya. When students of sages would enter beside him, one would ask him about Scripture and would tell him, about mishnah and would tell him, about midrash and would tell him, about legal traditions and would tell him, about homiletics and would tell him. Thus when left him, would be full of blessed good. …