Teaching Christianity (continued)
patience, patience in approbation, approbation in hope, while hope does not confound, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us (Rom 5:3–5)? Were any inexpert expert, if I may so put it, to maintain that here the apostle was observing the rules of the art of rhetoric, would he not be laughed out of court by Christians both learned and unlearned? And yet one can here observe the figure of speech which in Greek is called klimax, while in Latin some people called it gradatio, because they were unwilling to say "ladder"; when words or meanings are linked together, one being spun from another, as here we can see patience spun from tribulation, approbation from patience, hope from approbation.
There is also another embellishment to be observed, that after some phrases, each terminated by a pause,[14] which our people call "clauses" or just "phrases," while the Greeks call them kolons and kommas, there follows a round or circuit, which they call a periodos, whose clauses are held in suspense by the voice of the speaker, until it ends with the last of them. Thus the first of the clauses that precede the period[15] is that tribulation results in patience, the second is patience in approbation, the third approbation in hope. Then the period is joined on, consisting of three clauses, of which the first is while hope does not confound, the second because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts, the third through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us. Now this is the sort of thing that is taught in courses on the art of eloquence. So while we are not saying that the apostle deliberately observed the rules of eloquence, we are still not denying that eloquence waited upon his wisdom.
12. Writing to the Corinthians in the second letter, he confuted certain people, who were pseudo-apostles from the Jews, and were slighting him; and because he is obliged to blow his own trumpet, he puts this down to himself as folly
—and how wisely he says it, and how eloquently! But he does it as the companion of wisdom, the leader of eloquence, following the former, going ahead of the latter, and not spurning her as she follows: Again I say it, he declares, let nobody take me for a fool; or else accept me as a fool, so that I too may do a little boasting. In what I have to say I am not speaking according to God, but as in a fit of folly, in this serious matter of boasting. Since many, indeed, are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast. For you suffer fools gladly, being so wise yourselves. For you put up with it if anyone reduces you to slavery, if anyone swallows you up, if anyone takes you in, if anyone pushes himself forward, if anyone slaps you in the face. I am speaking in an ignoble way, as though we too have grown weak. But in whatever respect anyone puts on a bold face—I speak in folly—I do so too. Are they Hebrews? I am too. Are they Israelites? I am too. Are they the seed of Abraham? I am too. Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool—I am more so. In labors endlessly, in prisons more frequently, in beatings beyond measure, at the point of death more often. From the Jews five times have I received forty strokes less one. Three times have I been beaten with rods, once I have been stoned, three times shipwrecked. I have been a night and a day in the depth of the sea. Often on journeys in danger of rivers, in danger of robbers, in danger from my kin, in danger from the nations, in danger in the city, in danger in the wild, in danger in the sea, in danger among false brethren; in toil and distress, too often going without sleep, in hunger and thirst, too often fasting, in cold and nakedness; apart from those outward matters, the daily assault on me, my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weakening, and I do not feel weak? Who is being scandalized, and I am not on fire? If boasting is required, I will boast about what concerns my weakness (2 Cor 11:16–30). Wide-awake readers can see with what wisdom all this is said; with what a flow of