Teaching Christianity
eloquence it all runs will be noticed even by someone who is snoring.
13. In fact, though, anyone who knows about it will acknowledge that these phrases which the Greeks call kommas, and the clauses and periods which I discussed a short while ago, being woven together with the most seemly variety, are what constitute the whole beauty of this passage, and its very countenance as it were, which moves and delights even the unlearned. Thus at the point where I began to insert this passage, there are some periods. The first is the smallest, consisting of two clauses; periods, you see, cannot have fewer than two clauses, though they can have more. So this was the first: Again I say it, let nobody take me for a fool. There follows another of three clauses: Or else, accept me as a fool, so that I too may do a little boasting.[16] The one that follows in the third place has four members: 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. The fourth has two: Since many indeed are boasting according to the flesh, I too will boast. And the fifth has two: For you suffer fools gladly, being so wise yourselves. The sixth also is of two clauses: For you put up with it, if anyone reduces you to slavery.[17]
There follow three phrases: If anyone swallows you up, if anyone takes you in, if anyone pushes himself forward. Then three clauses: If anyone slaps you in the face, I am speaking in an ignoble way, as though we too have grown weak. A three-clause period is added: But in whatever respect aynyone puts on a bold face—I speak in folly—I do so too. From this point he now puts three phrases as short questions, and again three phrases in answer: Are they Hebrews? I am too. Are they Israelites? I am too. Are they the seed of Abraham? I am too. To the fourth phrase put as a question he replies, not with a counter-phrase, but with a counter-clause: Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool—I am more