Teaching Christianity (continued)
so. Now the four following phrases tumble out, the question and answer form being very suitably dropped: In labors endlessly, in prisons more frequently, in beatings beyond measure, at the point of death more often. Then a brief period is inserted, which has to be divided by a slight pause: From the Jews five times, so that that is one clause, to which the next is tied on: have I received forty strokes less one. Then there is a return to phrases, and three are put down: Three times have I been beaten with rods, once I have been stoned, three times shipwrecked. There follows a single clause: I have been a night and a day in the depth of the sea.
Next fourteen phrases come flowing out with a most becoming force: 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. After that he inserts a three-clause period: Apart from those outward matters, the daily assault on me, my anxiety for all the churches. And to this he adds two clauses as rhetorical questions: Who is weakening, and I do not feel weak? Who is being scandalized, and I am not on fire? Finally, this whole breathless passage ends with a two-clause period: If boasting is required, I will boast about what concerns my weakness.
But it is quite impossible to find words to express how neat and pleasing it is, that after this energetic, forceful flood of words he should somehow come to rest, and bring his hearers to rest in a little narrative that he inserts. He goes on to say, you see, The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for ever, knows that I am not lying (2 Cor 11:31). And then he tells very, very briefly how he had been in peril and how he had escaped.
14. It would take too long to go through the rest of the passage, or to demonstrate these things from other places in