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Paul and Pain: Paul's Emotional Therapy in 2 Corinthians 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 in the Context of Ancient Psychagogic Literature*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2011

L. L. Welborn
L. L. Welborn
Affiliation:
Fordham University, Department of Theology, 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, NY 10458, USA. email: welborn@fordham.edu
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Abstract

Paul's ‘therapeutic epistle’ in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 provides material for a comparative analysis of Paul's view of the emotions and emotional therapy in the context of ancient psychagogic literature. Paul's treatment of ‘remorse’ and ‘repentance’ demonstrates his familiarity with the discourse of the philosophers on the role of the passions in moral progress. Paul's account of ‘pain’ is shown to be anomalous in the context of ancient psychagogic literature shaped by a Stoicizing theory of the emotions. Paul emerges from this comparative analysis as the harbinger of change in the ancient theory of the emotions and the practice of emotional therapy.

Keywords

painemotionstherapytherapeutic epistlesStoicismpsychagogy
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 547 - 570
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

1 Studies of psychagogic literature in relation to Paul's epistles include Glad, Clarence E., Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy (Leiden: Brill, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fredrickson, David E., ‘Paul, Hardships, and Suffering’, Paul in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Sampley, J. Paul; Harrisburg: Trinity, 2003) 172–97Google Scholar; Fitzgerald, John T., ed., Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar; Vegge, Ivar, 2 Corinthians, a Letter about Reconciliation: A Psychagogical, Epistolographical, and Rhetorical Analysis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008)Google Scholar.

2 The meaning of λύπη is broad and, from a modern point of view, ambiguous: it can refer to physical pain or psychological distress, sorrow, grief, sadness, bordering upon the modern concept of depression. See, in general, LSJ, 1065–6, s.v. λυπέω, λύπη; Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 604–5, s.v. λυπέω, λύπη; see esp. Rudolf Bultmann, ‘λύπη’, TDNT 4.313–24.

3 Perkins, Judith, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era (London: Routledge, 1995) 1–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

4 The hypothesis that 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 was originally an independent letter goes back to Weiss, Johannes, Das Urchristentum (ed. Knopf, R.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1917)Google Scholar, followed by many others. See below n. 22.

5 On the ‘therapeutic’ style of 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16, see Windisch, Hans, Der zweite Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924, 2nd ed. 1970) 8–9Google Scholar and the discussion below.

6 For ἐπιπόθησις as ‘yearning’ and ‘deep desire’, see Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 377 s.v.; cf. Furnish, Victor Paul, II Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984)Google Scholar 386. For ὀδυρμός as ‘mourning’ and ‘lamentation’, see the texts cited in LSJ, 1199 s.v.; Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 692 s.v.; see esp. Tab. Cebes 10, where one who stands under ‘retribution’ (τιμωρία) is afflicted by ‘grief’ (λύπη), ‘sorrow’ (ὀδύνη), and ‘lamentation’ (ὀδυρμός); cf. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 228. For ζῆλος as a subcategory of ‘pain’ (λύπη), see Aristotle Rhet. 2.11.1–7; Welborn, L. L., ‘Paul's Appeal to the Emotions in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16’, JSNT 82 (2001) 54–7Google Scholar.

7 On the sense of the expression οὐκ ἐμὲ…ἀλλὰ…πάντας ὑμᾶς as ‘not only to me…but…to you all’, see Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 84–5; Furnish, II Corinthians, 389.

8 Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 524 s.v. καταπίνω 1b. Note esp. the transferred sense, in reference to mental and emotional states, in Philo Gig. 13; Deus. Imm. 181. Cf. Hughes, Philip E., Paul's Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962)Google Scholar 67 n. 12: ‘The intensive force of the compound καταπίνειν should be brought out: ‘to swallow up completely’ or ‘to engulf’'.

9 Furnish, II Corinthians, 156; Thrall, Margaret E., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994)Google Scholar 177; Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 316.

10 Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 806 s.v. περισσότερος a: ‘excessive’. Cf. Harris, Murray J., The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005)Google Scholar 229: ‘τῇ περισσοτέρᾳ λύπῃ means “by excessive sorrow” or “by excess of grief” ’.

11 Demosthenes Ep. 2.1.

12 Demosthenes Ep. 2.25. See the commentary in Goldstein, Jonathan A., The Letters of Demosthenes (New York: Columbia University, 1968)Google Scholar.

13 Tab. Cebes 10; text and translation in Fitzgerald, John T. and White, L. Michael, The Tabula of Cebes (Chico: Scholars, 1983) 76–9Google Scholar.

14 Plutarch Mor. 554E–F; cf. Fredrickson, ‘Paul, Hardships and Suffering’, 173.

15 Plutarch Mor. 498D; cf. Fredrickson, ‘Paul, Hardships and Suffering’, 173.

16 Plutarch Mor. 476E; cf. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 232.

17 Plutarch Mor. 556A. See also the definition of ‘regret’ (μεταμέλεια) in Ps. Andronicus Περὶ Παθῶν 2.44: μεταμέλεια δὲ λύπη ἐπὶ ἁμαρτήμασι πεπραγμένοις ὡς δι᾽ αὐτοῦ γεγονόσιν, in Glibert-Thirry, A., Pseudo-Andronicus de Rhodes «ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΘΩΝ» (Leiden: Brill, 1977)Google Scholar 227.

18 Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 231.

19 Tab. Cebes 11.

20 Plutarch Mor. 476E.

21 Construing ἀμεταμέλητον with μετάνοιαν, rather than σωτηρίαν: so, Plummer, Alfred, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Second Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1915) 221Google Scholar; Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 232; Furnish, II Corinthians, 388; Thrall, Second Epistle, 492 n. 42.

22 Weiss, Johannes, The History of Primitive Christianity (trans. Grant, F. C.; 2 vols.; New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1937) 1.345–53Google Scholar; followed by Bultmann, Rudolf, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (ed. Dinkler, E.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1977) 20–3Google Scholar; Schmithals, Walter, Die Gnosis in Corinth: Eine Untersuchung zu den Korintherbriefen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969) 63–74Google Scholar; Bornkamm, Günther, Die Vorgeschichte des sogenannten Zweiten Korintherbriefes (SHAW.PH 1961, 2. Abhandlung; Heidelberg: Winter, 1961) 16–23Google Scholar; Georgi, Dieter, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 9–13Google Scholar, 335; Vielhauer, Philipp, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1975) 150–5Google Scholar; Koester, Helmut, Introduction to the New Testament. Vol. 2. History and Literature of Early Christianity (New York: W. de Gruyter, 1987) 52–3Google Scholar, 127–30; Betz, Hans Dieter, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 150–5Google Scholar; Welborn, L. L., ‘Like Broken Pieces of a Ring: 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 and Ancient Theories of Literary Unity’, NTS 42 (1996) 559–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mitchell, Margaret M., ‘Paul's Letters to Corinth: The Interpretive Intertwining of Literary and Historical Reconstruction’, Urban Religion in Roman Corinth (ed. Schowalter, D. N. and Friesen, S.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2005) 318–35Google Scholar; among others.

23 Bornkamm, Vorgeschichte des Zweiten Korintherbriefes, 16–23. But see already Loisy, A., ‘Les épîtres de Paul’, Revue d'histoire et de literature religieuses 7 (1921) 213–50Google Scholar, esp. 213: ‘letter de conciliation’. See further Zeilinger, Franz, Krieg und Friede in Korinth. Kommentar zum 2. Korintherbrief des Apostels Paulus. Teil 1. Der Kampfbrief, der Versöhnungsbrief, der Bettelbrief (Vienna: Herder, 1992)Google Scholar; Brendle, Albert, Im Prozess der Konfliktüberwindung: Eine exegetische Studie zur Kommunikationssituation zwischen Paulus und den Korinthern in 2 Kor 1,1–2,13; 7,4–16 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1994)Google Scholar; Grässer, Erich, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, Kapitel 1,1–7,16 (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlaghaus, 2002)Google Scholar.

24 For this reason, Mitchell employs the somewhat infelicitous but more accurate designation ‘letter toward reconciliation’ in her essay ‘Paul's Letters to Corinth’, 335.

25 Weiss, Primitive Christianity, 1.346.

26 Betz, H. D., ‘Corinthians, Second Epistle to the’, ABD 1 (1992) 1148–54Google Scholar; Welborn, ‘Paul's Appeal to the Emotions’, 57.

27 In accordance with the hypothesis that 2 Corinthians is a composite work, the preceding two epistles are 2 Cor 10–13 (a polemical apology) and 2 Cor 2.14–7.4 (a conciliatory apology). Cf. Weiss, Primitive Christianity, 1.345–53; Taylor, N. H., ‘The Composition and Chronology of Second Corinthians’, JSNT 44 (1991) 67–87Google Scholar.

28 Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 8. Cf. Kennedy, George A., New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 87.

29 On the disposition of Paul's argument, see already the observations of Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 93; Betz, ‘Corinthians, Second Epistle’, 1152–3.

30 For the meaning of ἐλαϕρία, see Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 314 s.v.; cf. Harvey, A. E., Renewal through Suffering: A Study of 2 Corinthians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 38–40Google Scholar.

31 On this point, see esp. Weiss, Primitive Christianity, 1.346.

32 On the concentration of occurrences of παράκλησις and παρακαλέω in 1.3–7 (6 instances) and 7.5–16 (3 instances), see Thrall, Second Epistle, 102.

33 On the emphatic phrase τῇ παρακλήσει ᾗ παρεκλήθη, see Thrall, Second Epistle, 488 n. 18.

34 Ps.-Libanius Ep. Char. 19, in Malherbe, Abraham J., Ancient Epistolary Theorists (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988) 68–9Google Scholar. On the authorship and date of this handbook, see Hinck, H., ‘Die ᾽Επιστολιμαῖοι Χαρακτῆρες des Pseudo-Libanius’, Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Paedagogik 99 (1869) 537–62Google Scholar; Koskenniemi, H., Studien zur Idee und Phraseologie des griechischen Briefes bis 400 n. Chr. (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemian, 1956) 56Google Scholar. The handbook is attributed to Proclus in one stream of the manuscript tradition. Sykutris, J. (‘Proclus Περὶ ἐπιστολιμαίου χαρακτῆρος’, Byzantinisch-Neugriechische Jahrbücher 7 [1928–1929] 108–18)Google Scholar argues that the form ascribed to Proclus is more original.

35 Ps.-Libanius Ep. Char. 66, in Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 76–7. See also no. 107 (θεραπευτική) of the exampla found in certain codices of Ps.-Libanius in V. Weichert, Demetrii et Libanii qui feruntur ΤΥΠΟΙ ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΙΚΟΙ et ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΙΜΑΙΟΙ ΧΑΡΑΚΤΗΡΕΣ (Leipzig: Teubner, 1910) 62–3.

36 Philostratus states that he extracts from the letter only that which bears upon his narrative.

37 Ps.-Libanius Ep. Char. 66.

38 Olsson, Bror Hjalmar, Papyrusbriefe aus der frühesten Römerzeit (Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksells, 1925)Google Scholar 120.

39 Philostratus Vit. Soph. 2.1.562–63.

40 To the terms mentioned, we might also add the verb πάσχειν and the noun ὑπομονή in 1.6. These terms are usually taken in a physical sense: thus θλῖψις is translated ‘affliction’ and πάθημα ‘suffering’ in the NRSV. But θλῖψις, πάθημα, and πάσχειν also refer to experiences in the emotional sphere: see Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 457, 747–8, 785.

41 I have chosen to translate πάθημα as ‘passion’. This risks confusing the reader, since in ordinary English ‘passion’ often connotes ‘enthusiasm’, which does not belong to the Greek concept. Yet the usual translation of πάθημα as ‘suffering’ fails to capture the affective dimension of the word. On the other hand, ‘feeling’ is too weak to describe the intensity of experience suggested by πάθημα. Hence I have tried to preserve some of the rich ambiguity of the Greek by the translation ‘passion’, since πάθημα is both ‘that which is suffered or endured’ and ‘an inward experience of an affective nature’; Bauer, Greek–English Lexcion, 747–8. The case is the same with πάθος, which means both ‘suffering’ and ‘emotion’, and which may also be translated ‘passion’.

42 Scholars have debated the precise nature of Paul's ‘affliction’ (θλῖψις); see the summary of the various proposals in Thrall, Second Epistle, 115–17. The majority posit a severe persecution (e.g. Bousset, Wilhelm, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1908]Google Scholar 169; Bachmann, Philipp, Der zweite Brief des Paulus an die Korinther [Leipzig: Deichert, 1922] 38Google Scholar; Barrett, C. K., A Commentary on the Second Epistle to the Corinthians [New York: Harper & Row, 1973] 83–4)Google Scholar, perhaps an imprisonment that Paul anticipated would end in death (so, Furnish, II Corinthians, 122–3; Thrall, Second Epistle, 116–17). Others suggest a grave illness that Paul feared might prove fatal (Allo, E.-B., Saint Paul: Seconde Épître aux Corinthiens [Paris: Gabalda, 1956] 11–12Google Scholar, 15–19; Harris, Murray J., ‘2 Corinthians 5.1–10: Watershed in Paul's Eschatology?’ Tyndale Bulletin 22 [1971] 57)Google Scholar. Cf. Harvey, Renewal through Suffering, 1–31. But serious consideration should be given to the proposal of Fredrickson, David (‘Paul's Sentence of Death [2 Corinthians 1.9]’, God, Evil, and Suffering [ed. Fretheim, T. and Thompson, C.; St. Paul: Word & World, 2000] 103–17Google Scholar; Fredrickson, ‘Paul, Hardships, and Suffering’, 181–2) that here Paul reveals to the Corinthians how much anguish he suffered following his painful experience at Corinth. Fredrickson draws upon the research of Fowler, R. L. (‘The Rhetoric of Desperation’, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 91 [1987] 5–38)CrossRefGoogle Scholar into the ‘rhetoric of desperation’, a speech-form encountered from Homer to Epictetus, whose generic components include: (1) an indication of the crushing weight of affliction borne by the speaker; (2) the impossibility of finding a way out of the dilemma; (3) questioning whether life is any longer sustainable under such circumstances; (4) not knowing whether to choose life or death. For the hypothesis that Paul's ‘affliction’ refers to a severe depression caused by Paul's humiliation at Corinth, see already Drescher, Richard, ‘Der zweite Korintherbrief und die Vorgänge in Korinth seit Abfassung des ersten Korintherbriefs’, ThStKr 70 (1897) 49–51Google Scholar; Rendall, Gerald F., The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians (London: Macmillan, 1909)Google Scholar 49.

43 On the pathos evoked by Paul's use of the expressions καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν, ὑπὲρ δύναμιν, ἐβαρήθημεν, ἐξαπορηθῆναι καὶ τοῦ ζῆν, see Welborn, ‘Paul's Appeal to the Emotions’, 31–60.

44 For θάνατος as ‘spiritual death’ in 7.10, see Bauer, Greek–English Lexicon, 443, s.v. For overtones of ‘despair’, see the resonance with 1.8–9, ἐκ τηλικούτου θανάτου.

45 Cf. Thrall, Second Epistle, 493.

46 For θλῖψις, see 1.4 (twice), 6, 8; 2.4; 7.5; for παράκλησις/παρακαλέω, see 1.3, 4 (four times), 5, 6 (three times); 2.7, 8; 7.6 (twice); 7.7 (twice); for πάθημα/πάσχω, see 1.5, 6 (twice), 7; for λύπη/λυπέω, see 2.1, 2 (twice), 3, 4, 5 (twice), 7; 7.8 (twice), 9 (three times), 10 (twice), 11; for χαρά/χαίρω, see 1.24; 2.3 (twice); 7.7, 9, 13 (twice), 16. On repetition as a figure in 2 Corinthians, esp. 1.3–7, see Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 36–43.

47 For πᾶς, see 1.3, 4 (twice); 2.3, 5, 9; 7.5, 11, 13, 15, 16; for περισσοτέρως, see 1.12; 2.4; 7.13, 15. The expressions καθ᾽ ὑπερβολήν and ὑπὲρ δύναμιν are compounded with one another in 1.8 as modifiers of ἐβαρήθημεν. These are by no means the only examples of pleonasm in 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16: see, e.g., τηλικοῦτος in 1.10, πολλοί in 1.11 (twice). On pleonasm as a figure, see Smyth, Herbert Weir, Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1956) 681–2Google Scholar.

48 In 1.3–7 and 2.1–3. On the device of traductio (the frequent employment of the same word, or cognate words, at short intervals), see Denniston, J. D., Greek Prose Style (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952) 80–1Google Scholar.

49 E.g., καὶ γάρ in 7.5, ἰδοὺ γάρ in 7.11. On the use of particles to express emotion, see Demetrius De Eloc. 57; cf. Denniston, Greek Particles, lxxiii, 109.

50 E.g., εἰ δέ τις in 2.5, εἴ τι in 2.10. On the caution expressed by means of these clauses, see Heinrici, Der zweite Brief, 93–4; Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 84, 90.

51 E.g., the shift from βούλομαι to βουλεύομαι in 1.15–17; on this substitution, see Halmel, Anton, Der zweite Korintherbrief des Apostels Paulus (Halle: Niemeyer, 1904) 53–4Google Scholar. Note also the subtle way in which χάρις replaces χαρά in 1.15; on this substitution, see already Bleek, Friedrich, ‘Erörterungen in Beziehung auf die Briefe Pauli an die Korinther’, Theologische Studien und Kritiken 3 (1830) 621–2Google Scholar.

52 To mention only the most important contributions to this growing body of literature: Fortenbaugh, W. W., Aristotle on Emotions (London: Duckworth, 1975; 2nd ed. 2002)Google Scholar; Nussbaum, Martha, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University, 1994)Google Scholar; Braund, S. and Gill, C., eds., The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sihvola, J. and Engberg-Pedersen, T., eds., The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sorabji, Richard, Emotion and Peace of Mind: From Stoic Agitation to Christian Temptation (Oxford: Oxford University, 2000)Google Scholar; Harris, William V., Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Konstan, David, The Emotions of the Ancient Greeks: Studies in Aristotle and Classical Literature (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2006)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Graver, Margaret R., Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fitzgerald, John T., ed., Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (London: Routledge, 2008)Google Scholar.

53 The most significant loss is Chrysippus' On Affections (Περὶ παθῶν), preserved only in quotations embedded in books 3 and 4 of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations, and in Galen's great work De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis. See Tieleman, Teun, Chrysippus' On Affections: Reconstruction and Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Entralgo, P. L., The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale University, 1970)Google Scholar esp. 97–107; Furley, W. D., ‘Antiphon der Athener: Ein Sophist als Psychotherapeut’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 135 (1992) 198–216Google Scholar; Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire; Harris, Restraining Rage, esp. Chapter 15; Tieleman, Chrysippus' On Affections, 140–97; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, esp. 191–211.

55 J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Introduction’, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen) viii; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 53–60.

56 Tad Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen) 21–70, esp. 30–1; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 53–6.

57 Galen De placitis Hippocratis et Platonis 5.7.52; cf. Tieleman, Chrysippus' On Affections, 140–1.

58 Graver, Margaret, Cicero on the Emotions: Tusculan Disputations 3 and 4 (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2002)Google Scholar 24, 27, 34–5, 121–3, 191, 205, 219.

59 On the dangers of the political environment, see Veyne, Paul, Seneca: The Life of a Stoic (New York/London: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar.

60 Chrysippus was such a prolific writer (see the list of his works in Diogenes Laertius 7.189–202), and so influential upon his contemporaries and successors, that acquaintance with his works by Paul cannot be excluded from the realm of probability. Paul's indebtedness to Hellenistic philosophy has been demonstrated in several areas, e.g., his concept of ‘the inner human being’ (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος), on which see Heckel, T. K., Der Innere Mensch: Die paulinische Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993)Google Scholar; Betz, Hans Dieter, ‘The Concept of the “Inner Human Being” (ὁ ἔσω ἄνθρωπος) in the Anthropology of Paul’, NTS 46 (2000) 315–41Google Scholar. See also the demonstration of Paul's indebtedness to Stoic moral tradition in Rom 7 by Stowers, Stanley K., A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University, 1994) 258–84Google Scholar. On Paul's familiarity with the deep structure of Stoic thought in general, see Engberg-Pedersen, Troels, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2000)Google Scholar.

61 On the attraction of this aspect of Stoicism for practical intellectuals, see Harris, Restraining Rage, 9, 26.

62 For the identification of 2 Cor 10–13 with the ‘letter of tears’ mentioned in 2 Cor 2.4, see Watson, Francis, ‘2 Cor x–xiii and Paul's Painful Letter to the Corinthians’, JTS 35.2 (1984) 324–46Google Scholar; Welborn, L. L., ‘The Identification of 2 Corinthians 10–13 with the “Letter of Tears” ’, NovT 37 (1995) 138–53Google Scholar. The hypothesis goes back to von Hausrath, Adolf, Der Vier-Capitel-Brief des Paulus an die Korinther (Heidelberg: Bassermann, 1870)Google Scholar.

63 For the view that the wise man is not subject to ‘distress’ (λύπη), but rather the ‘fool’ (ἄϕρων), see, e.g., Epictetus Diss. 2.22.6–7; Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.6.14.

64 On the combination of the Stoic view of the emotions with Platonic psychology in late Hellenistic and Roman thought, see J. M. Cooper, ‘Posidonius on Emotions’, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen) 71–111; Richard Sorabji, ‘Chrysippus–Posidonius–Seneca: A High-level Debate on Emotion’, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen) 149–69; Andrew Erskine, ‘Cicero and the Expression of Grief’ in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (ed. Braund and Gill) 36–47; Inwood, Brad, ‘Seneca and Psychological Dualism’, Passions and Perceptions (ed. Brunschwig, J. and Nussbaum, M.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993) 150–83Google Scholar.

65 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.13.27.

66 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.6.14. Cf. Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, 35, 54–7; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 53–4.

67 Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, 34; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 55–8.

68 Harris, Restraining Rage, 26, 104–20.

69 Renehan, Robert, ‘The Greek Philosophic Background of Fourth Maccabees’, Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 115 (1972) 221–38Google Scholar; Stowers, Stanley K., ‘Fourth Maccabees’, Harper's Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988)Google Scholar 924; Aune, David C., ‘Mastery of the Passions: Philo, 4 Maccabees and Earliest Christianity’, Hellenization Revisited: Shaping a Christian Response within the Greco-Roman World (ed. Helleman, W. E.; New York: Lanham, 1994) 125–58Google Scholar.

70 Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, 34, 54–7; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 51–5, 203–4.

71 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.6.12–14; cf. Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, 34–6; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 51–5, 203–4.

72 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.6.12–14; cf. Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 51–5, 203–4.

73 Dio Chrysostom Or. 16.1.

74 Dio Chrysostom Or. 16.4.

75 Brennan, ‘The Old Stoic Theory of Emotions’, 35; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 53–5, 194, 204.

76 See, e.g., Seneca De Cons. Sap. 2.1.3; De Ben. 2.25.2.

77 Harris, Restraining Rage, 16–17.

78 Philodemus' De Ira, written between 70 and 40 BC, survives in a partly legible manuscript from Herculaneum; see Philodemus, De Ira (ed. Indelli, G.; Naples: Bibliopolis, 1988)Google Scholar; J. Procopé, ‘Epicureans on Anger’, The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy (ed. Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen) 171–96. Seneca's De Ira is the longest of the extant ancient treatises on anger. In addition to Plutarch's De Cohibenda Ira, see De Virtute Morali and De Tranquilitate Animi. See the illuminating discussion of these monographs in Harris, Restraining Rage, 102–20. See now the concise and lively sketch of Seneca's theory and therapy in De Ira by Kaster, Robert A., Lucius Annaeus Seneca: Anger, Mercy, Revenge (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2010)Google Scholar.

79 Harris, Restraining Rage, 16.

80 To be sure, Harris is fully aware of the social conditions under which ancient literature on the emotions was produced; see esp. Restraining Rage, 25. But the point must be emphasized in respect to the relative absence of discourse on λύπη. The authors of the surviving literature on the emotions are members of the highest social class: Seneca, advisor and minister to Nero, held a vast fortune; Plutarch was a descendant of a family long established in Chaeronea, and may have been imperial procurator in Achaia under Hadrian. Both men were sympathetic to their slaves and to the weak in general (e.g. Seneca Epist. Mor. 12.3); but neither provides access to the emotional life of the poor, apart from passing reference to the slave's fear of an angry master, e.g., Plutarch De Cohib. Ira 13.

81 MacMullen, Ramsay, Roman Social Relations 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 (New Haven: Yale University, 1974) 88–120Google Scholar.

82 I do not assume that emotions, such as depression, are the same across cultures. On the contrary, the most thorough studies have shown that emotions are ‘culture specific’. See Marsella, A. J., ‘Depressive Experience and Disorder across Cultures’, Handbook of Cross-Cultural Psychology VI: Psychopathology (ed. Triandis, H. C. and Draguns, J. G.; Boston, 1980) 237–89Google Scholar; Wierzbicka, A., ‘Emotions, Language, and Cultural Scripts’, Emotion and Culture: Empirical Studies of Mutual Influence (Washington, DC: American Psychology Society, 1994) 133–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 The assumption that emotions exist even where they are not expressed is a precarious but necessary one. A cautious historian must be alert to evidence that permits a test. Such evidence might seem to be most accessible in the realm of political history. Thus, Alfred Kneppe devotes one section of his study of ‘anxiety’ in the early Empire, Roman (Metus Temporum: Zur Bedeutung von Angst in Politik and Gesellschaft der römischen Kaiserzeit des 1. und 2. Jhdts. n. Chr. [Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1994] 329–37)Google Scholar to the anxieties of the lower classes, but acknowledges at the outset that the everyday anxieties of the common people were passed over in silence by authors from the ruling class, whose principal interest lay in the emotions of their social equals, regarded as the true measure of collective feeling.

84 Cf. Perkins, The Suffering Self, 7: ‘In cultural terms, those belonging to the category of sufferers, the sick, the deformed, the poor, had little existence in cultural representation throughout most of Greco-Roman antiquity before the early empire. That is not to say that humans were not in pain or did not suffer before this period, but that their pain and suffering did not have substantial existence within cultural consciousness’.

85 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.6.14.

86 Dio Chrysostom Or. 16.1.

87 Plato Apol. 41e.

88 Plato Apol. 23b.

89 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.32.77; trans. Graver, Cicero on the Emotions, 35. See also Plutarch Alc. 4; Adul. Amic. 69E–F. The anecdote may have its origin in Plato Symp. 215e–216c. Compare Lucian's account of the effect of a certain Platonic philosopher, Nigrinus, upon an inquiring student in Nigrinus 4: ‘Then I felt hurt (ἐλυπούμην) because he had criticized what was dearest to me—wealth and money and reputation—and I all but cried over their downfall’.

90 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.31.74–75.

91 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.32.77; cf. 3.13.27. See the penetrating analysis of the structural problem posed for Stoicism by the ‘tears of Alcibiades’ anecdote by Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 191–211.

92 Plutarch Adul. amic. 55C. Glad (Paul and Philodemus, 317) cites other relevant texts from Plutarch: Adul. amic. 66B; 70D–E; 73D–E; Virt. mor. 452C; Tranq. An. 476F.

93 Epictetus Diss. 3.23.30. But here the verb is ἀλγέω, rather than λυπέω. This text is cited as a parallel to 2 Cor 2.5–11; 7.9–10 by Fredrickson, ‘Paul, Hardships, and Suffering’, 176.

94 Ps.-Hippocrates Ep. 17.45. On the probable first-century date of this letter collection, see Smith, Wesley D., Hippocrates: Pseudepigraphic Writings (Leiden: Brill, 1990) 21–2Google Scholar, 28–9, 43–4.

95 Plutarch Rec. rat. aud. 47A.

96 Diogenes Laertius 7.119.

97 See the important discussion of this idea by Breytenbach, Cilliers, ‘ “Christus starb für uns”. Zur Tradition und paulinischen Rezeption des sogenannten “Sterbeformeln” ’, NTS 29 (2003) 447–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

98 See the brief discussion of the background of this designation by Furnish, II Corinthians, 109.

99 Konstan, David, Pity Transformed (London: Duckworth, 2001)Google Scholar 107.

100 Aristotle Rhet. 2.8.2: ‘Let pity (ἔλεος) then be a kind of pain (λύπη) excited by the sight of evil, deadly or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it; an evil which one might expect to come upon himself or one of his friends, and when it seems near’.

101 Konstan, Pity Transformed, 106–7, with the Appendix ‘Aristotle on Pity and Pain’, 128–36.

102 Ps.-Plato Ep. 3, 315c. Cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 10.8, 1178b8–23.

103 Konstan, Pity Transformed, 112–13, referencing Dio Chrysostom Or. 16.4; Epictetus Diss. 4.6.22; Plutarch Rec. rat. aud. 20E.

104 Pétré, Hélène, ‘ “Misericordia”: histoire du mot et de l'ideée du paganisme au chrisianisme’, Revue des Etudes Latines 12 (1934) 376–89Google Scholar; Andersen, Francis I., ‘Yahweh, the Kind and Sensitive God’, God Who is Rich in Mercy (ed. O'Brien, Peter T. and Peterson, David G.; Homebush West, NSW: Lancer, 1986) 41–87Google Scholar; Konstan, Pity Transformed, 120.

105 Konstan, Pity Transformed, 118.

106 Konstan, Pity Transformed, 119.

107 Konstan, Pity Transformed, 119.

108 Perkins, The Suffering Self, 1–14.

109 Dio Chrysostom Or. 16.4.

110 As noted by Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 234. A search through the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae reveals that this list of emotions is not found before Paul.

111 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.79.

112 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.76.

113 Cicero Tusc. Disp. 3.79.

114 Graver, ‘The Status of Confidence in Stoic Classification’, Stoicism and Emotion, 213–20, citing Cicero Tusc. Disp. 4.66 (‘And just as confidence [confidere] is proper but fear improper, so also joy is proper and gladness improper’) and Epictetus Diss. 2.1.1–7.

115 For the concept of a messianic ‘cut’ or ‘partition’ in human experience in the thought of Paul, see Agamben, Giorgio, The Time That Remains: A Commentary on the Letter to the Romans (Stanford: Stanford University, 2005) 49–53Google Scholar.

116 Stevens, Wallace, ‘Esthétique du Mal’, esp. section III, in The Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens (New York: Vintage, 1982) 315–16Google Scholar.

117 See the account of Seneca's death in Tacitus Ann. 15.62–64, with the comments of Veyne, Paul, Seneca: The Life of a Stoic (New York/London: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar.