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Titus reported that the Severe Letter had the desired impact, but that the atmosphere of the community at Corinth was being poisoned by continuous carping criticism of Paul stemming from an alliance of the Spirit-people and the Judaizers. Paul had the winter to carefully craft his response. The insight and sophistication of 2 Cor 1–9 make it infinitely superior to 1 Cor. Having dispatched the letter in the spring, Paul headed for Illyricum to preach in virgin territory for the first time in five years. His ministry there was interrupted by bad news from Corinth, which occasioned 2 Cor 10–13, a tour de force of wild sarcasm and irony.

This chapter examines Paul’s treatment of pistis in 1 Thessalonians and 1 and 2 Corinthians, seeking to understand what Paul borrows from Jewish and Graeco-Roman mentalité and where he breaks new ground. It investigates the shape of the divine–human community in 1 Thessalonians and finds that in some ways it is highly distinctive. It explores how far pistis can be understood as a state of mind or an emotion, as opposed to a relationship and praxis. It considers the foundations on which Paul calls people to put their trust in God. An excursus on the origins of the terms hoi pisteuontes and hoi pistoi to mean ‘Christians’ considers all the passages in the New Testament in which these phrases may mean not simply ‘the faithful’ or ‘believers’ but specifically designate ‘Christians’. Finally, it considers what 1 and 2 Corinthians add to our understanding of Paul’s treatment of pistis.

Chapter 3 considers the figure of Paul and the community in Corinth to argue that three practices in 2 Corinthians result in communal formation of the ecclesia and establish Paul as the authoritative apostolic author. The first is the collection for the saints in Jerusalem which reframes the Greco-Roman practice of euergatism. A second practice is the initial blessing of God which reconstrues the deep Judean memory of exile and restoration. Paul’s body can thus be understood as a “eucharistic body” in two senses. The community gives thanks as a corporate body to God as a result of the benefaction, and Paul’s body is the mediating instrument by which this thanksgiving is rendered. A third practice is the performance of the letter itself: subsequent readings by mediators both shape the community to which it is communicated and construct Paul as an author and revelatory authority because he is an exemplary sufferer like Christ.

This chapter examines the elements of Paul’s doctrine of union with Christ not considered in previous chapters, with particular reference to Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Romans. The study engages with the apocalyptic approach to Paul, affirming that the apostle does consider the Christ-event to be revelatory and transformative, but challenging the assumption that covenant concepts are thereby marginalized or resisted. The extent to which Paul draws on the covenant stories of Israel and Moses in his account of the gospel, particularly in relation to the concept of adoption, is highlighted. It is further noted that Paul affirms, as essential to participation, the real divinity and the real humanity of Jesus, the latter being specifically Jewish. Underlying Paul’s distinctive account of union with Christ is a theological anthropology that considers the human condition to be incapable of salvation without the presence of the Spirit bringing vivifying union with Christ.

The chapter argues that, contrary to what might be expected, in Paul’s network of early Christian communities, letters were subsidiary to non-literary, and thus non-epistolary, forms of face-to-face communication during meetings, by messengers, and through conversation and gossip. As Barclay shows in a close reading of 2 Cor 8:16–24, there was a lot going on orally before, behind, and in the wake of Paul’s letter(s) to the Corinthians. Nevertheless, Paul’s letters had a threefold managerial import: they managed perceptions as well as reputations, and they fulfilled a controlling function in that they affirmed his authority over his churches. Barclay claims that practice and physical presence were ultimately deemed superior to words and letters, and that Paul’s letters acquired the dominant role that we assign to them only in the subsequent rereading by different Christian communities.

This chapter begins with an analysis of the neurology of language, which emphasizes the materiality of the sign. It makes the case for the view that language is as much material form as it is immaterial concept. It continues with a reading first of ‘The Song of Songs’ and then of 2 Cor 3.6 as offering a hermeneutic of scripture as such. The ‘Song’ is read as foregrounding textuality itself, pointing to a hermeneutic of the interconnectedness of the world, Temple, land and community within the divine dispensation of life-affirming fertility. 2 Cor 3.6 is read as pointing to the transformational integration of mind and matter through the work of the Holy Spirit, made present in St Paul’s own epistle whose en-Spirited material form extends and communicates the transformed life of Christ.

This chapter examines the ways in which the incarnation of Jesus Christ is specifically represented as an outworking of divine humility. Importantly, this is rendered using imagery borrowed from biblical descriptions of wisdom, something that is suggestive for reflection on intellectual humility. Particular attention is paid to Philippians 2:1–11, which presents Christ’s ‘humility of mind’ as exemplary for Christian life and conduct. The humility in question is not associated with limitation or deficiency, and far less with sin, but rather with ‘selflessness’ and ‘servanthood’. Participation in Christ’s wisdom entails a preparedness to make sacrifices intended for the flourishing of others or for the glory of God. The chapter will also consider 1 Corinthians 1:18–2:10, where the ‘wisdom of God’ is contrasted with human wisdom, and Matthew 11:25–30, where Jesus is represented as the embodiment of divine wisdom.

This chapter shows how early Christians thought about gender inequality in the ancient world. Many contemporaries of Paul believed that women and men should be equal. Some drew upon the ancient myth of the primordial, first-created androgyne to imagine a future in which everyone would be restored to the original, androgynous image of God and, in the meantime, engaged in various creative exercises in gender-bending as a way of living out their hopes. Others believed that women should have power and authority equal to that of men and organized their communities accordingly. This was Paul’s view. Still others, however, embraced a more conventional, hierarchical view of gender, and even used Paul’s name and authority to enforce it. This is the story of how the church became a reflection of the patriarchal world into which it was born, and ultimately one of the last defenders of patriarchy in the civilized world.

This chapter takes as its point of departure 2 Corinthians 11:23 and the multiple imprisonments of Paul to which it attests. Surveying the uses of prison in the administration of Rome’s eastern provinces, it argues that the detentions of Paul and other early Christ purveyors were mostly undertaken not by Roman provincial authorities but by local magistrates. This conclusion has significant implications for reconstructing the accusations against Paul and describing his social location. Paul was not charged with treason (maiestas), as some recent scholars have suggested. Rather, local officials took punitive or coercive action against him for much the same reason they periodically sought to contain other freelance religious experts, whose activity was often deemed disruptive. For historians of the Roman prison, the detention of Paul and other early Christ purveyors provides valuable and largely neglected evidence for such use of punitive confinement.