: PAUL'S APPROPRIATION OF THE ROLE OF THE FOOL IN 1 CORINTHIANS 1-4 LAURENCE L.

WELBORN
United Theological Seminary

Those who study and teach the New Testament suffer from a great disadvantage, which we find it difficult to admit even to ourselves: our familiarity with central themes of Christian preach ing tends to obscure the original meaning of a number of texts. There is no better illustration than Paul's famous statement, "The message about the cross is foolishness" (1 Cor. 1:18). We assume that Paul meant that the proclamation of a crucified God, or Son of God, was an absurdity to the people of the ancient world.1 We forget what Justin Martyr knew: that various Greek gods and he roes had suffered ignominious deaths. 2 One thinks of Dionysus torn apart by the Maenads, and of Prometheus bound upon the rocks.3 Evidently, Greeks and Romans would not have regarded the suf fering and death of a Son of God as "folly." Justin identified the unique element in Jesus' passion as the cross. The sons of Zeus, he concedes, suffered and died in vari ous ways, "but in no case is there any imitation of the crucifix ion." 4 Was "folly" the response to the preaching of the cross? Word study produces a provocative result: the term "folly" is nowhere connected with the cross in pre-Christian literature, Greek or Latin. 5 The cross is described as "terrible," "infamous," "barren,"
1 H.O. Gibb, "Torheif und "Ratsei" im Neuen Testament. Der antmomische Strukturcharakter der neutestamenthchen Botschaft (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1941), pp. 1-3; G. Bertram, "," TDNT4 (1967), pp. 845-46. 2 Justin, Apol I. 21-22. 3 Lucan, Prom. 1-2. 4 Justin, Apol. I. 55. 5 This is the (unintended?) outcome of the meticulous investigation of M. Hengel, Crucifixion m the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), who draws upon the Thesaurus Linguae Latmae and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae, supplemented by the concordances to various writers. It is indicative of the state of the evidence that the word "folly" () does not appear in the book outside of summary statements in the first chapter and the conclusion. Pliny, Epist. 10.96.4, describes the adherents of the new sect

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"criminal," an "evil instrument." 6 Crucifixion is called "cruel and disgusting," "shameful," "the supreme penalty," "the most wretched of deaths." 7 But nowhere is the cross associated with any of the terms that make up the rich vocabulary of "foolishness" in Greek and Latin. The fact that pagan writers do not describe the cross as "folly" is hardly surprising. In a well-known passage, Cicero asserts that "the very word 'cross' should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but from his thoughts, his eyes, and his ears ... The mere mention of such a thing is shameful to a Roman citizen and a free man." 8 The cross was evidently not a subject of levity among the upper classes of the Roman Empire. But it is only when this fact is acknowledged that one can begin to appreciate the audacity of Paul's formulation, "the message about the cross is foolishness." The signs of novelty are apparent in Paul's articulation of the thesis. The expression, "the message about the cross" ( ), by which Paul summarizes the gospel, is unique, not only in the Pauline letters, but in the entire New Testament.9 So it is not a technical term of Paul's preaching, but an ad hoc formu lation, growing out of the tensions in this text. 10 Paul's decision to
of the Christians as amentiae. But the primary meaning of amentia is "madness"; amentia means "folly" only in a transferred sense in poetical texts. Similarly, Justin, Apol. I. 13, describes the offence caused by the message of the crucified as , but this is "madness" rather than "folly." Christian writers, such as Theophilus of Antioch (Ad Autolycum 2.1) and Origen (Contra Cehum 1.9), who place the term "foolishness" () in the mouth of pagan interlocutors as a judgment upon the Christian message, are demonstrably under the influence of Paul's formulation in 1 Cor. 1:18-25. 6 Plautus, Captivi 469; Casina 611; Menaechmi 66, 849; Poenulus 347; Persa 352; Rudens 518; Trnummus 598; Anthologia Latina 415. 23-24; Seneca, Epist. mor. 101.14; PGM 5.73; Lucian, Iudicium vocalium 12; these texts cited by Hengel, Crucifixion, pp. 7-8. 7 Cicero, In Verr. 2.5.165; Seneca, Epist. mor. 14.5; Apuleius, Met. 1.15.4; Scriptores Historiae Augustae 8.5; Achilles Tatius 2.37.3; Origen, c. Ceh. 6.10; Cicero, In Verr. 2.5. 168-169; Josephus, War 7. 202-203; cf. Hengel, Crucifixion, pp. 22-38. 8 Cicero, Pro Rabino 5.16. The passage is often quoted in exposition of 1 Cor. 1:18, e.g., G. Heinrici, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, KEK 5 (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1896), p. 75; R. Baumann, Mitte und Norm des Christlichen. Eine Auslegung von 1 Korinther 1, 1-3, 4 (Mnster: Aschendorff, 1968), p. 85; Hengel, Crucifixion, pp. 41-42. H.-W. Kuhn ("Jesus als Gekreuzigter in der frhchristlichen Verkndigung bis zur Mitte des 2. Jahrhunderts," ZThK 72 [1975], pp. 7-8) correctly insists that the aesthetic judgment of a man of Cicero's social class should not be taken as representative of the attitude of antiquity. 9 Heinrici, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, p. 66. 10 A. Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief HNT 9/1 (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000), p. 43.

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replace the content of the gospel metaphorically with a symbol of cruelty seems intentionally harsh. The reader, who does not yet know how Paul will expound his thought in the following para graphs, must have experienced this reduction of the content of the gospel to a single, shameful event as stunning. 11 And then, when the message about this cruel and disgusting death is immediately declared to be "foolishness," the effect must have been shocking. The paradox is stupefying. Was Paul the first to describe "the word of the cross" as "fool ishness"? If so, then the question of the meaning of "foolishness" in Paul's discourse takes on fresh urgency. For the term cannot previously have possessed the profound theological significance that Paul confers upon it in the course of his exposition. Close examination of Paul's argument reveals that the apostle uses the word "foolishness" () in three senses in 1 Corinthians 1-4, corresponding to three moments in his encounter with the con cept: appropriation, evaluation, and affirmation.12 If we would un derstand the meaning of Paul's surprising assertion, "the message about the cross is foolishness," we must rehearse the drama of his struggle with this concept, from the application of the term as a judgment upon his preaching, to his acceptance of the word as the truth of his life in fellowship with the suffering of Christ. We begin our search, accordingly, at the point where Paul ap propriates the term "foolishness" as a description of his procla mation, since this is the earliest moment in the process of meaning that is ascertainable in the text. Determination of the original import of the word is crucial, since whatever significance the term acquires in the course of Paul's exposition is, in some sense, a reflex of the meaning it possessed at the point of appropriation. So, whence has Paul derived the concept "foolishness" that he applies to his preaching of the message about the cross? There is no need for an extensive search for the source of the concept, for the apostle states very clearly in which provenance the judgment of "foolishness" is formulated: those for whom the message about the cross is "foolishness" are "Greeks" who "seek wisdom" (1:22). The term "Greeks" () in the Pauline cor pus, as in ancient literature generally, designates those who are
J. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief KEK 7 (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), pp. 26-27. 12 So, already, Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, p. 25.
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distinguished from the Barbarians by the possession of Greek lan guage and culture. 13 Their distinctive characteristic, as Paul states clearly, is the pursuit of "wisdom." Those who embraced Helle nism, whether of Greek nationality or not, participated in a learned culture through philosophy, rhetoric and art, as represented in the gymnasium, the assembly, and the theater. Thus the concept of "foolishness" that Paul applies to his preaching is not derived from the Gentile inhabitants of the Roman Empire in general, but, more specifically, from those whose identity as Hellenes centered on the possession of wisdom.14 It is in the Greek world that we must seek the meaning of "fool ishness" as it applies to Paul's discourse. This insight puts us on a different path from the majority of interpreters, who tend to deny that the term "foolishness" retains a "secular" meaning in Paul. 15 But it does not yet serve to focus our investigation, for the term "foolishness" () takes on various meanings as it occurs in different contexts in Greek literature. In Greek tragedy, is a kind of "madness," a rash and impulsive action that seems to be impelled by a power which confuses human understanding and hides the right path. 1 6 In a political context, denotes a navet that is unable to calculate the consequences of actions, and that is consequently expressed as imprudent counsel. 17 In the teaching of the philosophers and moralists, is a lack of reason or self-understanding, the absurdity of an unexamined life.18 For the rhetorician, it is "sheer folly" not to adapt one's style of speaking to the audience and the circumstances of the case. 19 The wise counselor warns against the "silly talk" of the "chat terer." 2 0
See the excellent article of H. Windisch, "," TDNT 2 (1964), pp. 504-16, especially pp. 512-16 on Paul's use of the term. 14 Windisch, "," p. 515. 15 Gibb, "Torht", p. 8; Bertram, "," p. 845; H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), p. 43; P. Fiedler, "," Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 449; P. Lampe, "Theological Wisdom and the 'Word About the Cross': The Rhetorical Scheme in 1 Corinthians 1-4," Int 44 (1990), pp. 120-21. 16 Sophocles, Ant. 220,1. 469-70; EL 1326; Euripides, Medeal. 614. This sense also in Demosthenes Or. 9.54; Epictetus, Diss. 1.6.36. 17 Thucydides 5.41.3; Sophocles, Oed. Tyr. 433, II. 540-42; Aristophanes, Eccl. I. 474. 18 Plato, Leg. 818d; Pseudo-Plato, Epin. 983e; Diogenes, Ep. 36.4; Epictetus, Diss. 2.1.33; 2.2.16; 3.24.86. 19 Quintilian, Inst. Oral 12.10.69. 20 Plutarch, De Garr. 4 (Mor. 504B).
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Some of these uses may have relevance to Paul's concept of "fool ishness." But before we begin to assess their significance, it is es sential to recognize that there is one meaning which is so common in the Greco-Roman world that it would have been uppermost in the minds of Paul's readers and, apart from clear indications to the contrary, must be assumed to be the meaning that Paul in tended. For most Greek readers in the time of Paul, and espe cially for those who viewed the world from the perspective gained through their participation in learned culture, the term designated the attitude and behavior of a particular social type: the lower class buffoon.21 The "foolishness" of this social type con sisted in a weakness or deficiency of intellect, 22 often coupled with a physical grotesqueness. 23 Because the concept of the laughable in the Greco-Roman world was grounded in contemplation of the ugly and defective,24 those who possessed these characteristics were deemed to be "foolish." As a source of amusement, these lower class types were widely represented on the stage in the vulgar and realistic comedy known as the "mime." 2 5 Through its use in this context, became "the common generic name for a mimic fool." 26 The fool was a secondary actor in the mime, a second banana, a clown.27 His function was to make fun of a primary action by imitation and intrusion. So he aped the performance of the archmime, comically misinterpreting and reacting to him. 2 8 Like other mimes, the fool appeared barefoot and maskless; indeed, his grimaces and gesticulations were an essential part of the per-

For this social type and the ridicule to which such humble persons were routinely exposed, see P. Veyne, A History of Private Life I: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 134-36. 22 Bertram, "," p. 832. 23 G.M.A. Richter, "Grotesques and the Mime," AfA 17 (1913), pp. 148-56. 24 Aristotle, Ars Poet. 1449a30; Cicero, De Oral 2.236; Quintilian, Inst. Oral 6.3.1.; cf. M. Grant, The Ancient Rhetorical Theories of the Laughable (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1924), p. 19 and passim. 25 On the fool in the mime, see the testimonia collected by H. Reich, Der Mimus. Ein litterar-entwickelungsgeschichtlicher Versuch (Berlin: Weidmann, 1903), pp. 578-83; A. Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles'. Studies in the Popular Theatre (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), pp. 28, 47-48, 87-90; E. Wst, "Mimos," RE 15.2 (1932), p. 1748. 26 Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p. 28. 27 Horace, Ep. 1.18.10-14; cf. Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p. 87. 28 Reich, Der Mimus, pp. 82, 93-94.

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formance. 2 9 The fool typically had a shaven head; he was baldheaded not by nature, but from anxiety. 30 Although he might wear a variety of costumes, those most often associated with the fool were the chiton, a short frock, and the centunculus, a colorful rag garment stitched together from odd scraps. 31 T h e fool sometimes carried a stick with which his misbehavior was punished; we read much of the blows that rained down u p o n the fool's h u m p e d back or bald head. 3 2 Vivid portraits of mimic fools survive in terra-cotta statuettes of the Hellenistic age and the early Roman Empire. A terra-cotta lamp found in Athens depicts three maskless performers standing in a group (Fig. I ) . 3 3 T h a t they are mime actors is proven by the inscription on the side: "mime-actors; the theme (or subject of the play), T h e Mother-in-Law." Of the three mimes represented, the o n e in the middle, facing front, is clearly the fool. H e wears a short chiton and lays his right h a n d over his protruding belly. He has a bald head, large ears, a broad nose, small eyes, and a wry m o u t h . He stands, rather dejectedly, between the other characters, as though he had just received a heavy lecture from them. Fig. 1 Another statuette, probably from Alexandria, shows two mimic fools with shaved heads, broad noses, and full lips, dressed in short chitons, engaged in animated
29 Seneca, Epist. 8.8; Juvenal 8.191; Macrobius 2.1.9; Athenaeus, Deip. 10.452; Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 6.3.29; especially the epitaph of Vitalis, a virtuoso solo performer of the imperial period, who boasts of his skill in moulding his features and describes the effect u p o n the audience, in J.W. Duff (ed.), Minor Latin Poets (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), p p . 637-39. 30 Juvenal 5.170-72; Arnobius, Adv. nat. 7.33; cf. Reich, Der Mimus, p p . 23, 470, 578, 831; for iconographie evidence, see Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p p . 47-49. 31 Apuleius, Apol. 13; Festus 274 M; Varr, Ling. 5.132; Nonius 14; Arnobius, Adv. nat. 6.25; cf. . Dieterich, Pulcinella. Pompejanische Wandbilder und rmische Satyrspiele (Leipzig: Teubner, 1897), pp. 143-45. 32 Wst, "Mimos," p. 1748. 33 M. Bieber, Die Denkmler zum Theaterwesen im Altertum (Berlin: Vereinigung Wissenschaftlicher Verleger, 1920), p p . 175-78, Tab. 108; Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p p . 46-47.

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dialogue (Fig. 2 ) . 3 4 O n e fool places his arm a r o u n d the shoulders of the other, who leans toward him, listen ing, endeavoring to imitate with his right h a n d a n d the gesture of his companion. Cicero, in the chapters on ridicule in De Oratore, often refers to the mimes a n d speaks of their general deformity, their baldness, and their foolish a n d ridiculous grimaces. 3 5 He warns the orator from that sort of ridicule, and in the process gives a portrait of the "fool." He asks,
What can be so ridiculous as a fool? We laugh at his grimaces, his mimicry of o t h e r people's characteristics, his voice, in short, his whole person. I can call him witty, not, however, in the way I should wish an orator to be witty, but only the mime. T h a t is why this m e t h o d , which makes people laugh, does n o t belong to us. I m e a n the peevishness, superstitiousness, suspicious ness, boastfulness, foolishness. Such characters are in themselves ridiculous: we j e e r at such roles on the stage; we d o n o t act t h e m . 3 6

O n e gains some impression of the antics of the fool from the one extended example of such a routine that has accidentally sur vived in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus of the first century A D . 3 7 T h e piece is a farce, with a t h e m e akin to the Greek r o m a n c e s . 3 8 T h e characters are marked by symbols, but references in the text en able us to identify t h e m . 3 9 T h e chief part is that of A, n a m e d in the dialogue as Charition, a young Greek woman who has fallen into the hands of some barbarians. T h e king of the land intends to sacrifice h e r to Selene, in whose temple she has taken refuge. The second actor, marked in the manuscript, is a fool. That he
34 Bieber, Denkmler zum Theaterwesen, p. 177 . 188, Tab. 108, 5; Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p p . 47-48, Fig. 31. 35 Cicero, De Orat. 2.68-72. 36 Cicero, De Orat. 2.61.251-52. 37 POxy. 413. Originally p u b l i s h e d in B. P. Grenfell a n d A. S. H u n t , The Oxyrhynchus Papyri ( L o n d o n : Egypt Exploration Fund, 1903), p. 413; text a n d translation in D.L. Page (ed.), Select Papyri III (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), p p . 336-49. 8 T h e plot is based on Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris; see M. Winter, De mimis Oxyrhynchos (PhD diss., Leipzig Universitt, 1906), p. 26. 39 O n the d e c i p h e r m e n t of the symbols, see Winter, De mimis Oxy., p p . 34-35.

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is to be so identified is indicated not only by his behavior, but also from the way in which he is addressed fool!" (), and "poor fool" (). 40 It is upon the low humor of this clown that the amusement of the play chiefly depends. His methods of raising laughter are obvious: he plays off the heroine and others, making retort to their words and mocking their actions. He is, al ternately, boastful, anxious, sacrilegious and obscene. However vul gar the humor of the fool might be, his importance to the plot is underlined, in this case, by the fact that it is he who effects the heroine's rescue by making her captors drunk. The fool was a familiar figure in the cities of the Roman Em pire, where the mime was so popular that it "practically monopo lized the stage."41 Politicians might be denigrated by comparison with a fool, particularly if something about their speech or de meanor furnished a basis for the comparison. 42 As is well known, the Emperor Claudius, who ruled when Paul wrote to Corinth, suffered from cerebral palsy, which left him with certain physical impairments: his head and hands shook; he dragged his right leg; he had a cracked and hardly intelligible voice; when he was an gry, it was even more unpleasant: he stammered and snarled and slobbered. 43 When he was young, his grandfather Augustus kept him out of the public eye. 44 But when he unexpectedly came to power, he was widely ridiculed as a fool.45 Two anecdotes by the historian Suetonius illustrate how widespread was this ridicule. A Greek litigator, in hot debate with Claudius as a judge, let slip the remark, "You are both an old man and a fool ()!" 4 6 After Claudius' death, Nero "vented on him every kind of cruelty; for it was a favorite joke of his to say that Claudius had ceased to 'play the fool' among mortals, lengthening the first syllable of the word morari, "to linger, remain," so that it became moran = , 47 "to play the fool." Seneca composed a splenetic parody of the deification of Claudius, with a title that translates loosely "The
POxy. 413, lines 20, 58; cf. Winter, De mimis Oxy., p. 33; Wst, "Mimos," p. 1753. 41 W. Beare, "Mimus," OCD (1970), p. 688. 42 Suetonius, Iulius 51; Domil 10. 43 B. Levick, Claudius (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 13-15, 200 n. 7-12. 44 Suetonius, Claud. 2.2; Dio Cassius 55.27.3. 45 Suetonius, Claud. 3.2; 15.4; 38.3. 46 Suetonius, Claud. 15.4. 47 Suetonius, Nero 33.1.
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Apotheosis of a Pumpkinhead." To make sure that readers rec ognize the role in which Claudius is cast, Seneca describes the subject of his satire as a "born fool" in the prologue, 48 and later twice refers to the divinized emperor as a "fool," cleverly substi tuting for in phrases familiar from Greek drama and traditional Greek prayers. 49 It seems probable that it was from the personality of the emperor Claudius that the figure of the fool received new life in the literature of the mid-first-century. Accord ing to Suetonius, "Claudius did not even keep quiet about his own stupidity, but in certain brief speeches he declared that he had purposely feigned foolishness under Caligula, because otherwise he could not have escaped alive and attained his present station. But he convinced no one, and within a short time a book was published, the title of which was The Elevation of Fools ( ), and its thesis, that no one feigned folly."50 When we turn to 1 Corinthians 1-4 with this understanding of "foolishness," we discover that many of Paul's statements become more intelligible. We begin at the end of the section, because Paul has constructed his argument so that he comes to speak last of the charge that had given rise to the discussion.51 Thus, Paul declares in 1 Cor. 4:10, "We are fools on account of Christ." In what sense Paul means the term "fool" is clear from a little noticed reference to the "theater" in the preceding verse, which is usually translated: "we have become a spectacle to the world."52 But the generaliz ing translation conceals Paul's meaning. The Greek word is , which is, first of all, a building, a place for public as semblies, and then, as here, what one sees at a theater, a play.53 When Paul says that "God has exhibited us apostles as last of all," he is thinking of the practice of magistrates and benefactors, who gave lavish theatrical entertainments for the public, starting with the higher aesthetic forms, such as tragedy or recitations of poetry,
Seneca, Apoc. 1.1. Seneca, Apoc. 7.3; 8.3. 50 Suetonius, Claud. 38.3. 51 On the logic of Pauline argumentation, that is, his tendency to delay mention of the cause of a dispute until he has defined key terms in his own sense, see Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, p. 249; and, generally, F. Siegert, Argamentation bei Paulus (Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1985), pp. 195-99. 52 Thus the NRSV. 53 Diodorus Siculus 16.84.3; Chariton 8.7.1; IBM 3.481.395; OGI 480.9; Josephus, War 7.47; 7.107; Ant. 17.161; Acts 19:29, 31; Pseudo-Plato, Axioch. 371c; Achilles Tatius 1.16.3; cf. W. Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 446.
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progressing through classical comedy, and concluding with the mimes, which were for this reason referred to as "after-pieces."54 As we shall see, Paul is thinking, in particular, of mime scenes in which the fools were condemned to death. Paul follows the assertion, "We are fools for Christ," with an account of his experience as an apostle, which is remarkably harsh in tone and content:
We are weak, we are held in disrepute, we are hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clothed and beaten and homeless, and we grow weary from the work of our own hands, (we are) reviled, persecuted, slandered. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things (4:10-13).

The harshness of the language has often puzzled interpreters, and is usually explained by reference to Paul's emotional state or his rhetorical tendencies. 55 But the account as a whole, and each of its details is an accurate description of the social experience of the mimes. The mime actors' social status was miserably low. They were held in contempt, certainly by "polite" society. They were widely regarded as parasites. Social commentators frequently lumped them together with other low-life denizenswhores, pimps, and thieves. The mimes were repeatedly banished from the cities of the Empire. The mime's life was a precarious one; most were slaves, and those who were not eked out a dubious living, dependent upon the taste of the public, the indulgence of patrons, and the availability of suitable opportunities for performance. 5 6 The poet Martial pictures the mimes haunting the marketplaces, where they performed during the day, and where they slept at night upon mats and pallets in booths that they shared with con jurers, dancers, and the like. 57 Time permits us to examine only one detail in Paul's description. Paul says that he and his col leagues were "beaten" (4:11). The vernacular term and its cognates appear repeatedly in comedy and mime to describe the beating, the thrashing, the "knuckle-sandwich," given to the fool. 58
R. Beacham, The Roman Theatre and its Audience (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), pp. 129-37; R. Beacham, Spectacle Entertainments of Early Imperial Rome (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), pp. 2-11 and passim. 55 Heinrici, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, 1'52, p. 154; Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, pp. 106, 109; Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, pp. 86-87; Lindemann, Der erste Korintherbrief, p. 108. 56 Wst, "Mimos," p. 1748; Beacham, The Roman Theatre, pp. 131-32. 57 Martial 6.39. 58 Terence, Adelphi p. 245; Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon, 555; Liddell-Scott54

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Moving backwards through the exposition, we come to Paul's account of his preaching on the occasion of his appearance in Corinth in 2:1-5: "When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God in lofty words or wis dom ... I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trem bling." This passage, too, has puzzled interpreters. 59 We may rule out the possibility that Paul's weakness was the result of a failure of nerve. 60 Nor is there any mention of persecution as the cause of anxiety.61 Rather, Paul portrays himself as a well known figure in the mime: the befuddled orator. 62 The figure was popularized by Sophron, whose mimes were widely read and greatly ad mired. 6 3 One of Sophron's fools, Boulias the orator, is repeatedly mentioned in literature as an example of rambling, ambiguous speech. 6 4 The incoherence of Boulias' oratory became prover bial. 65 In literature influenced by the mime, we repeatedly meet with the befuddled orator, usually a simple man who has been thrust before the court, and finds himself weak in the head and trembly.66 We return, then, to the thesis statement and to the intense, theo logical reflection which it introduces: "The message about the cross is foolishness ... We proclaim Christ crucified ... foolishness to Gentiles" (1:18, 23). It now seems likely that Paul's astonishing and paradoxical equation of the cross and foolishness was mediated by the mime. 6 7 The most popular mime in Paul's day was the
Jones, Greek-English Lexicon, p. 971 s.v. , "buffet" = ; 977 s.v. ; cf. Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, p. 88. 59 For a summary of interpretations, see B. Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 147-48. 60 Rightly, Heinrici, Der erste Brief an die Korinther, p. 87. 61 Heinrici, Der erste Brief, p. 87. 62 This insight is anticipated by the remarks of D. Georgi, Theocracy in Paul's Praxis and Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991), pp. 54-55. 63 Plato, Rep. 451c, 606c; Douris of Samos in FGH 76 F 72; Quintilian, Inst. Orai 1.10.17; Statius, Silv. 5.3.158; Diogenes Laertius 3.18; cf. A Krte, "Sophron," RES (1930), pp. 1100-1103; S. Eitrem, "Sophron," SO 12 (1933), pp. 10-13. 64 Demetrius, De eloc. 3.153; Mnaseas in Zenobius 3.26. 65 Cf. O. Crusius, Untersuchungen zu den Mimiamben des Herodas (Leipzig: Teubner, 1892), p. 51. 66 E.g., Herodas, Mime 2; Hegemon of Thasos; Seneca, Apoc. 6.1-2; Lucian, fup. trag 1, 4, 14. 67 Note already the use of the term crux as a vulgar taunt in comedy, e.g., Plautus, Aularia 522; Bacchides 584; Persa 795. Note also the frequency of the abusive expression "in malam maximam crucem" (= "be hanged!") in comedy: e.g., Plautus, Asinaria 940; Bacchides 902; Casina 93, 641, 977; Curculio, 611, 693;

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Laureolus of Catullus. 68 References by historians and poets make it possible to reconstruct the plot: 69 Laureolus is a slave who runs away from his master and becomes the leader of a band of robbers. In the final scene, he was crucified. The crucifixion was enacted with a considerable degree of stage realism. Josephus reports that "a great quantity of artificial blood flowed down from the one crucified." 70 Suetonius records a performance on the day of Caligula's assassination, at the close of which the chief actor fell and vomited blood. Suetonius notes that the performance was immediately followed by a humorous afterpiece in which certain mimic fools "so vied with one another in giving evidence of their proficiency at dying that the stage swam in blood." 71 According to Martial, a condemned criminal was forced to take the part at a performance during the reign of Titus, and was actually nailed to the cross. 72 We may now tell the story of Paul's appropriation of the role of the fool in his correspondence with Corinth. When Paul came to Corinth, he preached a gospel of Jesus the Christ crucified. He made converts, mainly among the lower classes; 73 but it seems that at Corinth the Pauline mission also succeeded, for the first time, in winning adherents from the better educated and cultured circles. 74 After Paul left Corinth, another Christian missionary arrived, a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria. 7 5 According to the author of the book of Acts, Apollos was "an eloquent man," skilled in the exposition of Scriptures (Acts 18:24). 76 H e
Menaechmi 915, 1017; Mostellaria 1133; Poenulus 271, 495, 511, 789, 1309; cf. Hengel, Crucifixion, pp. 9-10. 6 ^ M. Bonaria (ed.), Mimorum Romanorum Fragmenta (Genova: Instituto di Filologia Classica, 1955), p. 112; cf. Reich, Der Mimus, pp. 564-66; Nicoli, Masks, Mimes and Miracles, pp. 110-11; Beacham, The Roman Theatre, p. 136. 69 Martial, De sped 7; Juvenal 8.187-88; Josephus, Ani 19.94; Suetonius, Calig. 57. 70 Josephus, Ant. 19.94. 71 Suetonius, Calig. 57. 72 Martial, De sped 7. 73 1 Cor. 1:26-28; cf. Georgi, Theocracy, p. 54. 74 H.D. Betz, "The Problem of Rhetoric and Theology according to the Apostle Paul" in A. Vanhoye, (ed.), L Aptre Paul: Personnalit, style, et conception du ministre (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), p. 24; CS. de Vos, Church and Community Conflicts: The Relationships of the Thessalonian, Corinthian, and Philippian Churches with Their Wider Civic Communities (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999), pp. 197-203. 75 The reconstruction offered here follows the insightful account of Apollos' role in Corinth by Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, pp. xxxi-xxxiv. 76 See the analysis of this tradition by G. Ldemann, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 207-209.

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made a strong impression upon the Corinthians, especially upon the elite who valued proficiency in rhetoric. 77 Factions formed within the church, with members declaring support for one teacher or another. 78 In the resulting debates, members of the Apollos party said that, in comparison with their eloquent teacher, Paul appeared to be a fool. Perhaps they also contrasted the "wisdom" of Apollo's interpretation of Scripture with the simplicity of Paul's preaching of the cross. We have seen that for the denigration of a public figure as a "fool" to be successful, there must be some basis for comparison. In the case of Paul, several aspects of his person, way of life, and self-presentation may have given his opponents opportunities to portray him as a "fool." The most obvious of these was Paul's manner of speaking, to which reference is repeatedly made in 1 Corinthians 1-4. In 2 Cor. 10:10, Paul's detractors are quoted: "His letters are weighty and strong, but his speech is contemptible." A few verses later, Paul concedes the point: "I am untrained (literally, "an idiot") in speaking."79 Next, there was something about Paul's demeanor that gave the impression of "weakness." In 2 Corinthians, again, Paul quotes anonymous critics who say, "his bodily presence is weak." Because the Greek word for "weakness" implies illness, a physical ailment,80 Paul's opponents may have been ridiculing his "thorn in the flesh." There has been much speculation about the nature of Paul's condition: epilepsy, weakened eyesight, a speech impediment, have all been proposed. 81 Perhaps Paul suffered, like his contemporary Claudius, from the effects of infantile paralysis. In any case, Paul's opponents exploited his weakness to make him look like a fool. Third, Paul's occupation as a handworker, a tentmaker, placed him among the urban

Similarly, D. Liftin, St. Paul's Theology of Proclamation. 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 162; Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 175-76; de Vos, Church and Community Conflicts, pp. 219-20. 78 On the dynamics in the formation of factions in the Corinthian church, see L.L. Welborn, Politics and Rhetoric in the Corinthian Epistles (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1997), pp. 1-42; H.A. Stansbury, Corinthian Honor, Corinthian Conflict: A Social History of Early Roman Corinth and its Pauline Community (PhD diss., University of California at Irvine, 1990), pp. 20, 275-76, 424. 79 Similarly, Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, pp. 204-13. 80 Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon, pp. 142-43. 81 V. Furnish, 77 Corinthians AB 32A (Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1984), pp. 547-50.

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proletariat whose lives were caricatured in the mime. 82 Numerous references in the Corinthian correspondence make it plain that Paul's decision to work with his hands was a source of shame for the wealthy members of the church at Corinth. 83 Finally, we cannot exclude the possibility that Paul's physical appearance bore some resemblance to a mimic fool. The only physical description of Paul to come down to us from the early church, in the Acts of Paul, portrays "a man small of stature, with a bald head and crooked legs ... with eyebrows meeting and nose somewhat hooked, full of friendliness."84 Perhaps it came as a surprise to Paul's Corinthian detractors that he accepted their labeling of him as a fool, though not without considerable hesitation, and after he had redefined the key terms.85 But as it turns out, the adoption of the role of the fool was a strategy practiced by a number of intellectuals in the early Empire. The Roman knight, Decimus Laberius, took the role of the fool in a mime that he wrote and enacted before Julius Caesar.86 In one of his best known satires, the Augustan poet, Horace, permits his slave Davus to describe the master as a greater fool than his slave.87 Juvenal dons the motley costume of the fool in order to expose the moral corruption of Roman society.88 What made the role of the fool so attractive was the freedom it permit82 On the lives of the urban proletariat as the subject of the mime, see Beacham, The Roman Theatre, pp. 131, 137. 83 1 Cor. 4:12; 9:1-27; 2 Cor. 11:7-15; see the discussion in G. Theissen, "Legitimation und Lebensunterhalt: Ein Beitrag zu Soziologie urchristlicher Missionare," NTS 21 (1975) 1.237, pp. 192-221; R. Hock, The Social Context of Paul's Ministry. Tentmaking and Apostleship (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980) especially pp. 50-65. 84 In the "Acts of Paul and Thecla" 3; text in R.A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet (eds.), Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha, 1.237 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1959), pp. 6-9; the translation is that of W. Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1964) 2.354. For discussion of this literary portrait and alternative views, see R.M. Grant, "The Description of Paul in the Acts of Paul and Thecla," VC 36 (1982), pp. 1-4; A. Malherbe, "A Physical Description of Paul," HTR 74 (1986), pp. 170-75. 85 The point is rightly made by W. Caspari, "ber den biblischen Begriff der Torheit," Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 39 (1928), p. 692: "Zu allem bleibt aber beachtlich, wie lange der I. Kor. zgert, bis er nur berhaupt eine persnliche Wortform unseres Begriffs 3, 18 verwendet." 86 Macrobius, Sal 2.7.2; 2.7.6-7. 87 Horace, Sal 2.7; see the discussion of this satire in W.R. Johnson, Horace and the Dialectic of Freedom (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 3-5. 88 E.g., Juvenal, Sal 9; see the discussion of this satire and the influence of the mime by G. Highet, fuvenal the Satirist (New York: Oxford University Press, 1961), pp. 117-21, 274.

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ted for the utterance of a dangerous truth. Numerous anecdotes relate how, especially in the early Empire, the mimes became voices for what no one else dared to say.89 Speaking as a fool, Paul is able to challenge the reliance upon wealth and knowledge by the leaders of the church at Corinth, and the sense of superiority which these things engendered. But at a deeper level, Horace, Paul and Juvenal are telling the truth about themselves in a society where relationships were in creasingly controlled by the patronage of a wealthy few.90 Intellec tuals were especially vulnerable to the patronage system, since they had nothing to exchange but ideas, words that vanished into air and faded quickly from the page. In a world controlled by patrons, the life of an intellectual must have seemed as insubstantial as that of a fool in the mime. The Corinthian correspondence reveals that Paul was drawn into patron-client relationships. 91 He was unable to support himself by the work of his hands, and was obliged to accept a gift from the wealthy Stephanas. 92 Our final glimpse of Paul in Corinth shows him as a guest, or client, of Gaius, the wealthiest of the Corinthian Christians, and the host of the whole church. 9 3 If Paul was able to accept the role of the fool more completely than his contemporaries, Horace and Juvenal, it was because he believed that, in the cross of Christ, God had chosen "foolishness." In a stunning paradox, Paul writes: "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are" (1 Cor. L27-28).94 To the wealthy and cultured in Corinth, Paul writes: "The fool that you laugh at in the mime of life, whose gro tesque suffering is a source of amusement, whose death on a cross is a welcome reminder of what it is like to belong to the upper
89 Suetonius, Calig. 29A; Athenaeus, Deip. 14.621 A; Historia Augusta, Duo Maxim. 9.3-5; Historia Augusta, M. Antonin. 29; other anecdotes are collected by Reich, Der Mimus, pp. 182-92. 90 P. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque: Sociologie historique d'un pluralisme politique (Paris: Seuil, 1976); R.P. Sailer, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). 91 J.K. Chow, Patronage and Power. A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1992). 92 1 Cor. 16:15-18, inferring a gift from the term in v. 17; for in this sense, see Phil. 2:30. 93 Rom. 16:23. 94 See the comments on this passage by Georgi, Theocracy, pp. 54-55.

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classeducated, unmaimed, independentthis crucified fool is the Son of God." As the apostle of this God, Paul came, in the end, to accept the word of the cross as the paradoxical truth of his own life: he was really a fool, the fool of Christ.95
ABSTRACT

This essay suggests that Paul's acceptance of the role of the "fool," and, arising out of this, his evaluation of the message of the cross as "folly," are best understood against the background of the popular theater and the fool's role in mime. The interpretation is, therefore, a corrective to the traditional view that the proclamation of the crucified Christ was an absurdity to the people of the ancient world. The essay also offers an alternative to the attempt, in some recent monographs and commentaries, to subsume Paul's "foolishness" under the category of the anti-rhetorical. The essay argues that the term "folly" was generally understood as a designation of the attitude and behavior of a particular social type, the lower class buffoon. As a source of amusement, these lower class types were widely represented on the stage in the vulgar and realistic comedy known as the mime. The essay suggests that Paul's Corinthian detractors labeled him as a "fool," in contrast to the eloquent and sophisticated Apollos. Paul's acceptance of the role of the fool mirrors the strategy of a number of intellectuals in the early Empire, who exploited the paradoxical freedom which the role permitted for the utterance of a dangerous truth.
95 Paul's appropriation of the role of the fool subsequently deepened as the conflict with the Corinthians grew sharper; in 2 Cor. 11:1-12:10, Paul delivers a "fool's speech," based upon the performances of the fools in the mime. For this interpretation, see H. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, KEK 6 (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1924), pp. 316; L.L. Welborn, "The Runaway Paul: A Character in the Fool's Speech," HTR 92.2 (1999), pp. 115-63.

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