In 2 Cor 7.10, Paul asserts that a certain kind of ‘pain’ (λύπη)—namely, that which is ‘according to God’ (κατὰ θεόν)—produces a ‘repentance not to be regretted’ (μετάνοια ἀμεταμέλητος) and leads to ‘salvation’ (σωτηρία). A proper appreciation of the novelty of Paul's thought on the role of pain in producing psychic health can be gained when Paul's statement is read in the context of ancient psychagogic literature,Footnote ¹ particularly the writings of popular philosophers who sought to combine the Stoic theory of the emotions with Platonic psychology. In this literature, we discover numerous, illuminating parallels to Paul's description of the Corinthians' remorse and their emotional journey from remorse to repentance. But Paul has few, if any, predecessors in the constructive role that he attributes to ‘pain’ (λύπη).Footnote ² Paul emerges from our comparative study as the harbinger of an upheaval in the ancient therapy of the emotions, indeed, as the architect of a new concept of the ‘self as sufferer’, which, by the end of the second century, had achieved significant cultural currency.Footnote ³

Our study begins with Paul's account of the ‘remorse’ of the Corinthians over their complicity in the affair of the ‘wrongdoer’. Paul's vivid description of the Corinthians' emotional journey from ‘remorse’ to ‘repentance’ in 2 Cor 2.5–11 and 7.5–16 aligns remarkably well with the analyses of the function of ‘remorse’ in the psychagogical literature of Paul's contemporaries, establishing not only that Paul was conversant with the discourse of the popular philosophers on ‘remorse’ and moral progress, but also, and more importantly, that Pauline psychagogy and philosophical psychagogy are members of a comparable class. Our attention then turns to the letter in which Paul offers his emotional therapy, the letter now preserved in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16.Footnote ⁴ Knowledge of the social situation and rhetorical conventions of a letter written in the ‘therapeutic’ style enhances appreciation of the heightened emotional intensity of Paul's epistolary discourse.Footnote ⁵ We focus special attention upon the constructive role that Paul attributes to ‘pain’ (λύπη), a valorization whose originality becomes apparent through comparison with the emotional therapy of Paul's Stoicizing contemporaries who sought strenuously to banish ‘pain’ from the life of the wise person. We seek the source of Paul's anomalous conception of the role of ‘pain’ in his understanding of the exemplary suffering of the crucified Christ. Our study concludes with observations on Paul's psychagogical strategy in offering a novel emotional therapy to his Corinthian converts.

1. The Sting of Remorse

Paul's anomalous assertion about a ‘pain’ that leads to ‘salvation’ is made in the context of his attempt to conciliate the Corinthians, who had been wounded by the actions of an anonymous ‘wrongdoer’ (2.5–11; 7.12), and subsequently by Paul's ‘painful epistle’ (7.8–9). In pursuit of reconciliation with his wounded friends, Paul sent Titus on a mission to Corinth (2.12–13; 7.5–7, 13b–16). Paul reflects rather fulsomely upon the report that Titus brought back from Corinth in 7.5–7. Titus reported the ‘longing’ (ἐπιπόθησις), ‘mourning’ (ὀδυρμός), and ‘zeal’ (ζῆλος) of the Corinthians on Paul's behalf (7.7). These strong emotions are all aspects of the Corinthians' ‘grief’ (λύπη), a ‘grief’ that is mentioned no less than eight times in the paragraph which Paul devotes to Titus's report (7.8–13a).Footnote ⁶ Paul makes no attempt to conceal the fact that the cause of the grief that Titus encountered in Corinth was the rupture of Paul's relationship with one Corinthian in particular. In 2.5 Paul concedes that all of the Corinthians, and not himself alone (οὐκ ἐμὲ…ἀλλὰ…πάντας ὑμᾶς),Footnote ⁷ have been grieved by an unnamed individual. Equally, in 7.8 Paul acknowledges that the letter which he wrote in response to the wrongdoing had caused ‘grief’ to the Corinthians.

Among the Corinthians, the one who felt the sharpest pain and experienced the deepest remorse was the ‘wrongdoer’. This is a necessary inference from Paul's account of the ‘excessive grief’ (περισσοτέρᾳ λύπῃ) that threatened to ‘overwhelm’ (καταποθῇ) this individual in 2.7, unless Paul's account is regarded as hyperbolic. The verb καταπίνειν is frightful in its force: in the passive voice which Paul uses here, καταπίνειν means ‘to be swallowed up by waters’, ‘to be drowned’.Footnote ⁸ The image that Paul's language evokes is that of a man being drowned in his own tears.Footnote ⁹ Paul intensifies the portrait of the wrongdoer's grief by adding the comparative adjective περισσότερος, functioning as an elative superlative—‘excessive’.Footnote ¹⁰

An illuminating parallel to Paul's account of the grief of the wrongdoer is found in Pseudo-Demosthenes' apology for his excessive sorrow, at the conclusion of his conciliatory epistle to the council and assembly of Athens. Acknowledging that he had committed ‘some slight offence’,Footnote ¹¹ and appealing at length for forgiveness and restoration, the orator seeks to excuse his excess of grief:

The psychagogic literature of antiquity and especially some of Plutarch's essays, permit us to form a more robust conception of the ‘remorse’ and ‘regret’ attendant upon the wrongdoing of one Corinthian in particular, and the complicity of others in his wrong. In the Tabula of Cebes, the one who ‘commits all that is injurious’, and is delivered to ‘Retribution’ (Τιμωρία), is described as living with ‘Grief’ (Λύπη) and ‘Sorrow’ (Ὀδύνη), personified as ‘ugly, filthy women dressed in rags’, as well as ‘Lamentation’ (Ὀδυρμός) and his sister ‘Despondency’ (Ἀθυμία), portrayed as ‘deformed, emaciated, and naked’. Eventually the wrongdoer is thrown into the house of ‘Unhappiness’ (Κακοδαιμονία), ‘and here he spends the rest of his life in total unhappiness’, unless he is rescued by ‘Repentance’ (Μετάνοια).Footnote ¹³ In Plutarch's essay on delays in the divine vengeance, he speaks of ‘the intervening sufferings, terrors, forebodings, and pangs of remorse to which every wrongdoer, once he has done evil, is prey’ (τὰ δ᾽ ἐν μέσῳ παθήματα καὶ ϕόβους καὶ προσδοκίας καὶ μεταμελείας οἷς ἀδικήσας ἕκαστος ἐνέχεται τῶν πονηρῶν παραλείπομεν).Footnote ¹⁴ In his essay on vice as the cause of unhappiness, Plutarch pictures the psychological suffering of a man who does evil: ‘vice…, when it has joined itself to the soul, crushes and overthrows it, and fills the man with grief and lamentation, dejection and remorse’ (κακιά…, τῇ ψυχῇ συνελθοῦσα συνέτριψε καὶ κατέβαλε, λύπης ἐνέπλησε θρήνων βαρυθυμίας μεταμελείας τὸν ἄνθρωπον).Footnote ¹⁵

The psychagogic literature is also helpful in comprehending the movement from ‘remorse’ to ‘repentance’ implicit in Paul's account of the response of the Corinthians in 7.7b–11. Plutarch attributes a crucial role to the consciousness of wrongdoing. In his essay on tranquility of mind, Plutarch invokes ‘the conscience (ἡ σύνεσις)’ of someone who ‘knows he has done a dreadful deed’, and continues with a simile: ‘like an ulcer in the flesh, [the knowledge of wrong] leaves behind it in the soul regret (μεταμέλεια) which ever continues to wound and prick it’.Footnote ¹⁶ Similarly, in his treatise on delays in the divine vengeance, Plutarch explains: ‘the thought that the soul of every wicked man revolves within itself and dwells upon is this: how it might escape from the memory of its wrongdoings (ἡ μνήμη τῶν ἀδικημάτων), drive out of itself the consciousness (τὸ συνειδός) of guilt, regain its purity, and begin its life anew’.Footnote ¹⁷

In sum, what Titus reported to Paul regarding the response of the Corinthians, and the wrongdoer in particular, was remorse and repentance (7.7b–11). As Hans Windisch observed, ‘in μετάνοια ist mit einem Worte zusammengefasst, was Paulus V. 7b aus dem Bericht des Titus hervorhob: die Äusserungen der Sehnsucht, des Schmerzes und des Eifers für Paulus waren eben die erfreulichen Zeichen einer “Sinnesänderung”, die die Gemeinde durchgemacht hatte’.Footnote ¹⁸ Paul emphasizes the ‘repentance’ (μετάνοια) of the wrongdoer and the Corinthians because a fundamental ‘change of attitude’ was understood to be the only way out of deadly remorse, the interim stage along the path from ‘pain’ (λύπη) to salvation (σωτηρία) (7.10). In the Tabula of Cebes, when ‘Repentance’ (Μετάνοια) encounters a man in the grip of despondency, ‘she releases him from his ills and introduces him to another Opinion (Δόξα), who leads him to true Education (Παιδεία)’.Footnote ¹⁹ Plutarch explains the psychological process: ‘For the other pangs (λῦπαι) reason does away with, but repentance (μετάνοια) is caused by reason itself, since the soul, together with its feeling of shame, is stung and chastised by itself’.Footnote ²⁰ Titus's report inspired Paul to hope that the repentance of the wrongdoer and the Corinthians was genuine and lasting, a confidence expressed by the elegant oxymoron μετάνοια ἀμεταμέλητος (‘repentance not to be regretted’) in 7.10.Footnote ²¹

2. Paul's Therapeutic Epistle

The letter that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in the afterglow of Titus' report is now preserved in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13 and 7.5–16.Footnote ²² Since the time of Günther Bornkamm, it has become customary to refer to the letter of 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 as the ‘letter of reconciliation’ (‘Versöhnungsbrief’).Footnote ²³ This usage may have encouraged the idea that all was now well between Paul and the Corinthians, and that Paul only needed to ‘set the seal’ upon his conciliatory efforts, so to speak. But close reading of this epistle reveals that Paul still had work to do, in order to allay suspicions of insincerity and, above all, to heal his wounded friends at Corinth.Footnote ²⁴ With regard to the occasion of this epistle, Johannes Weiss observed: ‘There is still some mistrust (2 Cor 1.13–14). The opinion still seemed to some extent to prevail that Paul had dealt with the Corinthians with worldly subtlety and not with complete sincerity, and that mental reservations were concealed beneath the words of his letters (2 Cor 1.12–13)’.Footnote ²⁵

Paul's assurance of the ‘simplicity and sincerity’ (ἁπλότης καὶ εἰλικρίνεια) of his conduct in 1.12–14 constitutes the proposition (πρόθεσις) of this epistle.Footnote ²⁶ This is a sure indication that this letter, like the preceding two epistles,Footnote ²⁷ is still to some extent ‘apologetic’ in character.Footnote ²⁸ Accordingly, in the first argument (1.15–22),Footnote ²⁹ Paul appeals to his volition (βούλησις) as proof of his sincerity against the charge of ‘foolish irresponsibility’ (ἐλαϕρία)Footnote ³⁰ in his failure to keep his promise to return to Corinth.Footnote ³¹ In the second argument (1.23–2.4), Paul explains that he exercised caution (εὐλάβεια), ‘sparing’ (ϕειδόμενος) the Corinthians further grief by his decision not to come to Corinth. In the third argument (2.5–11), Paul proves his sincere goodwill by his magnanimous treatment of the one who had caused grief, recommending that the Corinthians ‘forgive’ and ‘console’ him, and that they ‘reaffirm love’. Paul next (2.12–13; 7.5–7) adduces the anxious state in which he awaited news of the outcome of Titus' mission as proof of the genuineness of his affection. Paul's final argument (7.8–13a) appeals to the beneficial results of his painful epistle as proof of the integrity of his conduct: the grief of the Corinthians has produced repentance, salvation, and joy.

Yet, the overarching purpose of the epistle preserved in 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 is the healing of Paul's wounded friends at Corinth, especially the wrongdoer. The Corinthians had been doubly grieved—first, by the actions of the wrongdoer (2.5), then by Paul's severe response (7.8). So, from the first word of this epistle to the last, Paul offers consolation.Footnote ³² Paul opens the prooemium (1.3–7) with praise of God as the ‘God of all consolation’ (θεὸς πάσης παρακλήσεως). Paul represents himself as ‘afflicted’ (θλιβόμεθα) and ‘comforted’ (παρακαλούμεθα) ‘on behalf of’ (ὑπέρ) the Corinthians, so that he may be able to extend consolation to his wounded friends (εἰς δύνασθαι ἡμᾶς παρακαλεῖν τοὺς ἐν πάσῃ θλίψει διὰ τῆς παρακλήσεως ἧς παρακαλούμεθα). Equally, Paul portrays the Corinthians as the source of ‘consolation’ and ‘joy’ for himself and Titus: ‘But the God who consoles the downcast consoled us by the coming of Titus (ἀλλ᾽ ὁ παρακαλῶν τοὺς ταπεινοὺς παρεκάλεσεν ἡμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἐν τῇ παρουσίᾳ Τίτου), and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation by which he was consoled by you (καὶ ἐν τῇ παρακλήσει ᾗ παρεκλήθη ἐϕ᾽ ὑμῖν),Footnote ³³…so that I rejoiced’ (7.6–7). The jubilant peroration of this epistle (7.13b–16) reiterates Paul's consolation and joy in response to the good report of Titus: ‘In addition to our own consolation (ἐπὶ δὲ τῇ παρακλήσει), we rejoiced still more at the joy of Titus, because his mind has been set at rest by you all’.

The epistolary form which subsumes both the apologetic and the consolatory moments in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 is the ‘therapeutic’ (θεραπευτική) type of letter described in the handbook on epistolary style attributed to Libanius: ‘The therapeutic style is that in which we conciliate someone who has been caused grief by us for some reason’ (θεραπευτικὴ δι᾽ ἧς θεραπεύομέν τινα λυπηθέντα πρὸς ἡμᾶς περί τινος).Footnote ³⁴ Pseudo-Libanius adds: ‘Some also call this the apologetic style’ (ταύτην δὲ καὶ ἀπολογητικήν τινες καλοῦσιν). The author provides a concise example of the letter type.Footnote ³⁵

The rudimentary nature of the sample letter in the handbook clearly reveals its structure, the principal sections being marked by the μέν – δέ contrast. The first section reviews what was said and done that occasioned grief, climaxed by an assurance that pain was not intended. The second section acknowledges that distress has been caused, and outlines remedial measures to be taken. The letter concludes with reassurance that the author aims at healing his friends, rather than causing them sorrow.

The agreement between the therapeutic letter in the handbook and Paul's therapeutic epistle in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 is striking. The account of what was said and done in the sample letter (ἐγὼ μὲν ἐϕ᾽ οἷς εἶπον λόγοις μετῆλθον ἔργῳ) corresponds to the twin prongs of Paul's proposition in 1.12–14, regarding (1) his conduct towards the Corinthians (ἀνεστράϕημεν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ, περισσοτέρως δὲ πρὸς ὑμᾶς), and (2) the proper understanding of what he wrote (οὐ γὰρ ἄλλα γράϕομεν ὑμῖν ἀλλ᾽ ἢ ἅ ἀναγινώσκετε ἢ καὶ ἐπιγινώσκετε), expounded in the first and second proofs, respectively (1.15–22; 1.23–2.4). Paul then explains to the Corinthians that he had no intention of causing them sorrow (ἔκρινα γὰρ ἐμαυτῷ τοῦτο τὸ μὴ πάλιν ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλθεῖν καὶ ἔγραψα ὑμῖν…οὐχ ἵνα λυπηθῆτε, 2.1–4), just as the sample letter of the handbook recommends (τὸ γὰρ σύνολον οὐκ ἐνόμιζόν σέ ποτε λυπηθήσεσθαι). In conformity to the second division in the argument of the sample letter (marked by the δέ clause, εἰ δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς λεχθεῖσιν ἢ πραχθεῖσιν ἠχθέσθης), Paul acknowledges that distress had been caused, first by the wrongdoer (εἰ δέ τις λελύπηκεν, κτλ., 2.5), and then by his own epistle (ὅτι εἰ καὶ ἐλύπησα ὑμᾶς ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ, κτλ., 7.8). Finally, Paul reassures the Corinthians that his aim had always been therapeutic, namely, to provoke the repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret (7.9–10), just as the author of the handbook recommends. The letter of 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 is much closer to the sample letter of the handbook in form, structure, and content than any other surviving example of a conciliatory epistle, e.g., Apollonius of Tyana Ep. 45, BGU II.531 (Chairemon to Apollonius). Only if the letter of Marcus Aurelius to Herodes Atticus, excerpted by Philostratus (Vit. Soph. 2.1.562–63),Footnote ³⁶ had survived in its entirety, might we have a more perfect example of the therapeutic type of letter than we possess in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16.

An innovation—of degree rather than kind—is observable in Paul's therapeutic epistle, in comparison with other letters of the conciliatory type: the intensity of Paul's appeal to the emotions. To be sure, all conciliatory epistles speak to the emotions, since the aim (σκοπός) of such writing is to heal a wounded friend.Footnote ³⁷ Thus, Chairemon's conciliatory apology to his ‘dear friend’ (ϕίλτατος) Apollonius (BGU II.531) is characterized by a more affectionate tone than is found in other papyrus letters.Footnote ³⁸ Marcus Aurelius plays upon the emotions of his friend Herodes Atticus in an attempt to establish a basis for reconciliation in the commonality of affliction: Marcus dwells upon the rigors of his military quarters, laments the recent death of his wife, and remarks upon his own bad health.Footnote ³⁹ Yet, there is nothing in the surviving epistolary corpus that approaches Paul's preoccupation with the emotions in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16. A summary of the semantic evidence will indicate the depth of Paul's concern with the emotions in this letter.

Paul opens the exordium (1.3–7) with praise of God as ‘the father of pities’ (ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν) and ‘God of all consolation’ (θεὸς πάσης παρακλήσεως). In the verses that follow, a complex and effective rhetorical figure is created by repetition of a highly charged emotional vocabulary: θλῖψις (‘affliction’, ‘distress’), παράκλησις (‘comfort’, ‘consolation’), πάθημα (‘suffering’, ‘passion’), etc.Footnote ⁴⁰ Paul asserts that his ‘distress’ and ‘comfort’ are ‘on behalf of’ the Corinthians, and voices his hope for the emergence of a community of affection in which he and the Corinthians would be ‘partners in the same passions’ (κοινωνοὶ τῶν αὐτῶν παθημάτων).Footnote ⁴¹ Paul grounds the possibility of a renewed community of affection with the Corinthians in the fact that ‘the passions of Christ overflow into us’ (περισσεύει τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς).

In the narration (1.8–11), Paul suppresses mention of the specific incident that caused his ‘affliction’ (θλῖψις) in Asia,Footnote ⁴² and focuses instead upon his resulting psychological condition: ‘We were so utterly, unbearably crushed (καθ᾽ ὑπερβολὴν ὑπὲρ δύναμιν ἐβαρήθημεν) that we despaired of life itself (ἐξαπορηθῆναι ἡμᾶς καὶ τοῦ ζῆν)’.Footnote ⁴³ The proposition that Paul sets forth in 1.12–14 concerns the motivation of his conduct, his ‘simplicity’ (ἁπλότης) and ‘sincerity’ (εἰλικρίνεια); the issue of the epistle is a matter of ‘conscience’ (συνείδησις).

In the arguments by which Paul justifies his actions (1.15–2.4), he explains that the criterion that guided his conduct towards the Corinthians was his determination to be neither the agent nor the victim of ‘pain’ (λύπη), but rather the sponsor and recipient of ‘joy’ (χαρά). Paul concludes the paragraph with a vivid depiction of the emotional state in which he wrote to Corinth: ‘much distress’ (πολλὴ θλῖψις), ‘anguish of heart’ (συνοχὴ καρδίας), ‘many tears’ (πολλὰ δάκρυα), clear indications of the abundant ‘love’ (ἀγάπη) that he feels for the Corinthians. Above all, Paul is concerned for the emotional well-being of the wrongdoer (2.5–11), urging the Corinthians to ‘forgive’ (χαρίσασθαι) and ‘console’ (παρακαλέσαι) him, and reaffirm their ‘love’ (ἀγάπη), lest he be ‘drowned by excessive sorrow’ (τῇ περισσοτέρᾳ λύπῃ καταποθῇ). Paul's account of the emotional state in which he awaited news of the effect of his letter upon the Corinthians (in 2.12–13; 7.5–7) vividly portrays his anxiety: ‘I did not have any relief in my spirit’ (οὐκ ἔσχηκα ἄνεσιν τῷ πνευματί μου); ‘our flesh had no rest’ (οὐδεμίαν ἔσχηκεν ἄνεσιν ἡ σάρξ ἡμῶν); ‘afflicted in every way’ (ἐν παντὶ θλιβόμενοι); ‘fightings without’ (ἔξωθεν μάχαι); ‘fears within’ (ἔσωθεν ϕόβοι). But the arrival of Titus brought ‘consolation’ (παράκλησις) for the ‘downcast’ (ταπεινός) apostle. Paul's summary of what Titus reported from Corinth focuses entirely upon the Corinthians' emotional response: ‘yearning desire’ (ἐπιπόθησις), ‘mourning’ (ὀδυρμός), ‘zeal’ (ζῆλος). Paul's final argument (7.8–13a) appeals to the emotional effect of his letter upon the Corinthians as proof of the integrity of his conduct. Paul acknowledges that he ‘grieved’ (ἐλύπησα) the Corinthians by means of his epistle, and that for a time he even ‘regretted’ (μετεμελόμην) having sent it. But second thoughts have been replaced by rejoicing (χαίρω) at the discovery that the grief that the Corinthians experienced (ἐλυπήθητε) resulted in ‘repentance’ (μετάνοια), rather than ‘despair’, or ‘spiritual death’ (θάνατος).Footnote ⁴⁴ Paul then asserts, remarkably, that there is such a thing as ‘godly grief’ (ἡ κατὰ θεὸν λύπη) and that the Corinthians have experienced it, and then proceeds to analyze in extraordinary detail the stages of an emotional progress: ‘earnestness’ (σπουδή), ‘eagerness to clear oneself’ (ἀπολογία), ‘indignation’ (ἀγανάκτησις), ‘fear’ (ϕόβος), ‘yearning desire’ (ἐπιπόθησις), ‘zeal’ (ζῆλος), ‘retribution’ (ἐκδίκησις).Footnote ⁴⁵ Paul assures the Corinthians that they have proven themselves entirely ‘guiltless’ (ἁγνοί) in the affair of the wrongdoer and pronounces himself ‘comforted’ (παρακεκλήμεθα).

The peroration of the letter (7.13b–16), at once jubilant and circumspect, celebrates the restoration of Paul's ‘confidence’ (θαρρέω) in the Corinthians by appealing to the ‘joy’ (χαρά) of his envoy Titus. Once again, the content of Titus' report is completely supplanted by Paul's account of its emotional effect: ‘We rejoiced (ἐχάρημεν) even much more at the joy (χαρά) of Titus, because his spirit has been set at rest (ἀναπέπαυται τὸ πνεῦμα αὐτοῦ) by you all’. Titus' emotional response to the Corinthians is viscerally described, fully warranting Paul's ‘boast’ (καύχησις) in the Corinthians, so that he was not ‘put to shame’ (κατῃσχύνθην): Titus' ‘bowels’ (σπλάγχνα) go out to the Corinthians, as he remembers how they welcomed him with ‘fear and trembling’ (ϕόβος καὶ τρόμος). The peroration climaxes with a heartfelt affirmation: ‘I rejoice because I have complete confidence in you!’ (χαίρω ὅτι ἐν παντὶ θαρρῶ ἐν ὑμῖν).

Even a summary of the evidence already makes clear that the emotional vocabulary of this letter far exceeds the ϕιλοϕρόνησις required to maintain or restore a relationship. What a summary cannot convey is the heightened affective atmosphere created by the repetition of key terms, such as θλῖψις, παράκλησις, πάθημα, λύπη, χαρά, and their associated verb forms,Footnote ⁴⁶ and by the repeated use of hyperbolic expressions, such as πᾶς, περισσοτέρως, καθ᾽ ὑπερβολήν, ὑπὲρ δύναμιν, etc.Footnote ⁴⁷ Nor can a summary give a sense of the sonority achieved by rhetorical figures, such as traductio,Footnote ⁴⁸ or the excitement generated by the skillful use of the particles,Footnote ⁴⁹ or the caution embodied in the conditionals,Footnote ⁵⁰ or the sensitivity suggested by the repeated recourse to metonymy.Footnote ⁵¹ All in all, it is difficult to imagine that there is another letter from antiquity so obsessive in its concern for the emotions, so vulnerable in its disclosure of the author's emotional state, or so solicitous in its practice of what should be called ‘emotional therapy’.

3. The Therapy of Pain

A full appreciation of the originality of Paul's appeal to the emotions in 2 Cor 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 requires some attention to emotional therapy as practiced by Paul's contemporaries. Among the philosophers of the Hellenistic and Roman age, a vigorous discussion arose about the nature of the emotions and their function in moral life.Footnote ⁵² The surviving literature, which is unfortunately fragmentary,Footnote ⁵³ nevertheless makes clear that the philosophers aimed not only to understand the psychological basis of the emotions, but also to develop kinds of therapy to restrain, modify, or even eliminate the emotions.Footnote ⁵⁴ The Stoics, in particular, elaborated a systematic theory of the emotions, in which certain terms acquired a technical meaning.Footnote ⁵⁵ Λύπη, for example, which is the object of Paul's concern in his therapeutic epistle, was one of the four generic emotions, according to the Stoic doctrine, alongside ‘pleasure’ (ἡδονή), ‘fear’ (ϕόβος), and ‘desire’ (ἐπιθυμία).Footnote ⁵⁶

The Stoic Map of the Emotions

The (Vicious) Passions, πάθη

The therapy of λύπη, that is, the development of a dependable method of consolation, was the goal of the influential fourth book of Chrysippus' On Affections, which, with its special title, Θεραπευτικόν (Therapeutics), seems to have been read and used separately from the rest.Footnote ⁵⁷ The results of the philosophers' efforts to restrain or eliminate λύπη held a special attraction for practical intellectuals, such as Cicero, as one can see from books 3 and 4 of his Tusculan Disputations,Footnote ⁵⁸ as well as for Seneca and Plutarch, who had to cope with the frustrations of life in order to survive in an increasingly dangerous political environment.Footnote ⁵⁹ It is in the treatises on the emotions by these philosophical ‘amateurs’ that we find the most relevant material for comparison with Paul's therapeutic epistle.

Reading Paul's therapeutic epistle in this context reveals the preoccupation with the emotions which Paul shared with his intellectual contemporaries and establishes a basis for discerning the differences in their respective constructions of the emotional life. I should make clear that I do not assume that Paul had read Chrysippus on the emotions (although the possibility cannot be excluded).Footnote ⁶⁰ But the image of the wise man who had achieved ‘self-mastery’ (ἐγκράτεια) through the control or elimination of his emotions was widespread in the first century and held an arrtraction for men of affairs such as Seneca and Plutarch.Footnote ⁶¹ We should not be surprised if the minority of Corinthian Christians who belonged to the upper class and had received an education were informed by values and ideals like those found in works on the emotions by social elites like Seneca. Indeed, close reading of Paul's therapeutic epistle in the context of his Corinthian correspondence as a whole suggests that the unrestrained display of powerful emotions such as anger and grief in a previous epistle (2 Cor 10–13), which Paul himself describes as a letter written ‘with many tears’ (2.4),Footnote ⁶² was adduced by his opponents as the clearest proof of Paul's failure to achieve self-mastery. Such a loss of emotional control indicates how far Paul falls short of the ideal σώϕρων. His ‘distress’ (λύπη) demonstrates that his ‘foolishness’ (ἀϕροσύνη) is more real than feigned.Footnote ⁶³ Paul's concern with the emotions in his therapeutic epistle, and especially his revaluation of λύπη, is calculated to counter the impression produced by his previous, painful epistle (2 Cor 10–13).

It is in respect to the status of λύπη that Paul's view of the emotions differs most surprisingly from the fully developed systems of his intellectual contemporaries. Among the Stoics, and those who, like Cicero and Seneca, sought to combine Stoic teaching with Platonic psychology,Footnote ⁶⁴ λύπη (Latin aegritudo) was the most problematic emotion. Cicero gives expression to this attitude:

The problematic nature of λύπη can be seen most clearly in the total absence of a rational counterpart to λύπη from the list of ‘good emotions’ (εὐπάθειαι) which the Stoics held to characterize the life of the sage.Footnote ⁶⁶ As is well known, the Stoics advocated the complete elimination of the ‘passions’ (πάθη) or ‘vicious emotions’.Footnote ⁶⁷ This ‘absolutist’ position was popular among Greek and Roman thinkers,Footnote ⁶⁸ and even with Paul's Jewish contemporaries, Philo and the author of 4 Maccabees.Footnote ⁶⁹ Yet, the Stoics allowed that the sage might enjoy certain other conditions which they called ‘good emotions’ (εὐπάθειαι), which differed from the passions in being ‘accurate, veridical attributions of goodness and badness’ to things.Footnote ⁷⁰ So, to ‘fear’ (ϕόβος) there corresponded the rational emotion ‘caution’ (εὐλάβεια), to ‘desire’ (ἐπιθυμία) corresponded ‘volition’ (βούλησις), and to ‘pleasure’ (ἡδονή) corresponded ‘joy’ (χαρά).Footnote ⁷¹

The Stoic Map of the Emotions

The (Rational) Dispositions, εὐπάθειαι

But there was no fourth εὐπάθεια: the sage could have no constructive relationship to λύπη, so destructive was this emotion to moral life, so repulsive to the man who wished to achieve self-mastery.Footnote ⁷²

This attitude toward λύπη animates Dio Chrysostom's rhetorical questions in his discourse Περὶ λύπης: ‘What more abject creature is there than a man who is held in thrall to pain? (καίτοι τί μὲν ταπεινότερον ἀνδρὸς λυπουμένου;) What sight is there so shameful?’Footnote ⁷³ Observing that ‘life is full of painful things’, Dio adopts the Stoic therapy: ‘but one should tear that morbid state out of his soul completely, get a firm hold on the truth that the intelligent man ought not to feel pain about anything whatever (ὅτι μὴ λυπητέον ἐστὶ περὶ μηδενὸς τῷ νοῦν ἔχοντι), and be a free man henceforth’.Footnote ⁷⁴ The absence of a positive counterpart to λύπη from the Stoic system of the emotions is not accidental, but rather inheres organically in the Stoic construction of emotional life.Footnote ⁷⁵ Indeed, it might be argued that the aim of the Stoic system was to make the wise man invulnerable to λύπη, however many frustrations and dangers life might hold, and that the promise of this invulnerability constituted the principal attraction of the Stoic theory to the social elites.Footnote ⁷⁶

What, then, does it mean that Paul not only acknowledges that he and the wrongdoer and, indeed, all of the Corinthians have experienced λύπη, but then goes on to dissect the experience in a detail that Cicero and Seneca might have found humiliating? Paul even asserts, astonishingly, that there is a ‘divine distress’ (ἡ κατὰ θεὸν λύπη) which leads by certain emotional stages to ‘salvation’ (7.9–10). What sort of upheaval in the centuries-old preoccupation with emotional self-control among Greek and Roman thinkers does Paul's paradoxical transvaluation of ‘pain’ signify?

An observation of the historian William Harris permits us to take a few steps down the road toward an understanding of the novelty of Paul's view of pain in Greco-Roman context. Harris notices that the discourse of ‘depression’ is largely absent from Greek and Roman literature, a lacuna only partly filled by λύπη as ‘mental pain’ or ‘psychological distress’.Footnote ⁷⁷ Instead, ‘anger’ discourse bulks large in ancient authors, as evidenced by the substantial monographs on anger by Philodemus, Seneca, and Plutarch.Footnote ⁷⁸ Harris suggests that ‘the frustrations of life, commonly recognized as a major source of modern depression, tended in antiquity to produce emotions akin to anger’, and speculates that ‘the emotional state we know of as depression may have been less common’ in antiquity.Footnote ⁷⁹ As much as Harris's suggestion may be an accurate reflection of the concerns of the sources, we should not fail to remind ourselves that the surviving literature on the emotions is the product almost entirely of the educated social elites.Footnote ⁸⁰ It is our hypothesis that outside the upper class, among the working poor, slaves, and beggars, who constituted the majority of the population of the Roman Empire,Footnote ⁸¹ depression was as widespread in antiquity as it is today,Footnote ⁸² but found almost no expression,Footnote ⁸³ because of the social conditions under which the poor lived. We suggest that Paul's therapeutic epistle, with its emphasis upon λύπη, provides privileged access to the mental and psychological world of non-elites in respect to the emotions.Footnote ⁸⁴

In his therapeutic epistle, Paul not only acknowledges that he and the Corinthian Christians have experienced λύπη, he asserts, provocatively, that the ‘distress’ had a divine origin (7.9), that ‘distress’ had produced ‘repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret’ (7.10). Comparison with the writings of Paul's philosophical contemporaries makes clear how anomalous, even shocking, this valorization of λύπη must have seemed. Cicero, for example, states unequivocally, that those who are subject to ‘distress’ (aegritudo) are ‘fools’ (stulti).Footnote ⁸⁵ Dio Chrysostom asserts that ‘accepting servitude to pain is altogether irrational and strange (τὸ δὲ λύπῃ δεδουλῶσθαι παντελῶς ἄλογον καὶ θαυμαστόν)’.Footnote ⁸⁶

To be sure, Paul had one influential predecessor in his strange assertion that λύπη plays a constructive role in moral life: the banausic philosopher, Socrates. According to Plato, Socrates actually took pride in the fact that he had caused the Athenians λύπη by means of his philosophical activity,Footnote ⁸⁷ and understood his ‘plaguing’ (λυπεῖν) of his contemporaries as his ‘service to the god’.Footnote ⁸⁸ But this aspect of Socrates' philosophical activity proved puzzling to later thinkers, including those who adopted the psychology of Plato. Cicero relates a story in which Socrates caused ‘distress’ (aegritudo) to the young aristocrat Alcibiades by convincing him that he was not the man he ought to have been, and that there was no difference, despite his high birth, between him and any manual laborer. ‘Alcibiades then became very upset, begging Socrates with tears to take away his shameful character and give him a virtuous one’.Footnote ⁸⁹ Cicero recognizes the conundrum which this tradition poses for the Stoics, whose definition of ‘distress’ he embraces.Footnote ⁹⁰ But Cicero is not sure what to say about a Socrates who does not regard ‘distress’ as ‘the greatest wretchedness’.Footnote ⁹¹

In the psychagogic literature of the late first and early second century, one encounters sentiments on the role of pain in moral progress that provide partial parallels to Paul's conviction about the salvific purpose of λύπη. Thus, Plutarch allows that one may hurt a friend in order to help him: ‘One ought to hurt (λυπεῖν) a friend only to help him, and ought not by hurting him to kill friendship, but to use the stinging word as a medicine which restores and preserves health in that to which it is applied’.Footnote ⁹² Similarly, Epictetus regards the philosophical classroom as a place for medical treatment: ‘Men, the lecture room of the philosopher is a hospital; you ought not to walk out of it in pleasure, but in pain’.Footnote ⁹³ In a text representing harsh Cynicism, Democritus is credited with the desire ‘to discover something more painful (λυπηρόν) to use against’ his fellow citizens, in order to bring about moral reform.Footnote ⁹⁴ But the authors of the psychagogic literature attribute only a utilitarian value to λύπη in the pursuit of moral aims. Moreover, Plutarch takes care to limit the degree of λύπη which the moral philosopher inflicts: ‘The smart from philosophy which sinks deep in young men of good character is healed by the very words which inflicted the hurt. For this reason, he who is taken to task must feel and suffer some smart (διὸ δεῖ πάσχειν μέν τι καὶ δάκνεσθαι), yet he should not be crushed or dispirited’.Footnote ⁹⁵ Among none of Paul's intellectual contemporaries does one encounter a valorization of ‘divine λύπη’ which leads by certain emotional stages to ‘salvation’ or psychic health (7.10–11). Having allowed that a certain kind of pain—namely, that which is suffered in accordance with God's will (κατὰ θεόν)—contributes positively to moral life, indeed, confers the highest good upon existence—σωτηρία—the door is open to a swarm of other emotions which the Stoics strenuously sought to exclude, such as ‘indignation’ (ἀγανάκτησις), ‘fear’ (ϕόβος), ‘desire’ (ἐπιπόθησις), etc., for which Paul not only makes a place in Christian life, but even declares that their cumulative effect has rendered the Corinthian Christians ‘pure’, ἁγνοί (7.11), a quality which the Stoics attributed to the wise man who had extirpated his emotions!Footnote ⁹⁶

What is the source of this revolution in the concept of psychic health that we see unfolding in the pages of Paul's therapeutic epistle? In the proem of his therapeutic epistle (1.3–7), Paul explains that the possibility of a community of affection among the followers of Jesus is grounded in the fact that ‘the passions of the Christ overflow into us’ (περισσεύει τὰ παθήματα τοῦ Χριστοῦ εἰς ἡμᾶς). Paul alludes here to his fundamental conviction that ‘Christ died for us’, that Christ ‘died on behalf of all’ (cf. 2 Cor 5.14–15).Footnote ⁹⁷ As the author and source of ‘the passions of the Christ’, Paul makes reference to God as ‘the father of pities’ (ὁ πατὴρ τῶν οἰκτιρμῶν).Footnote ⁹⁸ David Konstan has argued that pre-Christian Greek literature ‘seems to put in question the gods’ capacity for pity'.Footnote ⁹⁹ By placing ‘pity’ (ἔλεος) under the category of ‘pain’ (λύπη),Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Aristotle's definition of this passion seems to exclude the possibility of divine pity.Footnote ¹⁰¹ The third pseudo-Platonic epistle makes the assumption of divine invulnerability explicit, asserting that ‘the divine rests beyond pleasure and pain’.Footnote ¹⁰² The philosophical schools of the Hellenistic and Roman periods drove an even deeper wedge between divinity and human emotions such as pity.Footnote ¹⁰³ Without doubt, Paul's description of God as ‘the father of pities’ is rooted in the concept of a merciful deity in the Jewish scriptures.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ But the logic of Paul's argument in 2 Cor 1.3–7 seems to go beyond the biblical notion of a compassionate God, and to imply that God is subject to psychological suffering, as the author of ‘the passions of the Christ’.

In Greek and Latin literature of the late first and second century, especially in the novels, Konstan detects ‘a new disposition to invoke, or expect, divine pity’.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Among the causes of this change in the representation of emotional life, Konstan posits the spread of Christian ideas of divinity.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Konstan asks whether the appeals to pity that surface in the romances, in official petitions, and in the rare inscription ‘betray the growing influence of Christian views of pity, and their gradual permeation of Greco-Roman culture?’Footnote ¹⁰⁷ If this question is well founded, then a crucial moment in the transvaluation of pity into a virtue may be located precisely in Paul's therapeutic epistle. According to Paul, the pity of God (1.3), expressed in the passions of the Christ (1.5), creates a community of shared suffering ‘in endurance of the same passions’ (ἐν ὑπομονῇ τῶν αὐτῶν παθημάτων, 1.6), …‘as partners of the passions’ (κοινωνοί ἐστε τῶν παθημάτων, 1.7) of the crucified Christ. Here we witness the emergence of a concept of the ‘self as sufferer’ whose greater cultural visibility Judith Perkins locates in the second century.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

To Paul's concept of the ‘self as sufferer’ corresponds a novel emotional therapy. In a clean reversal of the Stoic counsel to ‘tear pain out of the soul completely’,Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Paul urges the Corinthians to plunge into a kind of λύπη which is ‘according to God’ (κατὰ θεόν, 7.9–10). Paul then proceeds to outline the stages in an emotional progress that lead from godly ‘pain’ (λύπη) to psychic ‘health’ (σωτηρία): ‘For see what sort of thing this being pained according to God works in you—what earnestness (σπουδή), what eagerness to clear oneself (ἀπολογία), what indignation (ἀγανάκτησις), what alarm (ϕόβος), what yearning desire (ἐπιπόθησις), what zeal (ζῆλος), what retribution (ἐκδίκησις)’. That the series of emotions in 7.11 is not casually constructed is indicated by the fact that exactly seven terms are chosen, and that each term is highlighted by the anaphoric use of ἀλλά.Footnote ¹¹⁰

We may well ask ourselves how Paul's new therapy of the emotions would have affected the wealthy few at Corinth, whose values and attitudes may have been formed by popular Stoicism. Would Corinthians of this sort have been surprised that Paul did not adopt the Chrysippean therapy, which Cicero judged ‘the most dependable method’?Footnote ¹¹¹ Chrysippus held that ‘the key to consolation is to get rid of the person's belief that mourning is something he ought to do, something just and appropriate’.Footnote ¹¹² Would the educated few at Corinth have been perplexed by Paul's novel idea that λύπη was not merely useful in small doses, but was a thorough-going course of treatment from which one emerged into psychic wholeness? But we should also consider the alternative scenario: perhaps Paul's valorization of λύπη gave meaning to the grief by which the wrongdoer (2.7) and the Corinthians (7.8) were engulfed, by attributing this pain to a divine origin (7.9–10). After all, Cicero acknowledged that the rational consolation of Chrysippus was ‘a hard method to apply in time of distress’, when a person was generally unwilling to accept that his grief was merely a mistake in judgment.Footnote ¹¹³

In any case, Paul seems to have taken care to lessen the shock of his novel therapy by the way in which he portrays himself in the arguments of his therapeutic letter. Recall that Paul seeks to prove his sincerity by appealing, first, to his ‘volition’ (βούλησις) in the formulation of his plan to come to Corinth (1.15–22: ἐβουλόμην,…βουλόμενος). Then, Paul represents himself as having exercised ‘caution’ (εὐλάβεια), ‘sparing’ (ϕειδόμενος) the Corinthians further grief, by delaying his return to Corinth (1.23–2.4). Finally, Paul dramatizes the transformation of his anxiety into ‘joy’ (χαρά) through the arrival of Titus with his good report of a change of heart among the Corinthians (7.7, 9, 13, 16). It can hardly be a coincidence that, in a letter so preoccupied with the emotions, and so assiduous in its practice of emotional therapy, Paul should portray himself as having attained the consistencies of the wise man—volition (βούλησις), caution (εὐλάβεια), and joy (χαρά). Indeed, Paul's account of his ‘confidence’ in prospect of renewed affection with the Corinthians (7.16, ἐν παντὶ θαρρῶ ἐν ὑμῖν) probably also belongs to the portrait of himself as one who has attained the disposition of a wise man. Margaret Graver has argued that in one stream of the Stoic tradition the eupathic response that replaces fear was ‘confidence’, rather than ‘caution’, appealing to a statement of Cicero in the Tusculan Disputations, and to an extended discussion of ‘caution’ and ‘confidence’ in Epictetus.Footnote ¹¹⁴ By demonstrating the eupathic quality of his response to the Corinthians, Paul suggests that the ethical consistency of a wise man can be attained by emotional ‘overflow’, as well as by emotional thrift, through participation in ‘the passions of the Christ’ (1.5–7).

We may summarize the results of our investigation. Pain is at the center of Paul's therapeutic epistle—pain given and pain received. Wounded by the actions of a certain ‘wrongdoer’ (2.5; 7.12), and filled with regret at the pain his own epistle had caused (2.4; 7.8), Paul reflected deeply upon the nature and function of the emotions ‘in Christ’. Paul concluded that the passions of the Christ had established a community of affection in which all might share the same suffering and consolation (1.3–7). The passions of the Christ had partitioned pain.Footnote ¹¹⁵ The pain of this world remained, and, as always, led through depression to death (7.10). But the suffering of Christ had disclosed a pain that was in accordance with God's will, a pain that led through repentance to salvation (7.10). This insight prompted Paul to articulate a novel Christophoric therapy that did not seek to banish pain or extirpate the emotions, but which embraced pain and its attendant affections as a strange, new path to psychic wholeness (7.11).

To the long prospect opened up by Paul's therapeutic epistle belongs an assessment of the impact of Paul's valorization of ‘pain’ (λύπη) upon what one might call ‘the history of the emotions’. Has humanity been helped by Paul's embrace of suffering and its attendant passions? Has Paul enriched our lives by making us desire to be ‘partners of the same passions’? Or is the poet right to fault Paul for weakening our fate by preaching ‘an over-human god’ who pities us so much?Footnote ¹¹⁶ One way to approach an answer to these uncomfortable, but unavoidable, questions might be to reflect upon the several fates of Paul and Seneca. These two therapists of the emotional life—one the counselor of emotional thrift, the other the apostle of emotional excess—both died under Nero. We may assume that they did not endure their final moments unattended by their respective theories and therapies.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Which of the two should we imagine had the better death?