PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

ABA’ Patterning
It may be noted that a number of disputed sections in 1 Corinthians involve questions
about their location within another (related but slightly different) discussion. It may be
that the ethical section of 1 Corinthians (chapters 5–14, as outlined above) consistently
makes use of mnemonic patterning in an ABA’ format, 95 with the middle segment
providing a complementary and transitional perspective to the issues on either side:
5:1-13: Sexual Immorality (the refusal to judge)
6:1-11: Greedy exploitation (an apparent inability to judge)
6:12-7:40: Sexual Immorality, the body, marriage
8:1-13: Meat offered to idols (using rights to endanger weaker brothers and sisters)
9:1-27: Paul’s example/defence (foregoing rights for others & self)
10:1-11:1: Meat offered to idols (foregoing rights for self and others)
11:2-16: I praise you for keeping the traditions I passed on (public worship)
11:17-22: I do not praise you (in both v17 and v22)
11:23-34: I passed on to you what I also received (Lord’s Supper)
12:1-31: Gifts within the body (mutual interdependence)
12:31-13:13: Love
14:1-40: Gifts (for ordered edification of the whole)
John Chrysostom draws attention to Paul’s use of digression, indicating that Paul was well
versed in this rhetorical technique:
For this also is customary for him: not only to develop the issue at hand, but also
to depart from there to correct whatever seems to him to be related, and then to
return to the earlier topic so that he might not seem to have abandoned his
theme. 96
Aristotle had recommended that epideictic oratory ought to include digressions of praise.
This is illustrative of a broader rhetorical strategy:
95 I am following the model of Harvey, Listening to the Text, in formulating this as ABA’,
although it is also sometimes formulated as ABA 1 .
96 Homily 37 on 1 Corinthians; PG 61.318.
99