ABSTRACT
It may with fair confidence be claimed (a) that we have shown that it is very likely that Paul would have been seen and heard by Hellenistic gentiles as some sort of Cynic. If such people were to ‘place’ Paul at all, this was their only ready category. This is not a particularly novel deduction in itself; it has often been suggested in more general terms, without the benefit of a detailed examination of the evidence such as has been offered here. The visual impression is foremost: Paul, hungry and thirsty, half-naked, displaying his shameful scars, homeless, sweating his guts out to earn a crust – and making a virtue of it, as he articulates it in Cynic terms, as the necessary (not Stoic-incidental) expression of his mission, his self-presentation as a teacher. He invites to membership of a group which is neither Jew nor Greek, where (in those early days, for sure) there is no distinction of slave or free, and ‘no male and female’. He draws people away from their own sacred traditions, without substituting any ancient equivalent, rather, disparaging ‘law’, offering many prized conventions no respect.
