ABSTRACT
Among elements in Paul's Christian way of life and teaching, and in the responses of some of his converts, we have been considering some that seem closely akin to specific strands in popular Cynicism. On the basis of their life-style and of some of the things they said, Paul and his associates (and their followers, too) might well have been taken for Cynics of a sort. In no way does this amount to claiming that Paul 'was' a Cynic, or would ever have thought of himself as such, either before or after his encounter with the risen Christ.2 Nor does this study allow us to decide whether any of Paul's converts had lived as 'pagan' Cynics before they joined one of the early Christian communities, though that is, of course, not impossible. All that we may hope to have shown is that at various very significant points Paul behaved and expressed himself in ways that both could and would have been perceived as Cynic, ways that could and would have been comprehensible and communicable because they had been prepared for in Cynicism.
