1.1.1 eirōneia from Aristophanes to Aristotle

The meaning of eirōneia changes over a few generations across the earliest extant texts to employ the term. Lane argues that in Aristophanes, eirōneia means something like ‘concealing by feigning’, an act associated with deception.Footnote ¹ Aristophanes’ Wasps provides an apt illustration: when Philocleon, who is obsessed with sitting on juries, is locked in his house to prevent him from sitting on a jury, he makes several desperate attempts at escaping (Wasps, 110–64). At one point, he claims he needs to take his donkey to the market (Wasps, 165–173). Seeing through the scheme, one of his captors remarks to another: ‘What a pretext he dangled in front of you [i.e. like bait on a hook], how cunningly deceptive’ (οἵαν πρόφασιν καθῆκεν, ὡς εἰρωνικῶς, Wasps, 174–75 [Lane]). Here Philocleon is behaving ‘with eirōneia’ (εἰρωνικῶς) because he is attempting to hide his true motives by deceptively pretending they are otherwise, making the scene fit well with Lane’s definition of eirōneia in Aristophanes.Footnote ²

The description of the eirōn (εἴρων), the person characterized by eirōneia, in Theophrastus lies closer to the Aristophanic meaning of eirōneia as concealing by feigning than it does to Aristotle – whose definition we will discuss presently.Footnote ³ Theophrastus portrays the eirōn as someone who hides his real opinions and motives, ‘he praises to their faces those whom he has attacked in secret, and commiserates with people he is suing if they lose their case’ (Char. 1.2 [Rusten, LCL]). Theophrastus assesses the eirōn negatively, characterizing him as a non-committal coward who deceives to avoid responsibility (Char. 1.2–6). We also find eirōneia depicted as the cowardly avoidance of responsibility in Demosthenes (Orat. 4 [Phil 1], 7, 37; Ex. 14.3).

With Aristotle, eirōneia comes to mean self-deprecation: ‘disavowing or downplaying qualities that one actually possesses’Footnote ⁴ (cf. Eth. Nic. 1127a: ὁ δὲ εἴρων ἀνάπαλιν ἀρνεῖσθαι τὰ ὑπάρχοντα ἢ ἐλλάττω ποιεῖν). Aristotle’s ethical works set virtues in contrast to their corresponding vices. Aristotle depicts eirōneia as a vice, a deficiency in truthfulness (ἀλήθεια). Boastfulness (ἀλαζονεία) is eirōneia’s opposite vice, an excess compared to truthfulness:

And in Nicomachean Ethics (1108a):

The eirōn therefore pretends (προσποίησις, Eth. Nic.1108a) to lack qualities they possess; eirōneia is an intentional misrepresentation (ψευδόμενος μὴ ἀγνοῶν, Eth. Eud. 1233b) of the truth (ἀλήθεια).Footnote ⁵ Aristotle’s definition of eirōneia goes on to replace the earlier meaning of the term attested in Aristophanes, and influence how later writers would read Plato.Footnote ⁶

This Aristotelean definition of eirōneia does not apply to Philocleon in Aristophanes, whom we discussed above. Philocleon does not downplay the truth about himself or his personal qualities but engages in concealing by feigning to trick his captors into believing he has completely different motives than those he has.

While eirōneia is portrayed predominately as a negative quality in Aristotle (see also Rh. 1382b; Physiognomica, 808a) – as it was in Aristophanes, Theophrastus, and Demosthenes – it receives some concession due to association with Socrates. Aristotle admits that self-deprecation is better than boastfulness (ἀλαζονεία), especially when done tastefully – as he considers Socrates to have done (Eth. Nic. 1127a–b).

The use of eirōneia in Plato, and with respect to Plato’s Socrates, is a matter of debate. As in Aristophanes, eirōneia remains a negative quality; when the term is applied to Socrates, it is used as an insult,Footnote ⁷ and as an accusation.Footnote ⁸ Lane argues that the Platonic references still carry the Aristophanic meaning,Footnote ⁹ whereas Vlastos sees something closer to Aristotle.Footnote ¹⁰

At the very least, because the term eirōneia in Plato is used against Socrates rather than by or in support of Socrates, interpreters should not assume a priori that Plato means to associate Socrates with eirōneia.Footnote ¹¹ Plato’s Socrates is certainly accused of using eirōneia, but the exegetical question remains whether Plato portrays this accusation as valid. The use of the term ‘Socratic irony’ to describe Socrates’ method of teaching or philosophical discussion also becomes problematic, insofar as it does not coincide with either the Aristophanic or Aristotelean definitions of eirōneia and should not be conflated therewith.Footnote ¹²

We have now, agreeing with Lane, witnessed a development in eirōneia’s meaning from concealing by feigning in Aristophanes to self-deprecation in Aristotle. Much more could be said about early references to eirōneia and the behaviour of the eirōn, especially as they relate to Socrates in Plato. However, what is important to recognize for this study is that, despite common terminology, there is no necessary relationship between eirōneia as described from Aristophanes to Aristotle and the use of eirōneia as a figure of speech that we see in the later rhetoricians and grammarians. Because, as we shall see, sarcasm belongs to this second category of eirōneia as a figure of speech, it too should not be conflated with the use of the term eirōneia in early texts. Paul’s use of sarcasm does not characterize him as an eirōn as described in Theophrastus or Aristotle. It does not set him in the tradition of Plato’s Socrates, nor does it have anything to do with the modern literary construct ‘Socratic irony’.

1.1.2 Sarcasm and Irony as Tropes: the Rhetoricians and Grammarians

We shall focus our treatment of eirōneia and sarcasm (sarkasmos, σαρκασμός) as tropes on the timeframe most relevant to Paul – the first century BCE to the second century CE.Footnote ¹³ By this time eirōneia has lost many of its negative connotations, largely thanks to association with Socrates.Footnote ¹⁴ Its meaning has also changed again. As we shall see, eirōneia discussed as a trope is distinct from the behaviour of the eirōn as defined from Aristophanes to Aristotle. Ancient treatments of irony as a figure of speech will be an important starting point for this project, because of how these texts associate irony with sarkasmos. Synthesizing these grammatical and rhetorical discussions of sarcasm reveals three significant patterns in how ancient authors go about defining it in relation to irony and other rhetorical techniques.Footnote ¹⁵

The first pattern lies in how ancient authors connect sarcasm to other rhetorical techniques. Dating from as early as the first century BCE, the two grammars attributed to Tryphon contain the earliest extant treatments of sarkasmos.Footnote ¹⁶ Although neither of the Tryphonic grammars provide systematic taxonomies of tropes, there remains a clear connection between irony, sarcasm, and other comparable speech acts in these texts. Both group sarcasm and irony together along with a constellation of related terms such as self-deprecating irony (asteismos, ἀστεϊσμός), negation (antiphrasis, ἀντίφρασις), mockery (myktērismos, μυκτηρισμός), wit (charientismos, χαριεντισμός), and derision (epikertomēsis, ἐπικερτόμησις,Footnote ¹⁷ see Tryphon, Trop. 19–24; [Greg. Cor.]Footnote ¹⁸ Trop. p). We may take this cluster of tropes as significant.

These connections are even clearer in other treatments. Writing in the second century CE,Footnote ¹⁹ Alexander Numenius states, ‘There are four sorts of irony: asteismos, myktērismos, sarkasmos, and chleuasmos (χλευασμός)’Footnote ²⁰ (Fig. 18; cf. [Plutarch] Vit. Hom.II 706–8, 716–17, 721–22; Herodian, Fig. Epitome 16–17; Rhetorica Anonyma, Trop. 20).Footnote ²¹ Quintilian applies a multi-layered hierarchy, considering irony (ironia/illusio) a subcategory of allegory (allegoria/inversio)Footnote ²² and listing sarcasmFootnote ²³ and related terms as species of irony (Quintilian, Inst. 8.6.44, 54, 57 [Butler, LCL]). The figure below summarizes how different authors draw connections between irony, sarcasm, and other tropes.

Figure 1 Categorization of tropes/figures of speech. Note that, in contrast to Alexander Numenius (Fig. 18), Herodian and Rhetorica Anonyma list irony’s subtypes in the following order: chleuasmos, myktērismos, sarkasmos, asteismos.

(Herodian, Fig. Epitome 16–17; Rhetorica Anonyma, Trop. 20)

The close relationship between sarcasm and irony plays out in their definitions as well. In De Tropis, Tryphon, or someone writing in his name, defines irony as follows: ‘Irony is a stylistic device that uses what is expressed literally to hint at an oppositional meaning, with pretence’ (Εἰρωνεία ἐστι φράσις τοῖς ῥητῶς λεγο<μένοις αἰνιττο>μένη τοὐναντίον μεθ’ ὑποκρίσεως, [Greg. Cor.] Trop. 15). Tryphon’s definitions of sarcasm and irony here differ by only two Greek words. While irony is delivered ‘with pretence’ (μεθ’ ὑποκρίσεως), sarcasm is spoken ‘with mockery (chleuasmos)’ (μετὰ χλευασμοῦ, [Greg. Cor.] Trop. 15–16). It is best to view this difference as additive. It is not that Tryphon considers sarcasm to lack pretence, but to communicate mockery in addition to pretence (ὑπόκρισις).Footnote ²⁴ The expression of oppositional sentiment lies at the heart of other ancient definitions of irony and sarcasm as well (see [Plutarch] Vit. Hom.II 699–700, 716–7; Rhet. Anon. Trop. 20, 23).

It is important that we do not read Tryphon’s ‘oppositional meaning’ (τοὐναντίον) too literally, as I have sought to do by avoiding the more restrictive translation ‘the opposite’. The interpreter should not impose an unnecessary degree of rigidity on ancient definitions, which are brief and functional rather than systematic investigations into the nature of communication. Where we find more elaborated discussion in ancient authors, the focus is on the communication of affect rather than on strict semantic opposition. In Quintilian, sarcasm requires nothing more than ‘censur[ing] with counterfeited praise’ (laudis adsimulatione detrahere) or ‘disguis[ing] bitter taunts in gentle words’ (tristia dicamus mollioribus verbis, Inst. 8.6.55, 57, respectively [Butler, LCL]). This is a contrast in affect or evaluation – praise versus dispraise – not necessarily a difference in semantic meaning or contradiction in a matter of fact (cf. §1.2.2). Likewise, in Rhetorica Anonyma sarcasm ‘expresses dishonour through kind words’ (διὰ χρηστῶν ῥημάτων τὴν ἀτιμίαν ἐμφαίνων, Trop. 23).Footnote ²⁵ Such sentiments are certainly oppositional to the literal message, but not necessarily its opposite.

The second significant pattern in ancient treatments of sarcasm is the way the grammarians connect it to different forms of mockery. We have already seen that in Tryphon sarcasm is expressed ‘with mockery (chleuasmos)’ (μετὰ χλευασμοῦ).Footnote ²⁶ The overlap between sarcasm and different forms of mockery is most pronounced in the second-century grammar attributed to Herodian. While his definitions of the first three subcategories (εἴδη) of irony, chleuasmos, myktērismos, and sarkasmos, are quite distinct, the examples illustrating each term are similar. chleuasmos occurs, ‘when laughing at the cowardly we might say, “what a manly soldier!”’ myktērismos: ‘What a deed you have done, friend, and a necessary one at that, that is, for so clever a man as yourself.’ Both of these examples fit perfectly with the way Herodian defines sarcasm:

With the examples of three of Herodian’s four species of irony fitting sarcasm’s definition, a study of sarcasm has little to gain from trying to disentangle semantically these clearly overlapping speech acts. Instead, it will be sufficient to note that any given example of ancient Greek sarcasm could potentially be conceived of as an instance of chleuasmos or myktērismos. For our purposes, this is of no concern so long as it is also sarcastic. Ultimately, if we can take Herodian’s word for it, the key difference between sarcasm and these other forms of mockery is a matter of delivery, that is, a distinction in the non-linguistic signals that accompany a given utterance.

We shall return to the issue of delivery presently; however, we must first concern ourselves with Herodian’s fourth form of irony, which is simultaneously very like and unlike sarcasm. This last irony-type is asteismos, a speech act that we will encounter in Lucian, and that will play a significant role in our discussion of Second Corinthians.

In the Tryphonic tradition, asteismos is a self-deprecating form of irony (Ἀστεϊσμός ἐστι λόγος ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ διασυρτικὸς γενόμενος, Tryphon, Trop. 24),Footnote ²⁸ ‘a stylistic device that tactfully indicates something positive through words expressing oppositional meaning’ (ἀστεϊσμός ἐστι φράσις διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων τὸ κρεῖττον ἠθικῶς ἐμφαίνουσα, [Greg. Cor.] Trop. 17). Classic examples include when ‘someone who is rich says, “I myself am the poorest of all men,” and the wrestler who defeats all his opponents claims to have lost to everybody.’ (Tryphon, Trop. 24). Quintilian cites a more defensive example from Cicero, who employs asteismos to dismiss the accusations of others: ‘We are seen as such typical “orators”, since we’ve always imposed ourselves on the people’ (oratores visi sumus et populo imposuimus, Inst. 8.6.55; cf. Cicero, Letter Fragments, 7.10).

asteismos is sarcasm’s mirror image; instead of ironic praise used to mock another party, we have self-mocking irony for the sake of self-praise.Footnote ²⁹ Resultantly, Quintilian requires only the words et contra to separate his examples of sarcasm and asteismos (Inst. 8.6.55).Footnote ³⁰ While asteismos so conceived is similar to Aristotle’s interpretation of eirōneia as discussed in §1.1.1, there remains an important distinction.Footnote ³¹ Both the eirōn and the asteist downplay some positive trait that they consider themselves to possess. However, in asteismos the speaker’s ultimate aim is to imply something positive about themself, while the eirōn communicates only their own modesty. Therefore, the eirōn and asteist alike might say, ‘I am a mere fool’, but only the asteist would thereby mean to imply ‘I am actually wise’.

We now turn to the third significant feature of sarcasm particular to the ancient grammars. In discussing pseudo-Herodian we have already referred to certain performative features of ancient irony. These elements of tone and delivery are represented significantly enough across the grammars to suggest their being an integral part of how the Greeks conceived of sarcasm.Footnote ³²

We have already cited one of the definitions of sarcasm attributed to Tryphon. The other reads as follows: ‘Sarcasm is showing the teeth while grinning’ (Σαρκασμός ἐστι μέχρι τοῦ σεσηρέναι τοὺς ὀδόντας παραφαίνειν, Tryphon, Trop. 20). Here there is no description of what sorts of statements qualify as sarcastic, only a facial expression. This definition juxtaposes a degree of aggression (‘showing the teeth’, τοὺς ὀδόντας παραφαίνειν) with the ostensible positivity of a smile (σεσηρέναι).Footnote ³³ The author of the Vitae Homeri also includes facial expression in their definition of sarcasm,Footnote ³⁴ which reads like a synthesis of the two definitions attributed to Tryphon: ‘There is a certain kind of irony, namely sarcasm, in which someone, through words of oppositional meaning, reproaches someone else while pretending to smile’ (Ἔστι δέ τι εἶδος εἰρωείας καὶ ὁ σαρκασμός, ἐπειδάν τις διὰ τῶν ἐναντίων ὀνειδίζῃ τινι μετὰ προσποιήτου μειδιάματος, [Plutarch] Vit. Hom.II 716–717).Footnote ³⁵

In Herodian, the difference between sarcasm, chleuasmos (χλευασμός), and myktērismos (μυκτηρισμός) seems to be entirely a matter of delivery. Here we find chleuasmos delivered with insincere smiling (μειδιασμοῦ προ{σ}φερόμενος) and while laughing at the victim of a comment (ἐγγελῶντες). Sarcasm, too, is delivered with laughter directed at its target (ἐγγελῶντες, Herodian, Fig. Epit. 16–17). As for myktērismos, it involves the movement of the nostrils and something like a derisive snort (μετὰ τῆς τῶν ῥινῶν ἐπιμύξεως … πνεῦμα διὰ τῶν ῥινῶν συνεκφέροντες, Herodian, Fig. Epit. 16–17).Footnote ³⁶

Although nonverbal cues cannot help us exegete sarcasm millennia after the fact, these descriptions of a typical sarcastic facial expression reinforce the major features of how the ancient Greeks conceptualize sarcasm. The presence of an artificial smile concealing a look of hostility emphasizes the way sarcasm communicates a message oppositional to its literal appearance and the importance of pretence within that process. This pretence must be transparent enough to communicate the sarcast’s negative message clearly, because the sarcast’s ultimate aim is to express mockery, chleuasmos more specifically, as they laugh at (ἐγγελῶντες) the victim of their barb.

1.2.1 Narrowing the Scope: from Irony to Verbal Irony to Sarcasm

This section will concern itself with demonstrating the utility of treating specific forms of irony instead of attempting a single analysis of irony in general. In making this case we shall focus on the two forms of irony most discussed in recent research, verbal irony and situational irony. From there, we will go on to clarify sarcasm’s relationship to irony by defining it as a subspecies of verbal irony. We will go no further than this in defining sarcasm until we have explored scholarship on verbal irony.

There are a great many phenomena described under the umbrella ‘irony’. Muecke lists no less than 19 – including ironies of fate, chance, and character alongside better-known forms such as dramatic, situational, verbal, and Socratic irony.Footnote ³⁷ Early critical studies of irony, which we will go on to designate the ‘First Quest’ for the nature of irony (§1.3.1), were broad in their scope, leading to generalizations from one form of irony to the next.Footnote ³⁸ But conceptual problems arise when treating multiple forms of irony together.

The verbal/situational irony divide will be a helpful way of illustrating this issue. At present, scholarship remains divided over whether there is any significant connection between these two forms of irony. Utsumi’s implicit display theory is one of the most thoroughgoing attempts at making verbal irony dependent on situational irony.Footnote ³⁹ Utsumi argues that verbal irony arises when a speaker implicitly makes reference to an ‘ironic environment’ and expresses a negative evaluation thereof. This ironic environment consists of a situation in which the speaker’s expectations at a given time have failed.Footnote ⁴⁰ Utsumi illustrates his paradigm using the following example: ‘a mother asked her son to clean up his messy room, but he was lost in a comic book. After a while, she discovered that his room was still messy.’ She remarks, ‘This room is totally clean!’Footnote ⁴¹ The mother alludes to her failed expectation (that the room should be clean), thereby communicating implicit negative evaluation.

But one can just as easily conceive of verbal irony without an ironic environment, that is, without any situational irony, as the following anecdote illustrates:

While I suspect most interpreters would view this comment as an instance of verbal irony, even sarcasm, there is no irony in the underlying situation. My expectations have been fulfilled exactly. As such, it appears that verbal irony overlaps with situational irony in some cases, but not others.

Because there is no fundamental overlap between situational and verbal irony, it is methodologically problematic to draw conclusions about an author’s use of irony in general without respecting the differences between different forms of irony.Footnote ⁴² Concerning the many forms of irony, Wilson writes, ‘There is no reason to assume that all these phenomena work in the same way, or that we should be trying to develop a single general theory of irony tout court … in other words, irony is not a natural kind.’Footnote ⁴³ We cannot assume that two things are meaningfully related just because they share the label ‘irony’. There is no prima facie reason why an ironic situation, such as a police station being robbed, and an ironic comment, such as saying ‘How lovely!’ after stubbing one’s toe, should be formed by the same mechanisms or have comparable rhetorical effects when communicated. Indeed, situational irony is a matter of interpretation: situations can be construed as ironic independent of whether, in the case of written texts, the author considered the situation ironic. Verbal irony, however, is an act of communication from one speaker to another party.Footnote ⁴⁴

As we shall see in §1.3, failure to draw distinctions between different forms of irony has been a persistent problem in scholarship on Paul. As a corrective, this study will now narrow in scope from irony in general to verbal irony, leaving situational and other forms of irony largely behind. It remains now to briefly discuss the relationship between sarcasm and verbal irony before moving on to contemporary treatments of verbal irony.

In current scholarship, there is disagreement over sarcasm’s relationship to verbal irony. Certain scholars see some but not complete overlap, arguing that sarcasm consists of intentionally hurtful utterances that can be ironic but need not be. Another perspective considers sarcasm a subtype of verbal irony. From this viewpoint, all sarcastic statements are instances of verbal irony, but not all instances of verbal irony are sarcastic.Footnote ⁴⁵ In order to maintain continuity with the thrust of ancient thought, I will adopt this latter position. We have therefore left irony-in-general behind to avoid invalid generalizations between ironic comments and situations. Before moving on from verbal irony to a working definition of sarcasm, we will first explore contemporary scholarship concerning what verbal irony is and how it works.

1.2.2 Counterfactuality and Verbal Irony

English dictionaries often describe irony as ‘the expression of meaning through the use of words which normally mean the opposite’.Footnote ⁴⁶ This definition, which Colston terms a ‘lay account’ of irony,Footnote ⁴⁷ has its basis in the sorts of descriptions we find among the ancient Greek rhetoricians and grammarians. But, as discussed in §1.1.2, it is important to remember that when pushed to a systematic account of verbal irony, this strict notion of opposition does not do justice to the ancient discussions, with their emphasis on pretence and on dispraise-through-praise.

Although earlier modern treatises on irony are more nuanced than such dictionary definitions, they still conceive of irony semantically, that is, in terms of meaning. For Booth, the detection of verbal ironyFootnote ⁴⁸ begins with ‘reject[ing] the literal meaning’ of a statement.Footnote ⁴⁹ However, this semantic account of irony, the idea that verbal irony consists of saying the opposite of or something conflicting with what one means, has been largely abandoned since the late 1970s (see §1.3.2).Footnote ⁵⁰

The first significant flaw with the semantic approach is worth illustrating with a short parable, as it will become essential to our exegesis of sarcasm in Paul later on:

This example, henceforth The Parable of the Disgruntled Undergraduate, represents a clear instance of verbal irony – sarcasm more specifically.Footnote ⁵² Sarcastic statements of this kind constitute a major problem for traditional semantic accounts of irony, which require the expression of meaning in conflict with the literal utterance. Inexplicable by these paradigms, the above example contains a sarcastic statement that also happens to be factually true; the irritating student clearly is clever. Verbally ironic statements therefore need not be false. They may simultaneously express their literal meaning and imply more.

The second flaw with semantic approaches to verbal irony is the fact that not all ironic statements are propositional; sometimes there is no opposite meaning. Wilson illustrates this problem as follows: ‘Bill is a neurotically cautious driver who keeps his petrol tank full, never fails to indicate when turning and repeatedly scans the horizon for possible dangers.’ The following ironic imperative (uttered by Bill’s passenger), ‘Don’t forget to use your indicator’, and the ironic question ‘Do you think we should stop for petrol?’ are not declarative.Footnote ⁵³ It is therefore difficult to conceive of imperatives and questions as having opposite meanings implied through irony, even though the above examples demonstrate that they can be used ironically.Footnote ⁵⁴

Because of the problems illustrated by these examples, scholars have had to move beyond semantics in describing verbal irony. But this is not to say that opposition cannot still feature in much verbal irony. Research has demonstrated that clearly counterfactual statements are significantly more likely to be interpreted ironically than their factual counterparts.Footnote ⁵⁵ Therefore, while verbal irony may not require the inversion of meaning, obvious incongruity between what is said and what is meant remains an important signal of its presence.

1.2.3 The Echoic Account

The echoic account of verbal irony was developed in the late 1970s by Sperber and Wilson.Footnote ⁵⁶ This account comes out of a broader approach to linguistics known as Relevance Theory (RT).Footnote ⁵⁷ RT purports that effective communication seeks to obtain maximum relevance, to generate the greatest possible ‘contextual effect’, while requiring a minimum of ‘mental effort’ to understand.Footnote ⁵⁸ One may illustrate this concept using two hypothetical SBL presentations: Presenter A reads his highly esoteric paper in monotone. It quickly becomes evident that the only people in the room listening are those with strongly overlapping research areas (high contextual effect); the rest consider checking their emails to require lower mental effort. Presenter B explains her research clearly and dynamically. Even those from unrelated fields tune in thanks to the accessibility of the presentation (low mental effort), and for those whose work is directly related, we have reached optimal relevance (high contextual effect, low mental effort).

Sperber and Wilson argue that all verbal irony can be described as instances of echoic mention. In contrast to use, where the words employed are the speaker’s own, mention makes reference to the statements, thoughts, or expectations of others.Footnote ⁵⁹ This is the difference between a child who stubs his toe and yells, ‘Ow, crap!’ (use) and his older brother who runs off shouting, ‘Mom, mom! Matt said a bad word!’ (mention). But Sperber and Wilson do not consider every instance of mention to be ironic. The echoic account defines verbal irony as instances of echoic mention implicitly referring to the speech or perspective of another party, not for the sake of conveying information (as in the above example of mention), but to express evaluation – that is, an affective response to the statement/thought mentioned.Footnote ⁶⁰

These echoes should not be thought of as citations, or even as reasonable approximations of another person’s position, but can be quite loose. Sperber and Wilson use the example of a rained-out country walk where someone comments, ‘What lovely weather!’ If someone in the party had predicted nice weather, the ironic echo would be explicit. However, even if no such comment had been made, the quip could still refer to the general expectation that people go on walks to enjoy nice weather.Footnote ⁶¹ Irony therefore obtains relevance not by conveying reliable information about the proposition mentioned, but by expressing a speaker’s feelings or perspective thereon.Footnote ⁶²

The echoic account is not without its critics. Haiman considers the paradigm ‘restrictive’,Footnote ⁶³ and attempts have been made to demonstrate that there are cases of verbal irony that are entirely non-echoic.Footnote ⁶⁴ At the same time, recourse to more indirect echoes, such as the echoing of social norms or expectations, can make the paradigm feel rather vague. As Simpson puts it,

At some point one wonders whether the ironic echo becomes too faint to be useful.

Despite these drawbacks, the echoic account continues to exert influence within irony studies and remains useful for our purposes. Throughout this study we will encounter several instances of sarcasm that are best explained as echoic, and we will find that the explicit use of echoic mention functions as a significant indicator of sarcasm in ancient Greek texts.Footnote ⁶⁶

1.2.4 The Pretence Account

Clark’s and Gerrig’s pretence account of verbal irony emerges in response to the echoic paradigm and aims to resolve some of its problems. Clark and Gerrig consider verbal irony to occur when a speaker pretends to make a statement sincerely and also pretends that their audience will receive it as such. But this pretence is meant to be transparent to the speaker’s actual audience, who recognize the remark as ironic.Footnote ⁶⁷ They illustrate this phenomenon using a speaker who exclaims, ‘See what lovely weather it is’, under drizzly conditions:

This articulation of the pretence account has since been revised. The multi-layered pretence that Clark and Gerrig describe above is too complex to account for what is going on when many speakers engage in verbal irony. Every ironic comment need not involve the appropriation of another persona and an address to a pretended, naïve audience.Footnote ⁶⁹

Responding to various issues and critiques, Currie streamlines the pretence perspective.Footnote ⁷⁰ Currie considers verbal irony to occur when ‘pretending to assert or whatever, one pretends to be a certain kind of person—a person with a restricted or otherwise defective view of the world or some part of it’.Footnote ⁷¹ This pretence can be broken down into two distinct elements, the pretending itself, and the evaluation of the ironic utterance’s target represented in the ‘defective outlook’.Footnote ⁷² Currie’s revised pretence account has the advantage of not requiring a pretended address to a credulous audience, nor does it require an audience at all.Footnote ⁷³

At its best, the pretence account can integrate examples of verbal irony where proposed echoes are vague or that are difficult to describe as echoic at all. It also has some affinities to Sperber and Wilson’s account. The use of verbal irony to express evaluation remains constant across both paradigms, while here pretence replaces the echoic mechanism.Footnote ⁷⁴

Additionally, pretending features in ancient accounts of irony and sarcasm – creating continuity between modern and ancient discussions – recall Tryphon’s ‘with pretence’ (μεθ’ ὑποκρίσεως, Trop. 15) and Vitae Homeri’s insincere smiling (μετὰ προσποιήτου μειδιάματος, [Plutarch] Vit. Hom.II 717; see §1.1.2).

Just as echoic irony invites us to think less in terms of semantics and more in terms of mention and evaluation, the pretence paradigm enables us to consider verbal irony in terms of sincerity versus insincerity –a distinction that will play a significant role in interpreting ancient sarcasm, both Pauline and otherwise.

1.2.5 Constraint Satisfaction: How We Process Verbal Irony

In addition to addressing verbal irony’s nature, scholarship has also devoted considerable resources to exploring the ways in which humans process verbal irony. In an early study, Booth describes the interpretation of irony as a step-by-step process – even if these steps ‘are often virtually simultaneous’ – beginning when one finds reason to reject the literal interpretation of an utterance.Footnote ⁷⁵ Recent research has so vindicated not Booth’s steps but his intuition about the rapidity and seamlessness of verbal irony recognition that we may no longer speak of irony processing as linear at all. This revised understanding of verbal irony processing is known as the parallel constraint satisfaction approach (CS). It hypothesizes that irony processing occurs early and is non-linear.

Studies have shown that the interpretation of ironic cues begins ‘in the earliest moments of processing the remarks, suggesting that participants were integrating all available information as soon as it was relevant’.Footnote ⁷⁶ In an eye-tracking study, subjects presented with an ironic statement and visual prompts representing ironic and literal interpretations did not show a tendency towards looking at the object representing a literal reading first.Footnote ⁷⁷ Katz’s research adds a temporal dimension, finding that sarcastic statements are processed rapidly, often in less than a second. This does not require consideration and rejection of the literal meaning of an utterance, but instead, ‘the same processes are involved in processing for literal and sarcastic intent on-line’.Footnote ⁷⁸

Early, simultaneous processing does not mean that the interpreter never processes the literal meaning of an utterance during irony recognition, only that they need not go through the literal to comprehend the ironic. This point is methodologically important. CS demonstrates that we cannot limit our search for verbal irony only to instances where one is forced to reject an utterance’s literal meaning. To do so ignores both what verbal irony is (§1.2.2) and how we process it. Parallel processing means using all available data to reach the most plausible of several possible interpretations.Footnote ⁷⁹ Neither the literal nor the ironic reading should be given an a priori advantage.Footnote ⁸⁰

Therefore, if we want our method for identifying verbal irony to respect the way humans actually process it, ironic cues – the linguistic and contextual means by which speakers and authors signal irony to their audiences – become essential. Here too we have much to learn from CS.

In 2012 Campbell and Katz used sarcasm production and rating tasks to test whether certain cues theorized as essential to the nature of verbal irony were necessary to the interpretation of sarcasm.Footnote ⁸¹ These cues included some of those already discussed, such as echoic mention and pretence, in addition to others.Footnote ⁸² Campbell and Katz found that while each irony-signal was important and in some cases sufficient to characterize a statement as sarcastic, no single cue was necessary.Footnote ⁸³ This means that we can create neither a linear method for interpreting ironic statements, nor a checklist of essential cues. Instead, the ‘comprehension of language, in general, including non-literal and sarcastic language, involves utilizing all of the information that a person has at his or her command at any one point in time’.Footnote ⁸⁴

With the cues of verbal irony being essential to its recognition, but not fixed, it becomes important to determine what signals can tip the balance in favour of an ironic reading. While studies such as Campbell’s and Katz’s (above) have made significant progress with modern English, ancient Greek is largely unexplored territory.Footnote ⁸⁵ Therefore, one of the major tasks of Chapter 3 will be elucidating the linguistic and contextual signals of sarcasm in ancient Greek texts.

1.2.6 Sarcasm: Towards a Working Definition

Although we have presented no definitive solution to the nature of verbal irony, each of the paradigms reviewed contributes conceptual information that will be useful in identifying and exegeting specific instances of sarcasm throughout Paul’s letters. Recognizing the fundamental differences between forms of irony, such as situational and verbal irony, has led us to narrow the scope of this project from irony in general to verbal irony. Surveying contemporary accounts of verbal irony has also defined the approach to verbal irony that I will be adopting throughout this study. We have seen the deficiencies of semantic accounts, which see verbal irony as inhering in meaning inversion. While counterfactuality can function as a signal of verbal irony, not all ironic statements negate or invert their literal meaning. Indeed, as we saw with CS, the literal interpretation of an utterance does not have priority over the ironic, as all relevant signals are processed simultaneously. Shifting from semantic to pragmatic approaches is an important methodological step that will impact exegesis.

Beyond arguing for the utility of pragmatic approaches over semantics, I have not taken a strong position on the validity of the echoic and pretence accounts of verbal irony. While perhaps neither paradigm provides a complete account, both mechanisms are operative in much verbal irony. Both accounts can thereby make a methodological contribution to this study by functioning as interpretive frameworks for exegeting specific examples of sarcasm in the chapters to come.

Having now defined our approach to verbal irony, it remains to narrow our scope again and construct a working definition of sarcasm that will become the foundation of our analysis. Here we will take the overlap between the two pragmatic accounts surveyed as our starting point. Both the echoic and pretence accounts highlight the importance of evaluation in verbal irony. The ironist’s aim is not to be informative but to provide an affective commentary on their utterance.

Bailin’s recent definition of verbal irony helpfully captures the importance of evaluation, by emphasizing attitude rather than meaning. I do not suggest that Bailin’s is a perfect description of verbal irony, and some theorists may disagree with it. What is important is that, with its balance of specificity and breadth, it is complete enough to provide the foundation for a working definition of sarcasm that will hold up in all the cases treated in this study.

Bailin sees two conditions as necessary to produce verbal irony: inconsistency and implicitness. Inconsistency requires that ‘we assume the utterance normatively or typically to imply a certain attitude on the part of the speaker, but assume as well that the speaker producing the utterance has an actual attitude inconsistent with what is normally or typically implied’.Footnote ⁸⁶ Notice that this condition does not supply the mechanism by which inconsistent evaluation is communicated. This allows for the presence of echoic mention, pretence, or sundry other signals to explain how we get from attitude A to attitude B.

Implicitness means that ‘the speaker’s actual attitude is not directly stated by the speaker in the immediate context’.Footnote ⁸⁷ I prefer a generous interpretation of implicitness. I do not regard statements that are explicitly signalled as ironic or sarcastic after the fact to thereby cease to be so. For example, in the utterance: ‘Nice haircut! [pause] Not!’ I consider the phrase ‘Nice haircut!’ an instance of sarcasm, despite its being obviously signalled as such.Footnote ⁸⁸ Sarcasm can be subtle or obvious, but the sarcastic statement itself always conveys the speaker’s attitude implicitly.

But how do we get from here to sarcasm? We have already, following the ancients, defined sarcasm as a subspecies of verbal irony. Bailin’s definition will therefore only require slight alteration. I define sarcasm as a subset of verbal irony in which an utterance that would normally communicate a positive attitude or evaluation implies a negative attitude or evaluation.Footnote ⁸⁹

The Parable of the Disgruntled Undergraduate from §1.2.2, despite the difficulty it presents to semantic accounts, provides an excellent illustration of this definition of sarcasm. With the utterance, ‘My, aren’t you clever!’ – an ostensible compliment and therefore a statement that would normally express positive evaluation – our student implies (through her tone of exasperation) a negative attitude toward the other student’s intellectual grandstanding.

1.3.1 The First Quest for the Nature of Irony

It is difficult to find irony research that still cites work written before 1975, as around this time a shift to pragmatic models renders much earlier scholarship obsolete. However, because the monographs that most Pauline scholars draw on predate this advance in irony studies, we must trace our history back further.

There is little development of note within the semantic tradition between Kierkegaard’s 1841 thesis The Concept of Irony: With Constant Reference to Socrates and Muecke’s The Compass of Irony in 1969. Although such works were important contributions for their times, certain conceptual issues render them problematic as accounts of irony (see §§1.2.1–2.2, 1.2.5). Muecke’s work and Booth’s A Rhetoric of Irony represent the pinnacle of the semantic approach to irony. To borrow a principle of organization from elsewhere in New Testament studies, it will be helpful to think of these three monographs as a sort of First Quest for the Nature of Irony.

During this first-quest period, few authors take up the subject of irony in the letters of Paul. Reumann published ‘St Paul’s Use of Irony’ in 1955. This short paper does not get caught up in discussion of ancient or modern theory on irony. At only five pages long, there is also little time for exegesis. The work consists primarily of brief identifications of different sorts of irony – including litotes, understatement, allegory, and others – following which Reumann concludes that Paul’s use of irony in Second Corinthians is intended as ‘a teaching device’.Footnote ⁹⁰ For our purposes, the value of this piece lies in its presentation of a list of passages that a scholar has considered ironic and are thereby worth a second look.Footnote ⁹¹

Still years before Muecke, Jónsson published Humour and Irony in the New Testament. For its time, Jónsson’s work is noteworthy for its use of literary theory in addition to ancient discussion of irony and humour.Footnote ⁹² Jónsson focuses primarily on humour, considering irony a secondary interest that is difficult to disentangle from humour itself.Footnote ⁹³ Jónsson defines humour as ‘always sympathetic’ in some way, while he considers sarcasm inherently unsympathetic.Footnote ⁹⁴ He therefore seeks explicitly to study humour and irony to the exclusion of sarcasm. This fact significantly limits the utility of Jónsson’s work for our discussion of Pauline sarcasm, but his identification of isolated ironic statements within Paul’s letters will merit some reference.Footnote ⁹⁵

1.3.2 The Pragmatic Revolution: 1975–1984

Although subsequent research would find fault with his paradigm, Grice’s pragmatic definition of irony, published in 1975, would begin a shift in irony studies away from semantic approaches.Footnote ⁹⁶ The echoic account follows soon after (1978; §1.2.3) and by 1984, pretence theory joins the conversation (§1.2.4). By this point, we have three competing pragmatic accounts of irony, which have rightly shown the deficiencies of earlier semantic paradigms (§1.2.2).

During this decade of sweeping change within irony studies, we find little work on irony in Paul. In 1981, Spencer published a study on irony in Second Corinthians’ ‘fool’s speech’. Although it is reasonable that this paper should be unaware of a revolution in irony studies still very much in process at the time, Spencer’s work also bypasses many of the ‘first-quest’ texts on irony, drawing primarily on Kierkegaard.Footnote ⁹⁷

Like Jónsson, Spencer wishes to avoid the term sarcasm in describing Paul’s irony in 2 Cor 11:16–12:13, preferring the designation ‘sardonic’. For both authors, this seems to be partly methodological; Spencer appears to consider sarcasm to be an element of tone (‘in other words, sneering, cutting, caustic, or taunting’) rather than a form of irony.Footnote ⁹⁸ There also seems to be an apologetic element in such designations as well, insofar as avoiding the term ‘sarcasm’ excuses Paul from the use of tendentious rhetoric. Spencer ultimately argues that for Paul, the indirectness of irony functions as a stratagem for winning over a potentially unreceptive audience and ultimately works to ‘expertly reinforce his central message’.Footnote ⁹⁹

1.3.3 The Second Quest: 1985–early 2000s

Over the following years, echo and pretence become greater while Grice becomes less. These former two paradigms expand, develop, and become the basis for hybrid accounts of irony that draw on both.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ On the whole, the discipline starts shifting towards controlled laboratory experimentation rather than building paradigms on literary examples.Footnote ¹⁰¹ We do not reach anything like a consensus on the nature of irony at this time, but irony studies makes significant gains and there is much insightful, relevant work for Pauline scholars to have drawn on had they chosen to.

Forbes’s Reference Forbes1986 article on comparison, self-praise, and irony in 2 Cor 10–12 shows no interest in modern research on irony,Footnote ¹⁰² but focuses instead on ancient discussions. His citation of ancient authors is broad, including Plato, Demosthenes, Hermogenes, and Quintilian, to name a few.Footnote ¹⁰³ Although I argue that any major study on irony in Paul has much to gain from interaction with both ancient and modern work, Forbes’s focus on ancient discussions well suits the article’s purpose and scope.

Forbes pushes the importance of Hermogenes for understanding Paul’s irony in 2 Cor 10–12 and considers Paul’s use of rhetorical techniques, including irony, as providing evidence that he ‘may have had a full education in formal Greek rhetoric’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ While I am critical of Forbes’s ultimate conclusions (see Chapter 7, §7.3.3), I consider his work one of the strongest pieces of scholarship on irony in Paul’s letters to date. Forbes will therefore be a significant conversation partner in our chapter on Second Corinthians.

Published a year after Forbes’s article, Plank’s study of irony in 1 Cor 4:9–13 takes a very different approach to the subject. Like Forbes – though not to the same depth – Plank works through a number of ancient treatments of irony.Footnote ¹⁰⁵ Unlike Forbes, Plank is convinced by the utility of (relatively) modern scholarship, using Muecke as his starting point for defining irony,Footnote ¹⁰⁶ and drawing significantly on Kierkegaard and Booth.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Plank is thereby the first Pauline scholar to interact with a range of ‘first-quest’ irony scholarship.

Plank draws three major conclusions about Paul’s use of irony. First, for Plank, Paul’s irony is apologetic. Paul uses irony to turn the tables in his favour; weakness becomes strength, and thus criticisms of Paul on these lines only support his legitimacy. Second, Paul’s irony is homiletic, encouraging the Corinthians to ‘view their calling in a new way’. Third, Paul’s irony seeks to influence his audience’s theological convictions, affirming for his readers God’s paradoxical salvific actions.Footnote ¹⁰⁸

Plank is concerned with two major forms of irony: dissimulative and paradoxical irony.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ Plank describes dissimulative irony as ‘a technique by which something appears to be other than it really is’, an effect achieved through the use of exaggeration and pretence.Footnote ¹¹⁰ So defined, this form of irony has some affinity to verbal irony, and because I define sarcasm as a form of verbal irony, Plank’s work on dissimulative irony in 1 Cor 4:9–13 will be worth some interaction.Footnote ¹¹¹ However, Plank’s greater interest lies in paradoxical irony, where what is said is not what is meant but ultimately turns out to be true on a deeper level.Footnote ¹¹² This larger discussion will not figure in our analysis of sarcasm, since the irony of such a paradox would be a product of the situation.

In the early 1990s, Loubser releases a study that draws considerably on Plank. Essentially, what Plank does with 1 Cor 4, Loubser does with 2 Cor 10–13. As a result, both works share similar strengths and drawbacks. Compared with Plank, Loubser does cite a greater breadth and depth of modern work on irony,Footnote ¹¹³ and discusses a greater variety of irony-types.Footnote ¹¹⁴

For Loubser, Paul’s ‘fool’s speech’ (Narrenrede) is permeated with verbal irony: it is an ironic discourse (dissimulative irony) underlain by the (paradoxical) irony of strength-through-weakness.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Loubser uses his analysis of irony in 2 Cor10–13 to argue that these chapters form a peroratio to the letter as a whole, thus supporting the integrity of Second Corinthians.Footnote ¹¹⁶

At one point or other in this study I will push back on all these conclusions. As mentioned above, paradoxical irony is better thought of as a form of situational irony rather than verbal irony. Partially because of this methodological difference, I will go on to argue that the fool’s speech in 2 Cor 10–12 does not contain significant verbal irony or sarcasm. Furthermore, an analysis of Paul’s irony in these chapters cannot provide significant evidence for the integrity of Second Corinthians.Footnote ¹¹⁷

1.3.4 Recent Scholarship

I will not at this time attempt to demarcate a ‘third quest’ period in irony studies. More time and distance will be required to determine what the next significant movement in the field might be. The next steps could involve synthesizing different accounts of irony into a unified whole, or perhaps advances in neuroscience will shed light on how the brain processes irony.Footnote ¹³⁶ Colston’s recent survey argues that an important step for the field will involve weighing the conclusions of past scholarship, which has been largely Anglocentric, against the different systems for communicating verbal irony across languages.Footnote ¹³⁷ Within this research agenda, the results of our study, especially related to the typical means ancient Greek speakers use to express sarcasm (Chapter 3, §3.1–3.2), can hope to be relevant not only to Pauline scholarship, but to the study of verbal irony as well.

Once we get into the 2010s, we start to see new developments in Pauline scholarship.Footnote ¹³⁸ Schellenberg devotes a chapter to irony in his 2013 study of Paul’s rhetorical education. Like the book as a whole, this chapter is an essentially negative project, which argues that Paul’s fool’s speech is not ironicFootnote ¹³⁹ – although Paul does make ‘isolated ironic statements’ in 2 Cor 10–13.Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Schellenberg is critical of Holland’s work,Footnote ¹⁴¹ and his assertion that Paul’s boasting is actual self-promotion delivered without irony is an interesting foil to interpreters such as Loubser and Spencer.Footnote ¹⁴²

Sim’s work on verbal irony marks a significant moment in scholarship on irony in Paul. Approaching verbal irony from the standpoint of relevance theory, Sim brings ideas from the Pragmatic Revolution into the conversation.Footnote ¹⁴³ Her discussion moves through both (largely) accepted and (more) contentious examples of irony in the Pauline corpus.Footnote ¹⁴⁴ Sim then compares Paul’s use of irony to that of Jesus and of Epictetus,Footnote ¹⁴⁵ and also points out prophetic irony in the Hebrew bible.Footnote ¹⁴⁶

In line with Sperber and Wilson, Sim defines irony as ‘an echoic utterance from which the speaker distances himself’.Footnote ¹⁴⁷ Unfortunately, the way that she simplifies the paradigm – perhaps for the benefit of her non-specialist audience – ends up creating a historical problem. Sim’s interpretation of echoic mention assumes that irony involves re-presenting the speech or perspectives of another. As part of the process for identifying verbal irony, she recommends asking, ‘Can we identify whose thought or utterance the speaker is echoing?’Footnote ¹⁴⁸ While a more nuanced form of this hypothesis allows for more indistinct forms of mention (§1.2.3), this assumption leads Sim to consistently claim access to the actual perspectives of Paul’s interlocutors by means of irony’s echo.Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Making these kinds of historical claims assumes too much about Paul’s opponents and congregations, and does not account for the distorting influence of hyperbole and misrepresentation, which are absolutely common in verbal irony.

Despite this caveat, Sim’s exegesis of verbal irony in Paul remains helpful, and her work deserves commendation as a first step in bringing the discipline up to date on developments in irony studies since 1975.