I do not say this by way of command, but by the zeal of others I am trying to prove the reality of your love.

Now I Paul, myself, appeal to you by the humble-heartedness and selflessness of Christ??aul who "in your presence is humble, but bold enough when he is absent"??2 I beseech you, and I say, do not make me show my boldness, when I come in the boldness with which I think I shall show my courage against some who think that I am walking on the low level of the flesh.

"His letters indeed," says one, "are mighty and forcible, but his personality is weak, and his speech contemptible."

I say again, let no one think me a fool. Or, if you must, at least bear with me as a fool, that I, too, may do a little boasting.

What I am about to say I am not speaking by the Lord's command, but as it were in pure folly, in this boldness of boasting.

I say that I was weak, and yet for whatever reason any one is bold (I speak in mere folly) I too am bold.

But though it be granted that I was not a burden to you, yet, you say, this was my cunning with which I caught you by a trick.