2 Corinthians 11:22-33

22–33. Now follows the actual glorying. Several times he had begun this assertion of himself (2 Corinthians 10:7-8; 2 Corinthians 11:1; 2 Corinthians 11:7; 2 Corinthians 11:16), but each time something has diverted him for awhile. Now he is fairly launched; and the result is a sketch of his life, which, for historical purposes, is one of the most valuable passages in his or in any other of the canonical Epistles. In some respects it stands quite alone. Elsewhere he once or twice gives an outline of what he has gone through (1 Corinthians 4:11-13; 2 Corinthians 4:7-10; 2 Corinthians 6:4-10); but here he gives exact details, which are all the more impressive because they are evidently wrung from him by hostile criticism. They show how free from exaggeration his friend’s biographical notices of him are in Acts. Where S. Luke records what is parallel to what we have here, so far from embroidering, he omits a great deal. Where he recounts what took place after this letter was written (Acts 20-28), he tells us nothing but what is equalled or exceeded by what we are told here. Further, the account of his Rapture to the third heaven (2 Corinthians 12:2 ff.) throws light on similar experiences, as of S. Peter in Acts 10, and of S. John in the Revelation.