more—been used as a sacrifice in the interests of reciprocal violence. How does Paul deal with this situation? The difficulty for him is that along with others he has been cast into the role of a rival. Whatever he says, therfore, runs the risk of being understood as reinforcing his position within the context of rivalry. Paul tries to deal with the situation in two ways. In the early part of the letter he strives to extricate himself from the rivalry by opposing the gospel to the wisdom and cleverness