It hardly needs to be said that no figure in Christian history, with the exception of Jesus himself, has been of greater consequence for the tradition than Paul. The whole of Christian dogmatic and “systematic” theology either grows directly out of his epistles or is inflected through them. And yet no other figure in Christian history has suffered greater or more grievous misrepresentations by his putative followers. In part, this is attributable to an undeniable and fairly frequent obscurity in Paul’s way of expressing himself; he was, as even his most devoted readers should be willing to admit, a careless writer. His style was almost invariably precipitate, fragmentary, syntactically vagrant—even sprawling. This is not to deny that there is also a very real eloquence in his prose, at times almost exquisite; but it is an eloquence born from passion rather than from literary refinement or dialectical precision. As often as not, the reader is not so much led on by the clarity and rigor of his arguments as carried along by the visionary intensity of his voice.