04_Sandnes_550-564_copia_550-564 10/12/15 10:24 Pagina 559 559 PROPHET-LIKE APOSTLE 559 from a change, not only in Paul’s life, but also in his theology. Law and grace become opposites, a view he also imposes upon his Gala- tian audience. The way Pamela Eisenbaum uses the prophetic call is, therefore, misleading, although it is equally wrong to depict the Damascus event as his embracing of another religion. But the rev- elation outside Damascus brought significant frictions with the Jewish tradition out of which Paul came. II. Squeezed Between Constraint and Woe (1 Cor 9,16) In this text Paul says that his preaching of the gospel is no reason for boasting, since God ordained to him this task. He does so out of some compulsion (avna,gkh). This Greek term has a wide range of meanings. Its meaning can be concrete, like “chain” or “yoke,” and abstract like “fate”, “tribulation” or “constraint”. Harry P. Na- suti has argued that the term should be rendered “distress” in terms of the sufferings and hardships witnessed to in the Pauline tribula- tion lists (2 Cor 4,7-12; 6,4-10; 11,23-28) 28. For this particular text, this has been rightly refuted by Jeffrey W. Aernie 29, but Nasuti’s ob- servations pave the way for considering the apostolic hardships as constitutive of Paul’s prophet-like self-understanding. Paul’s prophet- like understanding of his apostolate thus affects also his persona. Paul is under an obligation to preach the gospel; the alternative is woe, which is the lamentation of those who find themselves under God’s judgment. This concept goes beyond normal servant- hood, and it is best explained with reference to analogies in the prophetic literature of the Old Testament. The prophets’ compulsory preaching shed light on biblical associations alive in Paul’s self- understanding in this text, although ancient philosophers could also see themselves as speaking with a divine mandate forcing them to continue to do so. Socrates and Epictetus are famous examples (Plato, Apol. 21e; 28e; 30e; 31c-d; 33c; Arrian, Diss. 3.22.2; 3.22.23; 3.22.53-69). The classical example of someone being entrusted with a com- mission leading to compulsory preaching is Jeremiah. He laments 28 H.P. NASUTI, “The Woes of the Prophets and the Rights of the Apostle: The Internal Dynamics of 1 Corinthians 9”, CBQ 50 (1988) 246-264. 29 AERNIE, Paul, 79-81.