Timothy Brookins approaches First Corinthians 1–4 with the intention of giving us a “background of the text” (15; emphasis original), distinct from what he perceives in previous scholarship: a “background of the text” (15), anchored in history of religions or sociological acumen, but unmoored from exegesis. The main questions are simple to state and, for Brookins, linked: what divided the Corinthians into factions, and what is the “wisdom of the world” (3:19) to which some were attached? Brookins concludes that the first faction consisted of the self-proclaimed “wise,” “perfect” and “spiritual” ones, who took a broadly Stoic worldview (or “wisdom”) and attempted to subordinate it to the Paulinism they had recently learned, becoming what he terms “substoics.” Their Stoic worldview included a program of self-improvement by evaluating themselves and comparing themselves to others, seemingly justifying their boasting as they believed “their spiritual state is somehow ‘of themselves’” (82). The other factions formed as a reaction to this group.

The book is divided into twelve chapters across three parts, followed by a brief conclusion (307–11), an extensive bibliography (313–33), and helpful indices of authors, subjects, and ancient sources.
The first part treats the history of scholarship and methodological considerations. The method chapter is theoretically rich. Brookins reckons with the diversity that existed among first-century Stoicisms. Given this, what does it mean to say that a person, or a set of ideas, was Stoic? Brookins argues that there is a family resemblance (in Wittgenstein’s sense) among the various Stoicisms. His use of the term prioritizes emic perspectives: someone’s a Stoic if they say they are. Despite the period’s intellectual cross-fertilization, Brookins stresses that individuals sought allegiance to a founder rather than embracing eclecticism (36–38). Brookins provides a nuanced taxonomy of different ways traditions can interact (43). This affords him precision in his claims that the Corinthian “wise” group appropriated Stoicism as a way to reformulate Paul’s teachings, and that Paul accommodates to their language (45).

The second part, as Brookins admits (or boasts?), provides “an uncommonly detailed exegesis” (81) of almost every aspect of 1 Cor 1–4. This section engages in careful philological analysis, in (generally polemic) dialogue with a vast array of secondary literature. For instance, Stephen Pogoloff is a frequent foil for Brookins’s arguments, as Pogoloff sees the central divide between Paul and the “wise” party as their lionization of secular rhetoric polish. Brookins provides some interesting and convincing readings of texts that are only tangentially related to his overall conclusions (some of which proved to be highlights of the book for this reviewer). For instance, in considering 1 Cor 4:6–13, he proposes that Paul’s question (“Do you want me to come with a rod or a spirit of gentleness?”) is meant to elicit an instinctive preference for gentleness, exposing the Corinthians’ mistaken valuation of power. Some readers interested in Brookins’s overall conclusions may not have the facility with Greek to follow all of his arguments in this section. Such readers can still track the broader argument by reading the more accessible 1–2-page chapter conclusions.

The final chapter of the second part departs from the verse-by-verse exegesis that characterizes the rest of the section to argue for three connections between the Corinthians' “wisdom” and Stoicism. Two are convincing: a common emphasis on self-sufficiency (which may be the core of Paul’s disagreement with them as it conflicts with his theology of grace; 228); the classification of things as good, bad, or indifferent. Additionally, Brookins argues that the Corinthian ψυχικός-πνευματικός (natural-spiritual) pairing is rooted in Stoic tonic physics. To make this work, though, he has to conjecture that the Corinthians substituted the word “spiritual” for “rational” in our Stoic sources, which makes this claim somewhat speculative.

The final part is what Brookins terms “reconstructing the situation.” Brookins usefully shows that there were plenty of self-identified Stoics in the Empire in the mid-first Century, including at least two in Corinth. He also finds evidence that both women and men could be identified as philosophers, as well as people from a wide variety of social classes. This strengthens the plausibility of a genealogical link between Corinthian thought and Stoicism, even if some details, such as his reliance on Acts to argue for a larger church size than Murphy-O’Connor suggests, are more debatable, particularly given the possibility that Acts exaggerates Paul’s success (293).

Brookins’s proposal deserves serious consideration from anyone studying the origins of First Corinthians. His book is also to be recommended to anyone interested in almost any specific philological issue in 1 Cor 1–4, as they will find a thorough survey and sensible analysis of a wide range of possibilities. Finally, the first part of the book would benefit anyone who is interested in methodological questions around comparison (and I may assign this material to upper-level undergraduates to help them think through these issues), or in the sociology of knowledge of philosophy in the first-century ancient Mediterranean.