Stripes

The umbrella collects two passages where Paul names the stripes inflicted on him as part of his apostolic credentials. The fuller record of Jewish and Roman scourging belongs under a separate heading; here the focus is on stripes as one item in the catalogues of suffering Paul recites to the Corinthians.

In Paul's Hardship Catalogues

The first list slots stripes into a sequence of bodily and circumstantial trials: "in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in fasts" (2 Co 6:5). The plural form is part of an unmodified inventory — the stripes are simply named alongside the other hardships that mark out Paul's ministry as commendable.

The second list, in the boasting-as-fool section, intensifies the language. Paul reframes the same items competitively against rival "servants of Christ" and presses each one further: "Are they servants of Christ? (I speak as one beside himself) I more; in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths often" (2 Co 11:23). Where 2 Co 6:5 simply lists stripes, 2 Co 11:23 adds the qualifier "above measure" — the same item escalated.