Suffer fools gladly is a well-known phrase in contemporary use, first coined by

Saint Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...

in his second letter to the Church at

Corinth Corinth ( ; el, Κόρινθος, Kórinthos, ) is the successor to an ancient city, and is a former municipality in Corinthia, Peloponnese, which is located in south-central Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it has been part ...

(

chapter 11 Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code ( Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whet ...

). The full verse of the original source of the idiom, 2 Corinthians 11:19 (

KJV The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by sponsorship of K ...

), reads "For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise." The

New International Version The New International Version (NIV) is an English translation of the Bible first published in 1978 by Biblica (formerly the International Bible Society). The ''NIV'' was created as a modern translation, by Bible scholars using the earliest a ...

states "You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise!" In its current usage, the meaning of the negative, ''not'' to suffer fools gladly, has been stated by the Cambridge Idiom Dictionary, 2nd Ed. (2006), as "to become angry with people you think are stupid". The full meaning of Paul's use of the term "fool" in the original passage is complex and subtle, and the term appears repeatedly in the Chapter to develop the author's theme; however, it appears clear that the intended meaning of the phrase was as

sarcasm Sarcasm is the caustic use of words, often in a humorous way, to mock someone or something. Sarcasm may employ ambivalence, although it is not necessarily ironic. Most noticeable in spoken word, sarcasm is mainly distinguished by the inflection ...

, juxtaposing welcomes given to rival itinerant teachers in Corinth (branded as "false apostles... masquerading" in 2 Corinthians 11:13) with the Corinthians' possible rejection (non-welcome) of the message of this, his letter to them. As has been noted by Robert Fulford, a columnist from ''

The National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper available in several cities in central and western Canada. The paper is the flagship publication of Postmedia Network and is published Mondays through Saturdays, with M ...

'' who collected many instances of the phrase's late 20th and early 21st century usage, it generally appears in the negative, e.g., in

obituaries An obituary (obit for short) is an article about a recently deceased person. Newspapers often publish obituaries as news articles. Although obituaries tend to focus on positive aspects of the subject's life, this is not always the case. Acco ...

with a variety of connotations or as a

cliché A cliché ( or ) is an element of an artistic work, saying, or idea that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being weird or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was consi ...

of intellectuals in reference to one another, frequently to explain or justify ornery or cantankerous behavior; the combined effect of these appearances is a broadening of meaning from the apparent original sarcasm of

. Fulford goes on to note with some irony the ready use—the glad suffering—of fools by Shakespeare, who elevated their roles, admittedly non-Pauline, throughout his literary corpus. In his highly regarded early literary biography of

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian e ...

G.K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: " ...

commented on the interpretation of St. Paul's "suffer fools gladly":

References

External links

* {{Second Epistle to the Corinthians English phrases New Testament words and phrases Second Epistle to the Corinthians