A metonymic idiom in 2 Cor 2:15a?

[Toseland]

2 Cor 2:14-15 Τῷ δὲ θεῷ χάρις τῷ πάντοτε θριαμβεύοντι ἡμᾶς ἐν τῷ Χριστῷ καὶ τὴν ὀσμὴν τῆς γνώσεως αὐτοῦ φανεροῦντι δι᾽ ἡμῶν ἐν παντὶ τόπῳ· 15 ὅτι Χριστοῦ εὐωδία ἐσμὲν τῷ θεῷ ἐν τοῖς σῳζομένοις καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις

Greetings. I have been puzzling over ὅτι in 2 Cor 2:15a: how does v. 15a clarify v. 14c? It seems natural to suppose that τὴν ὀσμὴν τῆς γνώσεως αὐτοῦ ('the fragrance that makes him known') has the same referent as Χριστοῦ εὐωδία ('the fragrance of Christ'); at least, I am interested in the possiblity that the two phrases have the same referent. ὀσμή and εὐωδία are used as synonymously in e.g Diodorus Siculus, Bib.Hhist. 2.49.2; 3.46.1, 3-4. But in v. 14 God reveals the aroma through Paul (δι᾽ ἡμῶν), whereas in v. 15 Paul is (ἐσμὲν) the fragranc e. How then does v. 15a clarify v. 14c?

I am wondering if in v. 15a Paul employs a metonymic idiom, the fragrance itself for the source of the fragrance. Then God is able to reveal the aroma that makes Christ known through Paul because (ὅτι) Paul is the source of that fragrance. The implication would be that Paul is the site of the ongoing epiphany of Christ. But does such a metonymic idiom exist in Hellenistic Greek? Has anyone run across an example?

Many thanks.
Paul Toseland

[Stephen Carlson]

Christoph Heilig has written a massive tome on this passage; perhaps you’ll find something useful there.

I don’t think that metonymy needs to be an idiom to be viable, and CAUSE-EFFECT metonymy is pretty common and productive. But if you’re interested in whether this specific metonymy exists as an idiom, then there needs to be a corpus study of it. I don’t know of any off-hand, unfortunately.