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Hellenistic παιδɛία and Luke's Education: A Critique of Recent Approaches*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2009

Osvaldo Padilla
Osvaldo Padilla
Affiliation:
Samford University, 800 Lakeshore Drive, Birmingham, AL 35229, USA email: opadilla@samford.edu
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Abstract

This essay offers a critique of recent works that claim for the author of Acts a high level of rhetorical sophistication. The paper attempts to begin to fill a gap in Acts studies by exploring two skills of the curriculum of tertiary rhetorical education and asking how these are exemplified in the curriculum itself. In this way an attempt is made to provide a more sophisticated parallel reading, one that avoids shell comparisons that can often lead to distortion. The two skills explored are intertextuality from the Greek classics and speech construction. It is suggested that—from the perspective of the rhetorical curriculum—the author of Acts probably lacked a rhetorical education.

Keywords

Luke-ActseducationrhetoricintertextualityspeechesAtticism
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 416 - 437
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 Dibelius, M., From Tradition to Gospel (trans. Woolf, B. L.; New York: Scribner, 1935) 1–2Google Scholar and passim; Schmidt, K. L., Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964)Google Scholar; Bultmann, R., The History of the Synoptic Tradition (trans. Marsh, J.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, rev. ed. 1963) 368–74Google Scholar.

2 Blass, F. and Debrunner, A., A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963) 2Google Scholar. Equally nuanced is Norden, E., Die Antike Kunstprosa vom VI. Jahrhundert v. Chr. bis in die Zeit der Renaissance, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Teubner, 5th ed. 1958) 484–5Google Scholar, who states that while many parts of Acts would have come across to an ancient reader as competent Greek, others would have felt un-Greek.

3 Parsons, M., ‘Luke and the Progymnasmata: A Preliminary Investigation into the Preliminary Exercises’, Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (ed. Penner, T. and Stichele, C. V.; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003) 43–64, at 44Google Scholar.

4 See Missiou, A., ‘Language and Education in Antiquity’, A History of Ancient Greek: From the Beginnings to Late Antiquity (ed. Christidis, A.–F.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007) 1182–92Google Scholar.

5 Martin, M., ‘Progymnastic Topic Lists: A Compositional Template for Luke and Other Bioi?’, NTS 54 (2008) 18–41, at 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Other recent works that operate with a high view of Luke's rhetorical level include Penner and Stichele, eds., Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse; Rothschild, C. K., Luke-Acts and the Rhetoric of History: An Investigation of Early Christian Historiography (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004)Google Scholar. This list, of course, is not exhaustive.

7 I mention Herodotus and Thucydides since Theon, 68, suggests their descriptions as good examples of ekphrasis. The Greek edition consulted is the Patillon edition in the Budé series. The English translation followed is that of Kennedy, G. A., Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003)Google Scholar.

8 For detailed analyses of primary and secondary education, see Marrou, H. I., Histoire de l'éducation dans l'Antiquité (Paris: Seuil, 7th ed. 1975) 215–77Google Scholar; Bonner, S. F., Education in Ancient Rome (Berkeley: University of California, 1956)Google Scholar. More recent explorations, taking a more systematic approach to the papyri in Egypt, are Cribiore, R., Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University, 2001); Morgan, T., Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1998)Google Scholar; and Too, Y. L., ed., Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Leiden: Brill, 2001)Google Scholar.

9 A reading of Pseudo-Plutarch's essay De liberis educandis could lead to the conclusion that philosophy was the essential subject of tertiary education. More balanced is Lucian's Somnium 12, where lady paideia lists among those whom she has immortalised both rhetoricians (Demosthenes) and philosophers (Socrates). On the debate see especially Morgan, Literate Education, 193–6.

10 Lucian Somnium 1.

11 Morgan, Literate Education, Table 15. See also Winterbottom, M., Roman Declamation (Bristol: Bristol Classical, 1980)Google Scholar.

12 See Marrou, Histoire, 291–2; Morgan, Literate Education, 82–8, 190.

13 R. Webb, ‘The Progymnasmata as Practice’, Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (ed. Too) 289–316, at 297.

14 Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 2.

15 By the fourth century the exercises were fixed at fourteen with Aphthonius and Libanius (see Gibson, C., Libanius' Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008]Google Scholar).

16 On declamation, see Bonner, S. F., Roman Declamation (Liverpool: Liverpool University, 1949)Google Scholar and Russell, D. A., Greek Declamation (Cambridge: Cambridge University) 1983CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 232–3.

18 The Elder Seneca Suasoriae 1.1–16; 3.1–7.

19 On the reading of Vergil for Roman students, Orosius stated that the Aeneid was ‘burned into his memory’ (adv. pagan. 1.18.1). Interestingly, Orosius states that the person responsible for this was the ludus litterarius, not the grammaticus. I owe this citation to Kaster, R., ‘Notes on “Primary” and “Secondary” Schools in Late Antiquity’, TAPA 113 (1983) 323–46, at 334Google Scholar.

20 See Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 197–201.

21 I did not include in this count the Armenian additions.

22 Pliny the Younger Ep. 7.9: ‘multum legendum esse, non multa’. I owe this quotation to Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 194.

23 See Morgan, Literate Education, 67–73, for a list of core and peripheral authors, the latter of whom only a minority of students mastered.

24 On which see Swain, S., Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World AD 50–250 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) 19–21Google Scholar; Wifstrand, A., ‘Luke and Greek Classicism’, Epochs and Styles: Selected Writings on the New Testament, Greek Language and Greek Culture in the Post-Classical Era (ed. Rydbeck, L. and Porter, S. E.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 17–27Google Scholar, at 17–19 and passim.

25 See, e.g., Cicero Brutus 284–91, whose chief critique was that the Attic orators were too varied in their style for contemporaries to impose a uniform style and call it ‘Attic’: ‘“Atticos”, inquit, “volo imitari”. Quos? nec enim est unum genus’ (285). Cicero, we may note, is not without bias in this statement, as he had been accused of being florid and hence Asian in his style.

26 E.g. Epictetus and Galen.

27 Although Dionysius of Halicarnassus found numerous faults with some of his speeches: see De Thuc. 37–41, 43–47. On the attempt to imitate Thucydides' speech-reporting by amateur historians, see Lucian, Hist. conscr. 15, 26.

28 On the competitive nature of paideia, see Morgan, Literate Education, 79–85.

29 See Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; London: T&T Clark, 1994–8) 1.298Google Scholar; Conzelmann, H., A Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (trans. Limburgh, J., Kraabel, A. T. and Juel, D. H.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1993) 43Google Scholar; Schneider, G., Die Apostelgeschichte (2 vols.; Freiburg: Herder, 1980–2) 1.403Google Scholar.

30 Weaver, J. B., Plots of Epiphany: Prison-Escape in Acts of the Apostles (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2004) 94–147CrossRefGoogle Scholar and passim.

31 See R. Cribiore, ‘The Grammarian's Choice: The Popularity of Euripides’ Phoenissae in Hellenistic and Roman Education', Education in Greek and Roman Antiquity (ed. Too) 241–58.

32 Artapanus Frg. 3.23–26.

33 It is most remarkable that Luke would use this theme of the Jerusalem authorities!

34 Thus also more recently Marguerat, D., Les Actes des Apôtres (1–12) (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2007) 190Google Scholar: ‘L'expansion du motif au-delà du mythe dionysiaque fait penser que Luc ne l'a pas emprunté directement à Euripide, mais qu'il l'a reçu par l'intermédiaire du judaïsme hellénistique’.

35 It is difficult to say with certainty whether the expression ὡς καὶ τινɛς τῶν καθ’ ὑµᾶς ποιητῶν ɛἰρήκασιν of v. 28 refers to what has just been said or to what follows or to both. If it is anaphoric, then it may stem from Epimenides. There are, however, difficulties in ascertaining the true source of the triad (see Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, 2.847). On the other hand, there is no doubt that the final clause was in fact contained in Aratus' poem.

36 See Dibelius, M., ‘Paul on the Areopagus’, Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (ed. Greeven, Heinrich; London: SCM, 1956) 26–77Google Scholar, at 51, who appears to state that Luke had firsthand knowledge of the poem.

37 OCD3 s.v. Aratus.

38 Plümacher, E., ‘Eine Thukydidesreminiszenz in der Apostelgeschichte (Apg 20,33–35–Thuk. II 97,3f.)’, Geschichte und Geschichten: Aufsätze zur Apostelgeschichte und zu den Johannesakten (ed. Schröter, Jens and Brucker, Ralph; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004) 127–33Google Scholar.

39 Plümacher, ‘Eine Thukydidesreminiszenz’, 127.

40 Plümacher, ‘Eine Thukydidesreminiszenz’, 130.

41 Plümacher, ‘Eine Thukydidesreminiszenz’, 129. He adds (130–33) that imitation of Thucydides during the Principate was common, and thus one should not be surprised to find it in Acts. Others who view the logion as an imitation of a Graeco-Roman aphorism (but not exclusively stemming from Thucydides) include Conzelmann, The Acts of the Apostles, 176; Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Wilson, R. M.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971) 594–5 n. 5Google Scholar; and Jervell, J., Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998) 514CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 See the appropriate remarks of Kilgallen, J. J., ‘Acts 20:35 and Thucydides 2.97.4’, JBL 112 (1993) 312–14Google Scholar in this respect. His remarks, however, are directed towards Haenchen.

43 See Bauernfeind, O., Kommentar und Studien zur Apostelgeschichte mit einer Einleitung von Martin Hengel (ed. Metelmann, Volker; Tübingen: Paul Siebeck, 1980) 269Google Scholar; Conzelmann, Acts, 210–11; Haenchen, Acts, 685.

44 Thus especially Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, 2.1158 and Bauernfeind, Kommentar, 269.

45 Bruce, The Book of the Acts, 466 n. 25.

46 Thus Haenchen, Acts, 708.

47 Bruce, The Book of the Acts, 474. Praeder, S. M., ‘Acts 27:1–28:16: Sea Voyages in Ancient Literature and the Theology of Luke-Acts’, CBQ 46 (1984) 683–706Google Scholar, at 701: ‘In the Odyssey epikellein is used with naus (nēus) of the beaching of ships… Little else except a reminiscence of the Odyssey would explain the only appearance of epikellein and naus in the NT’. See also Barrett, The Acts of the Apostles, 2.1213, though he does not seem to be as convinced as Bruce of the Homeric reference.

48 Wifstrand, ‘Luke and Greek Classicism’, 19–20.

49 MM, s. v.

50 See Alexander, L., The Preface to Luke's Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1–4 and Acts 1.1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1993) 176–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hengel, M. and Schwemer, A. M., Paulus zwischen Damaskus und Antiochien: Die unbekannten Jahre des Apostels mit einem Beitrag von Ernst Axel Knauf (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 18–26Google Scholar; Weissenrieder, A., Images of Illness in the Gospel of Luke: Insights of Ancient Medical Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003)Google Scholar; Eckey, W., Das Lukasevangelium unter Berücksichtigung seiner Parallelen. Teilband 1: Lk 1,1–10, 42 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2004) 47–9Google Scholar.

51 See Hengel and Schwemer, Paulus, 20–1.

52 See Homer Od. 9.138, 148; 13.114; Apollonius Rhodius Argon. 1.1362; 2.352; 3.575; Numenius, Fragmenta 573.3; Phanocles Fragmenta 1.15. Later uses of the verb in this particular form are found mainly in scholia on Homer (e.g. Eustathius).

53 The closest thing to ἐπικέλλω is Herodotus 7.182: ἐπώκɛιλαν τὴν νέα. But note that ἐποκέλλω is normally used in prose during the Hellenistic period (e.g. Polybius 4.41; Arrian Indica 7.37.5). Note the inferior textual variant in Acts 27.41 with the more prose-friendly ἐπώκɛιλαν.

54 On Luke's supposed imitation of Homer, see especially MacDonald, D., Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles (New Haven: Yale University, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar although this author remains unconvinced by the parallels he cites, as the method for detecting Homeric echoes appears to be too broad.

55 See, e.g., van Unnik, W. C., ‘Luke's Second Book and the Rules of Hellenistic Historiography’, Les Actes des Apôtres: Traditions, rédaction, théologie (ed. Kremer, J.; Leuven: Leuven University, 1979) 37–60Google Scholar; Satterthwaite, P. E., ‘Acts against the Background of Classical Rhetoric’, The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting, vol. 1 (ed. Winter, B. W. and Clarke, A. D.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993) 355–60Google Scholar.

56 Alexander, L., ‘The Acts of the Apostles as an Apologetic Text’, Acts in its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark, 2005) 183–206, at 198Google Scholar.

57 Pairing of speeches is attested in scores of places in Greek historians. One may cite Thucydides as an example: Corinthians versus Athenians (1.68–78), and between individuals, Archidamus versus Sthenelaidas (1.80–86). On Josephus, see the contrasting speeches on suicide, one by Josephus himself (B.J. 3.363–68) and the other by Eleazar (B.J. 7.320–36).

58 See Padilla, O., The Speeches of Outsiders in Acts: Poetics, Theology and Historiography (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholarpassim.

59 See now Pervo, R., Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009)Google Scholar for a similar conclusion though reached by slightly different means: ‘Familiarity with rhetorical technique and contact with such authors as Homer and Euripides suggest an education that had progressed beyond the elementary level, but his stylistic limitations indicate that he did not reach the advanced stages’ (7).

60 See, e.g,. Malherbe, A. J., Social Aspects of Early Christianity (London: Louisiana State University, 1977)Google Scholar; Meeks, W. A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1983) 51–73Google Scholar; Theissen, Gerd, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (trans. Schütz, J. H.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 69–119Google Scholar.

61 See Swain, Hellenism and Empire, 56–7.

62 See now the very informative work of Nutton, V., Ancient Medicine (London: Routledge, 2004) 87–8Google Scholar, 152–3, 253–60 and his comments on the social status of physicians. With the exception of royal physicians (such as Galen) they were not viewed as part of the educated elite: ‘Both papyri and inscriptions place the doctor on the same level as village craftsmen’ (152).

63 Alexander, The Preface, 168–212; Rydbeck, L., Fachprosa, vermeintliche Volkssprache und Neues Testament. Zur Beurteilung der sprachlichen Niveauunterschiede in nachklassischen Griechisch (Uppsala: Berlingska Boktryckerirt, 1967)Google Scholarpassim.

64 A good start would be Edelstein, L., Ancient Medicine (trans. Temkin, C. L.; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 1967)Google Scholar supplemented now by Nutton, Ancient Medicine.

65 L. Alexander, ‘Septuaginta, Fachprosa, Imitatio: Albert Wifstrand and the Language of Luke-Acts’, Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context, 231–52.

66 See Wifstrand, ‘Luke and Greek Classicism’, 42–3.