M. RENAN, in describing the Greek of St. Paul as Hellenistic Greek charged with Hebraisms and Syriacisins which would be scarcely intelligible to a cultivated reader of that period, says that if the Apostle had ever received even elementary lessons in grammar or rhetoric at Tarsus, it is inconceivable that he would have written in the bizarre, incorrect, and non–Hellenic style of his letters.
Now, I do not think that St. Paul would have made about his own knowledge of Greek the same remarks as Josephus does, who tells us that he had taken great pains to master the learning of the Greeks and the elements of the Greek language. St. Paul had picked up Greek quite naturally in a Greek city, and I think that I have decisively proved that he could not have possessed more than a partial and superficial acquaintance with Greek literature. But I have little doubt that he, like Josephus, would have said that he had so long accustomed himself to speak Syriac that he could not pronounce Greek with sufficient exactness, and that the Jews did not encourage the careful endeavour to obtain a polished Greek style, which they looked on as an accomplishment of slaves and freedmen.1 Yet, after reading the subjoined list of specimens from the syntaxisornataof St. Paul, few, I think, will be able to resist the conviction that he had attended, while at Tarsus, some elementary class of Greek rhetoric. I will here content myself with brief references; if the reader should feel interested in the subject, I have gone further into it in the Expositorfor 1879.
Figures (σχήματα) are divided by Greek and Latin rhetoricians into Figures of language (figurae verborum, elocutionis, λέξεως), and Figures of Thought (sententiae, διανοίας). They drew this distinction between them—that figures of language disappear, for the most part, when the words and their order are changed; whereas figures of thought still survive.2 The distinction is superficial and unsatisfactory, and it would perhaps be more to the point to divide figures into:—1. Those of colour, dependent on the imagination; as metaphor, simile, allegory, personifications, metonyms, catachresis, &c. 2. Those of form, ranging over an immense field, from the natural expression of passions, such as irony, aposiopesis, erotesis, &c., down to mere elegancies of verbal ornament, and variations of style (such as zeugma, &c.) or of order (such as chiasmos, hysteron–proteron, &c.). 3. Those of sound, dependent on analogies of words, resemblance of sounds, unconscious associations of ideas, &c., such as alliteration, parisosis, paromoiosis, parechesis, paronomasia, oxymoron, plays on names, &c.
1. On figures of Colour I have already touched.3 As specimens of the two other classes in St. Paul’s Epistles we may take the following—referring to my BriefGreekSyntax, or to other books, for an explanation of the technical terms:—
2. Figures of Form.
Chiasmus—a crosswise arrangement of words or clauses, as in Rom. 2:6, 10. (This figure is much more common in the Epistle to the Hebrews.) A good instance is—
1 Cor. 3:17, εἴ τις τὸν ναὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ φθείρει, φθερεῖ αὐτὸν ὁ Θεός.
Euphemism.
1 Cor. 5:1, 2, ἔχειν … ὁ τὸ ἔργον τοῦτο ποιήσας. 2 Cor. 7:11, ἐν τῷ πράγματι.
1 Thess. 4:6, supra, p. 589.
Litotes.
Rom. 1:28, ποιεῖν τὰ μὴ καθήκοντα.
Eph. 5:4, τὰ οὐκ ἀνήκοντα.
1 Cor. 11:22, ἐπαινέσω ὐμᾶς ἐν τούτῳ; οὐκ ἐπαινῶ.
Philem. 18, εἰ δέ τι ἠδίκησέ σε ἢ ὀφείλει.
Philem. 11, τόν ποτέ σοι ἄχρηστον.
Meiosis.4 Rom. 3:9, οὐ πάντως (comp. 1 Cor. 16:12).
1 Cor. 1:29, ὅπως μὴ καυχήσηται πᾶσα σὰρξ.
Rom. 3:20, ἐξ ἔργων νόμου οὐ δικαιωθήσεται πᾶσα σάρξ.
Antithesis, Parisosis, Paromoiosis,5 Paradox,Alliteration, Erotesis, Epexergasia—all exhibited in such passages of deep emotion as 2 Cor. 6:3–16; 11:22–28; 1 Cor. 4:8–11.
Epanaphora.
Phil. 4:8, ὅσα … ὅσα … κ.τ.λ. εἴ τις, κ.τ.λ.
A wide multi-column table is printed here in the source volume (pages 607). It does not reflow into a single web column; the readable content of the source table is given elsewhere in this edition.
2 Cor. 7:11, ἀλλὰ … ἀλλὰ … κ. τ. λ.
Aposiopesis.
2 Thess. 2., videsupra, p. 609.
Proparaitesis,Protherapeia,Captatio,Benevolentiae, &c. The Thanksgiving at the beginning of every Epistle except the “Galatians.”
Acts 24:10 (before Felix), and 26:2, 3, before Agrippa.
Paraleipsis(praeterita).
Philem. 19, ἵνα μὴ λέγω σοι.
1 Thess. 4:9, οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε ὑμῖν γράφεσθαι (cf. 5:1; 2 Cor. 8:1).
Intentional Anakoluthon.
Gal. 2:6, ἀπὸ δὲ τῶν δοκούντων εἶναί τι …
2 Thess. 2:3, ὅτι ἐὰν μὴ ἔλθῃ ἡ ἀποστασία πρῶτον …
2 Thess. 2:7, μόνον ὁ κατέχων ἄρτι …
(The Anakolutha of mere inadvertence, due to the eager rapidity of thought, are incessant in St. Paul, as in Rom. 2:17–21; 16:25–27, &c. &c.)
Climax.
Rom. 10:14, 15, &c.
Zeugma.
1 Cor. 3:2, γάλα ὑμᾶς ἐπότισα καὶ οὐ βρῶμα.
1 Tim. 4:3, κωλυόντων γαμεῖν, ἀπέχεσθαι βρωμάτων.
Oxymoron.
2 Cor. 6:9, θανατούμενοι καὶ ἰδοὺ ζῶμεν (being slain, yet behold we live). 1 Tim. 5:6, ζῶσα τέθνηκεν (living she is dead).
Rom. 1:20, τὰ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ … καθορᾶται (His unseen things are clearly seen).
Rom. 12:11, τῇ σπουδῇ μὴ ὀκνηροὶ (in hastenot sluggish).
1 Thess. 4:11, φιλοτιμεῖσθαι ἡσυχάζειν (be ambitious to be quiet).
1 Thess. 1:6, ἐν θλίψει πολλῇ μετὰ χαρᾶς (joyous affliction).
1 Cor. 8:10, οἰκοδομηθήσεται (ruinous edification).
Rom. 1:22, φάσκοντες εἶναι σοφοὶ ἐμωράνθησαν.
Eph. 6:15, Gospel of peacepart of panoply of war.
2 Cor. 8:2, deep povertyabounding to wealthof liberality.
2 Cor. 12:10, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
It will be sufficient to make the merest reference to Anadiplosis (Rom. 9:30; Phil. 2:8); Epanodos (Gal. 2:16); Epanorthosis (Rom. 8:34; Gal. 2:20; 3:4, &c.); Asyndeton (1 Cor. 15:43; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2 Tim. 3:2–5, 10, 11, &c.); Antiptosis(Col. 4:17; Gal. 6:1; 4:11); Hyperbaton(2 Thess. 2:5, &c.); Alliteration (1 Cor. 2:13; 2 Cor. 8:22; 9:8, &c.); Constructiopraegnans(2 Thess. 2:4, &c.); and many minor figures.
3. Coming to figures of the tird division—Sound—we find that St. Paul makes most remarkable and frequent use of paronomasia.
E.g. (a) Paronomasia, dependent on the change of one or two letters6:—
Rom. 1:29, πορνείᾳ πονηρίᾳ … φθόνου, φόνου.
Rom. 1:30, ἀσυνέτους, ἀσυνθέτους.
Rom. 11:17, τινες τῷν κλάδων ἐξεκλάσθησαν.
Cf. Heb. 5:8, ἔμαθεν ἀφʼ ὧν ἔπαθεν.
(β) Paronomasia, dependent on a play of words of similar sound or derivation.7 This is St. Paul’s most frequent rhetorical figure:—
2 Cor. 3:2, γινωσκομένη καὶ ἀναγινωσκομένη.8
Rom. 1:28, οὐκ ἐδοκίμασαν (they refused) … ἀδόκιμον νοῦν (a refusemind).
Phil. 3:2, 3, κατατομὴ (concision) … περιτομὴ (circumcision).
Rom. 2:1, κρίνεις … κατακρίνεις.
1 Cor. 11:29, seq., διάκρισις … κρίμα … κατάκριμα.
Rom. 12:3, “Not to be high–minded (ὑπερφρονεῖν) above what we ought to be minded (φρονεῖν), but to be mindedso as to be sober–minded” (σωφρονεῖν). Cf. Thuc. ii. 62, οὐ φρονήματι μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ καταφρονήματι.
1 Cor. 7:31, χρώμενοι … καταχρώμενοι.
2 Cor. 6:10, ἔχοντες … κατέχοντες.
2 Cor. 4:8, ἀπορούμενοι … ἐξαπορούμενοι.
2 Tim. 3:4, φιλήδονοι … φιλόθεοι.
2 Thess. 3:11, not busy(ἐργαζομένους) but busybodies (περι εργαζομένους).9
1 Tim. 5:13, οὐ μόνον δὲ ἀργαὶ, ἀλλὰ καὶ περίεργοι (female toilers in the school of idleness).
Cornelius à Lapide and others have imagined a latent paronomasia in 1 Cor. 1:23, 24. If St. Paul thought in Syriac it might be “To the Jews a micsol, and to the Greeks a mashcal, but to those that are called—Christ the secel of God.” But this is probably a mere ingenious fancy.10
(γ) A third class of paronomasias consists in plays on names, of which we find three in St. Paul:—
Philem. 11, Ὀνήσιμον … ἄχρηστον.11
Philem. 20, Ναὶ, ἐγώ σου ὀναίμην.
Phil. 4:3, Σύζυγε γνήσιε, “yoke–fellow by name and yoke–fellow by nature.”12
St,. Jerome imagines another in Gal. 1:6, where he thinks that “ye are being removed” (μετατίθεσθε) is a play on the name Galatæ and the Hebrew Galal, “to roll.”
Since, then, we find upwards of fifty specimens of upwards of thirty Greek rhetorical figures in St. Paul, and since they are far more abundant in his Epistles than in other parts of the New Testament, and some are found in him alone, may we not conclude that as a boy in Tarsun he had attended some elementary class in Greek rhetoric, perhaps as a part of his education in the grammatical knowledge of the language? Professional rhetoricians abounded in Tarsus, and if Paul’s father, seeing the brilliant capacity of his son, meant him for the school of Gamaliel, he may have thought that an elementary initiation into Greek rhetoric might help to pave the way for his future distinction among the Hillelites of Jerusalem; since, as we see from the Talmud, this kind of knowledge opened to some Rabbis a career of ambition. If so, the lessons which the young Saul learnt were not thrown away, though they were turned to very different objects than had been dreamt of by one who intended his boy to be, like himself, a Pharisee of Pharisees and a Hebrew of Hebrews.