A Beautiful Failure: The Event of Death and Rhetorical Disorder in the Gospel according to Mark 9789189874251

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2024

ISBN 978-91-89874-25-1

Printed by Media-Tryck, Lund 2024

NORDIC SWAN ECOLABEL 3041 0903

Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology Centre for Theology and Religious Studies (CTR)

9 789189 874251

Is the death of Jesus a rhetorically ordered or disordered event in the Gospel according to Mark? The second-century theologian Papias of Hierapolis defended the integrity of this ancient narrative, while at the same time associating it with compositional ataxia and failure. In this doctoral dissertation, Joel Kuhlin investigates the depth of a “Papian doxa” of ataxia and failure in the Gospel according to Mark, by considering the rhetorical features of the description of Jesus’s execution in Mk 15:6–39. With the methodological guide of Aelius Theon’s first-century CE rhetorical handbook, his so-called Francis Bacon, Crucifixion, 1933. © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights Progymnasmata, and the concepts of reserved. DACS 2024 taxis (“order”), lexis (“style”), dianoia (“thought”), “short stories” (diêgêmata), and “anecdotes” (chreiai), Kuhlin argues that the death of Jesus in Mk 15:6–39 is a rhetorically disordered and obscure happening, associated with “social death” and with becoming a social non-person. The event of death is not without effect or meaning, however. With the theory of Gilles Deleuze’s The Logic of Sense and Franz Kafka’s exploration of Josef K. in The Trial (Der Prozeß), Jesus’s death in the Gospel according to Mark expresses the beautiful failure of an event.

A Beautiful Failure – The Event of Death and Rhetorical Disorder in the Gospel according to Mark

The Event of Death and Rhetorical Disorder in the Gospel according to Mark

JOEL KUHLIN  

A Beautiful Failure

A Beautiful Failure JOEL KUHLIN | CTR | LUND UNIVERSITY

A Beautiful Failure The Event of Death and Rhetorical Disorder in the Gospel according to Mark

Joel Kuhlin

Cover photo by Francis Bacon, Crucifixion, 1933 © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS 2024 Copyright © 2024 Joel Kuhlin The Joint Faculties of Humanities and Theology The Centre for Theology and Religious Studies ISBN 978-91-89874-25-1 Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University Lund 2024

Till minnet av Dagmar och Holger Sjögren καὶ ἐγένετο ἐν τῷ διαβῆναι αὐτοὺς καὶ Ἠλειοὺ εἶπεν πρὸς Ἐλεισαῖε Τί ποιήσω σοι πρὶν ἢ ἀναληφθῆναί με ἀπὸ σοῦ; καὶ εἶπεν Ἐλεισαῖε Γενηθήτω δὴ διπλᾶ ἐν πνεύματί σου ἐπ’ ἐμέ (2 Kings 2:9 LXX)

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Fidelity to Failure ....................................................................11 The Papian Doxa: A Generative Disorder .........................................................16 Structure of the Study ........................................................................................19 Aim; Research Question; Material and Delimitations.......................................22 Aim...............................................................................................................22 Research Questions ......................................................................................22 Material and Delimitation ............................................................................22 2. Previous Research: A Doxology to Disorder .................................................25 Disorder and Formgeschichte (1919–1950) ......................................................28 Disorder in Narrative- and Rhetorical Criticism (1970–Present) .....................32 Before Narrative Criticism (1950–1970) .....................................................32 Rhetorical Criticism (1970–Present) ............................................................36 Failure in Being or Time? .................................................................................41 Form, Narrative, Rhetoric, and Ordering Jesus’s Death....................................46 Disorder as Relay? .......................................................................................49 Ordering Disorder and Diêgêsis ...................................................................52 3. Method and Theory: From the Progymnasmata to a Logic of Sense...........57 Why Aelius Theon and the Progymnasmata? ...................................................58 The Preliminary Exercises ...........................................................................61 Progymnasmata, Rhetoric, Diêgêma, and Failure .......................................64 Taxis and Diêgêma ............................................................................................68 Lexis and Diêgêma.............................................................................................71 Dianoia and Diêgêma ........................................................................................74 The Short Story (διήγημα) ..................................................................................77 Significance of the Short Story (διήγημα)....................................................79 A Stylistic Diêgêma ............................................................................................80 A Historical Diêgêma ........................................................................................82 Facts and a Fabulative Diêgêma .......................................................................84 Why Gilles Deleuze and Logic of Sense? ..........................................................86 Disorder and Failure .....................................................................................90

4. Prelude: Disorder and Diêgêma in the Passion Narrative ...........................93 The Order of the Passion Narrative ...................................................................94 The Passion Narrative and Diêgêsis .............................................................94 Shaping Episodes: Mk 14:1–16:8 ..............................................................100 Weaving in Mk 14:1–16:8 ...............................................................................105 Weaving Persons-in-Action .......................................................................105 Weaving Clusters, Ordered, and Disordered-Sequences............................108 Anecdotal Cluster 14:1–11 ............................................................................. 109 Last-Meal Sequence 14:12–31........................................................................ 111 Betrayal, Trial, Death, and Entombment Sequence 14:32–16:8 .................... 113 Conclusion .......................................................................................................116 5. The Failure of Order ......................................................................................119 Taxis and Mk 15:6–39 .....................................................................................119 15:6–15 Diêgêma .......................................................................................120 15:16–20a Diêgêma....................................................................................124 15:20b–27 Deficient Diêgêma ...................................................................127 15:29–32 Diplê Chreia ...............................................................................131 15:33–39 Diêgêma .....................................................................................134 Humiliation and Humor .............................................................................138 Anecdotal Short Stories? ............................................................................142 Conclusion .......................................................................................................144 6. The Failure of Style ........................................................................................145 Lexis and Mk 15:6–39 .....................................................................................147 15:6–16 Hypotaxis and Indefinite Plurals ..................................................147 15:16–29 Stuttering Parataxis and Indefinite Plurals ................................155 15:6–39 Barbarisms and Repetitions..........................................................159 Barbarisms ...................................................................................................... 160 Repetitions ...................................................................................................... 165 Improper Propriety in 15:6–39 ...................................................................169 Conclusion .......................................................................................................173 7. The Failure of Thought ..................................................................................175 Obscure Suspension-Execution or Clear Crucifixion? ...............................176 Unthinkable Disgrace of Suspension .........................................................179 Social Death, Humorous Kingship ..................................................................181 King for a Day ............................................................................................181 Social Death ...............................................................................................186 Jesus’s Becoming Body-and-Blood................................................................. 189 The Secrecy of a Phantasm .............................................................................193 Failed Images-in-Thought? ........................................................................193 Doulomorphic Secrecy ...............................................................................195 Conclusion .......................................................................................................198

8. The Beauty of Failure .....................................................................................201 Benjamin’s Kafka and the Beauty of Failure ..................................................202 The Death of Josef K..................................................................................206 A Becoming of Secrecy..............................................................................212 The Secrecy and Death of Ἰησοῦς Χ. ..............................................................216 Thought as Paradox ....................................................................................218 Style as Parable ..........................................................................................221 The Book of Daniel, Apocalyptic Dreams, and the Son of Man...................... 225 Order as Parataxis.......................................................................................228 Summary ......................................................................................................... 231 The Surface of Suspension: Sense and Event..................................................233 Logic of Sense: Relating Letter and Spirit to the Event..............................233 Circularity on the Surface ..........................................................................237 The Proposition and Sense ............................................................................. 238 The Proposition and the Passion Narrative .................................................... 240 Social Death: Trauma on the Surface .........................................................244 Namelessness: When Subjectivity Fails .......................................................... 249 Godlessness: When Divinity Fails .................................................................. 251 Worldlessness: When Cosmos Fails ............................................................... 253 Deleuze’s Bacon and the Indiscernibielity of Golgotha.................................. 254 Closing Discussion .....................................................................................262 Conclusion .......................................................................................................264 9. Conclusion .......................................................................................................269 The Failure of Jesus’s Death ...........................................................................270 Primary Research Question ........................................................................270 Summary of Primary Results .....................................................................272 The Event of Jesus’s Death .............................................................................274 Secondary Research Questions ..................................................................274 Summary of Secondary Results .................................................................276 10. Appendix .......................................................................................................277 Episodic Forms in Mk 14:1–16:8 ....................................................................277 Anecdotes (χρεῖαι)......................................................................................278 Short Stories (διηγήματα)...........................................................................280 11. Tackord .........................................................................................................283 12. Abbreviations, Bibliography........................................................................287 Abbreviations ..................................................................................................287 Bibliography ....................................................................................................288 Ancient Sources, Editions, Translations.....................................................288 Literature ....................................................................................................290

Unprecedented murder! Unprecedented crime! The Sovereign has been made unrecognizable by his naked body and is not even allowed a garment to keep him from view. That is why the luminaries turned away, and the day was darkened, so that he might hide the one stripped bare upon the tree, darkening not the body of the Lord but the eyes of men. —Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha Great literature is written in a sort of foreign language. To each sentence we attach a meaning, or at any rate a mental image, which is often a mistranslation. But in great literature all our mistranslations result in beauty. —Marcel Proust, in Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet’s Dialogues

Jesus’s Death in the Gospel According to Mark: 15:6–39 Κατὰ δὲ ἑορτὴν ἀπέλυεν αὐτοῖς ἕνα δέσμιον ὃν παρῃτοῦντο. ἦν δὲ ὁ λεγόμενος Βαραββᾶς μετὰ τῶν στασιαστῶν δεδεμένος οἵτινες ἐν τῇ στάσει φόνον πεποιήκεισαν. καὶ ἀναβὰς ὁ ὄχλος ἤρξατο αἰτεῖσθαι καθὼς ἐποίει αὐτοῖς. ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος ἀπεκρίθη αὐτοῖς λέγων· θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; ἐγίνωσκεν γὰρ ὅτι διὰ φθόνον παραδεδώκεισαν αὐτὸν οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς. οἱ δὲ ἀρχιερεῖς ἀνέσεισαν τὸν ὄχλον ἵνα μᾶλλον τὸν Βαραββᾶν ἀπολύσῃ αὐτοῖς. ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος πάλιν ἀποκριθεὶς ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· τί οὖν [θέλετε] ποιήσω [ὃν λέγετε] τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; οἱ δὲ πάλιν ἔκραξαν· σταύρωσον αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· τί γὰρ ἐποίησεν κακόν; οἱ δὲ περισσῶς ἔκραξαν· σταύρωσον αὐτόν. Ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος βουλόμενος τῷ ὄχλῳ τὸ ἱκανὸν ποιῆσαι ἀπέλυσεν αὐτοῖς τὸν Βαραββᾶν, καὶ παρέδωκεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ. Οἱ δὲ στρατιῶται ἀπήγαγον αὐτὸν ἔσω τῆς αὐλῆς, ὅ ἐστιν πραιτώριον, καὶ συγκαλοῦσιν ὅλην τὴν σπεῖραν. καὶ ἐνδιδύσκουσιν αὐτὸν πορφύραν καὶ περιτιθέασιν αὐτῷ πλέξαντες ἀκάνθινον στέφανον· καὶ ἤρξαντο ἀσπάζεσθαι αὐτόν· χαῖρε, βασιλεῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων· καὶ ἔτυπτον αὐτοῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν καλάμῳ καὶ ἐνέπτυον αὐτῷ καὶ τιθέντες τὰ γόνατα προσεκύνουν αὐτῷ. Καὶ ὅτε ἐνέπαιξαν αὐτῷ, ἐξέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὴν πορφύραν καὶ ἐνέδυσαν αὐτὸν τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ. Καὶ ἐξάγουσιν αὐτὸν ἵνα σταυρώσωσιν αὐτόν. καὶ ἀγγαρεύουσιν παράγοντά τινα Σίμωνα Κυρηναῖον ἐρχόμενον ἀπ’ ἀγροῦ, τὸν πατέρα Ἀλεξάνδρου καὶ Ῥούφου, ἵνα ἄρῃ τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ. Καὶ φέρουσιν αὐτὸν ἐπὶ τὸν Γολγοθᾶν τόπον, ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον Κρανίου Τόπος. καὶ ἐδίδουν αὐτῷ ἐσμυρνισμένον οἶνον· ὃς δὲ οὐκ ἔλαβεν. Καὶ σταυροῦσιν αὐτὸν καὶ διαμερίζονται τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ, βάλλοντες κλῆρον ἐπ’ αὐτὰ τίς τί ἄρῃ. ἦν δὲ ὥρα τρίτη καὶ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν. καὶ ἦν ἡ ἐπιγραφὴ τῆς αἰτίας αὐτοῦ ἐπιγεγραμμένη· ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων. Καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ σταυροῦσιν δύο λῃστάς, ἕνα ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ ἕνα ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ. Καὶ οἱ παραπορευόμενοι ἐβλασφήμουν αὐτὸν κινοῦντες τὰς κεφαλὰς αὐτῶν καὶ λέγοντες· οὐὰ ὁ καταλύων τὸν ναὸν καὶ οἰκοδομῶν ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις, σῶσον σεαυτὸν καταβὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ. ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς ἐμπαίζοντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους μετὰ τῶν γραμματέων ἔλεγον· ἄλλους ἔσωσεν, ἑαυτὸν οὐ δύναται σῶσαι· ὁ Χριστὸς ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ καταβάτω νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ, ἵνα ἴδωμεν καὶ πιστεύσωμεν. καὶ οἱ συνεσταυρωμένοι σὺν αὐτῷ ὠνείδιζον αὐτόν. Καὶ γενομένης ὥρας ἕκτης σκότος ἐγένετο ἐφ’ ὅλην τὴν γῆν ἕως ὥρας ἐνάτης. καὶ τῇ ἐνάτῃ ὥρᾳ ἐβόησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ· ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι; ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον· ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, εἰς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με; καί τινες τῶν παρεστηκότων ἀκούσαντες ἔλεγον· ἴδε Ἠλίαν φωνεῖ. δραμὼν δέ τις [καὶ] γεμίσας σπόγγον ὄξους περιθεὶς καλάμῳ ἐπότιζεν αὐτόν λέγων· ἄφετε ἴδωμεν εἰ ἔρχεται Ἠλίας καθελεῖν αὐτόν. ὁ δὲ Ἰησοῦς ἀφεὶς φωνὴν μεγάλην ἐξέπνευσεν. Καὶ τὸ καταπέτασμα τοῦ ναοῦ ἐσχίσθη εἰς δύο ἀπ’ ἄνωθεν ἕως κάτω. Ἰδὼν δὲ ὁ κεντυρίων ὁ παρεστηκὼς ἐξ ἐναντίας αὐτοῦ ὅτι οὕτως ἐξέπνευσεν εἶπεν· ἀληθῶς οὗτος ὁ ἄνθρωπος υἱὸς θεοῦ ἦν.

But during the festival, he used to release for them a prisoner—the one they asked for. But there was in prison one called Barabbas among the insurrectionists who had committed murder during the insurrection. And the multitude came up and began to demand that he do for them according to custom. But Pilate answered them saying “Do you want me to release the king of the Jews?” Because he knew that out of envy the high priests had handed him over. But the high priests stirred up the multitude, so that he would release Barabbas to them. But Pilate asking again said to them: “What then do you want me to do with the one you call king of the Jews?” But they screamed again: “Suspend him!” But Pilate said to them: “Why, what evil has he commited?” But they screamed even more: “Suspend him!” But Pilate wanting to please the multitude released Barabbas to them and, after flogging, handed Jesus over to be suspended. But the soldiers brought him into the courtyard, that is a praetorium, and summoned the entire cohort. And they dressed him in a purple cloak and having twisted a thorny crown, put it on him. And they began to salute him: “Greetings, O king of the Jews.” And they struck his head with a reed and spat on him and knelt in homage to him. And when they had mocked him, they undressed him the purple cloak and dressed him with his clothing. And they led him to suspend him. And they compelled a passerby coming from the field, Simon of Cyrene, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his pole. And they brought him to the place of Golgotha, which means “place of a skull.” And they gave him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they suspended him and divided his clothes among themselves, casting lot to decide who would take what. But it was the third hour and they suspended him. And there was an inscription of the charge written: “The king of the Jews.” And together with him they suspended two robbers, one on the right and one on his left side. And passersby blasphemed him, shaking their heads and saying: “Ha, the one who demolises the temple and rebuilds it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the pole.” And also the high priests mocked him among themselves, along with the scribes and said: “Others he saved, himself he cannot. The messiah, the king of Israel: come down now from the pole, so that we will see and believe.” And those co-suspended together with him reviled him. And when the sixth hour came, it became dark over all the land to the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a great voice: “Elôi, Elôi, lema sabachthani,” which means “my God, my God, why have you left me?” And some who were standing there listening said: “Look, he is calling for Elijah.” But someone ran, and after filling a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick saying to him: “Wait, let us see if Elijah comes and takes him down.” But Jesus realasing a great cry, drew a final breath. And the veil of the temple was torn in two, from above to below. But the Centurion who stood facing him, on seeing that he perished in this way, said: “Certainly, this human was a son of God!”1

1

The purpose of this non-idiomatic translation, especially rendering καί with “and” and δέ with “but,” is strategic and underlines a stylistic emphasis and the unclear rhetorical traits in 15:6–39. The intention is to highlight syntactical hypotaxis in contrast to parataxis. On the current paratactical translation of Mk 15 in particular, see chapter six of the current study: “The Failure of Style.” The Greek edition of the NT cited in the study is NA28 and LXX is taken from the Rahlfs/Hanhart edition. If not stated otherwise, translations from the NT and LXX are the author’s.

1. Introduction: Fidelity to Failure

This is a study of failure and death. It begins with the patristic theologian Papias of Hierapolis (ca. 60–130 CE). For with an infamous fragment (Hist. eccl. 3.39.1–17), the Hierapolitan became first in history to advocate for the Gospel according to Mark (Mk) and its purported faults of ataxia.2 In the wake of this early reception and fascinating defense of an anarchic narrative of the life and death of Jesus, the insistent relevance of failure names a productive research problem for the study of Mk. To be precise, Papias’s generic pronouncements on errors of rhetorical disorder directly affects the heart of this ancient opus. In a word, disorder reaches into the depths of death in Mk 15:6–39, wrecking its rhetorical posture from the inside out. In the twentieth century, Franz Kafka’s portrayal of the gruesome murder of Josef K. echoes the Papian problematic and apologia of failure. In the unfinished novel Der Prozeß (The Trial, 1925), K.’s doglike death (“Wie ein Hund!”) expresses an intriguing appreciation of literary forms drenched in disorder. Akin to the texture of Jesus’s death, Der Prozeß explores this theme with an illuminating rhetoric of secrecy, de-humanizing shamefulness and the motif of failure essential to the compositional texture of Mk 15:6–39. The demise of K. therefore reveals a “rhetoric of failure” that accentuates and actualizes a Papian fidelity to disordered truth in Mk, and proclaims a beauty of failure therein.3 A theory and method of failure arrives with the figures of Aelius Theon and Gilles Deleuze. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze (1925–95) and Greco-Roman rhetorician, Aelius Theon (ca. first century CE), function as primary guides to the “line of flight” of disorder inherent with death. The disorder of Jesus’s death will be The ancient, textual tradition known as ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΡΚΟΝ will be abbreviated simply with Mk, to accentuate the impersonal and anonymous character of the ancient title and work and to avoid the overtone of authorial intention that references to “Mark” brings with it. The same applies to Mt, Lk, and Jn. For a recent study on the titular context of Mk, see especially Matthew D. C. Larsen, “Titles of the Gospels in Historical Context.” 3 Ataxia in Mk is hard to miss. The text’s penultimate occurrence, with Jesus’s death, articulates the story’s summit (15:1–47). It is interesting to note that although this event displays external elements of “order,” as schematized in progymnastic discourse, obscure and disorderly traits remain internal to its features. Inspiration for the ancient question of (dis)order and its relation to beauty is found in Lucian, Hist. conscr., 48, who argues that ancient narrative in historiography in the shape of “a body of material” without virtuous taxis displays “no beauty (ἀκαλλής) or continuity.” When assigning order with stylistic (lexis) “charms of expression, figure and rhythm” gives “it beauty” (τὸ καλλός). 2

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demonstrated to emerge from a theoretical appraisal of Mk 15:6–39, in the wake of The Logic of Sense (1969) and “the event,” after a methodological assessment on its relation to brief, episodic narration (primarily διηγήματα, diêgêmata: short stories) unveiled in the ancient, rhetorical handbook known as προγυμνάσματα (progymnasmata, preliminary exercises: herafter “prog.”). It is thus with the prog. and Logic of Sense that the failure associated with the horrific scene of execution comes to speak with a distinct voice. In scholarly literary criticism, death is recognized as the incident par excellence for the first century CE text on the life and death of Jesus.4 On the surface, death is crystalized in the passage Mk 15:6–39; the apex of the section also known as the “passion narrative” (14:1–16:8). A meaningful articulation of this death is aptly summarized with a list of occurrences in the Greek recension of the Symbolum Apostolorum, describing that Jesus “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was suspended, killed, and buried, descending to those below.”5 Yet, when the articulation of this series of actions unfolds death in a narrative, its rhetoric behaves oddly. Within the story, something rumbles and stutters. And instead of phrasing this momentous event with clarity and determination, irony and ambiguities enfold the final living moments of the Galilean prophet. In particular, disorder and compositional failure ensnares the texture and surface of Jesus’s death through grounding traits of compositional arrangement (τάξις, taxis), style (λέξις, lexis), and thought (διάνοια, dianoia). When marked by this form of rhetorical unruliness, how is the taxis of 15:6–39 to be appraised or assigned with meaning, from the perspective of Greco-Roman rhetoric? Is this event deprived of meaning? From the perspective of “thought” (dianoia) and the heartbeat of this passage, death actualizes a forceful and enigmatic moment for the messianic figure, “the Son of the (Hu)man” (ὁ ὑιὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου). Hanging naked and humiliated on a pole till death, this truly “Human One” exits the land of the living in utter abandonment (14:34–42, 15:29–32) and cries out to a silent sky (15:34). Additionally, however, this death is saturated with an adamant, apocalyptic hope. It contains fantasies of the Son of Man’s capacity to inaugurate an eschatological arrival of the Jewish God’s rule over creation. Therefore, the completion of Jesus’s life is not simply a horrific slaughter. The dianoia also evokes a promise and the divine destiny to redeem God’s conventual people and “the many” (10:45; 14:23–24) from on high: “You will see the Son of Man, seated to the right of power and coming with the clouds of heaven” (14:62). According to Peter Bolt, “from Mark’s point of view, [Jesus] was crucified This opinion is advocated by most influential scholars of Mk in recent decades, for instance, in the article by Joel Marcus, “Mark–Interpreter of Paul.” For a review on the importance of death (and resurrection) and contemporary scholarship, see Joel Green, Death of Jesus, 136–56 and more recently, Austin Busch, Risen Indeed?, 2–9. 5 Παθόντα ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου, σταυρωθέντα, θανόντα, καὶ ταφέντα, κατελθόντα εἰς τὰ κατώτατα. My translation. See discussion on a “Gallic” version of the symbolum in Adolf von Harnack, The Apostle’s Creed, 12, 24. Notice that the article on resurrection is consciously left out, because of the resurrection’s ambiguous function in Mk and the scope of the present study. 4

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as part of the divine plan. He had saved others from the shadow of death, but, if he was to save others from death itself and bring them into the life of the kingdom, then he could not save himself. His death was the means by which others were ransomed from the grave.”6 A difficulty with death can be summarized from the perspective of the obscure lexis, which weaves the unwieldy dianoia with an equally disorderly taxis of words and phrases. In the narrative’s last instance, Jesus’s death conjoins an ideal apocalyptic hope with physical, dehumanizing murder to produce a rhetorical event invested with incompatible directions of narrational meaning and a disordered sense. Yet, death is the failure of life. The end of life is where life leads. Death is the end of everything planned, organized, and created—it is the end of doing and being itself. Death happens in and to a life. This event’s arrival is, in the words of the philosopher Maurice Blanchot, “double.” On the one side, life’s end undoes the existent in an obscurity that transforms the person into something impersonal, something “with regard to which it must be said not that ‘I die,’ but that somebody dies, somebody who is no one in particular, who in dying is always other.”7 That is, the sting of death dissolves the particularity that constitutes the substance and subjectivity of living persons. In this regard, dying signifies a process of alterity and a secrecy of becoming-Other. On its other side, death’s enigmatic power of breaking down individuality and corporeality can also be taken as an ideal object to be embodied. By endowing death with a vocation or a distinct destiny, a life is fulfilled through its failure.8 Death hereby creates an opportunity to treat its occurrence as mine; my final trauma, my mortal moment: “My wound existed before me, I was born to embody it.”9 Is there a beauty with explorations of death drenched in failure and disorder? With Logic of Sense, when there is a fidelity to an existent’s final breakdown, a pure event of meaning presents itself.10 According to Logic of Sense, the failure of life indexes something like a productive catastrophe, which inheres somewhere in all incidences and misfortunes. In terms of a rendezvous of an impersonal and ideal obscurity that dissolves individual, material particularity, death for Logic of Sense expresses an essential trait of occurrences and their meaning, one in which, Peter G. Bolt, Jesus’ Defeat of Death, 266. Maurice Blanchot, Writing of the Disaster, 118. On death as “Other”: op. cit., 19; 130. See Gilles Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 151–52, on the relation of Blanchot’s appreciation of life’s failure in terms of duality. 8 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 148: “To the extent that events are actualized in us, they wait for us and invite us in.” Hereafter, the title will only be referred to as Logic of Sense. Since Deleuze nowhere aims to locate the theory of meaning, in the form of a timeless definition. The study offers a methodology for tracing the multiplicity of “sense.” James Williams, Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, 23: “The logic of sense is then not the logic of a language. It is a description of the structures that appear when being is understood as the encounter of events and series.” Emphasis added. 9 The French poet Joë Bousquet (1897–1950) cited in Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 148. Later, Bousquet is rendered with the imperative: “Become the man of your misfortunes; learn to embody their perfection and brilliance”: op. cit., 149. Is Jesus such a “man,” for the rhetoric of Mk? 10 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 151. 6 7

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every event is a kind of plague, war, wound, or death . . . With every event, there is indeed the present moment of its actualization, the moment in which the event is embodied in a state of affairs, an individual, or a person, the moment we designate by saying “here, the moment has come” . . . Death has an extreme and definite relation to me and my body and is grounded in me, but it also has no relation to me at all—it is incorporeal and infinitive, impersonal, grounded only in itself.11

“The event” thus names a relation that relays the concrete corporeality and ideal incorporeality that define all occurrences and death specifically.12 With the possibility of becoming worthy of death as event, there is a beauty to life’s failure, for “[e]ither ethics makes no sense at all, or this is what it means and has nothing else to say: not to be unworthy of what happens to us.”13 If Blanchot was correct to note that “all beauty lies in details,” where a guarantee of total closure and “the arch of the whole” is withheld, becoming worthy of the asymmetry of death emits something of a secret splendor.14 Embracing death therefore, no matter how chaotic, implies a moral faithfulness that necessitates disorder and failure. When the passion narrative articulates the asymmetry of a fleshly and profane demise and idyllic desires of divine dominion, the surface of Jesus’s death reveals a severe “crack.”15 Death as corporeal trauma of social deprivation clashes with the incorporeal desire for a new transcendent reality. The utterly deplorable executionform of suspension on a pole (σταυροῦν) drains the individual hero from all notions of human life, social honor, and credibility.16 The creature on the pole effectively experiences becoming a non-person; considered something less than a human being and akin to a human-footed creature (ἀνδράποδον, antropodon).17 However, not Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 151. Emphasis original. In Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze names this relay with the terms “distinct” actuality and “obscure” virtuality. See discussion in Williams, Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, 7, 14, 16. 13 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 149. 14 Blanchot, Writing of the Disaster, 62: “All beauty lies in details: so Valéry said, approximately. But this would be true only if there were an art of details that would no longer have the arc of the whole for its context.” Arguably, the entire philosophy of Gilles Deleuze is dedicated to exploring the beauty and secret, ontological “haecceities,” outside of the domain and domination of a transcendent uniting principle. 15 “If the order of the surface is itself cracked, how could it not itself break up, how is it to be prevented from precipitating destruction, even if this meant losing all accompanying benefits—the organization of language and even life itself?”: Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 157. On the “crack” in the surface of sense in literature and its relation to events, see op. cit., 154–61; 321–33. 16 The verbal root, σταυροῦν (”to suspend on a pole” and its cognate terms, commonly rendered with “crucifixion”), will be translated with the phrase “suspension-execution,” emphasizing the obscure and impersonal manner “crucifixion” was carried out at the time of Jesus’s death, in the first century CE. The thought of suspension-execution was associated with dehumanizing social death of the enslaved or other personae non gratae and not with an exact method of execution. See the discussion in chapters seven–eight of the current study on this topic, and Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity for a foundational argument against translating σταυροῦν with “to crucify” in Mk and the NT. 17 On the dehumanizing aspects of suspension-execution, Cic. Verr. 2.5.169–70, describes a hyperbolic scenario and application of this death-form upon a Roman citizen to be a declaration of “war upon the whole principle of the rights of the Roman citizen body” and further as “the worst 11 12

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only human life fails when this brutal death-form is realized on the purported messiah’s body. The Galilean prophet’s divine authority and envisioning of comprehensive cosmic renewal is ultimately declared bankrupt. Instead of the promised, triumphal upheaval, Jesus’s death portrays the demise of an extraordinarily thin figure, crying out his abandonment from the transcendent realm and ironically describes a dead son of God.18 With the vocabulary of Logic of Sense, this ancient exploration of death remains remarkably faithful to the failures and disorder of an event. Its disorderly rhetoric might therefore be described as exploring an ethical stance to the event of death, attempting in this way not to become “unworthy” of what happened to the suspended messiah. With a meaningful, yet secretive, expression of the end of Jesus’s life, emphasis on corporeal wounding surprisingly finds company with an incorporeal ideality expressing death in all its beauty and ataxia. Is there a beauty and truth to this peculiar arrangement, after all? An odyssey into failure and death is now laid out. My goal is to approach the failure of Jesus’s death “beyond good and evil,” and by embracing ataxia for its obscure ability to produce a rhetoric of failure. To this end, Jesus’s death as a disordered event will first be rhetorically analyzed, described, and finally defended. Initially, the composition articulating death is contextualized with the ancient, first century CE thinkers Papias of Hierapolis and Aelius Theon, after which the ability of Mk to formulate a rhetoric of failure will be defined and defended with the twentieth century works Der Prozeß and Logic of Sense.

extreme of the tortures inflicted upon slaves. To bind a Roman citizen is a crime, to flog him is an abomination, to slay him is almost an act of murder: to crucify him is—what? There is no fitting word that can possibly describe so horrible a deed.” Notice the emphasis on its extremity, even for the ancient enslaved person. In Theon’s prog., an enslaved person is described with synonyms of “slave” (δοῦλος), “servant/child” (παῖς), and “human-footed” (ἀνδράποδον), emphasizing the somatic trait of social death: “By substitution: we replace the original word with another; for example, pais or andrapodon for doulos”: George Kennedy, Prog., 70; Theon 15.15–20. The text of Theon’s prog. in this study originates with the 1854–55 edition, Rhetores Graeci, by Leonard Spengel (2:59–130), and in Michel Patillon’s 2002 edition, which restores the original order of the chapters, and includes a few missing chapters that had survived only in Armenian (with the aid of Giancarlo Bolognesi): Aelius Théon: Progymnasmata, 1–120 (hereafter “Theon”). If not stated otherwise, all translation of Theon into English are from Kennedy, Prog., 3–72, or my own. 18 In the present study, a “christological” challenge of distilling a clear line of individuation for Jesus in the rhetoric Mk, taken up by a multitude of scholars, will not be related to the major “names” of “the Son of the Man” or a “son of (a) God,” per se. Rather, primarily a neglected rhetorical tension of “social death” and apocalyptic hope will be said to signify the main “crux” of the meaningmaking and Jesus’s death. Attempts to understand death’s value and relation to a concept of “Christ”/“the messiah” is therefore located specifically with relation to the concept of social death (see below). The terms “Christ” and “messiah” are presently used as synonyms, largely drawing on the problematization of NT “Christ language” in Matthew V. Novenson, Christ among the Messiahs, chapters 1–3 (12–97).

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The Papian Doxa: A Generative Disorder Soon after initial circulation, complaints arose about chaotic elements and the overall posture of Mk (written ca. 70 CE). A strategy set to disarm claims of unruly disorder appeared to counter such charges already arrives with the theologian Papias of Hierapolis. Papias supplies us with the first documented attempt to separate the light from darkness within Mk and presents a doxa (δόξα: expectation, opinion) on disorder that will prove invaluable for future attempts to comprehend this work. Importantly, Papias’s doxa provides a generative problematic for a rhetorical perspective on Jesus’s death, in the passion narrative.19 The doxa is simple to convey (“there is disorder in the Gospel according to Mark, and it is to be defended in view of the higher order of truth and God”). This opinion comes to us with a fragment located in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Church History (Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἱστορία). Papias transmits a tradition from his source, John the Elder: And this is what the elder would say: “Mark, who had been Peter’s interpreter, wrote what he remembered, yet not in the order (οὐ μέντοι τάξει) of the things either said or done by the Lord.” For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who would give his teaching anecdotally (πρὸς τὰς χρείας) but not, as it were, making an arrangement (οὐχ . . . σύνταξιν) of the dominical oracles, so that Mark did not fail (οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν Μάρκος) at all by writing some of them as he recalled. For he took care of one thing, to omit nothing of what he heard or falsify anything among them.20

The Papian doxa consists of two sides: acceptance of a general disorder and defending this disorder. Unfortunately, the fragment does not name any interlocutors, or the exact nature of the opposition raised against Mk.21 However, Doxa (δόξα) is presently employed without a Platonic or negative meaning per se, and in an Aristotelian sense as pre-scientific opinion often reflecting popular and commonly held beliefs that can prove explanatory to the scientific mind. See Zeev Perelmuter, Doxa versus Epistêmê, on the differences and commonalities with doxa in Plato and Aristotle. Doxa is also an important term in ancient as well as contemporary rhetorical theory: Ruth Amossy, “Introduction to the Study of Doxa.” Further, the notion that New Testament exegesis is connected to different doxae is discussed at length in the excellent article by Stephen L. Young, “Protectionist Doxa.” In this regard, the Papian doxa is in good company. For Logic of Sense, discovering what could be called counter–doxa is essential to its project: Williams, Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, 74–75. To return to Papias and Mk, doxa is here meant to present research with a form of counter-doxa, in the form of a generative, “problematic” idea. In contrast to the fragment’s “caging” of the text, to speak with Stephen D. Moore, Bible after Deleuze, 157, note 23, this counter doxa of a truthful ataxia in Papias can function productively for a (Deleuzian) reading of Mk. 20 Stephen C. Carlson, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, 144–45. Slightly adapted translation, in relation to the suggestion op. cit., 145, note 19, on πρὸς τὰς χρείας. While it is unclear whether the quotation ends here or excludes the last sentence (ἑνὸς γὰρ ἐποιήσατο πρόνοιαν, τοῦ μηδὲν ὧν ἤκουσε παραλιπεῖν ἢ ψεύσασθαί τι ἐν αὐτοῖς), it is considered to belong to the fragment in this study. Cf. op. cit., 145, note 21. Carlson names the fragment from Hist. eccl. 3.39.1–17 in its entirety “T5.15.” 21 A fuller review of scholarship on Papias, and its ramification for the study of Mk from a rhetorical perspective, is found in the following chapter. On Papias’s opponents, see Benjamin W. Bacon, “ Purpose of Mark’s Gospel,” 47–48. 19

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the problem formulation, associating the writer of this unruly text with missing the mark (“sinning”: ἁμαρτάνειν, hamartanein) is accepted by Papias without real complaints or comments.22 In the context of ancient practices of prose composition, disorder in texts were generally sneered upon and to be avoided. Clarity of thought and an organized representation of truth was an often-stipulated end-goal.23 While acknowledging the reality of disorder, Papias’s simple negation of failure does not carry much weight, therefore. If there is disorder, there is also failure.24 And since the point of the fragment is not found with deflecting against disorder, Papias is left with a problematic excuse, attempting to allot the failure of ataxia, and separate it from the truth, nonetheless, found in Mk. The Papian doxa is dedicated to defending disorder by a genealogical argument. Mk comes from Peter’s amanuensis or scribe (“Mark”), faithfully and without failure, recording his recollections and memories, though not in order.25 While the disharmonious arrangement of material stems from the clear voice of authority of the apostle Peter, responsible for the teaching found in the text, the memories of this follower of Jesus still transmits divine truth. The disorder of Mk is therefore a direct result of its authoritativeness, as mnemonic material from the arch apostle. According to this doxa, disorder is successfully defended. It is the gambit of this study that Papias’s doxa is essentially correct in defending disorder in Mk from a general, rhetorical perceptive. Especially, an acceptance of ataxia points to the potential of conceptualizing disorder as generative on a theoretical and methodological way. Papias is wrong, however, in attempting to unbind the text from implication and consequences of its failure. An apologia only has the effect of foreclosing the possibility of a forcefulness of failure. Not only the form but also the content of failure is rhetorically interesting. As will be seen below, modern scholarship is divided as to how to interpret the exact significance of disorder and failure in the Papian fragment. Moreover, scholars are also divided in relation to the extent disorder and failure correspond to the character of Mk in general. After a review of scholarship of Mk from the last century, it will be argued that disorder is a lasting and primary problematic and The silence in Papias speaks to the general problem of Mk, by far the least popular gospel text in the New Testament prior to the dawn of critical scholarship in the 18th century. See Brenda Deen Schildgen, Power and Prejudice, for an introduction to many forms of silences in the reception history of Mk, from Papias to the present day. 23 Disorder is, above all else, a stylistic defect associated with obscurity (ἀσαφής), and the lack of clarity (σαφής) in ancient rhetorical theory. When everything is in its appropriate place (πρέπον), things are clear, ordered, and in balance. Aristotle defines clarity in the following manner: “let excellence of style be defined as perspicuity (ἀρετὴ σαφῆ εἶναι). For speech is a kind of sign, so if it does not make the meaning clear it will not perform its proper function; neither must it be mean, nor above the dignity of the subject, but appropriate to it (πρέπουσα λόγῳ)”: Arist. Rh. 3.2.1–2. 24 The problem of detecting disorder goes back even further than to Papias, and into the first century context of a certain “John the Elder” (ὁ πρεσβύτερος), whom according to Eusebius Papias cite here. (On narrative disorder in Lk 1:1–4, see discussion below). 25 Cf. Candida Moss, “Fashioning Mark” on the meaning of “Mark” as amanuensis. 22

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compositional feature of this ancient narrative. In a word, the Papian doxa is essentially correct in its diagnosis of failure.26 However, as in Papias’s strategy, there has been a tendency in critical scholarship to accept disorder yet negate its effects. The Papian doxa (“there is disorder in Mk, it must be defended”) is still a generative concept from a rhetorical perspective, for its ability to provide a productive problematic. In a way, Papias’s problem ought to be taken as an insistence more enduring than the ancient or modern responses to it.27 The problematizing and generative nature of the Papian doxa can therefore be said to reveal matters at the heart of this ancient composition. About the ancient compositional quality of the passion narrative, disorder and failure have not been properly explored. The Papian doxa and the most ancient reception of Mk still provides exegesis toward new insights. As such, Papias’s problematic should be defended, yet pushed toward its logical conclusion: if disorder, then failure. The discovery of compositional failure in Jesus’s death, in the wake of the Papian doxa, will, in the end, still be found without fault, and point to the effects of a rhetoric of failure. The claim of this study is that Papias stumbled upon something like this gospel’s original “sin” (ἁμαρτία, ἁμάρτημα; hamartia, hamartêma) from a compositional point of view. Probably against his best intentions, Papias accurately names a disorderly failure. If this claim is correct, and disorder precedes order in the structure of Mk generally, its significance calls for a revaluation of past descriptions of the work’s literary style and character.28

Arguably, Papias’s description of Mk is an example of a “problematic” or “a problematic idea” in relation to Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 168. Briefly, Difference and Repetition argues that a problematic idea is a theoretical approach to formulated questions (in the shape of a multiplicity) that one can respond to rather than solve. The disorderly failure of Mk is problematic, in that it generates multiple and mutually exclusive responses that can be said to reveal different aspects of the notion of the texts as disordered. As will be seen below, Papias’s doxa unfolds into a chronological and a compositional perspective on failure, which are presented as contrasts. From the point of view of Papias’s doxa as a problematic, both perspectives can be true at the same time, if disorder is acknowledged as a generative failure, and hence a multiplicity. See op. cit., 182 on “multiplicity.” On the centrality of the problematic as “failure” from Deleuze’s perspective, and in relation to literary explorations of Samuel Beckett, see Daniel Koczy, Beckett, Deleuze, and Performance, 4–7. 27 For a review of the general importance of Papias’s statement in early Christianity, particular in the second century CE, see Michael Kok, Gospel on the Margins. For a review of research on Papias in relation to the canonical gospels, and the NT archive, see Monte A. Shanks, Papias and the New Testament, 8–64. 28 Following the excellent debunking of appeals to “subversion” in Robert M. Myles, “The Fetish for a Subversive Jesus,” similar past strategic dependences of subversion in Mk, in the shape of dissuading disorderly behavior of the narrative (especially among scholars of 14:1–16:8 and the end of Mk) can here find fuel for revaluation and scrutiny. 26

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Structure of the Study Commenting on the complicity and complexity of interpreting parables, Frank Kermode provokingly formulates the risk of disorder: “the first person to misunderstand the content of Mark was the man [sic.] who wrote it; and that eighteen centuries of interpretation intervened between the first writing down of the parables and the advent of interpreters who knew how to read them.”29 Kermode underlines the temptation of either installing differences and lack of stability or its counterparts, where it perhaps is unwarranted. Not even the writer(s) of Mk was in control of the situation. Arguably, Kermode is correct to undermine the interpretive value of locating the intention of the writer(s), since there might be disorder even between the text and its writer, at least in regard to the death of Jesus. In the words of Nicole Wilkinson Duran: As it was important for the gospel writers to maintain that the apparent senselessness of a crucified Messiah revealed a deeper meaning, so it has been vital for Christian scholarship to defend the obscurity and ambiguity of Mark’s gospel—its mystified disciples, the fits and starts of its theology, its abrupt and scary ending—as revealing a deeper coherence of intent . . . But Mark’s narrative does not make his theology clear because Mark’s theology is not clear—he is not a theologian but a writer. The creative writer does not begin with a fully articulated message. What such writing attempts to convey happens to the writer in the process of writing and to the reader in the process of reading, and is in neither case separable from the flow of the writing itself.30

Duran’s claim reaches well beyond the passion narrative and affirms the Papian doxa as defending generic disorder. When conjoined with the fact that Mk is the least cited gospel version among patristic sources of Greco-Roman antiquity,31 the history of interpretation in critical scholarship and a general reception history of the text also has bearing on the finding of a generic disorder. The primary object for this study is to comprehend the rhetorical character of order, style, and thought in relation to the narration of Jesus’s death and if sense can be assigned to a disordered account of suspension-execution in 15:6–39. The risk at hand is then not to inflate disorder beyond its measure. Rather, scholarly tendency to undermine disorder, or deny its failure and drain it from its rhetorical effect and potential, posits a principal problem. In the analyses to come, a rhetorical perspective on the Papian doxa will attempt to define a failure with death and defend the rhetoric of failure that emanates from this event.32 Frank Kermode, Genesis of Secrecy, 17. Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Power of Disorder, 10, 12. 31 Bart Ehrman, “Textual Traditions Compared,” 10–11, compares Shepherd of Hermas and Mk, with the conclusion that Hermas can statistically be considered a more popular text, in terms of attestation in surviving MSS: “One could argue on strictly material grounds that the Shepherd was more widely read than Gospel of Mark in the early centuries of Christendom.” 32 A precursor to the present study of a “rhetoric of failure” and an apocalyptic imagining of the end of the world is found in Joel Kuhlin and Anthony Paul Smith, “The World is a Prison.” I am grateful 29 30

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In chapter two, the previous research on the problem of order in Mk is limited to the twentieth-century school of Formgeschichte, or narrative- and rhetoriccriticism. Research on Papian doxa is also discussed, arguing that the notion of disorderly failure can fruitfully be comprehended from a rhetorical viewpoint. In chapter three, the method of the present study is located with Aelius Theon’s prog., and the critical concepts of “short story” (diêgêma) and “anecdote” (chreia). In relation to previous scholarship, Jesus’s death in the passion narrative has to my knowledge not yet been explored at length through the lenses of the categories of diêgêma and chreia. Due to a gap in scholarly attention to these matters, this chapter includes a lengthy exploration of a rhetoric of taxis, lexis, and dianoia in the context of ancient education in general and the importance of the diêgêma in particular. The theory of event and sense, from Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, provides a productive conceptualization of disorder. Logic of Sense and the event is strategically brought into this context to offer the Papian doxa fresh perspective. Chapter four is the first analytical section, investigating the role of rhetorical order in the passion narrative and offering a background for chapters five through eight. A particular point of emphasis is noted in 14:32–16:8, where there is an attempt to create a relatively long sequence of episodes. However, 15:6–39 and the acme of the entire narrative resists a higher order. The study finds this series of short stories and anecdotes of particular importance, and argues that an anecdotal disorder survives within the episodic organization of diêgêmata articulating death. Chapter five explores the recognized, rhetorical center of 15:6–39, and discusses this disorderly section with the concept of taxis (order) in ancient theory. In the end, an ataxia determines the inner constitution and presentation of the episodic narration, primarily in terms of the theme of humiliation and an unclear representation of elements (schêmata) of persons (prosôpon) and happening (pragma). A relay of clear and unclear features determines this passage, making its portrayal of Jesus’s death disordered, yet not without pronouncing certain points of emphasis. Chapter six turns to the concept of style (lexis) and notices a continuation of disorder by way of a relay of clear and unclear. In the shape of rhteorical style, Jesus’s death is troubled by an unvirtuous tendency and “dry style,” where repetition and a presentation of actions and persons in the shape of lists, determine the composition’s linguistic features. Instead of a harmonious and balanced prose, a rapid pace and stuttering determines 15:6–39. Chapter seven concludes a methodological portion of the study and the progymnastic analyses. A relay of clear and unclear appears once more, this time in for the intellectual friendship of Anthony Paul Smith and our many creative conversations, which have significantly shaped the current study. Smith’s influence is found not least in the theoretical vigor and important discussion on immanence and the visible world in, for instance, A NonPhilosophical Theory of Nature, and the discussion on Francis Bacon, Gilles Deleuze’s event, and Orlando Patterson’s concept of social death in relation to Jesus’s execution, in Smith’s article “Figures and Forms of Death,” which has left a mark on my approach to rhetorical failure.

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the heart of 15:6–39 and with the concept of thought (dianoia). After considering Theon’s discussion of thought, and the notion of the image-in-thought (phantasia), I propose phantasm and an empty image-in-thought to correspond to the core of Jesus’s death. Arguing specifically from a Greco-Roman discourse and considering suspension-execution to be the noetic line running through the episodes in questions, the Son of Man’s death-wish and association with becoming a nonperson (social death) and enslaved person is directly linked to the phantasm. In this way, the relay of clear and unclear appears, with an apocalyptic desire and belief that the Son of Man’s doulomorphic, slavish death will end the world. In short, an intense tension resides within the notion of suspension-execution, since the disorderly stuttering, rapid pace of death not only formulates an ancient failure and the disordered thought of phantasm. This death, and that naked messianic performer, aspires to inaugurate the eschaton and install God’s reign, coming on the clouds of heaven. How can this death mean that? Chapter eight addresses the question of meaning, turning to Logic of Sense and its concepts of sense and event. From this end, the Papian doxa is finally proven a faithful response to this ancient problematic of disorder, yet not without correction or further critical engagement. A transition is needed, from the insight into failure to the sense of an event. While previous chapters successfully locate disorder with the taxis, lexis, and dianoia of 15:6—39, neither of these ancient terms can offer a sense of this death beyond a negative result. By defining the disorder of death as paradox, parable, and parataxis, however, Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense together with Walter Benjamin and Kafka’s Der Prozeß offers tools for a theoretical reevaluation of the rhetorical disorganization. Benjamin’s Kafka exemplifies what the event of sense can mean rhetorically. The secrecy and a withdrawal of clarity surrounding the death of Josef K. signifies a rhetoric of failure. Moreover, a rhetoric of failure is said to defend death’s literary function, beyond mere mistake. The sense of this death is not found from the perspective of looking for a single, fixed meaning. Rather, the significance of death arrives when rhetorical expression confronts the reality of an organized whole being less than its disordered parts, along the lines of a theoretical “event.” Here Gilles Deleuze’s exegesis of the expressive, artful imagination from Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation (1981) and the resourceful rendition of the suspension of bodies and “crucified corpse” exemplifies an event drenched in corporeal failure and animal-like demise. In a concluding ninth chapter, the results of previous chapters are summarized.

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Aim; Research Question; Material and Delimitations Aim The aim of this study is to analyze the death of Jesus in Mk 15:6–39 from a progymnastic perspective, with special attention to its relation to rhetorical disorder as well as noting its lasting implications for a production of meaning. The Papian doxa supplies a strategic point of entry to the question of the ancient rhetorical arrangement, both in the earliest reception of Mk and the importance of this intuition in early patristic literature. From this angle, the study probes the magnitude of the Papian doxa with relation to Jesus’s death, allowing a rhetorical valency of ataxia to problematize the scholarly insistence on locating order with the passion narrative.

Research Questions What does a progymnastic analysis reveal about the episodic order (taxis), style (lexis), and thought (dianoia) of Jesus’s death in Mk 15:6–39? What sense and rhetorical meaning of Jesus’s death results from a progymnastic-like composition of disorder in Mk 15:6–39, considering its purported, disordered traits?

Material and Delimitation In this study, the Greek text of Mk (NA28) and the passion narrative (14:1–16:8), are approached primarily from the perspective of an ancient rhetorical paradigm created by Theon’s prog., in correspondence to the primary research question.33 However, to address the secondary question and assign the disorder of rhetorical failure of Jesus’s death with sense, a slightly different contextualization is needed. The latter questions actualize the work of Gilles Deleuze, first and foremost in Logic of Sense, exemplified with the auxiliary work Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation as well as Franz Kafka’s Der Prozeß through Walter Benjamin. What kind of text is Mk, in this study? Logic of Sense’s treatment of textuality supplies a theoretical approach to the relation of language to sense. A methodological anchoring of the present discussion is found in Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Knowledge (1969: Archaeology), specifically Foucault’s targeting of historical

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The passion narrative is currently limited to Mk 14:1–16:8, following Joel Green, The Death of Jesus, 136–56.

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discourses. Archaeology thus creates a mediating position between Logic of Sense and Mk. Archaeology relates to Logic of Sense by their joint “immanent” perspective to historical texts and questions, constantly considering objects from a position of “becoming” and “difference.”34 For Archaeology, a historical text exemplifies the phenomenon of an order of disorder of statement and possible knowledge (“seriality”). The scholarly reconstructed Greek text of Mk is equally considered a serial composition—and hence foundationally disordered—that ultimately signifies an archive of “statements” formed by the “enunciative function” of a “discourse.”35 Following Logic of Sense and Archaeology’s joint interest in tracing textuality to a serial expression of thoughts and statements that contain them, the latter secures a manner of locating individual thought in historical texts for the former, and frames textuality to the discourses and its ability to express “possible” knowledge.36 In similar ways, the current study approaches the subject of locating thought (primarily employing the terminology of διάνοια; dianoia, νόημα; noema, φαντασία; phantasia, φάντασμα; phantasma) in relation to rhetorical forms of Mk 15:6–39 (χρεία; chreia, διήγημα; diêgêma).37 Archaeology’s conceptualization of texts—as consisting of series of statements functioning as enunciations of a discourse—offers a necessary middle position for the current “logic of sense,” and connects the theory to a methodology of

34

35

36

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Michel Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge. For Deleuze’s positive appraisal of Foucault and Archaeology, see Gilles Deleuze, Foucault. Foucault’s corresponding appraisal of Deleuze, and a Logic of Sense, is found in Michel Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum,” cf. Chauncey Colwell, “Deleuze and Foucault: Series, Event, Genealogy,” and François Dosse, “Deleuze and Foucault: A Philosophical Friendship,” in the informative edited volume Between Deleuze and Foucault. Statements occur in discourses as events and can therefore not really be understood as “atomic” entities. Like Deleuze, Foucault arguably explores a philosophy of immanence, where the relation between statements and discourses cannot be stabilized. The relation between “words” and “things” forms an asymmetry where neither term is reducible to the other. Yet, the asymmetry reflects an “immanent plane” to speak with Deleuze, directed purposely to the object of history in Foucault. For a precise treatment on the context for Archaeology, see the opening section “To What Does The Archaeology of Knowledge Respond?” in David Webb, Foucault’s Archaeology, 7–11. Webb, Foucault’s Archaeology, makes it clear that Archaeology is responding to the specific problem of epistemology laid out by Kant’s transcendental framework—of a mathematical apriori—which continues the project launched in The Order of Things. Defining the enunciation of a statement as a discursive “function,” Archaeology claims that it “involved various units (these may sometimes be sentences, sometimes propositions; but they are sometimes made up of fragments of sentences, series or tables of signs, a set of propositions or equivalent formulations); and, instead of giving a ‘meaning’ to these units, this function relates them to a field of objects; instead of providing them with a subject, it opens up for them a number of possible subjective positions; instead of fixing their limits, it places them in a domain of coordination and coexistence; instead of determining their identity, it places them in a space in which they are used and repeated. In short, what has been discovered is not the atomic statement —with its apparent meaning, its origin, its limits, and its individuality—but the operational field of the enunciative function and the conditions according to which it reveals various units (which may be, but need not be, of a grammatical or logical order”: Archaeology of Knowledge, 120–21.

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progymnastic analysis.38 While the terms of discourse, enunciation, statement, and seriality, in a strict Foucauldian sense, will not be pursued at any length, Archaeology still offers the grounding epistemological position that informs the current approach to Mk as a historical text. In this capacity, Archaeology illuminates the way Logic of Sense relates to the passion narrative as a historical text and can be used to discuss ideas found therein, primarily in the “failed thought” (φάντασμα, phantasm) of 15:6–39 and the Son of Man obliterating his own ambiguous status as a divine human being by becoming-animal through social death. Further, approaching the passion narrative from the perspective of an ancient rhetorical and discursive text means that questions of tracing the production of sense to possible sources in the LXX, Homer, or Virgil, by way of intertextuality (in a “Hayesian” employment) remains outside the scope of the current study.39 Instead of investigating authorial intentionality, influence, or inspiration, and the ramifications for the composition of Mk, a “surface” meaning of the text is the object of study. In this way, reproduction of ideas from Jewish scripture (LXX) is of interest in the capacity that such ideas find a rudimentary, rhetorical function in the narration. Even when the text explicitly evokes a heavenly, transcendent decree, for instance, using a technique of quotation formula (as in 14:27: ὅτι γέγραπται “it is written”), underlying influences, its impact on readers, or a unifying intention of the work will not be considered. Instead, basic techniques of prose composition discussed in Theon’s prog. function as a main guide toward an appreciation of order and disorder. Focus is on a clear or unclear representation of ideas, rather than faithfulness toward an original plan, or a primary contextualization of said idea. In short, Mk presently functions as a discourse, in the vein of Archaeology.

Following Daniel Coffeen in Reading the Way of Things, the theoretical importance of immanence and rhetoric is located in Logic of Sense’s deep alliance and interest in seriality equally explored in Archaeology. 39 The most relevant works within the so-called “OT in NT” approach from the present perspective is found in Rikki Watts, “The Psalms in Mark’s Gospel,” and Holly J. Carey, Jesus’ Cry from the Cross, alongside strictly rhetorical studies on the passion narrative and Jesus’s death. On the relation of Mk to ancient classical literature other than LXX see Dennis MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, and Floyd E. Schneider, Mark’s Gospel Compared with Virgil’s Aeneid. 38

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2. Previous Research: A Doxology to Disorder

The problem of order in the Gospel according to Mark arguably begins with its first verse and ends with its last. After a concise statement (1:1 Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ), the opus plunges into its story, in medias res, by stacking sequences of episodes of the deeds and words of Jesus the Galilean prophet on top of each other.40 There is not much of a pronounced, linear plot on which to cling. Instead, a phenomenology of the unfolding narrative is defined by the experience of a rapid pace and storytelling, where occurrences appear in open series that slowly and steadily come to culminate with a sequence on the trial, suffering, and death of a disputed messiah-figure. Then a sudden report of resurrection is articulated by an anonymous young man, without any sight of Jesus (16:1–8). Fear and trembling (τρόμος καὶ ἔκστασις) utter the work’s final words when a group of Galilean female followers flee the empty tomb and fail to proclaim their ambiguous experience to Peter and the Twelve (καὶ οὐδενὶ οὐδὲν εἶπαν· ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ). The story’s abrupt end corresponds with its brief beginning, and mosaic middle portion. The first narrative account of Jesus’s life and death is therefore hurried and enigmatic, yet filled with brief dramatic and fantastic stories of divine encounters and energetic occurrences. From beginning to end, Mk is a disordered, episodic chronicle of the life and death of Jesus the messiah.41 Can the Papian doxa, and the earliest reception of Mk, still provide insights into a general problem of ataxia? In this chapter, the problematizing concept of disorder is applied to current critical scholarship, and the defining schools of thought from In this study, privilege is axiomatically given to the earliest available extensive MSS of Mk and with the fourth century codices, ‫ א‬and B, where 1:1 lacks the phrase υἱοῦ θεοῦ (“a son of a god”; “a son of God”; “Son of God”) and 16:8c expresses the abrupt or aborted ending with the work’s closing clause ἐφοβοῦντο γάρ (“for they were afraid”). On Mk and ancient MSS see Peter Head, “Early Text of Mark,” 108–20, and Tommy Wasserman on Origen’s early discourse on textual variants in “‘Son of God’ was in the Beginning,” 27–29. For a recent critical review of the dating of ‫ ;א‬Brent Nongbri, “Date of Codex Sinaiticus.” On multiple endings to Mk, see Joel Kuhlin, “Neither God nor Ghost,” 361–66. 41 On the problem of unclear beginnings and improper endings in the ancient narrative genre of “history,” Dionysius states that “[s]ome critics also find with the order (τὴν τάξιν) of his history, complaining that he neither chose the right beginning for it nor a fitting place (τὸ πρέπον) to end it. They say that by no means the least important aspect of good arrangement (οἰκονομίας) is that a work should begin where nothing can be imagined as preceding it, and end where nothing further is felt to be required”: Thuc. 10.1–6. 40

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the last century to the present day with form-, narrative-, and rhetorical criticisms. In this way, ataxia will be demonstrated as stressing essential qualities, as well as an attempt to defend disorder as a generative problem that still offers a valuable insight for a study of Mk. In this process, the Papian fragment’s doxa of disorder is turned into something of a century long doxology, by arguing for its continuing significance and its ability to lead to new insights. In other words, the generative nature of disorder, provided in a fragmented reception of Mk from the early second century, is well worth considering in relation to modern, critical scholarship on this ancient gospel text. This will presently be explored first with reference to the utility of the problematic idea of disorder, as an analytical concept, in form-critical research of the 1920s. Following Karl Ludwig Schmidt (1891–1956), a method is established for probing the limits and boundaries of order. Firstly, dominant issues in the organization of Jesus’s life and death are laid out. In contast with the main bulk of the material (1:1–13:37), the passion narrative (14:1–16:8) is already credited in Schmidt with an exception to generic disorder. This becomes unquestioned dogma for most of the influential studies from the last century.42 In terms of standing apart from the rest, the chapters on Jesus’s trial, death, and burial in Mk demonstrate chronological structuring of episodes and therefore are considered well-organized. Schmidt is correct from a general standpoint; the passion narrative indeed comes across as more structured in relation to the previous material in the narrative. Yet, a form-critical tendency also finds precedence, and leaves the critical study of the actual organization of the passion narrative aside, and instead focuses on the clustered episodes of Mk 1:1–13:37. Still, with the form-critical view on the passion narrative, the explanatory power of the Papian doxa is presented with a limit. And a challenge. Second, a form-critical assumption of the passion narrative’s clear organization provides reasons for further inquiries into (dis)order. With different techniques, narrative- and rhetorical criticism relate to the passion narrative through new methodological grids. With the goal to take the mantle and hegemonic influence of Formgeschichte, these methodological schools nonetheless display a continuing insistence on the organizational exceptionality argued by form criticism, largely by diffusing any real notion of ataxia with the compositional locus 14:1–16:8. Yet, definite methodological problems arguably remain. Many aspects of Jesus’s death are unexplored in relation to the (dis)order of Jesus’s death, from a distinctly rhetorical and compositional perspective. The emphatic exceptionality of “the passion” creates a lacuna when its lack of clarity particularly in regard to the dominant actions and happenings of the suspension-execution—such as the silence of Jesus when mocked, flogged, ridiculed (15:16–20a; 29:32) or the meaning of the cry of dereliction (15:33–35)—are studied by looking only at individual episodes, 42

Schmidt and the Formgeschichte arguably found a way to solidify Martin Kähler’s dictum that describes the canonical gospels as “Passionsgeschichten mit ausführlicher Einleitung”: Martin Kähler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus, 33, note 1.

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or particular “forms.”43 In the end, when Jesus Christ is pronounced a dead son of God (or “a son of a god”; υἱος θεοῦ: 15:39), essential issues of obscurity and (dis)organization reside suspended from an ancient compositional perspective until the present day. Thirdly, the generative problem of disorder in the passion narrative reflects on the previous scholarship on the fragment of Papias of Hierapolis. Here, two main options are found in evaluating the Papian doxa from a strictly chronological or compositional viewpoint. In other words, failure of disorder is either a problem of the text’s being, or time. Chronos-scholars (A. Wright, M. Hengel, R. Bauckham, et al.) maintain that Papias considered Mk to be mainly undisturbed by a literary ataxia, and thus merely intended to designate a failure to trace the narrative of Jesus’s life and death to a linear temporal axis. Mk is here taken from the perspective of not establishing a credible, historicizing narrative able of tracing the person of Jesus over time, but rather relates a confused order of events. The compositionalscholars (F. A. Colson, R. O. P. Taylor, R. Grant, J. Kürzinger, et al.) relate the Papian doxa to its particular use of terms like anecdote (χρεία), arrangement (τάξις), and mistake (ἁμάρτημα) from an educational and rhetorical discourse in antiquity. This highlights a literary and compositional context. In relation to the passion narrative and Jesus’s death, problems will be found in both chronos and composition (in 15:6–39). Both chronic and compositional insights from scholarship (into the fragment in question) open to an investigation using disorder as an analytical tool for approaching this purportedly clear and ordered section of Mk (according to the three schools). In the end, the failure of being and time will be said to lead into an inclusive posture toward the disorderly rhetoric of Jesus’s death. Four, the chapter ends with a rearticulation of the study’s research problem. Rhetorical and compositional perspectives will be argued to posit the most fruitful manner of evaluating disorder and the Papian doxa in the passion narrative and Jesus’s death, in terms of the road less taken. The Papian doxa and its terminology of anecdote, memory, arrangement, and failure are still largely left unrelated to the final days and hours of Jesus’s life, especially when viewed from a rhetorical appreciation of prose composition and organization of episodic narratives. It is thus here that a way forward to the study’s problem formulation is found; with the earliest reception of Mk in the Papian attempt to defend disorder, and the task of allowing Theon to aid in the experimental approach to Jesus’s death as a failure without fault.

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Main rhetorical features of Jesus’s death, from this perspective, are mapped also in Joel Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα.”

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Disorder and Formgeschichte (1919–1950) A formal perspective of structuring Mk—apportioning the narrative material into separate segments—has proved itself incredibly difficult for modern scholars.44 What then is the relation of detecting disorder in Mk and the death of Jesus, to the influential school of Formgeschichte, and its proponents Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Martin Dibelius, and Rudolf Bultmann? In a word, this critical group points to history as the cause for chaos in gospel texts and explains this by outlining processes of the formation of a literary cosmos, in the shapes of “forms.” The individual episodes (Formen, Gattungen) of the narrative tend to cluster into what the pioneering critic, Schmidt, calls Komplexes, shaped around certain keywords and themes.45 In the beginning, individual stories (Erzählungen) and traditions were transmitted by word of mouth.46 Over time, stories were grouped together to fit the needs of the community that used them, a process thought to accumulate extra material. In its current shape, the narrative is in a state of “chaosmosis” (disorderly relation of cosmos-chaos), where order and disorder intertwine.47 Schmidt is among the first to recognizes the significance of chronological and topographical patterns (“chronologische und topographische Markierung”) which scaffolds individual episodes.48 Again, any structuring of Jesus stories is of secondary importance at best, and Mk is at root a mosaic of stories as “self-contained units” loosely sutured together. The argument put forth by Schmidt is sharp, aimed at discovering historical kernels and core statements from Jesus, and it came to define the entire school of Formgeschichte. The overarching chronological and geographical progression that has the power to create a linear storyline of Jesus’s life and death (“on top” of the individual stories as it were) is negligeable in comparison with the deeper and primary reality of disorder, stemming from the oral (pre-)history of the gospel traditions: In the oral exchange, one Jesus-story was sutured onto another in an informal manner (Zwanglos wurde im mündlichen Austausch eine Jesuserzählung an die andere gereith). When one story ended, the next would begin with “and it happened that . . .” In this way komplexes

For a succinct review of contemporary models of organization, see Kevin W. Larsen who argues that “[g]iven the multitude of various proposals for Mark’s structure, in some ways we are no closer to arriving at a conclusion than we were decades ago. This confusion is tied to the inability of scholars to reach a consensus as to whether a governing principle can be applied to the text in order to suggest definitive breaks”: “Structure of Mark’s Gospel,” 155. 45 For an outline of Komplexes, see Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Rahmen, xi–xvi. 46 This study embraces the general conceptualization of material in Mk as Erzählungen, following Schmidt and Cilliers Breytenbach, Gospel according to Mark as Episodical Narrative, 11–40. 47 “Chaosmosis” is drawn from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus. 48 The most thorough history of Formgeschichte and its source is found in Erhardt Güttgemanns, Candid Questions, 155–285. 44

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of several stories around that were separated from each other by a simple καί. Καί and its Aramaic correlate became a kind of caesura-word, and a rather primitive caesura at that.49

As an effect of parataxis (“and . . . and . . . and . . .”), with its intensive use of καί, when suturing episodes together, a caesura is time and again located between the Jesus-stories. For instance, after the episode on the baptism of Jesus (1:9–11: καὶ ἐγένετο . . .), the spirit lures Jesus further into the wilderness (1:12–13: καὶ εὐθὺς . . .). There is no necessary connection of the two episodes, beside the geographical location of the desert and the “and.”50 Further, this use of and-caesuras, before and after episodes, encircles by the “and . . . and . . .”-style, and embodies an aspect of the oscillation of the clear and obscure, mentioned above. Beneath a veneer of organization lies a multifaceted historical disorder. On this note, Schmidt considers a description of the past of (the historical) Jesus to be “unlogisch und unpsychologisch,” since “there is no development of Jesus, the disciples, or of outer circumstances; there is no pragmatism of representation; a psychological motivation and connection of happenings and actions does not exist.”51 Jesus therefore suffers from a personal, narrational disorder. Again, this is directly traced to a correspondingly illogical ordering of the episodes that comes from the fact that: [t]he oldest Jesus-tradition is “pericope”-tradition, that is tradition with individual scenes and individual sayings, which mostly have been handed to the community without a fixed chronological and topographical marking. A lot of what appears as chronological and topographical is merely the frame that was included in individual images.52

Schmidt concludes that Mk is stacking pericopes on another, without reflecting a meta-order. Its structure is therefore a nonlinear series of episodes in Komplexes and clusters, rather than a linear sequence of events. In a word, Papias is deemed correct to discuss this gospel text as haunted by a lack of taxis. Importantly however, there is an exception to the rule of disorder of clustering Jesus stories, with the passion history (Leidengeschichte): The Passion-history demands a different literary evaluation. This is the only part of the Gospel that precisely specifies locality and temporality of things; yes, even the day and hour is noted. It is clear that the purpose from the outset was a continuous narrative. Upon reading the section’s first words, one knows that the report leads to catastrophe: with necessity and logic, one thing follows from the other.53

Slightly adapted translation from Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 17; Schmidt, Rahmen, 19. 50 On parataxis in Mk and ancient narratives, see contemporary discussion in Paul Fullmer, Resurrection in Mark, 15–22, and in chapter seven of the present study. 51 Mk is the example par excellence of this synoptic tendency: Schmidt, Rahmen, vii. My translation. 52 Schmidt, Rahmen, v. My translation. 53 Schmidt, Rahmen, 303–4. My translation. 49

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With Jesus’s death, the chaotic substrata of the text have lost their grip and reveal that there is a border to disorder. In terms of Schmidt’s primary tools, chronology and geography, they for the first time really matter to the unfolding of the story, creating linear progression. In parallel to Schmidt’s research on disorder in Mk, the allied scholar, Martin Dibelius, published the study Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (1919, revised significantly in 1933). It uses analogous techniques when approaching the material in Mk, and now we can speak of a school of Formgeschichte.54 Gospel studies was forever changed.55 Through the joint interest in the oral pre-history of individual gospel stories, Dibelius can be said to present a program declaration, considering the writers of the gospel to be collectors of individual pieces of tradition: “the composers [of the gospels] are only to the smallest extent authors. They are principally collectors, vehicles of traditions, editors. Before all else their labor consists in handing down, grouping, and working over the material which has come to them.”56 Particular to Dibelius, in contrast to Schmidt, is the goal of identifying episodes with particular forms (Formen; Gattungen), such as “paradigm,” “tale,” or “sermon.” Dibelius classifies the shape of individual Jesus traditions into categories and compares their forms to help us understand their purpose and history. In short, with Dibelius, a history of the forms of the episodes takes the stage (i.e. a Formgeschichte). Regarding the passion narrative, Dibelius agrees with Schmidt: it stands apart, in relation to clustering of “the stories contained in the synoptic Gospels . . . first handed down in isolation as independent stories.” It is rather “a comprehensive description of Jesus’ work,” Dibelius claims that “relative self-sufficiency strikes everyone who reads the old description of the Passion which has come down to us.”57 In contrast to the disordered nature of the disordered Komplexes and the sayings and actions of Mk 1–13, “the record of the Passion of Jesus runs, as it seems at first glance, in a closed sequence from the Sanhedrin’s plan for the death of Jesus to the empty grave.” Dibelius practically paraphrases Schmidt’s reading of the same passage.58 Quite soon, Rudolf Bultmann published Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (1921: extensively revised in 1931), and the school found its definite statement on disorder. Formgeschichte is now in full bloom and its influence will dominate the shape of gospel studies well into the 1950s.59 The Papian doxa of disorder was affirmed as historical reality. The form critics attempted to trace the Dibelius, Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, is the herald of “form history,” later viewed as “criticism.” cf. Güttgemanns, Candid Questions, 37–38. 55 Güttgemanns, Candid Questions, 37–38. 56 Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 3. 57 Quotes from Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 178. 58 Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 178. 59 Cf. Edgar McKnight, What Is Form Criticism?, 38–58, describing a history of corrective and appreciative responses to Formgeschichte, and its hegemonic character for much of gospel studies during the 1920–60s. 54

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material transformation from chaos to cosmos, with relation to Jesus stories and traditions. The method’s relation to Mk is summarized by Bultmann as “to separate the various strata in Mark and to determine which belong to the original historical tradition and which derived from the work of the author.”60 The metaphor of “strata” is essential, pointing to the reliance on history and an “archaeology of knowledge” directed to the synoptical material in general, and Mk in particular. In the words of Bultmann: “[t]he primitive stage of serializing the dominical sayings without reference to their context is clearly recognizable.”61 Armed with the form-critical method, light can be separated from darkness. Or so the argument goes. The foundational trio of Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann, essentially agree on a disordered structure of Jesus traditions (“serializing the dominical sayings”) into an “order of disorder” (seriality). There are no references to either an original writer (“Mark”), or to an apostolic person (“Peter”) responsible for the compilation of the sayings and deeds of Jesus. The movement from history to narrative, and disorder to order, was instead forwarded by an anonymous collective of the earliest followers of Jesus. Again, the arrangement of sayings and deeds of Jesus in Mk is only relatively ordered. The earliest form critics concur with regard to the passion narrative, and that “Mark was not the first to make a continuous narrative from the individual stories available to him, but he had already before him a Passion story that was a continuous narrative,” which makes the passion narrative “fashioned into a coherent form” and therefore an extraordinary exception, and “unlike other material in the tradition.”62 The literary order of the passion narrative found by Schmidt and Dibelius is never stronger than the disorder of history for Bultmann. While adhering to the same basic principle, Bultmann is not as optimistic as Schmidt and Dibelius, and shrinks the pre-Mk passion narrative (of a short arrest, condemnation, and execution) considering the stories of Anointing (14:3–9) and Gethsemane (14:32–42) as typical isolated Erzählungen, and add-ons. And if one looks at the passion narrative strictly from a form historical standpoint, “it cannot be maintained that the Passion story as we have it . . . is an organic unity. Even here what is offered us is made up of separate pieces.”63 In the end, Bultmann does not follow through on the notion of destructing the trial, ridicule, and death of Jesus historically, and still sides with Schmidt and Dibelius.

Rudolf Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 1. Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 322. Emphasis added. Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 348: “Die primitive Stufe zuasammenhangsloser Aufreihung von herrenworten ist bei unfern Synoptikern noch deutlich zu erkennen.” The key phrase translated “seriality” is seen in “Die primitive Stufe zuasammenhangsloser Aufreihung” where an incoherent direction or alignment of primary “Stufe” of organization is located with synoptic material. 62 Bultmann differs from Dibelius as to the exact function of the passion narrative, stressing its relation to the kerygma rather than a sermon: Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 275; see Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, 178–217. 63 Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 275. 60 61

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When history is contrasted with literature, Papias’s doxa is then justified with relation to an unyielding historic disorder, and literary order is found to be a byproduct of an anonymous collective and collection, unable to completely sweep disharmonious elements under the rug. With form criticism, Papias’s doxa has proved itself helpful, and guides toward a recognition of general disorder, where unity in narration is considered a secondary effect of the more primordial reality of collecting individual episodes and stories about Jesus. Importantly, however, the passion narrative and Jesus’s death is not troubled by the rise of the new methodology. If anything, the passion becomes a beacon of order. The exception to the overall rule of ataxia is unanimously located in the literary quality of the passion narrative, that is said to have come to the writer(s) in the shape of a cohesive account. Kähler’s 1892 work, Der sogenannte historische Jesus und der geschichtliche, biblische Christus, launched a defining thesis that tests the durability of the Papian doxa, when the passion narrative became the border to disorder.64 According to its dictum, the gospels are “passion-histories” with extended introductions. In short, there are two parts: the passion narrative and its prologue. The trial and death of Jesus is therefore exempt from the typical chaosmos of Komplexes, and its clustering of distinct stories, in a (for some) less than satisfactory way. Kähler’s insistence on the organizational importance of the passion narrative of the gospels in general, and Mk in particular, here finds sufficient reason for becoming a dogma of critical research.

Disorder in Narrative- and Rhetorical Criticism (1970–Present) Before Narrative Criticism (1950–1970) With the popularization of redaction criticism (ca. 1950–70), the disorder of Mk eventually de-escalates in scholarship. The character of the sayings and actions of Jesus metamorphizes from fragmentated and isolated existence toward a totality, through redaction. A group of studies reduce the form critical tensions between history (disorder) and literature (order) and considering the organization of Mk as an edited narrative, with integrity. The vector toward a narrative and literary appreciation of Mk is launched by these redaction critical studies. A strong literary

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Originally stated in Kähler, Der sogenannte historische Jesus, 33, note 1. Bultmann refers favorably to Kähler, when concluding: “the center of gravity had to be the end of the story, the Passion and Resurrection”: Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 371, note 2.

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position does not however find its fullest articulation here, but in narrative criticism (developing and thriving, especially in the 1970s).65 In relation to the organization of the episodes, redaction criticism is a middle position between form- and narrative criticism, where a disordered episodic narrative slowly and surely moves toward order. In the wake of Willi Marxsen’s study, Der Evangelist Markus: Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (1959), the method of redaction criticism broke new ground. Marxsen posed the first serious threat to the methodological dominance of the studies of Bultmann, Dibelius, Schmidt, and other form-critical studies.66 Norman Perrin, an early advocate and later critic of the redaction method, describes its aim to be “concerned with studying the theological motivation of an author as this is revealed in the collection, arrangement, editing, and modification of traditional material, and in the composition of new material or the creation of new forms within the traditions of early Christianity.”67 The hegemony of form criticism was thus confronted by scholars emphasizing theological undercurrents, stressing the importance of considering the writers of the gospels as redactors with authorial tendencies, and not mere gatherers of disparate Jesus stories. The belief in a cohesive organization of the passion narrative is re-affirmed, and its unity can be said to spread to the other parts of the work. Constructed by a literary-minded editor, there exists lines of consistency throughout the work, and the task is now to pinpoint and evaluate them. Karl Ludwig Schmidt’s previous disqualification of any notion of authorial intention claimed that “[o]n the whole there is [in the gospels] no life of Jesus in the sense of a developing story, as a chronological outline of the history of Jesus, but only isolated stories, pericopes, which have been provided with a framework.”68 No author, then no underlying narrative logic, it would seem. And scholars like Marxsen re-introduced the conceptual importance of the author into the critical study of Mk, and therefore the possibility of a totality beyond the passion narrative. If there is an author, there is narrative logic. And in contrast to form criticism, there is now a stress on a continuity that organizes the entire life and death of Jesus. Perrin’s definition, in particular, presents a “line of flight” away from considering the gospels to be disorganized structures of isolated sayings and actions (in Formgeschichte). If this idea is replaced with the actuality of a rich theological and

On the transitional nature of Redaktionsgeschichte, see John R. Donahue, “Redaction Criticism,” 27–57. It’s worth remembering that Schmidt, Bultmann, and Dibelius employ the term “literature” in their investigations. Consider Dibelius’s definition of Formgeschichte: “The literary criticism of the forms in which ideas, thoughts, reports, descriptions, etc., are passed on orally or in writing”: Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, xv. “Literary” is thus a versatile description in gospel studies. 66 Another pioneering work of Redaktionsgeschichte is found with Hans Conzelmann, Die Mitte der Zeit. 67 Norman Perrin, What Is Redaction Criticism?, 1. 68 Translation by Norman Perrin, “Interpretation of the Gospel of Mark,” 116. 65

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narrative totality, the work of an author emerges.69 Mk finds fresh resources as a mature narrative, and in the interpretive possibility of reading the gospels as literary works, rather than mosaic remnants buried under dusty strata, on an archaeological site.70 As stated previously, in the 1970s narrative approaches intensified.71 While a narrative lens is a widespread methodological approach to gospel studies today, with many studies being published each year on topics of characterization, plot, and motives, the seventies and eighties were a period of outstanding creativity and vitality for narrative studies.72 The pendulum has swung the furthest away from a form-critical acceptance of disorder in Mk and the Papian doxa, because: “the literary study of narrative” or narrative criticism /1/. . . tend to reveal Mark’s Gospel as whole cloth. /2/ For example, the narrator’s point of view is consistent throughout. The plot has closure; that is, anticipated events come to pass, conflicts are resolved, predictions are fulfilled. /3/ The characters are consistent from one scene to the next, fulfilling the roles they take on and the tasks they adopt.73

The distancing from history, and distinctly diachronic analyses in narrative criticism, is worth emphasizing since the past animates the power of disorder in both form and redaction criticism.74 The influential narrative critic, David Rhoads, above lays out the narratological tendency in gospel studies to locate consistency and closure and to consider the gospel whole cloth. This is done through the methodological prominence given to plot, narrator, implied author; audience, and

“What is needed now is a critical method which does justice to an evangelist’s literary activity and yet moves beyond concern for authorial activity and theology to include a concern for the text of the Gospel as a totality”: Perrin, “Interpretation of the Gospel of Mark,” 115. 70 It should be noted that Ernst Lohmeyer and Robert H. Lightfoot stress the literary tendency of the writer of Mk prior to Marxsen: Ernst Lohmeyer, Das Evangelium des Markus; Robert H. Lightfoot, History and Interpretation; Locality and Doctrine; The Gospel Message of St. Mark. 71 Amos Wilder, a formative voice in the journal Semeia, created a gathering point for exegetes interested in the narrative potential of Mk. See Amos Niven Wilder, “Semeia,” 1–16. 72 A genealogy of narrative criticism in the 1980s is found in Stephen D. Moore, “Biblical Narrative Analysis,” 28–29. On the influential opus Rhoads and Michie, “Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel,” Cristopher Skinner writes: “[i]n the early 1980s it may have been difficult to predict the impact of a literary approach to the New Testament narratives, but three decades later it is clear that the proverbial mustard seed has grown into one of the great trees in the garden of biblical scholarship. Mark as Story surely played an important role in the shift from emphasizing the world behind the text to the story world of the text”: “Telling the Story,” 4. 73 David Rhoads, “Narrative Criticism,” 411–12. Emphasis original. 74 On the joint interest in disorder of these schools, John C. Meagher suggests that “Marcan problems of the Esoteric Teaching and the Messianic Secret” and “all the instances of mismanagement” should not be held against the writer(s). Rather, “the clumsy, creative storyteller may invent new inadvertent oddities in the motifs that recur in their sequences, but this is often in the attempt to correct an obvious awkwardness in what tradition has given him”: “Die Form-und Redaktions geschichtliche Methoden,” 471. 69

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the omniscient authorial voice that takes to the stage.75 These concepts act as patrons for narrative progression and the internal unity of characters. Fragmentation is a problem, associated with the diachronic obsessions of the past studies of form- and redaction criticism. With the arrival of these synchronic concepts, the discourse of fragmentation that was made visible not only by form criticism but also in redaction critical studies, is largely dissipated.76 Let us consider the classical study, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in LiteraryHistorical Perspective (1989). Mary Ann Tolbert here approaches the passion narrative and the death of Jesus as fulfilling previous foreshadowing “plot summaries,” in the parables of the Sower (4:1–9) and the Tenants (12:1–12). Disorder is explicitly disavowed.77 The parables’ foreshadowing function is argued to concisely present the work with a consistent perspective on the character of Jesus, and draw out his role in the plot.78 With the end chapters (14:1–16:8), the story comes to a close and the explanatory power of the dual parables are realized. Jesus is the heir of the parable, yet also goes to death as the sower of a message. When recognized as the true Son of God, the heir is killed, and this act instigates the anger of the father, and inaugurates the eschatological age, and the coming of the kingdom.79 In short, Tolbert’s narrative method supplies many tools and terms for transforming the form-critical chaotic episodes into a totality. This approach does not leave much room for conceptualization of disorder. With many studies operating in a narrative critical register, there is often a methodological stress on continuity and consistency.80 This is particularly true in the seventies and eighties, when the Papian doxa perhaps finds its toughest opponents yet.81 In reality, narrative studies are too numerous to gather under one See Norman Peterson’s seminal argument in “‘Point of View’ in Mark’s Narrative,” where an overarching point of view is located in the narrative, and a demonstration of this perspective with regard to Mk 16:1–8, in “When Is the End Not the End?” 76 Recent studies have attempted to critique the theoretical insistence on a certain kind of totality, and closure in the use of narrative concepts, for instance, in Scott S. Elliott, Reconfiguring Mark’s Jesus. 77 This study explicitly set out to “circumvent” fragmentation. “That reducing the Gospels to fragments rather than attempting to study them as wholes should form the dominant perspective of decades of modern biblical scholarship appears strange to many outside the biblical guild [i.e. narratologists]”: Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 23. 78 Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 122–23. 79 Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 271. 80 Elizabeth Struthers Malbon has contrasted order in redaction- and narrative criticism by their different approaches to cohesion and their conceptualizations of “author” and “text”: “Narrative criticism seeks to avoid the ‘intentional fallacy’ of redaction criticism. The narrative critic does not pursue the quest for the real author’s intention. Instead, the narrative critic seeks to analyze and appreciate the implied author’s effect—that is, the text itself”: “Narrative Criticism,” 35. cf. Elliott, Reconfiguring Mark’s Jesus, 24–25. 81 This study is aware of exceptions to a perspective viewing Mk to be a holistic, unified opus, which defined many narratological studies of the 1980s. Drawing on Stephen D. Moore, Scott S. Elliott has articulated a devastating critique of previous narrative approaches, and shown critics’ failure of engaging with a “secular” narratology, that has moved “from discovery to invention, from coherence to complexity, and from poetics to politics”: Reconfiguring Mark’s Jesus, 17–19. Armed 75

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umbrella and tendency. Yet the thematic importance of the textual totality of Mk is significant to stress in relation to the method of form- and even redaction criticism. While the schools of redaction- and narrative criticism are generalized methodological schools, there is a definite tendency to downplay a form-critical insistence on disorder, and instead see Mk as ordered.

Rhetorical Criticism (1970–Present) Arguably, rhetorical criticism takes a corrective stance toward form- and narrative criticism. With the advancement of ancient rhetoric in general and progymnastic rhetoric in particular, the Papian doxa will be shown to move the concept of disorder in Mk a decisive step back, and two steps forward. The auxiliary function of a rhetorical methodology was stated clearly by George Kennedy: The objective of [rhetorical criticism] is to provide readers of the New Testament with an additional tool of interpretation to complement form criticism, redaction criticism, historical and literary criticism, and other approaches being practiced in the twentieth century . . . Rhetorical criticism can help to fill a void which lies between form criticism on the one hand and literary criticism on the other.82

This methodological school, and the scholars returning to ancient rhetoric and education for the critical study of the gospels, appeared roughly at the same time as narrative criticism (ca. 1970–80),83 yet found its most innovative period in the 1990s.84 In relation to form criticism, a recapitulation of ancient rhetoric takes the method a definite step back, by affirming the significance of identifying individual “forms” within the gospels, as narrative. It does this by stressing the importance of using well-defined forms discussed already in treatises of ancient education and progymnastic rhetoric contemporary to the gospels. Instead of defining episodes with the apophthegmata (Bultmann) or “paradigms” (Dibelius), the analytical with “poststructuralism,” Elliott probes Mk for a nuanced “narrativity,” less bound to the “unified,” “coherent,” and “holistic” fundamental tenets defining previous narrative criticisms (op. cit., 24). See also the project methodologically linked to Vernon Robbins’s “socio-rhetorical criticism” by Petri Merenlahti, Poetics for the Gospels?, 61–76. Merenlahti questions notions of autonomy and unity in the gospels, with reference also to previous narrative readings of Mk 15–16. I agree with many aspects of Elliott and Merenlahti’s critique of holistic approaches to Mk. 82 George A. Kennedy, Rhetorical Criticism, 3. 83 Hans D. Betz was a forerunner to a rhetorical approach, with the 1976 article “Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” and later the Hermeneia commentary on Galatians, in 1979, before turning to the gospels with the article “Sermon on the Mount.” With the seminal work Rhetorical Criticism, and a range of translations and commentaries on the rhetorical treatises of Greco-Roman antiquity, the most influential scholar for this methodological school, however, is arguably the classicist George Kennedy. 84 See Michael Strickland and David M. Young, Rhetoric of Jesus, 10–17, for a recent review of the rhetorical and “literary” approaches to Mk.

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importance of the anecdote (χρεία) for narrative composition is more ready-to-hand to demonstrate brief storytelling as a significant approach to gospels’ “forms.”85 While the formative trio of this school would not investigate the significance of ancient education and the rhetorical forms of narrating in depth, they tended to treat gospels as sui generis, in terms of literary genre and cultural entanglement.86 This is not strange, given that this period of scholarship exacerbated the view that “Hellenism” could be separated, and under certain conditions, perhaps even be considered irrelevant in relation to the earliest period of the Jesus movement, thereby excluding it from Greco-Roman influence.87 When Martin Dibelius discusses the chreia (the ancient rhetorical form of the anecdote,) it is acknowledged for its importance in prose composition in ancient literature, yet still not accepted as a primary analytical tool when approaching Mk.88 On the other hand, the intuitions of Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann, which deem a literary totality to be secondary and constructed on individual stories, is therefore not to be abandoned, but reconfigured. In a similar vein to Dibelius on the anecdote, narrative critic Tolbert rightly notes the analytical and comparative significance of first and second century CE romance novels (e.g., Chariton of Aphrodisias’s Callirhoe, and Xenophon of Ephesus’s Anthia and Habrocomes). These ancient narratives contain parallel examples of protagonists’ Scheintod, suspension-execution, among other themes.89 However, The following pioneering studies are of particular importance for the use of anecdotes in the study of Mk: Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric; James R. Butts, “Progymnasmata of Theon”; “Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels”; “The Voyage of Discipleship: Narrative, Chreia, and Call Story”; Burton L. Mack, “Anecdotes and Arguments”; Vernon K. Robbins, “The Chreia”; Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion. For a review of the anecdote in NT research: Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 150–87. Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann were all aware of the existence the chreia as an ancient “form,” without exploring its full potential. See discussion below. 86 An avoidance of “higher” literary forms is caused by an insistence upon Sitz im Leben of traditions, and their primary function in a sociological setting that is thought to be “primitive”: McKnight, What Is Form Criticism?, 20–33. For a recent defense of this position, see Andrew J. Byers “Mark’s Gospel Is ‘Gospel.’” 87 First after the influential study by Martin Hengel, Judentum und Hellenismus, is an imaginary wall separating Roman Palestine from an urban, cultural Hellenistic milieu of the first century CE, seriously critiqued. See Ian H. Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric, and Law, 6–7, on rhetoric in relation to Hellenism and Judaism, with reference to the role of chreiai, mythoi, gnomê, and diêgêmata. 88 Dibelius, Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, 149–63. Important here are early corrective comments to the problems that arise when excluding ancient “forms.” Interestingly, Taylor below explicitly refers to Theon and exercises in relation to Mk: Robert O. P. Taylor, “Form-Criticism,” 220: “The constituents of the Gospels fall into the categories of that Hellenic thought which was the thought of the world. It is perfectly easy to classify and label the contents of the Gospels by these very terms—Chreia, Apomnemoneuma, Diegesis, and Parable.” A devastating critique of form-critical relation to orality and literacy in relation to ancient rhetoric is found in Ian H. Henderson, Sententiae Jesu, 20–32. 89 For instance, a discussion on Chariton in Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel, 62–65; 66; 74–76; 95–96. The ancient novels are tremendously popular points of comparison for narrative and rhetorical studies. See also Ronald Hock, “Scholars Should Read Ancient Novels,” a good representation of the work of the SBL section “Ancient Fiction: The Matrix of Early Christian and Jewish Narrative.” A more 85

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when compositional aspects uniting Mk with the romance novels are neglected, an exaggerated parallelism that empties “the other” example of its power, is close at hand.90 With attention to techniques in ancient education and the practices that define its book culture,91 Talbert’s literary appreciation of plot, character, and progression can be combined with an historical interest in underlying compositional processes, for instance, looking at the part-whole mechanisms of form and narrative can be compared in Mk and Callirhoe or Anthia and Habrocomes.92 The techniques described in educational principles and handbooks express a culturally contemporary guide to composing narrative prose that can shed new light on gospel texts. It is here I find concepts like order and arrangement (τάξις), style (λέξις), thought (διάνοια) and not least narrative (διήγησις) at work.93 In relation to narrative criticism, ancient rhetoric offers a mode of treating narratives from the angle of particular skills, guiding values, forms, and rudimentary processes for writing narrational prose, in Greco-Roman antiquity. Issues of meaning and function thus find another axis and point of comparison, when narrative is defined as a constructed category (διήγησις), with a particular relation to other rhetorical forms (such as χρεία, μῦθος, διήγημα), framed and shaped under the epistemological framework of persuasion. With rhetorical criticism and a focus on ancient capacity to formulate narrative, the death of Jesus and the passion narrative is neither affirmed nor disclaimed in terms of the general disorder discussed by Papias. In the wake of educational practices and ideologies, the Papian doxa of disorder stands in a peculiar state of equilibrium to Kähler’s dictum, of the exceptionality of the passion narrative. This critical method supplies new tools and terms, and thereby invites further inquiry into these matters. Before summarizing this section and looking closer at the specific task at hand in this study, a few questions still need to be addressed. How has the passion narrative been analyzed in rhetorical studies since the 1980s? And what can be said to be the relation of a rhetorical criticism of Mk 14:1–16:8 to the Papian doxa? Let’s first recap: a rhetorical study of Jesus’s death tends to appreciate the manner the passion recent example is found with Fullmer, Resurrection in Mark, comparing the motif of post-mortem appearances. 90 The problem is precisely not to be seen in terms of parallelomania, but rather an abstraction of a valuable discursive source: Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania.” 91 The importance of recent studies on educational background to Roman Palestine and the gospel have made this aspect of rhetorical criticism especially important. See the introduction in Hauge and Pitts, Ancient Education and Early Christianity; Martin and Parsons, Rhetoric and the New Testament. Noteworthy studies have been conducted by Catherine Hezser, “Gattung Chrie Im Frühen Christentum”; Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine; “The Torah versus Homer.” 92 Rhetoric can thus be said to conjoin seemingly rival methods of form- and narrative criticism, from a synchronic view of considering techniques of creating and composing prose, with the educational reality underlying the NT as its basis. Without speculative hypotheses of oral transmission of traditions in form and redaction criticism, or social situations from which we have no evidence, while at the same time not denying the oral and communal pre-history of Jesus stories. 93 This will be discussed at length in chapter four.

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narrative fits in the framework of constructing “narrative” (e.g., defined in handbooks as διήγησις), while also accentuating the importance of a part-whole process of composing long sections of narrational prose, out of small “forms” (such as χρεία or διήγημα). How have rhetorical analyses previously approached 14:1– 16:8 with this in mind? Disorder has not been a prominent theme in rhetorical criticism. Did a narrative saturation with the chaotic, historical past of the gospel material leaked into the rhetorical approach?94 Or Kähler’s dictum still rings true? Discussions in rhetorical criticism seem to be stuck in the perspective of treating individual forms, without treating the issue of ancient forms of disorder and order in narration. The greater picture of the rhetoric in Mk, and especially its defining passage (according to Kähler) has not been a leitmotif.95 Further, a general inclination in rhetorical studies from the 1980s onward has been to focus solely on the form of the anecdote. While there are a handful of studies that have looked at other rhetorical forms than the anecdote, this applies also to the study of Mk and the passion narrative.96 The defining studies on the anecdote and Jesus’s death were initiated in 1989, when Burton Mack and Vernon Robbins seized this opportunity and the momentum of the anecdote (χρεία) in Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels. In the chapter, “The Anointing of Jesus: Elaboration within a Chreia,” Mack convincingly locates an “elaborated” (ἐργασία) anecdote in On a holistic tendency of narrative and rhetorical readings: Dennis L. Stamps, “Rhetorical and Narratological Criticism,” 220–21: “An interesting aspect of both rhetorical and narratological criticism is their concern for a unified text or the ways the parts cohere to make the whole. Biblical historical criticism often leaves a text in disparate parts, showing how different parts of a biblical text relate to different origins, literary and situational. Regarding gospel criticism in particular, form-, tradition-, and redaction criticism often atomize the story into unrelated literary pieces. Rhetorical and narratological criticism acknowledge that a text has many parts (devices, components, etc.), but assumes an internal textual connectedness or integration. Rhetorical and narratological criticism assumes that biblical texts can be understood in terms of a holistic overarching purpose, whether that purpose is to persuade or to tell a meaningful story.” Elizabeth Struthers Malbon and Edgar V. McKnight, “Introduction,” 18, agree on this movement, and add that “literary” approaches approach extrinsic concerns (such as fragmentation of history) in a new way. 95 An exception is found in the distinct interest in speeches of Jesus in Strickland and Young's Rhetoric of Jesus. Unfortunately, the Mk 14:1–16:8 is not discussed and a greater picture is therefore limited to the work’s “introduction,” to traverse Kähler. 96 For a review of rhetorical studies of Mk, see Watson and Hauser, “Rhetorical Criticism of the Bible.” Critical study of other forms in 14:1–16:8 can be seen in Ian H. Henderson, Sententiae Jesu, and the later development of this study in Jesus, Rhetoric and Law. For instance, Henderson is one of few who discusses the διήγημα and locates one in 14:17–21, ending with a γνώμη (Jesus, Rhetoric, and Law, 412). Brian K. Gamel detects the form of the comparison (σύγκρισις): “Mark 14:53–72 is the clearest example of ‘comparison’ in passion narrative”: Markan Theology of Revelation, 102. However, Gamel also notes that the episode in Gethsemane with the three disciples in 14.34–41, and the episode on Barabbas and the subsequent treatment of Jesus as well as the Centurion’s interaction with Jesus, in chapter 15, could also be seen as comparisons. Although it does not directly discuss Mk 14–16, Marion C. Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, is noteworthy since it discusses not only anecdote, but also the short story in relation to Mk 8–10. 94

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the story of the anointing of Jesus in the beginning of the passion (14:3–9).97 Theon’s treatise is here used “to demonstrate and explore the rhetorical pattern of elaboration in the composition of Mark 14:23”98 and finds a pattern in Hellenistic thought where “a chreia scene of the cynic type raising the issue of unconventionality.”99 Beside his work with Mack on the anecdote,100 Vernon Robbins’s has demonstrated in a number of studies perhaps the most creative manner the prog. could be said to shed light on Jesus’s death. For instance, Robbins in one study finds Jesus’s last words, “my God, my God . . .” to form an anecdotal recitation of Ps 22:3,101 and “focuses on the presence of language from Ps 22 (LXX: 21) and its mode of ‘progymnastic composition’ to describe the rhetorical practice by which the Markan text incorporates language from the psalm.”102 The most insightful study on the rhetoric of Jesus’s death, for present purposes, is found in Robbins’s theoretical manifesto, Exploring the Texture of Texts. Robbins attempts to rectify the importance of the anecdote for an appreciation of the “texture” of Jesus’s death.103 Since the goal of this work is not to describe the narration of the passion narrative and Jesus’s death as such, but rather present a guide to “social-rhetorical interpretation,” the value of the analyses is on the level of a prolegomenon, rather than in articulating critical points of comparison to the study of the rhetoric of Jesus’s death. The main issue with Robbins’s work is the lack of proper designation of what is named “the scenes” of the execution. Together with the myopic focus on the anecdote, the generalizing use of “scenes” demonstrates the tendency to neglect overarching issues of composing narration and the methodologically related discussion of the passion narrative to progymnastic theory.104

Also suggested by Santiago Guijarro and Ana Rodríguez, “The ‘Messianic’ Anointing of Jesus.” Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 89. 99 Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 89; 104. This argument supports Mack’s overall thesis of the rhetorical similarities of Jesus with ancient cynic sages. 100 Especially in Patterns of Persuasion, “The Chreia and Pronouncement Story in Synoptic Studies,” 1–29. 101 Vernon K. Robbins, “Reversed Contextualization,” 1178. 102 Robbins, “Reversed Contextualization,” 1175. Robbins argues that Ps 22 is integrated into three scenes of Jesus’s death (15:16–24; 25–32; 33–39). 103 Vernon K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture. Robbins supplies many thought-provoking suggestions, yet sometimes comes to conclusions without a “higher,” progymnastic analysis. While Robbins often presents insightful aspects of Jesus’s death here (especially a reading of the problems with Jesus’s identity: op cit., 88–89), the general theoretical agenda is at times trivializing of complex methodological matters, and ultimately unconvincing. Justin Taylor, “Rhetorical Elaboration” recently follows through on a creative suggestion by Robbins of the passion narrative (14:43–16:8) as “narrative amplification” of the chreia in the predictions of 8:31; 9:31; 10:32–34. 104 Regardless, Robbins reveals something essential about the composition of Jesus’s death, as Ps 22 is “reversed” in compositional structure of 15:20b–39. 97 98

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Given the astonishing concentration on anecdote since the 1980s, using the work of Robbins as an example,105 it is not surprising that the Papian doxa has yet to be tested against the organization of the passion narrative. Robbins’s limited use of other progymnastic categories is an illustration of a greater methodological negligence in rhetorical studies of Mk. To appreciate the rhetoric of Jesus’s death, a fuller contextualization is needed, with relation to other forms and traits. It is worth remembering the complexity of Mk as ancient narration, to think about its order from a “higher” level than merely in relation to anecdotes. Ian Henderson is correct to note that: All reading, writing, and performing of complex texts in Greco-Roman antiquity depended, moreover, on the small-scale Untergattungen taught in pre-rhetorical study through the prog. (mythos, diegema, chreia, gnome, anaskeue/kataskeue, enkomion/psogos, sunkrisis, ethopoiia, ekphrasis, thesis, eisphora nomou) along with conventions for amplifying and varying them (auxesis and ergasia).”106

And make no mistake, Mk is a complex text.107 Henderson’s reminder of the complexity of rhetorical narration is therefore not something secondary to the organization of narration in the gospel, but speaks to the heart of the matter.108 And we are still in the wake of realizing the analytical potential of the Papian doxa? Rhetorical failure has yet to be explored, through a progymnastic consideration of how the death of Jesus and its forms is (dis)ordered in the passion narrative.109

Failure in Being or Time? Before returning to this study’s problem formulation in the wake of previous research, the current state of the Papian fragment will be considered. It will be argued that there is a rhetorical undercurrent to the fragment’s insistence on

Witherington and Myers, New Testament Rhetoric, 5–31 reifies the hegemony of the chreia in relation to Mk. 106 Ian H. Henderson, “Religious Communication,” 70. 107 Rhetorical complexity of Mk will be described in chapter three–four of the present study. Rhetorical failure and disorder do not stand against complexity, but rather testify to its prominence. 108 The form-critical view of gospels as Kleinliteratur in the sense of non-literary text is rightly disproved by Ian H. Henderson. A more productive stance ought to aim “to describe the impact of the Second Sophistic on the possibility of talking about religion and thus, among other things, on the communicability of the gospel in middle and Greco-Roman antiquity”: “Religious Communication,” 68. 109 In this regard, the current study builds on previous form-critical entrepreneurs and their experiments on 14:1–16:8. Following Eta Linnemann in particular, and adding progymnastic exercises to fill the void left by a failure to locate a Gattungen of episodes analyzed in this study, the passion narrative is, nonetheless, exempt from the idea of compositional exceptionality and coherency, in Mk (Studien Zur Passionsgeschichte, 174). 105

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disorder. Yet, there is also a possibility of defining failure in terms of temporality. A duality of disorder emerges, in terms of the “being” of Mk, or its “time.” Where does the weight of failure in the fragment reside? Is disorder bound primarily to being or time? Modern scholarship disagrees on this point. In the 1880s, and with the NT textual critic, Brooke Foss Westcott, the case was made that the Papian doxa described a disordered totality, and hence the being of the text: The Gospel of St Mark is not a complete Life of Christ, but simply a memoir of “some events” in it. It is not chronological biography, but simply a collection of facts which seemed suited to the wants of a particular audience. St Mark had no personal acquaintance with the events which he recorded to enable him to place in their natural order, but was wholly dependent on St Peter; and the special object of the Apostle excluded the idea of a complete narrative.110

Neither an ancient exemplum of biography, nor history, but a disordered memoir? A common attempt to salvage the text is often made to relate primarily to how “Mark” relies on memories rather than first-hand experience of the historical events, and thereby makes the order of occurrences incorrect and chronologically disordered.111 A few decades after Westcott, Theodore Zahn objected to its generic pronouncement, and instead put forth the idea that “in Papias’s opinion [the] close dependence upon Peter’s narratives was to be noticed in some passages of Mark’s Gospel.”112 Can a problem of ataxia can be isolated? The entirety is then not threatened, only its sense of historical time. The root of the issue is found with the obscure formulation of Papias, and can symbolically be exemplified with relation to a single term well known by now: χρεία (chreia).113 In Greek, chreia can mean a general “need,” “use,” or “want,” and the slightly more technical sense of an “anecdote.”114 If the term leans toward “use,” disorder point to a temporal fault (Hengel, Bauckham), while as “anecdote,” the chreia speaks of a more ontic failure (Colson, Grant, Kürzinger). In this latter scenario, failure was created by “simply compiling” an assemblage of anecdotes from Peter, to paraphrase Westcott. The anecdote locates disorder with reference to the heart of the text, and with all episodes (“said or done by the Lord”), and not simply with an aspect. Alistair C. Stewart summarizes this form of disorder in relation to two observations: Papias writes that Mark did no wrong writing ἔνια . . . ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν. His emphasis is on the individual items that make up Mark, this implying that he is reading Mark as a collection of what we would call pericopae, rather than as an ordered treatise. Secondly, we should note Brooke Foss Westcott, General Survey of the New Testament, 76. Burnett Streeter, The Four Gospels, 19. 112 Theodore Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament, 441. Emphasis added. 113 The polysemy of χρεία is presently used as a shorthand for an overall lack of semantic context in T5, and the many–sided difficulty in interpreting this testimonia. See Mullins, “Papias on Mark’s Gospel,” and Carlson, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, 34–40, for the challenges of interpreting the Greek here. 114 The term is used adjectively, in T5. 110 111

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that Papias says that the things which are not τάξει, are those things τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα. This echoes Hermogenes’s definition of a chreia as ἀπομνημόνευμα λόγου τινὸς ἢ πράξεως. It is surely this usage of the schools that Papias has in mind.115

In the case of temporality however, failure dwells with the fact that Peter (in a legendary past) taught in a disorderly fashion, because of situational need, and Mk was writing down what was handed down, without further ado. Here the failure is less related to the text’s heartstrings, and rather taken as subordinate tendency. The writer then wrote in the heat of the moment and did not take time to organize episodes in a different order than they were taught. On the one hand, what is emphasized is a rhetorical notion of creating prose anecdotally and the compositional being of the text.116 On the other, the temporal situation of Mk listening to Peter’s teaching is emphasized, which causes an equally chaotic chronology with the teaching’s contents. Which is the failure: being or time? Why not both? There is not only disorderly failure reported by a fragment on Mk. The background of the testimonia of Papias also behaves disorderly, and is hard to pin down. Papias’s statement survives in the shape of a fragment, and the words inner ambiguity must prima facie be professed in relation to their fragmentation. An affirmation of the ambiguity of χρεία is arguably an act of faithfulness toward the text itself, and toward recognizing their materiality. In the words of Stephen C. Carlson, “when words are polysemous, context and collation are the best guides for disambiguation, but, in the case of working with fragments, such vital context is lacking.”117 The fearlessness of this originary piece of reception history in naming a salient textual feature still causes scholarly disputes.118 The history of Western research— since the 1800s—validates Papias’s description of the ancient narrative as suffering the vice of disorder, in one sense or another.119 This view has not always been dominant. Prior to modernity, the words of Augustine of Hippo were dogma, and “Mark” was considered the “lackey and abbreviator of Matthew.”120 Fault was

Alistair C. Stewart, “Tάξει in Papias,” 492. Emphasis added. This sentiment is summarized by Marion Moeser, who wrote that “Markan anecdotes are concerned . . . with the attitudes and behaviors of those who would follow Jesus, the Jewish Messiah and Son of Man . . . study . . . shows that the Markan anecdotes portray Jesus as a persuasive teacher . . . He is also depicted as an apocalyptic prophet, suffering Messiah and Son of Man . . .”: Anecdote in Mark, 247–49. There is a unifying logic to the anecdotal Jesus, it seems, who acts persuasively even though the literary forms of chreiai generally avoid elaboration and intricate lines of argumentation. 117 Carlson, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, 35. 118 See Carlson, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, 1–40, on our current access to Papias’s fragments, and a review of its reception with Irenaeus of Lyon, Eusebius of Caesarea, and Apollinaris of Laodicea. 119 Schildgen, Power and Prejudice, 125–27; C. Clifton Black, Apostolic Interpreter, 77–183. 120 Augustine’s De consensu evangeliorum: 1.2.4: pedissequus et breviator Matthaei, translated and discussed in Pierson Parker, “John and John Mark,” 105, note 27. On Augustine and Mk, see Black, Apostolic Interpreter, 126–31. It is noteworthy that Papian reception and commentary is older than 115 116

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elucidated and excused by the “Matthean” supremacy. Returning to Papias, and freeing the text from the fate of abbreviator and its disarray from contraction, the failure and disorder delivers vital clues into the texture of Mk. Again, what is meant by “disorder”? The ancient fragment’s inner ambiguity materialized in the twentieth century, when studies described the nature of this disorder with precision. As mentioned, scholars have registered two distinct tones stemming from Papias’s discourse on disorder; the time of a chronological failure and its being of a compositional failure. On the one hand, sufficient reason for ataxia is found with the compositional failure of presenting the Petrine memories of “the Lord’s words and deeds” as teaching adapted to the form of anecdotes.121 On the other hand, a failure of disorder is treated as commenting on the text’s general lack of chronology, or chronological progression, pointing to a more temporal ataxia within the narrative.122 The difficulty in determining the extent of the mistake is defined with Papias’s use of the terms translated above as “order” (τάξις; σύνταξις) and “anecdote” (χρεία).123 A popular position ends up defending Mk against the brute force of the Papian doxa, and its ramification for literary quality, and isolating failure or arrangement in terms of chronos only. The following comment by Arthur Wright is telling: If St Mark’s Gospel was arranged badly from a rhetorical point of view, why should Papias attribute the failure to St Mark’s lack of knowledge, when the fault evidently lay in his lack of skill? But St Mark’s Gospel in my opinion is by no means badly arranged. I do not know any method by which it could be made a more readable book by rearrangement, except in a few short details.124

From an ancient point of view of prose composition, Wright’s assertion of Mk being literarily “faultless” and almost perfectly organized cannot be taken as a critical comment. In any case, the Papian fragment is here allowed only to speak in terms of presenting disorder in the sequence of events, and Peter’s teaching served the needs of the audience in such a way that it lost the organization with which history had endowed the reminisces. When comparing the text to the other canonical

Augustine’s, and only separated by a couple of decades from the first circulation of the primary narrative of the life and death of Jesus. 121 This study follows the path of Colson especially, “Τάξει in Papias”; Robert O. P. Taylor, Groundwork of the Gospels; Robert M. Grant, Earliest Lives of Jesus; Josef Kürzinger, “Papias von Hierapolis”; Stewart, “Tάξει in Papias”; and others, arguing for the rhetorical valency and educational context when evaluating this Papian fragment. 122 See the response to Colson by Wright, “Τάξει in Papias,” followed by Martin Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, 149–50, and Bauckham, “Papias and Polycrates.” 123 See the review of positions in Black, “Rhetorical Terminology in Papias.” 124 Arthur Wright, “Τάξει in Papias,” 299. Hengel agrees and finds Mk to be “faultless” in terms of literary arrangement: Studies in the Gospel of Mark, 48.

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gospels, there are clear discrepancies between the second and fourth, for instance, that explain the accusations levelled against Mk.125 The compositional and ancient rhetorical perspective finds an educational resonance to be insightful, noting that Papias’s terminology draws attention to the terminology for a literary arrangement of material. The arrangement of the teaching is then comparable to a collection of anecdotes. Briefly, in Greco-Roman antiquity the anecdote was a short narrative form taught in rhetorical education, and a popular method for narrating sayings and deeds in prose. In the words of Theon, “a chreia is a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person, and maxim and reminiscence are connected with it.”126 The chreia was a superb manner of transmitting recollections of words and deeds of a philosopher or sage in a pithy way, for example, in the following way: “Diogenes, the Cynic philosopher, seeing a rich young man who was uneducated, said ‘He is dirt plated with silver.’”127 While weaving different anecdotes on a singular figure to each other and attempting to construct a narrative, certain problems of continuity and discontinuity within the large structure of the collection became more and more apparent, for the educated mind. Surely, Mk is not a pure archive of anecdotes about Jesus, but an ancient narrative?128 In the structurally murky waters of anarchic texture, apostolic traditions about “the Lord Jesus” are preserved, Papias claimed.129 The strategy used by Papias presents the text as a collage of recollections and mnemonic material from Jesus’s closest supporter and disciple. This description and terminology of memory and remembering without order can be related to an ancient genre of notebook (ὑπόμνημα), such as Xenophon’s Memorabilia on the life and death of Socrates, which embraced an episodic and less organized structure.130 An anecdote (or short story) built around a certain memory would here follow from the previous one, creating a mnemonic web. These sorts of texts were often used prior to the stage of Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark, 48–49; Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 214–22. 126 Kennedy, Prog., 15; Theon 3.96.19–22. 127 Kennedy, Prog., 16; Theon 3.97.20–22. 128 See discussion on ancient narrative and the usefulness of a post–structural perspective in Elliott, Reconfiguring Mark’s Jesus, 24–59. The present study does not claim to offer new insight into the contested area of the genre of Mk. Lk 1:1–4 is viewed as taking a critical stance in relation to previous attempts of composing narrative (διήγησις) out of the life and death of Jesus, thereby designating Mk as sort of διήγησις. Διήγησις functions then as sub-genre, and a relevant compositional term for the work. A narrative (διήγησις) in the prog. is a compositional term for offering “a full account” on a subject, to be employed in writing of history of giving a speech. Cf. Theon, 1.60.3–6. 129 As an introduction to the problem of ordering the contents of Mk, Joanna Dewey’s observation is still accurate: “Of making outlines of the Gospel of there is no end, nor do scholars seem to be wearying of it. Yet we have been unable to agree on a structure or outline for Mark”: “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry,” 221. 130 Westcott is an early critic of? proposing a technical use of mnemonic material in the Papian fragment. See Matthew D. C. Larsen, Gospels Before the Book for a recent perspective, with particular attention to the ancient genre of “rough draft” or “notebook” (ὑπόμνημα). 125

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polishing and publishing a finished manuscript, meant for wider circulation, and signified a work in-progress. Be that as it may, the problem of making sense of Mk remains, nonetheless. It is well-established that prior to the modern study of the NT, Mk had always been considered the least popular and attractive version of the canonical gospels. It is enigmatic, at times contradictory, closes abruptly, with a lot of narrative loose ends, and presents a Jesus invested in offering paradoxes and the mysterious rather than clear narrative themes to guide its audience. It can therefore be seen as unfinished from other perspectives as well. So, which is it? A failure of being or time? A rhetoric of failure is presently developed below, in the study’s eight chapter on the sense of Jesus’s death. Can a rhetoric of failure, where disorder as fragmentation is unhindered from a capacity to create nonlinear meanings, open the Papian doxa toward compositional possibilities of many sorts? In this way, the being and time of disorder could be used as an experimental means of access to the death of Jesus. The chreia and anecdotal compositional traits shall therefore be allowed, along with Papian doxa in general, to mean disorder as both being and time. In relation to the fragmented state of Papias, and the primary witness of failure of disorder in Mk, problems of chronos and composition, time and being, are equally valid points of entry when investigating the episodes of Jesus’s death. The concept of disorder is therefore approached from the viewpoint of a rhetoric of failure, where even this disorder is affirmed. However, since a rhetorical reading of death in terms of disorder of composition has been neglected by previous studies, an opening is found with the description of how to construct order in narrative, by compositional handbooks. Let it be clear, however, at no point is this methodological choice meant to exclude problems of chronology with Jesus’s death. Failure from the Papian doxa is therefore allowed to be found both with the being and time of Jesus’s death.

Form, Narrative, Rhetoric, and Ordering Jesus’s Death Form-, narrative-, and rhetorical criticism have not appreciated the implication of the Papian doxa, as a conceptual clue to the organization of the passion narrative of Jesus’s death. Instead, an exceptional literary quality, of chronology for instance, is said to be found in the final chapters of Mk. Even when scholars indirectly admit to disorder in relation to the passion narrative, for instance, when creating different outlines or points of emphasis of its internal, literary structure, or even in Bultmann or Schmidt’s critical discourse on different traditional strata in Mk 14:1–16:8,131 the opinion of the passion narrative’s conceptual order is most often championed over 131

Schmidt, Rahmen, 308: “Die stellen 14.10 und 14.34 scheinen mir nicht in einem ursprünglichen fortlaufenden Beritcht niedergeschirieben zu sein.”

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and above any instances of disorder. Critiques come and go, yet Martin Kähler’s dictum stands firm: the passion narrative is an exceptionally ordered summit. Is it time to replace this dictum with new images of thought? To this end, and as a direct challenge to Kähler, Howard Clark Kee uses the image of the multi-linear artform of the fugue: It would appear that Mark no more lends itself to analysis by means of a detailed outline developed by simple addition of components than does a major contrapuntal work of music. In spite of illuminating and ingenious attempts to discover the one theme which provides the unity of meaning for the structure of Mark, none has been found. The failure . . . has been compounded by widespread acceptance of the neat dictum that Mark is a passion narrative with an extended introduction.132

It is time to let the musicality of disorder resonate unobstructed and without silencing one line in service of promoting another. Contradiction, repetition, and asymmetry does not need to stand in opposition to storytelling, after all. Rather, the story can produce a thorny effect, when allowed to make its noise and produce dissonances. Our assessment has thus far revealed that the form-critical tendency to locate different forms in relation to gospel material is often deemed peripheral with relation to Jesus’s death, and therefore not allowed to properly respond to the notion of disorder. Yet there have been important dissidents to the broad strokes painted above.133 In Studien zur Passiongeschichte, Eta Linnemann is first to break with tradition, and starts a revolution when the form-critical method is employed against the passion narrative unconstrained. The effect is devastating to the notion of a strong, literary and historical organization of the passion narrative, and thus disproves Kähler’s dictum.134 Linnemann looks particularly at sections of historical pedigree (14:32–52; 14:55–64; 15:20b–39) and argues that Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann are entirely incorrect to posit an organization of Jesus’s death prior to the existence of Mk. “The passion narrative in Mark’s gospel was not grounded in a coherent report,”135 it is boldly stated, and Linnemann discovers in Mk 14–16 precisely the seriality of “zusammenhangslose” episodes that Schmidt, Dibelius, and Bultmann stubbornly relate to a majority of material. Howard Clark Kee, Community of the New Age, 64. Dewey agrees: “Gospel of Mark does not have a single structure made up of discrete sequential units but rather is an interwoven tapestry or fugue made up of multiple overlapping structures and sequences, forecasts of what is to come and echoes of what has already been said”: “Mark as Interwoven Tapestry,” 224 (see 221–36). 133 This is true of all schools, and the review above is an attempt at distilling methodological, general traits. 134 Eta Linnemann, Studien zur Passionsgeschichte. An important forerunner to Linnemann is found with Georg Bertram, Die Leidengeschichte Jesu. Linnemann’s disapproval of the reality behind Kähler’s dictum is also taken up by Johannes Schreiber, Der Kreuzigungsbericht. 135 Linnemann, Studien zur Passionsgeschichte, 171: “Wir haben den Nachweis geführt, daß der Passionsgericht des Markusevangeliums kein zusammenhängeder Bericht zugrunde Lag.” My translation. 132

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A disorder of traditions lurks beneath the construction of Jesus’s death and therefore advocates for the continuing relevance of the Papian doxa on a historical level. Yet, Linnemann’s study does not cover the passion narrative generally, or even all the scenes of execution (15:6–39). Further, Studien zur Passiongeschichte does not demonstrate an appreciation for Mk as ancient prose composition. Like Doktorvater Bultmann, Linnemann comes to neglects the existing rhetorical background that likely shaped the composition of Jesus’s death. Time and again, the question of (dis)order and rhetorical organization with the passion narrative is left insufficiently investigated and disorder is not related to death, from a methodological, compositional standpoint. Yet Linnemann’s apostacy toward Formgeschichte becomes a beacon of hope, by singing anew the doxology of disorder. The Papian doxa with rhetorical criticism finds an ally, when disorder becomes less a question of the remnants of a chaotic historical past and more invested in ancient, rhetorical discourse of episodic narratives and the question of techniques associated with their order and disorder. In the shadow of Linnemann and Papias, the current study attempts to look at the rhetorical structure of the passion narrative, and Jesus’s death from a progymnastic viewpoint.136 There have been decisive calls to take failure and disorder seriously from rhetorical studies.137 And it will become important to speak of disorder as failure when approaching Jesus’s death. An assertion from Ian Henderson is here worth citing at length, where the specific issue failing to accommodate a narrative for its audience can be said to raise a larger issue of investigating rhetorical failure. The experimental character of Markan rhetorics may, historically, have meant that, until the twentieth century, Mark would not find for itself a competent audience. But if Markan rhetoric failed to persuade its audience directly and succeeded only through its synoptic influence, rhetorical criticism ought to deal intentionally not only with its genius, but also with its failure. Mark is not the only experiment in early Christian literature ironically to exert massive literary influence despite its fundamental failure to find or create its intended audience. This is an area in which rhetorical criticism is not critical enough: rhetorical performances often express unsuccessful, even predictably unwise communicative choices. Rhetorical criticism ought therefore to take seriously the probability that texts embody tactical and/or strategic errors in rhetorical judgment.138

In the remainder of this study, disorder and failure will continue to determine the tone and theme for a treatment of Jesus’s death. The role of the neglected form of Linnemann’s approach locating different pre-Mk traditions in 14:1–16:8 in contrast to the pioneering form critics, is found developed by Johannes Schreiber, Wolfgang Schenk, Detlev Dormeyer, and Werner Kelber. See discussion in John Donahue, “From Passion Traditions,” 10– 14. Of special interest is Kelber, pre-figuring a rhetorical sensibility by accepting the outcome of form-critical method, following Linnemann, yet stressing a literary (or “theological”) unity in 14:1–16:8: Werner Kelber, “From Passion Narrative,” 157–58. 137 Although Henderson does not refer to the passion narrative and Jesus’s death, the use of failure and overall progymnastic analysis is rhetorically constructive also with relation to this section of the work. 138 Ian. H. Henderson, “‘Salted with Fire,’” 47–48. 136

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the short story (διήγημα) in particular will rise to the occasion and connect with other shapes of “forms” and episodes in the passion narrative.139 If Papias is right to defend ataxia, and Linnemann right that the passion is troubled by clustered episodes, then Henderson is equally right to note the experimental, rhetorical nature of Mk. If Henderson is correct, then the Papian doxa supplies tools and terms that formulate a stance toward Jesus’s death worth exploring at length.

Disorder as Relay? The notion of disorder has hitherto been approached as an “either-or” and as a “bothand” in light of the Papian doxa. Yet, with a relay of clear and unclear, there are other ways of approaching a disorder of being and time. Let us consider failure from this perspective a bit closer, and come back to the problematic of the current study with the following question: is the Papian doxa correct in detecting a general disorder in Mk? In its proclamation of “the good news of Jesus Christ” (1:1), there is a constant oscillation of the compositional virtue of the clear (σαφής) and vice of the obscure (ἀσαφής), forming an asymmetrical style that runs through the entire work and even the passion narrative.140 A tendency toward asymmetry is perhaps most intensely felt when approaching the task of constructing a comprehensive and cohesive portrayal of Jesus.141 An oscillation acts as a fundamental, dialectical tension. Consider the following: demonic (3:7–12; 5:1–13), Roman (15:39; 5:1–13), and Heavenly (1:11–19; 9:2–8) voices all name Jesus a Son of God. Yet Jesus himself consistently refuses any other name than the Son of the (Hu)man (2:1–12; 10:32– 34; 14:16–21 etc.).142 This dialectic of transcendence and the profane, the divine and the human, actively works against a linear, straightforward conception of Jesus Christ. It is the claim of this study that endeavors to identify Jesus and prioritize the name the Son of Man over and above the name a Son of God neglects the foundational role of disorder in the composition, and vice versa. Instead of a nominal hierarchy, a rhetorical relay produces a compositional complexity of comprehending the sense of Jesus Christ (1:1). On the one hand, a Galilean teacher and prophet is attested by divine beings and imperial representatives as a Son of God, in relation to the godly acts of healing, On the importance for the διήγημα in the study of Mk, and in particular the passion narrative (with a focus on 15:16–32), see Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα,” 63–88. The relation of anecdote to short story will be treated in chapter four of the current study. 140 Carl Joachim Classen notes that “with ‘Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ’ [the evangelist] tries to make his audience not merely attentive and receptive, but inquisitive also. For the meaning of this first clause remains puzzling and its relation to what follows, as the commentators state, unclear”: “Rhetorical Criticism of the New Testament,” 70. 141 The personification of Jesus will be explored in chapters five–seven of the current study, in relation to Theon’s treatment of the short story. 142 The influential study by Theodore Weeden, Mark—Traditions in Conflict, recognizes this disorder, in the shape of clashing traditions on a suffering messiah and a theos anêr (divine man). 139

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casting out demons, and appearing in shining light from above. On the other, the same teacher adamantly demands recognition under the name of the divine “Human One” (the Son of Man), and actively silences those he freed from unclean spirits. This Human One also refuses recognition for deeds of power, and therefore works against the spread of rumors of the miracles performed.143 This tension is intensified when the Son of Man, time and again, speaks of the necessary suffering, abandonment, and death by execution, followed by obscure references of a resurrection (8:31–33; 9:9–12; 9:31–32; 10:32–34). This message is only met with confusion and repudiation. Who is Jesus?144 The Son of the Man is clearly a representative of the divine realm. Yet what is the relation of the Human One to the Divine Son? Is Jesus a divine figure with power, honor, and heavenly authority, or a human-suffering servant, dying through a horrendous and shameful suspension-execution, without a shred of credibility and decency? A strong man or suffering servant?145 Eugene Boring summarizes the tension well: Conceptually, the two types of christological imagery cannot be combined without compromising one or the other or both. A Jesus who can walk on the water can come down from the cross, and his crucifixion is a sham. A Jesus who cannot come down from the cross cannot walk on the water, and the miracle stories are not really miracles. A truly human Jesus [a Son of Man] cannot also be truly divine; a truly divine Christ [a Son of God] cannot also be truly human. No single theological perspective is ever adequate to do justice to its subject matter.146

This oscillation of humanity and divinity residing within the rhetorical figure of Jesus never stops. Its circular movement is arguably what defines a personal disorder of “Christ.” Paraphrasing Baruch Spinoza’s classical maxim, the disordering individuation of Jesus is a Deus sive Filius hominis, and thus an immanent relation where sense affirms multiple directions of meaning.147 That is, the task of assigning subjectivity to the personification of Jesus appears with an David Watson, Honor among Christians, provides a recent walkthrough of the passages in Mk where Jesus silences recipients of healings and deeds of power. 144 “[T]he question of who Jesus is provides the central focus of Mark’s narrative”: Christopher M. Tuckett, Christlogy and the New Testament, 109. 145 On Jesus’s masculinity as a sign of stability and power in Mk 1–8, using the parable in 3:19–30 of the one “the stronger” than the devil and in contrast to Mk 9–10 as noble martyr, see Colleen M. Conway, Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity, 90–100. 146 M. Eugene Boring, Mark, 258. Boring finds a synthetic solution to the problem, which is inadequate for the purposes of this study. 147 With Spinoza’s insistence upon immanence, disorder as relay is aptly summarized with the formula of substance as Deus sive Natura. This does not mean that either God or nature, or God and nature properly names reality. Rather, a certain secretive namelessness, in the shape of a relentless oscillation where the relation “god” to “nature” and a movement from the one to the other effectually responds to the task of naming “the One” or Being. See Daniel Colucciello Barber, On Diaspora, 1–29, for a discussion on Gilles Deleuze and immanence, which provided this study with a theoretical background for relay of clear and unclear and the secretive relation of corporeality and incorporeality, especially in chapter eight. 143

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unresolved tension and “personal disorder” relaying the Son of Man and the Son of God. The failure of clear individuation implies that the two conflicting senses are equally significant for the value of “Christ,” in a paradoxical manner. Not even with the proclamation of the Roman centurion, standing next to the corpse of a dead “son of a god” (or “a Son of God”: 15:39) is closure offered. As will be seen, Roman officials in charge of the extraordinary shaming of humiliation are not necessarily trustworthy witnesses, regardless of the apocalyptic and divine truth they might speak. Often approached from terms of irony and “saying one thing and meaning another” (Cic. De ora. 3.53.204), dialectic unrest is always at play with the summit of the passion narrative, therefore. In the end, Jesus’s death intensifies rather than disarms secrecy and a relay of clear and unclear. With the prominent scholar William Wrede, a circularity of meaning is found to reside within the personification of the Galilean prophet as a true son of humanity and a divine son of heaven. This can be thought of as an external oscillating movement of “Son of Man” and “Son of God,” defined above by Boring and explored at length by numerous scholars.148 However, Wrede’s influential concept of a “Messianic Secret” also reveals an unremitting secrecy that later will be determined to define the compositional personification of the rhetorical figure of Jesus at death. Importantly, the principal object of investigation into the rhetorical personification of Jesus’s death in the present study is not to consider the circular and oscillating logic of divinity and humanity. Rather, an internal counterpart and “feedback loop” within the senses found in “Son of Man” is taken as the prime example of personal disorder of individuation. The difference is crucial in light of the underexplored, rhetorical potential of a conceptualization of “social death” in Mk 15:6–39 in previous scholarship. From this angle, the rhetorical presentations of death underline that the Son of Man’s shameful death of suspension-execution stands in sharp contrast to an attempt to remain faithful to an apocalyptic fantasy of a transformed cosmos. With an external Deus sive Filius hominis and internal examples of disorder in social death and the apocalyptic hope of the Son of Man, processes of meaningmaking ascribe the value of Christ’s “name” with a relentless relay of sense and circular logic.149 From this perspective, Matthew D. C. Larsen is entirely correct to argue that “the Gospel according to Mark, taken at face value, does not have a

“The significance of his Gospel (in literary and theological terms) is that it has welded a number of these prevailing traditions about [“Jewish-Christian” notion of Jesus as royal Son of David, apocalyptic Son of Man, or divine Son of God] into a more or less unified presentation”: William R. Telford, Theology of the Gospel of Mark, 54. See Telford’s overview of scholarship in 30–54. 149 Adam Winn, Mark’s Christology under Caesar: “While it is clear that Mark identifies Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, the title ‘Christ’ is not the dominant title Mark uses to identify Jesus. The title is only used four times in direct reference to Jesus. The title is also somewhat nebulous because Jewish messianic expectations varied. Without more clarification, we cannot be certain what type of messiah Mark understood Jesus to be”: 100–2. 148

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christology; it has christologies. It does not promote the agenda of messianic secret but, rather, messianic secrets.”150 The asymmetry at the heart of the Papian doxa must therefore be defended.151 Disorder runs deep within the work, and it never clearly stated what it means that Jesus is “Christ.” Robbins, pondering the rhetoric of the death scene, even asks “Who is he? Is he King of the Jews? Is he the Messiah of Israel? If so, how can he be hanging on a tree in disgrace? Even the bandits who hang on the cross beside him ‘revile’ him (15:32).”152 Exploring the width and depth of Wrede’s influential insight, there is simply no end to the Messianic secret, since Jesus’s death actively overshadows the composition’s ability to narrate a resurrection or resolution to the conflicts directly resulting from the messiah’s death. Notwithstanding circular tensions with regard to the meaning of “Christ,” the narrative nevertheless arrives at a summit of intensity, when Jesus is killed by the capital punishment of suspension till death meant for the disgraced and the-lessthan-human, and without being seen again. Since Mk refuses to “makes clear whether resurrection actually occurs,”153 the stylistic oscillation of obscure and clear aspects of personification can be said to fall back on the significance of death and the passion narrative. Boring is then right to notice that there is something with death that creates the apex for the narrative, or what ancient rhetorician Ps.-Hermogenes would identify with a narrative’s acme (ἀκμή).154 In other words, with the death of Jesus, the problem of disorder of “Who is he?” and the meaning of the person of Jesus Christ, is intensified to its boiling point.

Ordering Disorder and Diêgêsis Lastly, what is the compositional structure of Mk 14:1–16:8 and its acme, from the present methodological perspective? The passion narrative reveals levels of progymnastic order and ordering.155 With the figure of the fugue, previously suggested for this task, Mk consists less of a linear, horizontal outlook and more of a nonlinear, vertical unfolding of series of episodes, that swirl up and down on multiple levelled, narrational helix. From this angle, the entirety of this ancient narrative expresses seriality and an order of disorder. Yet, the narrational helix still Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 143. An important essay on this subject is Étienne Trocmé, “Is There a Markan Christology?” seeking to understand christology from the point of view of an ancient multiplicity. Cf. Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 137–38. 152 Robbins, Exploring the Texture, 88. 153 Busch, Risen Indeed?, 9. 154 Hermog. Inv. 189–91. 155 An interesting study of a “higher level” compositional order, of the passion narrative of Lk in comparison with Mk, is found in Heather Gorman, Interweaving Innocence. Many aspects of Gorman’s study are illuminating from the perspective of the present study and disorder in Mk. Especially its use of Theon’s prog. in relation to synoptic passion narratives is to be commended for an originary, rhetorical stance toward the topic of order in Lk. 150 151

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finds a particular point of contraction and condensation through the thematic centrality of death. That is to say, the series contains sequences. The episodes dedicated to the betrayal, last meal, trial, death, and burial of Jesus are rightly considered to exemplify a strong sequence and higher order of organization, and function largely as the center of the entire work. Generic, anecdotal seriality is temporarily suspended and replaced with an intensification of details on chronology and topography. That 14:1–16:8 is a well-organized section has become a truism few would questions. The real challenge, according to many commentators, lies rather in defining the relation of the sequential arrangement of the passion narrative to the overall serial nature of Mk. In other words, what is the passion narrative’s organizational context? Two modern scholars supply productive analyses of disorder. With these exegetes, the specific topic of providing an outline for Mk paves the way for revisiting the Papian doxa’s elucidating potential in relation to Jesus’s death. First, Karl Ludwig Schmidt had already recognized Mk as consisting of a series of eight Komplexes, that provide different sets of temporal, topographical, and, at times, topical or thematic markings. While there are shifts from one part of Roman Palestine to another (in Komplexes 6:14–8:26, 8:27–10:45, 10:46–13:37 with movement to Jerusalem and from Galilee) and progressions in time (in 10:46–13:37, with the temple’s actions for instance), Schmidt argues for the auxiliary nature of these details.156 Schmidt’s attempt to create an outline of the work is therefore, at all times, bound to a conceptual stress on the secondary nature of a narrative logic, since with “the overall framework of the story of Jesus as a whole . . . we are dealing here with an aimless, unselfconscious, and thereby especially valuable tradition of individual stories that overran Mark’s best effort at schematization.”157 In other words, seriality, and an order of disorder, is revealed to be crucial with relation to the eight complexes, and their “schematization” of episodes. Schmidt demonstrates that the episodes only rarely interact with details of time or place in an essential manner. Most often, chronology and geography are found in the beginning of a pericope or found in association with other episodes. While complexes can present themselves as coherent, the continuity is found with the framework, and never with the heart and historicity of the material, according to Schmidt.158 The following outline of Komplexes is found in Schmidt, Rahmen, xi–xvi: 1:1–13 (John the Baptizer and Jesus); 1:14–45 (Jesus’s Activity in Galilee); 2:1–3:6 (Jesus’s Conflicts with the Leaders of the People); 3:7–6:13 (Jesus and the People); 6:14–8:26 (Jesus outside of Galilee in Gentile Territory); 8:27–10:45 (Jesus and his Disciples, Approaching the Passion); 10:46–13:37 (Jesus’s Final Activity in Jerusalem); 14:1–16:8 (Jesus’s Suffering and Death). 157 Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 259. 158 “Individual stories, or small collections of stories, lie before us in great abundance, in no particular chronological sequence, with an arrangement that is only a framework. Each individual narrative is a separate pericope, which may be either framed of unframed. True, there was a rich framework of chronological and topographical indicators, into which the individual narratives were wrapped. The stories wandered in the tradition in their frame, sometime exchanging framework for another 156

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Anonymity and obscurity in episodes are embraced as traces from the past. From the outset, episodes were most often “self-contained units” that ended up in clusters and complexes over time, in the hands and mouths of early Christian teaching, mission, and ministry. The lack of time and place in relation to a pericope is therefore a remnant from the oldest strata of the traditions. Continuity is an effect of “compositional technique,”159 and the narrative ultimately fails to keep the story together. Except for Mk 14:1–16:8, the other reports of Jesus’s deeds and sayings “show themselves to have no interest in chronology and topography.”160 In short, for Schmidt, the seriality of the order is so strong that a narrative logic becomes a weak force, unable to supply the passion narrative with anything like a setting. Secondly, Matthew D. C. Larsen has more recently downplayed the importance of a narrative logic and presented an equally serial argument for the organization of Mk. From the perspective of ancient book publishing culture, Larsen argues that the earliest users—Papias of Hierapolis among them—considered this text as a set of unpublished notes or hypomnêmata that found its way into circulation (ὑπομνήματα, commentarii). This type of text invited authorial interactions, where material was arranged in a more literary fashion, as well as assigning the work with a title and the name of an author. Arguably, the anonymity and obscurity of the material fits well into the ancient notebook genre of hypomnêmata. In contrast to Schmidt, Larsen does not take the disorderly content of Mk to be a sign of a long historical process of tradition transmission. Rather, seriality demonstrates that its peculiar rapid pace and paratactical insistence is due to the compositional functionality of an unfinished set of notes. Ancient pre-published notebooks are known for typical signs of disorder, in the shape of a “variety of grammatical errors,” “unnecessary or incorrect details,” and “geographical errors,” as well as “ambiguous and misleading statements.”161 In continuity with Schmidt, however, Larsen is interested in a conceptual emphasis on the seriality of Mk, since its arrangement of the episodes is distinctly disordered and “merely” a set of notes. Outlining this ancient composition with the function of “keywords and bracketing structure,” long recognized and important for scholars of this text, Larsen displays an essential characteristic of this unfinished rhetorical work. Repetition of a term or word throughout a particular set, does not “constitute narrative unity,” and Larsen therefore joins Schmidt in allowing for the disorder to shine.162 Again, neither Larsen nor Schmidt are seeking to demolish instances of narrative continuity. In the form of a “set of notes” or traditional . . . Yet even in the best cases these framing pieces present only the barest scraps of an itinerary for the history of the activity of Jesus”: Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 281. 159 Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 265. 160 Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 281. Although never seriously threatening the passion narrative as “continuous chronological report,” there is a lack of clarity with regard to 14:1–2 (story on the high priests’ intent to kill Jesus) and the vv.10–11 (story on Judas’s intent to betray Jesus) demonstrating secondary narrational stiches (op. cit., 285). 161 Matthew Larsen, “According to Mark as Hypomnêmata,” 177–81. 162 Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 128.

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Komplexes, coherency is a side-effect of a deep disorder, rather than a key trait of a foundational order of this, ancient work.163 Given that serial suspicions of Schmidt and Larsen confirm the Papian doxa, a secondary order provides a narrative background for the passion narrative. In its current shape, the internal disorder of the episodes of Mk 1:1–16:8 finds an external order, first, in the shape of an abstract emphasis on Galilee in the first section of the work, and on Jerusalem in the second section. Regardless of whether a significant shift is placed with in 8:21 (Larsen) or 8:26 (Schmidt), there is a movement toward Jerusalem within the framework of the episodes, where keywords of suffering and death define the latter half of the work. There is a corresponding focus on miraculous deeds of power in Galilee, in the first half.164 Remarkably, the narrative begins with a reference to Jerusalem and Judea (1:3) and ends with an unfulfilled promise of presence in Galilee (16:7), highlighting complexities with a strictly geographical analysis. Yet with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem in 11:1 something remarkable happens. The narrative framework is here solely captivated with securing the activity of Jesus, in Judea.165 Jesus is engaged in a set of controversies with the Judean elite, in 11:27–12:44, while also seen entering and exiting the temple, and finally holding the longest speech in the narrative, prompted by a question on the stability and status of the temple (13:1–37).166 In other words, repetition of detail creates an intensification around the keywords and topics concerning Jesus in relation to the Judean-religious elite and the temple. This is enough to supply a background for 14:1, beginning with the religious elite of the high priest plotting to kill a purported messiah.167 What can rhetorical form and the arrangement of anecdote and short stories reveal about the problem of ordering the material on the topic of Jesus’s death? In conclusion, the present study finds Larsen’s intriguing reluctance toward a strong narrative logic to be constructive. Together with a treatment of the passion narrative Working from other theoretical standpoints than Schmidt and Larsen, Joanna Dewey is another central figure for scholars’ interesting suggestion of a multilinear organization, and conceding to an overall disorder of the second gospel’s material. See discussion in Joel Williams, “Does Mark’s Gospel Have an Outline?,” 505–10, for an appreciation of the “artful arrangement of episodes” in Mk, recognizing the importance of Dewey’s previous suggestions, specifically. 164 Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 129, displays the following, interesting schema: 1:21–3:6 (Topics: Mighty Deeds and opposition: keywords–sabbath, synagogue); 3:7–6:30 (Topics: Hearing and doing; the sea and discipleship: keywords–twelve, sending); 6:31–8:21 (Topics: Eating with insiders and outsiders: keywords–bread, eating); 8:22–10:52 (Topics: Seeing clearly, following Jesus, and suffering: keywords–“on the way,” seeing); 11:1–16:8 (Topics: Jesus’s death and the fate of the temple: keywords–temple Jerusalem). Miracles still occur all throughout the text, and the latter half is no exception (see lengthy review in Edwin Broadhead, Teaching with Authority, 148–187). Themes of the ignorance of the disciples, secrecy (9:9), as well as other recurrent themes, also withstand seclusion as artful manners of dispensation in an outline. 165 Cf. Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 253–54, for a summary of the episodes 10:46–13:37 and the theme of Jerusalem. 166 Cf. C. Clifton Black, “An Oration at Olivet”; Vernon Robbins, “Rhetorical Ritual.” For a recent rhetorical approach to Mk 11:27–13:37, see Strickland and Young, Rhetoric of Jesus, 213–80. 167 Cf. Schmidt, Framework of the Story, 265–87; Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 132–33. 163

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as a separate set, distinct from 11:1–13:37, Larsen exemplifies a consistent, ancient compositional argument in favor of the Papian doxa, in contemporary scholarship. Not even the passion narrative (14:1–16:8) presents a finished arrangement fit for a literary work, in this schema.168 This stance for a radical seriality and reading disorder in relation to the nature of unfinished notebooks, allows for an interesting possibility of extending the Papian doxa. There are keywords and topics distinct to 14:1–16:8, such as a recurrent focus on the festival,169 and on the disciples Judas170and Peter,171 not to mention the framework of the trial, execution, and death of Jesus. Yet, with a newfound sensitivity to seriality and a logic of disorder prefigured by Schmidt and Larsen, what can the Papian doxa illuminate about the trial and death of Jesus?

The discussion of notes does not mention 14:1–16:8 as standing out: Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 132–33. 169 The terms “festival” (ἑορτή: 14:2; 15:6), “Passover” (τὸ πάσχα: 14:1, 12, 14, 16), “Unleavened bread” (τὰ ἄζυμα) are all introduced in 14:1 and found repeated throughout this section. Important also to note the connection of the festival to the arrival of the Sabbath, and the day of preparation (σάββατον; παρασκευή: 15:43, 16:1–2) creating an indirect repetition or link to the days of the festival and strengthening the chronological continuity throughout the passion narrative. 170 Mk 14:10–12; 43–45, and indirectly in 14:20–21, 42. 171 Mk 14:29, 33, 37, 54, 66, 67, 70, 72; 16:7. 168

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3. Method and Theory: From the Progymnasmata to a Logic of Sense

With the question “How is the death of Jesus rhetorically organized in the passion narrative?” an antique grievance with disorder and the Gospel according to Mark presents a relevant entry point into this text. While studies of rhetoric and Theon’s prog. have probed Mk 14:1–16:8 in relation to the anecdotal forms of narration found therein (χρεία), several vital aspects have gone unnoticed. This is particularly true of the arrangement (τάξις) of the thought (διάνοια) of Jesus’s death and with its relation to the form of the short story (διήγημα) and of the type of narrative structure (διήγησις) that follows from acts of sewing words and ideas (λέξις) along with different episodes together in the passion narrative. From the perspective of the theorization of diêgêmata in prog., this study is an effort to amend the situation and define central challenges residing with Jesus’s death in 15:6–39. In this chapter, I discuss method and theory in terms of two questions: “Why Aelius Theon and the Progymnasmata?” and “Why Gilles Deleuze and Logic of Sense?” Said differently, what happens in the intersection of a disordered account of death and ancient rhetoric, and a Logic of Sense? I will engage Theon and a scholarly conversation on the narrational exercises on progymnastic anecdotes and short stories to demarcate the study’s main methodological approach to (dis)order and the death of Jesus.172 Primary analyses are presented in chapters four-seven, which corresponds to a methodological investigation of the passion narrative and Jesus’s death, from the perspective of Theon’s prog. A final chapter of analysis is devoted to theoretically unpacking findings of the previous chapters’s progymnastic analysis of Mk 15:6–39. With Deleuze and Logic of Sense, I offer a theoretical outlining of a “rhetoric of failure” and the disordered creation of meaning (sense). A “logic of sense” therefore provides the opportunity to evaluate the rhetorical disorder identified by the prog., without excluding features of obscurity and an 172

Following James Butt, “Progymnasmata,” non–progymnastic ancient rhetoricians and treatises (most prominently Aristotle, Cicero, Quintilian, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lucian, the writer of Ad Herrenium, Ps.-Demetrius, Ps.-Longinus, and Ps.-Hermogenes) are consulted throughout the study, in relation to the scholarly discourse engaged in decoding the prog. Especially important for the formation of the present analysis are Butt’s extensive comments on narration (here including diêgêmata and chreiai) and Theon’s intellectual background, as well as the Peripatetic and Stoic influences on notions of taxis, lexis, and dianoia.

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unvirtuous ordering of material from the domain of productive sense and meaningmaking. The central role of a methodological gaze on Jesus’s death will be found with the notion of weaving (συμπλέκειν) brief forms of narration, or “exercises” (γυμνάσματα), together into a narrative structure. This focus will reveal the significance of relating order (in τάξις) to individual forms in the passion narrative to the thoughts (διάνοια; νόημα) and core of an identified “form.” In the end, I will argue that a failure of death emerges from the expression of the shameful and horrendous thought of subjecting a messianic, person (πρόσωπον) to death (θάνατος) through suspension on a pole (σταυροῦν). The disorderly fashion of representing (φαντασία) the execution of Jesus’s death as an occurrence (πρᾶγμα), is paradoxically appropriate to the abomination of the sheer thought of this embodiment of death. Picking up tensions remaining from an ancient perspective on death, a final ensemble of theoretical terms rethinks the personification of Jesus with death through the concept of event. From this angle, Logic of Sense will offer a theoretical rehabilitation of the failure of death. By advocating for the novelty and even beauty of thinking death through disorder, a relay of the distinct and clear is embraced as a significant contribution of Mk. Alongside Der Prozeß and its portrayal of Josef K.’s execution, particular elements of paradox, parable, and parataxis, offer death in Mk 15:6–39 the opportunity to contextualize as particular rhetorical failure within a rhetoric of failure.

Why Aelius Theon and the Progymnasmata? Prior to explorations of rhetorical critiques contemporary to the canonical gospels, investigations into pervasive influences of ancient education on literacy in the first century CE and the Imperial period were rare. In the wake of many influential studies focusing solely on Jewish and early Christian education in the Second Temple period, convincing evidence has been presented stressing the ability to reconstruct the ancient educational system and its relation to the gospels. From the trailblazing works of Henri Marrou (Histoire de l’education dans l’Antiquité: 1948), Stanley Bonner (Education in Ancient Rome: 1977), Teresa Morgan (Literary Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: 1998), and Raffaella Cribriore (Gymnastics of the Mind: 2001), the preliminary exercises discussed in four surviving rhetoric handbooks from Greco-Roman antiquity (prog.) have been demonstrated to provide productive material to compare to NT writings.173 173

See Ronald Hock, “Observing a Teacher of Progymnasmata,” 39–70, on progymnastic rhetoric and early Christian education, highlighting the writers mentioned above. The ancient four handbooks or “preliminary exercises” are generally attributed to Aelius Theon (first century CE); Hermogenes

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The primary rhetorical handbook for present purposes is a prog. of similar age to Mk,174 generally attributed to a certain “Aelius Theon” of the first century CE.175 Importantly, the work was originally meant to function as a teacher’s aide rather than a direct manual for students and differs in terms of sophistication from the other handbooks of Classical to Late Antiquity in this regard. For many reasons, and not only because of its old age, Theon’s introduction to the preliminary exercises for prose composition has rightly been considered an essential text for a literary appreciation of the gospels.176 On a general level, George Kennedy compares the prog. to: structural features of classical architecture that were artistically utilized in the great public buildings of the Greco-Roman period and were revived in the Renaissance in the West. Not only the secular literature of the Greeks and Romans, but the writings of early Christians beginning with the gospels and continuing through the patristic age, and of some Jewish writers as well, were molded by the habits of thinking and writing learned in schools.177

What was the purpose and function with the prog.? What did they “do”? The prog. were meant for the classroom situations, and to aid students’ “transition from grammar to rhetoric.”178 In a cultural milieu where most were illiterate,179 the prog. of Tarsus (second century CE); Aphtonios the Sophist (fourth century CE); Nikolaos of Myra/the Sophist (fifth century CE). 174 The hegemonic importance of “Markan priority” and dating Mk to a post-70 CE situation toward the end of “the Jewish war”—with the fall of the temple—describes a historical minimalism that determines scholarly engagement with this work. While the question of endings is more contested, minimalist axioms of Mk priority, post–70 date, and locating 16:8 to be an important point of departure for rhetorical analysis, is assumed in the present study. See Telford, Theology of the Gospel of Mark, 1–14, for a summary of essential scholarship on these matters. However, the present analysis is not directly influenced by the synoptic problem, or by a particular stance on the exact age of Mk. Cf. Mark Goodacre, Case against Q, for a defining articulation of “Markan priority” and Alex Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, for an equally important contribution to a rhetorical approach, and Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark, 11–18, on the complexity in dating Mk. 175 In the abstract to an early translation and commentary of the prog., Butts argues that “Theon was an orator and teacher of rhetoric in Alexandria, Egypt, around the middle of the first century of the common era (ca. 50 CE). His thought and teaching were influenced by the teachings of Peripatetic tradition of rhetoric and especially the teachings of rhetoricians”: “Progymnasmata,” iv. Especially Butt’s link of Aristotelian and Stoic influences on Theon’s treatise is crucial for the present study and its conception of dianoia in composition. Based on comments in Quint. Inst. 3.6.48; 9.3.76, a consensus has formed around locating a prog. of “Aelius Theon” in the latter half of the first century CE: Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 2–6; Kennedy, Prog., 1–3. Objections to this opinion, and an overall consensus, is found with Malcolm Heath, “Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata,” positing a fourth century CE dating. This opinion has not found a wide recognition. 176 This point is emphasized already in the abstract of “Progymnasmata of Theon,” and subsequently developed in the oeuvre of James Butts (see bibliography of the current study). 177 Kennedy, Prog., ix. See discussion of Kennedy’s argument in relation to Lk, in Mikeal C. Parsons, “Luke and the Progymnasmata,” 46f. 178 Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, 20. 179 An exact number of ἀγράμματος/illitteratus in Greco–Roman antiquity is difficult to establish. A classical estimation of ca. 12–15% literacy in the period has been suggested by William V. Harris,

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facilitated teachers with a treatise for guiding students in learning syntax, formulating short passages on their own with advanced theories of persuasion. Practice and theory conjoin in these treatises, functioning on many levels of the ancient educational system in this period, where the tools and techniques discussed in the handbooks were essential to the formation of the students’ mind, to paraphrase Cribriore.180 For pedagogical purposes, a general taxonomy of the educational system reads as follows. On an initial plateau (γραμματιστής; ludus litterarius), students around the age of seven to eleven (primarily boys, yet sporadically also girls) of elite status and sometimes enslaved persons trained for literary services, learned the alphabet, wrote their name, and copied brief fables or poems (which they would not have been able to read yet). On another plateau (γραμματικός; schola grammatic) the students, now around the age of eleven to fifteen, have become far fewer. They continue to practice writing and begin to read short passages of Homer and other Greek poets. Grammar was now studied more systematically, by learning how to inflect words into different cases, and finally to compose brief passages on their own, such as short letters, or recite an anecdote. On a final plateau (ῥήτωρ; schola rhetorici), students are fewer still and made up of entirely young men, age fifteen to nineteen, with the purpose to train in the creation of declamations: fictitious speeches adapted to fit different purposes, topics, and audiences. It is at this last stage when students had the opportunity to formally study rhetoric, or choose other subjects such as law, medicine, or philosophy.181 A number of studies examining the practices of education in particular places and instances of the Greco-Roman period offer reasons to question or at least add nuance to the ideal three-tier separation of stages popularized by Marrou.182 In reality, the argument goes, a number of factors affect the progression from one stage to another, meaning that Marrou’s three plateaus were compressed, or adapted, to a situation producing rather two primary phases.183 Regardless, the prog. rightly resides Ancient Literacy, 13. Cf. Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, on the level of literacy in first century CE in the area. 180 A “school” in the modern sense of an institution of pupils gathering in a designated building is anachronistic. Rather, individuals with financial support that gathered around an employed teacher formed a school of students, often located at certain loci known as “didaskaleia, ‘teaching places’”: Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 18 (for a succinct review of the phenomenon, see especially 15– 44). 181 There were, of course, a variety of other learning institutions available in Greco-Roman antiquity. See discussion on ancient discussion in relation to the fable (μῦθος) and Lk, in Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, 131–72. 182 On the educational situation in ancient Rome in relation to the stages, Lisa Maurice states that although “there are often assumed to be three stages of education in ancient times, corresponding to elementary, secondary, and higher education in the modern world, the extant evidence commonly points toward a recognition of two stages of education, that of the grammaticus and that of the rhetor, rather than three”: Teacher in Ancient Rome, 2 (cf. 2–17; on prog., 76–78). 183 Reason to reject a triadic scheme as a factual representation of the Greco-Roman learning system is presented in Ian Phillip Brown, Pepaideumenoi and Jesus, 7–49. An ideal perspective of a “three-stage progression ignores the fact that social class and geographical location played

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somewhere in between plateaus and allows for a crucial insight into learning to think and compose ancient prose and narration, for beginners and more advanced students of rhetoric alike.

The Preliminary Exercises In Theon’s treatise, the following list of exercises (γυμνάσματα, gymnasmata) is presented: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii.

Anecdote (χρεία): “a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person, and maxim and reminiscence are connected with it.” Fable (μῦθος): “a fictitious story giving an image of truth,” in line with Aesop’s infamous collection. Short story (διήγημα): “language descriptive of things that have happened or as though they had happened.” Commonplace (τόπος): “language amplifying something that is acknowledged to be either a fault or a brave deed.” Description (ἔκφρασις): “descriptive language, bringing what is portrayed clearly before the sight,” often concerning artwork, but sometimes also narrative-sections. Speech in character (προσωποποιία): “the introduction of a person to whom words are attributed that are suitable to the speaker and have an indisputable application to the subject discussed.” Speech in praise (ἐγκώμιον): “language revealing the greatness of virtuous actions and other good qualities belonging to a particular person.” Comparison (σύγκρισις): “language setting the better or the worse side by side.”

significant roles in the ways in which a student progressed through school, particularly at the lowest levels” and in relation to scholars like A. D. Booth and Robert A. Kaster “suggests a somewhat more radical split into two streams,” which in Booth’s perspective is defined as “vulgar letters (primary schools) and liberal letters (secondary school). Vulgar letters were taught to slaves and townspeople who needed only a craftsperson’s literacy for their day-to-day lives, and liberal letters were taught to the social elite in large cities such as Rome. For the instruction of vulgar letters, a γραμματοδιδάσκαλος taught material from both primary and grammatical curriculums (the forming of letters through longer writing exercises), thus taking on the role of both a γραμματοδιδάσκαλος and a γραμματικός. Instruction in liberal letters began with a proper γραμματικός, with students having learned letters and words at home with a πεδαγωγός or from a parent or learning their first letters with the grammarian. There is evidence that some γραμματοδιδάσκαλοι taught beyond the “primary” curriculum, and evidence that more elite students were introduced to letters by a γραμματικός. But this alone does not suggest as hard a break between vulgar and liberal schooling as Booth suggests”: Pepaideumenoi and Jesus, 31. Morgan and Cribiore accept Booths and Kaster’s suggested move from the Marrou into a two-tier perspective of ancient educational levels. I am thankful to Britt Dahlman for comments on this issue and in an earlier version of this study.

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ix. x.

Thesis (θέσις): “is a verbal inquiry admitting controversy without specifying any persons and circumstance.” Law (νόμος): “a decision of a political nature by the people or by a leading man, regulating how all those in the city should live, not limited to a certain period of time.”

The exercises of the prog. are arranged in relation to difficulty, on two levels.184 First, and in relation to the unpretentious exercises in brief narration, there is a primary group of elementary “episodic narratives (mythos, diegema and chreia) [that] are basic to Greco-Roman rhetoric.”185 These are to be separated from the latter exercises (speech-in-character, comparison, etc.). Second, the simpler exercises of fable or short story can be elaborated and expanded almost ad infinitum, where “young students” (νέοι) would find it challenging enough to write by repetition an already formulated fable, and the advanced student could integrate a newly composed story into other exercises (e.g. an ἐγκώμιον) or develop a certain detail on with many lines.186 The skills cultivated by the handbooks thus exist on a spectrum of the exercises, beginning at simple and ending with the complex, all aiming to pedagogically enable students to attain maturity.187 For instance, after learning the definition of an anecdote or short story, the variety of shapes and sizes it takes and the virtues (ἀρεταί) associated with it (such as clarity, σαφηνεία; brevity, συντομία).188 A beginning student would approach a particular anecdote, about, let’s say Socrates, by changing it into different cases, from nominative to accusative. The more advanced students would move on from this to expand the content of the anecdote or compress it, following Theon’s rule, or even refute or confirm it. These more advanced abilities are techniques used for expressing a form like the anecdote, in this case, according to the needs of the rhetor, and more generally aiming at teaching

In the prog. “the early patterns are forms (mythos, diegema, chreia, gnome) and invite formal drills, while latter patterns are speech types or discursive strategies which demand exercises in composition and performance”: Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 94–95. Emphasis original. To this end, Niklaos’s prog. argues clearly that narration is separated from all other exercises in terms of simplicity: “[a]fter fable should come narrative (diêgêma), as being more argumentative than fable but simpler than all the other exercises”: Kennedy, Prog., 136; Prog. Nikolaos, 2.2–3. 185 Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 146. 186 Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 95: “Because the pedagogy aims to be cumulative, it is massively repetitive: in most Progymnasmata, for example, enkomion is taught first as an exercise on gnome or chreia, only to return as a pattern in its own right, the object of its own exercises in topical versatility rather than formal variation.” 187 Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, 20–21, labels Theon’s definition and introduction of a rhetorical form as “first-order exercise.” Expanding on a taxonomy of exercises in Theon further, Damm goes on to locate “second-order exercises” with the technique of recitation (ἀπαγγελία), inflexion (κλίσις), comment (ἐπιφωνεῖν, ἐπιλέγειν), contradiction (ἀντιλογία: only for anecdotes), expansion (ἐπεκτείνωσις), and compression (συστολή), and finally the “second-cycle exercises” of reading (ἀνάγνωσις), listening (ἀκρόασις), and paraphrasing (παράφρασις). 188 See Marília P. Futre Pinheiro, “Thoughts on Diēgēma,” for an excellent summary of diêgêma in this context. 184

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how to compose forms in slightly different ways and improving already existing material.189 While the exercises are especially important to the formal study of rhetoric and its final stages, their function is far wider, and in some cases even a first level student might be confronted with an example of a fable or poem. The reality of education often meant that exercises were adapted to fit different purposes and audiences: The literary-rhetorical curriculum varied in content, length of study, and methods of delivery; the methods of delivery were affected by local resources. That having been said, it is still valid to think of this ancient curriculum as divided into three stages, even if those three stages were not all experienced by every student and did not always align with three distinct sequential teachers.190

In any case, the handbook imagines an ideal student, on the secondary or third plateaus, and presents them with indispensable tasks needed for the shaping of their mind. Even if the handbook’s exercises were not followed closely, techniques of narration and forming a diêgêma, for instance, nonetheless present a primary influence on ancient narratives in the cultural period surrounding the composition of Mk.191 The importance of these exercises, and training in rhetoric in general, can be demonstrated with the following contextualization from Kennedy: All literature is “rhetorical” in the sense that its function is to affect a reader in some way— “to teach and to please,” as the Roman poet Horace and many other critics put it—but beginning in the last three centuries B.C., much Greek and Latin literature is overtly rhetorical in that it was composed with a knowledge of classical rhetorical theory and shows its influence.192⁠

In the end, haunted by an opinion of its ataxia or not, the advanced form of composition found in the prose of Mk fits nicely into the context of prog. and ancient

For clarification, while the first subset of exercises (refutation, confirmation, and invective) discussed above are more like standalone exercises, the second order exercises or cycle work in synergy with rhetorical forms, as modes of expressing the forms, in different ways. 190 Robert J. Penella, “‘Progymnasmata’ in Imperial Greek Education,” 77. 191 In this manner, the analyses of Mk 14–16 through the grid of progymnastic forms of narration are to be considered from the position of underlying techniques important for the composition of episodic narrative in first century CE, rather than as attempting to locate the exact ideal the writer(s) of Mk were consciously instantiating. The present identification of diêgêmata and chreiai underlines nonidentical repetitions of progymnastic exercises rather than locating ideal essences of the complex and rugged shape of prose, unwilling to conform with ease to the rhetorical standards projected onto brief and lengthy attempts of narration. 192 George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 2. Laurent Pernot draws attention to this stance in terms of “letteraturizzazione”: “Rhetoric in this light no longer aims only at speeches but extends to all literary compositions (in the broad sense, including philosophical demonstrations, inscriptions, scientific treatises etc.). In the Imperial age, it seems that rhetoric is everywhere and that it is expanding its realm to the point of leaving a quite noticeable mark, in substance and form, on the literary genres apart from it”: Rhetoric in Antiquity, 196–97. 189

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education.193 Moreover, the episodic organization of the work makes it rewarding to compare the different pericopes to progymnastic exercises. Even though Mk is most probably not the direct product of a student assignment, and does not have to fulfill a teacher’s ideal requirements for an episodic narration with anecdotes or short stories, the educational background for the writer(s) is more than likely indebted to the techniques found in the prog.194 Further, previous studies in the vein of rhetorical criticism, such as Vernon Robbins, Ronald Hock, Marion Moeser, and Alex Damm in particular, have successfully demonstrated a line of (progymnastic-like) rhetoric running through Mk. This is especially true with regard to the anecdote (chreia). Yet questions remain. Henderson defines the present challenge ahead by summarizing the complex nature of the gospels: From the point of view of Graeco-Roman rhetoric each Gospel is a tour de force of progymnasmatic invention and disposition, each Gospel weaving mythos, diegema, chreia, and gnome into a distinctive narrative and ideological framework—though each also remains in its way centered on the character of Jesus.195

Against this background of organizing the episodic nature and a narrational acme with death, how can Theon’s prog. and the primary exercise of the diêgêma contribute to an appreciation of taxis? And what is the relation of exercises of narration in prog. to rhetorical practices and theories, on a general level?

Progymnasmata, Rhetoric, Diêgêma, and Failure If rhetoric is the ancient art of weaving words and expressing thoughts, the use of first century CE narrational episodes are naturally related to the activities of progymnastic teachers. Henderson’s description above is therefore essentially correct and multilayered, as the Mk is a textual texture of episodes (“mythos, diegema, chreia”), expressing rhetorical thoughts centered around “the character of Jesus.” First century BCE historian and rhetorician, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, elaborates on the centrality of weaving in the work On Literary Composition (Περὶ Συνθέσεως Ὀνόματων). The art of composing literature is here a synthetic approach to words and ideas, where “pragmatic” ideas are synthesized with the expressive nature of language: 193 Cf. Morgan, Literate Education, 190, pointing out

that rhetoric’s “importance is out of all proportion to the relatively small number of literates (and the minute proportion of the population) who studied it, because it was widely (though not universally) regarded as the culmination of the enkyklios paideia.” Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 21–22: “The gospel writers were far more than literate in Greek. They had mastered at least the basic progymnasmata (‘the only thing approaching a common [educational] experience of the elite’). Gospel literature shows its authors to be members of an exclusive though variegated class by virtue of their access to the widely but thinly spread technology of Greco-Roman liberal rhetoric.” 194 Cf. Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, 9–20 (17). 195 Henderson, “‘Salted with Fire,’” 44.

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In virtually all kinds of discourse two things require study: the ideas (τὰ νοήματα) and the words (τὰ ὀνόματα). We may regard the first of these as concerned chiefly with subject-matter (πραγματικός), and the latter with expression; and all those who aim to become good orators pay close attention to both of these aspects of discourse equally.196

A key to any analysis of ancient literature (σύνθεσις) is to divide material with the categories of thoughts and words.197 The task of learning how to compose a text is therefore a task of learning how to think with proper words, and the balanced order of the two. While thoughts are bound up with the “subject-matter” of composition (τοῦ πραγματικοῦ), the relation between thoughts and words is found in the arrangement and organization of words. In short, rhetoric is at its most fundamental point an ordered balance of idea and word, and the surface between thought and thing: The most elegant writers of poetry or prose have understood (the behavior of letters and syllables) well, and both arrange their words by weaving them together with deliberate care (ὀνόματα συμπλέκοντες ἐπιτηδείως ἀλλήλοις), and with elaborate artistic skill adapt the syllables and the letters to the emotions which they wish to portray . . . Thus the poets and prose authors, on their own account, look to the subject they are treating and furnish it with words which suit it and illustrate it . . . What is the main gist of my argument? It is that the varied effect of the syllable is produced by the interweaving of letters (τὰς τῶν γραμμάτων συμπλοκὰς), that the diverse nature of words is produced by the combination of syllables, and that the multiform character of a discourse is produced by the arrangement of the words.198

In the first instance, a sentence is carefully crafted by ordering and transforming thought to text. Soon, however, Dionysius elaborates on this point, stating that “The functions of composition are to arrange words in a proper relationship to one another, to fit clauses together properly, and to divide the whole discourse suitably into periods.”199 That is, after the ordered weaving of a sentence, it is equally important to speak of a higher order, where clauses and “periods” (more or less an ancient concept for a “paragraph”) are fitted together. We are now ready to be been introduced fully to the delicate realms of ancient rhetorical activities of order or arrangement (τάξις), style (λέξις), and thought (διάνοια). It is worth pausing here, before the discussion turns to the hitherto largely neglected episodic form of the diêgêma and its relevance for the passion narrative, and ask what can the activities of taxis, lexis, and dianoia inform us about rhetorical narration? Prior to the systematization and stabilization of the five primary activities of rhetoric—invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery—Aristotle spoke of thought (διάνοια) in a manner corresponding to what other call inventio (εὕρεσις). And even before this, at a juncture in Plato’s Phaedrus, Socrates contrasts his art of Dion. Comp. 1. An early, influential discussion on thought in rhetorical composition is found in Arist. Rh. where διάνοια (“intention” or “thought”: logical and inventive part of composition: e.g., 1.13.17–18; 3.10.4–5) is central and foreshadows the conceptualization of “invention” in later theory. 198 Dion. Comp. 15–16. 199 Dion. Comp. 1. 196 197

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dialectics with oratory, and supplies a fifth century BCE perspective on the arrangement of a rhetorical speech: Phaedrus: I think you give this method the right name when you call it dialectic; but it seems to me that rhetoric still escapes us. Socrates: What do you mean? Can there be anything of importance, which is not included in these processes and yet comes under the head of art? Certainly you and I must not neglect it, but must say what it is that remains of rhetoric. Phaedrus: A great many things remain, Socrates, the things that are written in the books on rhetoric (λόγου τεχνή). Socrates: Thank you for reminding me. You mean that there must be an introduction (προοίμιον) first, at the beginning of the discourse; these are the things you mean, are they not? The niceties of the art. Phaedrus: Yes. Socrates: And the narrative (διήγησις) must come second with the testimony after it, and third the proofs, and fourth the probabilities; and confirmation and further confirmation are mentioned, I believe, by the man from Byzantium (Theodorus), that most excellent artist in words.200

Socrates represents a generic structure of a typical speech in ancient rhetoric.201 The fourfold arrangement of a speech became increasingly associated with the ability to create such a discourse, canonized through concepts of invention, arrangement, and style.202 In short, the order of a speech related to a higher order of activities of five cardinal concepts: i. ii. iii. iv. v.

invention (εὕρεσις, inventio) arrangement (τάξις, dispositio) style (λέξις, elocutio) memory (μνήμη, memoria) delivery (ὑπόκρισις, actio/pronuntiato)203

Pl. Phdr. 266d–67d. On Plato’s description, Kennedy states that “[a]lthough Greek literature from the earliest times was ‘rhetorical’ and illustrates techniques that were eventually defined and described, the fifth century was a crucial time in the emergence of a consciousness of rhetoric on the part of speakers and audiences”: Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 24 (30–35). 201 Parts of archetypical forensic speech are 1.) introductory proem; 2.) narration “leading through” the main facts and happenings that have taken place (which is a literal translation of διήγησις; cf. Kennedy’s discussion in the introduction to Hermog. Inv. 2.109f.; 3.) proofs of the particular case that is made by the speaker (which can have a number of subsections as Socrates indicates; and finally 4.) epilogue. Greek rhetoric is characterized by its forensic oratory, which Socrates outlines in Pl. Phdr., and is defended in Arist. Rh. (Cf. Kennedy, Persuasion in Greece, 126; 152). 202 In relation to the principal genres of oratory (juridical, epideictic, deliberative; cf. Theon 1.61.20– 24), Mk and 14:32–16:8 in particular is probably closes to an epideictic definition (cf. Arist. Rh. 1.9 on this genre). Still, it is difficult to assess its panegyric function: is it “praise” or “blame”– prose, or something in between? 203 Cf. Harry Caplan’s introduction to Rhet. Her. (LLC 403, xvii–xxiii) for an insightful approach to the rhetorical “activities” (officia, ἔργα). 200

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Interestingly, Theon is particularly influenced by Aristotelian rhetoric and displays influence from the Peripatetic and Stoic traditions of oratory, which enforces the recurrent function of the language of idea; thought (διάνοια) in the treatise.204 It is therefore important to remember that out of these fivefold activities, “invention, arrangement, and style are the three most important parts of classical rhetoric, applicable equally to public speaking and written composition.”205 In Aristotle, thought (διάνοια), order (τάξις), and style (λέξις) are central for a comprehension of narration (διήγησις).206 In correspondence to the order of speech, and its three cardinal concepts, the thought, order, and style of the narrative episodes of 15:6–39 will prove the most important concepts for the analysis of the failure of narration in the current study. The concept of a narrational activity (diêgêsis) was deeply intertwined with issues of order from the beginning. Noted by Plato was the ability “to lead” an audience “through” (διάγεσθαι; to lead, guide through) relevant happenings or facts to consider, as the second aspect of delivering a speech. And Aristotle reminds us the presentation of past occurrences is never an innocent representation of a neutral, chronological chain of events. Rather, narration is always an adapted feature of an argument, serving the purpose of a composition, in one way or another.207 Below I will focus on issues of narration of Jesus’s death, from the perspective of prog. and the activities of taxis, lexis, and dianoia. The narrational elements of a James Butts argues convincingly that in “almost every chapter of the Progymnasmata one can discover to some degree or another parallels in thought and terminology between Theon and Aristotle himself, or between Theon and some later writer who also reflects the influence of Aristotle. There is also evidence that Theon knew Aristotle’s Rhetoric and Topica directly. Much more interesting is the fact that the author of the Progymnasmata is also heavily indebted to the tradition of Stoic rhetoric.” Further, and in relation to previous scholarship on Theon and Stoic rhetoric by G. Reichel (Quaestiones progymnasticae, Leipzig: 1909) and how thought and imagesin-thought (φαντασίαι, phantasiai) are treated, Butts notes that “[a] more substantiative manifestation of Theon’s Stoic leanings is contained in 93–102. Here Theon defends the use of paraphrase in the Progymnasmata by founding his argument on the Stoic concept of the ‘sense impression’ (he phantasia) . . . Theon did indeed work within the Stoic tradition of rhetoric. He gives, however, no clues about those predecessors who might have been conduits for his Stoci rhetorical influences”: “Progymnasmata,” 6–7, (with an extended discussion on 75, notes 20–22.) In relation to φαντασία in particular, Butts (erroneously) directs attention to Diog. Laert. 8.45–51 (while it is a passage on Zeno in 7.45–51 that reflects a treatment on the “doctrine presentation and sensation”). The Stoic use of images-in-thought and its relation to disorder and failure of thought in Mk 15:6–39, will be treated in chapter seven of this study, where the connection of Theon and phantasia is especially important, through the Stoic idea of φάντασμα (phantasma: empty imagein-thought). 205 Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 6. 206 Cf. John Burkett, Rhetoric III: A Commentary, 365–87. The Bergsonian image of a cone of memory, from Matter and Memory, is an adequate, interesting theory that interrelates the three cardinal canons with examplary image. Here, the three canons are virtual levels of the cone, while at the same time standing in direct relationship to a point of actualization, relative to their level of “relaxation.” With this image, the cardinal canons are all active when a point of rhetoric is produced yet responds and reflect different stages of the creative process of composition. 207 Arist. Rh. 3.6.12 discusses the ability to adjust narrational order and go against the chronological arrangement of the state of affairs. 204

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short story, and their ability to express the happening of suspension till death of the person of Jesus, will become especially important in this context. As will become clear, an unprecedented collection of short stories is found in the passion narrative, and in 14:62–16:8 where a linear thought unfolds death. With 15:6–39 however, the sequence of Jesus’s death and entombment in 14:62–16:8 also names a severely disordered aspect of an overall anecdotal, ancient work. In direct relation to the employment of chief elements of person and happening, a humorous and humiliating scene emerges from this section. While Jesus’s life in the texture of Mk is an anecdotally strong, capable, and witty person, the disordered diêgêmata on death present a weak, silent, obscene figure, that is executed naked and emptied of honor.208 That is, the higher order of narration in 14:62–16:8 contains an ironic, humiliating center with 15:6–39, that implodes all and any claims for compositional exception to disorder in the passion narrative. Taxis and Diêgêma What is the relation between narration and arrangement, in ancient rhetoric and the prog.? And most importantly, what is the relation of order (taxis) and the disordered sequence of episodes in Mk 15:6–39? The discourse on ordering composition, after Aristotle, is diverse, forcing the current section to consider literary aspects and treatises only.209 In Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s treatment of theories found with Demosthenes: good oratory depends on two factors, selection of subject matter (τοῦ πραγματικοῦ) and style of delivery, and that these two are each divided into two equal sections, subject-matter into preparation, which the early rhetoricians call invention (εὕρεσις), and deployment of the prepared material, which they call arrangement (οἰκονομίαν); and style into choice of words, and composition of the words chosen.210

Taxis in narration is interlinked with the notion of “good oratory” (τοῦ λέγειν εὖ) in general. Again, an ordered organization signifies the harmony of ideas and words, where invention, arrangement, and style all clarify an aspect of a suitable discourse. In the first instance, this harmony is associated with a.) with the virtue of arriving at a proper (πρέπον) choice of an idea to actualize, as well as b.) the arrangement of the properties fitting of the idea, in a text or speech. Secondly, the choice of words and composition of words in text or speech mimics the primary selection and actualization of ideas, and therefore its demand for order. In a similar way, Ps.The earliest surviving archaeological evidence that portrays Jesus’s suspension-execution clearly indicates nudity in the early Christian imagination of this event. Roy D. Kotansky at length quotes Jeffrey Spier and Felicity Harley on this aspect, in “The Magic ‘Crucifixion’ Gem,” 633–34: “Jesus is portrayed as a nude, bearded man with long hair, his arms stretched out beneath the horizontal bar (patibulum) of the T-shaped cross and attached to it by two short strips around his wrists.” 209 See Wilhelm Wuellner, “Arrangement,” for an excellent review of the many-sided aspects of arrangement in rhetorical theories of antiquity. 210 Dion. Dem. 51. Emphasis added. Order (as harmony of words and ideas) is also found in sections of Comp. (4,6) and Thuc. 208

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Demetrius’s discussion on style creates a background, with its dichotomy of an appropriate choice and deployment of words, in relation to ideas. When a plain style fails, for instance, Ps.-Demetrius claims that a lack of harmony appears in relation to how thought is articulated with words and their arrangement. Failed style is therefore a sign of failed arrangement, where either the appropriate set of words are lacking—perhaps trivializing a serious matter with too simplistic phrasing—or the thought itself is “dry.”211 Taxis is therefore a gateway concept for comprehending the relation of expressing thought with words and its many levels. This can be illustrated by turning to Ps.Hermogenes’s informative second century CE treatise, On Invention (Περί Εὑρέσεως). Here, the complexity of order in relation to narration is incarnated.212 Ps.-Hermogenes presents a detailed discussion on narrative (διήγησις; κατάστασις), at all times relating a walking through of persons in action to the problem of articulating composition. It is demonstrated beyond doubt that the activity of creating narration is thoroughly intertwined with invention (εὕρεσις), and the matrix of ideas and words.213 Further, mimicking the discussion of a three, or four-tier, organization of styles also found in relation to Dionysius and Ps.-Demetrius, Ps.Hermogenes states that “there are three manners of treating a διήγησις: simple, argued, highly developed.”214 Simple narration (ἁπλῆ) is to be used when a statement of various facts is enough to be convincing, while argued narration (ἐγκατάσκευος) to be used on political and other brief topics. Lastly, highly developed narration (ἐνδιάσκευος) aims at being “more rhetorical,” when “the facts (i.e. persons in action, or happenings) are few and rather clear.”215 Interestingly, Ps.-Hermogenes ends the discussion on narration, by bringing up the topic of summit for narration; its acme (ἄκμη).216 The discussion on the ability to create an emotional peak and high point is dense, speculative, and too elaborate to be directly relevant for our present purposes. Nonetheless, the concept of a narrational acme accentuates two important truths. One, rhetorical order is never a Demetr. Eloc. 236–39. This passage will be explored further in the following chapter on style. In the same vein, Ps.-Longinus also directs the totality of a composition to the ordering of ideas: Subl., 4: “experience in invention (καὶ τὴν μὲν ἐμπειρίαν τῆς εὑρέσεως) and the due disposal and marshalling of facts (τὴν τῶν πραγμάτων τάξιν καὶ οἰκονομίαν) do not show themselves in one or two touches but emerge gradually from the whole tissue of the composition (ὅλου τῶν λόγων).” 212 See Kennedy’s introductory dating of the work to “mid–second century CE, though largely written in third or fourth century and revised into its present form in the fifth or sixth”: Hermog. Inv. xvi (cf. xiii–xix). The purpose of the work in the current study is to draw attention to general aspects of narration, in the Second Sophistic period of late Hellenism, and therefore not tied to its unclear historical context, for instance, where it largely echoes the different prog. and Theon’s in particular. 213 In Hermog. Inv. 1.94 problem the manner of approaching the hypothesis of a declamation is treated in view of heuresis (εὕρεσις), signifying the activity of considered sources, topics, and techniques when expressing words and narrative. See Kennedy’ comment op. cit., 5, note 2. 214 Hermog. Inv. 2.122–23. Discussed in the context of manner (τρόπος) of the subject matter, the tripartite ability of narration is a τρόπος of the narrative as such. 215 Hermog. Inv. 2.123. 216 Hermog. Inv. 2.125. 211

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zero-sum game, and two, when there is order, there will be certain points of intensity. In narration, as elsewhere in composition, the goal is persuasion and effectiveness. And a point of intensity is bound to be constructed, willfully or otherwise, in a narrative arrangement. The question is not whether ancient rhetoricians used the concept of arrangement in relation to narration. Rather, where is a particular arrangement located, and what is its function? Arguably, the concept of the acme in an ordered, or even disordered, composition is a constructive manner of thinking about the arrangement of words and ideas, and corresponding points of attention in narration. Turning lastly now to Theon, narration finds order when ideas and words form a coherency in relation to its elements, the virtues of style and the techniques of taxis. Besides the technique of stating a short story (ἀπαγγέλλειν) and weaving stories (συμπλέκειν), Theon also discusses the rearrangement of a story (τὴν ἀνάστροφην τῆς τάξεως):217 It is possible to begin in the middle and run back to the beginning, then to jump to the end . . . it is also possible to begin from the end and go to events in the middle and thus to come down to the beginning . . . Furthermore, it is possible to begin with events in the middle, go to the end, and stop with things that happened first. Or, again, beginning from the end to go back to the beginning and stop in the middle, and also starting from the first events to change to the last and stop with those in the middle. So much for rearrangement of the order.218

There are other techniques involved when ordering the material of narration, yet Theon sufficiently summarizes the present discussion on taxis and narration. The ordering of elements, and the accompanying use of style, are ultimately related to the point of a particular narration.219 There is here an implicit notion of locating an acme (to speak with Ps.-Hermogenes), forming the story’s invisible point of gravity and center point. Taxis always stands in service of clear representation of the short story’s thought. The originary chronological order, of a particular situation, is therefore open for negotiation since happenings ought to be altered and molded to “speak a word easily and place it in mind.”220 In a word, the precise taxis of elements in the short story are never a neutral or innocent affair. Rather, it is to be constructed and hopefully crafted with care. The notion of a “natural order” in an originary, chronologic situation is not necessarily suitable for arrangement of the components of a composition. Order is, instead, to be critically approached, form the perspective of rhetorical theory.

Theon, 5.86.9, aiming at the reordering of the “natural order” of a stated story, for instance. See discussion on the natural order in a diêgêma (in Hdt. 3.1) in Theon, 5.86.22–87.6. 218 Kennedy, Prog., 34–35; Theon, 5.86.10–87.12. 219 The point of a short story is found with the harmony of word and idea, in relation to certain persons in action, along with the other four elements. 220 Kennedy, Prog., 14; Theon, 1.72.1–3. A Homeric maxim (Ῥηΐδιον τι ἒπος ἐρέω καὶ ἐνὶ φρεςὶ θήσω) is mentioned in relation to stylistic clarity. See Theon 1.71.31–72.3, for context. 217

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Lexis and Diêgêma Lexis (λέξις, elocutio) is the another major activity of ancient rhetoric, following heuresis (εὕρεσις, inventio) and taxis (τάξις, dispositio). If the previous activities drew attention to the organization of Jesus’s death with elements of person and happening, the task of style to consider the (dis)order and “weaving” of words and phrases in 15:6–39.221 Similar to the previous discussion on order, Dionysius of Halicarnassus—an important figure directly referenced by Theon at least once, as well as indirectly “echoed” and alluded to elsewhere in prog.—again provides an excellent definition of yet another fundamental concept. This time, Dionysius relates the process of choosing and ordering the words that make up a composition: The most elegant writers of poetry or prose have understood [the behavior of letters and syllables] well, and both arrange their words by weaving them together with deliberate care (ὀνόματα συμπλέκοντες ἐπιτηδείως ἀλλήλοις), and with elaborate artistic skill adapt the syllables and the letters to the emotions which they wish to portray . . . Thus the poets and prose authors, on their own account, look to the subject they are treating and furnish it with words which suit it and illustrate it.222

Dionysius thinks of style as harmony of syllables, letters, and words. When done right, letters create a pleasant sound for the ear. When done wrong, letters clash, are ambiguous and creates noise rather than music.223 If style is defined with the process of well-arranged words and phrases in prose composition, what is the relation of style to the short stories of Mk 15:6–39? Theon connects the issue of style in narration with a notion of virtue (ἀρεταί), and in particular clarity (σαφήνεια).224 What does virtue mean in this context? The Dionysius’s comment on the poets and prose writers’ “deliberate care” when ordering words will be the sole focus of the following chapter, where the suitability, and furnishing, of words will be compared with thought and subject matter. 222 Dion. Comp. 15–16. On Theon and Dionysius, see Lorenzo Miletti, “Herodotus in Theon,” 67, note 11, drawing attention to the exercise of listening (ἀκρόασις) in this context (Theon 14.106): “Some younger orators acquired so good an ability by listening to famous orators that their works were attributed to the master . . . Some critics, including the great Dionysius of Halicarnassus, say that the speeches Against Aristogeiton are by one of Demosthenes’s auditors rather than by himself . . . ”: Kennedy, Prog., 69; Theon 14.23–28. Jeffrey Walker, Rhetorical Education in Antiquity, 25– 26, elaborates on this locus, arguing that “The honorific mention of Dionysius [as “great”] would seem to place Theon in the Isocratean or ‘philosophical’ rhetorical tradition with which Dionysius identifies himself; and Theon cites Isocrates repeatedly.” See other relevant instances in Kennedy, Prog., 12, note 54; 14, note 59, and especially in relation to narration in 30, note 109, drawing attention to the influence and relevance for Dionysius in relation to the rhetorical theory of Theon. 223 On style in Dionysius, see Casper De Jonge, Between Grammar and Rhetoric, 213–47; 91–104, as well as commenting on Comp. 3, Dionysius’s ideas on the musicality of choosing correct words in composition: De Jonge, Between Grammar and Rhetoric, 84–89. On style and rhythm, see Arist. Rh. 3.8.7. 224 Theon 5.79.20–21. For the sake of delimitation and following the Aristotelian focus on clarity, this study will primarily focus on the chief virtue of clarity and the counterpart of obscurity. Other virtues (especially concision and credibility associated with the short story, in prog.) will be discussed primarily with relation to clarity. On the virtue of clarity in Aristotle and Dionysius, see De Jonge, Between Grammar and Rhetoric, 34–41; 251–328; 375–79. 221

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progymnastic virtues can be traced to Aristotle, and the argument that “it is not sufficient to know what one ought to say, but one must also know how to say it, and this largely contributes to making the speech appear of a certain character.”225 Aristotle’s emphasis on the “how” of composition is then connected to the stylistic virtue of clarity, where the heart of a discourse (λόγος) must be sharp: In regards to style one of its chief merits may be defined as clarity (λέξεως ἀρετὴ σαφῆ εἶναι). This is shown by the fact that the discourse (λόγος), if it does not make the meaning clear, will not perform its proper function (ἔργον); neither must it be mean, nor above the dignity of the subject, but appropriate to it. Of nouns and verbs it is the proper ones that make it clear (σαφῆ).226

When “nouns and verbs” create confusion and clarity is absent, the stylistic function of a text (λόγος) has come to a halt.227 Echoing Aristotle, Theon’s short story is said to avoid obscurity in two ways: “From the subjects that are described [i.e. its thought] and the style (τῆς λέξεως) of the description of the subject.”228 Theon argues that clarity results from a proper expression of thoughts, when their representation does not “depart from common understanding, or when one does not narrate many things together but brings each to its completion.”229 Clarity is not only considered to be commonsensical and natural to an appropriate thought, it is also distinct and not found stacking to many, difficult themes or happenings in close proximity. Further, “one should also guard against confusing the times and order (τὴν τάξιν) of events, as well as saying the same thing twice. For nothing else confuses the thought (τὴν διάνοιαν) more than this.”230 In other words, the use of style collapses somewhat when a disordered repetition of happenings creeps into the composition, for this apparently confuses the minds of recipients more than anything else. How is this related to the actual use of words and phrases (κατὰ λέξιν) in a short story? Theon stresses that “in aiming at clarity one should avoid poetic and coined Arist. Rh. 3.1.3. Arist. Rh. 3.2.1–2. Translation slightly adapted. 227 See the review of the development of virtues in Kennedy, Rhetorical Criticism, 25–26. 228 Kennedy, Prog., 29–30; Theon 5.80.9–11. Cf. Theon 2.71.31–72.3, on clarity in style and διάνοια. 229 Kennedy, Prog., 30; Theon 5.80.12–13. Dionysius champions this view: “We should follow nature (τῇ φύσει) as much as possible and fit together the parts of speech (τὰ μόρια τοῦ λόγου) as she demands”: Comp. 5). See discussion on clarity as commonsensical, “natural style” and its relation to Stoic logic in Dionysius, as well as this idea’s general function in Ps.-Demetrus, Ps.-Longinus, and Quintilian, in De Jonge, Between Grammar and Rhetoric, 253–328. In the end, obscurity arrives in composition when going against the natural and commonly accepted order of things. 230 Kennedy, Prog., 30; Theon 5.80.26–29. The phenomenon of “historical present tense” in Mk is precisely a rhetorical failure of time and can be seen in 15:6–39. Since this is a well-known problem within research, it will not be discussed in-depth in this study, since other less known traits of lexis deserve more attention. Cf. Charles E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St. Mark, 22, which references the work Horae Synopticae, by John C. Hawkins and 151 purported instances of historic present in Mk (in relation to the W/H edition). In 15:6–39, Hawkins draws attention to historic present tense in 15.16, v.17x2, v.20, v.21, v.22, v.24x2, v.27: Horae Synopticae, 147–48. See also Breytenbach, Gospel according to Mark as Episodical Narrative, 179–219. 225 226

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words and tropes and archaisms and foreign words and homonyms.”231 These are examples of the dictum above of introducing unwanted novelty and going against common sense. Language must be pure and not deviating from the idea of good Greek. Later rhetoricians signified this with the separate virtue of ἑλληνισμός (Hellenismos).232 With Theon’s cautioning against deployment of “foreign” words (ξένα) that are “native to some but not usual to others,”233 we get a glimpse at the unruliness of Hellenism’s polar opposite: barbarity. Quintilian’s elaborate discussion of this stylistic virtue might here be helpful, through its division of categories of unsuccessful deployment of words into barbarism, and solecism: “For the time being, let us define Barbarism as a fault in individual words . . . All other faults involve more words than one, including solecism.”234 “Foreignness” in word and style is particularly interesting, since this is barbarous on multiple accounts: unintelligibly to most, and arguably disharmonious for the rest, by presenting a minor pause within flows of the major language. The absence of clarity presents the possibility of an unvirtuous rhetoric with the vice of the obscure (ἀσαφής).235 For instance, style is unclear when there is ambiguity (ἀμφιβολία) with relation to the meaning of a word (barbarism) or its reference (solecism). The style of a short story is obscure when: it is unclear what some part of a word belongs to; for example, Heracles fights oukentaurois (οὐκένταυρις). This has two meanings, that Heracles does not at all (oukhi) fight with centaurs (οὐχί κενταύροις) or that he fights not among bulls (οὐχί ἐν ταύροις). Similarly, an expression becomes unclear when it is not evident to what some signifying portion refers; for example (Il. 2.270), “And they though distressed at him sweetly laughed.” For it is ambiguous whether they are distressed at Thersites, which is false, or at the launching of the ships.236

Kennedy, Prog., 30; Theon 5.81.8–10. Dion. Comp. 16, phrases the point well, in terms of creating a varied composition through beautiful letters and words: “It is that the varied effect of the syllables is produced by the interweaving of letters, that the diverse nature of words is produced by the combination of syllables, and that the multiform character of a discourse is produced by the arrangement of the words. This leads us forcibly to conclude that style is beautiful when it contains beautiful words; that beauty of words is caused by beautiful syllables and letter.” Emphasis added. 232 Kennedy, Prog., 97, note 23 (Aphtonios); 137, note 24 (Nikolaos); 185 (John of Sardis). 233 Kennedy, Prog., 31; Theon 5.81.22–24. “Strange words” produce frigidity (ψύχρα): Arist. Rh. 3.3, in the sense of improper and unclear use of words (3.2.). 234 Quint. Inst.1.5.6: Interim vitium quod fit in singulis verbis sit barbarismus; 1.5.34: Cetera vitia omnia ex pluribus vocibus sunt, quorum est soloecismus. Emphasis added. See 1.5.1–54 for the entire discussion and the corresponding discussion in Rhet. Her. 4.11.17–18. 235 On the prominence of obscurity as a chief literary and rhetorical vice from antiquity to the enlightenment, see Päivi Mehtonen, Obscure Language, Unclear Literature. Cf. Cicero exemplifying the generic danger of obscurity in oratory in relation to “Thucydidean” rhetoricians: “Those famous speeches contain so many dark and obscure sentences as to be scarcely intelligible (multas habent obscuras abditasque sententias vix ut intellegantur), which is a prime fault (vel maximum) in a public oration”: Or. 30. 236 Kennedy, Prog., 31; Theon 5.82.3–12. 231

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In addition to the list of barbaric uses of distinct words, Theon goes on to name many, other instances of the production of obscurity, with the barbarism of ὑπερβατά (hyperbata, that is inserting single words in a saying, and disrupting a phrase, and the solecism of sticking “digressive phrases and clauses in the middle of sentences”).237 And finally, “leaving out some words is contrary to clarity. One should also avoid using the same grammatical case when different people are involved.”238 Obscurity in style is presently seen as a cardinal vice, which results from a disharmonious use of words, in singular and plural. This creates a disorder within a text, in the shape of a multiplicity of meaning, digression, and repetition. The presence of non-Greek words like “Golgotha” and the phrase “Eli eli lema sabatchtani” are particularly interesting cases of obscurity, that point out a potentially distasteful non-Hellenism in style. Dianoia and Diêgêma For ancient rhetoric, it is not only the thought that counts. At the same time and in more ways than one, the thought of a text is responsible for the lasting impression of the composition and shines through the operations of order and style. To recapitulate, dianoia (διάνοια) is presently articulated as a manifestation of the cardinal concept of heuresis (εὕρεσις: discovery, a finding). Heuresis summarizes all activities involved with “finding” and relating thought to rhetoric; handling the substance of different types of oratory, and different functions of the many parts of a composition. Rhetorical thoughts are directly related to all the parts of speech, species of text, and the possibility of their failure.239 The concept of heuresis or dianoia denotes the proper function or section of a composition (such as the “idea” of a diêgêsis), as well as the singular ideas that unfold in the section of said speech, or text proportionately.240 Dianoia therefore determines the form of narration,

De Jonge summarizes Dionysius’s critique of Thucydides, in the form of a list of failed clarity, “there is contain hyperbaton, anacolutha, obscure words, complex constructions, long-windedness, redundancy, periphrases, grammatical irregularities, unclear figures, or ‘theatrical’ parallelisms,” Between Grammar and Rhetoric, 375. Except for long-windedness, the list is important for identifying many stylistic failures of 15:6–39 that reflects Theon’s concerns. 238 Kennedy, Prog., 31–32; Theon 5.82.21, 24–26, 27–30. 239 In Dion. Thuc, 41, Thucydides’s employment of thought (διάνοια) is attacked from multiple angles, associated it with a series of failure (ἁμαρτήματα) to which there apparently was no end: “I could furnish many more examples of clever but perverted thinking (διάνοια).” In a helpful review of these failures of διάνοια, Moessner notes that “Chief among them is Thucydides’s ‘elaborating’ too much upon episodes of lesser importance while ‘skipping too nonchalantly over incidents that require more thorough development’ (ῥᾳθυμότερον ἐπιτρέχων τὰ δεόμενα πλείονος ἐξεργασίας: Dion. Thuc 13). Proper ‘balance’ and ‘arrangement’ of episodes turn finally on the ‘intention’ (διάνοια) of the composer in communicating to his audience(s)”: “Epistemology of Dionysius of Halicarnassus,” 296. 240 The dianoia in questions deals with the noetic unity of “the death of Jesus” and last section of the panegyrical diêgêsis on the life of a messiah. 237

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imprinting an ideal unto all particular narratives—and a particular narration’s content (and describing an ideal of how to narrate a person’s death, for instance). The event of death itself was an idealized topic, by rhetoricians. After all, different modes of death were no small or abstract matter in Greco-Roman antiquity. In the discourses on great men and women, there was certainly a notion of dying well and in a persuasive manner. Socrates in Plato’s Apology and Phaedo gives a good example of dying well, in this context. Regarding Jesus’s death in particular, there is an antagonistic tension located between the mere thought of a man dying suspended on a pole emptied of honor and social standing, and an overall, writerly notion of devoting an entire work to this person. The dimension of dianoia aims to reveal the singular death expressed in Mk 15:6–39, and its relation to a general notion of suspension-execution. I ask: What is it that happens the passion narrative narrates the occurrence of death? The happening (pragma) of death here stands in relation to at least two levels of thought (dianoia): a.) a generic, “literate” idea of how to rhetorically represent the act of dying with efficiency, clarity, and credibility, and b.) the species or particular manner in which Jesus dies, suspended on a pole while ironically mocked as messiah and king. What is the relation between a generic and the specific dianoia essential to Mk 15:6–39? Theon’s discussion of the short story offers a relevant perspective to address these categories. Starting from the formal aspects of writing on death, the thought of suspension-execution or “crucifixion,” in a panegyrical, narrational work, Theon offers a helpful perspective on the ideal structure of the figure of Jesus. In the discussion on the short story, Theon depicts a complete person in the following manner: “Related to (παρακολουθεῖ δὲ τῷ προσώπῳ) the person are origin (or race: γένος), nature, training, disposition, age, fortune, morality, action, speech, death (θάνατος), and what followed death (τὰ μετὰ θάνατον).”241 This is the rhetorical idea of a complete person, not just in a short story.242 In relation to the passion narrative and following Theon’s scheme, 15:6–39 is equivalent to θάνατος (thanatos), while 15:40–16:8 corresponds to τὰ μετὰ θάνατον (ta meta thanaton). Death and 15:6–39 therefore names an individuated happening (pragma) in a series of happenings and other equally essential aspects of a person needed for a “full” rhetorical representation of an individuated, compositional figure.243 Death is associated with a series of happenings in the person’s life (παρακολουθεῖ δὲ τῷ προσώπῳ . . . θάνατος). To be precise, θάνατος is an penultimate, literary occurrence and prefigures the ultimate aspect of the life of a person with “what Translation slightly adapted from Kennedy, Prog., 28; Theon 5.78.25–27. Note that the list is to be considered as limited to narrational person per se. Rather, it covers topoi relevant for an encomium of a person in other rhetorical contexts as well. On Theon’s notion of person and Mk, see Matthew Ryan Hauge, “The Creation of Person,” 61–63. 242 See Cic. Inv. 1.35–39, for a lengthier treatment of persons and actions like Theon’s list. 243 “Those of the action (or happenings: τῷ δὲ πράγματι) are great or small, dangerous or not dangerous, possible or impossible, easy or difficult, necessary or unnecessary, advantageous or not advantageous, just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable”: Kennedy, Prog., 28; Theon 5.78.27–31. 241

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follows death” (τὰ μετὰ θάνατον), finalizing a complete list of personal traits and associations.244 In summary of this section and relating the primary activities of rhetoric as taxis, lexis, and dianoia, a study of episodic narration style is an approach to the task of regulating the balance between word and idea, sentences and clauses, sections, and parts.245 Arrangement and actual organization of language in composition is the outcome of the process of selection that determines a certain style. Thought is the object and lifegiving substance of order and style, providing the core matter of any composition. A delicate surface exists at the boundry of thought and text, idea and word, that names the ability to create harmony or cacophony in composition. Theon knew well that it was an immensely difficult task to learn the ideals of style and implement these in an arrangement in relation to thought, and expected students’ to fail, time and again. Still, Theon insists that the exercises are absolutely essential for every kind of discourse, and that “one should show concern for the arrangement of the words (τῆς συνθέσεως τῶν ὀνομάτων), teaching all the ways students will avoid composing badly,” asserting the need for harmony between word and idea, where: the style must be clear (σαφής) and vivid (ἐνεργής); for the need is not only to express a thought but also to make what is said dwell in the mind ([or in “the thought”] τῇ διανοίᾳ) of the hearers, so that what is said by Homer (Od. 2.146) happens: “I shall speak a word easily and place it in mind.”246

Stylistic order of word and idea is a delicate matter that needs years and years of practice to master completely. Mistakes are to be expected, and the student is thus to be guided carefully and slowly toward “a better way” of composition: The making of corrections (by the teacher) in the early stages of study is not aimed at the removal of all mistakes (τὰ ἁμαρτήματα) but at correction of a few of the most conspicuous in such a way that the young man may not be discouraged and lose hope about future progress. In this process, let the one making corrections explain why the mistake (ἁμάρτημα) occurred and how it is possible to compose in a better way.247

It will be argued below that Jesus’s death can be seen in continuity especially with his “nature,” “morality,” “action,” and “speech,” in the way it mimics previous sections in Mk. The passages speaking about becoming an enslaved servant and body for the many (Mk 10, 14) are discussed, in particular. 245 Dion. Comp. 2: “Composition is, as the name itself indicates, a certain process of arranging the parts of speech, or the elements of diction, as some call them.” (ἡ σύνθεσις ἔστι μέν, ὥσπερ καὶ αὐτὸ δηλοῖ τοὔνομα, ποιά τις θέσις παρ᾿ ἄλληλα τῶν τοῦ λόγου μορίων, ἃ δὴ καὶ στοιχεῖά τινες τῆς λέξεως καλοῦσιν). 246 Kennedy, Prog., 14; Theon, 2.71.7–9, 31–72.7. 247 Kennedy, Prog., 14. Emphasis added. Theon, 2.72.9–13. See the contextualizing discussion on section two of Theon’s treatise in Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 164–85, and its stress on the teacher’s role in education in general, and in this particular handbook. 244

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A manner of approaching issues of stylistic failure, where the surface collapses between word and idea is found with teachers pointing students, suffering of these kinds of disorders (προβλήματα), to study ancient narration (διήγησιν) in an act of mimesis.248 The Short Story (διήγημα) What does Theon mean with narration, and how is the diêgêma defined in relation to diêgêsis?249 Similar to the fable, and anecdote, the short story is a rhetorical form for expressing thought narratively. In brief, diêgêma is an ancient form that narrativizes persons-in-action (with special attention to the relation of πρόσωπον to πρᾶγμα; πρᾶξις). Further and with relation to the weaving of thoughts into texts, the discourse on narration (διήγημα; διήγησις) in Theon is a manner of practicing the expression of thought in an arrangement of ideas into a full plot or story—with a beginning, middle, and end—as well as answering the so-called six “journalistic questions” (στοιχεῖα: who, what, when, where, why, how).250 Theon defines the short story as: language descriptive of things that have happened or as though they had happened. Elements (στοιχεῖα) of narration are six: [1] person (πρόσωπον), whether that be one or many; and [2] deed (πρᾶγμα) done by the πρόσωπον; and [3] place (τόπος) where ἡ πρᾶξις was done; and [4] time (χρόνος) at which ἡ πρᾶξις was done; and the [5] manner of the deed (τρόπος of τῆς πράξεως); and sixth, [6] the αἰτία of these thing (i.e. τῆς πράξεως). Since these are the most comprehensive elements from which it is composed, a complete narration consists of all of them and of things related to them and one lacking any of these is deficient.251

The style that arranges word and thought is filtered by elements of narration; primarily, the “who” and the what” or in the manner a person (πρόσωπον) is Theon, 2.72.4–9. Cf. Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 182, note 38. Progymnastic exercise of narration refers to techniques of composing narrative, while rhetorical treatises generally discuss the ability to create a particular part of a speech (narratio.). Interestingly, discussions of narration in Cicero—Quintilian on the one hand and Theon and Ps.-Hermogenes on the other—demonstrate significant similarities, in stylistic virtues associated with narration. Cf. Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 361f. 250 In this study, the διήγημα-διήγησις binary in Theon is treated from the perspective of a part-whole relation, demonstrated with the three later prog., where diêgêma is the cog in the machinery of a diêgêsis. Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 128, note 14, 361, note 2; Vernon K. Robbins, “Narrative in Ancient Rhetoric,” 371; Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 206, note 80, and Mikael C. Parson, Luke, 22, note 4, all argue for the interchangeable διήγημα-διήγησις binary in Theon. See Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα” for a longer analysis along these lines. On this episodic form in Lk and Mk generally, see Mikael C. Parson, Luke: Storyteller, 22–25, and in the passion narratives of Lk and Mk in particular, see Gorman, Interweaving Innocence, 60–63, 172–74. Gorman does not discuss the exercise of narration in relation to individual episodes, however, and therefore more or less neglects its primary function in the passion narrative of Mk. Διήγημα in LXX: Deut 28:37; 2 Chr 7:20; Ezek 17:2; Sir 8:8–9; 2 Macc 2:24. Διήγησις in LXX: Judg 5:14; Hab 2:6; Sir 6:35; 9:15; 22:6; 27:11,13; 38:25; 39:2; 2 Macc 2:32; 6:17. Διήγημα is not mentioned in the NT and διήγησις appears only in Lk 1:1–4. 251 Translation slightly adapted from Prog., 28; Theon 5.78.16–21. 248 249

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involved with an occurrence (πρᾶγμα; πρᾶξις).252 Further, style and order is installed in a short story by way of locating it in relation to its primary virtues of clarity, concision, and credibility.253 Each virtue is associated with a certain manner of ordering the short story. Clarity, for instance, can come from the avoidance of departing from common knowledge or the already known, while brevity is attained when occurrences that will distress the audience are articulated as concisely as possible. Credibility is found when the miraculous and impossible are not allowed to determine the discourse. It is not fitting to include a talking animal in a short story, regularly found in Aesopic fables, for example. In the second century prog. attributed to Hermogenes of Tarsus, a diêgêma is explicitly said to be a narrational part, in the service of diegetic whole: A διήγημα differs from a διήγησις as a piece of poetry (ποίημα) differs from a poetical work (ποίησις). A ποίημα and a διήγημα are concerned with one thing, a ποίησις and a διήγησις with many; for example . . . the History of Herodotus is a διήγησις, as is that of Thucydides, but the story of Arion or of Alcmeon is a διήγημα.254⁠

The form of narration of the short story is of particular importance since ca. two thirds of episodes of the passion narrative (14:1–16:8) can be defined as diêgêmata. The remaining third is found in the shape of chreiai.255 The same ratio is valid for the sequence of episodes centering on the death of Jesus. The short story, and its manner of expressing thoughts by relating an execution-happening to the person Jesus is essential for a progymnastic analysis of notions of order and disorder in composition. Further, it differs in shape from anecdotes and demonstrates the ability

If a sentence is incomplete without verb and noun, then a short story is deficient when a main subject and pragmatic object, or occurrence, is not described. Ada Bronowski mentions an interesting scholion on Dion. Thrax., in Stoics on Lekta, 385, note 3: ”ΣDion. Th. 516.24–7: ‘χωρὶς ὀνόματος καὶ χωρὶς ῥήματος οὐ γίνεται αὐτοτέλεια τοῦ λογοῦ (“without the name and without the verb there is no self-complete sentence”). On a few pages earlier (383, note 2), the passage 262c5– d1 in Pl. Soph. is referenced in a similar manner: “These criss-cross definitions lay out the ground for the Stranger’s claim that names and verbs combine in an ‘interweaving’ (συμπλοκή) so as to produce the most basic logos, parsed as ‘the shortest and primary’ sentence.” On the centrality of person and happening in rhetorical narration, see Malcolm Heath, “Invention,” 91; Robbins, “Narrative in Ancient Rhetoric,” 372. 253 Theon, 3.79.20–21: ἀρεταὶ δὲ διηγήσεως τρεῖς, σαφήνεια, συντομία, πιθανότης. 254 Kennedy, Prog., 75; Prog. Hermog., 2.2. While repeating this definition, Nikolaos offers interesting alternatives, as well: “Diegema, as stated a little earlier, is an exposition of things that have happened or as though they had happened. Some have said that diegema differs from diegesis in that, they say, ‘diegesis is the exposition of the matters under debate in the lawcourts in a way advantageous to the speaker, while diegema is the report of historical and past happenings.’ Others have called diegesis the exposition of true events and diegema that of things as though they happened”: Kennedy, Prog., 136; Prog. Nikolaos, 2.1.12–17. Slightly adapted translation. The relation of narrative and short story is then described in connection to the historiography of Herodotus and Thucydides. Διήγησις is therefore not considered anything like a “genre” in the prog., but in service of other ancient genres, like “history.” 255 See discussion in chapter four of the present study. 252

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to express a structure that creates a full plot and serves the function of a central cog in relation to a complete narrative machinery that interweaves multiple episodes. Before moving on, the relatively high quality of prose composition in Mk demonstrates the educational background of the writer(s), and thereby suggests a familiarity with the exercises of prog. It cannot be known whether the anonymous writer(s) knew the contents of a prog. comparable to Theon’s treatise, yet the narrational exercises of anecdote and short story discussed in Theon’s prog. were foundational for the rhetorical culture of Mk. Even if the writer(s) of this work did not excel to the highest level of education, the exercises of diêgêma and chreia would have been unavoidable, as presenting rhetorical forms of basic, narrative composition.256 In anticipation of the discussion below, the death of Jesus will be found to exemplify an obscure form of composition where the elements of person and happening repeatedly obstruct narration from attaining the virtue of clarity. In short, Jesus’s death will be shown to demonstrate an unvirtuous form of rhetorical organization making a most distressful thought and word “in the mind of the audience,” to speak with Homer.

Significance of the Short Story (διήγημα) A closer inspection of the function and effect of the seriality (“disordered order”) of Jesus’s death-scene will be developed later in the current study, where the root cause of the disorder is in its relation to a rhetorical notion of arrangement, style, and thought. The bulk of the death-scene is currently argued to be constructed following the conventions associated with the form of progymnastic diêgêmata (short stories).257 Four out of the five forms of 15:6–39 reveal signs of the conventions of the short story. It will be argued that a failed thought, of the shameful expression of suspending the messiah to death on a pole in this degrading way, lies at the heart of this section and therefore is closely linked to the organization of short stories. The remainder of this chapter, however, is a discursive investigation of the form of the short story (διήγημα) in Greco-Roman antiquity. In contrast to the variety of studies dedicated to the anecdote in antiquity, the gospels in general, and the A good case can be made for the ubiquitous importance of anecdote, fable, and short story in relation to the school texts that remains from ancient Egypt. On this note, Morgan says that of the 19 exercises that survives, none “can be classified as belonging to a more advanced level than that covered in the progymnasmata by myth or story on in Quintilian by paraphrases of Aesop, sententiae, chriae, and ethologiae”: Morgan, Literate Education, 203. Cf. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 6; Morgan, Literate Education, 44–46, on the sample from Egypt as representative of the larger educational context of Greco-Roman antiquity. See discussion in relation to Lk, in Gorman, Interweaving Innocence, 43–44, drawing from the same sources, yet with the purpose of highlighting the technique of “paraphrase” in Theon. 257 Overall, the short story is the dominant episodic form of the passion narrative. Mk 15:6–15, 16– 20a, 20b–27, 33–39, are argued to be individual διηγήματα, while 15:29–32 is identified as doubleχρεία. 256

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anecdotal rhetoric of Mk in particular, the importance of the diêgêma for the passion narrative’s ordering of episodes needs contextualization. Although the following review is limited to selected writers of Greco-Roman antiquity, it will be argued that the short story is associated with different, discursive notions of bleak narration and even failure itself. A Stylistic Diêgêma What kind of discursive object was a diêgêma for rhetoricians in Greco-Roman antiquity? In the anonymously authored On Style,258 the diêgêma is mentioned as a “naked” example of narration. This opus never defines the short story in terms of its actual nature. Instead, this narrational form time and again exemplifies what one ought not to do in composition, or what one ends up with when failing to produce a proper and fitting style. Early in the treatise, the ascribed writer, Ps.-Demetrius, turns to the issue of “brevity” in composition (βραχεῖα συνθέσεως).259 In this context, the diêgêma names bleak, or at best neutral, instruction in contrast to a rich description and effective use of style. The option of stating and elaborating the thought “The Spartans to Philip: Dionysius in Corinth” is put in relation to the form of the short story, as this names a potential risk of faulty composition: “These brief words have a much more forceful impact than if the Spartans had expanded the sentence at great length to say ‘Although once a mighty tyrant like yourself, Dionysius now lives in Corinth as an ordinary citizen.’”260 The rewording of the initial statement no longer seems a rebuke but a piece of διήγημα, and it suggests a wish to instruct rather than intimidate. With this expansion the passion and vehemence of the words are dissipated, and just as a wild beast gathers itself together for an attack, speech should similarly gather itself together as if in a coil to increase its force.261

The short story is associated with “brevity,” and its occurrence should wake up the rhetor to the risk of instructing rather than intimidating. Diêgêma is then posited as unsatisfactory scaffolding of an occurrence, or a sequence of events that dissipate “the passion and vehemence of the words,” and hiding the potential of the underlying thought “just as a wild beast gathers itself together for an attack.” The diêgêma is a term for what one tends to end up with when style is too brief, and therefore fails to capture the dynamic noetic content in question. Classically attributed to Demetrius of Phaleron (third–second century BCE) and treated as an anonymous treatise in contemporary scholarship. Depending on attribution, the work dated to somewhere between second BCE–first century CE. “We cannot even be sure that the author was called Demetrius; if so, it was a common name, and no identification with any specific Demetrius is possible”: Innes, LCL 199, 301–11; cf. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 130. 259 Demetr. Eloc. 8. 260 To be clear, the example of lengthening the statement “The Spartans to Philip: Dionysius in Corinth” is not a short story. Rather, the term is used as a threat to effective and concise composition. 261 Demetr. Eloc. 8. 258

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Later, when unfolding the source for “charm” (χάρις) and developing insights into “brevity” (συντομία) in composition,262 the short story is said to result from unsuccessful charm. Ps.-Demetrius uses an anecdotal example for Xenophon: The very first source of charm is brevity (συντομίας), when a thought which would lose its charm if it were expanded is given charm by a quick mention, as in Xenophon: “This man has really nothing Greek about him, for he has (and I saw it myself) both his ears pierced like a Lydian; and so he had.” The ending, “and so he had,” has charm from its brevity, but if it had been expanded at greater length, “what he said was true, since he had evidently had them pierced,” it would have become a bald piece of διήγημα (διήγημα ἂν ψιλὸν) instead of a flash of charm.263

The episode that results from an absence of χάρις is plain (ψιλός) information. While Ps.-Demetrius does not attempt to define this narrational form here or elsewhere, the passage continues to convey the diêgêma with the function of an unembellished form of narration. In another section, devoted to the virtue of “forcefulness” (δεινότης),264 Ps.Demetrius again utilizes the short story: In composition this style would result, if, first, phrases replace clauses. Length dissipates intensity, while a lot of meaning packed into a few words is more forceful. An example is the message of the Spartans to Philip, “Dionysius in Corinth.” If they had expanded it, “Dionysius was deposed from rule and is now a poverty-stricken schoolteacher in Corinth,” the result would have been a virtual διήγημα (διήγημα σχεδὸν ἂν) rather than an insult.265

The passage highlights the risk of adding too many words to an argument and ending up as “near a story” (διήγημα σχεδόν) rather than, in this case, the intended “insult” (λοιδορία).266 Lastly, when discussing the ascending zig-zag figure of climax (ἡ κλῖμαξ),267 the following example is provided from rhetorician Demosthenes (384–22 BCE): “I did not express this opinion, and then fail to move the resolution; I did not move the resolution and then fail to serve as envoy; I did not serve as envoy and then fail to convince the Thebans.”268 The advantage to this figure is seen with the intensification, as “climbing higher and higher at each step.” However, if one expressed the same content in this manner “after I gave my opinion and moved the resolution, I served as envoy and convinced the Thebans” the effect is a “mere story “On Brevity” (τὰ περὶ τῆς συντομίας). Demetr. Eloc. 137. 264 “On Forcefulness” (τὰ περὶ τῆς δεινότητος). 265 Demetr. Eloc. 241. 266 The translation of διήγημα σχεδόν as “virtual” narrative is unclear, to my mind. The meaning of σχεδὸν in this context is “near, coming close to.” Virtual could be taken as meaning “possible,” or “inactual,” but is a bit too poetic to display what the passage intends with its warning of short stories, for present purposes. 267 Demetr. Eloc. 270. 268 Demetr. Eloc. 501–2. 262 263

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of events” (διήγημα ἐρεῖ μόνον), to which Ps.-Demetrius contrasts with the phrase “without force” (δεινὸν δὲ οὐδέν). Again, the terminology of short story is found with composition that does not achieve the highest style in the form of a listing of occurrences without much lasting effect. In summary, Ps.-Demetrius employs the diêgêma in association with composition defined with stylistic brevity, failed charm, and forcefulness. While never directly discussing or defining diêgêma, the short story is associated with naked narration and an unadorned or merely informational style. The diêgêma finds a style that scaffolds events together, in an instructional and uninteresting manner. Nonetheless, the short story still communicates with its audience through its brevity, loss of charm, and forcefulness, and therefore has some kind of rhetorical effect. A Historical Diêgêma Historian Polybius (ca. 200–118 BCE) finds many faults with the short story (διήγημα). What interests the present review of the diêgêma in Greco-Roman antiquity is the way the multivolume opus dedicated to the Punic Wars (246–146 BCE) Histories, attaches the discursive object of the short story to rival historiographers. Here, the short story is weaponized when Polybius’s use of diêgêma suggests a hopelessly biased form of narration.269 In Histories, Polybius uses the verb διηγέομαι (“to report in full,” “set in detail,” cognate to diêgêsis) in a positive manner, in contrast to diêgêma. Polybius is not against narration per se, but rather uses the short story as an example of failed narration. What is then the task of historical narration?270 To join (συμπλέκειν) the inorganic totality of the past into unbiased narration. The past is, according to Polybius, a dispersed container of worldly occurrences (αἱ τῆς οἰκουμένης πράξεις) that the historian is called to conquer, like how a Roman general wins a battle by unifying and deploying the troops at the right time. However, the short story is said to fail to represent a holistic perspective of history, representing instead an unnatural reporting of facts and indulging in rhetorical embellishment rather than paying attention to the nature of the past. For instance, in Book Twelve, the diêgêma is on par with artistic imagination over the “accurate method” of reporting facts as Polybius argues against using the wrong sources: In my opinion the difference between real buildings and scene paintings or between history and declamatory speechmaking is not so great as is, in the case of all works, the difference between an account founded on participation, active or passive, in the occurrences and one composed Christa Kennedy, “Classical Rhetoric,” 121; Edward Courtney, A Companion to Petronius, 16. This section and argument appears in a different version in Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα.” 270 Polyb., 1.3.3–5: “Previously the doings of the world (τὰς τῆς οἰκουμένης πράξεις) had been, so to say, dispersed, as they were held together by no unity of initiative, results, or locality; but ever since this date history has been an organic whole, and the affairs of Italy and Libya have been interlinked (συμπλέκειν) with those of Greece and Asia [i.e. related to all of the πράξεις treated in the Histories], all leading up to one end. And this is my reason for beginning their systematic history from that date.” 269

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from report (τῶν ἐξ ἀκοῆς) and the narratives of others (καὶ διηγήματος γραφομένων). But Timaeus, having no experience of the former proceeding, naturally thinks that what is really of smallest importance and easiest is most important and difficult, I mean the collection of documents and inquiry from those personally acquainted with the facts.271

The diêgêma is biased narration that misrepresent the happenings of the past. This sentiment is repeated elsewhere in the Histories.272 Anxious about the audience being uncritical of narration of happenings not grounded in an inquiry from personal experience, opponents and historiographical rivals are charged with a lack of experience of the events narrated, and therefore “naturally thinks that what is really of smallest importance and easiest is most important and difficult.” The short story is an account of past occurrences (διηγήμα γραφομένων) that lead to faulty history in the hands of historians without first-hand experience. In an attack upon fellow historiographers, the connection between diêgêma and historiographical failure is made even more explicit: For just as a living creature which has lost its eyesight is wholly incapacitated, so if History is stripped of her truth all that is left is but an idle tale (διήγημα). We should therefore not shrink from accusing our friends or praising our enemies; nor need we be shy of sometimes praising and sometimes blaming the same people, since it is neither possible that men in the actual business of life should always be in the right, nor is it probable that they should be always mistaken.273

The problem of the rivals is articulated with the general perspectives of Philinus and Fabius. Polybius links the pair to what he calls “the case of lovers” that partially look with an unflinching and approving eye at the beloved (in this case the Carthaginians for Philinus and Romans for Fabius). Their biased perspective creates a favoritism that translates into a narrative logic. This judgement of the short story reflects the historian’s general interest in events rather than persons. In the Roman Imperial age, historian Josephus (ca. 37–100 CE) echoes Polybius’s point. In the opening of his history of “the Jewish War” (66–73 CE), Josephus agrees with Polybius: stories (διηγήματα) are rightly charged with a rhetorical and biased tendency.274 It lacks the perspective of the wide-open historical gaze. Josephus argues that diêgêma is similar to the writing of pieces of oratory focusing on the moral value of persons (ἐγκώμιον is oratory in praise of a person, Polyb. 12.6–7. Polyb. 4:11: “The true reasons then of the current flowing from the Pontus are these, depending as they do not on the reports of traders (ἔχουσαι διηγημάτων τὴν πίστιν) but on reasoning from the facts of nature (κατὰ φύσιν θεωρίας), a more accurate method than which it is not easy to find.” 273 Polyb. 1.14.5–7. 274 BJ. 1.1–2: “inadequacy of previous histories having taken no part in the action, have collected from hearsay casual and contradictory stories which they have then edited in a rhetorical style (ἀλλ᾿ ἀκοῇ συλλέγοντες εἰκαῖα καὶ ἀσύμφωνα διηγήματα σοφιστικῶς ἀναγράφουσιν); while others, who witnessed the events, have, either from flattery of the Romans or from hatred of the Jews, misrepresented the facts (τῶν πραγμάτων), their writings exhibiting alternatively invective and encomium, but nowhere historical accuracy (ἀκριβὲς τῆς ἱστορίας).” 271 272

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while κατηγορίαν is the opposite), rather than a disinterested, accurate inquiry (ἀκριβὲς ἡ ἱστορία) into the happenings in question (τὰ πράγματα). Is there an alternative to the short story? Again, these ancient historians hardly could position themselves against narration. Hellenistic historiography exclusively turns to narrational techniques for its expression.275 No, the antagonism of Polybius and Josephus against diêgêmata is strategic, and to be interpreted as a negotiation within a pragmatics of narration. A general difference between narration and history might be said to be that the first mode is connected to “telling” (narrative) and the other is “showing” (history) happenings (πράγματα). Rhetoric—as the power to persuade—arguably runs through both modes of “show” and “tell.”276 In other terms, Polybius is involved in a discussion placing the category of history as “hypernarration,” and putting concepts such as diêgêsis and diêgêma in their place as different types of “hypo-narration.” In summary, these ancient historians strategically blame the diêgêma for all the possible faults of historical narration focused on people, or certain groups, rather than neutrality of happenings. The reason for this attack is simple: historia is to be the “transcendent” form of narration of the past and happenings. The short story is deemed “rhetorical” in that it names a literary form of narration too “immanent,” and involved with matters at hand. The short story is thus found with faulty historians too invested in their object of study, and for the wrong reasons. History is factual and disinterested, while a focus of diêgêmata is too biased. Facts and a Fabulative Diêgêma Around the time of the composition of the canonical gospels, the short story stands in the junction of two roads. It has become a technical, educational, and compositional tool, with potential for both virtue and vice, fiction, and fact. With the arrival of the canonical Latin rhetors Cicero and Quintilian, as well as the Greek treatises of the prog. (first century BCE–first century CE), the short story finds a role among educational practices, and therefore a chance to become something other than an “Other.”277 At the same time, the Greek romance novel uses the short story Christopher Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian, 8: “[T]he rhetorical skill of molding narrative is… basic to whatever the historian do want to do. Greek historiography is fundamentally a narrative genre… Greek historians prefer to allow their big ideas to emerge through narrative⁠.” To evoke Theon, “Historical writing is nothing other than a combination of narrations (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂλλο τί ὲστιν ἱστορία ἢ σύστημα διηγήσεων”): Kennedy, Prog., 4.; Theon 1.60.5–6. 276 I am borrowing this dualism in relation to narration, from Pelling, Literary Texts and the Greek Historian, 8. 277 Cicero divided narration (narratio) into “three forms: fabula, historia, argumentum. Fabula is the term applied to a narrative in which the events are not true and have not verisimilitude… Historia is an account of actual occurrences remote from the recollection of our own age… Argumentum is a fictitious narrative which nevertheless could have occurred”: Cic. Inv. 1.19.27. Quintilian agrees: “We are told that there are three species of narrative, apart from the one used in actual court cases. One is fable, found in tragedies and poems, and remote not only from truth but from the appearance of truth. The second is plot, which is the false but probable fiction of comedy. The third is history, which contains the narration of actual events”: Quint. Inst. 2.4.2. 275

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for its particular manner of writing history-like prose, and fabulation (διήγημα πλασματιкόν).278 Theories defining the general rhetorical task of narration, in Greco-Roman Hellenism, were remarkably unified. Narration was either dealing with real happenings, or fictitious ones.279 On one end, the short story mimics this duality. In the prog., the diêgêma is valued for its ability to concisely narrate about persons-inaction, unburdened by the demands of an overly elaborate style, yet still aiming at clarity, concision, and credibility, to speak with Theon.280 Most importantly, the diêgêma is not considered to be foundationally flawed.281 This positive outlook of the prog. on the capabilities of brief-narration, highlights a significant shift with diêgêma as an object. In the first century CE, the short story is allowed to become more than simple and unadorned narration, naming a theory for how to construct a complex narration, from a part-whole perspective. On the other ends of the short story’s narrational dualism, the diêgêma indeed possesses power of fabulation (πλασματιкός). With the emergence of a new, romantic genre; fictious narratives weave short stories into a complex narrational. The fiction of Chariton of Aphrodisias and Xenophon of Ephesus stand out in this context.282 Stefan Tilg has convincingly displayed the manner Chariton refers to passages corresponding to the progymnastic short story, in particular the heroine Callirhoe’s abduction from her grave (3.4.1) through the phrase of “a new story” (καινὸν διήγημα).283 Chariton’s romance novel sutures many such stories of “Ancient rhetoric distinguishes between three genera narrationum according to their truth content, the fabula, which is neither true not probable (myth, tragedy), the historia, which reveal real events, res gestae/verae, and in the midst of the two is the sphere of argumentum (res fictae)–in Greek to diegema plasmatikon–which consists of tales, which are not true, but at least probable. According to standard research opinion the ancient novel, for which antiquity developed no consistent terminology, is included in this category”: Werner Riess, “Between Fiction and Reality,” 265. Cf. Niklas Holzberg, “Novels Proper and the Fringe,” 15–16, 27–28 offering a survey of diêgêma plasmatikon in relation to ancient novels. 279 Cf. Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 360–62, on the great similarities of the ancient rhetors on this point. 280 Kennedy states that most progymnasts accepted these virtues of the short story and refers to use of corresponding Latin terms in Quint. Inst. 4.2.31–32, who in turn locates the virtues origin with Isocrates. Kennedy, Prog., 29, note 107; cf. Pinheiro, “Thoughts on Diēgēma,” 24. 281 An excellent example of weaving different gymnastic-like forms mentioning diêgêma as well as other aspects of paideia into a totality is found in the introductory remarks of Dion. Ant. Rom. 1.8.3, where the shape of this history (ἡ ἱστορία) is presented as a mixture “of every kind [of idea of discourse], forensic, speculative and narrative” (ἐξ ἁπάσης ἰδέας μικτὸν ἐναγωνίου τε καὶ θεωρητικῆς καὶ διηγηματικῆς). See discussion on Walker, Rhetorical Education in Antiquity, 268–71. 282 In a corpus search using the database the Perseus Project (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ hopper/wordfreq?lookup=dih/ghma&lang=greek&sort=max accessed on 16-11-2022), the διήγημα is used ca. 20 times in Chariton, and ca. 10 time in Xenophon’s second century CE work Ἐφεσιακά, or Τὰ κατὰ Ἀνθίαν καὶ Ἁβροκόμην. Importantly, explicit appearance is a surface sign of its importance, and merely point to the employment of progymnastic composition. Other ancient writers signaling the importance of the term by its actual use are distributed in the oeuvre of Plutarch especially, as well as found the aforementioned works of Ps.-Demetrius, Polybius, Josephus. Cf. Stefan Tilg, Greek Love Novel, 198–99. 283 “Why does he use the plural διηγήματα in his title? This would only be a worry if we measured Narratives about Callirhoe using modern ideas of coherence and unity of narrative. At Chariton’s 278

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Callirhoe. With similar attempts at writing credibly and clearly on fabulative happenings, Chariton and Xenophon weave progymnastic-like-short stories to achieve their respective compositional goals. In many ways, these creative writers wrote with the semblance of a historiographer yet on fictive themes, creating a lifelike and real effect, by weaving multiple episodes together to form a longer, continuous texture. In the last instance, the diêgêma is an asymmetrically discursive and epistemological naming of ancient short stories, able to express both fact and fiction. While it is not as associated with disorder as the anecdote, neither is it considered a completely ordered literary form (like διήγησις, for instance). The short story is found as an in-between category, in rhetorical and fictional works around the first century CE, and can in this context be used both to express a fictive or real topic, in a historical and factual fashion.

Why Gilles Deleuze and Logic of Sense? In Plato’s the Sophist, the Stranger challenges Theaetetus and attempts to collapse the mysterious surface and separating word and idea (much to the annoyance of the ancient rhetoricians): Stranger: Is it, then, not already plain that the three classes, thought, opinion, and fancy (διάνοιά τε καὶ δόξα καὶ φαντασία), all arise in our minds as both false and true? Theaetetus: How is it plain? Stranger: You will understand more easily if you first grasp their natures and the several differences between them. Theaetetus: Give me an opportunity. Stranger: Well, then, thought and speech are the same (διάνοια μὲν καὶ λόγος ταὐτόν); only the former, which is a silent inner conversation of the soul with itself, has been given the special name of thought (διάνοια). Theaetetus: Certainly. Stranger: The stream that flows from the soul in vocal utterance through the mouth has the name of speech (λόγος)? Theaetetus: True.284

time, extended prose fiction was usually perceived as a multitude of events and corresponding stories—witness pseudo-historiographic plural titles such as Μιλησιακά (‘Milesian Tales’), Satyrica (‘Satyr Tales’) Τὰ ὑπερ Θούλην ἂπιστα (‘Incredible Things beyond Thule’), Ἐφησιακά (‘Ephesian Tales’)”: Tilg, Greek Love Novel, 215. See discussion in 178–88. 284 Pl. Soph. 263e.

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The theoretical line put forward is solely dedicated to approaching the separation of thought from text, in the shape of the problem of expressing thought (διάνοια, in distinction to δόξα and φαντασία) truthfully or falsely. What happens when the mouth utters what flows from the soul? How can the ideal be actualized faithfully? This problem lies at the heart of Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense.285 The work tries to respond to this Platonic problem, from a materialistic yet process-philosophical perspective. A “logic of sense” is an attempt to imagine the surface separating thought from texts, body from mind, by tracing the organization of ideas in the world and their ability to express sense (Fr. sens: direction, value, meaning, sense). Logic of Sense directs attention to the problem of a theoretical coordination of words and ideas, in relation to a counter-opinion (para-doxa) on how things “happen”: Everything happens at the boundary between things and propositions. Chrysippus taught: “If you say something, it passes through your lips; so, if you say ‘chariot,’ a chariot passes through your lips” . . . Paradox appears as a dismissal of depth, a display of events at the surface, and a deployment of language along this limit. Humor is the art of the surface, which is opposed to the old irony, the art of depths and heights.286

The comment on “the arts of depths and heights” is a direct attack on the Platonic system, differentiating an incorporeal heavenly plane “above” from the earthly plane of corporeal instantiation “below,” as articulated by ancient materialists such as the Epicureans. By naming the art of surface of thing and thought with “humor” Logic of Sense also takes a jab at the differentiator of Socratic irony. The argument seeks to locate a way out of a Socratic perspective by turning to ancient Stoics, like Chrysippus (ca. 279–206 BCE), describing this school as putting forth a surface (of idea and word) found in comical paradoxes. The flow from idea to mouth is paradoxical, since the word “chariot” is a material entity (λεκτός), according to the Stoics, and thus a literal wagon rightly pours out from the speaker of the word.287 This Stoic chariot-paradox makes the surface of word and idea gather around the event and a happening where something happens to the idea and the pronounced word “chariot.” Thing and thought meet at the border of an occurrence. Moreover, for the reality of this surface to fully emerge, paradoxa (παράδοξα) signifies a necessary break with doxa (δόξα), and opinions aligned with “common sense.”288 In order to come to terms with the bizarre and counter-intuitive reality of linguistic For an early exploration of the theoretical value of the philosophical concepts created by Gilles Deleuze (and the collaborator Félix Guattari) in relation to biblical studies, see the 2009 contribution by Bradley H. McLean, “Re-Imagining the New Testament Interpretation,” in Biblical Interpretation and Philosophical Hermeneutics, 268–301 and the extensive articulation in Deleuze, Guattari and the Machine in Early Christianity. See also the pioneering article by George Aichele, “Jesus Simulacrum,” drawing explicitly on Logic of Sense; a perspective that Aichele develops at length in the monograph Simulating Jesus. 286 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 8–9. 287 See Bronowski, Stoics on Lekta for an introduction to Stoic ontology in relation to the materiality of “sayables” (lekta). 288 Jon Roffe, Deleuze I: 1953–1969, 253. 285

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meaning, paradoxes must be embraces, it is argued. In contrast to a stubborn faith in an easily digestible world, Logic of Sense displays the value of obscurity, asymmetry, and a world in perpetual flux. Therefore, absurdity and nonsense defines the reality of the event. What determines the communication of thought and word? Or said differently, what defines a theoretical gaze on the synthetic task of rhetoric and organizing the ideal with the material in language? Jon Roffe recapitulates Logic of Sense with three questions, corresponding to the work’s three sections: i. ii. iii.

What are events, and how do they relate to the physical world, on the one hand, and language on the other? What makes language-use possible, not to mention critical thought? What meaning can be given to ethics if the physical world is causally determined?289

The event is said to act as a secretive element that communicates sub rosa at the limit of that divide yet also relates the two “series” of thoughts and things.290 Sense is considered a close friend with the event and so then are enigmatic paradoxes, and therefore a part of the communication-scheme, where thought is kept separate from things: When I designate something, I always suppose that the sense is understood, that it is already there . . . Sense is always presupposed as soon as I being to speak; I would not be able to begin without this presupposition. In other words, I never state the sense of what I am saying. But on the other hand, I can always take the sense of what I say as the object of another proposition whose sense, in turn, I cannot state. I thus enter into the infinite regress of that which is presupposed . . . In short, given a proposition, which denotes a state of affairs, one may always take its sense as that which another proposition denotes.291

In other words, sense is something like “the third wheel” of thought and thing, in relation to the problem presented by the Stranger. Sense is external to the separate series of thought and thing, yet conspicuously intertwined in the concurrence or momentary commitment of an idea and a word. The event is a philosophical concept slippery and complex enough to explain what is going on here: “We will not ask therefore what is the sense of the event: the event is sense itself. The event belongs essentially to language; it has an essential Roffe, Deleuze I: 1953–1969, 247. For a variety of reasons, Logic of Sense avoids the designation of “chapters,” working instead with “series.” Each series is an expression of a fundamental paradox. A main purpose of the series is also to convey that the book does not contain a fixed order of chapters, to be read in succession. Question I determines the discussion in series 1–18;23–26, while II in 27–34, and question III relates to series 20–22. 290 For an approachable introduction to Deleuze and the event in relation to a critical study of literature in general, see Ilia Rowner, The Event, 122–60. The current exposition of Logic of Sense is especially dependent upon the exegesis of Sean Bowden’s Priority of Events, James Williams’ Gilles Deleuze’s Logic of Sense, as well as the contributions to the special edition of Swedish Theological Quarterly “Gilles Deleuze och Jesu död” by Samuel Byrskog, Anthony Paul Smith, Hannah M. Strømmen, Petra Carlsson, Andreas Seland, F. LeRon Shults and David Capener. 291 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 22. 289

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relationship to language. But language is what is said of things.”292 The thesis described is as follows: the way which meaning is produced, by and in language, is the same process for how events “happen” in general. The evaluation of any situation or context is related to the processes that define linguistic operations of meaning production. It is here important to remember that the discussion on event in twentieth century continental philosophy is not concerned with a simple notion of causality or causation, but rather with the inner mechanism necessary for things to “happen.” In the words of Martin Heidegger, a central figure of the event (Ereignis): “One should bear in mind, however, that ‘the event’ is not simply an occurrence, but that which makes any occurrence possible.”293 To come to terms with the reality of how things mean, there is an impetus to think of the world as consisting in a corporeal realm of words, things, and state of affairs, which take on meaning and values in relation to an incorporeal realm of ideas, language, and sense. In other terms, on the one hand, there is an actual reality with embodied materiality of that which exists and on the other, a virtual reality of nonbodied entities that are equally real, yet does not exist in the material, but rather subsists, or insists elsewhere. Sense of any given sentence or text is bizarrely entangled in dual domains, while at the same time pushed out from being engulfed: Sense is both the expressible or the expressed of the proposition, and the attribute of the state of affairs. It turns one side toward things and another side toward propositions. But it does not merge with the proposition which expresses it any more than with the state of affairs or the quality which the proposition denotes. It is exactly the boundary between propositions and things. It is this aliquid at once extra-Being and inherence, that is, this minimum of being which befits inherences. It is in this sense that it is an “event.”294

To make things worse, Logic of Sense is strictly materialistic, and everything that happens is related to a material cause by necessity, creating interesting ethical problems and possibilities. Briefly, with Logic of Sense, the rhetorical task of organizing ideas in a synthetic sequence and weave of words finds a theoretical landscape, where meaning ultimately falls back upon a surface of radical disorder. For with Logic of Sense, the paradoxal, disorderly reality of events and sense is inseparable from any processes of meaning-making. This stress on the paradox will allow for an interesting reappreciation of the Papian doxa, where the disorder of Mk finds a voice independent from the ancient rhetorical regime of clarity and precision. Disorder can here be seen against the context of the secretive communication of meaning, by way of the event and obscurity be reappraised.295 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 25. Martin Heidegger, On Time and Being, 19. 294 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 22. Emphasis original. 295 To the possible and central critique of circularity when employing a theory indebted to notions of ontological ataxia in a methodological study of historical examples of disorder in literature, I wish to acknowledge the scientific challenge this presents. Biblical scholars invested in the discourse on 292 293

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Disorder and Failure What role does failure play in the operations of sense? In contrast to theories idealizing clarity, self-sufficiency, and ancient wisdom (e.g., Aristotle’s Rhetoric or Theon’s prog.), Logic of Sense looks specifically at nonsensical operations and writings like Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (1871) for inspiration. Failure in formal logic and that which goes against “common sense” is openly celebrated for their abilities of expressing a secretive truth of meaning-making through nonsense, impossibilities, and obscure occurrences. In Carroll’s oeuvre, a contradictory instance of Alice growing larger and smaller locates a principal duality of the paradoxical: “When I say ‘Alice becomes larger,’ I mean that she becomes larger than she was. By the same token, however, she becomes smaller than she is now . . . Alice does not grow without shrinking, and vice versa.”296 The impossible relation that the surface of idea and word form does not negate but rather informs processes of meaning-making. Sense is here related to both the proposition of “Alice becomes larger” and the direction of growing, which corresponds to the event said to take place. In other words, the scene of Alice eating the cookie, growing larger and larger, says something about how the happening is taking place through an ongoing becoming larger and then becoming smaller. Alice is becoming-larger only to look back at the size she once had, and in this way, preserves the sense of smallness. And on the other hand, when she is shrinking more and more in size, looking back or comparing to the size she once had, something of the largeness survives. It is said that the infinitival verbal form “to grow” and “to shrink,” exemplified in Alice’s eating the cookie and growing, drinking the potion and shrinking, moves thought in two directions at once. One can only comprehend becoming-larger as an endless process of growth by at the same time viewing this line of becoming as moving in two directions at once. The infinitive verbs “to grow” and “to shrink” harbors an endless becoming within their respective verbal action, which describes the expression of events through sense. The infinitive, in this case “to grow,” invites us to think becoming-endless in two directions simultaneously, which a logic of sense argued is a defining example of how sense animates language, in general. Sense at its purest is not a fixed notion or linguistic trait, but a conjunctive relay of divergent meanings marked by paradoxical movement. In other words, failure and disorder are arguably two central negative terms and problems for meaning-making, if defined by the doxa of common sense, seen for instance both in ancient rhetorical discussions and in the Papian fragment. From “theory” in general, time and again need to deal with this challenge and must continue to do so in the future. The potential danger involved when turning to “theory” is thus far from a specific problem for the present dissertation. Nontheless, potential complexities arising from the choice of a specific theory and its relation to the material at hand have been considered and informed the process of analysis from the earliest stages of this study. See for instance the discussion on Logic of Sense in relation to Archaeology, Theon, and Mk above. 296 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 1.

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another angle, Logic of Sense is invested in literature where obscurity unleash sense at its purest. The failure of clarity and distinct expression has a creative function that enhances an asymmetrical surface of thing and thought (against the ideals of Dionysius, for instance). Without thoughts brave enough to think the disordered and obscure, the creation of novelty in prose would be repressed and be forced to be confined to the already expressed, “by the ancients” to speak with Theon. In Negotiations, Deleuze lays out these points well: We have to see creation as tracing a path between impossibilities . . . Creation takes place in choked passages. Even in som particular language . . . a new syntax is foreign a foreign language within the language. A creator who isn’t grabbed around the throat by a set of impossibilities is no creator. A creator is someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates. Possibilities . . . it’s by banging your head on the wall that you find a way through. You have to work on the wall, because without a set of impossibilities, you won’t have the line of flight, the exit that is creation, the power of falsity that is truth. Your writing has to be liquid or gaseous simply because normal perception and opinion are solid, geometric.297

The “wall” created by disorder with death can from this angle locate a principal obstacle and challenge. The obscurity in 15:6–39 might therefore be traces of ancient, creative thinking, and a struggle to order words with relation to a disorderly idea. After all, before Mk and its description of Jesus’s suspension till death, no longer text had attempted to narrate this ancient, horrendouss and utterly shameful happening. 298 Paul the Apostle actively avoids a narrative description of the account of Jesus’s death, for instance. In 1 Cor., the mere notion of a discourse on the messiah “suspended to a pole” (Ὁ λόγος γὰρ ὁ τοῦ σταυροῦ) is a “foolishness” for the nations (μωρία) and “scandal” for the Jews (σκάνδαλον). In a similar manner, the post-Pauline writer of Hebrews also avoids an in-depth description of Christ’s death, yet points out that Jesus not only endured death by the tools of suspensionexecution, but also the shame that came with it (12:2: ὑπέμεινεν σταυρὸν αἰσχύνης). The foolish, scandalous, and shameful thought of a suspended messiah here expresses social death and becoming social-non-person that rightly names it as 297 298

Gilles Deleuze, Negotiations, 133. There is a potential danger of appealing to a concept like “social death” in view of the lived reality of those subjugated to this reality, in the present. At the same time, the metaphorical employment of “doulos” and “sôma” in the NT and early Christian literature (with direct relation to the figure of Jesus Christ) calls for careful, scholarly scrutiny of the rhetorical function of the same. Nontheless, it is important to disentangle the present study’s theoretical appropriation of the idea of becoming “social non-person” for the (failed) production of sense and meaning-making in Mk on the one hand, and the contemporary role of social death in relation to theories of (political) ontology and world-making on the other. A theoretical and compositional analysis of ancient enslavement must therefore be divorced from tendencies of theological validation of this practice, in the NT and beyond (see e.g., Paul the Apostle in Rom 1:1; Phlm 16; 2 Cor 4:5). For a nuanced review of ontology, meaning and social death in relation especially to the important work of Frank Wilderson III, see Thomas Lynch, Apocalyptic Political Theology, 23–32; 127–41, 151, note 88. For a excellent introduction to the subject of slavery and enslavement in the NT, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity.

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disorderly thought in itself. The “gaseous” style and corresponding disorder that defines 15:6–39 where, for instance, a description of persons and happenings often are left out, and crucial details are equally missing and end up making the picture obscure, is the attempt of the writer(s) to think productively through disorder failures. The ataxia of death therefore exemplifies a faithful tendency of a text attempting to put to words an idea which had not been articulated in narrative before. A proper analysis of rhetorical disorder’s effect is a challenge from many angles. The insight of failure, first expressed in Papias’s doxa, here calls for an appreciation of the paradoxa with death. A link of ideas and words articulating death is unclear. Yet, this is a productive, literary trait and surface for Logic of Sense. In service of literary novelty and the event, a compositional analysis can herein evaluate sense and directions of meaning invested in ataxia and obscurity in a new way.

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4. Prelude: Disorder and Diêgêma in the Passion Narrative

Training in exercises (τῶν γυμνασμάτων) is absolutely useful not only to those who are going to practice rhetoric but also if one wishes to undertake the function of poets or historians or any other writers. These things are, as it were, the very idea of every kind of composition (πάσης τῆς τῶν λόγων ἰδέας) and depending on how one instils them in the mind of the young, necessarily the results make themselves felt in the same way later.299

The critical mass of the passion narrative demonstrates traits similar of the form of the short story (διήγημα).300 An assemblage of short stories, developing a shared noetic theme (ἰδέα), is unusual to the Gospel according to Mark. 14:32–16:8 stands out for this reason. Interestingly, at the heart of this passage, there is a serial core (15:6–39), where a relay of clear and unclear traits resides. On the one hand, the short stories and anecdotes found here develop the scene of the messiah’s death, where one episode is interwoven with the subsequent, defining the exceptionality of 14:1–16:8.301 On the other, this death is haunted and determined by a disordered arrangement and style, resulting in an obscure thought. What kind of composition is found in the larger framework behind Jesus’s death, and what does this background supply for a study of the notion of order and disorder? In this chapter, diêgêmata are demonstrated as central to the organization of Mk 14:1–16:8, with particular attention given to the traits ancient rhetorical discourse relates to narrational shaping of thoughts (διάνοιαι). After considering a progymnastic overview of the episodes of the passion narrative, with the end goal of demonstrating the importance of the short story, Theon’s interest in techniques Slightly adapted translation from Kennedy, Prog., 13; Theon 2.70.24–32. The episodes in questions are mostly miniature narratives, with a beginning, middle and endpoint, revolving around person(s) involved in an action or happening, and therefore presenting a narrational self–sufficiency, not found in an anecdote for instance. “I noted that an anecdote, a ‘simple narrative,’ is an account of a single incident and lacks a plot. As will be shown below the διήγημα has a plot, that is, an outline of events . . . Moreover, the διήγημα differs from the χρεία since the latter ‘does not need and never includes any narrational explication of the after-effects of its climactic statement or action’”: Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 206–7. The reason for the hegemony of short stories in the latter part of the passion (14:32–16:8, and especially in 15:6–39) is probably due Jesus’s reluctance to speak, which renegotiated the anecdotal dominance of the work en toto and underlines a pragmatic emphasis on describing how the execution, and burial took place. 301 A review of diêgêmata in Mk 14–16 has thus far been missing in recent scholarship. See chapter five and the appendix below for a primary schematization of narrational episodes in the passion narrative, with an emphasis on the composition of Mk 15:6–39. 299 300

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involved in weaving separate episodes together is considered. Again, the main question is “What kind of narration characterizes the so-called passion narrative, and how does it relate to its anecdotes, short stories, and maxims?” Before moving on from this principal question, “elements of narration” (στοιχεῖα), and an obscure representation of “person” (πρόσωπον), and “happening” (πρᾶγμα), is said to reveal Jesus’s death in 15:6–39 to be the least clear passage of the passion narrative and perhaps even the obscure event of Mk as a whole. Lastly, the power and challenge with the diêgêma, as an ancient discursive object, is targeted. Situating this expression of the diêgêma in the context of Greco-Roman antiquity, a raison d'être for this epistemological detour is motivated by the fact that this “form” has been neglected in studies of the passion narrative. In parallel to the well-researched nature of the chreia, what potential drawbacks come with the ancient rhetorical discourse on diêgêma, in the first century CE? Are the peculiar problems with 15:6–39 and its obscure use of the elements’ “person” and “happening” an expression of known issues with the diêgêma?

The Order of the Passion Narrative The Passion Narrative and Diêgêsis What was the ancient “narrative”? Is Mk 14:1–16:8 really a passion “narrative”? The relevant ancient term for narrative is διήγησις, signifying in a generic sense “a complete exposition of things that have happened.”302 In a strictly rhetorical context, the term was formally associated with the second part (λóγου μέρη) of a speech.303 Yet over time, diêgêsis came to form the basis for writing a continuous composition on many things (πράγματα), including both historical and fictive topics. In relation to the prog., diêgêsis names a narrational totality, where diêgêma indexes the possibility of its parts. A whole narrative can thus be assembled from a series of partial short stories.304 A diêgêsis is hence not necessarily a genre description. Regardless of where one lands on the elusive issue of the genre of the

This definition is articulated well in Pl. Grg. (465e.) See discussion of this passage and narrative in Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα,” 65. 303 Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity, 221. From the third century CE Ars Rhetorica (Τέχνη ῥητορική), traditionally attributed Apsines of Gadare (3.1): “That narrations are an exposition of things that have happened (διηγήσεις πραγμάτων γενομένων) and that there is special need in narration of persuasiveness and clarity (πιθανότητος καὶ σαφηνείας) . . . I leave to other to say”: in Anonymous Seguerianus and Apsines of Gadara, Two Greek Rhetorical Treatises, 122–23. 304 This is perhaps best demonstrated with the title of Chariton of Aphrodisias romance novel: τὰ περί καλλιρόην διηγήματα. See discussion on problems with its originary title, in Tilg, Greek Love Novel, 21–22; 214–17; 243–44; 250–51. On Chariton’s relation to Theon’s prog. and the short story op. cit., 203–4, 208–9. 302

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“gospels”— with history (ἱστορία),305 biography (βίος),306 novel (πλάσμα),307 or gospel (εὐαγγέλιον)308 perhaps offering main possibilities— narrative (διήγησις) is nonetheless an apt rhetorical signifier for basic techniques that all genres employ, in one way or another. Consider the following example. Eusebius attacks the intelligence of Papias of Hierapolis, fearing the spread of his particular “perverse reading” of the gospels.309 The problem with Papias’s reading is found with the underlying thoughts that create a disorienting dogma. Papias is said to advocate for the millennial or thousand-year rule of a returning Christ and thus imagines a bodily realization of the kingdom of God on earth, post-resurrection. Eusebius tries to defend a gospel-message against bad ideas, and uses the term “apostolic narratives” (τὰς ἀποστολικὰς . . . διηγήσεις): I believe that he got (ideas of a millennial, corporeal kingdom) from misconstruing the apostolic διηγήσεις, not seeing that they were spoken by them in figures mystically. For it is apparent that he was a man of a middling mind (τὸν νοῦν), to judge form the very words he says.310

Eusebius is not trying to define the exact nature of the genre of the gospels, yet the phrase ἀποστολικὰς . . . διηγήσεις (often translated as “apostolic accounts,” in terms of a generic sense of diêgêsis) sufficiently brings out the general importance of narrative, as a backdrop technique.311 Further, note also that Eusebius treats Papias’s ideas as the root cause of a faulty conception of the apostolic diêgêsis. It is here interesting to note the possibility of considering the preface to Lk (1:1– 4) as critical of previous narratives and expositions (διηγήσεις) on Jesus’s life and death. Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative (ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν) about the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I, too, decided, as one having a grasp of everything from the start, to write a well-ordered account (καθεξῆς) for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may have a firm grasp of the words in which you have been instructed.312

Cf. Eve-Marie Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium. Recently argued for in Helen Bond, First Biography of Jesus. 307 Michael Vines, Mark and the Jewish Novel. 308 Andrew J. Byers, “Mark’s Gospel Is ‘Gospel.’” 309 Bart Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, translates “τὰς ἀποστολικὰς παρεκδεξάμενον διηγήσεις ὑπολαβεῖν” as a “perverse reading” of the apostolic accounts. 310 Hist. Eccl. 3.39.12–13, T5.12. Translation Carlson, Exposition of Dominical Oracles, 142–43: ἃ καὶ ἡγοῦμαι τὰς ἀποστολικὰς παρεκδεξάμενον διηγήσεις ὑπολαβεῖν, τὰ ἐν ὑποδείγμασι πρὸς αὐτῶν μυστικῶς εἰρημένα μὴ συνεορακότα. σφόδρα γάρ τοι σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν, ὡς ἂν ἐκ τῶν αὐτοῦ λόγων τεκμηράμενον εἰπεῖν. 311 In Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα,” the term “sub-genre” is used to the same effect. 312 Translation from NRSVue. On καθεξῆς in Lk 1:3b as signifying “chronological order,” in relation to Greco-Roman historiography, see Benjamin Wing Wo Fung, Meaning of “Orderly” (kathexês) Account, 219: “The study of καθεξῆς reveals that its root components are κατά and ἑξῆς, giving 305 306

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When comparing Loveday Alexander’s study on this prologue, the genre of hypomnemata along with Theon’s discussion on narration, suggests to Matthew D. C. Larsen that Lk indirectly describes an attempt to bring order and finesse to preexisting narrative material, already in circulation.313 Mk is identified to be an ideal candidate for a pre-existing and incomplete narrative account already in circulation. In contrast to less than adequate predecessors, Lk 1:1–4 then argues that the current composition will “1.) follow closely, 2.) everything learned 3.) from the beginning” and in the literary context of hypomnemata, mirrors “Galen’s language about creating a more finished, authored, and publishable text from previous textual objects, which looked more like textual raw material.”314 Larsen’s suggestion is productive for many reasons. Not least in light of Eusebius of Caesarea’s reception of Lk 1:1–4, which supports the preface as launching an explicit critique of previous narratives that implicitly includes Mk: Luke himself at the beginning of his treatise prefixed an account of the cause for which he had made his compilation (σύνταξις), explaining that while many others had somewhat rashly attempted to make a narrative (διήγησις) of the things of which he had himself full knowledge, he felt obliged to release us from the doubtful propositions of the others and related in his own Gospel the accurate account of the thing of which he had himself firmly learnt the truth from his profitable intercourse and life with Paul and his conversation with the other apostles.315

The term διήγησις is an essential compositional term, suitable for describing Mk for present purposes. Moreover, an identification of Mk with narrative techniques does not mean that the work was particularly ordered, by definition. Rather, taxis in

the possible meaning “next down to the end.” Further study of contemporary Greek usages of καθεξῆς indicates that καθεξῆς does not refer to just any logical order but to a sequence . . . καθεξῆς in Luke 1:3, therefore, likely refers to a sequence which means ‘next down to the end,’ with ‘next’ referring to the next act or teaching closest in time (the unit of measure) to the preceding act or teaching conducted by Jesus (subject under discussion).” See op. cit., 12–15 for a summary of previous scholarship on the meaning of “order” in Lk 1:1–4. 313 Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 85–87. Importantly, Larsen directs attention to the Papian doxa: “The person who wrote this preface is the earliest known reader of the textual tradition we now call the Gospel according to Mark. He finds it to be poorly ordered. One need not wait until Papias to find a reader of the Gospel according to Mark. The writer of the preface to the Gospel according to Luke is just as much a reader as Papias, and perhaps more so” (86). For an opposite view on Lk 1:1–4, connecting the preface to BJ. 1.17 in particular, see Isak Ioannes Du Plessis, “Purpose of Luke’s Prologue,” building on a classical study by Henry J. Chadbury (“Commentary on the Preface of Luke” in The Beginnings of Christianity). 314 Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 85. The link to Theon’s treatment of the diêgêma is especially important for present purpose. Larsen links the notion of prosôpon to the prologue’ in a highly creative manner: “The one who wrote the preface to the Gospel according to Luke claims to have ‘followed closely’ (parêkolouthêkoti) everything from the beginning (anôthen). What exactly does such a claim mean? Theon uses parakolouthein to denote the expected elements and arrangement of a character in a diegesis”: (85). 315 Hist. eccl. 3.24.14–15. See Larsen, Gospels Before the Book, 86–87 for a discussion on this passage, alongside notions of hypomnêmata and disorder in narration.

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diêgêsis was a sought-after rhetorical telos and ideal, in relation to historiography (Lk?) and the account of the life and death of Jesus (Lk, Eusebius).316 How was a narrative created? What constituted a narrative and narrational disorder? On a general level, a narrative can tentatively be defined as “an assemblage” on different “matters or happenings” (πράγματα) creating a plot that encircles a particular theme or “person.”317 This technique can be approached from the perspective of conjoining two, separated episodes of persons-in-action. Theon supplies an illuminating example of embedding one exercise with another (συμπλέκειν), since a fable (μῦθος, mythos) can be sown into a diêgêma, keeping something of its former self in its new shape, thus creating an assemblage corresponding in some way to a narrational sequence: “As an exercise, fable (μῦθος) is treated in a variety of ways, for we state the fable and inflect its grammatical form and weave it into a story (συμπλέκομεν αὐτόν διηγήματι).”318 While juxtaposing a fable with—or placing it inside—a short story does not conjure a narrative per se, the repurposing of the former to function as content for the latter nonetheless displays an act of “weaving episodes” together. A manner of getting from a single, narrational episode to a sequence of episodes is located with this exercise.319 Further, the mythos is arguably still “alive” while engulfed in the belly of its host, meaning that it does not completely dissolve, but rather creates an assemblage with a diêgêma.320 Theon returns to the technique of weaving in the discussion on the short story: The exercise of narrative (τοῦ διηγήματος ἡ γυμνασία) is not uniform; as in fable the narrative is stated and inflected and interwoven (συμπλέκεται) [with a fable] and compressed and expanded. Furthermore, in the statement (ἀπαγγελία) of it we alter the order (τὴν τάξιν) of the headings, and in addition it is possible also to keep the same order and to vary the expression

See Michael W. Martin, “Progymnastic Topic Lists,” for a convincing study on the (“topical”) order of Lk (especially the formal topoi arguably lacking in the narrative structure of Mk of origin, birth, training etc.), form the perspective on (Theon’s) prog. See development of this argument in Heather M. Gorman, “Crank or Creative Genius?” 68–69. 317 For a discussion of the definition of narrative as “sequence of events” see Andreas Seland, Divine Suspense, 37–43. 318 Slightly adapted translation from Kennedy, Prog., 24. Emphasis added. Theon 4.74.3–5. Theon first mentions that a fable is to be “stated,” and thus paraphrased in terms of repeating it in the way it was received. Then it can be changed with relation to the different cases used in the fable, and lastly that it can be extended by weaving a short story to the fable. 319 For the definite discussion on fables and Theon, see the important scholarship of Justin Strong on progymnastic parables, for instance in the article “Markan ‘Parables.’” 320 The practice of weaving episode to episode is noted in Strong, “Markan ‘Parables,’” 47–48: “Authors will also often explicitly say they are introducing a fable, much like the use of a formulaic phrase like ‘and he began to teach using analogies’ (e.g., Mark 4:12; and cf. 12:1). In an episodic narrative like Mk, weaving a fable into the story can be accomplished mechanically without appearing out of place.” 316

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in many ways. Moreover, while narrating it is possible to add a comment and to weave (συμπλέκειν) two or three narrations into the statement (ἀπαγγελία).321

Like mythos, a diêgêma is first related to the statement (ἀπαγγελία: apangelia). The apangelia is a basic, neutral report where an essence of thought is purely expressed, by stating its facts and the components of the essential core of a story. An apangelia is free from embellishment.322 The point above of apangelia is to recite, as clearly as possible, a main idea of a diêgêma, without any fuss and elaboration, in the shape of “a person did that to them, at this time and place, causing this other thing to happen, in this way.” A diêgêma can also be practiced by “compression” or “expansion.” For instance, by manipulating the thought and apangelia according to patterns of elaboration.323 In the first case, the richness of an idea in the story is to be cut short to its essentials. In the other, diêgêma is allowed to linger on a particular detail for a period of time. Since diêgêmata has several elements (pertaining to the so-called six journalistic questions), its form is flexible and can be expressed in a myriad of ways.324 It is also possible to “rearrange the order (τάξις)” of the story, and begin with the middle point, or perhaps ending and work through the tripartite structure from a wrong end.325 Once a student is confident not only with a brute report of a short story, but also able to handle compression, elaboration, and re-organization, a complex form of weaving (συμπλέκειν) arrives. Here, a single narrational dianoia, idea, noêma (found with the statement) can be integrated with additional ideas: It is possible to weave narration into narration (διήγησιν δὲ διηγήσει συμπλέκειν ἐστίν) whenever we try to narrate two or three narrations at the same time. The followers of Isocrates practiced this much and Isocrates himself did it in the Panegyricus as follows: “The children of Heracles came, and a little before them Adrastus, son of Talaus, being king of Argos. He was one of those who suffered misfortune in the expedition against Thebes,” and so on.326

Kennedy, Prog., 34; Theon 5.85.29–86.5. In line with the discussion of weaving by Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, Theon’s use of συμπλέκειν here signifies a “taxis–technique,” where ordering of disparate material as forged to coherency. 322 Theon 87.14–22, for a detailed discussion on the statement. 323 See the treatment of 14:3–9 below, for an example of elaboration of an anecdote. 324 On the link of narration and statement Butts, “Progymnasmata,” 361–62, notices that Rhet. Al. uses ἀπαγγελία as a synonym for διήγησις: 36.1442b.30: ”we shall attach reports of facts (ἀπαγγελίας συνάψομεν) to the introduction or demonstrate throughout the parts that the reports are credible and just or make them coherent by themselves.” 325 Theon 5.86.9–87.13; Kennedy, Prog., 34–35: “Explanation of statement and inflection and combination, as well as of compression and expansion, has been given in the discussion of fables . . . Furthermore, it is possible to begin with events in the middle, go to the end, and stop with things that happened first. Or, again, beginning from the end to go back to the beginning and stop in the middle, and also starting from the first events to change to the last and stop with those in the middle. So much for rearrangement of the order.” 326 Kennedy, Prog., 39; Theon 5.92.23–30. 321

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In other words, the apangelia of a diêgêma is an essential expression of narrative thought and can be related to similar statements, creating a weave of narrational ideas. From this angle, a narrative is akin to beads on a string, made from individual episodes on different happenings (πράγματα).327 For example, a short story (διήγημα) on a single issue can be woven unto another short story, creating a cluster of stories (διηγήματα, corresponding individual πράγματα). According to Theon, “historical writing is nothing other than a combination of narrations (οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂλλο τί ὲστιν ἱστορία ἢ σύστημα διηγήσεων),”328 signaling that the arrival of a narrative (διήγησις) is found when the theme explored is exhausted, and the weave is sutured shut (in this case, in the shape of a “history”). An informative tangent to Theon’s discussion of weaving pragmata into a larger narrative texture can be found with the first century CE writer, Lucian of Samosata.329 In How to Write History, Lucian describes underlying processes of writing narrative by assembling disparate happenings into a narrational totality: The task of the historian is . . . to give fine arrangement to events (διαθέσθαι τὰ πεπραγμένα) and illuminate them as vividly as possible . . . For all the body of the history is simply a long narrative (τῆς ἱστορίας διήγησις μακρά ἐστιν). So let it be adorned with the virtues proper to narrative, progressing smoothly, evenly, and consistently, free from humps and hollows. Then let its clarity (σαφής) be limpid, achieved, as I have said, both by diction and the interweaving of the matter (τῇ συμπεριπλοκῇ τῶν πραγμάτων). For he will make everything distinct and complete, and when he has finished the first topic he will introduce the second, fastened to it and linked with it like a chain, to avoid breaks and a multiplicity of disjointed narratives; no, always the first and second topics must not merely be neighbors but have common matter and overlap.330

Lucian thinks of history as “long” narration (ἡ ἐπὶ τὴν διήγησιν μετάβασις). Emphasizing that “it be adorned with the virtues proper to narrative, progressing smoothly, evenly and consistently, free from humps and hollows,” Lucian puts his finger immediately on the pulse of weaving narration as discussed in Theon. The risk of creating improper, disordered, and unvirtuous transitions, out of stringing one happening (πρᾶγμα) to another, makes it possible to speak of at least two sets of “weaves.” Firstly, an episodic narrative ought to be balanced and create a virtuous sequence of happenings, where the one thing naturally and without gaps leads to the other. Secondly, an episodic narrative is, at the same time, at risk of lacking balance and instead present “a multiplicity” or block of disordered and unrelated matters. A well-balanced diêgêsis is sequential, virtuous, and clear (σαφής). A disordered narrative is in contrast serial, unvirtuous, and obscure (ἀσαφής). The virtue of clarity is stressed, since serial “humps and hollows” stand This metaphor has rightly become the symbol summarizing Formgeschichte. The present study thus enforces an essential “form-critical” insight into the texture of Mk. 328 Kennedy, Prog., 4. Emphasis added. Theon 1.60.5–6. 329 Theon is fond of borrowing examples of short stories especially from ancient historians, notably Herodotus and Thucydides. 330 Hist. conscr, 51; 55. 327

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in its way. A methodology for narrational clarity is described earlier in the same treatise. Perspicuity arrives when “stitching words together” (συνθήκη τῶν ὀνομάτων) is “cultivated in a well-tempered moderation, without excessive separation or detachment,” and without assembling happenings or “facts” (πράγματα) “at random.”331 Interestingly and corresponding to a movement from isolated episode to sequence and telos with a full narrative, Lucian describes the importance of executing the narrative in writing in a similar manner. Advice is given to first collect a list of relevant happenings, then write a “series of notes, a body of material as yet with no beauty or continuity” and “then after arranging them in order” let the assemblage of πράγματα “give it beauty and enhance it with the charms of expression, figure, and rhythm.”332 Lucian here voices the virtue of compositional improving obscure series into clear sequences of facts and things (pragmata) in narration. Extending Eusebius’s notion of disorder caused from “bad” ideas in the mind of Papias and expanding on Lucian’s comments on an organizing narrative, Dionysius of Halicarnassus sheds further light on the issue. When criticizing a troubled passage, in On Thuchydides, Dionysius here joins Eusebius in finding fault with the thought of a composition.333 Thucydides is here yet another example of “a perverse mind,” where rhetorical use of thought (διάνοια) causes failure (ἁμαρτήματα). According to Dionysius, the infamous historian persists in elaborating (ἐξεργασίαι) too much on insignificant happenings and creating an imbalance to the things that really matter and “skipping too nonchalantly over incidents that require more thorough development.”334 In contrast to Eusebius’s polemic against Papias’s perverse intellect, Dionysius offers a more pragmatic antagonism against Thucydides, underlining that (dis)order emanates from thoughts, in the last instance. Shaping Episodes: Mk 14:1–16:8 Ian Henderson is entirely correct to draw attention to a fixation with anecdotes in rhetorical studies of the gospels, and a neglect of “the other basic rhetorical school patterns—gnome, mythos, and diegema” that follows.335 Moreover, aspects of the Hist. conscr, 46–47. Hist. conscr, 48. The argument of identifying Mk as a series of notes, and with the middle position presented here of a text yet to be fully expressed in an appropriate style, has recently been presented Larsen–drawing on this passage from Lucian–in Gospels Before the Book, 24–26. Larsen achieves this reading without identifying Mk with the genre of a history, and by doing so supplies a helpful perspective on the importance of Lucian on notions of order, narrative and disorder in Mk. In can be added that Mk is a distinctly Jewish and “barbaric” composition. It is unfinished also in translating its Semitisms, and foreign style and topics fully into a Greco-Roman framework of “Hellenistic” rhetoric. See chapter six on disordered style below. 333 Dion. Thuc, 41. 334 The present summary is particularly indebted to the excellent treatment of Lk 1 and Dion. Thuc. found in Moessner, “Epistemology of Dionysius of Halicarnassus,” 296. 335 Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 84. Emphasis original. 331 332

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rhetoric of the gospels, other than the interest in formal argumentation and a speechlike manner of persuasion (for instance found with the social-rhetorical approach) have tended to leave narrational, progymnastic techniques underexplored in Mk.336 The reason might simply be found with the ancient rhetorical disinterest in analysis of extended narratives. The prose most often lacks the beauty of style and is often related to Ps.-Demetrius’s discussion on “plain style.”337 From a progymnastic angle, Mk is narrative built on series of episodes with Komplexes of rather disconnected pericopes. The ordering of material prior to the passion narrative is distinctly disordered. The remainder of the current section is thus devoted to this issue and an analysis of the passion narrative. How can a progymnastic analysis of weaving of episodes and the composing of a narrative shed light on the topic of rhetorical arrangement in Mk 14:1–16:8? And are there instances of disorder in this passage? If Formgeschichte was correct to consider Mk to be incomplete or loosely structured and thereafter treated as a diêgêsis in need of organizing revisions, the arrival of 14:1 signals a change of pace where “the interweaving of the matters (ἡ συμπεριπλοκή τῶν πραγμάτων)” changes. Here, the text is less inclined to group episodes “at random,” to again evoke Lucian’s language on narrational historiography.338 Instead, a theme of trial and death of Jesus arranges the entire passion narrative in an unprecedented manner, organized around the days and hours of the festival of the Passover and the subsequent Sabbath. So, while Mk 1–13 more or less is a “series of notes, a body of material as yet with no beauty or continuity,” Mk 14–16 seems to introduce a more serious attempt on the part of the writer(s) to find the chronological holism desirable in this kind of narrative.339

Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 79–83 offers an important critique of the perspective of Robbins and Mack, and the persisting issues with a one-sided obsession with the chreia in rhetorical analysis of the gospels. Emphasis original. 337 Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 43–44. On the low style of Mk (contrasting the relatively “high style” of 1 Pet, “medium style” of Lk–Paul) see Alfredo Delgado Gómez, “The Style of Mark.” On rhetorical virtues in Mk and prog., see Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem. 338 The current use of Lucian’s comments on historiography does not attempt to create a direct link between the episodic and rather unique character of Mk and the specific discussion of historiography only, in Hist. conscr. Mk is not a failed history, in this study. Rather, the rhetorical use of narrative in Hist. conscr. functions to highlight the importance of the virtue of clarity and its connection with a non-fragmented manner of storytelling, in view of Theon’s discussion on narration and Greco-Roman prose composition, as epistemological discourse of Mk. 339 14:1–16:8 is arguably a decisive section. The opinion of its exceptional organization is the main stumbling block for Larsen’s otherwise convincing argumentation for identifying the text with a hypomnemata. If the current study is correct in treating the passion narrative as disordered in relation its expression of Jesus’s death, this strengthens Larsen’s claim, however. While the current study does not go into the question of the genre of Mk, Larsen’s important contribution to scholarly discussion and not least its employment of Lucian, Papias, Eusebius is to be underlined, even though it does not follow Gospels Before the Book beyond its conceptualization on notions of order and disorder, from a general and progymnastic perspective. 336

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The following episodes of the passion narrative display noteworthy semblance with the compositional character of the progymnastic exercises of anecdote, maxim, and short story, in particular: 14:1–2 Anecdote 14:3–9 Elaborated anecdote (vv.3–4)340 14:10–11 Anecdote 14:12–16 Short story 14:17–21 Double-anecdote, with a maxim (v.21b)⁠ 341 14:22–25 Double-anecdote 14:26–31 Short story 14:32–52 Short story, ending with an anecdote (vv.51–52) 14:53–72 Comparison342

15:1–5 Short story, encircling an anecdote (vv.1–2) 15:6–15 Short story, with comparison,343 ending with an anecdote (v.15) 15:16–20a Short story 15:20b–27 Deficient short story 15:29–32 Double-anecdote, with maxim (v.31b) 15:33–39 Short story, ending with an anecdote (v.39)344 15:40–41 Anecdote 15:42–47 Short story 16:1–8 Short story

From the methodological perspective of the prog., the passion narrative is presently found to contain eighteen individual episodes, with seven standalone anecdotes, ten short stories, and one comparison. The two dominant modes of brief narration of the chreia and diêgêma (χρεία; διήγημα) in the passion narrative, are different in degree rather than kind. An anecdote only needs the addition of the element of “what happened after the point was made,” after its maxim or reminiscence, to evolve or be integrated into a short story.345 What is then the short story’s relation to the anecdote? Let us remember the shape of a diêgêma, by considering the fourth century CE prog. of Aphtonios the Sophist. Here the short story is defined as follows: “There are six attributes of diêgêma (παρέπεται δὲ τῷ διαγήματι ἓξ): the person who acted; the thing done; the time in which, the manner how, and the cause for which it was done.”346 A short story is a pericopal, brief episode, which reports of a single person-in-action or happening of person(s), that typically contains a full plot, i.e., responds to Aphtonios’s six questions: prosôpon (person), pragma; praxis (action; happening), aitia (cause), topos (place), tropos (manner), chronos (time). When containing these elements, the Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 89. Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, 433. 342 Gamel, Markan Theology of Revelation, 102–3. This synkrisis contrast diêgêmata 14:53–65 and 14:66–72. 343 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 721 draws attention to 14:72f. and states that “the contrast drawn in this verse (15:15) between the fate of Barabbas and the fate of Jesus increases the likelihood that this scene is another example of rhetorical σύγκρισις; (comparison) in narrative form.” 344 15:39 is mentioned as typical anecdote in James Butts, “Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels,” 134. 345 Butts, “Passion Apologetic,” 105. See the appendix of the present study for a discussion of the episodes not discussed in the following chapters. 346 Kennedy, Prog., 96–97; Prog. Aphtonios, 2.8–10. See also comments by Anders Eriksson in Afthonios’ Progymnasmata. Cf. Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion, 63–64 for an instructive review of the elements of a diêgêma in relation to ekphrasis; Craig A. Gibson, Libanius’s Progymnasmata, 9–41 for ancient examples of diêgêmata, in relation to length and focus (on a single dianoia) especially. 340 341

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short story typically stands on its own, functioning with a characteristic selfsufficiency. Importantly, the short story (διήγημα) is built around a thought (διάνοια) of a happening (πρᾶγμα) concerning a particular person, or persons (πρόσωπα). The person and happening defines the thought that the miniaturenarration of a short story is expressing. Before the anecdote is defined, the charming diêgêma 14:12–16 will supply a helpful contrast of the forms: And on the first day of (the festival of) Unleavened Bread, when the lamb was sacrificed, his disciples said to him: “Where do you want us to go prepare for you to eat the Passover?” And he sent two of his disciples and said to them: “Go to the town, and a man will meet you, carrying a jug of water. Follow him, and wherever he will enter, say to the houseowner that ‘The teacher asks: where is my guestroom, in which I will eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show a large upstairs room already furnished: and there you will prepare for us.” And the disciples went out and into town, and found it to be like he told them, and they prepared the Passover.

This diêgêma contains all elements needed to form a short story. In contrast to the anecdote, it contains not only an introduction and main happening but also an ending, where the action (of preparing the Passover-meal) is completed. The thought of the story is found with the happening and persons of the story (πρᾶγμα and πρόσωπα), and the “preparing” of the “Passover-meal” commissioned by Jesus to the two unnamed disciples. The happening ties the story together with a saying of miraculous foreknowledge, on the part of Jesus (14:13–15) and the deeds of meal preparation (14:16). The happening indirectly answers both the question of “how” (manner) and “why” (cause) with the miraculous foresight of Jesus, and the command to prepare the meal. While Jesus and his disciples remain unnamed, it is clear from the story’s location in the overall context of the passion that it dealing only with Jesus’s disciples. This episode also includes an unknown man with a water jug and house owner. Traits of anonymity and slight obscurity do not dim the main action of preparation, however, leaving the integrity of the story unthreatened. Time and place are found with the arrival in “town,” (i.e., Jerusalem) and “upstairs room” “on the first day of Unleavened bread.”347 In the end, the short story has a clear beginning with a temporal marker, and ending, when the deed in question is completed at the middle point, with the saying of Jesus, as well as the disciples following the instructions and finding the Teacher to be entirely correct. Like the short story, the ideal anecdote also deals with a single happening (πρᾶγμα), from the point of view of a person (πρόσωπον). This is not surprising, since the anecdote (and fable) share the short story’s narratological interest in expressing elements in relation to their distinct form. The anecdote is therefore not different from the short story in kind, but in degree. In contrast, however, the anecdote need not contain all the story’s elements. The anecdote intentionally ends 347

That the day of preparation and the first day of the festival is confused is a historical rather than a rhetorical problem. Cf. Yarbro Collins, Mark, 646.

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abruptly, often with a provocative saying or action. This form is therefore not interested in conveying a rich happening. Rather, the anecdote circles around a brief pragma. According to Theon, an anecdote is “a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person, and maxim and reminiscence are connected with it.”348 Reformulated, the elements of an anecdote are a.) “a brief saying or action making a point,” b.) “attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person,” c.) “and maxim and reminiscence are connected with it.”349 One can easily see that a collection of anecdotes, stacked on top of each other, creates an irregular texture. When considering the episode before the short story above, a gap is found when the anecdote 14:10–11 relates to the following episode. 14:10–11 is brief, self-sufficient, (in relation to 14:3–9 and 14:12–16) and ends abruptly after depicting its main action: And Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, went to the chief priests to hand him over to them (παραδοῖ). But (δέ) when they heard this, they were delighted and promised to give him money. And he began to look for an opportunity to betray him (παραδοῖ).350

This anecdote can be summarized as an action-chreia on the repeated focus on Judas planning and searching for a proper time to hand over or betray Jesus (14:10b, 11c: παραδιδόναι). The episode begins with portraying the circumstances surrounding this action, when Judas went to the high priests (14:10), and as a response to their offering him money (14:11a). The thought of this episode, with the action of searching for a proper time to hand Jesus over to enemies, is too fleeting for a short story, since it leaves too many aspects of a diêgêma lacking. Notice, however, that the same thought, of “Judas’s deed of handing him over,” is elaborated with a fullyfledged diêgêma in 14:43–52.351 Kennedy, Prog., 15; Theon 3.96.19–22. Importantly, Theon defines his own definition and supplies many examples with anecdote that does contain only a.) and b.), without c.), such as practical and mixed anecdotes (see Theon 3.98–99.12). Butts, “Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels” 133–34 supplies a more practical definition of the anecdote, in the following manner: “The chreiai . . . (1) begins grammatically in the same way as do most of those chreiai in the rhetoricians discussions (that is, with an aorist participle or genitive absolute construction usually translated (“on being asked” or “on seeing” etc.) (2) They attribute Jesus a saying or action which is (3) prompted by the question of another person or by a situation observed by Jesus. (4) The Jesus chreiai of this first group provide only the essential presuppositions for understanding the saying or action of Jesus. And (5) the often juxtapose discordant elements in such a way that one established pattern of thinking is called into question by another.” 350 The non-idiomatic redition of καί with “and” and δέ with “but” above is strategic. The intention is to demonstrate syntactical hypotaxis in contrast to parataxis in the prose of Mk. In relation to 14:11, δέ is not taken as a strong disjunctive particle, yet nonetheless rendered with “but” in relation to the discussion in chapter six of the present study. 351 Furthermore, the notion of using an introductory anecdote that is followed up later in the narrative with a short story paraphrasing or realizing the same thought is repeated with the action-chreia of 14:51–52 on the naked young man, and the clothed young man in 16:1–8. The opposite is also 348 349

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In conclusion, what was the difference between an anecdote (χρεία) and a short story (διήγημα)? As demonstrated, the ancient anecdote is not interested in relating what happens after its person’s happening (in this case, Judas’s action). In contrast to the anecdote (finding a summit in a maxim, action, saying, or mixture of these),352 the short story has a beginning, middle, and, most importantly, an ending.353 A short story typically contains a full plot, while the anecdote does not.354 After the anecdotal point is made, it has fulfilled its formal purpose, while a short story is interested in “things, which happen after this central incident.”355 While this distinction makes the diêgêma a bit harder to formally pin down than the chreia or gnômê, it also allows for a greater variety than an anecdote.356

Weaving in Mk 14:1–16:8 Weaving Persons-in-Action Below, a succinct and nontechnical bird’s-eye view of the anecdotes and short stories of the passion narrative is presented, from the perspective of “narrative weaving.” From this viewpoint, where ordering episodes is disclosed by their expression of thoughts with narrational elements, the previous examples of an anecdote and a short story in 14:10–16 display crucial characteristics. While 14:10– 11 is loosely attached to the previous anecdotes, 14:1–11 still forms a distinct weave of episodes, in contrast to the episodes that came before and follow. In relation to a stacking of anecdotes “on top of each other,” 14:1–11 creates a serial cluster of episodes, rather than a strict, ordered sequence. In contrast, the short story 14:12–16 introduces a sequence of episodes, dedicated to the happening of the last meal (14:12–25). The last meal-sequence therefore makes it pertinent to discuss different organizational layers, in the passion narrative. There exists a hybrid form of narration, between an ordered and disordered manner of suturing episodes, in the passion narrative. A middle-form of episodic cluster and found with the short story in 14:53–65 and the anecdote 15:29–32, on mocking of Jesus, the Son of Man, and purported messiah. 352 Theon 3.96.18: πᾶσα γὰρ γνώμη σύντομος εἰς πρόσοπον ἀναφερομένη χρείαν ποιεῖ, καὶ τὸ ἀπομνημόνευμα δὲ πρᾶξίς ἐστιν ἢ λόγος βιωφελής. (Cf. 3.96.23–4.) The necessary two-part structure of a chreia is thus linking a maxim or reminiscence to a person, or something like a person. 353 Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 207; Butts, “Passion Apologetic,” 105. 354 Butts, “Voyage of Discipleship,” 199–219. 355 Butts, “Voyage of Discipleship,” 216. This can be seen in Theon’s discussion on where to start narration, either in the middle, work back to the beginning, or the toward the end: Prog., 34–35, Theon 5.86.22–87.6. 356 In terms of its formal quality, when stating its ideas or thoughts. An elaborated anecdote or fable, of course, comes very close to a short story on many levels.

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sequence appears in the string of episodes dedicated to the trial, ridicule, death, and entombment (14:53–16:8), with the disordered portion of obscure sequence of episodes in 15:6–39. For besides a weaving of serial cluster (14:1–11) and ordered sequences (14:12–31), there is also a serial sequence (15:6–39). Before the exact manner of how the episodes in 14:1–16:8 are organized or resist order is displayed, the underlying technique of weaving episode to episode will be presented. It is with Theon’s discussion of interweaving narrational happenings and persons (συμπλέκειν) that the present method for analyzing the order of the passion narrative takes shape.357 The discussion on the technique of weaving episode to episode in prog. drew specifically from the rhetorician Isocrates and the Panegyricus: It is possible to weave narration into narration whenever we try to narrate two or three narrations at the same time. The followers of Isocrates practiced this much and Isocrates himself did it in the Panegyricus as follows: “The children of Heracles came, and a little before them Adrastus, son of Talaus, being king of Argos. He was one of those who suffered misfortune in the expedition against Thebes,” and so on.358

Theon here points out a particular sequence of episodes in a work of Isocrates. Isocrates’s entire concentric structure of A-B-A´-sequence of episodes (A=story about Heracles; B=story about Adrastus), is equal in size and intent to a single, short story.359 In the passage evoked, Isocrates introduces the following statement that the subsequent episodes will exemplify: “The character and power of Athens may be judged from the appeals which sundry people have in times past made to us for our help.”360 The sequence is concentric, and focused of the narrational elements of persons (πρόσωπα) of the stories involved in the same action (πρᾶξις), or happening (πρᾶγμα, of seeking refuge in Athens.) This is the reason for the weaving of these episodes and sequence of events (πράγματα). Or in the words of Isocrates’s own summary of the thought of the narration: “So from these facts it is easy to see that even at that time our city was in the position of a leader.”361 With a couple of sentences, a story about the tribulations facing Heracles’s sons, after their father’s death and deification (ἀποθέωσις) is evoked. Rapidly, the focus changes to king Adrastus. Isocrates elaborates on Adrastus with a short story, and finally returns to

The present analysis of weaving is particularly indebted to the treatment of weaving and συμπλέκειν in Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem (41–42) as “arrangement technique.” In other words, the act of weaving is related to the activity of order (ταξίς). 358 Kennedy, Prog., 39; Theon 5.92.23–30. 359 The entire sequence (Isoc. Paneg. 4.54–56) is ca. 150 Greek words in length, including the statement. The short story about Adrastus (4.54.8–55) is ca. 50 words, while the story about Heracles’ sons (4.56) is ca. 40 words. 360 Isoc. Paneg. 4.54.1–3. 361 Isoc. Paneg. 4.57.1–2. 357

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devote a story similar in size to the sons of Heracles. Notice that it is the bare report, or apangelia, of seperate ideas of different short stories that is interwoven.362 Moving on, the size of the episodes in 14:1–16:8 is comparable to the example from Isocrates.363 Let us then look specifically at the manner elements prefigure in episodes of interest, for the passion narrative. Again, a simple statement of an episode (ἀπαγγελία), and an ideal representation of thought in the short story, is meant to be the clearest and least elaborated or expanded version of narrational thought. Theon insists that a short story is “incomplete” when it does not “consists of all (elements),” and that “narration becomes clear from two sources: from the subjects that are described and from the style of the description of the subjects.”364 In relation to the act of weaving episode to episode or short story to anecdote, clarity becomes crucial. It is found in a proper deployment of elements of the short story, and in symmetry with the content of said story. Clarity in narration thus presently signifies the coverage of the principal elements of happening and person.365 It is not uncommon, or necessarily an issue, that a narrational episode lacks one, or more, of the six elements of the short story.366 The central element for narration, however, is the happening (πρᾶγμα, or action: πρᾶξις). In relation to the episodes of the passion narrative, 14:1–2 narrates the happening of the planning of killing Jesus and 14:3– 9 the happening of anointing Jesus’s body. Just like “nouns and verbs being the components of speech,”367 narration loses clarity when the person and happening are obscure. The importance of person and happening stand in narrational correspondence to the importance of verb and noun for a complete sentence, or speech in general. If narration is unclear in relation to person(s) involved in the happening of the episode, the integrity of the narration is threatened, and the overall happening becomes obscured. The prosôpon finds its power from its connection with the pragma, and is therefore indirectly equal in importance to the clarity of the piece of narration.368 Except for time (chronos) and place (topos), the other elements also find value in relation to happenings. Chronos can, in Greek, be assigned to a sentence by considering the main verb’s Aktionsart (punctiliar, durative), even if it also can be A constructive example of expressing “one thought” (ἓν νόημα) to compare with, in the condensed manner of an ἀπαγγελία (after displaying “a working out”/το ἐργαζόμενοι of the same thought, in an argumentative anecdote) is found in Hermog. Inv. 185: “Philip was plotting against the Greeks long ago.” Here a thought, resembling the anecdote of 14:10–12, only includes the elements of person, happening and general time while cause, manner and place are missing. 363 For a discission on “paradigmatic” short stories in Theon and Mk, see Kuhlin, “διήγησις and διήγημα,” 69–72. 364 Kennedy, Prog., 28–30; Theon 5.78.23–24; 80.9–11. 365 Since the anecdote is equally invested in the elements of happening (in the shape of saying, or action) and person, the form of the short story, and its richer relation to narration, is prioritized. 366 For a discussion on the elements, see Maria Regla Fernández-Garrido, “El Ejercicio Del Relato (διήγημα).” 367 Arist. Rh. 3.1.5: Ὄντων δ᾿ ὀνομάτων καὶ ῥημάτων ἐξ ὧν ὁ λόγος συνέστηκεν. 368 Cf. Duncan G. Reid, Miracle Tradition, Rhetoric, 42, note 142, on person and happening in Theon’s diêgêma. 362

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stated on its own, with an adverbial phrase, for instance.369 The tropos, or manner of the action, or happening, answers the question of how the happening unfolded (with violence, voluntary, dishonorably, etc.). Aitia, or cause, speaks to the reasons for the fact being narrated, and adds important detail to the happening of the episode.

Weaving Clusters, Ordered, and Disordered-Sequences What can the use of narrational elements (στοιχεῖα) demonstrate in relation to the technique of weaving episodes in the passion narrative? From the perspective of suturing episode to episode, how does a lack of clarity of narrational elements emerge? I will now turn to instances of ordering and order in 14:1–16:8, through the lens of episodic sequencing. In the last instance, the thought of an episode, or passage of a composition, determines the question of arrangement and order (taxis), according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus. A reasonable hypothesis is therefore that groupings of episodes will surface when considering how thought is articulated through narrational elements (στοιχεῖα), in the episodes of 14:1–16:8. In particular, the manner the person(s) and happenings will be said to reveal centers of gravity, in the act ordering and weaving episode to episode.370 The distribution of elements or lack thereof, in the episodes of 14:1–16:8, reveals four centers of “noetic” concentration, in the weaving of short stories and anecdotes. The first is defined by a cluster of rather autonomous ideas, while the second demonstrates lingering interest in the idea of a final meal. Thirdly, a continuous plot and narration of Jesus’s trial and death. 1. Anecdotal Cluster 14:1–2 Anecdote 14:3–9 Elaborated anecdote 14:10–11 Anecdote 2. Last-meal Sequence 14:12–16 Short story 14:17–21 Anecdotes 14:22–25 Short story 14:26–31 Short story

3. Betrayal, Trial, Death, and Entombment Sequence 14:32–52 Short story 14.53–72 Synkrisis 15:1–5 Short story 15:6–15 Short story 15:16–20a Short story 15:20b–27 Deficient short story 15:29–32 Anecdote 15:33–39 Short story 15:40–1 Anecdote 15:42–47 Short story 16:1–8 Short story

For a discussion of verbal aspects and “kinds of action” (Aktionsart), see Rodney J. Decker, Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark. 370 It is important to keep in mind that the passion narrative and the totality of Mk are “schematization” of episodes, to speak with Karl Schmidt. It becomes pertinent to think narrative as consisting of different levels and textures. Presently, levels of narration studied pertain primarily to the forms of chreia and diêgêma and the ability of their serial or sequential connection that create a higher, narrational order. The enigma of how many sequences of episodes is needed in order to create a narrative is more or less a narratological variant of the paradox of the heap and must be noted, even though it will not be persued any further. 369

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Anecdotal Cluster 14:1–11 The passion narrative starts with an anecdotal cluster (14:1–11). This constellation does not function as a sequence proper, since its happenings and persons never “spill over” their present, allocated form of individual anecdotes.371 Instead, each anecdote expresses a singular thought with the elements of person and happening, as well as time and place, etc., in separation from the preceding, and following episode. In the first anecdote 14:1–2 (a saying-chreia), the high priests and scribes (prosôpa) are presented to plan the destruction of Jesus (praxis), in deceit (tropos), since they are afraid of the multitude’s reaction (aitia) in relation to the Passover (chronos).372 There is no mention of the element of place. Yet, as an autonomous anecdote, this is to be expected and does not create a narrational issue. It takes place with the high priests and scribes, in an undisclosed location. In the elaborated action-chreia that follows (14:3–9), Jesus and the disciples (prosôpa) are in Bethany, at the leper Simon’s house (topos), when an anonymous woman interrupts and comes seemingly from nowhere, in order to anoint Jesus’s head (praxis).373 While place is clearly stated, it creates disorder, if seen as a short story that builds upon the previous and subsequent anecdote. If the location of the religious elite is inferred in proximity with the temple in Jerusalem in 14:1–2,374 this anecdote places Jesus at least some 3 km away. Is Judas not with them? Or are the Judean elite just around the corner? In relation to time, 14:3 also begins in a manner that creates trouble, if related closely to 14:1–2, since the temporal clause καὶ ὄντος αὐτοῦ ἐν Βηθανίᾳ ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ Σίμωνος τοῦ λεπροῦ (“when he was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper”) does not link to the previous episode. When was Jesus in Bethany last? This location is mentioned only in relation to Jesus first entering Jerusalem (11:1, 11–12), at least a few days prior to the time of the anecdote of 14:1–11.375 In short, 14:3–9 cannot be found to build on the elements of chronos and topos from 14:1–11 in a linear fashion, but rather repeats a place from Mk 11, and after 14:9 is not mentioned anywhere in the passion narrative. Therefore, while the two initial episodes of 14:1–16:8 express narrative thoughts on Jesus’s death, The current interest in weaving episodes and its dianoiai does not mean that literary organization cannot be found on a higher level. Cf. Edwin Broadhead, Prophet, Son, Messiah, 29-50. On the relation of 14:1–11 to the literary context of the passion narrative, see Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 282–83. The current analysis of 14:1–16:8 and structuring of episodes is highly indebted to Bultmann’s critical review of this section. 372 Cf. James Butts, “Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels,” on anecdotes, and Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 207–9, for a discussion of other saying-χρεῖαι in Mk, with focus on 8:31–33. 373 Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels, 92–100. See discussion on elaboration in Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 210–14, in relation to a saying-anecdote in Mk 8:34–9:1. 374 The temple being a particular concern of this group (14:58). 375 The chronology of Mk 11–16 is confused and can only be read as constituting a single week (i.e. from “Palm Sunday” to “Easter Sunday” as it were), if one ignores the existing gap between day one–three (corresponding to Mk 11–12) and day four–seven (corresponding to Mk 13–16). See discussion in Yarbro Collins, Mark, 640 and George Nickelsburg, “Genre and Function of the Markan Passion,” 178. In short, Mk does not show an interest in conveying a strict temporal sequence from Mk 11–16 in general, or at least fails to finalize such a sequence. 371

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they are only linked in the weakest possible manner to each other and do not share the elements of space, time, persons, happening, cause, or manner. Finally, an anecdotal, spatial-temporal gap is found also in relation to the cluster’s last anecdote (an action-chreia), which narrates the planning of Judas to deliver Jesus to his enemies (prosôpa, praxis), for money (aitia) at the right time (tropos).376 Similar to 14:1–11, place can only be found in a general sense (“before the high priests”), while time is missing altogether. Again, and like 14:1–2, the missing elements of time and place do not constitute a problem, with reference to its rhetorical, anecdotal form or function. 14:1–2 is, after all, a clear, anecdotal expressing of the thought of the person Judas and the actions of planning betrayal with the high priests. On the level of episodic weaving with 14:1–9, the interweaving of the matters appears unsystematic, to speak with Lucian.377 Following Moeser’s succinct comment on previous, neighboring episodes in the story (in 10:32–41 and 10:35– 45): “there is no plot or relationship of cause and effect evident” and the connection is rather that of a larger “paratactic structure” where “one incident is not subordinate to another.”378 Still, one is left to wonder where Judas is coming from? and at what time? this anecdote takes place. In relation to 14:1–9, Judas must be said to leave the disciples and Jesus in Bethania (14:3–9), travelling alone to the unspecified location of the high priests. If we consider 14:10–11 as a part of an anecdotal cluster of distinctly autonomous episodes, and an example of yet another a-spatial-temporal anecdote taking place at a general time and place, disorder disappears, and Judas can be released from an attempt to make sense of time and place in previous and subsequent episodes. 379 In summary, considering the expression of narrational thoughts in 14:1–11 to stand in strict sequence to other episodes in the shape of short stories (διηγήματα), narrational disorder is amplified. If allowing 14:1–11 to function like the anecdotal tendency of Mk in general, and as a cluster of autonomous occurrences defined by the standard obscure, spatial-temporal quality defining chreiai, the person of Judas, the temporal disorder created by the anecdote of Jesus’s anointing, and other issues remain untroubled by anachronistic deus-ex-machina tendencies found herein, from a rhetorical perspective. Only if burdened with the yoke of narrational, virtuous continuity is a failure of order central to this passage.

Cf. Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 23, and an example from Diog. Laert. 6:39: “In response to the one who said that there is no motion, Diogenes got up and walked around.” 377 In relation to the overall organization of Mk, however, a connection is found with the keyword of “death.” Compare with the function of ὁδός (road), in the episodes of 8:27–10:45. Cf. Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 201–3. 378 Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 232. 379 If we attempt to read 14:10–11 as a part of a greater sequence, and especially in light of Judas’s sudden absence until 14:43 (with betrayal of Jesus in Gethsemane), a visible tension is created with the last meal. Further, Judas appears again (briefly) in the following sequence in 14:32–16:8, realizing the foretold action of 14:10–11 and betraying/handing Jesus over to the religious elite. 376

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Last-Meal Sequence 14:12–31 The last-meal episodes deviate from spatial-temporal disorder in the cluster, and instead form a more ordered sequence of thoughts and presentation of persons-inaction.380 The opening diêgêma conveys a passage of the disciples and Jesus (prosôpa), moving from an unspecified location to the upper room (topos), via the aid of “man with carrying a jar of water” (prosôpon) in order to consume the Passover lamb (pragma, aitia, tropos) for it is the first day of the festival (chronos).381 The focus of the episode is on two unnamed disciples, who prepare an upper room, which will be the location for the remaining anecdotes of the sequence (14:17–25). That 14:17 initiates and demarcates a distinct episode, narrating the thought of a late arrival at the upper room and eating (topos, pragma), is motivated by its initial temporal clause “and when evening came” (chronos, tropos).382 The central happening of preparation in the previous episode is developed with the consumption of the Passover meal, as Jesus (prosôpon) lays down to eat and speaks a series of sayings to his disciples (prosôpa). 14:18–19 present a separate anecdotal saying, and 14:20–21 yet another.383 There aren’t conclusions to these sayings, and their contents are left to resound uninterrupted, in the typical manner defining the anecdote. 14:22–25 appear in the form of an anecdote, containing a double-saying.384 The episode is disjointed from the previous one, through introductory, temporal clauses, “and when evening came . . . and when they were laying down at the table and were eating. . .” signaling a distinct occurrence, in the shape of a stand-alone action (praxis). However, there is still a thread of continuity of thought with the happening, time, place, and persons of the last two episodes. If the previous anecdote had the framework of Jesus arriving in the upper room and laying down to eat, now attention

Again, if read in strict sequence with 14:10–11, Judas is not a part of this sequence. If 14:12–16 forms an independent sequence, however, Judas is to be counted among “his disciples” (v.12) and partakes in the last meal. 381 On literary traits of 14:12–16, see Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 283–84. On διηγήματα in gospels in general, see the pioneering study by James Butts, “Voyage of Discipleship,” 216. 382 On literary unity in 14:17–21, see Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 284–85. 383 14:18–19: “And when they were laying down and eating, Jesus said: “Truly I tell you that one of you will betray me; one who is eating with me.” They began to be destressed and said to him, one after the other “Not me, right?’” 14:20–21: “But he said to them ‘One of the twelve, the one who is dipping in the bowl with me. For the Son of Man goes as it is written about him, but woe to the person through which the Son of Man is handed over. It would have been better for that human not to have been born.’” Henderson, Jesus, Rhetoric and Law, considers 14:21 to be a maxim (op. cit., 14, 37, 311). 384 On the literary traits of 14:22–25, see Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 285–87. Cf. on double-anecdote, Hock and O’Neil, Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 32, refers to Quint. Inst. (6.3.63): “There was a Roman knight drinking in the seats of the theater, to whom Augustus sent word, saying ‘If I wish to have lunch, I go home.’ The knight said: ‘Certainly, for you are not afraid that you will lose your place.’” 380

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is directed at the actual act of eating, after an opening thanksgiving to god, and the sayings associated with the action.385 With the diêgêma 14:26–31, the previous sequence is somewhat interrupted and finds its conclusion, with a summative story. It begins with a temporal clause, narrating the transition to the Mount of Olives (chronos, topos), while singing hymns (“And after singing hymns, they walked to the mount of Olives”) and ends with the disciples’ joint reaction to Jesus’s words of admonition. It does not specifically mention the Passover meal, or the upper room, and has the traits of a more or less separate episode, defined by a generic spatial-temporal context we have seen in 14:1–11.386 The practice of stitching episodes together, with the use of “linking catchwords” (here primarily ὑμνήσαντες: “singing hymns”), thus defines the episode’s primary narrational contextualization, in relation to 14:22–25 and 14:26–31.387 The story’s thought is located with the theme of stumbling and failing supporters, developed by re-purposing the idea of striking a shepherd and his sheep. Citing, without referencing Zech 13:7 “as it is written” (ὅτι γέγραπται), a notion of striking a shepherd and his sheep applies a prediction about a future appearance in Galilee, with Peter in the limelight. The happening of the story is found with Jesus’s foretelling an imminent death, and the turning away by the disciples, particularly Peter (prosôpa).388 In contrast to the form of an anecdote, the story concludes with the effect of Jesus’s saying, and a univocal refusal to accept what is said by Peter and company. In the ensuing episode, Jesus immediately goes from the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane with his disciples. The place of 14:26–31 functions not only to conclude the sequence on the meal, but also transports the group from one topos to another. This diêgêma concludes the sequence on the last meal, and is to be connected with 14:12–25 and separated from 14:32–16:8, mainly because 14:12–25 focuses on the The sayings are structured in the following grouping 14:22–24 (“And when they were eating, after taking a bread and offering a blessing, he broke it and he gave to them, and said ‘Take, this is my body.’ And after taking a cup and giving thanks, he gave to them, and they drank all from it. And he said to them: ‘This is my blood of the covenant, poured out for many’” and 14:25 “Truly I tell you that I will never again drink from the fruit of the grapevine, until that day when I drink the new one in the kingdom of God’”. 386 Because of its current position, the hymn in questions is rightly treated as part of a Passover ritual (Cf. Joel Marcus, Mark 8–16, 968). With the exception of hymns being sung in relation to the Passover meal, which the writer(s) of Mk does not clearly state, the formal connection of the separate episodes of 14:22–25 and 14:26–31 is weak, and the joint happening of (singing after) the meal does not take away the formal, rhetorically autonomous character of the episode. 387 On a similar use of keywords, in Mk 10:46–52, see Vernon K. Robbins, “The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus,” 231. 388 Moeser, Anecdote in Mark, 232–36, supplies a parallel instance, where Mk 10:35–45 presents a short story harboring two individual anecdotes, demonstrating a tendency to embed a form within another: “The two anecdotes of 10.35–40 and 10.41–45 are carefully woven together. Hence, the διήγημα of 10.35–45 is a combination of two anecdotes, the first a dialogue and the second an elaboration of a saying-χρεία” (236). On literary unity in 14:26–31, see Bultmann, Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 287–88. 385

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matter of informing the disciples about the coming betrayal and tribulations, while 14:32–16:8 realizes the foreshadowed act of “handing over” (especially in 14:10–11, 18f; 10:32–34) by accentuating the role of Judas one last time. Episodes 14:12–16, 14:17–21, 14:22–25, and 14:26–30 contain a continuous interest in expressing the dianoia of Jesus sharing a final meal with the disciples and a set of sayings pronounced in relation to this meal. For this reason, a sounder harmony than the previous collection of episodes appears (in contrast to the cluster 14:1–11). Specifically, there is a relationship of cause and effect in 14:12–30 not found in the cluster of anecdotes. While the cluster in 14:1–11 can be said to form a concentric structure, where the opening (A.) and closing anecdote (A.´) speak of intentions to kill and betray Jesus with the actions of Judas, this “Markan sandwich” is dissimilar to Theon’s example from Isocrates’s Panegyricus, and remains vague.389 Rather than an well-balanced section of a diêgêsis, 14:1–11 looks like a slightly more ordered section of the chreia-collection one is used to, centered around keywords of Jesus’s death and Judas. The sequence 14:12–30, on the other hand, demonstrate a different form of the organization of episodes, where a sequence of actions creates cohesion, with relation to the same place and time, appearing more like a well-woven narrative passage. Its persons-in-action articulates a narrational thought of all these episodes, encircling the deeds and sayings associated with Jesus and the disciples’ eating of the Passover meal. Betrayal, Trial, Death, and Entombment Sequence 14:32–16:8 With the diêgêma on the occurrences at Gethsemane (14:32–52), a multifaceted arrangement commences. In many ways, this is the real point of emphasis in the passion narrative, unveiled by the foreshadowing anecdote of Judas’s betrayal in 14:10–11, and warnings to the disciples and Peter against abandonment, in 14:26–30. The sequence that follows is a rare instance of literary arrangement. In this lengthy narrative structure, which creates continuity by the merger of a series of episodes on the arrest, trial, ridicule, death, and entombment of Jesus (14:32–16:8), entirely autonomous episodes stop. Here, is an intricate, complicated attempt to develop the thought of death in a linear fashion.390 At the same time, this sequence will be argued to harbor a supremely obscure event, where the representation of prosôpa, aitiai, tropoi, and topoi, in 15:20b–27 basically become indiscernible within a section with unprecedented chronological indications (15:6–39). This interesting aspect of oscillating between clear and unclear properties defines a rhetorical movement of particular importance. The relay not only defines an

Cf. Butts, “Voyage of Discipleship,” 217, on Isocrates and Theon; Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches,” 207–8, on Mk 14:1–11. 390 In this section, the careful observations by Bultmann do not aid in locating its rhetorical structure, since the individual episodes so familiar to form-critical analysis is foreclosed, temporarily. The usual disorder commences again with 15:6–39, and there is thus reason to return to Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition later. 389

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essential mark of anecdotes proper (chreiai), the movement from clarity to obscurity also signifies an anecdotal and disorderly feature of the entire topography of Mk. I will return to this disordered section of the sequence shortly, sketching first the episodic nature of 14:32–16:8. With exception to the moderately independent anecdotes introducing primary persons of concluding episodes (with the naked, young man in 14:50–51, as well as the Galilean women in 15:40–41), the sequence’s arrangement of chreiai and diêgêmata insists on a development in a surprisingly linear fashion. First, a long and rich short story—about the loccurrences taking place in Gethsemane with Jesus’s prayer and handing over—sets the stage. In a nuanced manner, this episode contains all narrational elements. Then a compilation of short stories (14:53–72) follows, in the shape of a comparison (σύγκρισις; where the exemplary actions of Jesus on trial is contrasted with the foretold betrayal of Peter).391 This syncretic narration display an even higher complexity than the preceding short stories of the passion narrative, as the perspective moves back and forth between the Galilean persons of Jesus and Peter, and their response to the happening of the “trial” before the Judean Sanhedrin. I will now move on to the entry of Pontius Pilate, in the short story of 15:1–5.392 The repeated appearances of the high priests and scribes creates a thematic cohesion for 14:1–72; Pilate ties together these narrational threads in 15:1–47. Noteworthy are the essentially clear short stories 15:1–5 and 15:42–46, where Pilate is predominant. Further, a good example of features of lucidity in a short story is also found in the short story 16:1–8, about the Galilean women, the young man, and the empty tomb.393 Theon states that the cardinal virtue of any narration of “clarity” is created in two ways: “the subjects that are described and the style of the description of subjects.”394 In correspondence to the obscurity of death, I shall now briefly sketch the foremost instances of disorder in order (τάξις, in “the subjects described”) and style (λέξις, the wording involved in describing the subject at hand) in the passion narrative, and Building on previous suggestions by Joel Marcus, Adela Yarbro Collins, and Kim E. Dewey, Gamel, Markan Theology of Revelation, correctly identifies Mk 14:53–72 to be the “clearest example of synkrisis in Mark’s passion narrative” (102–3: entire argument in 101–14). James Voelz notes that the use of καί in the passage demonstrates its unity: “Greek of St. Mark’s Gospel,” 139. Cf. a comparison of Peter and Jesus in the passion narrative of Jn: Adam Kubiś, “Syncrisis in the Johannine Presentation,” and Gorman, Interweaving Innocence, 56–60 for an introduction to σύγκρισις in the passion narrative of Lk (and Paul’s trials, in Acts), and Jacob Mortensen, “Mark 5:21–43 as Progymnastic Comparison,” for partial overview on previous research on σύγκρισις, and cognate terms (i.e. “sandwich,” “concentric structure”). 392 A shift of attention should not be overemphasized, since the high priests (elders) and scribes continue to appear in the episodes of 15:1–5, 6–15, 29–32. 393 However, obscurity resides with this story when sequential issues create narrational vagueness (for instance, with the identity of the young man, the persons said to have placed Jesus in the tomb as well as the identity of the women, since the listings of Galilean women in 15:40–41, 47; 16:1 differ and present possibly different persons each time.) 394 Kennedy, Prog., 29–30; Theon 3.80.9–11:σαφὴς δὲ διὴγησις γίνεται διχὸθεν, ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν ἀπαγγελλομένων πραγμάτων, καὶ ἐκ τῆς λὲξεως τῆς ἀπαγγελίας, ἧς τὰ πράγματα. 391

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the place where Theon’s advice is neglected.395 An emphasis presents itself with the event death in 15:6–39, where order and style begins to “stutter,” in an exceptional way, when trying to express the narrational thought of suspending Jesus Christ till death. Disorder in the style of death is primarily found in terms of obscurity produced by the use of solecism and barbarism, for instance, with “foreign words” (ξένα [ὀνόματα]: e.g., in 15:22; Γολγοθᾶν; 15:34–35; ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι),396 repetition of happenings “saying the same things twice” (τὸ δὶς τὰ αὐτὰ λέγειν: in particular within the dual suspension: σταυροῦν of 15:24–25, yet also with the release: ἀπολύειν of a purported insurrectionist in 15:6–15), and grammatical errors, caused by leaving out necessary words, and obscure use of cases (e.g., in the emphatic use of ὁ δέ; οἱ δέ in 15:6–16, and δραμὼν δέ τις . . . ἄφετε ἴδωμεν in 15:36).397 These phenomena of disorder in the episodes of 15:6–39 will all be explored at length in chapter six, and I shall here only note the instances of unclear repetitions. Further, for Theon “one should guard against confusing times and order of events, as well as saying the same thing twice. For nothing else confuses the thought more than this.”398 It is therefore noteworthy that the passion narrative presents two council meetings about Jesus (14:53–65, 15:1), the release of a prisoner is repeated (15:6, 15), two instances of stating that Jesus was suspended (15:24–25), two offerings of wine to Jesus (15:23, 36) and two cries from the pole (15:34, 37), and three different lists of women seeing the death and burial (15:40–41, 47; 16:1).399 In relation to the narrational elements of said episodes and the issue of ordering individual rhetorical forms, it is not only the mere repetition of these happenings that create rhetorical obscurity. The description of the person and occurrences said to take place also cause different levels of confusion. I now turn to the ability of the episode to state its thought (διάνοια), by ordering narrational elements. Theon argues that narration becomes unclear if it deviates In relation to Theon 3.80.9–11 and clarity in narration, τάξις first and foremost consists in the stating narrational elements in an episode (which Theon phrases as ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν ἀπαγγελλομένων πραγμάτων: “(clarity comes) from the statements of things”). The elements are meant to formally safeguard the ability of a short story, or anecdote represent “things” (πράγματα). Further, λέξις presently signifies the weaving of words in episodes, and suturing of episode to episode, pointing to the harmony (or lack thereof) when individual episodes create a greater whole. Theon’s says that stylistic clarity comes from the wording of statements, and its subject: (καὶ ἐκ τῆς λὲξεως τῆς ἀπαγγελίας, ἧς τὰ πράγματα). 396 Theon 5.81.9–10. 397 Theon 5.82.27–30. 398 Theon 5.80.26–29: φυλακτέον δὲ καὶ τὴ μὴ συγχεῖν τοὺς χρόνους καὶ τὴν τάξιν τῶν πραγμάτων, ἒτι τε καὶ τὸ δὶς τὰ αὐτὰ λέγειν· Οὐδὲν γὰρ ἣτον τῶν ἂλλων καὶ τοῦτο συγχεῖ τὴν διάνοια. Translation from Kennedy, Prog., 30. 399 Cf. Gorman, Interweaving Innocence, 172–74, for an instructive comparison of the underlying techniques behind the composition of the passion narrative in Lk from Mk, stressing the transformation of disorder in Mk 14.53–15:39, to order in Lk 22:66–23:49. Gorman notes that Lk removes repetitions, as well as makes the chronological intensity in Mk less illogical, by re– arrangement. 395

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from “common understanding,” or “whenever one does not narrate many things together but brings each to its completion.”400 A “cracked” and fragemented narrational thought emerges herein. The instability of a unifying dianoia in 15:6–39 is especially troubling in the episode where Jesus is fixed on the pole (15:20b–27). The multiple instances noting that Jesus was suspended (15:24–25) create a peculiar staccato of the happenings in the episode 15:20b–27. This is an unusual collapse of an episode in the passion narrative. With the words of Theon again, this piece of narration is an unclear list of things happening at once and at a single place, where the one is left without proper completion before the other commences, leaving the passage in a state of disarray. In short, when Jesus is taken to the site of a place of a skull, stripped naked, and twice said to be poled, the task of order is momentarily suspended, as it were, and arguably one of the most obscure pieces of narration in the entire narrative appears. In summary, the focus of this chapter has been an attempt to display different levels of order in the passion narrative, from a progymnastic point of view. Especially crucial is the foundational ordering of narrational elements, which reveals 14:1–11 to be an anecdotal cluster, with a fleeting organization, while 14:12–25 presents us with the first sequential part of the passion narrative. And after a rather autonomous short story, in 14:26–31, a longer sequential passage begins, with 14:32–16:8. However, within the middle of this complex weave of short stories and anecdotes, there is a disordered section with a serial sequence of episodes, that moves away from the relative narrational clarity of 14:32–72 on the one hand, and 15:40–16:8 on the other. Further, a dependence of the form of the short story in 14:12–25 and 14:32–16:8 provides examples of narrational weaving of an episode worth emphasizing. Even though 15:6–39 is a disordered section within 14:32–16:8, this passage remains sutured with relation to a continuous unfolding of the thought of killing Jesus. It therefore appears that the passion narrative is caught up in the relay of order and disorder, and clarity and obscurity, that defines the anecdotal style and shape of Mk as a whole.

Conclusion This chapter reviews key issues for an analysis of rhetorical order, taking aim at the episodes in the passion narrative. In the first section, the prog. determined techniques associated with weaving (συμπλέκειν) a longer narrational section from different happenings (πράγματα). With reference to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lucian of Samosata, and the writer(s) of Lk, the Papian doxa of disorder found a new register relevant for passion narrative. From this perspective, Robert Grant 400

Theon 5.80.12–16: ἐκ μὲν οὖν τῶν πραγμάτων, ὃταν λεγόμενονα τά πράγματα μὴ τὴν κοινὴν ἐκφεύγῃ διάνοιαν . . . ἢ ὃταν μὴ πολλὰ ὁμοῦ διηγῆται τις, ἀλλὰ καθ᾽ ἓκαστον εἰς τέλος προάγῃ.

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correctly notes that the Papian doxa is still an operational opinion with relevance for Mk: Mark’s gospel is not a σύνταξις, a finished product of rhetorical art. It is an ἀπομνημόνευμα or a collection of ἀπομνημονεύματα based on the traditions which had already been shaped into χρεῖαι by Peter . . . [that] cannot be criticized for its lack of order, because it has no special order. The fact that the elder and Papias clearly indicates that Mk has the virtues of truth and of relative completeness, while it does not have order which was in any case unnecessary, shows that they were examining the gospel from the standpoint of Greek literary criticism.401

Complexities of disorder are presently underlined not with relation to genre or intention of the work. Rather, the idea of a piece of composition (its “thought”) sufficiently names a grounding notion of ataxia. In this context, the notion of disorder finds its primary force, along with the employment of style (lexis), order (taxis), and thought (dianoia) of 14:1–16:8. The episodic structure and weave of the passion narrative was found to consist of multiple levels and layers. The function of stoikeiai (“narrational elements”) in short stories and anecdotes was said to reveal certain points of gravity. The form of the short story was demonstrated to dominate an outline of this section, with two sequences of episodes standing out (14:12–25; 14:32–16:8). In these sequences in particular, an event of death unfold in a continuous manner due to how the persons and happenings are presented, as the pieces of narration intertwine and form a complex web of storytelling. With 15:6–39, however, disorder comes to undo a significant portion of the sequence, from within as it were. Here a thought of suspending Jesus till death comes across as thoroughly disordered, with happenings (pragmata) and persons (prosôpa) becoming exceptionally vague, even for an anecdotal work. While this rhetorical disorder of death is merely noticed rather than discussed properly, it points to the importance of locating episodic levels in the passion narrative. Nonetheless, while the passion narrative on an external level displays a higher form of narration than a collection of anecdotes, certain anecdotal tendencies are found to reside with the thought and the internal structure of death, in 15:6–39.

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Earliest Lives of Jesus, 18. The current study extends Grant’s observation with reference to the form of short stories, and specifically so in the passion narrative.

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5. The Failure of Order

Taxis and Mk 15:6–39 From the point of view of prog., five separate episodes form a particularly obscure arrangement of 14:32–16:8.402 The organization of the short stories and anecdotes of 15:6–39 will below follow Theon’s treatment of the most rudimentary aspects of articulating narration and person-in-action.403 Τhe current progymnastic approach to the passion narrative and its realization of disorder is a relatively uncommon approach in contemporary research. The division of 15:6–39 into five episodes is less groundbreaking, and stands in critical continuity with a wide selection of scholars outlining this passage.404 An overview of rhetorical forms will be presented where each form will be discussed, in relation to its individual ordering of elements. With the concept of rhetorical taxis, can the kind of narrational order be detected in the Gospel according to Mark 15:6–39? In relation to the order of elements in the entire sequence of 15:6–39, a summary of the use of narrational elements will conclude this section and focus on the humiliation of Jesus produced through the disordered rhetoric of its short stories and anecdotes.

Only formal aspects of διηγήματα and χρεῖαι located in 15:6–39 will presently be discussed since Theon does not focus on a colometric foundations for short story or anecdote. The interesting method of “sound mapping” will only be mentioned when concepts like period, comma, and colon directly link to the constitution of progymnastic narration under consideration. Interestingly, this study’s analysis of Mk 15 with narrational forms and a colometric division of 15:6–39 can overlap, e.g., in James A. Kleist, The Gospel of Saint Mark, 80–84, with the exception to 15:20b–27, 33– 39, where vv.27, 39 signify autonomous “thought units.” 403 That is, the employment of elements of πρόσωπον and πρᾶγμα, in διηγήματα and χρεῖαι. The relation of disorder to thought and style in 15:6–39 is treated in separate chapters. 404 It would perhaps be surprising if the most disordered passage of the passion narrative was easy to for scholars structure in a linear fashion. The current division of 15:6–39 into separate episodes largely follows Bultmann’s critical discussion of the section in Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 293–95. Marcus notes that 15:16–32 “is usually divided into two or three different pericopes (15:16–20a and 15:20b–32, or 15:16–20a, 15:20b–27, and 15:29–32), probably out of a desire to give the crucifixion scene the independence that it is thought to deserve theologically”: Mark 8–16, 1045. Craig Evans agrees with Marcus, yet adds v.40–41 to the episode 15:33–39, which is a legitimate addition in light of its commenting function to the Centurion’s remark and even the entire death-scene: Craig Evans, Mark 8:27–16:20, 499. However, the commentary is a form of expansion upon the death-scene, and will therefore be excluded from this study’s main material. 402

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15:6–15 Diêgêma This episode is formally self-sufficient and shaped in proximity to a diêgêma that compares the persons “the king of the Jews” and “Barabbas” from the point of view of Pilate—the political and juridical personification of Rome. Its main effect from this angle is ironic or humorous. While the shape of an ironic comparison is clear (Barabbas contra the king of the Jews), its specific purpose and content is not. The effect its disordered irony is humorous, defining “humor” as the obscure surface of meaning found with unstable irony.405 From the perspective of Mk, Jesus is named as “that” (king), while in reality his identity resides with a secret “this” (the Son of Man suffering with apocalyptic intentions). The primary effect from irony is that of insult and designating disgrace upon the object of insult.406 The irony of 15:6–15 is unbalanced. In other terms, while a stable form of irony requires a relay of two clear poles; when “x” is stated, “y” is meant,407 in this story, an oscillation between “this” and “that” is emphatically unclear, both in terms of comparing “Barabbas” and the “Jewish-Judean king,” as well as relating guilt to these persons. The reasons for emphatically mocking, killing, and associating τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων (king of the Jews) with sedition, are withheld and unspecific.408 The name ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (ho Basileus tôn Ioudaiôn), itself displays instability and humor, since the moniker is used exclusively by Romans in the province of Judea. Further, Pilate and the soldiers do not refer to Galilee in the north, and therefore seem not to know that Jesus is the subject of another Roman regent (Herod Antipas) or distinct from the other members of Judean multitude and elite. In Logic of Sense, “humor” is related to the “pure event” and enjoys its disorder of (non)sense making: “Classical irony acts as the instance which assures the coextensiveness of being and of the individual within the world of representation . . . if irony is the coextensiveness of being with the individual, or of the I with representation, humor is the coextensiveness of sense with nonsense. Humor is the art of the surfaces and of the doubles, of nomad singularities and of the always displaced aleatory point; it is the art of the static genesis, the savoir-faire of the pure event”: Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 138–41. 406 Arist. Rh. 2.2.24–25: “And with those who employ irony (εἰρωνεία), when they themselves are in earnest (of being angry); for irony shows contempt.” 407 For a thorough attempt to link Mk with “stable irony,” see in Wayne C. Booth, A Rhetoric of Irony, 3–8. In the end, Booth’s suggestion is unconvincing, since it does not pay nearly enough attention to ataxia and paradoxality in the rhetoric of Mk. 408 Quint. Inst. 8.6.54: “Under the type in which meaning and the words are contrary comes irony or, as people call it, illusio.” Colebrook elaborates: “The simplest and most stable forms of irony rely on the audience or hearer recognizing that what the speaker says cannot be what she means”: Claire,Colebrook, Irony, 15. Colebrook separates 1.) “stable irony” (e.g., the εἰρωνεία in treatises of Cicero and Quintilian) as “a figure of speech within language, and language would be ultimately stable, shared and conducive to political recognition rather than disruption,” and 2.) what Deleuze calls a “superior irony” of a humorous, insistency upon multiplicity (op. cit., 6, 131–52). In other words, the irony of the classical period is theorized within an ordered system, while Deleuze recognizes a “higher” function of irony, as a part of an ordered disorder. The irony of 15:6–39 is largely “superior” and humorous in relation to the obscurity produced within by passage. That is, it produces sense serially (a disordered order) rather than in a stable fashion (an order that disorders). 405

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For these reasons, I find the phrase signifies a geo-political mockery not only of the Galilean Jesus, but also the Judean crowd, and the high priests, scribes, and elders.409 Jesus is mocked as a Judean rathern than a Galilean usurper to Caesar. To be clear, to emphazise a political threat and mockery with the Romans is not to be seen as an attempt to stabilize a volatile, rhetorical situation. While equally ironic and disgraceful, the Judean elite’s own ridicule of the “king” is more distinct than that of the Romans. This former group signifies a “religious” and eschatological kingship, explicitly evoking a figure of Israel’s messiah (14:60–61; 15:28–32). The Judeans thereby avoid the direct political irony unstated in the Roman Pilate’s use of “king” and its surplus of geographical irony toward Judea. Pilate signifies a political and juridical mockery (and can be described from the perspective of “the governor to the governed, and the man who thinks himself worthy to rule to the one who is only fit to be ruled”: Arist. Rh. 2.2.7), while the high priests, scribes, and elders, point to an eschatological and messianic mockery (in 15:29–32; cf. 14:53–65). At the same time—and this is a significant problem of representing Jesus’s death in general—the sense of Pilate’s “ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων” is never specified, thus is unruly in its ironic function and can also be taken to function religiously.410 In the same way, political implications of messianism are equally possible with Pilate’s mockery. 1.

2. 3. 4.

Praxis, pragma: The beginning (v.6: ἀπέλυεν) and conclusion (v.15: ἀπέλυσεν) emphasizes the handing of Barabbas over to the masses and “the king of Jews” to suspension-execution, and in between presenting the parallel persons “the king of Jews” and “Barabbas” (vv.7; 12) with a σύγκρισις. Prosôpa: “king of the Jews,” “Barabbas,” Pilate, the high priests, the multitude. Aitia: Jealousy of the high priest (v.10), and Pilate’s wish to satisfy (v.15) a disturbed multitude (v.11). Chronos: During the–already finalized–festival (v. 6).411

On the problem with translation Ἰουδαῖος (ioudaios) see the recent study of Jason Staples, Israel in Second Temple Judaism. The function and figure of a “Jewish/Judean king” in Mk stands in contrast to the Jewish regent of Galilee and Perea (ca. 4–39 CE) since Herod Antipas was named king (6:14–29.) Antipas is king and presents a point of contrast with Jesus, proclaimed king in Judea. Ant. 17.118 and BJ. 1.668 designating Antipas with the correct political title of “tetrarch.” Ant. 17.213 portrays an uprising in Jerusalem during the festival Passover (ca. 4 BCE by the figures Judas and Matthias) after king Herod the Great’s death. For a summary on “banditry” and revolutionary action in this period, see Richard Horsley, “Josephus and the Bandits.” The idea of Jesus–an-ironic-king is endowed with a long historic shadow of recent threats to the Caesars’ rule over Judea. In Mk, however, a “king of the Jews” evokes a geo-political threat against Pilate and Judean domination, among other things. Ἰουδαῖος is therefore not merely a geographical signifier. “King of the Ἰουδαῖος” can thus be taken as a usurper to the kingless kingdom of the Roman province, similar to previous rebellions by insurrectionists in Judea. 410 The unstable irony of “the king for a day” is interesting from the angle of dianoia. Since this moniker binds episodes together, the idea of Jesus as “king” is more than a coincidental nomos. It produces a significant “image-in-thought” or phantasia (φαντασία) for the entire death-scene. 411 With the previous episode, and the inbreaking of a new day, the festival time of Passover is officially over, and the element of time in 15:6–15 is contradictory. 409

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5. 6.

Topos: “up” i.e., Jerusalem (v.7).412 Tropos: dishonorable and ironic: asking for release of prisoner “according to custom” (vv.6, 8)—resulting in legal and political humiliation.413

Formally, this story differs from the previous and subsequent episodes, by demarcating a distinct happening (as σύγκρισις, “comparison”) with a new character (Barabbas) at an unspecified place, during the festival time of Passover somewhere in “Jerusalem.” It concludes with an anecdote, underlining the action of handing over a silent and purported insurrectionary “king of the Jews” to flogging and suspension-execution.414 The story contains external qualities of an autonomous diêgêma (with a beginning: v.6, middle: vv.7–14 and ending: v.15). Yet, its narrational elements (σχήματα) of persons and their intentions, in particular, creates an internal relay of obscurity and clarity, that complicates the presentation of the story’s happening. Questions remains: Why is Jesus handed to death for crimes of insurrection? and Why is Jesus compared to this new Barabbas-figure, under the name of Jewish-Judean king? The story’s thought (dianoia) is best described as the happening of a legal comparison (πρᾶγμα) of two vaguely described persons (πρόσωπα) and their partially withheld previous actions. In Theon’s prog. a comparison (σύγκρισις) “is language setting the better or the worse side by side” where “there are syncrises both of persons and of things.” Further, “one-to-one comparisons, then, would follow this method” and “take extreme examples of the things being compared and put these beside each other.”415 From this end, “the extremities” (τὰ ἀκρότατα) paralleled in 15:6–15 arguably consist of an indistinctness resulting from the description of the persons called 1.) “the king of the Jews” (ὃν λέγετε τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων: 15:12) and 2.) “Barabbas” (ὁ λεγόμενος Βαραββᾶς: 15:7).416 Who are these people really?417 Have either truly acted criminally, and what is the relation of guilt and their pseudonyms? 412 In

the third “passion prediction” (10:32–33), Jerusalem is “up.” An unspecified “up” therefore refers to a generic designation of Jerusalem. Cf. Yarbro Collins, Mark, 719. In the end, “up” is not a satisfactory designation. The multitude seems to appear ex nihilo. Historically, Pilate would have had the option of residing in one of three places: the fortress Antonia, Herod’s Lower Palace, or the Higher Palace. Herod’s palaces and Antonia would all be located “up” in relation to the lower city, where ordinary people lived. 413 Roman release of Judean insurrectionists, at Passover, looks to be an entirely rhetorical invention of the canonical gospels. 414 15:15 articulates tendencies of an autonomous anecdote. Currently, this chreia is considered fused into a scaffolding short story, of which it presents the results. 15:15 also shares certain stylistic properties, situating it within 15:9–15: see following chapter. 415 Kennedy, Prog., 54; Theon 10.112.23–35; 114.7–11. 416 The name “Barabbas” is “evidently the Gk rendering of an Aram name,” meaning “son of the father” (‫ )בר אבא‬according to Michael J. Wilkins, “Barabbas” ABD, 1:607. On compositional challenges generated by Barabbas, see discussion on barbarism and non-Hellenic traits below. Faithful to a rhetorical relay of clear and unclear features, Mk does not elucidate either the meaning nor function of Barabbas, in the context of Jesus’s execution, or in relation to the previous naming of Jesus as a “son of God” (i.e., a “rightful son of the father”), for instance. 417 From the perspective of Logic of Sense (“Fifth Series on Sense”), a paradox of “indefinite proliferation” can be detected with the notion of “calling” Barabbas and Jesus, since the real

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The synkrisis of Barabbas and the Jewish-Judean king produces a crisis on the surface of making-meaning.418 When standing in front of a Roman authority and an agitated multitude, the persons compared are amusing examples in relation to tropes of guilty insurgents and unruly members of the multitude (“They must be blameworthy, they are on trial!”).419 The reality of their respective guilt, however, hovers over the comparison, in parallel to apparent, false names. The king of the Jews and Barabbas find themselves in a situation where the reality of guilt and identity is superseded by fabulation.420 The one “called” Jewish-Judean king and a certain “Barabbas” appear under humorous, and possible false identities. In front of Pilate, the Judean elite, and the multitude, the comparison of these persons creates more questions than it addresses. It sufficiently points to one single fact, however: the “king of Jews” is politically and juridically humiliated, and sent to death by Rome’s representative, while Barabbas is released to the multitude. Like a cube of sugar in a glass of water, the story’s concluding anecdote hands Barabbas over to the multitude, only to disappear from the wider narrative (like Peter and Judas).421 The humorous king, as a silent enemy of the state, in contrast is handed over to suspension-execution and flogging (v.15). Jesus intensify the transformation from the anecdotal acting subject standard to the majority of material in Mk to passive body that receives wounds of torture and death, with an ongoing obfuscated subjectivity.422 In summary, the forensic scene of 15:6–15 is conducted in a satirical and indistinct fashion, where the presentation of any acts of alleged sedition is missing.423 identities of both Barabbas and Jesus, arguably, are never defined in Mk. “If we agree to think of a proposition as a name, it would then appear that every name which denotes an object may itself become the object of a new name which denotes its sense: nl refers to n2, which denotes the sense of nl; n2 refers to n3; etc. . . . we can be satisfied with a regress of two alternating terms: the name which denotes something and the name which denotes the sense of this name. This two-term regress is the minimal condition of indefinite proliferation”: Logic of Sense, 29–30. 418 The concept of crisis is currently borrowed from Giorgio Agamben, Pilate and Jesus, and “a state of permanent crisis” (57) when Jesus is confronted by Pilate (in Jn 18–19). See discussion in Joel Kuhlin, Suspending, Believing, and Truth Telling. On ironic tensions in Mk 15 and Jn 18–19, see Jerry Camery-Hoggatt, Irony in Mark’s Gospel, 174. 419 Rhet. Her. 4.34.46, draws attention to using irony and “allegory drawn from contrast,” with the following example, “What says this king—our Agamemnon, or rather, such is his cruelty, our Atreus?” It also displays the insulting character of irony in general, and in relation to kingship in particular. On the conventional, forensic topic of an “agitated crowd demanding action” making a political leader uneasy, see BJ. 1:4–5, 10–14. Immediately after Herod the Great’s death, the multitude demand reparation for past wrongdoings of the newly installed ethnarch Archelaus, culminating with an uprising during Passover. 420 On the textual variants to Mk 15:12 (ὃν λέγετε missing in ‫א‬/B), see discussion in Bruce Metzger, Textual Commentary, 118. 421 Introducing new persons halfheartedly, only to quickly send them out of the narrative, is repeated with Simon of Cyrene and the Roman centurion, enforcing a relay of clarity and obscurity, in 15:6– 39. 422 Josephus notes that suspension-execution and flogging can be coupled: BJ. 2.306; 5.449. 423 Cf. Marcus on the trial’s missing information and the formal cause for Jesus’s flogging and suspension-execution: “This omission is of a piece with his failure to specify the accusation against

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15:16–20a Diêgêma In continuity with the previous episode, this diêgêma is structured with a distinct beginning, middle, and ending.424 It opens with the introduction of Roman soldiers, making their first and only well-defined appearance in Mk (v.16). Then, the story becomes absurd. Its middle section (vv.17–19) is centered around the actions of 500–600 soldiers, extending and actualizing Pilate’s political humiliation of Jesus in a sexual manner. The vast number of Roman soldiers involved in ironically dressing him in royal colors, a crown of thorns, and prostrating in front of the “king” is noteworthy. This diêgêma is a farcical story of degradation, intensely invested in expressing sexual humiliation and violence against “the king of Jews,” and entirely focused on dressing and undressing him in “into the aula, that is the pretorium.” This individual rhetorical form ends with the military dressing the king with his prior clothes (v.20a), and sending him off to execution. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Praxis, pragma: Ironically dressing and undressing Jesus, as well as kneeling, saluting, twisting a crown of thorns, spitting, hitting, and paying homage to the would-be king Prosôpon: “Soldiers,” “the entire cohort” (600 soldiers), “the king of Jews” (v.16) Aitia: Not stated Chronos: Not stated Topos: “The middle of the aula, that is the preatorium” (v.16) Tropos: Dishonorable and ironic, resulting in sexual humiliation

The previous story concluded by handing Jesus over to be flogged and suspended in an (un)specified place.425 The current story continues with a corresponding list of violent acts. Perpetrators are named and a general place is determined: 600 soldiers gather outside, in the courtyard of the governor’s palace. The soldiers’ appearance is unique to Mk, and it ought to be noted that it is not demonstrated that the soldiers are the unspecified “they” of 15:15, since this group has yet to be named. While it can be historically deduced that the soldiers were officially in charge of carrying out acts of Roman violence (and the prefect’s flogging of royal radicals in particular), the multitude or the Judean elite are not excluded from an anonymous rhetoric of “the They.”426 Jesus by the Jewish authorities (15:1–2) and probably reflects Christian embarrassment at the political nature of the charge for which Jesus was executed”: Marcus, Mark 8–16, 1037–38. 424 Whether the episode ends with 15:20a or 20b is currently argued to find its resolution around the focus on sexual abuse and dressing in vv.16–20a. 425 In this context, πραιτώριον is to be identified with Pilate’s headquarters in Jerusalem and the place is thus meant to be the governor’s palace. David Tombs suggests either “Herod’s former palace on the western side of the city, or possibly the Antonia fortress on the corner of the Temple complex on the eastern side”: Crucifixion of Jesus, 34. In the end however, the story is silent on the matter and the description of the place where Jesus is explicitly subjected to sexual and physical violence. The Greek is difficult to parse, since the αὐλή normally refers to a forecourt, or courtyard, of an ordinary house, while Mk identifies it with an entire complex of building (τῆς αὐλῆς, ὅ ἐστιν πραιτώριον): the aula and the praetorium are made into synonyms. Cf. Mann, Mark, 642; Yarbro Collins, Mark, 725. 426 As an excursion, Lk 23:25 elaborates extensively on the tension in 15:15, in the form of avoiding naming οἱ στρατιῶται prior to the mocking of Jesus with wine (23:36). The “they/them” is therefore

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Disorder in 15:16–20a is primarily located in its persons-in-action on a symbolic level. In v.16, soldiers fetch the “king” from an undisclosed place of flogging and gather the entire cohort (normally a tenth of a Roman legion).427 In vv.18–20a (foreshadowed in 10:34a),428 a “pragmatic” list of actions materializes, where: i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii. viii.

they dressed him (ἐνδιδύσκουσιν), they twist a thorny crown and put on him (πλέξαντες, περιτιθέασιν), they began to salute (ἤρξαντο ἀσπάζεσθαι), they struck (ἔτυπτον), they spat (ἐνέπτυον), they knelt in homage (προσεκύνουν). And finally, when they have mocked him (ἐνέπαιξαν), they undress and dress him again (ἐξέδυσαν, ἐνέδυσαν)

When trying to imagine an entire courtyard full of Roman soldiers, participating in these listed actions, the short story’s thought (dianoia) is revealed with intensely indecent incidents (pragmata). The list becomes especially charged with meaning, if its sexual content is brought before the mind’s eyes.429 For instance, it is unstated whether Jesus was naked when the list of actions commences, or if he wore his own clothes when enforced to dress in a purple attire. This ambiguity does not mean, however, that the story’s clear instance of enforced nudity (toward the end of the diêgêma), is the first time Jesus is naked. Rather, the undisclosed flogging and its secretive perpetrators (15:15) arguably assumes a removal of clothing. 15:20 is thus the second time “the king of Jews” is naked in front of a group of abusers. It is therefore likely that Jesus is to be considered as naked when brought to the forecourt filled with the hundreds of soldiers.430 not determined with relation to the soldiers before the actual suspension-execution, and the multitude and Judean elite are implicitly involved in actions in Lk 23:25–35. Mt 27:26–27, in contrast, defuses an indirect involvement of the multitude and Judean elite, by clarifying that Pilate has him flogged, prior to handing him over. 427 Marcus, Mark 8–16, 1039. Cranfield considers a less strict implication of the use of cohort here. It could mean up to six hundred troops, yet also only around two hundred troops: Cranfield, Gospel According to St. Mark, 452. Tombs briefly deals with previous scholarship (primarily Ulrich Luz’s research on Mt) and hesitance to take Mk (in Mt) where six hundred soldiers participate in said actions of mocking: Crucifixion of Jesus, 35. The current discussion on sexual violence is indebted to Tombs’s informative analysis. 428 Καὶ ἐμπαίξουσιν αὐτῷ καὶ ἐμπτύσουσιν αὐτῷ καὶ μαστιγώσουσιν αὐτὸν καὶ ἀποκτενοῦσιν . . . 429 While nudity is associated with suspension-execusiton and other actions in 15:6–39, Jesus is never described as naked, in contrast to the youngling from 14:51–52/16:1–8 (καὶ νεανίσκος τις συνηκολούθει αὐτῷ περιβεβλημένος σινδόνα ἐπὶ γυμνοῦ . . . γυμνὸς ἔφυγεν). Importantly, “[c]ommentators sometimes understate the acutely threatening events in the praetorium by using euphemistic language suggestive of spontaneous ‘horseplay’ or ‘buffoonery,’ or by likening the mockery to comedy, carried out by a small group. The indication that five hundred soldiers were present suggests that something much more organised and more sinister was taking place. The language of ‘called together’ (Mark 15:16) or ‘gathered’ (Matt. 27:27) suggests something more orchestrated and significant”: Tombs, Crucifixion of Jesus, 17. 430 “The reference to ‘[they] put his own clothes on him’ (Mark 15:20) shows that when the soldiers dressed Jesus in purple, he was either already naked from the flogging or they had stripped him of

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While formal reasons for mocking actions are withheld, a trope of Roman soldiers inclined to display “social dominance” over a foreign subject is a discursive association. From this angle, recurring acts of nakedly flaunting the “Judean king” tells us at least two important features of these acts of ridicule. First, the situation demonstrates the Romans’ absolute control over a barbarian and subaltern body. For a Jewish man in particular, a public display of nudity would be equal to complete social degradation.431 The Roman gaze would arguably fall upon the circumcised genitals of this “king” (probably perceived as a mutilated body part) and therefore purposefully be targeted, when beating upon the body.432 Second, the particular humiliation is loaded with political libido, since power of enforced nudity over prisoners “is often gendered and constructed as manly . . . in being stripped, a prisoner is displayed as powerless, and a stripped male prisoner is shown to be unmanly.”433 Roman abuse of a “barbarian’s body,” in the shape of a humorous king of Judea-Jews as an “unmanly man” therefore constructs a site of erotic intensity that objectifies multiple sexual desires. In short, the political and colonial “eroticism” produces humiliation that: expressed important power dynamics. It demonstrated the power and virility of the penetrator and amplified the defeat, humiliation, and subjugation of the enemy. There is nothing in the Roman ethical or social code that would prevent—or even restrain—Roman soldiers from raping or abusing a captive condemned to crucifixion. Some of the Roman protocols around masculinity would actively support such abuses, especially when the victim was seen as defying the power and authority of Roman rule. In addition to this, torture against slaves and those condemned of crimes was widespread and often took extreme forms. In at least some cases, Roman torture of both female and male captives was highly sexualized.434

From the perspective of the discourse of Mk, ataxia resumes with the persons-inaction. Through sexual abuse, humorous and unhinged irony promulgates the dishonorable distain initiated with the previous Pilate-diêgêma. With a concentration on dressing and undressing the king of Judea-Jews, erotic and humiliating desires of “the six hundred” comes to the surface. The shamefulness of the actions speaks louder than the actual words used, by way of the absurdity and absolute humiliation implied his own clothes (himatia is plural) before putting the purple on him… Mark therefore indicates at least two strippings (and possibly three) associated with the flogging and mockery of Jesus in the praetorium”: Tombs, Crucifixion of Jesus, 17. 431 “In Judean thought nudity was relentlessly censured. The male genitalia were frequently denoted by the euphemism ‘shame’ (in such phrases as ‘he covered his shame,’ Jubilees 3:27, 30; cf. Isa 58:7; Ezek 16:22, 35–39; Job 26:6), and Paul, too, spoke of the ‘shameful’ parts of the body, meaning the sexual organs (1 Cor 12:23)”: Mark T. Finney, “Servile Supplicium” 127. Cf. Michael Poliakoff, “Attitudes toward Nudity in Greco-Roman Judaism.” 432 Tombs, Crucifixion of Jesus, 16, 35. 433 Tombs, Crucifixion of Jesus, 15. The spectrality of Hector’s corpse, in Il., is an excellent example of unmanly and sexual connotations involved in a similar situation: Il. 14. On ambiguous representation of masculinity in Mk 14–16, see Conway, Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity, 100–6. 434 Tombs, Crucifixion of Jesus, 34. Cf. Finney, “Servile Supplicium,” 127.

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in the use of imagery. While the silence of the king is not presented as a cry for help, in the end the Galilean Jesus is emptied of honor, autonomy, and credibility, not only as “Judean king” but more importantly as a member of the Jewish ethnos and human being.435

15:20b–27 Deficient Diêgêma In contrast to the previous short story, this episode’s overall organization unfortunately defies identification with the formal qualities of diêgêma or chreia. In continuity with the previous story, 15:20b–27 also creates a pragmatic inventory of actions done by “them.” However, the time and place differ from the previous story. A main theme and thought (dianoia), rather a specific happening (pragma), is arguably found with actions performed during the suspension of the king to the pole. It is significant, I find, that this scene and arguably the acme of the entire passion narrative, and perhaps Mk in toto, yet again renounces the ideology of well-defined depiction of its persons-in-action. Where the emotional narrative peak of the death of Jesus finds its vocalization, there is this formal denial of rhetorical clarity and “a complete narration.”436 While 15:20b–27 arguably functions like a “deficient” diêgêma, since there is no specific happening or central novus homo upon which the episodes centers.437 That said, there is a distinct use of time and place that introduces the new persons of Simon of Cyrene and unnamed insurrectionists sentenced to cosuspension with the king of the Jews. The time and place of this “diêgêma” is represented in its opening (v.20b: “they brought him to be suspended”) and finalization (v.27: “they suspended two robbers with him”). A thread of suspension humiliation, obliquely runs through the actions of the story, creating continuity. And while the passage can be divided into beginning, middle, and end (in contrast to an anecdote), its essence is hard to pinpoint. The story contains a disordered collection of occurrences and articulations of a pragmatic “stuttering” of divergent things occurring, during the fixation of the “king” to the pole. That is, in contrast to the previous list of erotic and violent activities, and a relatively balanced weaving of acts together through the thought of

In terms of Phil 2:7 (ἀλλ̓ ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μορφὴν δούλου λαβών), this episode narrates a primary accident of kenotic “emptying” and realizing the shape of an enslaved (socially dead person) upon Jesus’s body. 436 Kennedy, Prog., 28; Theon 5.78.23–24: “a complete narration consists of all of [six narrational elements] and of things related to them and one lacking any of these is deficient (ή τελεία διήγησις ἐξ ἁπάντων αὐτῶν συνέστηκεν καὶ τῶν συνεδρευόντων αὐτοῖς, ἐλλιπὴς δε ἐστιν ἣ τινος τούτων ἐπιδέουσα).” 437 New persons demarcating episodic boundaries in 15:6–39 Barabbas (vv.6–15), soldiers (vv.16– 20a), bystanders (vv.29–32), individual soldiers/bystanders and Roman leader, a centurion (vv.34– 39). 435

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dressing and sexual abuse (dianoia), the current stuttering of happenings is hardly able to create cohesion.438 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Praxis, pragma: Simon of Cyrene forced to carry a pole of execution, “they” bring “him” to place of death, gambling for clothes, offering some sort of wine-mixture; suspending two robbers, next to the Jewish-Judean king. Prosôpa: Simon of Cyrene (v.20b), “they” (vv.20b–27), Jewish-Judean king (v.24), two robbers (v.27) Aitia: Titulus on the pole—implicitly killed for crimes of sedition against Rome Chronos: The third hour (v.25, 09:00 AM) Topos: The place of Golgotha “that is a place of a skull” (v.22) Tropos: Dishonorable and ironic: humiliation during suspension

15:20b marks something of a diegetic beginning, introducing the general noetic theme and thought of “their” suspension of the king. 15:21–26 functions then as a middle section, containing a peculiar cluster of actions associated with the fixation on the suspension pole. The person of Simon is here momentarily introduced, along with the place of Golgotha. The actual fixation of the king’s body is repeated twice in 15:24–25 and associated with a distinct time (“third hour”).439 The end is arguably found with a concurrence and co-suspension of two insurrectionists (15:27). The humorous noetic theme and thought of unclear and ambigious humiliation resumes, in line with previous diêgêmata. The titulus situated on the suspensionpole (ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων: 15:26) echoes Pilate and the soldiers’ previous actions, clearly spelling out a formal cause of death. Grievous sexualized violence continues, as the soon-to-be suspended Jesus is once more stripped of clothing (15:24). While unstated, it is implied that the humorous king is fixed on the pole naked.440 This is, at least, demonstrated with second century narrative confirmation by Melito of Sardis (ca.180 CE).441 The repetition of dual suspension (vv.24–25), and paratactical composition defining the pragmatic stuttering, will be discussed in the chapter on style. 439 Aktionsart does not seem to remove a tension existing with regard to a repetition of σταυροῦν. In 15:24 “σταυροῦσιν αὐτόν” is the present form of the verb, while v.25 and “ἐσταύρωσαν” is an aorist. Decker demonstrates that present (and imperfect) forms in Mk signify “the situation as in progress without regard for its beginning or end,” while aorist has a perfective aspect and “views the situation in summary as a complete event without regard for its progress (or lack thereof)”: Decker, The Greek Verb in the Gospel of Mark, 149. If the first verb is interpreted as introductory, and the second as finalizing, v.27 creates an obstacle, with its repetition of the present (verbal) phrase καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ σταυροῦσιν δύο λῃστάς, as if the action is still in progress. 440 Cf. Marcus, Mark 8–16, 1043. Dennis Macdonald, Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, discusses nakedness in Mk, with special attention to the young man’s nakedness (14:51–52; 16:5– 7) and its Homeric parallels, rather than Jesus’s death. Acta P. (1.10) reflect the popular image in Christian art around the fourth–fifth century CE, when the soldiers cover up the shameful parts of Jesus’ body, with a loincloth. This is not present in the canonical gospel, however. 441 “Unprecedented murder! Unprecedented crime! The Sovereign has been made unrecognizable by his naked body, and is not even allowed a garment to keep him from view. That is why the luminaries turned away, and the day was darkened, so that he might hide the one stripped bare upon the tree, darkening not the body of the Lord but the eyes of men”: Pascha, 97. Augustine shares this view, in De civ. D 16.2.2: “the passion of Christ, which was signified by that man’s [Noah’s] 438

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In an interesting account by Dionysius of Halicarnassus on public execution of enslaved persons in Forum Romanum, the spectacle of shameful nudity of the enslaved suspended to a tree, affirms Melito’s elaboration of the meaning of Jesus’s death.442 Even though 15:20b–27 avoids a unilateral proclamation of nakedness, it remains a discursive, associated phenomenon of expiring criminals on poles. Further, Dionysius and Melito’s descriptions underline the social position of the criminals stripped and executed by suspension till death, as counted among the enslaved and socially degraded.443 Jesus’s naked death therefore incarnates the symbolic disgrace of imagining a humorous king that becomes-enslaved and anathematized. Moving on, the story’s emphasis on time and place is noteworthy, while at the same time it withholds the forcefulness of clarity. For instance, the hour of suspension is precise, yet the actual fixation of the king’s body occurs twice. And while Golgotha is plainly named as the place of death, its position in relation to Jerusalem is imprecise as is its translation (“a place of a skull”). This latter aspect creates confusion in relation to the many instances of indefinite plurals acting as subjects to the actions conducted.444 If attempts to locate clear irony is severed from the elements of attributed persons, the humiliation of having a king’s body nailed to a tree is ultimately surrounded by humoristic insecurity. In relation to its most mysterious figure, Simon the father of Alexander and Rufus, “coming from the country,” what role is played out? Is he a part of the Jerusalem multitude (of 15:6–15), or is he here attempting to enter the city from the north African district of Cyrenaica?445 Most importantly, why is this random figure nakedness.” Cf. Urban C. Von Wahlde, “The Crucifixion in the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis.” Further and on progymnastic rhetoric in the Pascha, its “first part contains a diêgêma [on the Egyptian Passover], whereas the second part, the katas