Genres of Mark: Reading Mark's Gospel from Micro and Macro Perspectives [1 ed.] 9783666560606, 9783525560600

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Jacob P. B. Mortensen (ed.)

Genres of Mark Reading Mark’s Gospel from Micro and Macro Perspectives Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica

Vol. 9

Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica (SANt) Edited by Eve-Marie Becker, Jan Dochhorn, Kasper Bro Larsen and Nils Arne Pedersen

Volume 9

Jacob P. B. Mortensen (ed.)

Genres of Mark Reading Mark’s Gospel from Micro and Macro Perspectives

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht

Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek: The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data available online: https://dnb.de. © 2023 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Theaterstraße 13, 37073 Göttingen, Germany, an imprint of the Brill-Group (Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands; Brill USA Inc., Boston MA, USA; Brill Asia Pte Ltd, Singapore; Brill Deutschland GmbH, Paderborn, Germany, Brill Österreich GmbH, Vienna, Austria) Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the publisher. Typesetting: 3w+p, Rimpar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage | www.vandenhoeck-ruprecht-verlage.com ISSN 2364-2157 ISBN 978-3-666-56060-6

Contents

Jacob P.B. Mortensen and Mikael Brorson The Gospel of Mark in the Context of Ancient Greco-Roman Education – A Search for Comparable Genres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Tobias Hägerland Reminiscences True, Noble and Beneficial: Mark 2:1–3:6 in the Light of Theon’s Chreia Exercises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Justin Strong The Markan ‘Parables’ and Ancient Rhetorical Theories of Fable and Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Joel Kuhlin Suturing Episodes: Jesus’ Death, διήγησις and διήγημα in Mk. 15:16–32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Maria Sturesson Ekphrasis and The Gospel of Mark. The Women, the Tomb, and the White-dressed Youngster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Sigurvin Lárus Jónsson Mark and Speech-in-Character . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Jacob P.B. Mortensen Mark 5:21–43 as a Progymnastic Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Helen K. Bond Mark as a Biography (bios) of a Philosopher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

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Contents

Eve-Marie Becker Markus, der Historiograph. Ein Beitrag zum Autorschaftskonzept der frühesten Evangelienschrift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Matthew D. C. Larsen According to Mark as Hypomne¯mata: From Working Document to Pre-Literary Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 Sylvie Honigman Mark’s Gospel as a cultic biography in the tradition of the Judean and Demotic stories narrativizing knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 John Van Maaren Constructing Mark’s Social Setting: Fissures in Gentile Mark; Blueprints for Jewish Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Author index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Subject index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 Index of Scriptures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Jacob P.B. Mortensen and Mikael Brorson

The Gospel of Mark in the Context of Ancient Greco-Roman Education – A Search for Comparable Genres

Since the pioneering work on the chreia by Burton Mack and Vernon Robbins in the 1980’s, New Testament scholars have been hesitant to apply the literary theories of the Progymnasmata – especially the remaining progymnastic exercises – to New Testament texts. The general idea among scholars has been that the early Christian writers were poorly educated (if they were educated at all) and did not intentionally make use of educational aids. However, during the last decade more interest has been shown in these second-level school exercises (Progymnasmata), of which four complete ancient versions have been handed down to us.1 This process of increased awareness of the Progymnasmata reached a peak with the publication by Mikeal C. Parsons and Michael W. Martin of Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament: The Influence of Elementary Greek Composition (2018). In their book, Parsons & Martin present seven (out of twelve) progymnastic exercises, explain the theory, provide ancient literary examples, and point out helpful New Testament parallels. Their collection of useful and comparable material is commendable, even though it is not comprehensible. Thanks to their presentation, it is now possible for a wider audience to learn, for instance, the theoretical background of how to make a comparison (synkrisis) and where to find examples of such comparisons in ancient literature. Another and more established discussion about literary forms is the discussion of macro-genres. During large parts of the 20th century, much Markan scholarship focused on the genre debate in an attempt to determine the genre to which Mark belonged. Various scholars have argued that Mark was a gospel,2 an eschatological historical monograph,3 a biography,4 an aretalogy,5 a historiog-

1 Cf. the translation of all four Progymnasmata by George A. Kennedy (trans.), Progymnasmata. Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). 2 Francis Watson, Gospel Writing: A Canonical Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 3 Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007); The Beginning of the Gospel: Probings of Mark in Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992).

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raphy,6 a novel,7 a Homeric epic,8 or a tragedy.9 Obviously, there are problems and advantages with all eight genre designations. For instance, the “gospel” was not defined as a literary genre until the second century CE, so it could not have been used by the author to conceive his text. The same objection can be raised against designating Mark as an eschatological historical monograph. Ancient biographies focus on the birth, ancestry and education of the protagonist, but these features are absent from Mark, unless serious interpretational work is done. Regarding historiography, the novel and tragedy, it is clear that the style and themes of Mark do not conform to other historiographical works, novels or tragedies. Mark’s focus is proclamatory and cannot be categorised as historical information, a love story or a tragedy like the works of Sophocles and Euripides. It is within the context of the scholarly trajectories outlined above that the conference on “The Gospel of Mark and Genre: Micro and Macro”, with the support of the Research Foundation (Aarhus University) and the H.P. Hjerl Hansen Mindefondet, was held. The purpose of the conference was to discuss, primarily, the educational level of the author of Mark and the possible presence of progymnastic forms or exercises in the Gospel. Additionally, the purpose was to discuss the relation and integration of micro-forms into the macro-genre debate. The meeting was made up of twelve paper sessions, each of which fea4 Charles H. Talbert, What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977); Richard Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with GraecoRoman Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Helen K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020); David E. Aune, “The Gospels as Hellenistic Biography”, Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 20, no. 4 (1987): 1–10; The New Testament in Its Literary Environment, LEC 8 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987). Cf. also Bond’s article in this volume. 5 Howard C. Kee, “Aretalogy and Gospel”, JBL 92, no. 3 (1973): 402–422; Lawrence A. Wills, The Quest of a Historical Gospel: Mark, John, and the Origins of the Gospel Genre (London: Routledge, 1997); cf. Andrew J. Kelley, “Miracles, Jesus and Identity: A History of Research regarding Jesus and Miracles with Special Attention to the Gospel of Mark”, Currents in Biblical Research 13, no. 1 (2014): 82–106. 6 Eve-Marie Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, WUNT 194 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007). Cf. Eve-Marie Becker’s article in this volume. 7 Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel. Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); Michael E. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel, SBL – Academia Biblia 3 (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2002). Cf. Sylvie Honigman’s article in this volume, which argues against this perception. 8 Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2000). 9 Adam Z. Wright, Of Conflict and Concealment: The Gospel of Mark as Tragedy (Eugene, Oregon: Pickwick Publications, 2020); Stephen H. Smith, “A Divine Tragedy: Some Observations on the Dramatic Structure of Mark’s Gospel”, Novum Testamentum 37, fasc. 3 (1995): 209–231; Amelinde Berube, “Tragedy in the Gospel of Mark” (thesis, McGill University, 2003).

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tured a thirty-five-minute presentation by the author and a thirty-minute moderated discussion.10 In addition to these sessions, an article by Professor Helen Bond (Edinburgh) has been included in the volume. Professor Bond was unable to attend the conference and speak on the Gospel of Mark as a biography. Professor Bond’s contribution makes the discussion of the macro-genre approach more complete because her opinion is one of the most widely held views on the genre of Mark. The scholars who gathered at Sandbjerg Estate in Southern Jutland, each an expert in various facets of the overall theme, shared a common goal: they would refrain from attributing some sort of normative or common notion of literary forms or genres within and beyond the ancient Greco-Roman educational and literary curriculum. Rather, the intention was to move towards a greater overall understanding of the subject, by allowing the diversity of views to stand and speak for themselves. None of the participants wanted to presume the uniqueness of the Markan text, neither in its entirety nor in its minor passages. Instead, they sought to situate Mark’s Gospel within a proper and plausible historical setting, making neither an ontological claim about the absolutely alien nature of this text, nor a historical claim of radical incomparability with contemporary literary forms and genres (both micro and macro).11 The intention was to situate Mark’s Gospel within its proper socio-historical and literary context and compare it with the literary forms (micro and macro) and educational textbooks which were available at the time it was written. In this way, the importance of educational exercises and the perception of these exercises as literary forms or genres drove the investigations. Additionally, this was what made it possible to overcome the “form-critical flaw,” as we might call it. The importance of genres was already familiar to form critics in the early part of the twentieth century. Martin Dibelius and the majority of all subsequent scholars identified various literary units and generic forms in the Gospel texts and sought analogies to these particular “Gospel forms” in other ancient literature. This methodology has something to say for itself, but it also contains a serious flaw: if too much focus is placed on the “Gospel form,” similar literary expressions and genres in contemporary literature tend to be overlooked. Hence, the starting point of the investigation should be reversed. First, the basic literary genre, form or exercise should be identified in an ancient, literary and theoretical 10 Professor Eve-Marie Becker (Münster) was unable to deliver her paper at the venue because of illness. She revised her presentation, and it is incorporated into the volume in its German form. 11 For these distinctions, see Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990), 39.

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context, and then the expression of this genre, form or exercise should be investigated in other ancient prose material to evaluate the extent to which it conforms to the generic guidelines and literary conventions. On the basis of such investigations, similarities and differences should be explored. This approach provides a broader basis for comparison and a specific ancient and literarytheoretical starting point and perception of the conventions and guidelines of a genre, form or exercise. In this way, the “form critical flaw” is overcome. During the conference, it became clear that there should be a focus on the specific nature of the relationship between Theon’s Progymnasmata and Mark’s Gospel. Was this relationship genealogical, analogical or something else? Did we want to state Mark’s direct dependence on Theon (or a similar set of progymnasmatic exercises), or were we applying Theon as a heuristic tool to open (parts of) the Markan text? Obviously aware of the difference, it became clear that maps are not territory, so all the participants struggled to work with the literary guidelines in relation to actual instantiations of literature. Hence, these discussions were taken up several times during the conference, but no consensus was reached. However, there was a general agreement that the Gospel of Mark should be regarded as a genuine product of the ancient system of Greco-Roman literary education – an ancient piece of Hellenistic literature with a strong Jewish flavour. Its literary forms and narrative building blocks (micro and macro) were not considered to be later inventions attributed to a unique and untranslatable core. Rather, all the participants attempted to approach the text at its instantiary level as it was perceived within the socio-historical and literary forms available to an author at the time of its inception. This is why the Progymnasmata was chosen as a lens to focus the interpretations. Hence, a consensus approach might be said to consider the relationship between Theon’s Progymnasmata and Mark’s Gospel as functional and constructive. Mark related to the progymnastic exercises by way of an interactive literary capacity, and he was able to go in the same direction as other contemporary and previous authors. As a methodological point of departure, none of the participants wanted to claim that Mark and the progymnastic exercises were identical or even similar. Of course, all the participants wanted to compare Mark with the progymnastic exercises to some degree. However, it became apparent that there was considerable interest in focusing on where and how the Markan passages differed from the text-book examples and contemporary literary forms. Everyone wanted to discuss the ways in which Mark appropriated the educational forms and put them to use for his own purposes, with a view to identifying the incongruities and variations. In this sense, the approach to the Markan text and the progymnastic exercises was inspired more by the idea of family resemblances than by a formal set of criteria defining a checklist. The approach was more functional and pro-

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totypical than genealogical, and seemed to be a better way of capturing the fluidity and variety of the literary forms. As one literary scholar has put it: “Members of one family share a variety of similar features: eyes, gait, hair color, temperament. But – and this is the crucial point – there need be no one set of features shared by all family members.”12 In order to capture the features that produce a descriptively productive category with enough richness and depth to make a comparison and categorise the literary passages within the same literary form or micro-genre, there was a need for more than a mere checklist. What some might deem a comparison (synkrisis) or a speech-in–character (prosôpopoiia) may not be deemed a comparison or speech-in–character by others, even if they share several correlating features from a checklist. Put differently, the way one author elaborates on a chreia or fable may be different from the way another author does, even if they both engage in the literary practice of elaboration. Hence, the model of family resemblance seemed apt for capturing the idea of comparing one literary form, genre or exercise with a wide variety of literary examples and deciding whether to include or exclude the passage in the group. In addition to the above, there was a shared perception that Mark did not conceive his message in some original or pristine form untouched by the rules of the world. On the contrary, Mark was perceived as a thoroughly Hellenised Jew who conceived and formulated his message in precisely the literary categories that were available to him as an author in a specific place and time. He did not have to borrow some literary categories or a perceptual system from a foreign culture, and nor did a foreign culture intrude upon his message with a view to adapting it to his context. Rather, the way in which Mark conceived his message, organised and ordered it according to structural principles and perceptual categories, was based entirely on the literary categories that were available to him as the result of his education. The most likely theoretical background for him to apply was the literary forms or micro-genres of the Progymnasmata. The papers offered at Sandbjerg Estate and revised for the present volume highlight the importance of the concept of genres for understanding the wider conceptual context of individual authors and the social and cultural importance of the ancient Greco-Roman education. They also vividly demonstrate the necessity of collaboration and interdisciplinary dialogue in attempting to grasp such a foundational and multi-faceted topic as micro- and macro-genres. In the present volume, the articles have been structured according to their affiliation to the micro- or macro-genre approach, and a subdivision has been added relating to theology and ethnicity. This strategy is not meant to insinuate that the author 12 Chana Kronfeld, On the Margins of Modernism: Decentering Literary Dynamics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 28.

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of Mark’s Gospel and the other ancient authors thought in terms of these concepts in their theory, ideology or practice. Parallels and/or differences cannot be assumed but, instead, must be evaluated on an individual basis in each case. Nevertheless, in order to present the articles in a systematic fashion, they have been divided according to such rules. The first six articles of the anthology are comprised of contributions that investigate different micro-genres of Mark’s Gospel. In the first article, Tobias Hägerland does this by treating Mark 2:1–3:6 in relation to the chreia exercises (χρεία) from Theon’s Progymnasmata. Hägerland demonstrates the impact of Theon’s chreia exercises on the genre of Hellenistic biography by comparing the exercises to Lucian’s Life of Demonax and other contemporary literature. He then asks whether Mark 2:1–3:6 seems to draw on chreia exercises as well, and concludes that this seems very likely, if one is willing to assume that Mark had received a progymnastic education. In this way, Hägerland also stresses the meaning of how we view the socio-literary context of Mark’s Gospel. Justin Strong’s point of departure in the second article of the volume is the antique fable genre (μύθος), and especially Theon’s writing on μύθος in the Progymnasmata. By way of introduction, Strong defines the fable genre and provides examples of ancient fables in order to render it probable that the Greek word παραβολή in the NT is an umbrella category which often covers or includes fables. Strong then uses the παραβολαί of The Sower (Mark 4:3–9) and The Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1–12) as prime examples of fables in Mark’s Gospel, as well as attempting to demonstrate the usefulness of the fable genre in categorising the short comparisons in the Gospel of Mark (often referred to as similes). He thus concludes that it is unequivocal that Mark was familiar with the fable as a genre. The Greco-Roman notion of διήγημα (“short story”) is put to use by Joel Kuhlin as the central micro-perspective for his analysis of Mark’s Gospel. Firstly, Kuhlin relates διήγημα to διήγησις (“narrative”), in line with the historian Polybius as well as Theon and other late antiquity rhetors. Kuhlin then applies the terms to Mark’s depiction of Jesus’ death (Mark 15:16–32) and finds that Mark 15:16–32 is best described as an example of the principle of suturing or weaving (συμπλέκειν) narration into narration: Mark tries to combine two short stories (διηγήματα: Mark 15:16–20a and 15:20b–27) and a χρεία (Mark 15:29–32) into one single narrative totality. From a rhetorical perspective, however, Kuhlin concludes that Mark’s attempt to weave episodes together fails because of a lack of clarity and credibility as well as a lack of brevity – however, the story still “works.” This failed attempt is contrasted to Chariton of Aphrodisias’ Callirhoe as a prime example of suturing episodes. The rhetorical category of ἔκφρασις (“description”) is used to read and analyse the story of the women at the tomb (Mark 16) in Maria Sturesson’s article. First,

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Sturesson defines ἔκφρασις using the Progymnasmata of Theon as well as Nicolaus the Sophist and Aphtonius, and here she discusses the meaning of terms such as vividness and clarity with regard to ἔκφρασις, thereby distinguishing it from plain narration. She also underlines that turning listeners into spectators is a key way of identifying ἔκφρασις. Making use of literary critics such as Roland Barthes and Gérard Genette, Sturesson then shows that the category might entail what Barthes denotes “the reality effect”, and finally she points to two hints of ἔκφρασις in Mark 16 and compares them to parallels in the Gospels of Matthew and John. The Gospel thus invites the reader to perform a visual reading, according to Sturesson. Sigurvin Jónsson focuses on the speeches in Mark’s Gospel and reads them in the light of the notion of “speech-in–character,” more specifically the notions of προσωποποία and ἠθοποιία, which can be found both in the writings of Dionyius of Halicarnassus and in Theon’s Progymnasmata. These notions are applied to Herod Antipas’ (Mark 6:16, 22–3) and Pilate’s direct speeches (Mark 15). Furthermore, both speeches are compared to their parallels in the Gospels of Matthew and John. By doing this, Jónsson shows that the category of speech-in– character is relevant to the speeches of Herod Antipas and Pilate, indicating that Mark is a rhetorically well-educated writer. The passage in Mark’s Gospel on Jairus and the Hemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:21–43) has typically been recognised as a Markan intercalation. However, it has never been situated and read in an ancient framework in relation to the concept of comparison. In his article, Jacob Mortensen attempts to do exactly this by using Theon’s (as well as Hermogenes’ and Libanius’) concept of σύγκρισις (comparison). Mortensen exemplifies this in an ancient context with Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae, the Letter of Aristeas, and an example from Plutarch. Mortensen then applies the concept of σύγκρισις to Mark 5:21–43 and shows that the focus of the passage is faith and how it responds to Jesus, notwithstanding people’s differences. Following this thorough investigation from a micro-perspective, the next four articles apply macro-perspectives to Mark’s Gospel. The last article also approaches Mark’s text from a macro-perspective, although this is done from a theological and ethnic perspective. First, Eve-Marie Becker reads Mark’s Gospel, as well as the other early gospels, as drafts of Hellenistic-Roman and early Jewish historiography by regarding Mark as a historiographer. She thus studies Mark as the author, the individual and active creator and composer of this concrete piece of antique historiographical literature. After presenting a historical overview of the genesis and development of the authorship category in Mark’s Gospel, Becker shows the potential of viewing the Gospel as historiography. Finally, she illustrates how the

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research on the Progymnasmata can benefit from this historiographical consideration of the author of Mark’s Gospel. In the next article applying a macro-perspective, Helen Bond argues that Mark’s Gospel should be understood as an ancient biography (bios), alongside those specifically dealing with ancient philosophers. These works acted not only as memorials to great lives, but perhaps more importantly set out their subjects’ ways of life as models to be imitated. A person’s death, too, was of great importance: since philosophers offered people practical advice on how to live a good life, it was only to be expected that they lived up to this advice when they died themselves. After considering Mark’s use of χρείαι and σύγκρισις, Bond argues that the Markan Jesus does indeed die in conformity with his teaching, a countercultural inversion of honour/shame that turns traditional notions of the good death upside down. This insight has important ramifications earlier on in the bios, as can be seen from an examination of both Jesus’ earlier characterisation and that of secondary characters (most of whom, she argues, exist as foils to Jesus). Sylvie Honigman, in her article, points to a new approach to the discussion of the macro-genre of Mark’s Gospel. She proposes that the Gospel should be understood as being derived from the narrative tradition of Demotic tales and as having been influenced by the subgenres of Demotic stories of magicians as well as Hellenistic royal biographies. She surveys the narrative structure of Mark’s Gospel and finds that it is composed of a framework narrative about Jesus’ life which contains a variety of episodes characteristic of Demotic tales. According to Honigman, this places Mark’s Gospel in the socio-cultural context of the southeastern part of the Mediterranean, presumably the Southern Levant. Matthew Larsen asks how the first readers of Mark’s Gospel must have understood its genre and makes the argument that it must have been conceived as ὑπομνήματα (“notes”). By way of introduction, he distinguishes between different types of ὑπομνήματα. He then goes on to show that the linguistic, grammatical and geographical curiosities and mistakes in Mark’s Gospel are characteristic of ὑπομνήματα, as well as pointing out that the rhetorical and literary qualities of the Gospel do not in any way preclude it from being understood as ὑπομνήματα. Larsen thus concludes that Mark’s Gospel is best understood as a para-literary ὑπομνήμα turned into a pre-literary ὑπομνήμα, i. e. as textual notes turned into a draft on a literary text about the story of Jesus. Last, but not least, John Van Maaren surveys the theological macro-perspective of Mark’s Gospel. Many historical-critical readings of New Testament texts have begun to understand them within the context of ancient Judaism. In his article, Van Maaren attempts to do the same with Mark’s Gospel. First, he surveys current scholarship on Mark’s Gospel and the tendency to understand it primarily within a gentile context. He then focuses on the meaning of the “Paul

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within Judaism” paradigm, which may serve as an analogy for understanding Mark’s Gospel in a Jewish social setting. By surveying key pericopes of Mark’s Gospel (e. g. Mark 5:25–34; 7:1–23) and scholarship on Mark, Van Maaren attempts to demonstrate that Mark’s Gospel can indeed be read within the context of first-century Judaism.

Tobias Hägerland

Reminiscences True, Noble and Beneficial: Mark 2:1–3:6 in the Light of Theon’s Chreia Exercises

1.

Introduction

Researchers have long since noted that Mark 2:1–3:6 forms a coherent sequence of units centred on controversies over the authority of Jesus. Scholarly discussion of this sequence has largely focused on the question whether the evangelist received at least its core as a unified whole from his tradition, or created the collection himself. This question need not detain us here.1 Rather, the purpose of the present contribution is to advance the understanding of the composition from a synchronic perspective with the help of the chreia exercises in Theon’s Progymnasmata. The most extensive study of the compositional structure of Mark 2:1–3:6 remains Joanna Dewey’s brilliant 1980 monograph Markan Public Debate, preceded by her 1973 article in the Journal of Biblical Literature.2 As Dewey herself has remarked, these studies were published before the breakthrough of research into the oral dimensions of the New Testament and thus conceived of Mark’s structure in terms of literary techniques, but she later resituated her results

1 See, in favour of a pre-Markan source, Martin Albertz, Die synoptischen Streitgespräche: Ein Beitrag zur Formengeschichte des Urchristentums (Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1921), 5–16; HeinzWolfgang Kuhn, Ältere Sammlungen im Markusevangelium, SUNT 8 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 53–98; Ingrid Maisch, Die Heilung des Gelähmten, SBS 52 (Stuttgart: KBW, 1971), 112–17; James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul, and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox, 1990), 10–36; Tobias Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins: An Aspect of His Prophetic Mission, SNTSMS 150 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 241–45; cf., against the pre-Markan source hypothesis, Joanna Dewey, Markan Public Debate: Literary Technique, Concentric Structure and Theology in Mark 2:1 to 3:6, SBLDS 48 (Chico: Scholars, 1980), 184–85; Jarmo Kiilunen, Die Vollmacht im Widerstreit: Untersuchungen zum Werdegang von Mk 2,1–3,6, AASFDHL 40 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1985). 2 Joanna Dewey, “The Literary Structure of the Controversy Stories in Mark 2:1–3:6,” JBL 92 (1973): 394–401; Dewey, Markan Public Debate.

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within the framework of orality studies.3 Conspicuously absent from her subsequent work, however, is the in-depth engagement with any form of ancient rhetoric. Dewey does acknowledge Vernon Robbins’s identification of “rhetorical culture” as a culture that “features comprehensive interaction between spoken and written statement,”4 and she agrees that all New Testament texts belong to this type of culture. At the same time, she argues that the texts “may be located along a continuum from more literal to more oral,” and she places the Gospel of Mark (as well as the Gospel of John) “at the oral end of the continuum”—where we cannot even be certain as to whether the composers were literate or not.5 This is certainly going too far. As the composer of a biography or biography-like narrative, Mark the evangelist must have attained some level of literacy.6 This, in its turn, suggests that he had been trained in at least some basic progymnasmata—since there was no way around these proto-rhetorical exercises for anyone learning how to write and compose in antiquity—and that progymnastic rhetoric is a proper framework for interpreting Mark 2:1–3:6. I set out to reconsider this Markan sequence in the light of Theon’s chreia exercises and the use of chreiai in roughly contemporary literature. This will be done in three steps. First, I will consider what existent research on Mark’s Gospel has concluded about its use of chreiai in a stricter and a broader sense and of chreia elaborations. Secondly, I will discuss the form of the chreia exercises suggested by Theon and their impact on Hellenistic biography as represented in particular by Lucian’s Life of Demonax. Thirdly, I will turn to Mark 2:1–3:6, which I think can be appropriately labelled a sequence of “reminiscences,” apomnemoneumata or “expanded chreiai”—and which is at the same time an important building-block in Mark’s composition of his Life of Jesus. Is there anything near evidence that this sequence has been influenced by Theon’s exercises?

3 Joanna Dewey, The Oral Ethos of the Early Church: Speaking, Writing, and the Gospel of Mark, Biblical Performance Criticism Series 8 (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2013), xii–xiii; cf. 53–62. 4 Vernon K. Robbins, “Oral, Rhetorical, and Literary Cultures: A Response,” Semeia 65 (1994): 75–91 (80). See also Vernon K. Robbins, “Progymnastic Rhetorical Composition and PreGospel Traditions: A New Approach,” in The Synoptic Gospels: Source Criticism and the New Literary Criticism, ed. C. Focant, BETL 110 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993), 111–47 (116–18). 5 Dewey, Oral Ethos, 34–35. 6 On the (quasi-)biographical genre of Mark, see Tomas Hägg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 148–56, 161–65; Richard Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, 3rd ed. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018), I.16–31; 185–212, 273–75, 281–84; Helen K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020).

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Chreiai and Reminiscences in Mark and Theon

The chreia (χρεία) is probably the most studied progymnastic form in research on Mark’s Gospel. Among the early form critics, Martin Dibelius noted the resemblance of what he preferred to call the “paradigm” to the chreia, and Rudolf Bultmann’s definition of the “apophthegma” in essence corresponds to the chreia as described in the Progymnasmata.7 Since the 1980s, more in-depth studies of the chreia form in ancient rhetorical education as well as in Mark and in the other Synoptic Gospels have been undertaken.8 New Testament scholars have become increasingly aware that none of the evangelists could possibly have achieved the literary competence required for the task of composing a Gospel apart from being trained in chreia manipulation and other basic progymnasmata, and few if any would question the relevance of progymnastic chreia discussions for understanding how the Gospel authors handled their material.9 A by no means exhaustive scan of relevant publications shows that well over forty chreiai or chreia-like units have been identified within the Gospel of Mark, although it comes as no surprise that researchers employ different criteria for delimiting units and for identifying chreiai.10 In part, the differences in definition go back to the progymnastic handbooks. 7 Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums, 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1933), 149–64; Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition, 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1931), 8–9. 8 See especially Ronald F. Hock and Edward O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: Volume I. The Progymnasmata, SBLTT 27 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1986); Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises, SBLWGRW 2 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002); James R. Butts, “The Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels,” BTB 16 (1986): 132–38; Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma: Polebridge, 1989); Marion C. Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, the Classical World and the Rabbis, JSNTS 227 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002); Alex Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem: Clarifying Markan Priority, BETL 252 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013); Mikeal C. Parsons and Michael Wade Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament: The Influence of Elementary Greek Composition (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018), 17–44. 9 Thomas F. Magill, “Markan Controversy Dialogues and the Chreia Tradition. An Investigation of the Rhetorical Dimensions of Selected Markan Pericopes (2.15–17, 18–22, 23–28, [sic] 3.22–30; 7.1–23; 11.27–33) in Light of their Redaction, Form, and Transmission Histories” (PhD diss., Glasgow University, 1996), implausibly questions Mark’s familiarity with the chreia (329). There is far more to be said for Magill’s contention that “at the very bedrock of the post-Easter tradition there were small stories that were crafted as chreiai” (323). 10 See Vernon K. Robbins, “Pronouncement Stories and Jesus’ Blessing of the Children: A Rhetorical Approach,” Semeia 29 (1983): 43–74; Butts, “The Chreia,” 134–37; Wolfgang Weiss, “Eine neue Lehre in Vollmacht”: Die Streit- und Schulgespräche des Markus-Evangeliums, BZNW 52 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988), 121–22; Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 92– 100, 123–29, 143–60, 171–77; Rod Parrott, “Conflict and Rhetoric in Mark 2:23–28,” Semeia 64 (1993): 117–37; Gregory Salyer, “Rhetoric, Purity, and Play: Aspects of Mark 7:1–23,” Semeia 64 (1993): 139–69; Magill, “Markan Controversy Dialogues”, 130–320; Jerome H. Neyrey,

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Theon’s description of the chreia as “a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person” (Prog. 201.16–18) is loose enough to accommodate not only for all the examples of chreiai in his own Progymnasmata and for those given by (probably) later authorities such as Hermogenes and Aphthonius, but also for the various explicit or implicit criteria employed by modern investigators searching for chreiai in Mark’s Gospel.11 The clearest feature that distinguishes between the chreia and other progymnastic forms is that the chreia is always attributed to a specific person, although Theon’s formulation (“something corresponding to a person”) seems to allow for some liberty here as well. The various ways of “making a point”—through words, through actions, or through both—in combination with different circumstances that prompt the chreia and different forms of expression form the basis for Theon’s sophisticated classification of chreiai into types and subtypes (Prog. 202.18–210.3). This variation allows us to look beyond the “pronouncement stories” when we identify Markan units as chreiai. Most strikingly, the requirement that the chreia should be “brief” or “concise” is open to wide-ranging interpretation. According to the strictest definition, which corresponds well to practically all examples of isolated chreiai given by the Progymnasmata, a chreia consists of a “single syntactic system,” that is, one main clause which may be qualified through participial clauses.12 Theon, however, expects the teacher to train his students how to “expand” and “compress” a chreia, which indicates that the extreme conciseness exhibited by the school examples is not a necessary characteristic of all units identified as chreiai. For the sake of analytic clarity, it may be helpful to make a distinction between the “chreia proper,” in the sense of unexpanded chreiai of the textbook type, and the “Questions, Chreiai, and Challenges to Honor: The Interface of Rhetoric and Culture in Mark’s Gospel,” CBQ 60 (1998): 657–81; Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, 204–38; Klaus Berger, Formen und Gattungen im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Francke, 2005), 140–52; Samuel Byrskog, “The Early Church as a Narrative Fellowship: An Exploratory Study of the Performance of the Chreia,” TTK 78 (2007): 207–26; Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins, 230–41; Marius Johannes Nel, “The Relationship Between the Markan ἀϕίημι-chreia and the Historical Jesus,” Scriptura 115 (2016): 1–17; Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, 173–225; Parsons and Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament, 27–32. 11 References to Theon follow Christian Walz, Rhetores Graeci: Ex codicibus Florentinis Mediolanensibus Monacensibus Neapolitanis Parisiensibus Romanis Venetis Taurinensibus et Vindobonensibus, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Cottae, 1832), 145–257. For quotations in English, I use the translation by George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, SBLWGRW 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Most scholars seem to remain unconvinced by the attempt to relocate Theon’s Progymnasmata to the fifth century CE by Malcolm Heath, “Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata,” GRBS 43 (2002/2003): 129–60; see Justin King, Speech-in–Character, Diatribe, and Romans 3:1–9: Who’s Speaking When and Why It Matters, BIS 163 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 38–39 n. 3. 12 Michel Patillon, ed., Aelius Théon: Progymnasmata: Texte établi et traduit (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997), lviii–lix.

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“reminiscence” or “apomnemoneuma” (ἀπομνημόνευμα) which seems to be more or less equivalent to an expanded chreia.13 On this scheme, most of the units that scholars have identified as chreiai in Mark can be more aptly described as “reminiscences” (ἀπομνημονεύματα). Another confusing feature of chreia discussions in the Progymnasmata is that the term “chreia” is used both for the progymnastic form and for the exercises in which it is handled. Hermogenes and all later Progymnasmata associate the chreia so closely with the exercise of elaboration that this exercise has almost become identical with term. It is not uncommon for scholars who analyse chreiai in the Gospels to identify at least parts of the pattern of elaboration that Hermogenes and Aphthonius describe, which consists of the following “headings”: (1) praise, (2) paraphrase, (3) cause, (4) contrast, (5) comparison, (6) example, (7) judgment or testimony of the ancient, and (8) exhortation or brief epilogue. Thus, Rod Parrott finds in Mark 2:23–28 headings (2), (3), (4), (6) and (7), albeit in an order different from the standard;14 Gregory Salyer analyses 7:6–13 as a chreia elaboration including headings (1), (2), (6) and (7);15 Marion Moeser argues that 8:34–38 contains headings (2), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7), that 9:38–40 contains headings (1), (2) and (3), and that 10:41–45 contains headings (2), (3) and (4);16 and Burton Mack views 14:3–9 as an elaboration involving headings (2), (3), (4), (5), (6) and (7).17 There is nothing at all implausible about these analyses, especially when one remembers that the exercise of elaboration has affinities with the expolitio exercise in Ad Herennium and therefore builds on earlier educational practices.18 It is, however, important not to overlook that there were evidently alternative ways of handling chreiai. Theon’s recommendations concerning how to use the chreia in education do not involve the elaboration scheme as found in later Progymnasmata. Rather, Theon includes eight different chreia exercises: (1) restatement and (2) inflection, (3) comment and (4) contradiction, (5) expansion and (6) compression, and (7) refutation and (8) confirmation. Although the purposes of the third, fourth, seventh and eighth exercises do overlap with that of the exercise of elaboration, there are significant differences. Above all, whereas the later Progymnasmata provide students with model elaborations and obviously expect them to follow the scheme rather slavishly, The13 See Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins, 32–33. The distinction can, of course, be made in different meaningful ways. Butts, “The Chreia,” 133–37, categorizes chreiai in the Synoptic Gospels into three groups of varying conciseness, the third of which he identifies as “expanded chreiai.” Berger, Formen und Gattungen, 144, similarly employs the category “erweiterte Chrie” (expanded chreia). 14 Parrott, “Conflict and Rhetoric,” 126. 15 Salyer, “Rhetoric, Purity, and Play,” 143–44. 16 Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, 213, 216, 235. 17 Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 93. 18 Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric, 87–89.

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on’s is a manual for the teacher and rather seems to function as a toolbox from which the instructor may freely choose elements of the exercises and adapt them to his students as seems fit. The imprecision of the following advice is characteristic: One should refute from these topics, and one should provide arguments against each part of the chreia, beginning with the first, using whatever topics are possible. But do not forget that it is not possible to argue from all topics in all chreias … The more accomplished students can appropriately get their starting points … from what we are going to describe in regard to theses. (Prog. 216.1–5, 8–10)

Attempts have been made to synthesize the exercise of confirmation mentioned by Theon with the exercise of elaboration described by Hermogenes and Aphthonius into a system of “first-” and “second-level elaboration.”19 This has been rightly criticised as a gratuitous process of harmonization resulting in a picture that does not correspond to any of the sources.20 It is probably more accurate to view the Progymnasmata of Theon and Hermogenes respectively not only as two works that structure their exercises differently, but as two fundamentally different textual genres: the one being an inspirational set of practices to be used as a teaching resource, the other a prescriptive set of rules to be obeyed by the student. We can expect both to have something to offer in relation to our analysis of chreiai and reminiscences in the Gospel of Mark, but each in its own way, and we should resist the temptation to combine them.

3.

Theon’s Chreia Exercises and the Composition of Biographies

Let us now take a closer look at the eight chreia exercises suggested by Theon, and the various ways in which they may have influenced the handling of chreiai by the composers of ancient biographies. When it comes to the latter topic, it is important to bear in mind that the Sitz im Leben of Progymnasmata is the school, and that these manuals and textbooks theorize and systematize the exercises in a manner that does not necessarily reflect the more integrated use of progymnastic forms by mature authors, such as composers of biographies.21 An obvious aspect of the adaptation of chreiai to the biographical genre is that the name of the main character does not have to be spelled out at the beginning of each chreia, since it can easily be inferred from the context. Sometimes chreiai are linked together by 19 Vernon K. Robbins, “Introduction: Using Rhetorical Discussions of the Chreia to Interpret Pronouncement Stories,” Semeia 64 (1993): vii–xvii. 20 Magill, “Markan Controversy Dialogues,” 74–76. 21 See Robert J. Penella, “The Progymnasmata in Imperial Greek Education,” Classical World 105 (2011): 77–90 (85–89).

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the use of adverbial phrases, although they normally retain their characteristic shape as isolated units.22 To understand the relationship between the chreia exercises and the Gospel of Mark, it is necessary to consider how other ancient biographers put their progymnastic skills into practical use. Lucian’s secondcentury Life of Demonax, containing a sequence of more than fifty chreiai or reminiscences, is commonly recognised as a fairly close literary parallel to Mark’s Gospel.23 It will be used as the primary point of comparison in the following. Theon’s two introductory exercises—restatement and inflection—are very basic. Restatement (ἀπαγγελία) is even claimed by Theon to be “self-evident; for we try to express the assigned chreia, as best we can, with the same words … or with others in the clearest way” (Prog. 210.7–9). That such reformulation in the interest of “clarity” might at times render the original chreia almost impossible to recognise can be seen from the classic example of Theon’s chreia about the Laconian and his spear, which seems to undergo quite an evolution each time Plutarch “restates” it:24 A Laconian, when someone asked him where the Lacedaimonians set the limits of their land, showed his spear. (Theon, Prog. 206.6–8) Being asked once how far the boundaries of Laconia extended, he (Agesilaus) said, with a flourish of his spear: “As far as this can reach.” (Plutarch, Mor. 210E 28) Being asked how much land the Spartans controlled, he (Archedamus, son of Agesilaus) said, “As much as they can reach with the spear.” (Plutarch, Mor. 218F 2)

Only the perceived point of the chreia remains constant. The action as described in Theon’s version is combined or replaced with a saying in Plutarch’s versions. Even the attribution of the chreia varies throughout the three versions. No doubt this process of “clarifying” restatement also lies behind many of the chreiai for which we do not have access to alternative versions, such as those included in the Life of Demonax. Inflection (κλίσις) is a more diverse, if indeed mechanical, exercise. The student should practice how to change the person in the chreia throughout the three 22 Catherine Hezser, “Die Verwendung der hellenistischen Gattung Chrie im frühen Christentum und Judentum,” JSJ 27 (1996): 372–439 (392–93). 23 See, on the chreiai in Dem. 12–62, Hubert Cancik, “Bios und Logos: Formengeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu Lukians ›Demonax‹,” in Markus-Philologie: Historische, literargeschichtliche und stilistische Untersuchungen zum zweiten Evangelium, ed. H. Cancik, WUNT 33 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 115–30; Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, 89–105; Mark Beck, “Lucian’s Life of Demonax: The Socratic Paradigm, Individuality, and Personality,” in Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization, ed. K. De Temmerman and K. Demoen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 80–96. 24 Mack and Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion, 15. See also Vernon K. Robbins, Sea Voyages and Beyond: Emerging Strategies in Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation, Emory Studies in Early Christianity 14 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018), 239–41.

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numbers—singular, dual, and plural—resulting in such absurd formulations as “The twin rhetors Isocrates said the twin students with natural ability are children of gods” (Prog. 210.19–21). The purpose of this type of inflection is obviously the training of grammatical proficiency, and it is difficult to see that it would be of any practical use for someone composing a biography. Another type of inflection may have been more useful. Theon suggests that the student should learn how to change the chreia into each of the five grammatical cases—the nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative—a skill that can be easily acquired by learning certain set phrases. Thus, the default (nominative) chreia “Isocrates the orator said (Ἰσοκράτης ὁ ῥήτωρ … ἔλεγεν) that the student with natural ability was a child of gods” is put into the genitive by adding the phrase “the saying has become memorable”: “The saying of Isocrates [the orator] (Ἰσοκράτους τοῦ ῥήτορος … τὸ ῥηθέν), remarking that those students with natural ability are children of gods, has become memorable (μνήμης ἔτυχε)” (Prog. 211.9– 11). Similar grammatical inflection can be observed occasionally in biographies. Almost all of the chreiai or reminiscences in the Life of Demonax retain the default nominative form. In one instance, however, where Lucian explicitly claims to have heard Demonax utter the saying, he employs the genitive: I once heard him say (Ἤκουσα δὲ αὐτοῦ ποτε … λέγοντος) to . . ., the lawyer, that in all likelihood the laws were of no use, whether framed for the bad or the good; for the latter had no need of laws, and the former were not improved by them. (Dem. 59)25

Moeser claims that none of the anecdotes in the Life of Demonax “illustrate” the exercise of inflection, or indeed any of the chreia exercises apart from expansion and compression.26 The validity of this claim obviously depends on what we mean by “illustrate”—at least we can observe one case in which Lucian did make use of the ability to inflect a chreia that was an intended learning outcome of Theon’s curriculum. Let us save discussion of Theon’s third and fourth exercises for a moment, and move on to the fifth and sixth, that is, expanding (ἐπεκτείνειν) and compressing (συστέλλειν) the chreia. Theon defines expansion as the exercise performed by students who “lengthen the questions and answers in it, and the action or suffering, if any,” and provides as his example the expansion of the childless Epaminondas’ metaphorical saying about his two military victories as his “daughters” into a more elaborate story (Prog. 213.11–214.4). With regard to compression, Theon merely states that it is the opposite of expansion (213.13–14). There are indeed some anecdotes in the Life of Demonax that conform more

25 Text and translation of Demonax are from A. M. Harmon, Lucian: Volume I, LCL 14 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913). 26 Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, 97.

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closely to the shape of expanded chreiai or reminiscences. They are not confined to the “single syntactic system” of the chreiai proper, but contain two or more main clauses. Two examples may suffice: Another time the same man went to him and asked (ἠρώτα) what philosophical school he favoured most. Demonax replied: “Why, who told you that I was a philosopher?” As he left, he broke into a very hearty laugh (ἐγέλασεν); and when Favorinus asked him what he was laughing at, he replied (ἔφη): “It seemed to me ridiculous that you should think a philosopher can be told by his beard when you yourself have none.” (Dem. 14) His remark to the proconsul was at once clever and cutting. This man was (ἦν) one of the sort that use pitch to remove hair from their legs and their whole bodies. When a Cynic mounted a stone and charged him with this, accusing him of effeminacy, he was angry, had the fellow hauled down and was on the point of (ἔμελλεν) confining him in the stocks or even sentencing him to exile. But Demonax, who was passing by, begged (παρῃτεῖτο) him to pardon the man for making bold to speak his mind in the traditional Cynic way. The proconsul said: “Well, I will let him off for you this time, but if he ever dares to do such a thing again, what shall be done to him?” “Have him depilated!” said Demonax. (Dem. 50)

Moeser’s suggestions that some of these reminiscences may have resulted from Lucian’s expansions of chreiai proper, and that extremely brief chreiai such as Dem. 46 may be the result of compression, are by no means implausible.27 We cannot know this for certain, however, since none of the chreiai attributed to Demonax in other sources is found in Lucian’s work, or vice versa.28 Again, Plutarch offers more information. A comparison between different versions of the same chreiai or reminiscences in his work confirms that biographers did expand and compress chreiai along the lines suggested by Theon.29 Just as expansion and compression are each other’s opposites, so Theon’s third and fourth exercises—comment (ἐπιφωνεῖν) and contradiction (ἀντιλέγειν) —mirror one another. To “comment” on a chreia, according to Theon, means to provide at least one out of four types of arguments to corroborate the chreia, namely, (1) from the true (ἐκ τοῦ ἀληθοῦς), (2) from the noble (ἐκ τοῦ καλοῦ), (3) from the beneficial (ἐκ τοῦ συμφέροντος), or (4) from the witness of the famous (ἐκ τῆς τῶν εὐδοκίμων μαρτυρίας). To contradict a chreia is to provide similar arguments against it (Prog. 212.12–213.11). Surprisingly few scholars seem to have taken an interest in understanding how these two exercises differ essentially from Theon’s seventh and eighth exercises, if there is at all any essential difference between them. In his seventh exercise, Theon suggests that the student should 27 Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, 97–98. 28 Denis M. Searby, “Non-Lucian Sources for Demonax with a New Collection of ‘Fragments’”, SymbOsl 83 (2008): 120–47. 29 See Mark Beck, “Plutarch’s Use of Anecdotes in the Lives” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina, 1998), 119–82.

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learn how to “refute (ἀνασκευάζειν) chreias on the ground of their being unclear, pleonastic, deficient, impossible, incredible, false, inexpedient, useless, or shameful,” and the eighth and final exercise consists in “confirming” (κατασκευάζειν) the chreia either by arguments diametrically opposed to those used for refutation, or—in the case of “more accomplished students”—from the points suggested for refuting or confirming theses (214.4–216.18). Refutations and confirmations of chreiai should be structured as a prooemion followed by the chreia proper and then the arguments, but it seems clear that those arguments would also include the types of arguments suggested for the exercises of comment and contradiction. What, then, is the essential difference between comment and confirmation, and between contradiction and refutation? In fact, the difference does not seem to be one of essence, but simply one of degree. Refutation and confirmation, for all we can know, are more complete versions of contradiction and comment respectively. George Kennedy’s interpretation of the short phrase “in addition” (πρὸς δὲ τούτοις), which Theon inserts between his mention of the sixth and seventh exercises (Prog. 210.6), as meaning “at a later stage” is, in my opinion, to the point.30 Students would have to learn some basic argumentation in favour of a chreia or against it before they could acquire the skill of expanding or compressing it in a meaningful way, but later on they should be trained to argue more extensively. Only occasionally would ancient biographers append such explicit arguments to the chreiai that they included in their works. Perhaps this is the only clear example of Lucian adding an argument “from the true” in his own voice to a chreia in the Life of Demonax: Chreia proper When a fellow claimed to be a sorcerer and to have spells so potent that by their agency he could prevail on everybody to give him whatever he wanted, Demonax said: “Nothing strange in that! I am in the same business: follow me to the bread-woman’s, if you like, and you shall see me persuade her to give me bread with a single spell and a tiny charm” Comment from the true —implying that a coin is as good as a spell. (Dem. 23)

Here, Lucian seems to have sensed the danger of his readership failing to understand the implied analogy between a spell and a coin and thus the need for a brief “comment from the true” to explain the chreia’s appropriateness (cf. Mark 7:19). A more common strategy is to introduce an interlocutor attempting—and, of course, failing—to contradict the chreia, with the main character in effect providing the comment, as in this apomnemoneuma:

30 Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 19.

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Chreia proper When a man asked him what he thought was the definition of happiness, he replied that none but a free man is happy; Contradiction from the false and when the other said that free men were numerous, Comment from the true he rejoined: “But I have in mind the man who neither hopes nor fears anything.” Contradiction from the inexpedient “But how can one achieve this? For the most part we are all slaves of hope and fear.” Comment from the beneficial “Why, if you observe human affairs you will find that they do not afford justification either for hope or for fear, since, whatever you may say, pains and pleasures are alike destined to end.” (Dem. 20)

The unnamed interlocutor, whose innocent question prompts the chreia proper, first attempts to contradict it on the grounds of it being obviously false—there are numerous free men who are nevertheless unhappy. Demonax retorts by demonstrating that his saying is true if one acknowledges what a “free man” truly means. The interlocutor then tries to contradict the chreia by pointing to its practical uselessness, since no one can actually be free in this sense. To this Demonax replies by arguing that anyone taking a rational approach to human affairs can achieve such freedom, wherefore the chreia is not only true but also beneficial—quod erat demonstrandum.

4.

A Sequence of Reminiscences in Mark’s Life of Jesus (2:1–3:6)

Can we find indications within the sequence of Mark 2:1–3:6 that the evangelist or his source practiced the skills that Theon wanted the student to learn through his chreia exercises? Klaus Berger identifies the three units of 2:16–28 as one of several Chrienreihen, “sequences of chreiai,” that constitute a middle form in the development from individual chreiai to a full biography.31 Curiously, here he does not include 2:1–12 and 3:1–6, both of which he elsewhere categorizes as “dramatic chreiai.”32 In my opinion, Dewey’s literary analysis has convincingly demonstrated that they do belong to the sequence.33 So does 2:13–15, although not as an individual unit but as part of the prooemion of the chreia proper that follows in 2:17. We thus have in 2:1–3:6 a sequence of five expanded chreiai or 31 Berger, Formen und Gattungen, 149. 32 Berger, Formen und Gattungen, 145. 33 See Dewey, Markan Public Debate, 65–130.

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“reminiscences” (apomnemoneumata): (1) on forgiveness, 2:1–12; (2) on eating with sinners, 2:13–17; (3) on fasting, 2:18–22; (4) on observing the Sabbath, 2:23– 28; and (5) on healing on the Sabbath, 3:1–6. In keeping with the overall pattern in the Gospel, there is no trace of any influence from the exercise of grammatical inflection, as the reminiscences are all phrased in the nominative singular.34 On the other hand, it is not unlikely that the evangelist both restated and expanded the chreiai that came down to him, although as with the Life of Demonax, nothing can be known for certain in this regard. What we find in the sequence are reminiscences, still preserving some characteristics of the chreia proper, but we cannot know whether Mark expanded the chreiai into reminiscences or received them as such. The scholar who attempts to reconstruct the chreiai proper that possibly lie behind Mark’s reminiscences—and in doing so essentially tries to perform Theon’s exercise of compression—is faced with a real challenge. More often than not, it is difficult to decide which saying of Jesus within the reminiscence should be considered the chreia proper and which utterances are appended comments. A tentative reconstruction of the five chreiai proper underlying 2:1–3:6 could result in the following, but also in a number of alternative conjectures: (1) Jesus, on seeing a paralytic, said to him: “Child, your sins are forgiven.” ὁ Ἰησοῦς ᾿ιδὼν παραλυτικόν τινα λέγει αὐτῷ· “τέκνον, ἀφίενταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι.” (cf. 2:5) (2) Jesus, on hearing that the scribes among the Pharisees had seen that he was eating with sinners and toll-collectors, said to them: “Those in need of a physician are not those who are well, but those who are ill.” ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἀκούσας τοὺς γραμματεῖς τῶν Φαρισαίων ι᾿δόντας ὅτι ἐσθίει μετὰ τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν καὶ τελωνῶν λέγει αὐτοῖς· “οὐ χρείαν ἔχουσιν οἱ ι᾿σχύοντες ι᾿ατροῦ ἀλλ’ οἱ κακῶς ἔχοντες.” (cf. 2:17) (3) Jesus, on being asked by some people why his disciples were not fasting, said to them: “The wedding guests cannot fast as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they?” ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπό τινὼν διὰ τί οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ οὐ νηστεύουσιν εἶπεν αὐτοῖς· “μὴ δύνανται οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος ἐν ᾧ ὁ νυμφίος μετ’ αὐτῶν ἐστιν νηστεύειν;” (cf. 2:19) (4) Jesus, on being asked by the Pharisees why his disciples were doing such things on the Sabbath as are unlawful, said to them: “The Sabbath was made for the 34 Byrskog, “The Early Church,” 217–18, cautiously suggests that the chreia in Mark 1:29–31 may reflect the exercise of inflection through the substitution of a third-person verb for a supposedly original first-person verb in the description of the circumstances (cf. 2:23). As Byrskog correctly remarks, however, inflection as an exercise was “mostly made in reference to the main character(s) of the chreia,” making the similarity between Theon’s recommendation and Mark’s practice very distant at best.

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sake of human beings, and not human beings for the sake of the Sabbath.” ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐρωτηθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν Φαρισαίων τί ποιοῦσιν οἱ μαθηταὶ αὐτοῦ τοῖς σάββασιν ὃ οὐκ ἔξεστιν ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· “τὸ σάββατον διὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἐγένετο καὶ οὐχ ὁ ἄνθρωπος διὰ τὸ σάββατον.” (cf. 2:27) (5) Jesus, on entering the synagogue at a time when a person with a withered hand was there, said: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save a life or to kill?” ὁ Ἰησοῦς ει᾿σελθὼν ει᾿ς τὴν συναγωγὴν ὄντος ἐκεῖ ἀνθρώπου ἐξηραμμένην ἔχοντος τὴν χεῖρα λέγει· “ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν ἀγαθὸν ποιῆσαι ἢ κακοποιῆσαι, ψυχὴν σῶσαι ἢ ἀποκτεῖναι;” (cf. 3:4) It is immediately obvious that, whereas the above compressions of the Markan apomnemoneumata result in chreiai proper of the textbook type, they could also have been done in other ways, so as to produce chreiai with partially or entirely different points. For example, the “point” of the second chreia on the reconstruction above is the metaphorical saying “Those in need of a physician are not those who are well, but those who are ill” (2:17b), to which Mark may have appended the clarifying comment “I have not come to call those who are righteous but the sinners” (2:17c). It is equally possible, however, to take the latter statement as the original “point,” and the former as Mark’s argument from analogy. Similar uncertainties pertain to all of the chreiai proper possibly expanded by the evangelist, and we have to reckon with the possibility that Mark never encountered them in any compressed form. When, in the following, the chreiai proper as reconstructed above are taken as points of departure for further analysis, this should not be understood as a claim to have uncovered “the original form.” Rather, this and what follows amounts to an experimental reading of how the Markan sequence could have been produced by an author who set out to expand five chreiai through the narrator’s prooemia, the main character’s comments and his interlocutors’ contradictions. A practically infinite number of alternative processes are equally possible. More important is the synchronic observation that what we do have in Mark 2:1–3:6 is a sequence of reminiscences containing not only Jesus’ pointed sayings and actions, but also extended descriptions of the circumstances (prooemia), contradictions and comments that corroborate that Jesus’ words and deeds are true, noble and beneficial. (1) Mark 2:1–12 Prooemion (expanded description of circumstances) When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to

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Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. (2:1–4) Chreia proper (restated) When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (2:5) Contradiction from the shameful (by interlocutors) Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (2:6–7) Comments from the true and noble (by main character) At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and he said to them, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—“I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” (2:8–11) Epilogue (external validation of the chreia) And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!” (2:12)

Here we find both contradiction and comments following the chreia proper. Jesus is contradicted on the grounds that his utterance is blasphemous, thus shameful. He replies with comments that establish (1) that it is not shameful but noble, since he is the Son of Man with authority, and (2) that it is true, which he can prove by “saying” the “less easy” thing.35 (2) Mark 2:13–17 Prooemion (expanded description of circumstances) Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. (2:13–15) Contradiction from the shameful (by interlocutors) When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (2:16) Chreia proper (restated) When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (2:17ab) 35 On the argumentative structure of Jesus’ comments in 2:8–11, see Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins, 236–39; Beniamin Pascut, Redescribing Jesus’ Divinity Through a Social Science Theory: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Forgiveness and Divine Identity in Ancient Judaism and Mark 2:1–12, WUNT 2:438 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 181–87.

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Comment from the noble and beneficial (by main character) “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.” (2:17c)

This time, contradiction is prompted by Jesus’ behaviour and comes before the chreia proper. Again, Jesus is contradicted on the grounds that his behaviour is shameful. He replies with the chreia proper, ending with 2:17b,36 and a comment. Together these two utterances establish (1) that the behaviour is not shameful but noble, just as physicians’ meeting with their patients is not a shameful thing, and (2) that it is beneficial, since the sinners “have need of” him. (3) Mark 2:18–22 Prooemion (expanded description of circumstances) Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting (2:18a) Contradiction from the shameful (by interlocutors) and people came and said to him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” (2:18b) Chreia proper (restated) Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they?” (2:19a) Comment from the noble (by main character) “As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.” (2:19b–20) Comment from the beneficial (by main character) “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.” (2:21–22)

Again, contradiction comes before the chreia proper, and this time Jesus is contradicted on the grounds that his disciples’ behaviour is shameful. He replies with the chreia proper and two comments. The comments, frequently recognised by scholars as an addition to the chreia proper,37 establish (1) that the behaviour is not shameful but noble, just as it is not shameful to refrain from fasting during a wedding, and (2) that it is beneficial, just as putting new wine into fresh wineskins is beneficial. (4) Mark 2:23–28 Prooemion (expanded description of circumstances) One sabbath he was going through the grainfields; and as they made their way his disciples began to pluck heads of grain. (2:23) 36 Butts, “The Chreia,” 134. 37 Butts, “The Chreia,” 135.

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Contradiction from the shameful (by interlocutors) The Pharisees said to him, “Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the sabbath?” (2:24) Comment from the witness of the famous (by main character) And he said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need of food? He entered the house of God, when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat, and he gave some to his companions.” (2:25–26) Chreia proper (restated) Then he said to them, “The sabbath was made for humankind, and not humankind for the Sabbath” (2:27) Comment from the noble (by main character) “… so the Son of Man is lord even of the sabbath.” (2:28)

Jesus is once more contradicted because of his disciples’ behaviour, which is allegedly unlawful, thus shameful. This time, he frames the chreia proper, located in 2:27,38 with two comments. The comments establish (1) that the behaviour is consistent with the witness of the famous, in the form of Scripture’s narration about David and his companions, and (2) that it is noble, since it is mandated by the Son of Man, whose authority extends over the Sabbath. (5) Mark 3:1–6 Prooemion (expanded description of circumstances), including implicit contradiction from the shameful (by interlocutors) Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there who had a withered hand. They watched him to see whether he would cure him on the sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” (3:1–3) Chreia proper (restated) Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” (3:4ab) Implicit comment from the noble and beneficial (by main character) But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” (3:4c–5a) Epilogue (external validation of the chreia) He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him. (3:5b–6)

38 Butts, “The Chreia,” 137. Cf. Parrott, “Conflict and Rhetoric,” 126–27, who argues that Mark 2:28 has replaced 2:27 as the “thesis” (i. e., chreia proper); Parsons and Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament, 31–32, identify 2:27–28 in its entirety as an “enthymemic chreia” (proper).

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The final apomnemoneuma of the sequence deviates from the scheme established thus far, since the contradiction is not overtly voiced, and Jesus’ comment addresses it only implicitly. The unspoken contradiction targets the purported unlawfulness and shamefulness of healing on a Sabbath. Jesus responds to it through the chreia proper, which takes the form of a question that receives no response. His appended comment implies that the interlocutors’ silence confirms (1) that his healing is noble, since doing good on the Sabbath is lawful, and (2) that it is beneficial, since its ultimate purpose is “to save life.” As pointed out by Jerome Neyrey, each one of the reminiscences in Mark 2:1– 3:6 portrays a controversy in which Jesus’ honour is challenged and defended, often through the pattern of a provocative question met by a riposte in the form a counter-question.39 This is essentially in keeping with Theon’s suggestion that chreiai should be contradicted and commented on “from the shameful” and “from the noble” respectively. But the comments voiced by Jesus go beyond the contradictions forwarded by his interlocutors. Each of his chreiai proper is demonstrated not only to be noble in character, but also to be true (2:8–11), beneficial (2:17, 21–22; 3:4–5) or corroborated by the witness of the famous (2:25–26). In each instance, part of Jesus’ response is a defensive comment on his opponents’ attempt at contradiction, along the lines of Demonax’ comments on his interlocutor’s contradictions, but another part is a more offensive statement that serves to corroborate the virtue of Jesus and the chreia spoken by him. Indeed, if the composer of Mark’s Gospel or a source behind it was applying skills learned through Theon’s exercise of comment to a collection of chreiai attributed to Jesus, the outcome is not at all unlikely to have been what we now find in Mark 2:1–3:6. On the other hand, apart from the recurring characteristics of the comments as appealing to the true, noble and beneficial, there is hardly any common structure or pattern to be observed across the various reminiscences. The contradiction may be voiced before or after the chreia proper; there may be two different comments or one comment that appeals to two different virtues; and there may or may not be an epilogue. In the concluding reminiscence (3:1–6) both contradiction and comment are implicit. Again, if Mark 2:1–3:6 is the result of a composer handling a collection of Jesus chreiai along the lines of Theon’s exercises, it is obvious that this composer did not follow any strict textbook-type scheme as he provided comments to the chreiai. Rather, the influence seems to be a case of a fairly proficient author using techniques that he once learned through progymnastic training and that are now put to the service of his biographical aims.

39 Neyrey, “Questions, Chreiai, and Challenges,” 673–74.

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Conclusion

What, then, can be concluded about the relationship between Theon’s chreia exercises and the sequence of reminiscences in Mark 2:1–3:6? Does the sequence betray influence from the exercises? And how, if at all, does this matter to the interpretation of the sequence? There do indeed seem to be points of contact between, on the one hand, Theon’s suggestions as to how students could be trained in the art of expanding chreiai by “commenting” upon them, and on the other hand, the Markan sequence of reminiscences involving contradictions and comments. This becomes particularly visible if one compares the Markan technique of placing the contradictions on the lips of Jesus’ opponents with Lucian’s similar strategy of introducing an interlocutor in the Life of Demonax. The two biographers, Mark and Lucian, both opted to present their arguments in favour of the chreiai’s virtues in a highly narrativized form, employing characters within their narratives to express these arguments rather than laying them out in their own narratorial voices. Neither of them is constrained by the schemes offered in Theon’s Progymnasmata—which, as has been pointed out already, were never meant as guidelines for accomplished authors but as a manual for teachers—but both of them may very well be drawing on skills that they originally acquired through progymnastic training. The identification of this somewhat vague and distant relationship between the chreia exercises and the Markan sequence can hardly be used to demonstrate Mark’s familiarity with chreia exercises such as those suggested by Theon. Anyone who shares Dewey’s conviction that the Gospel of Mark belongs to the oral end of the continuum between literacy and orality, and that the evangelist may even have been illiterate, will not probably be inclined to recognize a genetic relationship between the Progymnasmata and Mark 2:1–3:6 on the grounds of the observations made here. By contrast, anyone who is prepared to assume that Mark the evangelist had received progymnastic education, just as every other person in the ancient world who was sufficiently skilled to compose a biographical narrative in Greek, may be ready to concur with my assessment of these reminiscences as reflective of the chreia exercises. In other words, our evaluation of the relationship between Theon and Mark is dependent on the position we take vis-à-vis the larger question of the socio-literary location of the evangelist. From her observation of a linear development in Mark 2:1–3:6 that heightens the element of opposition to Jesus up to its climax in 3:6, Dewey concludes that the emphasis in the sequence is on the opponents’ hostility rather than on Jesus’ triumph over the opponents. This places the sequence in contrast to 12:1–40, in

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which overt opposition gradually declines.40 A reading in the light of Theon’s chreia exercises may call for a more nuanced position here. It is doubtless true that opposition to Jesus increases throughout 2:1–3:6, but each of the reminiscences within the sequence subtly brings out the rhetorical triumph of Jesus. The interlocutors’ recurring attempts to argue that the chreiai are shameful are constantly overturned by Jesus’ comments, which demonstrate that they are in fact noble. It does not stop at that, however. The chreiai are also true, beneficial and supported by the witness of the famous. Whether Mark’s unknown teacher used Theon’s specific manual in his teaching we do not know, of course. One can only speculate that he must have been quite satisfied with what his former student had accomplished.

40 Dewey, Markan Public Debate, 118, 163.

Justin Strong

The Markan ‘Parables’ and Ancient Rhetorical Theories of Fable and Comparison

1.

Introduction

Specialists on the parables of Jesus normally regard “parables” and “fables” as very different genres. While a few parable scholars have noted similarities, this is far from the norm.1 Contrary to the expectation of those outside of biblical scholarship, the standard view today is represented by preeminent parable specialists like Klyne Snodgrass, who writes, “In the Greco-Roman world there are narrative parables as early as the fifth century B.C., although they are not numerous apart from Aesop’s fables, which are pretty far from Jesus’ parables.”2 Such convictions are widely assumed and thus normally only stated in passing. A highly acclaimed New Testament scholar like Graham Stanton, for example, can simply report of Jesus’s first-century milieu that “Aesop’s fables were well 1 After Adolf Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 2 vols. (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1899), the relevant scholarship includes Mary Ann Beavis, “Parable and Fable,” CBQ 52 (1990): 473–98; David Flusser, Die rabbinischen Gleichnisse und der Gleichniserzähler Jesus, JudChr 4 (Bern: Peter Lang, 1981); and Francois Vouga, “Zur form- und redaktionsgeschichtlichen Definition der Gattungen: Gleichnis, Parabel/Fabel, Beispielerza¨hlungen,” in Die Gleichnisreden Jesu 1899–1999: Beiträge zum Dialog mit Adolf Jülicher, ed. Ulrich Mell, BZNW 103 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999), 75–95; “Die Parabeln Jesu und die Fabeln Äsops. Ein Beitrag zur Gleichnisforschung und zur Problematik der Literalisierung der Erzählungen der Jesus-Tradition,” WD 26 (2001): 149–64; “Formgeschichtliche Überlegungen zu den Gleichnissen und zu den Fabeln der Jesus-Tradition auf dem Hintergrund der hellenistischen Literaturgeschichte,” in The Four Gospels: Festschrift for Frans Neirynck, ed. Frans van Segbroeck, et. al., BETL 100 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 173–87. 2 Klyne Snodgrass, “Are the Parables Still the Bedrock of the Jesus Tradition,” 131–146, here 142. The text that Snodgrass claims is a “parable” from the fifth century BCE is Cyrus’s famous fable of the Flute Player in Herodotus, Hist. 1.141, which appears in numerous ancient fable collections. Studies on the “parables” of Jesus are often implicitly if not explicitly entrenched in ideas about “the historical Jesus.” I am not addressing questions of the historical Jesus here, rather the Gospels as literary works. Klyne Snodgrass has written perhaps the best comprehensive English-language parable commentary in recent decades (Klyne R. Snodgrass, Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018]).

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known, but they are very different from the parables of Jesus.”3 These claims have resulted in a consensus among biblical scholars that Jesus is the first figure in history to use the “parable” genre with any regularity. Bernard Brandon Scott simply states, “The parable genre does not appear in the Hebrew Bible nor in Hellenistic literature.”4 While it is perhaps beginning to shift,5 this status quaestionis, the claim that there was a new and unprecedented genre that came onto the scene with Jesus, is indefensible on both historical and literary-critical grounds. Though it may be surprising that it applies even to parable specialists, this consensus stems from the fact that New Testament scholars of the twentieth and twenty-first century are essentially unfamiliar with fables in the ancient world.6 With hundreds of fables surviving from the fragmentary first-century records, it is clear that the ancient fable was enjoying a noteworthy popularity at the time of Jesus and the Gospel authors. As I have argued elsewhere, the ancient fable provides a straightforward, indeed quotidian context for Jesus’s “parables,” collectively understood.7 Though biblical scholars regularly treat the parable tradition as a whole, it is important to recognize that the parables of Jesus have substantial differences from one Gospel author to the next.8 Unlike Matthew and especially Luke, which contain many fully developed stories narrating human actions, Mark’s παραβολαί usually do not contain a defined narrative and human actors are seldom in the foreground. A list of Mark’s “parables” makes this clear: The Cloth and Wineskins (2:21–22), The Strong Man (3:27), The Sower (4:3–9), The Lamp (4:21), The Seed Growing Secretly (4:26–29), The Mustard Seed (4:30–32), The Salt (9:49–50), The Wicked Tenants (12:1–12), The Budding Fig Tree (13:28), and The Door Keeper (13:34). We can see from this list that Mark has a rather trim “parable”

3 Graham Stanton, “Message and Miracles,” in The Cambridge Companion to Jesus, ed. Markus Bockmuehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 56–71, here 62. 4 Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable: A Commentary on the Parables of Jesus (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 63. 5 See the recent and forthcoming work such as Mikeal C. Parsons and Michael W. Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament: The Influence of Elementary Greek Composition (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018); Jonathan Pater, Martijn Stoutjesdijk, and Albertina Oegema, eds., Overcoming Dichotomies: Parables, Fables, and Similes in the Graeco-Roman World, WUNT (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022). 6 The number of books on Jesus’s “parables” is notoriously gargantuan. Of the hundreds that have been written since the foundational work of Adolf Jülicher in 1899, not one has made more than a cursory comparison between parable and fable. 7 Justin David Strong, The Fables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: A New Foundation for the Study of Parables, Studies in Cultural Contexts of the Bible 5 (Paderborn: Brill, 2021). 8 For an excellent survey of major differences between the parable traditions among the Evangelists, see Michael D. Goulder, “Characteristics of the Parables in the Several Gospels,” JTS 19 (1968): 51–69.

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tradition compared to the other Synoptics,9 and the majority of the analogies Jesus makes in Mark are very short. While some scholars would wish to add even shorter comparisons to the list,10 most others would prefer to call most of Mark’s comparisons “similes” or “proverbs” and not “true” or “narrative parables.” My goal in this chapter is not to provide any detailed exegesis of the Markan parables, but rather to incorporate this unfamiliar ancient fable genre into the conversation of how we contextualize and theorize Markan παραβολαί, including those which scholars focused on the New Testament have found especially difficult to categorize. Reintroducing the fable as an option for the genres available to Mark resolves certain interpretive difficulties, provides context for the fables among Mark’s analogies, and also emphasizes the unique character of the Markan parable tradition. As part of the larger effort of this volume to consider the genres in Mark and whether the author is familiar with the progymnasmata, ancient education offers one helpful way to introduce the ancient fable in the context of the first century. In the study of the ancient fable, the μῦθος (“fable” in this context) exercise of the progymnasmata plays an important role. Aelius Theon and the other progymnasmatists offer the most extensive theoretical discussions of the fable that survive from antiquity. Here I will begin by discussing the role of the fable in ancient education generally and then focus on the progymnasmata. Theon’s fable exercise will then be used as a springboard to discuss issues of genre particular to the “parable” tradition in Mark’s gospel, such as how to define the fable and the parable, and in what sense, if any, παραβολή should be understood as a genre. I will then offer a preliminary sketch of how Mark’s “parables” fit into the ancient rhetorical discussions of fable. I will highlight two parables that are easily identifiable as fables—the Sower (Mark 4:3–9) and the Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1–12). I will then offer some ways that the “fable” and “comparison” of ancient rhetorical treatises can help account for Mark’s shorter comparisons. The results of this survey will enable us to conclude unequivocally that Mark was familiar with the fable, provide a better alternative to the status quaestionis, and offer some new ways of thinking about the Markan “parable” tradition.

9 Depending on how one tallies them, Luke has as many as thirty altogether, around half of which are unique to his version of the Gospel. Depending on how one solves the Synoptic Problem, Matthew has ten to fifteen unique to him. 10 Further materials included in the Kompendium Der Gleichnisse Jesu, for example, are Mark 2:18–20; 3:22–26; 4:24; 7:14–23; 7:27–28; 13:30–37 (Ruben Zimmermann et al., eds., Kompendium Der Gleichnisse Jesu [Gütersloh, Germany: Gütersloher, 2007]).

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Fable in Ancient Education

Since New Testament scholars are mostly unfamiliar with ancient education and the progymnasmata, a very brief survey is in order.11 One cannot understand Theon’s fable exercise without the broader context of the fable in the educational setting, which would have served as the background for any student encountering the fable in the progymnasmata. Unlike most of the exercises in the progymnasmata of the Roman period, we know that the fable was used for educational purposes among the Greeks already in the time of Plato and Aristophanes. In the Republic, Plato and his interlocutor take for granted that fables were used in educating the young in Classical Athens: “Come on then, and like people in a fable telling stories with ample leisure, let’s educate these men by our discussion.” … “Do you consider storytelling as part of the arts?” “I do.” “And there are two kinds of story: true ones and fictional?” “Yes.” “We must educate them in both kinds, but in fiction first, mustn’t we?” “I don’t understand,” he said. “What do you mean?” “Don’t you understand,” I said, “that we tell children fables first? I assume this means fiction on the whole, but there can be truth in this too, and we use fables with children before we go on to physical exercise.” “That is so.” “Indeed that’s what I was saying, that we must take up the arts before physical exercise.” “And rightly so,” he said. “You know that the beginning of everything we undertake is most important, especially in any young tender creature? That is when it is most malleable and when whatever character you desire to be stamped on the individual is fixed.” (Plato, Resp. 2.376e–377a [trans. Emlyn-Jones and Preddy, LCL])

From early on in the Greek tradition then, we know that the fable was used for education. In this instance, Plato recognizes the fable as the appropriate moraldidactic vehicle to take advantage of the neuroplasticity of the young mind. Centuries after Plato, when we arrive at the Roman Imperial period, the fable holds a privileged place in the educational setting. The educational system at this

11 On ancient education generally, see Henri Irénée Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’Antiquité (Paris: Le Seuil, 1948); also in English: A History of Education in Antiquity, trans. George Lamb (New York: Sheed and Ward, 1956). More recent surveys include Stanley F. Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977); W. Martin Bloomer, Latinity and Literary Society at Rome (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); W. Martin Bloomer, ed., A Companion to Ancient Education (West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2015). For the New Testament and the ancient education context, see the present author’s monograph, Parsons and Martin, Ancient Rhetoric, and Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts, eds., Ancient Education and Early Christianity, LNTS 533 (New York: Bloomsbury, 2016), 89–105.

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time, broadly speaking, was divided into three stages:12 exercises in reading and writing (ludus litterarius), the school of grammar (schola grammatici), and the school of rhetoric (schola rhetorici).13 During the first stage of education (ludus litterarius) children around the age of five to seven followed a curriculum of increasingly difficult exercises. They learned to memorize the alphabet, then form their letters, then words, then complete sentences. From here, students would advance to chreia and to short metric couplets (monostichoi). The culminating exercise of this first stage of education was the fable, in short metric verses. If a child’s education did not conclude, as most did, at the primary stage, then a child would enter the second stage around the age of ten, give or take a few years. At the beginning of the grammarian level, the structure of this stage had much in common with the first. Starting over at the alphabet, a student would learn the “grammatical” qualities—such things as vowels, dipthongs, meter, cases, parts of speech, and so forth. This knowledge in hand, students would begin to read the poets, especially Homer, in order to learn accurate reading. While students at this stage would read almost only poetry, as Cribiore notes, fables were an exception, “no prose was read in a grammarian’s class except for fables and gnomic—that is, didactic and moralistic—works by Isocrates.”14 In the second stage then, as in the first, a students encountered fables, using them to the end of grammar training, gaining the obvious moral-didactic benefit of fables intended by the instructor. From the information thus far, we may already reach two preliminary conclusions. In addition to encountering fables in a variety of other contexts, if an author like Mark learned to write in Greek (as he obviously did), then he would have been occupied with many fables during the process.15 Even if we do not 12 We are speaking broadly of an educational process that was not state sponsored, was decentralized and surely had a degree of local variation. With these caveats in mind, the three stages model remains the most accurate way to present ancient education in a nutshell. 13 More specialized training began at the tertiary level, with the majority of students opting for rhetoric and the minority choosing another subject, such as law, medicine, or philosophy. Some pursued these other areas after first studying rhetoric. 14 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 202. 15 Whether Mark was a hellenized Jew or a Gentile makes no difference here. To be influenced by hellenistic education and to write in Greek is a tautology. The little evidence we have of Jewish education at the time, largely relying on later rabbinic traditions, unsurprisingly points to fables being included there as well (e. g. the studies and teaching of Johanan ben Zakkai including various kinds of fables [Sukkot 28a]). Recent studies on education in rabbinic circles have pointed towards them being modeled on Greek and Roman templates (see Richard Hidary, Rabbis and Classical Rhetoric: Sophistic Education and Oratory in the Talmud and Midrash [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018]). Thus, even if there were some separate stream of Jewish education that Mark could have availed himself (while somehow learning to write in Greek elsewhere), to the extent that it is relevant, rabbinic

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conclude that the Markan author reached the stage of progymnasmata,16 the fact that he can write in Greek is a solid indication that he would have encountered fables in the earlier education stages. At the same time, the presence of fables in Mark does not prove that he made it to the progymnasmata precisely because he would have encountered them in many environments, including the earlier education levels.

2.1

Progymnasmata

It is with this background in mind that we arrive at third stage: the progymnasmata. In light of a student’s previous education, it is easy to understand why all the progymnasmatists begin with the fable as the first or second exercise.17 Theon himself attests to the expectation that his students would be wellversed in the fable by the time they reached him: We shall assign the young to imagine a fable suitable to the material at hand. They will be able to do this readily when their minds have been filled with many fables, having taken some from ancient writings, having only heard others, and having invented some by themselves. (Theon, Prog 4.)18

As Theon explains, by the time a student reaches the progymnasmata, he will have read, heard, and composed many fables of his own. As with the goals of the first two stages, the fable was suitable to the ends of the third stage as well: training in composition and rhetoric. The rhetorical training in the progymnasmata were used for careers involving public speaking such as politics and law, as well as for anyone with ambitions to compose literature, whether his-

education also involved a heavy dose of fables. In other words, regardless of where Mark was educated or what his background was, we can be reasonably certain that he encountered fables as part of it. 16 The author of the Gospel according to Luke, for example, evinces clear and strong evidence of training in progymnasmata. Though he does not specify the extend, George Kennedy takes for granted that the Evangelists received training in progymnasmata (George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric, WGRW 10 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003, ix). David M. Young and Michael Strickland believe that “Mark was likely familiar with at least the simpler progymnasmata” (The Rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017], 55). Unfortunately, Young and Strickland fall prey to the same misunderstandings about fables as everyone else, which affects some of their results when discussing it and its relationship to παραβολή. 17 Apart from Theon, the progymnasmatists begin with the fable. Theon’s decision to put the fable second after the chreia may in fact be based on the order of the primary stage, which placed the chreia before the fable. 18 Translations of Theon and the other progymnasmatists cited here are from Kennedy, Progymnasmata.

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torical and poetic. Theon informs us that his exercises are preparation for composition broadly: There is no secret about how the exercises are very useful for acquiring the faculty of rhetoric. One who has expressed a narration (διήγησις) and a fable (μῦθος) in a fine and varied way will also compose a history well and what is specifically called “narrative” (διήγημα) in hypotheses—is nothing other than a combination of narrations. (Prog. 1)

Understandably, scholars interested in how the books of the New Testament were composed have sought clarity for the arguments and techniques of the evangelists in the exercises of the progymnasmata. If we are right to assume that the Gospel authors will have gone through the same educational system as everyone else, then we gain through the exercises a clear understanding of the paradigms and categories in which these ancient authors thought and wrote. Summarily, the fable was a persistent feature in Roman education, appearing in all three roughly-defined stages, from the basics to the bema, a claim to fame shared only with Homer. Among the surviving progymnasmatists, all set the fable as the first exercise with the exception of Theon, who places it second after the chreia. In many respects then, the most preliminary of the preliminary exercises was the fable. Thus, if Mark even began the progymnasmata, he will have also encountered the fable here. Since Theon’s description of the fable exercise is roughly contemporary with the Gospel according to Mark, and the later progymnasmatists repeat much of what Theon has to say about the fable, Theon’s explanations will serve as the baseline for the coming discussion, supplemented by other progymnasmatists.19

2.2

Theon’s Definition of the Fable

The fable (μῦθος) exercise in the progymnasmata is one of the main sources of information about the fable in the first century.20 Much like the parable, how best to define the fable is a perennial question of fable scholarship. Theon begins his 19 Theon is aware of Theodorus of Gadara (first century BCE) and Quintilian in his Orators Education (95 CE) refers on two occasions to one or possibly two Theons, either or both of whom are probably our author. Thus, Theon is normally dated to the first century CE. Theon’s date has been challenged recently by Malcolm Heath, “Theon and the History of the Progymnasmata,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 43 (2003): 129–60, but for the fable exercise, this is not a crucial matter. 20 The ancient fable is referred to using three Greek terms: αἶνος, μῦθος and λόγος. αἶνος died out around the Classical Period, from which time it survived only as a terminus technicus. μῦθος is used for fables in verse and λόγος is used for fables in prose. Theon himself describes this usage of these three terms, which the ancient sources bear out: “Some of the poets of old called them [i. e. fables] αἴνοι, and others μύθοι. Prose writers most often call them λόγοι rather

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exercise with a helpful definition of the fable that the later progymnasmatists adopt and which is used today by preeminent fable specialists.21 The opening words of Theon’s fable exercise are: μῦθος ἔστι λόγος ψευδὴς ει᾿κονίζων ἀλήθειαν.22 While every word in this phrase carries multiple connotations that are not captured well in translation, a fair rendering into English is “fable is a fictitious story picturing truth.” The essence and the paradox of the fable is that it is a “falsehood” that tells the “truth.” As Perry famously writes, “This is a perfect and complete definition provided we understand the range of what is included under the terms λόγος (story) and ἀλήθειαν (truth).”23 Because it will be relevant to how Mark’s comparisons map onto the ancient theory, it is important to note the caveats Perry has about “story.” Based on the fables that have come down to us from the period, Perry limits the “story” to past tense narratives that describe actions or speeches that have taken place through the agency of particular characters.24 Using Theon and Perry as representative, the defining qualities of the fable genre that are widely acknowledged by ancient and modern theorists

21

22

23 24

than μύθοι, and thus they call Aesop a λογοποιόν [maker of fables]” (Prog. 4 [trans. adapted from Kennedy]). Ben Edwin Perry is the most influential scholar of the Greek and Latin fable in the twentieth century and uses this definition (Babrius and Phaedrus, LCL 436 [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965], xx.). Niklas Holzberg, another influential scholar the fable, also follows Theon in this definition, “There have been many attempts to find a definition of the genre that takes cognizance of this diversity, but the most convincing one is still the description found in the rhetors Theon and Aphthonius” (The Ancient Fable: An Introduction, 2nd ed. [Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002], 19–20). Gert-Jan van Dijk, the most prolific author of scholarship on the fable in recent decades, cites Perry’s development of Theon’s definition approvingly, “This appears to be an ideal synthesis of ancient and modern fable theory,” though he defines the fable even more succinctly as a “fictitious, metaphorical narrative” (Gert-Jan van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi: Fables in Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greek Literature [Leiden: Brill, 1997], 5 and 113 respectively). Other fable scholars do not use Theon’s definition as their starting point, such as Morten Nøjgaard (La fable antique, 2 vols. [Copenhagen: NYT Nordisk, 1964–1967]) and Francisco Rodriguez Adrados. According to Adrados, it is not Theon’s definition as such, rather the use of a promythium or epimythium that is the most defining feature of the fable because they transform any text into an exemplum: Introduction and from the Origins to the Hellenistic, vol. 1 of History of the Graeco-Latin Fable (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 32–38. For a more detailed discussion of defining the fable, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 155–65. Theon also provides this definition of the fable in his preface. There Theon is emphasizing that it is important to give a clear definition for each exercise and uses the fable definition as an example. That Theon uses the fable as his example in the preface should give us some surety that he is deliberate in his choice of words later. Ben Edwin Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, LCL 436 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1965), xx. Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, xx.

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alike are that they are brief, fictitious, metaphorical stories that apply to a situation external to them.25 When considering the value of Theon’s fable definition for the parable tradition, the first point to make is that others have pondered, albeit briefly, the relevance of his definition to the Gospel parables. In a remarkable and littlenoticed statement toward the beginning of his magisterial work on the parables of Jesus, Klyne Snodgrass, whom I cited at the beginning, attempts to define the parable. He cites Theon’s definition in comparison to certain modern alternatives: “Better is Theon’s (first century) definition of fable (mythos) – the genre to which parables belong – as ‘a fictitious saying picturing truth.’”26 In his discussion of the relevance of various rhetorical forms to the New Testament, Mikeal Parsons also remarks that “Theon’s definition of the fable as ‘a fictitious story which depicts or images truth’ sounds like a typical, rough-and-ready definition many would use to describe Jesus’ parables.”27 In other words, at least a couple scholars who are aware of Theon have noted that his fable definition sounds curiously appropriate to “parables.” These biblical scholars may not be aware that many fable scholars have used this same definition as the starting point for the fable or that biblical scholars of centuries past also recognized the relevance of fables to this question. This will not be the last time that I note parable scholars unknowingly reaching a conclusion parallel to the fable scholars. To these conclusions about the relevance of Theon’s definition to the parables, we may add the present author and Adolf Jülicher to the chorus. We will return shortly to Jülicher’s conclusion that “the majority of Jesus’s παραβολαί that have a narrative form are fables, like those of Stesichorus and Aesop.”28 The details of Theon’s terse definition are further elucidated by the broader context of the fable exercise and contemporary sources. From the fable collections that survive from around the first century, and the examples embedded in 25 For the ancient theories of the fable, see van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi and the summary of the results on 72. As with any corpus so massive, there are exceptions to each of these qualities in specific fables, e. g. one fable in Babrius (Fab. 95) is four Loeb pages long when most are shorter than one page; a few fables purport to be historical anecdotes rather than being transparently fictitious, and a few use the present tense. 26 Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 8. Unfortunately, what Snodgrass claims elsewhere about the fable is mostly inaccurate, especially when he attempts to differentiate fables from parables. Caveat lector: statements that propose that fables “do x and not y” should be regarded with immediate suspicion. Fables were used in diverse contexts for many purposes. 27 Mikeal C. Parsons, Luke: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007), 21–22. 28 “Die Mehrzahl der παραβολαί Jesu, die erzählende Form tragen, sind Fabeln, wie die des Stesichoros und des Aesop” (Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1:98). This statement is representative of a detailed and complex discussion (leading up to and following this quotation) on “Das Wesen der Gleichnisse Jesu,” in which Jülicher engages heavily with the fable tradition as it was available to him.

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various texts such as the Life of Aesop, we can get a sense of a normal fable length, form, plot, characters and so on, at the time of the Gospels.29 Supporting Perry’s observation that the definition implies a narrative rather than simply a statement, Theon gives numerous examples in his description of the exercise, all four of which are narrative fables: Hesiod’s The Hawk and the Nightingale (Perry 4), The Cub and the Prince,30 The Camel Who Wanted Horns (Perry 117), and The Dog, The Meat, and The Reflection (Perry 133).31 We are especially fortunate because Aphthonius (4th cent. CE), another early progymnasmatist, also produced a collection of fables that has come down to us. His collection supplies us with forty fables surely used in the education setting. Since the best way to get a sense of the fable is through example, here are three fables from Aphthonius’s collection featuring human protagonists: A fable about a goose and a swan exhorting the young to words. A prosperous man decided to keep both a goose and a swan, but his intentions toward the two were different, for he had got the one for the sake of its song and the other for the sake of his table. When it was time for the goose to die for the cause for which it was being kept it was night, and the darkness prevented telling one from the other. The swan, although he got caught instead of the goose, gave indication of his nature by singing and escaped death by means of his music. Thus the musical ending completes the prelude. (Fab. 2 [Perry 399], trans. adapted from Daly) A fable about honeybees and a shepherd, urging us not to set our hearts on wicked gains. Some honeybees were making honey in the hollow of an oak tree. A shepherd discovered the bees’ work and attempted to carry away some of the honey. The honeybees flew all around him, stinging the man with their stings. In the end the shepherd exclaimed, “I give up! I don’t need the honey if it means dealing with the bees.”

29 The fable collections from around the first century CE that survive (though none are complete) are those of the authors Babrius and Phaedrus, the anonymous Augustana Collection, and the collection preserved on P.Ryl. 495. In English, the most accessible version of Babrius and Phaedrus is in Perry’s Loeb volume, and for the prose recensions, Lloyd W. Daly, Aesop without Morals: The Famous Fables, and a Life of Aesop (New York: TYoseloff, 1961). Laura Gibbs has produced a selective edition useful for an introduction, which is ordered by topic and contains fables drawn from other collections in addition to those above, Aesop’s Fables (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 30 This fable is not found in Perry’s catalog and survives only in fragments. See especially the discussion in van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi, 340–42, and Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, Inventory and Documentation of the Graeco-Latin Fable, vol. 3 of History of the Graeco-Latin Fable (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 846. 31 To these we could add the examples used by other progymnasmatists, e. g. Pseudo-Hermogenes, Prog. 1 [2–3]: The Apes Founding a City (Perry 464). There are a number of other reasons to assume that Theon has narrative fables in mind. This exercise was a continuation of the fables used in earlier stages of education and from our surviving evidence, these were narrative fables too.

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Trouble awaits you if you pursue ill-gotten gains. (Fab. 27 [Perry 400], trans. adapted from Gibbs) The fable of the farmer and the fox. A wicked farmer envied his neighbor’s abundant crops. In order to destroy the fruits of that man’s labor, he caught a fox, attached a blazing firebrand to her tail, and then let the fox loose in his neighbor’s crops. The fox, however, did not go where she was sent. Instead, as fate decreed, she set fire to the crops of the man who had let her loose. Bad neighbors are the first to suffer from the harm they would do to others. (Fab. 38 [Perry 283], trans. adapted from Gibbs)

Owing to the educational setting of his work, the moral-didactic emphasis of Aphthonius’s fables is apparent. In other contexts, fables are used to many different ends, and especially when they are embedded in narratives, fables can be still briefer or much longer. After Theon’s defining phrase, he goes on to specify that he is not talking about anything that could fall under the very general terms μῦθος and λόγος, “but about those in which, after stating the fable, we add the meaning of which it is an image; sometimes, of course, we bring in the fables after having stated the meaning” (Prog. 4). Theon is here referring to the promythium and epimythium and elaborates on them later, saying, “It is possible to provide a conclusion whenever, after the fable has been stated, we venture to bring in some gnomic statement fitting it” (Prog. 4).32 To speak in a general way, the epimythium supplies the moral of the story. The intricacies of these framing devices cannot be worked out here, but Theon is referring to the italicized statements in the examples from Aphthonius above.33 For the purpose of identifying the fable in gospel literature, the promythium and epimythium are significant because they are a characteristic feature of the ancient fable genre. Any first-century listener would recognize a short fictitious story with these framing devices attached as a fable.

2.3

Theon on Weaving Fables into a Narrative

While the majority of fables that have come down to us from antiquity survive in fable collections, a large number are preserved in larger contexts, embedded into a variety of macro-genre settings. Dozens of authors insert fables, beginning already in the Archaic Period with Hesiod and Archilochus, from Plato to Plu32 Theon uses the term epilogion, but promythium and epimythium are more commonly used in secondary literature. 33 For the specifics, see Justin D. Strong, “How to Interpret Parables in Light of the Ancient Fable: The Promythium and Epimythium,” in Overcoming Dichotomies, and Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 383–448.

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tarch.34 Among the works of the Classical Period that survive, Aristophanes embeds the most. Around fifteen fables appear mostly in Birds and Wasps, placed on the lips of his characters at appropriate circumstances.35 Theon says nothing profound about how to achieve embedding a fable into a narrative: We weave in narrative in the following way. After having stated the fable, we bring in a narrative, or conversely we put the narrative first, the fable second; for example, having imagined that a camel who longed for horns was deprived even of his ears, after stating this first, we go on to the narrative as follows: “Croesus the Lydian seems to me to have suffered something similar to this camel,” followed by the whole story about him. (Theon, Prog. 4)

Weaving a fable into a narrative, in other words, is not complicated. To add upon what Theon says here, authors embedding fables will normally apply the lesson to what is taking place in the macro-narrative, as in the example Theon gives. 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 Mark’s gospel, weaving a fable into the story can be accomplished mechanically without appearing out of place. We can pause once more to collect the basic facts so far. Theon’s definition of the fable fits well with what most mean with the term “parable.” We know that writing in Greek means that Mark learned fables. We know that authors learned to imbed fables in their narratives as a first step in the progymnasmata. One may rightly wonder why no one in the last century or so has taken the logical next step to see if Mark records any fables among the genres he uses. Here it will suffice to highlight a few illustrative problems that have unduly disinclined others from making the comparison: myths about the fable and the term παραβολή itself.

34 Prior to the turn of era when the major collections of fables were probably written, our only source of Greek fables come from those embedded into narratives. Our ability to study these fables in a cohesive way is thanks to the massive undertaking of van Dijk, in his Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi. 35 On the fables in Aristophanes, see Silvio Schirru, La favola in Aristofane, Studia Comica (Berlin: Verlag Antike, 2009); Kenneth S. Rothwell, “Aristophanes’ ‘Wasps’ and the Sociopolitics of Aesop’s Fables,” The Classical Journal 90 (1995): 233–54.

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Myths about the Fable and the Meaning of παραβολή

Following Theon’s definition of the fable, he offers some helpful clarifications that are useful for dispelling modern misunderstandings about the first-century fable. Among many others that I address elsewhere,36 the two most significant misunderstandings among biblical scholars are that fables are a genre of the Greeks rather than a Semitic genre, and that fables are stories about talking animals. Theon continues: Fables are called Aesopic and Libyan or Sybaritic, and Phrygian and Cilician and Carian, Egyptian, and Cyprian, but there is only one difference among them: the specific kind of each is indicated at the beginning; for example, “Aesop said,” or a Libyan man or one from Sybaris or a Cyprian woman “said,” and similarly in the other cases. If there is no addition to specify the genre, we commonly call such a fable “Aesopic.” … Aesopic is not applied as a general term because Aesop was the first inventor of fables … and moreover Connis the Cilician and Thurus the Sybarite and Cybissus of Libya are mentioned by some as fablemakers—but because Aesop used fables to a greater extent and cleverly. (Theon, Prog. 4)

As Theon here explains, far from just the Greeks, a multitude of ancient peoples were known for fable traditions from around the Mediterranean. The most important author of fables in the first-second century CE, Babrius, makes explicit that fable is a Semitic genre, stating in his prologue that the fable was invented by the ancient Syrians: “Fable, son of King Alexander, is the invention of the Syrians of old, who lived in the days of Ninus and Belus” (Babrius, Fab. Prologue 2).37 As Perry appropriately describes it, the ancient fable is a “Graeco-Semitic” genre.38 The second myth that Theon addresses is the mistaken view that fables are synonymous with impossible stories or about talking animals:39 “Those who say that some involve mute beasts, others human beings, some are impossible, others capable of being true, seem to me to make a silly distinction” (Theon, Prog. 4). One finds parable scholars using this misunderstanding as a way to divide 36 The catalogue of myths about the fable is long. For the incredulous and curious, see the many myths of the fable in Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 27–41, and for direct comparisons with Jesus’s “parables” in Luke, e. g., 339–381. 37 Μῦθος μέν, ὦ παῖ βασιλέως Ἀλεξάνδρου, Σύρων παλαιῶν ἐστιν εὕρεμ᾿ ἀνθρώπων, οἳ πρίν ποτ᾿ ἦσαν ἐπὶ Νίνου τε καὶ Βήλου. 38 Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, xxi. The use of fables in Semitic contexts goes back millennia, at least to the Old Babylonian Period (2000–1500 BCE). A few famous fables appear in the Hebrew Bible, including Jotham’s fable of the trees asking for a king (Judg 9) and Nathan’s fable of the ewe lamb (1 Sam 12). 39 See also Lieve Teugels, “Talking Animals in Parables: a contradictio in terminis?” in Parables in Changing Contexts: Essays on the Study of Parables and Religious Identity in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, ed. Eric Ottenheijm and Marcel Poorthuis, Jewish and Christian Perspectives (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 129–148.

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parables and fables, but as Theon notes here and elsewhere, those who do so make a silly distinction.40 As we saw in the three examples quoted above, fables are by no means required to have talking animals.41 The later progymnasmatists offer their own reflections on this issue in their respective μῦθος exercises. Aphthonius describes those fables featuring human beings as “rational” fables, and those featuring talking animals as “ethical” fables. “Rational” here is a double-entendre since the Greek word λογικόν also refers to the ability to speak, the faculty humans possess and nonhuman animals do not: “Some fables are rational [λογικόν], some ethical [ἠθικόν], some mixed: rational when a human being is imagined as doing something, ethical when representing the character of irrational animals, mixed when made up of both, irrational [ἀλόγου] and rational [λογικοῦ]” (Aphthonius, Prog. 1).42 In his commentary on Aphthonius’s progymnasmata, the Byzantine scholar, John of Sardis, elaborates on these categories. On “Some fables are rational,” John comments, “Those involving only a human being, maybe a farmer or an unfortunate old man, choosing to die but then begging to be spared out of love of life” (Prog. 1). John also offers a paragraph-length description on sub-divisions of fables: Of the political fables, some are fictitious (πλαστικοί), some historical (ἱστορικοί). Those are said to be fictitious which contain in them much indication of being invented, like the one about the lion who had grown old and was feigning disease, or the one about the horse and the tortoise. The fictitious nature of these and others like them is easily perceived. Historical fables are those that seem to be the result of inquiry and to have been witnessed, although these too are acknowledged to be false; but by the nature of the material they divert attention from their ficticity, as does the present fable and the one about the dog that grabbed the meat and the one about the birdcatcher who was deceived by the voice of the cicada; for fables like these, on the surface giving an impression of truth, disguise the falsehood in them. (Prog. 1)

As John describes using the vocabulary of antiquity, “historical” fables are those that “disguise the falsehood.” i. e., seem “realistic.” “Fictitious” fables are those 40 Modern fable scholars are constantly rebuffing this myth. For a catena of fable scholars refuting it, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 33–34. 41 The constraints of space do not permit me to cite many primary examples here. For many dozens more fable examples cited in full, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, passim. 42 While Aphthonius is probably being descriptive, Nicolaus the Sophist, another progymnasmatist appears to use the distinction prescriptively. Nicolaus says: “In Sybaritic fables the characters are limited to rational animals, in Aesopic there is a combination of irrational and rational, and Lydian and Phrygian fables use only the irrational” (Nicolaus, Prog. 2). In other words, Nicolaus describes the use of human beings or talking animals as a distinction among the different ethnic varieties of fables. According to Nicolaus, some ethnic groups use only human speaking characters in their fables, while others use only non-humans, and others use a mix of both.

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that “give much indication of being invented,” or seem “impossible” by using talking animals for example. These sub-divisions are certainly what Theon was calling “silly distinctions” among kinds of fables. From Aphthonius’s example of the “ethical fable,” and John’s clarification about the “rational fable,” we can see that New Testament “parables” would be easily accommodated. The belief then that the fable is somehow coterminous with stories about talking animals is obviously not sustainable. Before knowledge of the fable was lost, it was on the basis of Aphthonius’s discussion that New Testament scholars such as Gottlob Christian Storr concluded that Jesus’s “parables” are “rational fables.”43 Equally noteworthy is what is missing from the progymnasmata generally and this discussion of the fable and its possible sub-divisions. At no point do any of these teachers of rhetoric mention παραβολή or show any concern that they were defining or dividing the fable in a way that would conflict with some other genre called a “parable.” Since Theon states that he is giving careful definitions to identify and distinguish genres, if there was a conflict with some other genre called “the parable,” we would expect him to say so. If short, fictitious, metaphorical stories making a point external to them are fables, a ubiquitous genre familiar seemingly to everyone in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East, then what is a παραβολή? Furthermore, why does Mark call all of his comparisons “παραβολαί” rather than using the terminology of the fable when describing them? The problem of terminology is not new and the solution to it has also generally accepted for centuries.44 New Testament scholars have long noted that the Synoptic Gospels apply the single term παραβολή to a variety of forms that go by other terms elsewhere. As Günter Haufe describes for example, “In the Synoptics, παραβολή is used to identify proverbs (Luke 4:23; 6:39), maxims (Mark 7:17; Matt 15:15), metaphorical sayings (Mark 3:23; Luke 5:36), enigmatic sayings (Mark 4:11; Matt 13:10; Luke 8:10), general rules (Luke 14:7)…,”45 and so on, in addition to “narrative parables.” While one can quibble about some of these categories, the takeaway is the same: the Synoptics use the term παραβολή for all forms of Jesus’s comparative discourse. In the Markan Gospel, as in the others, there are a number of times that the term παραβολή appears when a more specific genre term is available: e. g. γνώμη at Mark 3:23 for the maxims or aphorisms, αἴνιγμα for a riddle at Mark 7:17, and λόγος for the fable

43 Storr’s work and views have largely been lost to time. For a discussion and documentation of Storr views on the “parables” of Jesus, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 236–39. 44 This solution goes back centuries, at least to Hugo Grotius, Annotationes in Quatuor Evangelia et Acta Apostolorum, vol. 2 of Opera Omnia Theologica (Basel: Thurneysen, 1732), 135. For a discussion of Grotius’s parable theory, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 239–41. 45 Günter Haufe, “παραβολή,” EDNT 3:15.

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of the Sower at Mark 4:13 and for the Wicked Tenants at Mark 12:1.46 In other words, in addition to the proverb, maxim, riddle, simile, and so on, παραβολή in the Synoptics also refers to the fable. While there are other possibilities,47 the standard explanation offered by biblical scholars for the use of παραβολή as an umbrella term by the evangelists is uncontroversial: παραβολή is taken over from the Septuagint, rendering the Hebrew term, ‫משׁל‬.48 In both the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint, ‫ משׁל‬and παραβολή do not refer to any specific form or genre, rather are terms used for a variety of brief comparative forms. An appropriate translation for παραβολή, then, is simply “comparison” or “analogy.” That Mark intends παραβολή with a broad force may also be indicated with his repeated use of the plural form (4:2, 10, 11, 33, 34; 12:1), especially ἐν παραβολαῖς. Like saying, “Jesus began making analogies,” it signals only that there are comparisons to follow, especially of multiple forms. In a nutshell, there is very little evidence to indicate that the Greek word παραβολή refers to a particular genre; its primary meaning is “comparison” or “analogy.” Incorporating one more parable voice in the conversation, Bernard Brandon Scott first defines the parable essentially as the ancient authorities: “I propose as a definition that a parable is a mashal that employs a short narrative fiction to reference a symbol,” and remarks that “Jesus and the rabbis developed and employed a genre of mashal not evidenced in the Hebrew Bible.”49 Scott’s points are useful not only to highlight once more the synonymity of “parable” and “fable” definitions, but because he draws this together with the consensus view that this “parable” genre appeared from the blue with Jesus. The primary reason παραβολή, “parable,” has been considered a genre in the Synoptics until now has been the inability to account for this new and predominate narrative form to which the term παραβολή is applied in the Gospels. This missing literary form, this new mashal that was not evidenced in the Hebrew Bible, is the ancient fable, which was enjoying popularity in the early Roman period. The fable is a short, fictitious, Graeco-Semitic, metaphorical narrative with an application. In the Gospels, παραβολή is used as an umbrella category under which several genres are 46 This same phenomenon in Mark is also easy to observe in Luke, as Haufe noted above. There are several times that Luke uses παραβολή for texts that one would not consider a “parable.” 47 In light of the discussion on classical rhetoric below, it may not be necessary to attribute this malleability of the term παραβολή to a Septuagint idiosyncrasy. 48 See, for example, Snodgrass, Stories with Intent, 10; Gerd Theißen and Annette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 324; and Bernard Brandon Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 20. 49 Scott, Hear Then the Parable, 8. So also, Hultgren, “There are no instances in the OT where the noun mashal is applied to a figure of speech in narrative form that moderns would call a parable. The parables of Jesus fit more precisely in form and content within the context of the various meshalim known from rabbinic sources” (Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000], 6).

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gathered. To quote Jülicher, “most of those παραβολαί with a narrative form are fables.”50 In the Synoptics collectively, παραβολή is most often applied to the fable genre, which helps to explain why it appears as if there is a new genre, “parable,” that sprang from nowhere. The fable has been mistaken for and equated with παραβολή by New Testament scholars who are essentially unaware of the ancient fable.

3.

Mark’s Fables and Comparisons

Despite the predominate brevity of most of the analogies Jesus uses in Mark, there are two comparisons from Mark’s list of “parables” that stand out immediately as fables: The Sower (Mark 4:3–9) and The Wicked Tenants (Mark 12:1– 12). The first is a fable about a sower who cast his seed about, with some landing on the path, some on rocky ground, some among thorns and some on good soil. Following the narrative, the disciples are provided with the explanation of how the different outcomes for the seed sown in the different soils relates to the responses to the “word.” The second fable describes a certain vineyard owner who leased the property and subsequently attempted to collect a share of the produce as compensation. His tenants abuse and even murder the servants he sends to collect the compensation. When the owner ran out of servants to send, he sent his beloved son, whom the tenants murdered in the hope that they would take possession of the vineyard. The narrative then transitions to the primary story level for Jesus to explain that the landowner would then come to destroy the tenants. The chief priests, scribes and elders then recognize that Jesus has allegorized them as the tenants, God as the owner, and himself as the beloved son. These two “parables” stand out in terms of their length, their use of the narrative past tense, and other formal markers of the fable.51 While a more detailed exegesis of the narratives themselves from the fable context will have to be made elsewhere,52 here they are useful for identifying contexts associated with the fable that help to confirm that the fable as the operative background: education, covert speech, and social critique from below. It is in the educational reputation of the fable described above that offers a fitting backdrop for Mark 4, which describes Jesus explicitly “teaching” (4:1, 2) using The Sower, “He began to teach them many things using analogies….” With 50 Jülicher, Die Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1:98. 51 Noteworthy as well is that The Sower (Matt 13:1–11; Luke 8:4–15; Gos. Thom. 9) and The Wicked Tenants (Matt 21:33–46; Luke 20:9–19; Gos. Thom. 65) are both found in all the Synoptics as well as Thomas. 52 For an exegesis of the Wicked Tenants from the fable context, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 283–89.

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this introduction, the Gospel reader would be primed for appropriate comparative didactic genres to follow, such as proverbs, similes, and fables. Having heard the fable, a reader would find it natural for Jesus to draw out the lesson to the disciples (students) afterward (Mark 4:13–20). The Gospel readers would presumably recognize a scene such as this from the many fables they knew, from the reputation of the fable in the educational context, and from the reputation of itinerant wise men who were nagged by crowds to tell them sayings and fables.53 In terms of The Sower’s contents, there are numerous contemporary fables that take up the subjects of farmers of various sorts going about their business. Here is one that will kill two birds with one stone, describing the daily life of a farmer while being used to the same end as The Wicked Tenants: “A certain farmer who had grown old in the country and had never seen the city begged his children to let him go and see the city before he died. They hitched the donkeys to the wagon themselves and told him: ‘Just drive them, and they’ll take you to the city.’ On the way a storm came up, it got dark, the donkeys lost their way and came to a place surrounded by cliffs. Seeing the danger he was in, he said: ‘Oh Zeus, what wrong have I done that I should die this way, not even by horses, but only these miserable donkeys to blame it on?’” So it is that I am annoyed to die not at the hands of reputable men but of miserable slaves. (Vita Aes. 140 [trans. adapted from Daly])

This fable from The Life of Aesop (1–2 cent. CE) serves the fable function that appears to be a particular interest of Mark, telling fables as coded speech from a position of weakness to criticize more powerful opponents.54 Aesop tells the fable of the Old Farmer as a critique and insult against the Delphians who are preparing to kill him. Mark’s fable of The Wicked Tenants serves precisely this end, as the opponents realize afterward that Jesus told it to criticize them, “When they realized that he had told this parable against them, they wanted to arrest him, but they feared the crowd” (Mark 12:12). Apart from its use as a kind of coded critique from below, there are a variety of recognizable ties to the fable tradition in The Wicked Tenants. Markers of the fable form abound, including the story beginning with an anarthrous noun naming the protagonist, the elevated proportion of direct speech, the use of soliloquy as the culmination of an action d’choix, and the application following the story to the meta-narrative level.55 Because of its function in the plot of the Gospel, The Wicked Tenants also makes a strong appeal to the fable tradition. The Wicked Tenants functions to augur the righteous protagonist’s undeserved death by allegorizing the fable teller as an innocent victim character in the fable. 53 On itinerant wise men teaching in fables, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 269–77. 54 Nathan’s fable spoken against King David is another fine example of this application of the genre (1 Sam 12). 55 The terminology is drawn from Nøjgaard, La fable antique.

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This is a well-established topos of the fable tradition that is closely paralleled here by The Life of Aesop, among numerous fable traditions of other figures.56 Thus, the fable does not just shed light on questions of genre and interpretation, but enables us to situate these Markan fables in new contexts that ancient authors would appeal to and readers would have picked up on. The use of the fable to teach, as coded speech, and as social critique from below were all wellknown associations of the genre. Although Mark only contains a trim fable tradition, that both of these examples are set in contexts with strong fable associations yields strong support that the fable genre is the operative background. This background is all the more plausible when we recall that the alternative is the status quaestionis, which supposes that Jesus burst onto the scene with a new genre nowhere else attested called the “parable.” Although fables like The Sower and The Wicked Tenants are the belles of the ball, the fable offers some much-needed help for the very short comparisons in Mark, where parable scholars run into intractable categorization difficulties. In light of the ancient fable, what then can we say of the rest of the Markan “parables”—the rather short analogies that parable scholars already hesitate to call parables at all? As we saw with Scott’s definition above, “parables” are supposed to be past-tense narratives and so these still briefer non-narrative texts are generally rejected as “true parables.” To quote Richard Lischer as representative of this common view, “What is sometimes called a ‘true parable’ is a freely invented short story with two or more characters whose action is cast into the past tense.”57 These “true” or “narrative parables” are the fable, which offers some new (or quite old) ways of thinking about the other non-narrative or present-tense group. Since most of Mark’s brief comparisons lack an interaction between characters and do not utilize the past tense, most parable scholars apply the terms “similitude,” “simile,” and “likeness,” or in German, “Gleichnis im engeren Sinn” to these comparisons. Without knowing about the existence of the ancient fable, the intractable problem has been how to fit this group together with the narrative “parables.” Two solutions for how to categorize these comparisons are offered from the fable milieu. Though they appeal to Aristotle’s Rhetoric and not the progymnasmata, Adolf Jülicher, followed by David Stern, and Francois Vouga, offer one solution for categorizing these short comparisons that accounts for the

56 On this topos, see Strong, The Fables of Jesus, 72–74, 283–89. 57 Richard Lischer, Reading the Parables (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 33. Lischer is here providing a helpfully concise synthesis of Dan Otto Via, The Parables: Their Literary and Existential Dimension (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967), 2–13. See also the similar vocabulary used to distinguish “similitudes” from “parables proper” with present tense and the aorist tense, respectively, in Theißen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 328.

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fable.58 The relevant passage in Aristotle divides proofs into example (παράδειγμα) and enthymeme (ἐνθύμημα). Aristotle gives some further divisions of examples: …one which consists in relating things that have happened before, and another in inventing them oneself. The latter are subdivided into comparisons (παραβολή) or fables (λόγοι), such as those of Aesop and the Libyan. Comparison (παραβολή) is illustrated by the sayings of Socrates; for instance, if one were to say that magistrates should not be chosen by lot, for this would be the same as choosing as representative athletes not those competent to contend, but those on whom the lot falls; or as choosing any of the sailors as the man who should take the helm, as if it were right that the choice should be decided by lot, not by a man’s knowledge. A fable (λόγος), to give an example, is that of Stesichorus concerning Phalaris, or that of Aesop on behalf of the demagogue. (Rhet. 2.20.2–5 [trans. Freese, LCL])

The first thing to note is that παραβολή is universally translated as “comparison” by classicists such as Freese and it does not carry the immense theological baggage of the term “parable.” From Aristotle and the examples he offers, Jülicher, Vouga, and Stern all comment that Aristotle’s categories do not align with the current parlance of “parable” and “fable.” As David Stern observes, “In Aristotle, these ‘parables’ are in fact closer to similes than to genuine stories; for the latter type, Aristotle in fact employs a separate rhetorical term, logoi, a word usually translated as ‘fables.’”59 Here Stern notes that the “genuine stories,” our “true” “narrative” parable is the “fable” category rather than the “comparison” category. Jülicher and parable scholars before him also reached this conclusion, “The majority of Jesus’s παραβολαί that have a narrative form are fables, like those of Stesichorus and Aesop.”60 In other words, these brief non-stories like The Cloth and the Wineskins fall into this more simple “comparison” category, while proper stories such as the Wicked Tenants are Aristotle’s “fables.” Like the use in the Septuagint, παραβολή probably does not appear to refer to any particular form, as McCall writes, “The identifying features of παραβολή do not, in Aris-

58 Jülicher begins this discussion at Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1:69. On Jülicher’s use of Aristotle, see Stefan Alkier, “Die ‘Gleichnisreden Jesu’ als ‘Meisterwerke Volkstümlicher Beredtsamkeit’: Beobachtungen zur Aristoteles-Rezeption Adolf Jülichers,” in Die Gleichnisreden Jesu 1899– 1999: Beiträge zum Dialog mit Adolf Jülicher, ed. Ulrich Mell (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1999), 39–74. For Vouga’s work, see the first footnote. 59 David Stern, Parables in Midrash: Narrative and Exegesis in Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991), 10. 60 “Die Mehrzahl der παραβολαί Jesu, die erzählende Form tragen, sind Fabeln, wie die des Stesichoros und des Aesop” (Jülicher, Gleichnisreden Jesu, 1:98). Jülicher’s reference to Aesop and Stesichorus indicates that he is drawing directly from this passage in Aristotle.

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totle’s mind, seem to include a particular form.”61 Perhaps for this reason, Mark employed παραβολή for every comparative form. The reservation of “fable” for narratives is supported by a couple neglected references to παραβολή in obscure rhetorical treatises by Apsines of Gadara (ca. 190–250 CE) and Typho (probably 3rd cent. CE). In contrast to the ubiquity of the fable, these two offer the only other mentions of the term παραβολή in ancient rhetoric. Apsines writes, “A parabole¯ differs from a paradeigma in this, that the παραβολή is taken from something inanimate or from irrational animals, as in Homer: ‘As when some stabled horse, corn-fed at a manger,…’ Or from inanimate things, as in Demosthenes: ‘For as in the case, I think of a house and a boat…’” (Apsines, Art of Rhetoric 6.1 [trans. adapted from Dilts and Kennedy]). Trypho, for his part, mentions παραβολή as a sub-category of Homoio¯sis and writes, “παραβολή is an expression that, by means of a juxtaposition, stands a matter alongside of a similar thing underlying the actuality, such as the motion of the agora is like the great waves of the open sea of Icarus.” …or …, “Even as the leaves of the trees, such is the race of men” (cf. Il. 6.416) (Trypho, Tropes I 5 [trans. mine]). According to Apsines, παραβολή would not fit a narrative such as the Wicked Tenants or seemingly any analogy involving human beings. Trypho’s examples of the παραβολή, likewise, are not stories. They are non-narrative comparisons consisting of a few words analogizing an agora to the moving sea or leaves and trees to the length of life. It is simply this strategy of drawing an effective analogy that the rhetoricians have in mind and this is achieved most often by terse similes of a sentence or less.62 Unsurprisingly, parable scholars normally ignore the παραβολή (“comparison” or “analogy”) of the ancient rhetoricians because they do not fit their expectations for “parables,” by which they want “genuine stories.” As Arland Hultgren puts it, “In no case is their designated use [of παραβολή] comparable to that in the Gospels.”63 Bringing the ancient fable into the picture resolves the issue. Indeed, Jesus’s stories do not look like the παραβολαί of the rhetors, but Jesus’s brief non-narrative analogies do. Apsines and Trypho seem to have in mind the predominately inanimate subjects of Mark’s brief, non-narrative comparisons, such as The Lamp, The Seed Growing Secretly, and The Salt. These analogies, after taking a step back, are not 61 Marsh H. McCall, Ancient Rhetorical Theories of Simile and Comparison (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 27. With the caveat that more familiarity with ancient fables would likely cause them to revise their results somewhat, see also the discussion of παραβολή in ancient rhetoric by Young and Strickland, The Rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, 92– 100. 62 For an in-depth study of classical rhetorical materials that employ the term παραβολή, see McCall, Ancient Rhetorical Theories of Simile and Comparison. It is noteworthy that McCall, as the other classicists, never renders παραβολή as “parable” in his book. 63 Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus, 9.

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the same as the “genuine stories” that have human protagonists, such as predominate in the other Synoptic Gospels. Those stories and the “true parables” represented in Mark by the Sower and the Wicked Tenants are fables. A separate approach offered by ancient fable theory, reflected in the fable progymnasmata exercise, and described by modern fable scholarship may help elucidate these shorter Markan analogies from another direction. Setting the Greek and Latin fables alongside Semitic forms, Perry offers helpful commentary on the issue, noting that the genre boundaries between proverb and fable become fuzzy when the text is very short: “When it happens to be very short [a fable] is indistinguishable from what we call a proverb, and what the ancient Semitic writers call a ‘likeness’ (Aram. mathla, Heb. mashal, Ar. mathal, likewise Armen. arak).”64 This reciprocal relationship of the proverb and the fable—that they are on a continuum—was acknowledged by several ancient authors as early as the first century CE,65 who offer a useful analogy: ἔστιν ὁ αἷνος έξηπλωμένη παροιμία, “the fable is an unfolded proverb.”66 This ancient concept of unfolding a proverb into a fable (and vice versa) is presumably one and the same as the techniques of fable compression and expansion learned in the progymnasmata. As Teresa Morgan has noted, this definition is reminiscent of what biblical scholars imagine occurring when “similitudes” and “metaphors” are developed into narratives to create a “parable.”67 Plotting Mark’s comparisons on the proverb – fable continuum may be a useful way to conceive of them. The Fig Tree is essentially a proverb: “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near” (Mark 13:28). Others are further “unfolded,” so to speak, on their way to narrative fables. The Door Keeper is certainly 64 Perry, Babrius and Phaedrus, xx. 65 For the various ancient authors, see Van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Muthoi, 78. Probably the earliest surviving author to make this analogy is Lucillus Tarrhaeus (first century CE?), who is probably to be identified with Loukillios, though the identity of the figure or figures associated with this name and numerous close forms is a Gordian knot. For an attempt to untangle it, see Gideon Nisbet, Greek Epigram in the Roman Empire: Martial’s Forgotten Rivals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). This concept of the fable as an unfolded proverb is also known to Pseudo-Ammonius and Ptolemaeus of Ascalon, on whom, see van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Muthoi, 51 and 56, respectively. 66 As recorded in the fragment of Lucius Tarrhaeus, the full sentence is, “Fable is an unfolded proverb, fleshing out that which is apprehended in the mind by way of a narrative with reference to an explanation and something useful to people,” καὶ ἔστιν ὁ αἷνος έξηπλωμένη παροιμία μετὰ διηγήσεως άπαρτίζουσα τὸ νοούμενον πρὸς παραμυθίαν τε καὶ ώφέλειαν ανθρώπων. (Linnenkugel, frag. 1 [trans. mine]). The standard edition of “Lucius Tarrhaeus” is Albert Linnenkugel, De Lucillo Tarrhaeo epigrammatum poeta, grammatico, rhetore (Paderborn: Ferdinandi Schoeningh, 1926). 67 Teresa Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 58. Morgan cites Theißen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 324–30.

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further along the continuum, if not sufficient to be a short fable: “It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch” (Mark 13:34). This single verse is not told in past-tense narrative, but is getting closer to a story with characters interacting, and it is also followed by an epimythium (Mark 13:35– 37).68 Understood in this way, Mark draws our attention to the fuzzy boundary between fable and proverb with his short analogies. Most of Mark’s comparisons are single general conditional sentences or rhetorical questions, they regularly lack a past-tense narrative or any indicativemood narrative at all, do not properly enter a storyworld, and occasionally have no agents. For these reasons, most parable scholars today exclude them from the tally of “true parables.” The noteworthy exception are the editors of the Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu, who have a very lenient interpretation of the idea of “narrative,” including even a verse like Mark 4:24 as a “parable:” “And he said to them, ‘Pay attention to what you hear; the measure you give will be the measure you get, and still more will be given you.’”69 While many would dismiss the claim that this and many other entries in the Kompendium are narratives beyond some technical sense, regardless of where one draws the line, the determinative issue appears to be narrativity. This is paralleled by fable scholars today and in antiquity. Like parable scholars, some modern fable theorists like Perry and van Dijk would probably not accept many of Mark’s shorter comparisons as fables, while others such as Adrados and Holzberg would regard many as fables in nuce at least. For fully-fledged fables in Mark, one could do no better than The Sower and The Wicked Tenants. Fuzzy as the boundary may be for the very short comparisons, setting the Markan analogies alongside the ancient theoretical discussions of fable and comparison can give us a better sense of how an ancient audience and author would think about these texts.

4.

Conclusion

It is the prevailing belief among parable scholars that no one was telling “parables” like Jesus and that “parable” and “fable” are far apart. Suffice it to say, such convictions are difficult to maintain when one is acquainted with the ancient fable and interrogates the meanings of these terms. This brief contribution, it is hoped, will pique interest in the subject and the more comprehensive challenge to the status quaestionis laid out in full elsewhere. 68 There are some exceptions to the rule of using past tense in the surviving fable corpus, so it may be a matter of sophistry to exclude this text from the fable canon. 69 Zimmermann, Kompendium der Gleichnisse Jesu.

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The fable played an important role in ancient education across the Roman world. Theon’s fable exercise is a useful starting point for examining the firstcentury fable, while Mark’s is the ideal gospel text for confronting the theoretical quagmire in established scholarly discourse on the “parable.” From Theon and the other progymnasmatists, we get a definition of the fable contemporary with the Gospels that is directly applicable to the “true parables.” The fable theory of the progymnasmatists is especially useful for dispelling several key myths about the fable that have inhibited biblical scholars from engaging with them as the background to Jesus’s parables. The progymnasmata also supply us with a guide to the techniques that an author would use when incorporating fables into a narrative such as the Gospel. Besides encountering the genre in any number of other contexts, if Mark participated in the established educational tradition and completed even the first stage, if he could write in Greek, then he will have encountered the fable in this setting. Among the other exercises of the progymnasmata, such certainty is shared only with the chreia, which also had popular appeal and appeared already in the first stage of education. For gleaning results about Mark’s degree of proper literate education, this is a double-edged sword. The unique place of the fable in ancient education and elsewhere permits us to conclude unequivocally that Mark was familiar with the fable, best exemplified in The Sower and The Wicked Tenants. At the same time, the fable cannot be used as evidence that Mark reached the progymnasmata, or if he did, that he advanced beyond the initial exercises. While comparatively few in number, identifying examples like The Sower and The Wicked Tenants as fables is a clear case of quality over quantity. These are two of the central examples of the “parable” tradition. Reading them as fables opens up a world of new interpretive possibilities and brings to light new backgrounds that elucidate them. With hundreds of fables available for comparison and numerous ancient theoretical discussions of the genre, ancient fable literature is an untapped resource for “parable” interpretation. It is in light of Mark’s tradition of fables and other analogies that questions naturally arise concerning the other Evangelists and their sources. Since only texts with a direct literary dependence on Mark use the term παραβολή—it is conspicuously absent from John, Thomas and Q70—we may rightly ask if Mark set a terminological precedent for the dependent Synoptic authors following him. Whether Mark took the term παραβολή form the Septuagint as is commonly supposed, uses it 70 The content and wording of Q is obviously a debated matter, but the lemma παραβολή does not appear even among the debated or dubious Q material included in the “Critical Edition of Q” (James M. Robinson, Paul Hoffmann, and John S. Kloppenborg, eds, The Critical Edition of Q, Hermeneia [Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2000]).

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(inconsistently) like the classical rhetoricians, or some combination thereof, one wonders whether an independent Matthew and Luke would have employed the same strategy to accommodate the diverse repertoire of Jesus’ comparisons. We may also wonder, now that hundreds of fables are within our purview, if there remains any justification to refer to texts in Q, Thomas, or John as “parables,” since they do not use the term παραβολή and the primary reason to call them such was that no other texts resembling their fables and comparisons were known. The paucity of fables in Mark, in comparison to the other Synoptists also raises questions about the trajectory of the “parable” tradition. For Mark and Q, these very brief, normally not narrative or past-tense narrative comparisons predominate, while for Matthew, Luke, and Thomas there is a much higher proportion of longer and proper narrative fables. Perhaps we should imagine a process of fabulization, as one finds in fable scholarship, wherein texts are gradually developed toward narrative fables and brought into closer conformity to the fable form in the course of their transmission. Questions such as these are open for future studies.

Joel Kuhlin

Suturing Episodes: Jesus’ Death, διήγησις and διήγημα in Mk. 15:16–32

1.

Introduction

What techniques of prose composition were associated with excellence of narration in late antiquity? Which of these techniques can illuminate prominent rhetorical issues with the narration of Jesus’ death in κατα μαρκον?1 In this chapter, I take up these two questions by engaging with ancient rhetorical theory, and in particular, the Progymnasmata. Generally attributed to Theon (1st century CE), this treatise sets forth one of the most well developed ancient theories of narrative.2 The main concepts and compositional techniques investigated in what follows can be found in Theon’s work. His account of pedagogical exercises in narration (διήγησις/διήγημα) is also crucial in this context. In a discussion of Polybius’ Histories, Chariton’s Callirhoe, and the passion narrative of the anonymous Gospel according to Mark, we follow Theon in distinguishing between three orders of narration.3 Firstly, there is a macro-order of narration that we identify along with Polybius as “a history.” Secondly, the 1 For a problematization of modern acts of naming the “gospel-texts,” see Matthew D. C. Larsen, “Correcting the Gospel: Putting the Titles of the Gospels in Historical Context,” in Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity, ed. A. J. Berkovitz and Mark Letteney (London: Routledge, 2018), 78–103. For the sake of readability and convention, I use the abbreviations “Mk.” and “Mkan” when discussing certain passages in what is commonly referred to as The Gospel according to Mark. 2 George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), henceforth referred to as Prog. The Greek text is found in Michel Patillon, Aelius Théon: Progymnasmata (Paris: Belles Lettres, 1997); unless stated otherwise English translations are from Kennedy. 3 While Vernon Robbins has raised its possibility, this rhetorical perspective on the passion in κατα μαρκον has not been investigated by NT scholars. To my knowledge there has been no analysis of διήγησις/διήγημα in relation to the rhetoric of The Gospel according to Mark. See V. K. Robbins, “The Crucifixion and the Speech of Jesus,” Forum 4 (1988): 33–46, at 35; and Michael W. Martin and Mikael C. Parsons, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament: The Influence of Elementary Greek Composition (Baylor University Press, 2018), chap. 3, for a review of previous scholarship on narration in relation to the synoptic gospels.

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concept of διήγησις (“narrative”) stands for a meso-order. Narrative at this level does not correspond to a genre, such as ἱστορία or βίος, but is instead something like a sub-genre.4 Thirdly, διήγημα (“short story”) is a brief, micro-order of narration that represents particular happenings and things (πράξεις/πράγματα). To anticipate the main results of our argument, when one examines features of the rhetorical techniques in the Mkan. passion narrative, the story of Jesus’ death represented in 15:16–32 comes across as a sort of unfinished “middle literature”: it is neither a complete διήγησις (a meso-narration) nor a simple sequence of διήγημα (a micro-narration).

1.1

Orders of Narration: History, Narrative, Short Story

In the context of classical Greek literature, the concept of διήγησις signifies a cohesive and at least relatively comprehensive manner of narrating (διηγέομαι) a sequence of events.5 In Plato’s Gorgias, Socrates makes the following comment to his opponent: “for when I spoke briefly you did not understand me; you were unable to make any use of the answer I gave you, but required a full exposition (διηγήσεως).”6 Speaking in a concise manner (λέγοντος… βραχέα) about the object at hand, is contrasted here to giving a full account of the particular “thing” presented (i. e. a διήγησις).7 In this regard Plato reflects a rhetorical use of διήγησις in forensic oratory, which was developing at the time. In Hellenistic rhetorical theory, the term signified the second part of a speech, dedicated to telling the court about all of the important details involved in a specific case.8 4 Thanks to Matthew Larsen, Tobias Hägerland, Justin Strong, and the other members of the Soenderborg conference for pointing me in this direction. I am not unaware of the slippery nature of the concept of genre, or the ways in which one genre can collaborate with another. See S. A. Adams, Greek Genres and Jewish Authors: Negotiating Literary Culture in the GrecoRoman Era (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2020), 258–264. For a discussion of the problems with διήγησις as macro-narration and genre, see Malcolm K. Brown, The Narratives of Konon: Text, translation and commentary of the Diegeseis (München and Leipzig: KG Saur, 2002), and Stefan Tilg, Chariton of Aphrodisias and the Invention of the Greek Love Novel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 216. 5 Defined in Liddell and Scott as “set out in detail, describe [ἔργα].” 6 Plato Gorg., 465e (Lamb, LCL 166). 7 I owe this point to Marília P. Futre Pinheiro,“Thoughts on Die¯ge¯ma (Narratio) in ancient rhetoric and in modern critical theory,” in Literary Currents and Romantic Forms: Essays in Memory of Bryan Reardon, ed. Kathryn Chew, John R. Morgan, and Stephen R. Trzaskoma, Ancient Narrative, Supplement 26 (Groningen: Barkhuis / Groningen University Library, 2018), 19–32, at 21. 8 According to Laurent Pernot, Rhetoric in Antiquity (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), 221–222, the following paradigm “is meant principally for the judicial genre. The other genres (deliberative and epideictic) keep a tripartite division from this outline (exordium, body of the speech, peroration)”: 1) Introduction: Exordium – προοίμιον; 2)

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The frequency with which the term διήγησις was used in Greco-Roman antiquity, in comparison to διήγημα, is dramatic. In Polybius’ (ca. 200–118 BCE) Histories, διήγησις appears about sixty times, in contrast to four occurrences of διήγημα. This difference speaks volumes about the importance of διήγησις for Greco-Roman Hellenism. Polybius’s discussion of narration, and of its role as handmaiden to historiography (ἱστορία), raises the questions: how is something correctly narrated? When and where does narration fail? With regard to the function of διήγημα, Polybius develops a contrast between the reality or truth of a history (ἱστορία) and the shortcomings of failed narration (διήγημα). He squares himself off against two rival historiographical colleagues, Philinus and Fabius, attempting to demonstrate that their histories are inadequate.9 “For as a living creature is rendered wholly useless if deprived of its eyes, so if you take truth from history what is left is but an idle unprofitable tale [διήγημα].”10 Polybius resembles Plato in this regard, saying that it is the task of the historian to use διήγησις11 in order to “bring before his readers under one synoptical view the operations by which she has accomplished her general purpose.”12 The historiographical failure of the rivals results from their standing too close to the material. Their overly short stories succumb to biases: ”I think that they are much in the same state of mind as men in love [in terms of] partisanship and complete prepossession,” Polybius says with regard to rival historians.13 For Polybius the short story (διήγημα) is an historiographical failure, as it does not give sufficient attention to the complexity of events, an achievement associated with narration (διήγησις). Yet, as a form of narration invested in representing states of affairs, a history is thought of as being different from the short story only in degree. The point of criticizing διήγημα is not to identify a narra-

9

10 11

12 13

Statement of facts: Narratio – διήγησις; 3) Outline: Partitio – πρόθεσις; 4) Argumentation (proof & refutation): Confirmatio – πίστις, refutatio – λῦσις; 5) Conclusion: Perorationἐπίλογος. Walbank argues that “[t]here is evidence that Philinus, like Fabius, wrote in the ‘tragic’ Hellenistic style, with its stress on paradox and sensational events, and on the role of Fortune, but harnessed to a didactic purpose… It is generally agreed that Fabius and Philinus are P.’s exclusive sources for the First Punic War.” F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius. Volume I: Commentary on Books I–VI (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1957), 65. Plb. 1.14.6–7 (Paton, LCL 128). Polybius uses “διήγησις” as narration-in-full, as exemplified by his own historiography: “Thus there will be no break in the narrative [τῆς διηγήσεως] and it will be seen that I have been justified in touching on events which have been previously narrated by others [προϊστορημένων ἑτέροις], while this arrangement will render the approach to what follows intelligible and easy for students” Plb. 1.13.9–10 (Paton, LCL 128). Plb. 1.4.2 (Paton, LCL 128). Plb, 1.14.3–6 (Paton, LCL 128).

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tional technique that is always a fictitious myth.14 Yet διήγημα tends to offer a one-sided perspective, while ἱστορία is devoted to understanding the complexity of an entire historical sequence of events. This way of treating διήγημα is repeated elsewhere in Polybius’ Histories. Ιστορία teams up with the concept of διήγησις over and against διήγημα, constituting an “other” to blame for the consequences of a faulty narration of happenings. In the end however, three orders of narration–ἱστορία (macro), διήγησις (meso), and διήγημα (micro)–gravitate towards narrating events (πράγματα) in different, yet convincing and even truthful ways. The difference between the orders is located on a spectrum where micro-narration represents happenings, but not in their entirety. Meso-narration is closer to the truth of the past, but is not yet complete as it is not assembled “correctly.” Only a macro-narration of a history is as “good as it gets,” as it were. How were these concepts articulated in rhetorical education around the time of the composition of the New Testament texts? As will be contended below, the technique of the micro-order of narration of the διήγημα found the spotlight in a new way after Polybius. Still, ἱστορία often lurks in the background when narrating events, as διήγησις and διήγημα are considered foundational techniques for the prose composition required by historiography, and more generally by successful or excellent representations of events.

1.2

Orders of Narration in The Progymnasmata

Around the time of the first century CE, freestanding narrational composition made an appearance for the first time as an object of rhetorical theory. The four surviving rhetorical handbooks from late antiquity, known as προγυμνάσματα (or “preparatory exercises”) associated with Theon, Ps.-Hermogenes, Aphtonius, and Nicolaus, formalize the tendency to define διήγησις as giving “a full account” and διήγημα as a short account. Whereas the authors mentioned differed on various issues, they converged with regard to the importance of understanding how to create narration as well as with regard to its usefulness for the writing of history.15 14 Tilg, Chariton, 220: “Polybius refers to the assorted embroideries of Hellenistic historiography.” 15 See Tilg, Chariton, 201–209, for an important analysis of διήγησις and διήγημα in the period. James Butts notes that this group of rhetoricians (as well as Aristotle) all agree on a definition of narration as an “exposition of events that have occurred or are supposed to have occurred” (to quote the succinct definition of Cic. Inv. 1.29.27: “Narratio est rerum gestarum aut ut gestarum expositio.”) Butts argues that the great similarities between the already mentioned writers and especially Aristotle, the author of “Rhetoric to Alexander,” Cicero, and Theon “is all the more remarkable since the former were discussing a section of a rhetorical speech, whereas Theon was dealing with the elementary exercise of writing a story.”James R.

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Doing exercises in narration would have been commonplace for anyone learning how to write prose around the 1st century CE. More specifically, learning how to master historical discourse involved doing exercises of διήγημα/διήγησις. The arguably primary, and unquestionably the lengthiest treatise using the terminology of διήγημα as a positive and separate form of representing events is often dated to the first century CE (because of its similarities with Quintilian’s work on the same issue),16 and is attributed in the manuscripts to Theon. He remarks that “training in exercises 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 for that matter any other writers. These things are, as it were, the foundation of every kind of discourse.”17 Theon pays close attention to histories when discussing narrational techniques, as ἱστορία is considered the source of excellent examples of narration. Not only do most of his examples of narration come from the ancient historians,18 but Theon even at one point writes as follows: there is no secret about how these exercises are very useful for those acquiring the faculty of rhetoric. One who has expressed a διήγησις and a fable in a fine and varied way will also compose a history well and what is specifically called διήγημα in hypotheses— historical writing is nothing other than a combination of narrations [οὐδὲ γὰρ ἂλλο τί ὲστιν ἱστορία ἢ σύστημα διηγήσεων] (Theon 60.5–6 [Kennedy, Prog. 4] emphasis mine.)

Theon seems to lose his train of thought here: the remark about διήγημα has no proper predicate, and the discourse goes on to deal with other things. Yet this statement is important for at least three reasons: (i) Theon notes that rhetorical exercises are foundational and relevant to different forms of prose composition and oratory at the time; (ii) he observes, with Polybius, that history is a “combination” (σύστημα) of narrative parts; and (iii) the distinction discussed above between διήγημα and διήγησις seems to collapse, as Theon uses the two interchangeably. We take up (iii) in the next section and return to (i) and (ii) below.

1.3

Narration in Theon’s Progymnasmata

There would appear to be no easy way to explain the apparent collapse of the distinction between διήγημα and διήγησις in the passage from Theon cited above. Even so, Theon’s conception of history as macro-order narration is sufficient reason to read him as recognizing two distinct narrational techniques. Butts, “The Progymnasmata” Of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary (Greek Education, Hellenistic Culture) 1987. PhD Thesis. The Claremont Graduate University. 16 Butts, “Prog.,” 2–6; Tilg, Chariton, 200. 17 Kennedy, Prog., 13 (Theon 70.26–30). 18 See Tilg, Chariton, 204, for a good summary of Theon’s use of history writing as narration.

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The later handbooks in any case made it very clear that διήγησις and διήγημα were distinct categories having different tasks in relation to composition. Ps.Hermogenes writes the following on this issue: 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 [πρᾶγμα], 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. (Kennedy, Prog., 75.)

Aphtonius and Nicolaus agree. Nicolaus also stresses an interesting point regarding the difference: “The majority, however, say that [διήγημα] concerns a single event, [διήγησις] a combination of many actions; the difference is the same as that between ποίησις and ποίημα: Homer’s subject as a whole is ποίησις, but the part about the wrath of Achilles or some similar part is a ποίημα.”19 The combination of briefer narrative episodes is signified as διήγησις (such as Herodotus’ History), while a single part that makes up the History would be διήγημα. In short, διήγησις is a sort of holistic narration (on a meso-level), whereas διηγήματα are the parts belonging to this whole. Returning back to Theon with this distinction in mind, one notes that although his treatise uses διήγησις and διήγημα interchangeably, one can treat the Theonic treatise as dealing primarily with the exercise of διήγημα. Since the entire discussion repeatedly looks to briefer narrative units dealing with “one thing” (or πρᾶγμα) rather than a complex διήγησις,20 the suggestion that the two terms do not correspond to an implicit distinction in Theon seems unsatisfactory. Theon defines διήγημα and διήγησις in terms of six essential elements (which were generally recognized by progymnastic rhetoricians): Narrative is language descriptive of things that have happened or as though they had happened [διήγημά ἐστι λόγος ἐκθετικὸς πραγμάτων γεγονότων ἢ ὡς γεγονότων]. στοιχεῖα [“elements”] of narration are six: προσώπων, whether that be one or many; and πρᾶγμα done by the προσώπων; and τόπος where ἡ πρᾶξις was done; and χρόνος at which ἡ πρᾶξις was done; and the τρόπος of τῆς πράξεως; and sixth, the αι᾿τία 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. (Theon 78.16–21 [Kennedy, Prog., 28]) 19 Kennedy, Prog., 136. 20 Sandra R. Piedrabuena, “El Diégema en Moralia de Plutarco: El Relato de Arión,” Exemplaria Classica 21 (2017): 81–123; at 83, note 15. She highlights Theon’s lack of clarity. Importantly, authors contemporary to the composition of the New Testament, Plutarch and Chariton, uphold the distinction between a brief form of narration and a full narrative: see Ana C. Vicente Sánchez “Influencia de los Prog. en la composición de los symposia de Plutarco: el caso de El Banquete de los Siete Sabios,” in Symposion and Philanthropia in Plutarch. ed. José Ribeiro Ferreira, Delfim Leão Manuel Troster, and Paula Barata Dias (Coimbra: Classica Digitalia, 2009) 75–85; and Regla Fernández-Garrido, “El ejercicio del relato (διήγημα) en la novela griega antigua: Caritón de Afrodisias,” Synthesis 24 (2017): 6–18.

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The narrational exercise first and foremost deals with πράγματα and πράξεις, as that which has or could have happened. Aphtonius’ handbook summarizes Theon’s description: as follows “There are six attributes of narrative: the person who acted; the thing done; etcetera. For example: who? what? where? how? when? why?”21 The διήγημα in the Prog. in general is a pericopal, brief episode which at least reports a single πρᾶγμα that ideally contains a full plot and therefore answers the six questions above. When containing the narrational στοιχεῖα, the short story typically stands on its own legs as micro-narration.

1.4

Paradigmatic Narration in Theon

As Theon’s representation of the exercise of narration lacks the clarity that can be found in later treatises, it is helpful to look at what he presents as the best examples of narration. With one exception, these examples are succinct and deal with a single πρᾶγμα; they respond to the pedagogical aim of repeatedly teaching fundamental and simple techniques before introducing complicated ones: The best examples of narration [διηγήσεως δὲ παραδείγματα] of the mythical sort would be those by Plato in the second book of the Republic (2.359b–60a) on the ring of Gyges and in the Symposium (203b–c) about the birth of Eros and about those in the underworld in the Phaedo (107d–8c) and in the Gorgias (523a–24a) and in the tenth book of the Republic (10.614a–21b), and in the eighth book of Theopompus’ Philippica the story of Silenus. Of the factual sort, (the best examples would be) the one about Cylon in Herodotus (5.71) and in Thucydides (1.126) and about Amphilochus, son of Amphiarus, in the third book of Thucydides (2.68), and about Cleobis and Biton in the first book of Herodotus (1.31). Ephorus in his seventh book and Philistus in his first have the story of Daedalus’ arrival at the court of Cocalus, king of the Sicanians. Also, you will find in Demosthenes’ speech On the False Embassy (§§192–95) a plain and elegant διήγημα about the Olympian games held by Philip after the capture of Olynthus. (Theon 66.16– 31 [Kennedy, Prog., 9–10] Emphasis mine)

What is meant here by the distinction between myth and fact? Greco-Roman rhetorical theories of narration were remarkably unified in their view of narra-

21 Kennedy, Prog., 184 (John of Sardis); see also Aphtonius’ similar definition (96–7,) as well as Nicolaus (136–7). See Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 63, for a helpful discussion of the elements of a διήγημα. See also C. A. Gibson, Libanius’s Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 9; and Anders Eriksson, Retoriska övningar: Afthonios’ Progymnasmata (Nora: Nya Doxa, 2002), 97–104.

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tion as either concerning real happenings or fictitious ones.22 It is not surprising that Theon echoed the Latin and later rhetors by separating myth from fact. Again, Theon’s “best examples” primarily involve short story-technique rather than the more complex “full account.” Besides underlining the centrality of historical material (πραγματικός) and separating it from its negation (μυθικός), the “paradigmatic” examples are typically centered on a single πρᾶγμα.23 What is more, the majority of the examples also fit into the progymnastic use of the term διήγημα. I will now take a closer look at two of the “mythical” and non-historical examples of narration, namely the short story of Symposium 203b–c and the narrative of The Republic 10.614.a-621.b. Theon finds an example of a successful narration in Diotima’s discourse concerning the origin and purpose of Love (ἔρως). In some one hundred words she manages to present four different characters as well as a rather intricate plot involving drunkenness and sexual intercourse in the garden of Zeus. The previously mentioned elements of a short story are provided. The mythic διήγημα fits nicely into the overall discussion of love in the Symposium and provides not only an example of a narration dealing with a single thing or happening, but also shows how a short story can be interwoven into a dialogue or dialectical argument. With the mythic example in The Republic Theon describes a significantly more advanced form of narration, best characterized as a διήγησις. Whereas the short story from the Symposium roughly corresponds to a Mkan. pericope,24 this section at the end of The Republic. is about 2400 words long, and so is comparable in length to the entire passion narrative.25 Plato draws on mythic material regarding the afterlife of the soul and “the story of a brave man, Armenius’ son Er” from Pamphylia. The soul’s journey after death via Er’s observations provides thematic unity. In this example we can see how a technique of weaving “narration into narration” functions, as multiple scenes are juxtaposed around the “pragmatic” center of Er’s return from death and the rewards awaiting the soul. For example, at the outset of 10.614b there is the introductory story of how Er died and returned. At 10.614c–615a we have the story about the destiny of all souls, which is linked to a notion of judgement. Then a new set of stories or argumentative passages follow. The complexity of Rep. 10.614.a-621.b does not take the form of a διήγημα, but is instead a narrative of Er’s adventures after death. While 10.614.a-621.b is not a single story, it interweaves such stories.26 In short, 22 See the discussion in Butts, “Prog.,” 360–362 of the great similarities between the ancient rhetors on this point. 23 This is also true of the majority of the examples in Theon’s Prog, in the chapter of narration. 24 E. g. comparable to κατα μαρκον 16:1–8 and its ca. 160 words. 25 κατα μαρκον 14:1–16:8 is ca. 2000 words in scope. 26 10.614b and 10.615d–616b for instance.

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just as a whole stands in relation to its parts, this narrational example stands out in relation to the others. It does not undermine the student’s need to learn how to narrate a singular happening first. A review of mythic narrations can arguebly be said to undermine Theon’s own refusal to recognize διήγημα and διήγησις as conceptually different, since it does not rule out distinguishing short story from narrative (and the signification of micro and meso-narrational orders) that was made explicit in the later treatments of Ps.-Hermogenes, Aphtonius, and Nicolaus. Two main reasons support this reading of Theon. Firstly, there is the presence of a “pedagogical hierarchy” in Theon’s handbook on narration, and secondly, there is the relation of the first set of exercises to the later ones more generally. Most of the stories on the list are distinctively brief (ranging from between ca. 60 to 400 words in Greek), except for the long mythic διήγησις about Er, proving the rule as it were. We can obliquely see here the general pedagogical outlook which tasks students with mastering simple exercises before they are made to take on more difficult ones. A closer look at the use of exemplary short stories highlights a student’s need to begin with simple narrations, even though more complex forms could never be fully removed from the student’s gaze. Mastering the composition of complex narration is after all the overall goal of the exercise.27 What is more, Theon’s exercise of narration can be thought of as standing between the more primary (hence less complicated) exercises and the more difficult ones, in the form of a synthetic exercise that deals not only with simple, brief narration, but also with the development of a complex narration based on the simple forms.28 And even though διήγημα is never explicitly separated from διήγησις, Theon’s examples take it for granted that students need to learn how to handle short stories before composing narratives. The difference between Theon and the other progymnasts is not that they present us with different or more developed theories, but rather that Theon is less clear than his predecessors. In the absence of an explicit short story/narrative distinction, Theon’s exercises in narrational technique make less sense, not more.29 Theon’s starting point is particular happenings, as they are easier to 27 See Alex Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem: Clarifying Markan Priority (Leuven: Peeters, 2013) for an excellent review of the pedagogy of Theon in relation to the anecdote and its elaboration. 28 See María Alejandra Valdés García, “El relato y su posible argumentación según los tratadistas griegos de Ejercicios preparatorios,” Nova tellus 29 (2011): 75–100, for a review of the exercises in relation to the Prog. She argues specifically that the narrational exercise introduced the more difficult exercises in Theon’s Prog. This is to a degree also true of the fable and the anecdote, which can be elaborated and developed in similar ways as the short story. 29 For instance, when reviewing the examples found in the handbook (Kennedy, Prog., 29–45), Theon specifically uses bits and pieces of historiography when discussing the narrational exercise, rather than treating an entire historiographical work as an object of narration.

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represent. The other rhetorical handbooks of late antiquity also lay emphasis on brief narrations of singular happenings, but in different ways. While Theon leaves a part-whole relation of narrative and short story unnamed, the three later rhetoricians make explicit what is arguebly already active in Theon. However, for the sake of a rhetorical analysis of The Gospel according to Mark, it does not matter whether Theon names the distinction or not. Our question, rather, is whether the διήγημα/διήγησις distinction and narrational part-whole relation (operative in Theon’s discussion) corresponds to the rhetorical treatment of Jesus’ death in the passion narrative.

2.

The Passion Narrative: διήγημα or διήγησις?

Is the passion narrative a διήγησις, or perhaps a sort of “stretched out” or “extended” διήγημα? Or to put it differently, is the Mkan. passion about a single πρᾶγμα, or a combination of events? More generally, how do Theon’s and the progymasts’ narrational categories, apply to the passion narrative? At first glance, the option of treating Mk. 14:1–16:8 as a stand-alone διήγησις does not seem fruitful given the handbooks’ perspective. There are a few reasons for drawing this conclusion. Firstly, one cannot separate that passage from its connection with Mk. 1–13, in terms of style or language. Secondly, the passion does not amount to a finished narration of Jesus’ death. For 14:1–16:8 to be seen as a διήγησις of Jesus’ death, following the Prog., one would expect to find the kind of compositional closure we associate with Plato’s Apology or the Phaedo, which treat the event of Socrates’ death with a sense of finality that is lacking in chapters 14–16 of κατα μαρκον. Following the examples used in Theon, Mk. 14:1–16:8 is perhaps best described with the aforementioned term of combination (σύστημα) and multiple events (πράγματα), and therefore a belong to the category of meso-order of narration. This passage sutures anecdotes and short stories on the theme and topic of the death of Jesus from a chronological and causal perspective, tracing the burgeoning conflict with the elites of Jerusalem. As will be seen below, temporality emerges as the defining compositional feature of the passion, as it is one of the few places in κατα μαρκον that provides a larger, holistic chronological framework for the events taking place.30 A temporal “glue” of Jesus’ death be-

30 For an important discussion of the lack of coherent temporality in κατα μαρκον, see the still important work by Karl Ludwig Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesu: Literarkritische Untersuchungen zur ältesten Jesusüberlieferung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964).

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comes especially important when the causes of actions and events are lacking in the narration, as is the case in 15:16–32.

2.1

συμπλέκειν & the Suturing of Episodes

Returning briefly to Theon, narrational episodes is important for many reasons. In this context he uses the verb συμπλέκειν (to entwine, combine, join, or suture). His discussion of how narrations are sewn together identifies fundamental aspects of prose composition and gives modern readers an in-depth discussion of the technique involved in micro and meso-orders of narration. What, then, is entailed by the suturing of a system of narration? After he discusses narration in relation to other issues, Theon turns to the ability to sew together different narrational parts, creating a system of stories, such as a narration within another narration. Narrative suturing provides a rhetorical category for the kind of unity that defines the passion narrative, while at the same time allowing its distinct parts to be theorized: 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. And again, “Since Greece was still weak, there came into our land Thracians with Eumolpus, the son of Poseidon, and Scythians with Amazons, daughters of Ares, though not at the same time,” and so on. (Theon 92.23–93.4 [Kennedy, Prog., 39])

The first example, from rhetor Isocrates, synthezises different characters with different back-stories; the children of Heracles and Adrastus, the son of Talaus. It is clear that a student could elaborate on each of these persons at length. This could be done, for instance, by looking at their genealogy, personality, or backstories. The usefulness of these back-stories is found in the differences of their respective πρᾶγμα, dealing with different persons. The second example is similar to the first, but focuses more on a joint theme, namely, the invasion of Greece by Thracians with Eumolpus, the son of Poseidon, the Scythians and the Amazons, daughters of Ares. As was the case with the first example, students had the option of expanding and elaborating on the different traits of each of the groups or persons. The most basic feature of a narrational system of parts is its use of time. In the first example, X “came”, “and a little before them” Y [came], being the one “who suffered misfortune in the expedition against” Z. The events of the “coming” of X and Y are partly identified in terms of temporal differences; this is also true of

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event Z, happening to person Y, at yet another time. The technique of suturing can thus be described as a chronological reconstruction of events. This holds true also for Theon’s second example, where nation X is first described briefly in terms of quality and then immediately related to the time when nation Y “came” (along with persons who are supposedly important for the narrative). “Though not at the same time,” Theon adds before concluding with the second example, again stressing the temporal character of suturing, and keeping time in relation to the different narrational sections, and their events. What does this technique of suturing episodes with their respective events, and therefore producing a narrational whole out of parts, look like in Mk. 14–16? In what follows we describe the narrational technique of suturing particular happenings in this passage.31 Firstly, episodes in 15:16–32 are defined in relation to narrational form (following Theon’s characterizations of anecdote, or short story.) Mk. 15:16–20a and 15:20b–27 are identified as διηγημάτα, while 15.29–32 is discussed as χρεία. Secondly, the way in which the episodes interrelate is analyzed with an eye to determining what sense of narrative “totality” is created through their temporality.32 Finally, I argue that 15:16–32 of the passion fails to suture its episodes convincingly. The quality of the three episodes remains greater than that of their unity, making the sum of Mk. 15:16–32 less than its parts. An evaluation and brief discussion of this rhetorical feature of Jesus’ death in κατα μαρκον is saved for this paper’s last section, along with a comparison of the passion narrative with Chariton’s Callirhoe. To put my conclusion more positively, the rhetoric of Jesus’ death does not “arrive,” but is on its way.33

2.2

Episode One: 15:16–20a as διήγημα

This episode narrates the πρᾶγμα of the mocking of Jesus as would-be king, by the soldiers and the entire cohort, around 5–600 troops (Οἱ στρατιῶται… ὅλην τὴν σπεῖραν).34 All of the elements paraphrased in Aphtonius’ “six questions” are 31 In a longer treatment, one could look at more features of compositional techniques behind 15:16–32, such as the uses of Pss. 22 and 69 as possible sources. 32 15:16–32; with its two short stories, one anecdote corresponds nicely to the overall rhetorical tendency of the passion. In my analysis, roughly 70% of the material in 14:1–16:8 can be identified as short story, and the remaining 30% corresponds to anecdotes. This is not the whole story, however, since the writer(s) of κατα μαρκον incorporate anecdotes within short stories, and sometimes maxims within anecdotes and short stories. 33 I here follow the lead of Matthew D. C. Larsen’s work on The Gospel according to Mark and formulate the work’s rhetorical and narrational failure in terms of its being “unfinished.” See his Gospels before the Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 34 Joel Marcus Mark 8–16: a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 27 A) (New York: Yale University Press, 2009), 1039.

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accounted for. The exception might be a full description of αι᾿τία and προσώπων, as Jesus is not named other than with the ironic title attributed to him at the beginning of chapter 15, and the causes of the actions have to be inferred as they are not identified directly.35 The αι᾿τία points to Pilate as being responsible for the execution of Jesus in the closing verse of the previous short story (καὶ παρέδωκεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ).36 What else could be the specific reason behind the soldiers’ actions other than their obedience to Pilate’s orders? Is it boredom, an ironic and symbolic mockery of a “superior,” or perhaps a purely violent desire to treat others as they themselves felt treated? Did all 600 soldiers participate?37 Regardless of the specific cause, the element of χρόνος is set up in conjunction with the previous episode through the opening verse and the introducing of soldiers who bring “him” to a τόπος, and treat “him” in a particular manner (τρόπος). Why is this short story not read as being complete synthesized with the previous διήγημα about Barabbas and Jesus? The main reason is that it is here that κατα μαρκον for the first time introduces the characters of στρατιῶται. As new persons need to be properly introduced in order to avoid confusion, this episode delineates itself from the previous one precisely by means of the actions associated with this novel group of characters. At its center one finds the soldier’s action of mocking him, rather than an interest in Jesus himself, who again remains unnamed in the episode and fades into the background.38 In the following brief episodes of Mk. 15 associated with Jesus’ death, the soldiers are never again named, which points to the fact that the element of προσώπων here demarcates a separate short story.

35 In the parallel short story in in κατα μαθαιον (27:17–31), this potentially damaging fault of not specifying which persons are in focus is immediately avoided as Jesus is named in the accusative, with v.17. 36 The parallel short story specifies the soldiers’ roles, with the attributive genitive “τοῦ ἡγεμόνος” to “οἱ στρατιῶται,” not found in episode one, which speaks to the problem of causality (αι᾿τία) behind the events in the episode: the soldiers where not acting in their own name. 37 Joachim Gnilka Das Evangelium nach Markus: Mk 8, 27–16, 20 (Vol. 2) (Zürich: Benziger, 1989), 306 posits 15 different verbal actions in 15:16–20. It is unclear how many soldiers participates in said actions. 38 This might be one of the reasons behind the failure of naming the object of the soldiers’ action, a fault that Mt. corrects in the first verse.

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Episode Two: 15:20b–27 as διήγημα

In contrast to the previous episode, this διήγημα lacks responses to some of Aphtonius’ aforementioned essential narratological questions. The “when” is clearly stated as ἦν δὲ ὥρα τρίτη καὶ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν. After this, the passage’s rhetorical shortcomings begin to shine through, even to a modern reader. For instance, the πρᾶγμα should arguably be identified with the execution of Jesus. However, the episode fails to create a necessary narrative unity.39Instead, its sentences come across as a sort of stuttering of facts, all beginning with the typical, Mkan. καὶ, and a main verb: “and they did this… and they did that… and this… and that…” We here encounter an unsuccessful attempt to suture many πράγματα into one story, and include too many occurrences within the bounds of a single διήγημα. We might call this a form of suturing “micro-weaving.” Instead of crafting a narration that flows from one detail to the other into a whole, episode two comes across as a “pragmatic” stutter. Theon calls this sort of pragmatic stuttering a “stating of facts.”40 An example of this manner of listing facts can be seen in Rhet. Her. 4.54.68: “On his way he took Lemnus, then left a garrison at Thasus, after that he destroyed the Bithynian city, Cius; next, returning to the Hellespont, he forthwith occupies Abydus.”41 Preferably, the stating of facts is either avoided or integrated by creating a metaperspective (as specified with Theon’s examples of suturing.) In short, the stuttering appears where the temporal suturing of events starts to break down. And even if this skeleton-like scaffolding of πράγματα were to be brought about, the Mkan. style would need improving, for instance, by avoiding the excessive use of καὶ, and excluding details that would make this section more “pleasing” to the ear (as in the previous example from Rhet. Her.). On this last note (and here the “what” and the “who” are interconnected), why are Simon and his sons introduced this way when these characters disappear as quickly as they are presented to the audience? In contrast to the soldiers, Simon and sons cannot be detected or inferred as being part of the actions of any subsequent or earlier

39 This is a well-established fact in major commentaries. Gnilka, for instance, calls the section 15:20b.–39 a “mosaikartige Zusammensetzung.” Gnilka, Markus, 311. 40 Kennedy, Prog., 38. Butts translates the phrase as “telling about the incident in the form of statements” [ἔτι δέ ἀποφαίνομεν τά πράγματα: Theon, 90.19–20] Butts, “Prog.,” 337. See also Fernández-Garrido, who draws attention to Chariton’s Callirhoe 1.1.4–6 and this short story’s (διήγημα) listing of “fact,” “El ejercicio,” at 10, 41 Cicero, Rhetorica ad Herennium (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1954), 403–405. The list is given as the example of the figure of thought called “brevitas”; the virtue of stating a bare minimum. For a rhetoric of “figures” see Keith A. Reich, Figuring Jesus: the Power of Rhetorical Figures of Speech in the Gospel of Luke (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2011), 9.

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episodes.42 Returning to the issue of “when” from a different angle, Jesus is first said to be executed (καὶ σταυροῦσιν αὐτὸν αὶ διαμερίζονται τὰ ἱμάτια αὐτοῦ …) only to be put to death again in the following verse, which is followed by a designation of the exact time (ἦν δὲ ὥρα τρίτη καὶ ἐσταύρωσαν αὐτόν). This is quite odd and confusing. In the words of Theon on chronology, “One should also guard against confusing the times and order of events, as well as saying the same thing twice. For nothing else confuses the thought more than this.”43 Even if the audience understood that Jesus died only once, the fabric of the story is torn.44 The reason for this chronological stutter is related to the problem of identifying the single happening that defines the short story. From a perspective where the aim is to narrate a complex state of affairs, the overall conclusion would seem to be that the episode contains something like a sketch or list of multiple events that the writer(s) did not manage to finish. In relation to the προσώπων, Jesus remains unnamed, together with the soldiers who can only be identified by the audience through an act of analepsis, as well by relying on the chronology established by weaving this episode together with the previous one. The result of the main characters taking a step back is possibly threatening, as Jesus and the executioners are most important in terms of verbal actions. The opening mentioning of Simon and sons, Rufus, and Alexander, together with two bandits at the end, creates a sort of enigmatic inclusio that functions as a way to demarcate this episode from the previous and following ones. Yet from a formal perspective, one can see how the introduction of the two new groups of characters, Simon and sons together with the bandits, frames the episode’s main happening in terms of a separate short story. On the other hand, the “who” responsible for the main actions can be deduced from the “why” of the entire scene, which is probably the clearest aspect of this brief episode, as “τῆς αι᾿τίας αὐτοῦ” are directly alluded to καὶ ἦν ἡ ἐπιγραφὴ τῆς αι᾿τίας αὐτοῦ ἐπιγεγραμμένη· ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων.45 “He” (Jesus) is executed, through 42 According to Irenaeus of Lyon, in relation to Basilides, in Haer. 1.24.3–7 Simon and sons’ appearance here, together with Jesus’ namelessness in the episode, led “gnostics” to posit that Simon could have taken Jesus’ place, and was executed in his place. See discussion in Marcus, Mark, 1040–41. 43 Kennedy, Prog., 30. My emphasis. 44 I will in this study not speak of “cross,” “crucifixion,” or to be “crucified,” following the study on the lexicographical sense of σταυρός and σταυρόω at the time of the New Testament’s conception in Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity: An Inquiry into the Background and Significance of the New Testament Terminology of Crucifixion (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). Instead, I will use the generic phrases suggested by Samuelsson: suspension-till-death, to suspend, and the pole of suspension. 45 The clarity of this element should not be exaggerated. How many of the soldiers partook in the actual execution? The entire cohort? Merely 100? A handful? Further, commentators have noted that lack of grammatical subject in 15:23 can be read multiple ways. Perhaps Jewish women offered Jesus the wine? See discussion in Adele Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary

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suspension on a pole until death, for the reason of being king-of-the-Jews, by “them” (the soldiers.) In sum, the main failure of episode two lies in its pragmatic stuttering.46

2.4

Episode Three: 15:29–32 as χρεία

With the third episode a different rhetorical unit comes on stage: the anecdote. An anecdote is defined by Theon “as a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person, and maxim (γνώμη) and reminiscence are connected with it.”47 The distinction between an anecdote and a short story consists primarily in the latter having a full plot, including a distinct beginning, middle section, and ending, while the anecdote only has a beginning and a middle section. The anecdote is even defined by its ability to end “without an end.” As such, an anecdote typically should not discuss what happened after “that” was done or “this” was said (as seen in the example above.) Just like a short story, however, an anecdote describes the unfolding of a πρᾶγμα, here defined by Theon “as a brief saying or action making a point.” The anecdote can be “a double” (διπλόος) without losing its identifiable shape as a type of rhetorical exercise. According to Theon, where there are two similar sayings or actions following from a particular situation, we find a doubleanecdote.48 A double-anecdote is precisely what is found in 15:29–32, where the bystanders, high priests/elders and the bandits being executed with Jesus respond to seeing Jesus’s execution. This response takes the shape of what the handbooks call a maxim (γνώμη), which is a more or less pithy statement without any narrational context at all, roughly corresponding to a modern aphorism. The groups respond with similar or even repeated sayings, focused on ridiculing Jesus with imperatives to save himself as he saved others. One can here see how the writer(s) could have worked in different ways with a single γνώμη (making up the (Hermeneia: a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible) (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 740–741. 46 In terms of style, this διήγημα lacks the clarity or credibility that Theon is looking for in a brief narrational episode: “The virtues [ἀρεταί] of a narration are three: clarity [σαφήνεια], conciseness [συντομία], credibility [πιθανότης]”: Kennedy, Prog., 29, (Theon 79.20). In contrast to the other episodes, the short story 15.20b.–7 is only able to live up to the standard of conciseness, even if it includes too many unexplained details or “facts.” 47 Kennedy, Prog., 15. After this definition, Theon gives an example of a typical anecdote, focusing on a saying rather than an action: “Diogenes the philosopher, when asked by someone how to become famous, replied that it was by thinking least about fame.” A pithy statement is connected to a situation that prompts the saying: in this case, Diogenes is asked a question about fame. 48 Kennedy, Prog., 29: “another species of chreia falling into the verbal category and called ‘double.’”

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πρᾶγμα of the episode), about the irony of asking a man being executed to save himself like he saved others. In continuity with the earlier episodes, Jesus is still unnamed, although the use of ironic monikers (βασιλεῦ τῶν Ἰουδαίων, ὁ χριστὸς ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ) highlights the absurdity and irony of Jesus’ death. This nameless character unites the episodes, and points to a joint ironic style. As is the case with the short story, the element of προσώπων is essential to the anecdote.49 In contrast to episode two, 15:29–32 is a double-anecdote. The passage contains many of the narrative elements of the διήγημα, but it ends abruptly after its “saying.” The only possible aspect that could challenge the definition of 15:29–32 as a double-anecdote is the detail at the end of verse 32 (καὶ οἱ συνεσταυρωμένοι σὺν αὐτῷ ὠνείδιζον αὐτόν) echoing the end of the previous short story in verse 27 (καὶ σὺν αὐτῷ σταυροῦσιν δύο λῃστάς, ἕνα ἐκ δεξιῶν καὶ ἕνα ἐξ εὐωνύμων αὐτοῦ). This could be seen as giving the anecdote an ending. It is still my conjecture, however, that the focus on the mockery through “sayings” makes this section of Jesus’ death find its primary resonance with the technique of creating a χρεία.

2.5

Suturing 15:16–20a with 15:20b–27 and 15:29–32

There is no doubt that the episodes should be read in continuity or as somehow interwoven by the writer(s) of The Gospel according to Mark. Episode one is successfully sutured with two and three, creating a sense of chronology that “hovers over” the episodes and fills in gaps in causality and personal identity. The question is how they were sutured and what this suturing reveals in the context of ancient prose composition.50 Episode one and three remain close to the progymnastic model of composing a διήγημα and double-χρεία. Episode two is more like a deficient or failed διήγημα. In terms of their contents, the episodes share a particular namelessness in relation to Jesus, creating an interesting sense of irony by using acts of mockery at the price of clearly stating the element of προσώπων in these episodes. There is a general thematic unity in their respective πράγματα, as they all unfold happen49 See note 57. It is important to note that the identity of the passerby is lacking, which creates certain problems. In relation to the location of ep. 2 and “Golgotha” outside of the city (something not stated by said episode), it is most often understood as city dwellers (rather than the multitude in general.) Were “they” then a part of the multitude of 15:6–15, calling for Jesus’ execution? 50 For an interesting discussion on a method of detecting “sutures and anomalies” see Etienne Trocmé, The Formation of the Gospel according to Mark (Philadelphia: The Westminister Press, 1975), 216f. Ultimately, Trocmé does not believe that the seams of the passion narrative reveal anything of importance.

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ings occurring during Jesus’ death. Without the basic temporal framework supplied in the overall section, the entire scene of 15:16–32 would probably have read as a list of facts as seen in episode two, “confusing the thought” of the audience, as Theon would put it. Problems remain, however, as the process of weaving narration to narration through temporality is more or less the only thing keeping the scene of Jesus’ death from falling apart. This problem is centered around episode two and Jesus’ suspension on a pole. To put it negatively from the rhetorical perspective of suturing, the discussed episodes remain unsutured. The representation of Jesus’ death fails to live up to essential virtues associated with narration.51 The suturing of the three episodes of 15:16–32 should have achieved the rhetorical virtue of conciseness, given, that is, Theon’s claim that “the virtues [ἀρεταί] of a narration are three: clarity [σαφήνεια], conciseness [συντομία], credibility.”52 The description of Jesus’ death is arguably too brief. Theon states that the narration is concise [σύντομος] from what is said and how it is said. Conciseness [συντομία] is language signifying the most important of the facts, not adding what is not necessary nor omitting what is necessary to the subject and the style. Conciseness arises from the contents when we do not combine many things together, do not mix them in with other things, and when we leave out what seems to be assumed; when we do not begin too far back in time and do not lavish words on incidentals, as do those who acquire the habit of narrating events subsequent to those in the case. (Theon 79.20 [Kennedy, Prog., 32]. My italics)

Having looked at “what is said,” we cannot justifiably deem episode one to three to live up to this virtue. The audience instead discovers a “failed brevity.” There are too many facts, without enough causes to give the reader a sufficiently rich sense of what is going on. The upshot is that the rhetorical expression of Jesus’ death in 15:16–32 is disorderly and misses various rhetorical stitches. In other words, the episodes in 15:16–32 do not achieve the virtues of clarity53 or credibility,54 and suffer from faults even in terms of brevity, which is mainly a side effect of not giving attention to problems associated with leaving characters unnamed, the sometimes loose connections between occurrences, and inconsistency in assigning actions to characters. However, the chronological suturing and general theme of Jesus’

51 I take ἁμάρτημα as failure in keeping with the infamous Papian fragment and apologia on Κατα μαρκον, in Eusebius’ Church History, Eccl. 3.39.14–16, where Papias defends the interpreter of Peter from faults “… ὥστε οὐδὲν ἥμαρτεν Μάρκος οὕτως ἔνια γράψας ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν.” 52 Theon 79.20 (Kennedy, Prog., 29). 53 On clarity in Theon’s narration, see Kennedy, Prog., 29–30. 54 On credibility in Theon’s narration, see Kennedy, Prog., 33.

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death still unites this section of the passion, even though it sometimes bursts its rhetorical seams. In terms of the aim of giving a narration-in-full (διήγησις), and with reference again to our previous mention of Polybius’ Histories, the writer(s) of κατα μαρκον could be accused of making the same mistake as Polybius’ rivals. The end of Jesus’ life is not given sufficient attention, and although this Mkan. section is distinct in terms of its temporal markings and theme, the narration stutters as episodes related to Jesus’ death are loosely scaffolded together. In terms of organizing πράγματα in a sequential narration, and strictly from the point of view of compositional technique, the rendition of Jesus’ execution is something like a failed historiography: too brief and lacking in clarity.55 Although the rhetoric of Jesus’ death comes up short in some respects, it nonetheless works. Were its writer(s) trying to keep things brief for the sake of the audience? On the usefulness of συντομία, Theon says that the traumatic could necessitate brevity: “Furthermore, one should narrate very briefly things that are going to distress the hearers, as Homer does [Iliad 18.20]: ‘Patroclus lies dead.’”56 While this remark does not save the representation of Jesus’ death in 15:16–32 from its vices, it does speak to a possible raison d’etre. The problem with using short stories, according to Polybius, was after all their proneness to being biased. In order to come to better terms with the outcome of juxtaposing rhetorical episodes in the manner referred to above as συμπλέκειν, the διηγήματα and χρεία representing Jesus’ death will next be compared to Chariton of Aphrodisias’ The διηγήματα of Callirhoe (τῶν περὶ Καλλιρόην διηγημάτων.) In this contemporary erotic novel about the fate of the Sicilian heroine Καλλιρόην,57 we get a glimpse of what the suturing of διηγήματα could look like from the perspective of a writer steeped in the rhetorical and educational background described by the Prog.58 It will be argued that Chariton presents a “successful” composition using short stories and creating a literary totality (on macro and meso-levels) where the Gospel according to Mark seemingly fails.

55 The most troubling lacuna of ep. 1–3, from a progymnastic perspective, are found with unnamed subject of the verbal actions of 15:16–32: are the multitude from 15:6–15 involved, as most commentators seem to believe? If so, why is this not more clearly stated? How many soldiers partook in the mocking of Jesus in ep.1–2? Who offered Jesus wine? In light of the question of guilt and responsibility of Jesus’ death, the namelessness of many verbal actions create a rather obscure sequence of events. 56 Kennedy, Prog., 29. 57 After a detailed discussion, Tilg dates the novel to between 41–61 CE: Tilg, Chariton, 79. 58 For a discussion of Chariton and Prog., see Pinheiro, “Thoughts on Die¯ge¯ma,” 19–32.

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Chariton’s Callirhoe and Passion Narrative

Chariton’s τῶν περὶ Καλλιρόην διηγημάτων (Callirhoe) is a work uniquely invested in a progymnastic notion of διήγημα and the synthesis of διηγήματα into a higher narrational order. The work raises the question of part-whole relations of διήγημα and a system of διηγήματα, as micro and meso-order of narration. In the words of Stefan Tilg, If we consider the whole of Greek literature from Homer to the end of the second century AD, Chariton’s figures are only topped by the rhetor Theon of Alexandria (twenty-four occurrences) who—among other things—wrote about the very category of διήγημα; apart from Theon and Chariton, only Plutarch (fifteen in his whole voluminous oeuvre) and Xenophon of Ephesus (ten) are in double figures. (Tilg, Chariton, 198–199)

Chariton is hardly unique in successfully suturing narrational parts into a literary whole. Theon’s examples of narration from historiography suggest that one can successfully apply these categories to Herodotus. Chariton’s explicit use of short stories, however, signals a useful tool for understanding κατα μαρκον on a formal level. As the title indicates, Chariton’s Callirhoe is a suturing of short stories. Early on in the novel, in a particular passage from Book Two, Callirhoe is forced to narrate her own past to her new slave-master. Tell me your story, Callirhoe [διήγησαί μοι, Καλλιρόη]; you will not be talking to a stranger, for there exists a kinship of character, too. Have no fear even if you have done something awful.” Callirhoe became angry at this and said, “Do not insult me! I have no crime on my conscience. But since my past history is so much more worthy of respect than my present lot, I do not want to appear boastful or tell διηγήματα which those who do not know me would [οὐ θέλω δοκεῖν ἀλαζὼν οὐδὲ λέγειν διηγήματα ἄπιστα τοῖς ἀγνοοῦσιν], for my early life does not match my condition now.” Dionysius was impressed by the girl’s spirit and said, “I already understand you, even if you say no more. But do tell about it. You can say nothing about yourself which compares with what we see. Any story, however vivid, is bound to fall short of you [πᾶν ἐστί σου σμικρότερον λαμπρὸν διήγημα.].” (Char. 2.5.8–9 [Goold, LCL 481])

In this passage διηγήματα is used to describe the Callirhoe-stories that the audience has already heard; it also has the ability to narrate past events briefly. In other words, a διήγημα is a brief episode encircling one major πρᾶγμα, meaning that an attempt to summarize the past involves creating a string of διηγήματα. In a word, more or less the entire scope of Book One is paraphrased as διηγήματα and thus indirectly as the suturing of one short story with another.59 As with the passion narrative, we are here dealing with suturing on micro and meso-levels. 59 Regarding Chaereas’ execution by suspension on a pole, see Fernández-Garrido, “El ejercicio,” 6–18; Fernández-Garrido also provides a handy chart of possible διηγήματα in the novel

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That a διήγημα is brief is also exemplified in the passage following the dialogue above, as Callirhoe goes on to deliver a response to the question of Dionysius and paraphrases short stories from Book One, which the audience of the novel know as past events: And so with reluctance she began her story [Μόλις οὖν ἐκείνη τὰ καθ᾿ ἑαυτὴν ἤρξατο λέγειν] “I am the daughter of Hermocrates, ruler of Syracuse. When I lost consciousness after a sudden fall, my parents gave me a costly burial. Tomb-robbers opened the tomb. They found me too, breathing again. They brought me to this place and Theron gave me to Leonas [Dionysius most trusted servant] here in an isolated spot.” (Char. 2.5.10 [Goold, LCL 481])

What is this διήγημα (2.5.10) really about, following Theon? In as few words as possible it summarizes the past in an attempt to answer the question “what happened?” and thereby crystallize the past into a single episode. In particular, the story lists as briefly as possible the causes behind Calirhoe’s enslavement to Dionysios. This is what Theon would call “a main idea” (φαντασία) of the exercise.60 In parallel to the episode of 15:20b.–27 (and a short story with the main idea of what happened when Jesus was suspended on a pole), the writer(s) also summarize multiple occurrences within the framework of a single διήγημα. But where κατα μαρκον fails, Chariton succeeds. Regla Fernández-Garrido is correct, I believe, in noting that one only finds three of “the six attributes of narrative,” or elements, of this διήγημα in this passage: person (προσώπων: with a genealogical note), action (ἡ πρᾶξις), and place (τόπος).61 As was seen in episodes 15:16–32, this is not a problem per se, since the elements generally can be grasped through the act of suturing with a previous and following episode. Chariton’s short story is therefore not to be labelled as “deficient” (along with episode 15:20b.–7), as the lack of three elements arguably does not make the story unclear. Time (χρόνος) is found in a general sense of “the past” that immediately contextualizes the short story and supplies a reason for Callirhoe’s narration. The chronology of the occurrences in Chariton’s short story is well executed. From a first-person perspective, Callirhoe crafts a wellbalanced account of the events that brought her to be where she is now, and nothing in particular can be said to be lacking from the construction of this “list.” (that supports my reading of them as brief episodes), as well as an interesting analysis of the same διηγήματα in terms of how they live up to Theon’s idea of virtues of narration. Fernández-Garrido discusses the suspension of Chaereas (4.2.5–7) and the burial scene of Callirhoe (1.6.2–5) as examples of διηγήματα, drawing primarily on the work of Theon on the short story. διηγήματα are here rarely longer than a page of the text in the Loeb edition (ca. 200–230 words in Greek). 60 In a discussion on the technique of paraphrase, Theon located “ideas” to be the core of the exercises; Kennedy, Prog., 6. 61 Fernández-Garrido, “διήγημα,” 15.

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The element of motive (αι᾿τία) is perhaps the most acute gap in terms of basic elements of a short story. However, this lack of an αι᾿τία is probably not necessary to discuss in this particular διήγημα, as it would have been understood as a matter of some “evil” by virtue of the fact that Theron was a pirate prone to rape and plunder. Only the manner (τρόπος) could be said to be truly lacking from the story, and is also indirectly understood as “bad luck,” or “the will of the gods.” Regardless, its absence does not muddle the brief story, and even ends up displaying the rhetorical talent of Chariton, who does not need to strike all strings of the διήγημα to convey a rich short story. If we again compare this story to episode two 15:20b.–27, the fault of leaving out this particular narrational element is nowhere near as problematic as the stuttering seen in Jesus’ execution scene. The difference between episode two and the episode in Callirhoe 2.5.10 is the quality of the suturing of those happenings summarized within the short story. This difference also obtains at the “higher” level of suturing of the passion and Book One of Callirhoe. Callirhoe is filled with stories like 2.5.10 and is properly described as a sequence of such stories. But where the passion narrative cannot be said to rise to the level of meso-order narration, Callirhoe is a well-crafted holistic weave, constituted by (meso and micro) narrational parts and exemplifying Theon’s technique of suturing “narration into narration” on micro-, meso- and macro-levels. When one compares Callirhoe to κατα μαρκον, the passion is roughly comparable to Book One in character and scope, constituting a considerable mesosection of a longer narrational work. Episodes one to three as individual episodes (15:16–32) also find an important parallel. What is more, Chariton supplies a positive example that stands in sharp contrast to the “failure” and pragmatic stuttering in 15:20b.–27. Of course, Chariton was most probably not trying to pay tribute to his rhetorical education with this composition. Nonetheless, τῶν περὶ Καλλιρόην διηγημάτων gives the modern reader a sense of how, in Roman Hellenic literature, the transition from composing stories for the classroom to writing literature might have looked. In so doing it gives us insights that are relevant for a reading of κατα μαρκον. Chariton provides an example of how the classroom exercises can be sutured into a greater whole, the result being both an individual story (at the micro-order), an individual book (at the meso-order), and a “finished” work (at the macro-order of narration). Returning to the issue of history and the orders of narration, Chariton accomplishes his opus without writing a history. Polybius’ critique of rival historians does not really apply to Chariton, who writes something like a “mythic” history regarding a fictitious past. Most importantly, Chariton uses the short story to accomplish this aim. This novel is written as if its suturing of stories forms a history, or to recall Theon’s definition, “διήγημα is language descriptive of things that have happened or as though they had happened.” For present

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purposes, it does not matter whether one identifies the novel of Chariton as having been understood as ἱστορία in its ancient context. The point is rather that the rhetorical technique of suturing distinct πράγματα into a greater textual totality lies at the heart of the 1st century CE opus τῶν περὶ Καλλιρόην διηγημάτων.

3.1

Concluding Discussion: Suturing Episodes of Jesus’ Death

Theon’s discussion of narration and suturing has supplied a methodological grid for approaching the rhetorical composition of the passion narrative and Mk. 15:16–32. In particular, Theon’s concept of συμπλέκειν and the general difference between narrative (διήγησις) and short story (διήγημα), helped us to locate the section on Jesus’ death in the passion where its failure is most pronounced. The chronological framework is the main rhetorical factor that binds the shortstories and double-anecdote of 15:16–32 together, alongside a general theme of occurrences surrounding Jesus’ execution. While this is true of the passion narrative as a whole (when contrasting this section to Mk. 1–13) throughout 15:1– 47 there is an unparalleled chronological sense of causality and tempo.62 This is brought about from 15:1; the note that the unfolding events all took place after the arrival of morning (καὶ εὐθὺς πρωῒ), to 15:42 καὶ ἤδη ὀψίας γενομένης; where the end of the day signifies a sense of finality regarding Jesus’ execution. In 15:16–32 the chronology intensifies, as its three brief episodes all encircle the execution of Jesus during the third hour (15:25), giving attention to the specific focus on a particular hour which has not occurred prior to this section of κατα μαρκον. Episode one is then an episode dealing with the deeds and actions happening immediately prior to the third hour (9.00 A.M.);63 episode two lays out the scene of Jesus’ execution at the specified time, while episode three reports on the deeds and actions taking place slightly afterwards. With that said, the overall rhetorical character of 15:16–32 is rather like a listing of facts. Its narrational skeleton and manner of reporting of πράγματα is qualitatively different from Chariton’s more skillful suturing of corresponding episodes. Even given the chronological coherence created in 15:16–32, there are features that unsuture this climactic and pivotal point of the passion. The chronological notations in κατα μαρκον and the intensification of time to a particular hour are not enough to save 15:16–32 from problems. From a rhetorical perspective, Jesus’ death is underdeveloped. As was discussed above in relation to particular epi62 See the discussion of The Gospel according to Mark’s sense of chronology in contrast to the Greco-Roman novel in Michael E. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel (Leiden: Brill 2002), 126–127. 63 Yarbro Collins, Mark, 746.

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sodes, the problems in question pertain to brevity and the lack of clarity regarding persons, especially in relation to the actions and deeds of the soldiers, chief priest, elders, scribes, the crowd, and bystanders. As a consequence of this, the audience is rarely told who exactly does what to Jesus. This a shortcoming that could easily have been avoided. Jesus’ identity is less problematic in this regard. Jesus’ namelessness and silence in the scenes of execution do, however, accentuate an enigmatic irony and perhaps even enhance a messianic secret (to the nth-degree.) In comparison with the suturing of διηγημάτα in Chariton, the prose of the passion comes up short. The seams holding the διηγημάτα and χρεῖαι of 15:16–32 together as meso-narration are visible to the progymnastic gaze. The scenes of Jesus’ death in Mk. 15 is perhaps, following Polybius’ critique of the short story, “too close” to the πράγματα being narrated. What is thereby lost is notion of a bigger picture. The compositional quality of the representation of Jesus’ death discussed above portrays an inability to deliver a satisfactory rendition of the event, at least from a progymnastic perspective. In comparison to Chariton, the three episodes in 15:16–32 are akin to something of a rough initial sketch of Jesus’ death and the πράγματα that occurred in its proximity. This feature of what is arguably the most dramatic point of the passion narrative is best described as rhetorically “in progress,” that is, as, an account that would be read as needing fleshing out considerably before it could realize its full potential as a part of a larger narrative. To put the matter more positively however, we may say that the representation of Jesus’ death in 15:16–32 does not in any way overtly challenge its incorporation into a meso- or macro-narrational totality (Mkan. or otherwise). From the perspective of Theon’s Prog., the passion, represented here by Mk. 15:16–32 is more a testimony of literature in-the-making than a finalized literary product.64 The reason for this is not only that the end of κατα μαρκον leaves out major characters, such as Judas and Peter, without providing a proper resolution of their stories. Nor is the only problem the fact that the text fails to provide other various basic elements concerning how the plot is to end (such as a vindication through the coming of the son of man, or the presentation of a resurrected Jesus, in Galilee, for example). Nor do we blame only the quality of the prose, the direct tone of the Greek, its arguably too speedy pace of narrating the climactic scene in which Jesus is executed. Instead, the most basic problem is that the compositional techniques behind Jesus’ death in 15:16–32 reveal a process of suturing parts into middle literature: neither part nor whole. In conclusion, the compositional structure of the passion, as being stuck in the middle with Jesus’ death, tells us something about the failure of the Gospel 64 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, for the thesis that the idea of a “book,” or of a finished work, was conceptualized very differently prior to the invention of the printing press.

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according to Mark as ancient prose composition. The meaning of this purported rhetorical failure is a topic I set aside for another time.65

65 I am very grateful to Professor Heike Omerzu for comments on an earlier draft of this article. The shortcomings of the present version are my own.

Maria Sturesson

Ekphrasis and The Gospel of Mark The Women, the Tomb, and the White-dressed Youngster

1.

Introduction

The rhetorical category of ekphrasis has attracted the attention of scholars who wish to discuss the pictorial language of texts and their ability to move the audience in persuasion and engagement.1 Ekphrasis is one of several rhetorical exercises in the Progymnasmata, and as such a textual form in which students of ancient rhetoric were to create spectators out of a listening audience and to create vision out of words. Ekphrasis can also be seen as a literary feature and rhetorical strategy that has been used by scholars as an interpretive lens through which descriptive elements are considered meaningful and functionally important for a text. The visual elements draw the audience into the events of the narrative and place the scene ‘before the eyes’of a reading/listening audience. This chapter on ekphrasis and the Gospel of Mark will read the Markan story of the women at the tomb in light of the rhetorical exercise of ekphrasis. The women’s journey and discovery of the empty tomb is a part of the narrative with a visual focus that is often recognized among scholars. Such visual focus, however, is more often related to their role as witnesses, historical or narrative ones.2 This

1 For a recent example on ekphrasis and the Gospel of John, see Kasper Bro Larsen, “Rhetorical Vividness in John 20: Making Jesus Present before the Eyes” in Come and Read: Interpretive Approaches to the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Lindsey S. Jodrey (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020). Other works have for example focused on the Book of Revelation as a text where ekphrasis functions as a literary form and can be used in interpreting the text. See Robyn J Whitaker, Ekphrasis, Vision and Persuasion in the Book of Revelation, WUNT 2 410 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015). The exercise and category of exphrasis is also a significant part of the discussion on ‘Visual Exegesis’ as discussed in Vernon K. Robbins, Walter S. Melion and Roy R. Jeal, eds., The Art of Visual Exegesis: Rhetoric, Texts, Images (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2017). 2 So for example Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017); also Samuel Byrskog, Story as History –

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essay wishes to explore the direction of their sight and the gaze of the narrative and how this may also relate to the rhetorical category of ekphrasis, and so reflect a broader category of visual narrative. I will in the subsequent reading relate Mark’s story of the women and their encounter with the angelic figure in the empty tomb to other gospels’ representation of the event. I will use primarily the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Matthew and discuss descriptive elements and how they can be related to the rhetorical category of ekphrasis. In this interpretation of Mark’s Gospel in relation to the rhetorical category of ekphrasis, the description or ekphrastic form is not a textbook example of the notion as we find them explained by the rhetors in the progymnasmata.3 But the question that I wish to discuss in relating the rhetorical form to the Gospel of Mark has to do with the impact of this form on the gospel narrative. What role does the ekphrasis—or in this case, the hint at ekphrasis—play in the gospel drama? As I aim to show, the discussion of ekphrasis will play into a discussion of representation, reality and knowledge, where there is a subtle difference between what is told, and how this is told, the narrative and the narration. This difference is connected to the performative aspects of ekphrasis and its aim to draw the audience into the story told. The women’s sightings and the description thereof are flawed in the sense that their perception does not entail the understanding and implications of their visual experience. The interpretation of the visual encounter is left for the reader to make sense of. Nevertheless, the descriptive details of the scene are important markers of the literary form that is the milieu in which the gospel narrative takes form. I use this setting as a heuristic field of research.

2.

Ekphrasis and the Progymnasmata

In modern usage, the term ekphrasis is specifically connected to descriptions of a work of art: a poetic work that represents the same thing, object or matter as an art piece, but where the medium differs and words are used instead of clay, bronze or paint. This specific use can also be found in ancient rhetoric and History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History, WUNT 123 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 3 That is, in the handbooks attributed to Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, Nicolaus and Libanius. These rhetors use examples to explain the category of ekphrasis that varies in length and composition. For example, Theon’s examples range from the lengthy account of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad and Herodotus’ descriptions of crocodiles in the Persian Wars (2.68) to shorter descriptions of persons. Theon, Prog. 118.7–120.11. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Compositions and Rhetoric, Translated with Introductions and Notes by George A. Kennedy (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003), 45–47. Aphthonius presents a long description of a shrine and its architechture. Aphthonius, Prog. 47–49. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 118–120.

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Libanius’s collection of preliminary exercises (4th century), contains many examples of the kind where words are used to illustrate an artist’s piece.4 But the terminology that could be used and that corresponds to the ancient rhetorical exercises is less connected to this specific use and can in a more general sense be translated as ‘description’ and could as such function as a much wider category than that of a description of art.5 Ekphrasis and description are notions that have been discussed and debated for centuries, and its place within storytelling is both obscure and confusing as it disrupts narrative time and confuses the boundary between the story worlds and the world of the audience.6 In Theon’s progymnasmata, the definition of ekphrasis is as follows: “Ecphrasis is descriptive language, bringing what is portrayed clearly before the sight.”7 This definition is brief, which might explain some of the additions to the definitions in later handbooks. Ekphrasis as a specific textual form in the rhetorical handbook of Aelius Theon (1st century) is a somewhat hazy concept. The examples that he gives are both concise and lengthy. The references to Homer include the famous passage about the shield of Achilles, but also a briefer description of a person as “round-shouldered, swarthy-skinned, woolly-haired.”8 Descriptions of the latter kind are not exhaustive of the person described, but the choice of words seem to be an important factor as the Greek words encompass the clarity, or vividness, as some rather would translate the word enargo¯s, or enargeia, in Theon’s definition. This vividness seems to be for Theon the quality that is the key to the exercise of ekphrasis. It is the quality of the words used that enables a reader or listener to see, to imagine the stuff portrayed in words. It is also the key to understanding what ekphrasis is, according to Ruth Webb, who has written extensively on the exercise of ekphrasis in the progymnasmata, and its expressions in the ancient world.9 The “virtues of vividness” are also further discussed in a recent article on ekphrasis and the Gospel of John. In this article Kasper Bro Larsen draws on a great number of sources from antiquity where the creation of vividness is a virtuous aim. In the Gospel of John, Larsen claims, there are many ways of creating vividness, not only through ekphrasis. But the effect of such vivid discourse is the presence of the main character, Jesus, in and through the words themselves. And this is in turn related to the overall purpose of the 4 Libanius’s Progymnasmata: Model Exercises in Greek Prose Composition and Rhetoric, Translated with introduction and notes by Craig A. Gibson (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2008), 427–507. 5 This is also the translation that Gibson suggests for the exercise in Libanius’s progymnasmata. 6 Some of the discussions and debates are illustrated in Valentine Cunningham’s article on ekphrasis in western literature. Valentine Cunningham, “Why Ekphrasis?” CP 102:1 (2007), 57–71. 7 Theon, Prog. 118.7–8. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 45. 8 Theon, Prog. 118.12. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 45. 9 Ruth Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice (London: Routledge, 2009).

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Gospel.10 Vividness is then one of the qualitative aspects that helps define ekphrasis. The definition that Theon gives for the exercise is in very similar terms repeated in the other versions of the progymnasmata.11 But when it comes to understanding the exercise of ekphrasis as description, and this apparently vivid language that is to be used when composing a text of this kind, important and for us, helpful, additions are made by subsequent authors, and I will turn first to Nicolaus the Sophist (5th century) for some clarification. In his Progymnasmata Nicolaus express the following about the exercise of ekphrasis: “And we say that ekphrasis is descriptive speech, bringing what is described clearly before the eyes. ‘Clearly’ is added because in this way it most differs from narration; the latter gives a plain (psile¯) exposition of actions, the former tries to make the hearers into spectators.”12 Through this definition one could assume that there is a discussion about the relation, similarities, and differences between the exercises of narration, and that of ekphrasis. The two exercises can both be used for presenting an event, a person, a place or a time, which means that at some points the two may overlap. The difference however is with the quality of words, their vividness, or their plain, or pure meaning. Webb describes the numerous connotations of plain narration. The adjective psilos, bare and without adornment, that is used here is somewhat similar to haplos, the plain or pure that we for example can find in Plato’s Republic (eg. 394a), and in his distinction between imitation and the plain narration.13 The confusion between the various exercises may also be found in the progymnasmata of ps.-Hermogenes (2nd century) who in his section of ekphrasis says that, “You should know that some of the more exact teachers do not make ecphrasis an exercise, on the ground that it has already been included in fable and narrative and common-place and encomion; for there too, they say, we describe places and rivers and actions and persons. Nevertheless, since some writers of no small authority number ecphrasis among the exercises, we have followed them to avoid any criticism of carelessness.”14 So it seems that there is an ongoing debate about differences and the usefulness of ekphrasis as an exercise within the progymnasmata, and that there are significant overlaps between the different exercises. Ruth Webb develops this further, explaining how ekphrasis can be used to expand the narration, on any of the individual elements of narration. This is an important matter for scholarly consideration of the differences and under-

10 11 12 13 14

Larsen, ”Rhetorical Vividness,” 185–200. Webb, Ekphrasis, 51. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 166. Webb, Ekphrasis, 55. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 86.

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standing of the various textual forms of the progymnasmata, and how they interact and sometimes, as occasionally in the case of ekphrasis, overlap. The question remains however, what the notion of ekphrasis encompasses. And I turn first to the progymnasmata of Aphthonius (4th century) and to the points he makes on how to write an ekphrasis. Again, from Kennedy’s translation: ”In making an ecphrasis of persons one should go from first things to last, that is, from head to feet; and in describing things, say what preceded them, what is in them, and what is wont to result, and describe occasions and places from what surrounds them and what was in them. […] In composing an ecphrasis, one should make use of a relaxed style and adorn it with varied figures and, throughout, create an imitation (apomimeomai) of the things being described.”15 This definition on how to make an ekphrasis finds in this explanation a key in the last words, namely on the imitative, or mimetic qualities of the description. Here we read an interpretation on the supposed effect of the clarity or vividness, the enargeia, that is part of the definition of ekphrasis, the exercise that is descriptive language, bringing what is portrayed clearly (or vividly) before the sight. It is to create a mimetic effect in the reader’s mind, to make them see that which is portrayed which is the aim of the exercise, and this can be done by using words expanding on elements within a narration, or by taking one single element and expanding on that.

3.

Vividness and realism

This description of the ekphrastic effect as mimetic is both interesting and intriguing from a somewhat larger theoretical perspective. In the above definition the mimetic language is not only pointing to mimetic speech but to the effect of description that makes a listening audience into spectators. When speaking of the mimetic qualities of words, or how they can create a mimetic effect, the modern theorist that comes to mind, especially to a student in literature, is Roland Barthes, who in his 1968 article “l’Effet de Réel” points to the seemingly useless details in stories that may not be necessary for the narrative but provides the reader or hearer with this “reality effect”. In this article Barthes uses the ancient rhetorical notion of ekphrasis in order to theorise on the modern novel and the paradox in which the functionally useless descriptive devices are what creates realistic effects, not the narrative itself.16 The situation is different, I would argue with a bit of caution about the very notion of realism, when it comes to 15 Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 117. 16 Roland Barthes, “The Reality Effect”, in The Rustle of Language, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) 141–148.

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ancient texts and their understanding of real or mimetic and text. But in this case, there might be something to the reasoning of Barthes and his way of distinguishing the actions and events and their ornaments. Gérard Genette is another literary theorist who brings up the aspect of how stories are told, and does so in a number of ways. He takes the discussion back to the one between the poetry of Homer and the philosophy of Plato. He recalls the difference between the writing of Homer and recounted narrative in Plato’s republic where the so called plain or bare narration, the haple¯ diegesis, is to be found. The detail that has caught the eye of literary critic Genette is that the descriptive detail of the loud-sounding sea, Plato’s rewritten account removes the descriptive “loud-sounding” and leaves the sea without its aurally suggestive detail which adds this taste and flavour to the text. Genette labels this descriptive detail a connotator of mimesis and references Barthes on the matter.17 This detail pertains more to the sense of hearing than to that of seeing which is the perceptive preference when it comes to the progymasmata’s articulations of ekphrasis.18 These modern theorists say something about what description can do, along similar lines to the rhetoricians of antiquity, and they can help us in theorising about the macro-level of the New Testament gospels, what these texts do, and how we might think of their place in the larger context of early Jewish and Christian literature. Before entering the last chapter of Mark I also want to say something about the audience of the ekphrastic text. Ruth Webb, who I have previously mentioned, argues that ekphrasis as a rhetorical and literary category and in its definitions, stands out in the sense that it highlights the role of the listening audience in a way that the other preparatory categories do not. She writes, “This exercise therefore drew the students’ attention more explicitly than did the others to the communicative function of rhetorical discourse and to the live interaction between the speaker and audience which it supposed.”19 It is with the reader’s ability to imagine, to see with an inner eye, then, that ekphrasis finds its function within the progymnasmata. And even though this object of rhetoric is always presupposed, the intended audience is never as close as in this specific exercise. In this understanding of the exercise, the audience’s ability to imagine is the common ground of the concept of rhetoric itself. And when a narrative is adorned with ekphraseis, this imaginative tool can be used for purposes of persuasion, for example, as this mimetic illusion is more of the pathos than of referentiality. Webb states, “For the modern definition the visual is a quality of the referent, 17 Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Trans. Jane E. Lewin (New York: Cornell University Press, 1980), 165. 18 However, for the ekphrastic play on the relation between word and image, the aural and the visual, see Cunningham, ”Why Ekphrasis?” 63–65. 19 Webb, Ekphrasis, 51.

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which in some definitions is already a representation of reality. For the ancient rhetoricians the impact of ekphrasis is visual; it is a translation of the perceptible which mimics the effect of perception, making the listener seem to see.”20 It is the reader’s activity that is foregrounded by the very act of describing, and not so much the thing described that is the focus of the exercise. This relates to the question of what the ekphrastic text does, what it performs. And the persuasive aspect of ekphrasis has been explored in scholarly work looking at for example the Book of Revelation in which ekphrasis is used to explore and contrast the images of cult and worship. Robyn J. Whitaker thus writes: “It is my claim that the author of Revelation attempts to re-define space and time in Christian terms and uses the rhetorical tools of the empire to do so. Time is re-claimed as God’s and hearers are asked to view the world through the lens of the eternal one in order to recognize that their trials and the beast’s reign are temporary.”21 The persuasive, and in this case the political as well as theological aspects, of the ekphrastic language in the Book of Revelation are of acute importance to the reader.

4.

Follow the gaze to the Empty Tomb

I will now turn to the Gospel of Mark and chapter 16 with the women, the tomb, the angel and the flight. I turn to this text with the discussion of ekphrasis in mind, and with it the many definitions and precisions, as well as the turn towards the reader/listener and the performative aspects of description. Again, I will not claim that this section is an excellent example of handbook-style ekphrasis, but it is a useful category to think with when it comes to the visual and visionary experience that is narrated in this part of the story. The women at the tomb and the first 8 verses of Mark 16 highlight vision as an important feature of the story. Already in the previous chapter they have watched the crucifixion and burial of Jesus (Ἦσαν δὲ καὶ γυναῖκες ἀπὸ μακρόθεν θεωροῦσαι, Mark 15:40a; ἡ δὲ Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ καὶ Μαρία ἡ Ἰωσῆτος ἐθεώρουν ποῦ τέθειται, Mark 15:47). And when they enter the narrative stage as the sun rises on the day of the resurrection, they are narrated as watching and seeing what takes place during their journey to the tomb that they see has been emptied of the body they expected to find (ἀναβλέψασαι θεωροῦσιν, Mark 16:4). So far, their vision is part of the narration, it is a narrated action in the story. The reader or audience is distanced from taking part in the visionary experience, at least in ekphrastic terms, as they, or we, are not invited to see what they see, or to imagine such

20 Webb, Ekphrasis, 38. 21 Whitaker, Ekphrasis, 221–2.

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vision through the discourse presented.22 The acting women of the story direct the gaze to the rolled away stone, which was very large, we are told in a somewhat haphazard, but not really in an ekphrastic manner. It is instead when the women enter the tomb and lay their gaze on the young man that we can speak of a hint at ekphrasis. The young man is described in the way the women perceive him: a young man, sitting to the right, dressed in a white robe (εἶδον νεανίσκον καθήμενον ἐν τοῖς δεξιοῖς περιβεβλημένον στολὴν λευκήν, Mark 16:5). Here it is the placement of the young man that allows the reader to follow the direction of sight, as well as the description of the man that they see that allows for the category of ekphrasis to be used. From the onlooking women’s perspective, the choice of words are important as they mediate the experience of the characters of the story to the audience of the text. In narratological terms they are the (internal) focalisers of the story as the narrative does not give more information than that which they see.23 But their vision is somewhat dull and plain and does not really correspond to the spectacular event of the implied angelophany and the message of the resurrection. As a comparison, we can relate Mark′s presentation of the divine messenger to that of Matthew. “And suddenly [or behold, ι᾿δού, if we wish to keep the visual language of this passage] there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.” The appearance of the angel in Matthew is, to say the least, a more grand and impressive figure than that of the Markan account. It is also explicitly stated that the figure is an angel, a divine messenger that the Markan story does not reveal. Or, at least, the women at the tomb see him as a young man. In the Markan narrative we find a hint a hint at ekphrasis. In Matthew’s account the textual form of ekphrasis comes through in a more explicit and vivid way through a fuller description of the divine messenger. And as such the audience of the text is invited to see the cosmic events that occur during that resurrection morning. In following the theoretical discussion above, the invitation to the reader through ekphrasis is more prevalent in Matthew’s account than that of Mark. And the realism that such rhetoric implies is not the 19th century realism or naturalism, but a realism that enables the listener to become a viewer of the events as if he or she would have been there. Is it the eye of the beholder that differs here? The Markan account is filtered through the perception and vision of the women and the hearers of the story are 22 Larsen, however, sees visual language, such as verbs related to vision, as an important aspect of the vividness of the presentation of Jesus in the Gospel of John. Larsen, “Rhetorical Vividness,” 185–200. In this essay I have not discussed this aspect but focus on descriptive elements. 23 See Gary Yamasaki, Point of View and Evaluative Guidance in Biblical Narrative (Cambridge: Cascade Books, 2013), 61–62.

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invited as onlookers to see what they see. Or at least, that could be the case. The grand epiphany that occurs is the end of this story that ends in a failure. Failure in this context is something that my colleague from Lund, Joel Kuhlin, looks at more carefully than this rather tentative outlook.24 It becomes a failure on the very basic level that the women flee the scene and do not tell of their experience to any one. It is tempting also to speak of a failure in terms of the ekphrastic account of the divine messenger that appears inside the tomb. The young man sitting to the right is labelled as such because the women perceive him so, and his white robe is the plain white that does not become a vivid description of the dazzling garment of the angelic presence. So, while there is, or might be, a hint at ekphrasis in this section of the Markan gospel it is not carried through in the way the exercises of the progymnasmata display. This in turn reflects a flawed or limited vision on the women’s part. Their vision is restricted in that it stops at a very shallow description of what they see. It does not transform into understanding the role of the divine messenger, or adhere to the message of the resurrection. That, I would argue, is left for the reader to do. The hint at ekphrasis that reflects the women’s perception of the events calls for a response in the audience of the text who, with the Markan narrative actualised in their minds, may interpret and understand the women’s vision. The failure is that the women do not transform their vision into understanding, and the description of the young man in the tomb reflects this lack thereof. The second hint at ekphrasis that I want to point to in this paper, especially in relation to how one of the other New Testament gospels describe the events, is the direction of the gaze through the pointing words of the divine messenger to the space and place where Jesus body was put in Mark 16:6: ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. The way that Mark formulates his gospel, this place does not stand out in a way for us to speak of an elaborate ekphrasis of the scenery, there are no descriptive words of the place, not even the adjective κενός (empty) is used to describe the void that the gaze is directed at.25 I chose this part of the story for the reason that I wanted to compare this absent description to that of another New testament gospel and compare the scenery. If we look to the Gospel of John in this matter, we can see how the setting unfolds in the events that retell the discovery of the empty tomb. The story of John tells of people coming and going, that enter the tomb and gradually reveal the details and describe the place they see and thus invite the audience to partake in this step-by-step journey into the empty space implying the resurrection. First, in John 20:1 Mary Magdalene enters the scene and sees that the stone has been rolled away (βλέπει τὸν λίθον ἠρμένον ἐκ 24 See for example his contribution in the present volume. 25 See discussion in Mark Goodacre, “How Empty Was the Tomb?” JSNT 44:1 (2021), 134–148.

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τοῦ μνημείου). In John 20:5 the beloved disciple glances into the tomb and sees the linen wrapping lying there (βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια). Next is Simon Peter, who in John 20:6–7 enters the tomb and he also sees the linen wrappings lie there, but also the cloth that had been on Jesus’s head, not lying with the wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself (θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον ει᾿ς ἕνα τόπον). When the beloved disciple enters again in John 20:8 he is told to see and believe (εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν). These actions, seeing and believing guide the audience in partaking in the experience of the Jesus followers that surrounds the resurrection event.26 And as John hints at in the end of chapter 20, the actions and events that took place before the eyes of these closest followers are to guide the listening audience to belief. And by unwrapping the scenery of the so-called empty tomb, the narrative of John’s gospel lingers at the place of the absent Jesus. The Markan topos is never filled with the details of John’s account and the story is not explicit of what the beholder of the place is to see. The reader may fill the void with thoughts and ideas or knowledge from elsewhere, even from the preceding narrative. But the narrative remains silent on descriptive elements that might have invited the reader to partake in the women’s vision in the Markan story. The young man in the tomb nevertheless directs the narrative view to a focal point, a “where” from which conclusions are yet to be drawn.27

5.

Conclusions

In this paper, I have discussed the rhetorical exercise of ekphrasis. I have raised some issues concerning the definitions of the exercise, and also pointed to the relation to the listening audience as a key feature of the form itself. In this way ekphrasis is a literary technique to place the things described before the eyes of a reader, but it is also a way of bringing a reader to the events described, and informing them as to guide their way to belief, as the example from the gospel of John may imply. This is what we can find in other early Christian stories, as for example the work of Georgia Frank points to. She reflects on a “visual piety” that takes form in and through early Christian textual practice such as pilgrimage stories. This visual piety involves “practices in which a lingering gaze conjures a 26 See Craig Koester, “Hearing, Seeing, and Believing in the Gospel of John,” Biblica 70:3 (1989) 327–348. Koester argues that vision is subordinate to hearing and to belief, and that seeing alone does not grant belief. Ekphrasis as an analytical category confuses the boundary between hearing and seeing. 27 Mark Goodacre points to the fact that this place is repeated in the Markan narrative, but with this observation also questions our notion of a tomb where only Jesus’ body was put. Goodacre, “How Empty Was the Tomb?” 144.

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sacred presence.”28 She points to a practice that invites a visual reading of scripture when applied to the visited scene, and in one of her her examples, the tomb from scripture is an example of the visual piety of reading biblical narrative.29 In using the progymnasmata and its rhetorical exercise of ekphrasis to think with, the texts suggest that such visual piety is something that is at play in and through the gospel narratives themselves. It is developed through the redactions and reworkings of Matthew and John that I have used in this text. These narratives direct the gaze to the events, persons and places surrounding the resurrection and at times make use of descriptive language. In the Markan story of the women at the tomb, the women direct the gaze of the narrative, and their experience of sight is the main action to take place in this section of narration. But where the narrative stops and the gaze focuses in on the divine messenger and his appearance inside the tomb that no longer holds the body that the women expected to find, we find instead the most explicit hint at ekphrasis. Their experience of the encounter is reported in meagre terms, and this, I claim, reflects the women as the onlooking subjects of the story. The invitation to the reader to see what the women see in this story also involves a possibility of reacting to this vision. Have they not understood who he is, or what his role is? The reader is drawn into the action of the story by means of a subtle discrepancy between the narrative and the narration. While the women in the story cannot see, the reader is invited to fill the gaps and to understand the course of events. In this way the use of ekphrasis is also a way to perform characterization, and with this we could speak more of the Markan narrative and that of gender, but in claiming so I am moving far beyond the boundaries of the progymnasmata and the definitions of ekphrasis.

28 Georgia Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 174. In New Testament studies, Jane Heath uses visuality and visual piety to examine Pauline texts. Jane Heath, Paul’s Visual Piety: The Metamorphosis of the Beholder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 29 Georgia Frank, “The Pilgrim’s Gaze in the Age Before Icons,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, ed. Robert S. Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 98–115; 100.

Sigurvin Lárus Jónsson

Mark and Speech-in-Character

1.

Introduction

The Gospel of Mark narrates the life, passion and teachings of Jesus and contains as such speeches delivered by both Jesus and his interlocutors. The inclusion of speeches is significant for Mark’s composition as a prose narrative, that is defined by contemporary scholarship as historiographical1 or biographical2 literature. Compared to other gospels, however, the Gospel of Mark relies less on speeches than e. g., Q or the Gospel of Thomas that are collections of sayings with few narrative bridges, and the other New Testament gospels that significantly expand the speech material, both quantitatively and conceptually (e. g., Matt. 5– 7). In this article two short speeches in Mark, that of Herod (Mark 6.16, 22–3) and Pilate (Mark 15.2, 4), will be examined in light of the nomenclature of speech-in– character as found in the earliest progymnasmata, that of Aelius Theon, and in the writings of contemporary literary critics, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Scholarship on the speeches of Mark has relied on Hellenistic categories for interpretation since the form critics, who categorised the discourse material as ‘illustrations’ and ‘sayings’, designating the former as παράδειγμα3 or ἀπόφθεγμα4 and the latter as παραίνεσις.5 The shift towards literary methods, especially rhetorical criticism, saw a renewed interest in the education of the evangelist and the methods of composition that were taught in antiquity. George Kennedy’s New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism was a first attempt to 1 Eve-Marie Becker, The Birth of Christian History: Memory and Time from Mark to Luke-Acts (AYBRL; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2018). 2 Helen K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020). 3 Martin Dibelius, Die Formgeschichte des Evangeliums (Tübingen: Mohr, 1919). 4 Rudolf Bultmann, Die Geschichte der synoptischen Tradition (FRLANT 28; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1921); see also Rudolf Bultmann, “The New Approach to the Synoptic Problem,” JR 6 (4 1926): 337–62. 5 Dibelius, Formgeschichte.

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establish a “rigorous methodology”6 for exegesis based on rhetorical models. Kennedy cites Mark on a number of occasions, but it is primarily with Luke-Acts that he sees traces of a formal rhetorical training and he devotes a whole chapter on the speeches in Acts, that have led to a “flurry of rhetorical analyses […] to demonstrate that the author of Acts was familiar with the devices and strategies of ancient rhetoric as practiced during the Hellenistic period”.7 On speech-incharacter and Luke, Kennedy writes: Prosopopoeia was an exercise in writing a speech for some mythological or historical personage, exhibiting his character. The speeches in the first chapter of Luke are probably prosopopoeiae; one of the most difficult questions in rhetorical criticism of the New Testament is whether the discourses of Jesus and the speakers in Acts should also be viewed in this light.8

The publication of Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels, by Burton Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, inaugurated the interpretation of the speech material in Mark through Theon’s categories. Mack and Robbins saw the pronouncement stories in Mark as χρεία, which they describe as “mini-speeches” composed by students and the fundamental unit in literary and rhetorical composition in antiquity.9 Students were taught to develop a χρεία using the principle of ἐργασία or elaboration. More recent rhetorical studies on Mark, such as that of Ben Witherington III10 and Young and Strickland,11 build on this usage of the progymnasmata. The composition of speeches is a complicated process and employing the nomenclature of speech-in-character demands a definition of terms and a distinction between the phenomena of χρεία and speech-in-character, προσωποποιία and ἠθοποιία. Young and Strickland employ the following distinction: [I]n the exercise called chreia, the student took a saying from a famous historical figure and constructed a descriptive paragraph around it in accordance with certain rhetorical strategies.

6 George A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism (SR; Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 4. 7 Mikael C. Parsons, “Luke and the Progymnasmata: A Preliminary Investigation into the Preliminary Exercises,” in Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (ed. Christopher R. Matthews; SBLSS 20; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2004), 44–45. 8 Kennedy, Rhetorical Criticism, 23. 9 Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of persuasion in the Gospels. (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1989). 10 Ben Witherington III, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-rhetorical Commentary. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001). 11 David M. Young and Michael Strickland, The Rhetoric of Jesus in the Gospel of Mark. (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017).

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In the prosopopoeia, or as they were sometimes called, the ethopopoeia, students imagined themselves to be some famous person at a critical point in their life, then composed a short speech representing how that character might have spoken.12

This distinction gives rise to interpreting at least two passages in Mark as προσωποποιία, both speeches attributed to famous persons, that of Herod in chapter 6 and Pilate in chapter 15.

2.

Speech-in-character in the Progymnasmata

The categories of speech-in–character as rhetorical exercises, προσωποποιία or ἠθοποιία, can provide us with important exegetical tools. These related terms are distinguished between in later progymnasmata,13 where “ἠθοποιία is the imitation (μίμησις) of the character (ἤθους) of a person supposed to be speaking […] [and] προσωποποιία when we personify a thing, […] a not existing person”.14 This distinction is not clear in the earlier discussions and Aelius Theon uses προσωποποιία for all kinds of speech-in–character, although his examples are exclusively ethopoietic: Personification (προσωποποιία) is 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 […] Under this genus of exercise fall the species of consolations and exhortation (προτρεπτικῶν) and letter writing (ἐπιστολικῶν). First of all, then, one should have in mind what the personality (ἐνθυμηθῆναι) of the speaker is like, and to whom the speech is addressed […] then one is ready to try to say appropriate words. Different ways of speaking belong to different ages of life, not the same to an older man (πρεσβυτέρῳ) and a younger one; the speech of a younger man will be mingled with simplicity and modesty, that of an older man with knowledge (συνέσει) and experience (ἐμπειρίᾳ). Different ways of speaking would also be fitting […] by status […] and by their origin the words of a Laconian, sparse and clear, differ from those of a man of Attica, which are voluble. We say that Herodotus often speaks like barbarians although writing in Greek because he imitates (μεμίμηται) their ways of speaking. […] Now since the distinction among persons and subjects is a varied one—for we demand something or we exhort (προτρέπομεν) or we dissuade (ἀποτρέπομεν) […] This exercise is most receptive of characters (ἠθῶν) and emotions (παθῶν).15

12 Ibid., 55. 13 George A. Kennedy, ed., Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (WGRW 10; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). 14 Hermogenes, Prog. 9 (Kennedy, WGRW). 15 Theon, Prog. 8 (Kennedy, WGRW).

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These instructions provide valuable insight into the training ancient authors had with regards to presenting the message of an authority figure and the importance of language in that regard. Theon views speech-in–character as a widespread phenomenon that is found in a variety of prose writing genres. Προσωποποιία is not only an historical exercise but applicable also to oratory and dialogue and poetry, and is most advantageous in everyday life and in our conversations with each other, and (understanding of it) is most useful in study of prose writings. Thus, we praise Homer first because of his ability to attribute the right words to each of the characters he introduces, but we find fault with Euripides because his Hecuba philosophizes inopportunely.16

From Theon’s discussion it is clear that authors need to imitate the voice and character of the interlocutor and that ‘application to [the] subject discussed’ is inherent to the literary phenomenon. While Theon does not give illustrations from literature through citation, he does envision numerous examples where speech-in–character applies, among them “What words would Cyrus say when marching against the Massagetae? Or what would Datis say when he met the king after the battle of Marathon?”.17 Both examples concern the historiographical treatment of historical events, in this case the Greco-Persian wars,18 and an imagination of the words that were exchanged. Seen as examples of speech-in– character, one can argue that the author of Mark composed the speeches of Herod and Pilate with similar questions in mind and that he found the language of Herod and Pilate fitting for their characters, based on the criteria presented in the progymnasmata curriculum of age, status and ethnicity et al. Theon’s discussion ends with the point that speech-in–character is most receptive of “characters (ἠθῶν) and emotions (παθῶν)”19 and this is made explicit in the later distinction of ἠθοποιία, where “some personifications are ethical, some pathetical, […] [and] [e]thical are those in which the characterization of the speaker is dominant throughout”.20

16 17 18 19 20

Theon, Prog. 1 [60] (Kennedy, WGRW). Theon, Prog. 8 (Kennedy, WGRW). See Herodotus, Hist. Theon, Prog. 8 (Kennedy, WGRW). Hermogenes, Prog. 9 (Kennedy, WGRW).

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Speech-in–character in the Critical Essays of Dionysius of Halicarnassus

The terminology for speech-in–character has important witnesses in the writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the terms ἠθοποιέω and ἡ ἠθοποιία are attested early in his writings. The verb ἠθοποιέω has according to the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae two earlier attestations than Dionysius, but a case can be made that they are later.21 Dionysius uses the verb only once, in his discussion of Lysias who is first among the Ancient Orators.22 Lysias is according to Dionysius ‘second to none’ when it comes to presenting arguments: He often makes us believe in his client’s good character (ἐκ τῶν ἠθῶν … ἀξιολόγως) by referring to his life and his parentage, and often again by describing his past actions and the principles governing them. And when the facts fail to provide him with such material, he (Lysias) creates his own moral tone (αὐτὸς ἠθοποιεῖ), making his characters seem by their speech to be trustworthy and honest (κατασκευάζει τὰ πρόσωπα τῷ λόγῳ πιστὰ καὶ χρηστά). He credits them with civilized dispositions and attributes controlled feelings to them; he makes them voice appropriate sentiments (λόγους ἐπιεικεῖς ἀποδιδούς), and introduces them as men whose thoughts befit their status in life and who abhor both evil words and evil deeds.23

The act of writing a speech-in–character has in this context the aim of portraying a character of respectable ethical comportment (μέτριον ἦθος φανείη)24 in order to establish authority, i. e. to prove something. Language is the most important factor. Dionysius uses the noun ἡ ἠθοποιία twice in the Ancient Orators, in the discussion On Lysias and On Isocrates. Dionysius’ praise for Lysias is unreserved, “he was the best of all the orators at observing human nature,”25 and this quality allowed him to excel at characterisation (ἠθοποιία): I also ascribe to Lysias that most pleasing quality, which is generally called characterisation (ἠθοποιΐαν). I am quite unable to find a single person (πρόσωπον) in this orator’s speeches who is devoid of character (ἀνηθοποίητον) or vitality (ἄψυχον). There are three departments or aspects in which this quality manifests itself: thought (διανοίας), language (λέξεως) and composition (συνθέσεως); and I declare him to be successful in all three. For not only are the thoughts he ascribes to his clients worthy, reasonable and fair, so 21 Sigurvin L. Jónsson, James among the Classicists: Reading the Letter of James in Light of Ancient Literary Criticism (SANt 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021). 22 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Critical Essays in vol. 465–466 of Loeb Classical Library. Translated by Stephen Usher. (2 vols. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974– 1975). 23 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lys. 19.16–26 (Usher, LCL). 24 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lys 19.22–3. 25 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lys. 7.13 (Usher, LCL).

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that their words seem to reflect their good moral character (δοκεῖν τῶν ἠθῶν τοὺς λόγους), but he also makes them speak in a style which is appropriate to these qualities (ἀλλὰ καὶ τὴν λέξιν ἀποδίδωσι τοῖς ἤθεσιν οι᾿κείαν), and which by its nature displays them in their best light – clear (σαφῆ), standard (κυρίαν), ordinary speech (κοινήν) which is thoroughly familiar to everyone.26

The guiding elements of speech-in–character are according to Dionysius, thought, language and composition and of those he prioritises composition,27 to which he devotes an entire treatise (Περί Συνθέσεως ὀνομάτων).28 The second attestation is found in his discussion of Isocrates, where he compares Lysias and Isocrates on the basis of speech-in–character. “In the portrayal of moral qualities (ἐν ταῖς ἠθοποιίαις) I found both equally skilful, but I had no hesitation in giving the prize for charm (χάριτος) and grace (ἡδονῆς) to Lysias”.29 The final attestation for ἠθοποιία is found in Dionysius’ lost treatise on imitation, where he says “[that] among the authors to be imitated are Pindar, for his vocabulary and his ideas, […] for [e. g.] characterisation (ἠθοποιίας) […], but especially for his orientation towards the moral (ἠθῶν) in prudence (σωφροσύνην), piety (εὐσέβειαν) and grandeur (μεγαλοπρέπειαν)”.30 As with other models of imitation, Pindar is presented as a moral authority from which one can learn, primarily through his language competency and speech-in–character. Dionysius uses the verb προσωποποιέω in his discussion of the historian Thucydides, where he says: “Thucydides begins by stating in his own person that what each side said, but after maintaining this form of reported speech for only one exchange of arguments, he dramatizes the rest of the dialogue (προσωποποιεῖ τὸν μετὰ ταῦτα διάλογον) and makes the characters speak for themselves”.31 His treatment of Thucydides is meant to supplement his discussion of authors worthy of emulation in On Imitation32 and his focus is on “the character of his style (τοῦ χαρακτῆρος τῶν λόγων) in all its aspects”.33 The relevant portion compares the speeches of the Lacedaemonian king Archidamus34 with speeches in the

26 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lys. 8.1–14 (Usher, LCL). 27 The syntax suggest that thought and language are on an equal footing (διανοίας τε καὶ λέξεως) and composition is emphasised (καὶ τρίτης τῆς συνθέσεως). 28 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Comp. 29 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Isocr. 11.16–18 (Usher, LCL). 30 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Imit. 31.2.5–6: “Ζηλωτὸς δὲ καὶ Πίνδαρος ὀνομάτων καὶ νοημάτων εἵνεκα, καὶ μεγαλοπρεπείας καὶ τόνου καὶ περιουσίας κατασκευῆς καὶ δυνάμεως, καὶ πικρίας μετὰ ἡδονῆς· καὶ πυκνότητος καὶ σεμνότητος, καὶ γνωμολογίας καὶ ἐναργείας, καὶ σχηματισμῶν καὶ ἠθοποιίας καὶ αὐξήσεως καὶ δεινώσεως· μάλιστα δὲ τῶν ει᾿ς σωφροσύνην καὶ εὐσέβειαν καὶ μεγαλοπρέπειαν ἠθῶν”. 31 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 27 (Usher, LCL). 32 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 1. 33 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 3 (Usher, LCL). 34 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 36, see Thucydides, Hist. 2.71–75.

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described hostilities between Athenians and Melians,35 on the basis whether language fits character. Regarding the former he notes that they “are suited to the characters of the speakers (τοῖς προσώποις πρέποντας), […] furnished with language which is pure, clear and concise and possesses all the other virtues”,36 a contrast to the latter where “the wisest (οἱ φρονιμώτατοι) of the Greeks adduce the most disgraceful arguments (αἴσχιστα … ἐνθυμήματα), and invest them with the most disagreeable language (ἀηδεστάτῃ … λέξει)”.37 His objection is that language does not fit the ethos of the speaker and this needs to be explained on the part of a competent author such as Thucydides.38 The substantive ἡ προσωποποιία is first attested in Dionysius of Halicarnassus in the epitome fragments from On Imitation,39 where he compares Thucydides to Herodotus on the basis of style. There are however contemporary examples of ἡ προσωποποιία in a fragment of Philodemus’ De poematis40 and Demetrius’ treatise On Style.41 This comparison of historiographers is also found in his Letter to Gnaeus Pompeius which Dionysius bases on On Imitation,42 although scholars have pointed to some discrepancy in subject matter between the letter and the epitome.43 Herodotus is e. g. praised for better keeping true to (συντετήρηκεν) events (τὸ πρέπον πραγματείαν) and characters (προσωποποιίαν),44 a point of comparison made in the letter as well. There, Dionysius says that both are successful in “the imitation of traits of character and of emotions (συνίσταται τὴν ἀρετὴν [τῶν] ἠθῶν τε καὶ παθῶν μίμησις) […], [where] Thucydides is the better at portraying emotion (τὰ πάθη δηλῶσαι), while Herodotus is the cleverer at rep-

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 37–40, see Thucydides, Hist. 5.84–111. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 36 (Usher, LCL). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 41 (Usher, LCL). Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 41 (Usher, LCL): Dionysius speculates that “perhaps it was because the historian bore his city a grudge for the sentence passed on him that he has deluged her with these reproaches”. A TLG search (20. 02. 2021), ἡ προσωποποιία, -ας, incl. lemma and sorted by date, lists De imitatione (fragmenta) {0081.014} as the oldest result. Philodemus Phil., De poematis liber quintus {1595.291}. Doreen C. Innes, the translator of the LCL edition writes in her introduction: “The date of the work is equally uncertain, and controversy continues. For much of this century scholars favoured a date in the first century A.D. (especially Roberts and Radermacher), but more recently scholars have argued for an earlier date; so ca. 270 B.C. (Grube), second century B.C. (Morpurgo Tagliabue), late second or early first century B.C. (Chiron), and a reworking in the first century A.D. of contents reflecting the second or early first century B.C. (Schenkeveld). I would agree with this growing consensus that the contents at least do not preclude and may best reflect the second century B.C.” Demetrius, Eloc. (Innes, LCL), 311. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pomp. 3. Heath, Malcolm. “Dionysius of Halicarnassus ‘on Imitation.’” Hermes 117 (3 1989): 370–373. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Imit. 31.3.16–17: ὃς καὶ μετὰ τούτων τὸ πρέπον πραγματείαν καὶ προσωποποιίαν μᾶλλον συντετήρηκεν.

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resenting character (ἤθη παραστῆσαι)”.45 Reading these texts together reveals the ethical implications of Dionysius’ use of προσωποποιία, where the point is to build a fitting representation of a character’s ἦθος via language, which is the context in both passages. The importance of Dionysius of Halicarnassus for our discussion is that he represents the earliest extant description of speech-in–character using nomenclature that becomes standard in both the progymnasmata46 and later rhetorical writings. He explicitly describes a phenomenon that is widespread and widely acknowledged in antiquity, as authors relied on speech-in–character to represent historic personae in historiography, to defend and promote clients in the public sphere and to present the teachings of a philosopher or religious authority. A common denominator in all such writings was the importance of language that represented the ethos of the persona, whether alone or with other markers of moral authority.

4.

Herod Antipas’ speech-in–character (Mark 6.16, 22–3)

The authority of both Herod Antipas and Pilate were beyond dispute by the time of the writing of the Gospel of Mark and the evangelist highlights their authority. Mark 6.14 introduces the character of “King Herod” (ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἡρῴδης), although his supporters, οἱ Ἡρῳδιανοί are mentioned before in 3.6 and later in 12.13. The historical Herod Antipas did not actually hold the title βασιλεύς,47 but τετραάρχης, and the title βασιλεύς in Mark can be seen as an honorific, underlining Herod’s authority.48 The narrator further establishes Herod’s credibility, both by his attitude towards John the Baptist and by exonerating him from his

45 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pomp. 3.18 (Usher, LCL). 46 Aelius Theon, the earliest preserved progymnasmata author is explicit about his dependence on Dionysius of Halicarnassus, naming him “the great”. Theon, Prog. 14 (Kennedy, WGRW). 47 Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Hermeneia, Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008), 303: “The Herod in question here is Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, who, when his father died in 4 BCE, became tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. He governed those regions until 39 CE. Antipas’s title, “tetrarch” is attested by two inscriptions, one on Cos and one on Delos. He sailed to Italy to seek the title “king” (βασιλεύς) from the emperor Gaius, but was unsuccessful. In fact, he was deposed and exiled to Lyons or perhaps to northern Spain.” 48 Other options include popular usage (Collins), ironically (William L. Lane, The Gospel according to Mark (NICNT; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1974)) or the environment of later narrators of the story, in whose time the descendants of Herod did have the title (Gerd Theissen, The Gospels in Context: Social and Political History in the Synoptic Tradition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1991), 87).

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execution. The former is found in the description in Mark 6.2049 and the latter in the narrative about Herodias and her daughter (Mark 6.17–29), where Herod does not wish John the Baptist dead, but is bound by his word (Mark 6.26). We do not have speeches or writings to compare the language in Mark to, but we can assume that the historical Herod Antipas received Greek education, with him being of high social status and his father, Herod the Great, having received education in Rome.50 Herod’s lines are two, in Mark 6.16 he says: “ὃν ἐγὼ ἀπεκεφάλισα Ἰωάννην, οὗτος ἠγέρθη” and in Mark 6.22–23: “αἴτησόν με ὃ ἐὰν θέλῃς, καὶ δώσω σοι· […] ὅ τι ἐάν με αι᾿τήσῃς δώσω σοι ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου”. None of this wording seems different to the overall style of Mark. In 6.16 we find the relatively rare verb, ἀποκεφαλίζω (to behead),51 but also one that we would not expect to be common, and the verb ἐγείρω (to raise up), common in both Septuagint and New Testament. The syntax is unusual due to the Casus Pendens, yet this stylistic feature is found on numerous occasions in Mark. Commenting on this style in Mark, Nigel Turner notes: The incidence of a resumptive personal pronoun, used after a relative, is too widespread in the Gospels to be explained as vernacular Greek without Semitic influence. […] The construction which allows an expression in casus pendens to be followed by a resumptive personal pronoun is to some extent secular but, alongside all the other evidence for Semitisms, it is more probable that a Semitic idiom lies behind the Greek of Mark […] likely to have come by way of the LXX, as in Mark’s own quotation at 1210.52

Herod’s comment does not reflect well on him and the interpretive options we have include an accusation of superstition on Herod’s part, “fearing vengeance for his execution of John”53 and irony as “Herod had eliminated one troublemaker, and here was another one”.54

49 Mark 6.20: “Herod feared John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he protected him. When he heard him, he was greatly perplexed and yet he liked to listen to him”, NRSV. 50 Josephus, Ant 17.20. Morten H. Jensen, Herod Antipas in Galilee: The Literary and Archaeological Sources on the Reign of Herod Antipas and its Socio-Economic Impact on Galilee (WUNT 2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 222. 51 In the New Testament it only occurs in Markan parallels (Mark 6.16/Luke 9.9 and Mark 6.27/ Matt 14.10). A TLG search (20. 02. 2021) of ἀποκεφαλίζω + lemma shows a single attestation in the LXX (Ps 151.7) and that it is rare in non-biblical Greek literature (although 4× in Philodemus and 4× in Epictetus). It is only found 22× before Origen. 52 J. H. Moulton and N. Turner, Style (vol. IV of A Grammar of New Testament Greek; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1976), 21: “Mk 134D (and those who had devils he cast them out of them), 616 (John whom I beheaded, he is risen), 720 (that which goes out, this defiles), 1311 (whatever is given you, this speak).” 53 Collins, Mark, 304. See Dale C. Martin, Inventing Superstition: From the Hippocratics to the Christians (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 29–30. 54 Collins, Mark, 304.

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The second set of texts have Herod interacting with his niece, when enthralled by her dancing (Mark 6.22) he promises to give her up to half his kingdom (Mark 6.23). The context is unflattering towards Herod, as the connotations of the dance are inappropriate,55 and the narrative motif depicting the consequences of “a powerful man offering to grant a woman or a subject any wish he or she may have” is well known in both Greek and Jewish literature.56 Again, the language is in harmony with the overall style of Mark. In the first clauses we find the verbs αι᾿τέω (to ask), θέλω (to wish) and δίδωμι (to give), all very common in the New Testament. The second clauses correspond to the former with a repetition of αι᾿τέω and δίδωμι and the exaggerated condition of “up to half my kingdom” (ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου) enforces the former promise. Based on the premise that the evangelist chose these words as fitting for the character of Herod, we can argue that the author saw no distinction between a style and choice of words fitting for the tetrarch and himself as narrator. The synoptic reception in Matthew and Luke correct the title of Herod from βασιλεύς (Mark 6.14) to τετραάρχης (Matt 14.1; Luke 3.19; 9.7) and preserve different sections of direct speech. Matthew shortens and rewrites Mark 6.14–29 with Matthean wording, yet expands Herod’s comment to include the resurrection of John attributing to Herod a comment belonging to his interlocutors in Mark (καὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων ἐγήγερται ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐνεργοῦσιν αἱ δυνάμεις ἐν αὐτῷ, Mark 6.14). The Markan introduction ἔλεγον is preferred by NA28, while a number of manuscripts have ἔλεγεν,57 meaning that the comment comes from Herod himself. Our options include the possibility that Matthew attributes the words to Herod and the ἔλεγεν manuscript tradition is Matthean influence or that Matthew’s version of Mark read ἔλεγεν.58 In either case Matthew has removed the relative pronoun and thus the casus pendens. Luke 9.7–9 shares only two words with the Matthean edition, τετραάρχης and ἠγέρθη, and mostly agrees with Mark. The changes Luke makes are stylistic and improve Mark’s Greek, as well as explain Herod’s doubt being due to his desire to see Jesus (Luke 9.9c).59 “Herod is the sole subject of Luke’s account […] Luke describes a greedy and novelty hungry personality […], who knows how to ask questions, legitimately wishes to see, but who treats John and then Jesus wrongly, 55 Glancy, “Unveiling Masculinity: The Construction of Gender in Mark 6:14–29,” BI 2 (1994): 34–50. 56 Collins, Mark, 309. See e. g. Herodotus, Hist 9.109; Esth LXX 5.3; Josephus, Ant. 18.8.7–8. 57 Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece 28th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2012), 124: “ελεγεν ‫ א‬A C K L N Δ Θ 0269 ƒ1.13 28. 33. 565. 579. 700. 892. 1241. 1424. 2542 […] | txt B D W a b ff2 vgmss sams”. 58 See W.D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel according to Saint Matthew Vol. II (ICC; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 470 n. 32. 59 François Bovon, Luke 1: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 1:1–9:50 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2002), 348–9.

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because of his lack of faith”.60 Like Matthew, Luke removes the casus pendens, presenting a much smoother syntax of object, subject and finite verb (Ἰωάννην ἐγὼ ἀπεκεφάλισα·, Luke 9.9a), followed by Herod’s question (τίς δέ ἐστιν οὗτος περὶ οὗ ἀκούω τοιαῦτα;, Luke 9.9b) and the narrators comment about “hearing” (ἀκούω) and “seeing” (ὁράω) John and Jesus. While there is nothing specifically educated or regal about Herod’s language in Luke, the Greek is superior and the style less coloured by the author’s idiosyncrasies than in Mark and Matthew. Matt 14.1 Mark 6.16, 22–3 οὗτός ἐστιν Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτιστής· ὃν ἐγὼ ἀπεκεφάλισα Ἰωάννην, αὐτὸς ἠγέρθη ἀπὸ τῶν νεκρῶν καὶ διὰ οὗτος ἠγέρθη τοῦτο αἱ δυνάμεις ἐνεργοῦσιν ἐν αὐτῷ.

Luke 9.9 Ἰωάννην ἐγὼ ἀπεκεφάλισα· τίς δέ ἐστιν οὗτος περὶ οὗ ἀκούω τοιαῦτα;

αἴτησόν με ὃ ἐὰν θέλῃς, καὶ δώσω σοι· […] ὅ τι ἐάν με αι᾿τήσῃς δώσω σοι ἕως ἡμίσους τῆς βασιλείας μου

5.

Pilate’s speech-in–character (Mark 15)

Pilate is first mentioned in Mark 15.1 and appears abruptly on the scene, requiring no introduction. The historical Pontius Pilate was the fifth governor of the Roman province of Judaea, holding office from 26–37 C.E.61 and while his reputation may have been well known among Christians, the lack of introduction and description is intriguing from a narrative perspective. Reviewing the research history of Mark’s portrayal, Helen Bond states that “[t]he majority of scholars regard the Pilate of Mark’s gospel as a weakling, convinced of Jesus’ innocence, vainly engaging in successive attempts to release him but forced to go along with the wishes of the chief priests and the crowd”.62 Bond disagrees and presents the following picture: Instead he is a skilful politician, manipulating the crowd to avoid a potentially difficult situation, and is a strong representative of imperial interests. Although Mark clearly lays primary guilt for Jesus’ death upon the Jewish leadership, Pilate is not exonerated. He plays a vital part in the chain of events leading to the crucifixion and shares the guilt involved therein. […] This portrayal of Pilate serves two major functions within the Markan narrative. The 60 Ibid., 348, 350. 61 Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1, n. 55. 62 Ibid., 103.

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first ties in with persecution, an important background to the gospel. […] Mark’s Jewish and Roman hearings together illustrate a second crucial point for earliest Christianity: although crucified as an insurrectionary, Jesus was innocent of all charges and goes voluntarily to his death as the righteous one of God.63

Our other sources that contain depictions of Pilate are Philo’s Embassy to Gaius64 and Josephus’ historiographies65 but neither contain speech-in–character, only the gospels place words in his mouth. Chapter 15 contains five examples of direct speech, all of which contain a question posed to Jesus or his adversaries. Mk 15.2: σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Mk 15.4: οὐκ ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν; ἴδε πόσα σου κατηγοροῦσιν. Mk 15.9: θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Mk 15.12: τί οὖν [θέλετε] ποιήσω [ὃν λέγετε] τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Mk 15.14: τί γὰρ ἐποίησεν κακόν;

The first two questions are posed to Jesus, the former relating to his kingship. The substantive βασιλεύς is in Mark exclusively found in relation to worldly kingship: It describes the title of Herod Antipas (Mark 6.14, 22, 25–27); the worldly rulers that followers are warned they will be brought before (ἡγεµόνες καὶ βασιλεῖς, Mark 13.9); and ironically Jesus by Pilate, his soldiers (ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων, Mark 15.2, 9, 12, 18) and the Jewish authorities (ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ, Mark 15.32). The statement/question is straightforward, a subject for emphasis σύ, a verb in the present indicative and a predicate with a definite article.66 Jesus’ reply, σὺ λέγεις (Mark 15.2), “is ambiguous [i]t is neither a denial nor an affirmation”,67 and so Pilate’s reply οὐκ ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν; (Mark 15.4) with an emphatic double negative is a fitting response. The following statement ἴδε πόσα σου κατηγοροῦσιν (Mark 15.4) contains a verb κατηγορέω, which is uncommon in Septuagint68 yet not uncommon in Greek literature69 and the gospels,70 and an interrogate pronoun

63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70

Ibid., 117. Philo, Legat, 299–305. Josephus, War 2.169–77; Ant. 18.35, 55–64. Friedrich Blass and Albert Debrunner, eds. A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1961), §273: “Predicate nouns as a rule are anarthrous. Nevertheless the article is inserted if the predicate noun is presented as something well known or as that which alone merits the designation (the only thing to he considered).” Collins, Mark, 713. Κατηγορέω is only found in 1Macc 7.6, 25; 2Macc 4.47; 10.13, 21; Dan 6.5. A TLG search (20. 02. 2021), κατηγορέω, incl. lemma and sorted by date, lists 1646 attestations before New Testament. Κατηγορέω is found 3× in Mark, 2× in Matt, 4× in Luke, 2× in John, 9× in Acts, Rom 2.15; Rev 12.10.

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(πόσα) used as an exclamation. The style is in short straight-forward Greek and there is nothing specifically Septuagintal or Markan about the first questions. The second cycle contains a dialogue between Pilate and the crowds (ὄχλος, Mark 15.8) stirred up by the chief priests (ἀρχιερεύς, Mark 15.11). Pilate asks the crowd about their will, θέλετε ἀπολύσω, with very common verbs and employs again the ironic honorific τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων. When the response is a call for the release of Barabbas, Pilate asks what he is to do with their βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων (Mark 15.12). Although the verse merely repeats the theme of 15.9, the scribal tradition of 15.12 is more fluid with both θέλετε and ὃν λέγετε being marked in brackets in the critical edition.71 The supposed insertion of ὃν λέγετε presumably is meant to “throw the onus for the use of the title ‘The King of the Jews’ upon the high priests”.72 Finally when the crowd cries σταύρωσον αὐτόν (Mark 15.13), Pilate comes to Jesus’ defence responding τί γὰρ ἐποίησεν κακόν; (Mark 15.14). As with the first cycle, Pilates words are stylistically straightforward and unlike Herod Antipas do not contain specifically Markan phrases. The synoptic gospels receive the Pilate speech-in–character in different ways and the two identical verses73 show that they are working with the same source text. Matthew makes minor changes to the first cycle, replacing ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν (Mark 15.4) with ἀκούεις (Matt 27.13) and replacing κατηγορέω (Mark 15.4) with the roughly synonymous καταμαρτυρέω (Matt 27.13). In the second cycle Matthew places some of the narrative framework from Mark (Mark 15.7,11,15) on the lips of Pilate (Matt 27.17) and moves the theological burden of killing Jesus, from Pilate (ἀθῷός ει᾿μι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τούτου· ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε, Matt 27.24) to the crowds (πᾶς ὁ λαὸς, Matt 27:25). Luke on the other hand completely rewrites the speechin–character of Pilate to create a contrast between his language and that of the crowd. “There are considerable differences between the vocabularies of the Lukan and Markan versions. To be sure, Luke likes to improve Mark’s prose, but he seldom does so in such proportions (of the eighty-nine words in the passage, Luke shares only twenty of them with Mark)”.74 The style of the speech in Luke 23.14–16 is much more refined than that of Mark and the vocabulary reflects the Septuagint more than it does Mark.75 Most revealing is Pilate’s repeated con71 Nestle-Aland, Novum Testamentum Graece 28. 72 Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary to the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1971), 117–18. 73 “σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων;” Mark 15.2; Matt 27.11; Luke 23.3; “τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν;” Mark 15.14; Matt 27.23; Luke 23.22. 74 François Bovon, Luke 3: A Commentary on the Gospel of Luke 19:28–24:53 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 249–50. 75 A TLG search (20. 02. 2021) with lemma shows that ἀποστρέφω is found 456 times in LXX; Matt 2×; Luke 1×; Acts 1x; Rom 1×; 2Tim 2×; Tit 1×; Heb 1×, ἀνακρίνω is found in LXX only in 1 Sam 20.12 and Sus/t 5×; Acts 5×; 1 Cor 10×, and αἴτιος, is found in LXX 7×; Luke 23.4, 22; Acts 19.40; Heb 5.9.

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clusion that he intends to educate Jesus and release him, παιδεύσας οὖν αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω (Mark 23.16, 22) – a stark contrast to the loud cries of the crowds (φωναῖς μεγάλαις, Luke 23.23) to crucify. It seems likely that Luke saw Mark’s speech-in–character of Pilate as unconvincing, given his stature and education as a Roman nobleman and thus expanded the Markan tradition. The emphasis on education as a corrective is intriguing, as in the gospel of Mark Pilate has Jesus scourged (φραγελλόω) 76 and in the gospel of John Pilate has him flogged (μαστιγόω) 77. The verb παιδεύω cannot be accidental in Luke, since he repeats his offer to educate Jesus, yet the translation that this includes corporal punishment78 is conjectural. The LSJ cites only two sources for παιδεύω meaning punishment,79 Luke 23.16, 22 and Hosea 7.12 LXX. While the verse in Hosea, παιδεύσω αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀκοῇ τῆς θλίψεως αὐτῶν (Hos 7.12 LXX), does give rise to this interpretation the other uses of παιδεύω in Hosea are positive80 and God is called the ‘teacher’ παιδευτής.81 An interpretation that is possible for Luke 23.16, 22 is that Pilate is the voice of educated reason, presenting to the crowds an educated or reasonable proposal. The speech-in– character thus reflects a characterisation of Pilate as a Roman educated elite, in contrast to the straightforward style of the Markan Pilate. Neither speech-in– character is characteristically Judaistic or Semitic, as we found with Herod Antipas’ speech whose style corresponded with Mark’s literary tone.

Matt 27.11, 13 σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; οὐκ ἀκούεις πόσα σου καταμαρτυροῦσιν;

Mark 15.2, 4 Luke 23.3–4 σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν σὺ εἶ ὁ βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; Ἰουδαίων; οὐκ ἀποκρίνῃ οὐδέν; ἴδε πόσα σου κατηγοροῦσιν. οὐδὲν εὑρίσκω αἴτιον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ.

76 Mark 15.15: Ὁ δὲ Πιλᾶτος βουλόμενος τῷ ὄχλῳ τὸ ἱκανὸν ποιῆσαι ἀπέλυσεν αὐτοῖς τὸν Βαραββᾶν, καὶ παρέδωκεν τὸν Ἰησοῦν φραγελλώσας ἵνα σταυρωθῇ. 77 John 19.1: Τότε οὖν ἔλαβεν ὁ Πιλᾶτος τὸν Ἰησοῦν καὶ ἐμαστίγωσεν. 78 Walter Bauer, ed., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature (Chicago, IL.: University of Chicago Press, 1958): ‘παιδεύω’ “(3) of flogging, as a form of legal punishment of a transgressor punish, scourge, whip (LU 23.16)”. 79 Liddell, Scott, Jones eds. A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1843/ 1940): “2. chastise, punish, LXX Ho.7.12, Ev.Luc.23.16, al.” 80 Hos 7.14 LXX: ἐπαιδεύθησαν ἐν ἐμοί (They were trained through me, NETS); 10.10 ἦλθεν παιδεῦσαι αὐτούς […] παιδεύεσθαι αὐτοὺς ἐν ταῖς δυσὶν ἀδικίαις αὐτῶν (I have come to discipline them […] they are disciplined for their double injustice, NETS). 81 Hos 5.2: ἐγὼ δὲ παιδευτὴς ὑμῶν. LSJ: “παιδ-ευτής, οῦ, ὁ, teacher, instructor, Pl.R.493c, al., IG22.1011.35. 2. minister of education, Pl.Lg.811d, al. II. corrector, chastiser, Ep.Hebr.12.9.” The noun is rare, but found in 4Macc 5.34; 9.6; Sir 37.19; Pss 8.29; Rom 2.20 and Heb 12.9 in addition to Hos 5.2.

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Mark and Speech-in-Character

Matt 27.17, 21–24 τίνα θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν, [Ἰησοῦν τὸν] Βαραββᾶν ἢ Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον χριστόν; τίνα θέλετε ἀπὸ τῶν δύο ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν; τί οὖν ποιήσω Ἰησοῦν τὸν λεγόμενον χριστόν; τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν; ἀθῷός ει᾿μι ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος τούτου· ὑμεῖς ὄψεσθε.

6.

Mark 15.9, 12, 14 θέλετε ἀπολύσω ὑμῖν τὸν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων;

Luke 23.14–16, 22 προσηνέγκατέ μοι τὸν ἄνθρωπον τοῦτον ὡς ἀποστρέφοντα τὸν λαόν, καὶ ι᾿δοὺ ἐγὼ ἐνώπιον ὑμῶν ἀνακρίνας οὐθὲν εὗρον ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τούτῳ αἴτιον ὧν κατηγορεῖτε κατ᾽ αὐτοῦ. ἀλλ᾽ οὐδὲ Ἡρῴδης, τί οὖν [θέλετε] ποιήσω ἀνέπεμψεν γὰρ αὐτὸν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, [ὃν λέγετε] τὸν καὶ ι᾿δοὺ οὐδὲν ἄξιον θανάτου ἐστὶν βασιλέα τῶν Ἰουδαίων; πεπραγμένον αὐτῷ παιδεύσας οὖν αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω. τί γὰρ ἐποίησεν τί γὰρ κακὸν ἐποίησεν οὗτος; κακόν; οὐδὲν αἴτιον θανάτου εὗρον ἐν αὐτῷ· παιδεύσας οὖν αὐτὸν ἀπολύσω.

Conclusion

We are justified to categorise the speeches of Herod Antipas and Pilate in Mark as speeches-in-character and in both cases, Mark gives these historical personae a voice in a way that we do not find in the historiographies of Josephus or the descriptions of Philo. There are of course other speeches in Mark (esp. chapters 4 and 13) and multiple speeches in the other Gospels that fit this category, but the choice to focus on these characters is based on the definition that in prosopopoeia or ethopopoeia, students imagined themselves to be some famous person and then composed a short speech representing how that character might have spoken.82 The exercises of Aelius Theon however do not stipulate that it needs to be a famous person and neither do the detailed descriptions of Aristotle, that systematically go through the ἦθος of different types of individuals in order to emulate them in speech.83 Dionysius of Halicarnassus is useful in that he both employs these categories and emphasises the relation between language and effectiveness in composed speeches. If the language does not fit the ethos of the

82 Young and Strickland, The Rhetoric of Jesus in Mark, 55. 83 Aristotle, On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Translated by George A. Kennedy (2nd ed. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2007), Rhet. 2.12 (1388b–9a): “Next let us go through the kinds of character (ἤθη ποῖοί τινες), considering what they are like in terms of emotions (κατὰ τὰ πάθη) and habits and age of life and fortune. By emotions I mean anger, desire, and the like, about which we spoke earlier, and by habits virtues and vices, which have also been discussed earlier, including what sort of things each type of person chooses and does. The ages of life are youth, prime, and old age. By fortune I mean good birth and wealth and powers and their opposites and in general good fortune and misfortune.”

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speaker, this means that the speech-in–character is unconvincing and the reader can thus question the author’s literary competence.84 Any evaluation of Mark’s literary abilities as they were perceived in Antiquity is subjective,85 but Luke’s reception can give us some clues. In the case of Herod, we see that the speech-in–character corresponds to the literary style of Mark and from that we can argue that Mark did not see the need to differentiate between his own language and that of a Roman educated (presumably) Jewish elite. Both Matthew and Luke smooth out the syntax of Mark 6.16 by removing the casus pendens, but neither elaborates his speech. In the case of Pilate, we find no Markan traits or Semitisms in the short speech-in–character and this may be deliberate on the author’s part. Luke, who often improves the language of his source text, made substantial changes to Pilate’s speech and supplements Mark’s straightforward style with a monologue composed in a more sophisticated manner of speaking. Mark is the earliest text that we know to place words in the mouths of these historical personae and his successors follow that narrative device. By doing so the evangelist reflects a widespread literary tradition of prosopopoeia or ethopopoeia and one that was specifically taught by rhetoricians, such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, and in the textbooks of prose composition, the progymnasmata.

84 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Thuc. 41 (Usher, LCL). 85 See e. g. Lorenzo Scornaienchi, Der umstrittene Jesus und seine Apologie: Die Streitgespräche im Markusevangelium (NTOA/SUNT 110; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016).

Jacob P.B. Mortensen

Mark 5:21–43 as a Progymnastic Comparison

1.

Introduction

This article advances an interpretation of the Markan passage about Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman (Mk 5:21–43). With Theon’s guidelines in mind, the passage is interpreted as an example of a comparison (synkrisis). Having reviewed the scholarly literature, it can be observed that only one scholar seems to have come close to such a suggestion but did so without confirming or developing it.1 In general, the literature on this passage has centered on modern narratological concepts and strategies in order to explain the embeddedness of one story within another. The passage about Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman is traditionally identified together with five other Markan passages as examples of sandwich constructions.2 Scholars have come up with various suggestions regarding these embedded stories and have designated these passages as interpolation,3 sandwiching,4 framing,5 bracketing,6 and intercalation.7 German scholars have used 1 Helen K. Bond, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020), 171–178. 2 The six most agreed upon passages are: 3:20–35; 5:21–43; 6:7–32; 11:12–25; 14:1–11; 14:53–72 (cf. Frans Neyrinck, Duality in Mark: Contributions to the Study of the Markan Redaction, revised and with supplementary notes (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1988), 133). 3 Howard C Kee, Community of the New Age: Studies in Mark’s Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 54–56. 4 Neyrinck, Duality in Mark, 133; James R. Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives” Novum Testamentum 31 (1989), 193–216 (at 193–194). 5 David Rhoads & Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 51–53. 6 Augustine Stock, Call to Discipleship: A Literary Study of Mark’s Gospel (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1982), 43–44. 7 Tom Shepherd, Markan Sandwich Stories: Narration, Definition, and Function (Berrien Springs: Andrews University Press, 1993), 311–348; George A. Wright, Markan Intercalations: A Study in the Plot of the Gospel (PhD Dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1985), 14–17.

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terms such as “Ineinanderschachtelungen,”8 “Verschachtelungen,”9 and “Verschmelzungen.”10 Scholars have not found it difficult to identify or designate the six passages in Mark marked by intercalation, but they have found it very difficult to point out the meaning of these passages. As Tom Shepherd writes: “Determining the function of this storytelling pattern has been more difficult than recognizing its presence.”11 No consensus has been reached regarding the meaning and purpose of the intercalated passages. Two modern scholars (besides Frans Neyrinck and his concept of duality in Mark) deserve to be mentioned for their work on the understanding of these Markan passages. Tom Shepherd’s dissertation at Andrews University worked systematically through all six intercalated stories. He also summed up his findings in a NTS article from 1995 about “The Narrative Function of Markan Intercalation.”12 J. R. Edwards wrote a splendid article on “Markan Sandwiches: The Significance of Interpolations in Markan Narratives” in Novum Testamentum 31 in 1989.13 In her acclaimed commentary on Mark, Adela Collins reserves an entire analysis to the question of the “genre” of this passage. However, Collins does not supply any specific suggestions as to the genre of the passage. Two times, she mentions miracle stories, but she also makes it clear that some of the motifs incorporated in the intercalated stories in Mark are not typical in miracle stories. She also discusses certain motivic features and provides two examples of ancient healing accounts, but she does not reach any conclusion about the genre of the intercalated stories. Another scholarly discussion of this passage concerns its unity: is the passage originally conceived of as one passage, or is it a fusion of two stories/traditions, and if so, how, then, are they related to each other? Many scholars consider the two stories to have been composed at different times. The center story was inserted into the story about Jairus’ daughter. The main justification given for this conjecture is the perceived diversity of stylistic features.14 Other scholars 8 Cf. Erich Klostermann, Das Markusevangelium (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1950), 36. 9 Cf. Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn, Ältere Sammlungen im Markusevangelium (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 200–201. 10 Cf. Julius Schniewind, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1958), 148. 11 Tom Shepherd, “The Narrative Function of Markan Intercalation,” NTS 41 (1995), 522. 12 Shepherd, “Narrative Function,” 522–540. 13 Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches,” 193–216 14 Shepherd, Markan Sandwich Stories, 139–171; Edwards, “Markan Sandwiches,” 193–216; Adella Collins, Mark, 284, 285; Joel Marcus, Mark (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 363–364; Eugene M. Boring, Mark (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006), 159; K. Kertelge, Die Wunder Jesu im Markusevangelium (München: Kösel-Verlag, 1970), 110f.; J. Ernst, Das Evangelium nach Markus (Regensburg: Verlag Friedrich Pustet, 1981), 160; J. Roloff, Das

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consider the intercalation to have been an original Markan compositional device15 Most scholars argue that the two stories are interconnected and that they should be interpreted in light of each other (despite the fact that they were composed separately).16 Only Richard T. France stands a bit aside, arguing that the two stories are not interconnected.17 Most scholars agree that the intercalated stories in Mark are mutually interpretative. As David Rhoads and Donald Michie write: The two related stories illuminate and enrich each other, commenting on and clarifying the meaning, one of the other. [The intercalation becomes] an invitation to read the framed episode in light of the frame episode and vice versa.18

This quotation points out that the two stories stitched together in the intercalated passages somehow speak to each other. A scholar who comes close to taking the purpose of the intercalation of these passages to be the making of a comparison, is Alan Culpepper. With regard to Mark’s distinctive framing technique, Culpepper writes: Varying the monotony of simple sequence and juxtaposing events or drawing parallels between them, Mark often introduces one event or scene, narrates a second, and then returns to the first. The technique creates dramatic tension and suspense and invites comparison between the two sandwiched events.19

Hence, Culpepper invites the reader to juxtapose and compare the intercalated passages even if he does not proceed along the lines of an actual comparison.20 A

15

16

17 18 19 20

Kerygma und der irdische Jesus. Historische Motive in den Jesus-Erzählungen der Evangelien (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 153; H. Baarlink, Anfängliches Evangelium. Ein Beitrag zur näheren Bestimmung der theologischen Motive im Markusevangelium (Kampen: J.H. Kok, 1977), 121f. Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St Mark (London: Macmillan, 1957), 289; C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel According to St Mark (London: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 182; K. L. Schmidt, Der Rahmen der Geschichte Jesus: literarkritische Untersuchungen zur ältesten Jesusüberlieferung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964), 148; Rengstorf, TDNT, II, 322; Walter Schmithals, Das Evangelium nach Markus, 2 vol. (Gütersloh: G. Mohn), I.284. Collins, Mark, 286; Mary Ann Beavis, Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), 95; Boring, Mark, 157–158; John Donahue and Daniel Harrington, The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 18; Susan Haber, “A Woman’s Touch: Feminist Encounters with the Hemorrhaging Woman in Mark 5:24–34” JSNT 26/2 (2003), 186; Charles E. Powell, “The “Passivity” of Jesus in Mark 5:25–34” Bibliotheca Sacra 162 (2005), 68; Christopher D. Marshall, Faith as a Theme in Mark’s Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 92 Richard T. France, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 234–235. Rhoads and Michie, Mark as Story, 51. R. Alan Culpepper, Mark (Macon: Smyth & Helwys, 2007), 113. My italics. Other scholars who explicitly mention comparison of the intercalated stories, cf. David E. Malick, “An Examination of Jesus’ View of Women through Three Intercalations in the

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proper framework for interpreting these intercalated stories is the ancient progymnastic textbook standards of comparisons. Hence, in the following we shall turn first to Theon’s definition of synkrisis in his Progymnasmata and afterwards look at some contemporary examples. This procedure makes it possible to identify the Markan passage as a synkrisis with reference to both ancient literary theory and ancient literary practice.

2.

Theon’s Progymnasmata

Theon defines ‘synkrisis’ as language setting the better or the worse side by side (Σύγκριςίς ἐστι λόγος τὸ βὲλτιον ἢ τὸ χεῖρον παριστάς [112]).21 This means that the term can be used to refer to any and all comparisons or juxtapositions that set two subjects next to each other in order to judge them side by side. Theon mentions a comparative description of Ajax and Odysseus as a comparison of persons, and a comparison of wisdom and bravery as a comparison of things. In his model exercises, the ancient rhetor Libanius also provides examples of comparisons of Seafaring and Farming, and Country and City. Hence, anything can be compared, whether persons, things, or events. Theon’s definition of synkrisis points out that a judgement (κρίσις) is made between the things put next to each other. The cognate verb (συγκρίνω) can mean no more than “put side by side,” but it may also be the case that the authors who apply a synkrisis draw on the association of the root verb (κρίνω). In this way, synkrisis seems to imply an exploration of differences, whereas παραβάλλω or its

Gospel of Mark,” Priscilla Papers 27/3 (2013), 4; Rhoads and Michie, Mark as Story, 51; F. Gerald Downing, “Markan Intercalation in Cultural Context,” 107; Shephard, Sandwich Stories, 160; Marshall, Faith as a Theme, 92. 21 Cf. the translation by James Butts: ”A comparison is a speech which shows what is better or what is worse” (James R. Butts, The “Progymnasmata” of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary (Claremont Graduate School: PhD Dissertation, 1987), 495). Cf. also the translation by Michael Martin: “language that presents/proves the better [sing.] or the worse [sing.]” (Michael Martin, “Philo’s Use of Syncrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata” PRSt 30 (2003), 274). Cf. also the translation by Michel Patillon: “Le parallèle est un discours qui compare le meilleur ou le pire” (Michel Patillon, Aelius Théon: Progymnasmata (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1997), 78). The above translation is from George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2003), 45. It should be mentioned that Theon exhibits an obvious focus on comparing similar things, even if he does not explicitly exclude the possibility of comparing dissimilar things. In this way, he differs (at least on a surface level) from Hermogenes, who incorporates into his definition of synkrisis, the comparison of dissimilar things: “Syncrisis is a comparison of similar or dissimilar things” (Hermogenes in Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 83).

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cognates implies sameness and equality.22 This means that a distinction or judgment is made, or at least hinted at, when a synkrisis appears. What is being judged about is the better or worse. However, what this more specifically means is difficult to pinpoint.23 According to Theon, a comparison is always made either to the lesser or to the better. This has to do with Theon’s intention of employing synkrisis for the purpose of evaluation. The other ancient theorists of Progymnasmata also operate with a comparison to the equal. To elaborate on this, we can see that it is possible to compose a synkrisis by placing two praiseworthy things next to each other. This would be a synkrisis pointing out excellence. Another synkrisis could place two blameworthy subjects next to each other. The purpose of this would be to amplify censure. However, if these two ways of comparing were combined (comparing something praiseworthy to something blameworthy) the difference and contrast between the two would be the purpose of the comparison. If we consider Mark from this perspective, we may think of the episode of Peter’s denial and Jesus’ trial in Mk 14:53–72 as an instance of putting something blameworthy next to something praiseworthy. Another one would be the hemorrhaging woman and Jairus in Mk 5:21–43. What they say and do are very intricately mirrored in each other, and also embedded within each other’s story, but they are presented in directly opposite categories of comparison. According to Theon, comparisons should never be made of things when there is a great difference between them (αἱ συγκρίσεις οὐ τῶν μεγάλην πρὸς διαφορὰν ἔχοντων [112]). This is not the case with Hermogenes, who explicitly states that synkrisis can be a comparison of strongly dissimilar things.24 When we turn to Plutarch below, we will see that dissimilar comparisons often involve an ethical incorporation of the reader (in the sense of ethos), because of the dissimilarity between the compared entities.25 When composing a synkrisis either as a whole discourse in itself or as a minor part of a discourse, there are two ways to proceed in the sequence or arrangement of the comparison. Either one thing/person can be described separately, and thereafter the other thing, or the two things can be described in an alternating, 22 See Tim Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999), 252–253 n.35. 23 Cf. the commentary by James Butts: “The references of the abstract nouns tò béltion and tò cheîron are uncertain. Do they refer to what is morally better or worse – or to something else? Such nouns as “side,” “aspect,” “judgement,” etc. are possible but none is entirely adequate” (Butts, Progymnasmata, 506). 24 Hermogenes in Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 83. 25 For a complete list of possible comparisons between the progymnasmatic authors within this taxonomy, cf. Michael Martin, “Philo’s Use of Synkrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 30 (2003), 276– 277.

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dialectic or intercalating fashion. The first arrangement is called a separate account, whereas the second is called a combined account. The way the author arranges the elements or categories of the comparison indicates how the comparative pattern should be understood. In this way, the author of a synkrisis can constitute the alignment of elements/subjects/categories according to contrasts or similarities. When it comes to synkrisis of persons, Theon provides a comprehensive list of categories that should be taken into consideration first. These concern good birth, education, excellence of offspring, offices they have held, their reputation, the condition of their bodies, and any other bodily and external good [113]. As the list is wide-ranging, the following table provides an overview. However, we should point out that the list Theon provides does not have to be followed point by point. A comparison can be composed using only the most important categories and may therefore comprise merely three or four of these factors. A welleducated student would know which categories to choose for a comparison, instead of bundling all of them together. Category Good birth

Achilles

Odysseus

Education Excellence of offspring Offices Reputation Bodily condition Bodily and external goods a) b) c) d) e) f) g) h) i) j) k) l) m) n)

Actions: More beautiful Greater quality More steadfast More lasting Done at crucial times Beneficial consequences Harmful consequences Done by choice Done by chance Done by necessity Done by a few people Extraordinary or common Requiring effort Done beyond age and apparent ability

When it comes to comparing inanimate things (πράγματα συγκρίνωμεν), Theon points out that it does not make sense to consider good birth, education, offspring, or things like that as elements of the comparison. Instead, we should look

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for analogies to such things. This means that when we compare inanimate things, we should look for categories analogous to origin, education, offspring, deeds, and the like in the “lives” of the things being compared. Theon provides a couple of examples and speaks of “inventors of nature” as one such category. Another one is “the place where they naturally grow” which would be relevant if we compare plants. The example provided by Mikeal Parsons and Michael Martin in their chapter on synkrisis (referring to Hermogenes’ Progymnasmata) is quite illuminating. Similarly, if you compare plants you will evaluate against each other the gods who gave them [= familial origin], the places where they grow [=geographical origin], their cultivation [= nurture], the utility of their fruits [= deeds], and so on. Similarly, if you compare activities, you will mention those who first took up the activities [= origin] and you will set those engaged in them side by side with each other in terms of the quality of mind and body [= nurture of body and mind]. You should apply the same principle in all cases.26

In light of this passage, it seems obvious that the well-educated student knows how to construct categories for comparisons apart from the list provided when comparing persons. It is not necessary to follow the lists outlined by Theon. The well-educated author knows how to construct his own categories, which captures the essence of the comparison. It is important to point out that these categories are merely analogies. They are not fixed and firm. They are invented for the purpose of a specific comparison and can vary and change according to the object of comparison, the purpose of the comparison, the place or time of the comparison, and so on. This means that we are justified in looking for other categories of a comparison than the ones expressed by Theon (or Hermogenes). Each author would be justified in composing the categories of a comparison in his own way as long as these categories can be identified as applying to both objects of comparison. We will see this in the examples taken up below. If we take Libanius’ model-exercises as a point of departure, we can see that when he compares Seafaring and Farming or Country and City he develops categories for the comparison, which suit the objects of the comparison, and not the ones presented by either Theon, Hermogenes or Aphtonius in their textbook Progymnasmata.

26 Mikeal C. Parsons and Michael W. Martin Ancient Rhetoric and The New Testament: The Influence of Elementary Greek Composition (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018), 234.

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Category Age of occupation

Seafaring Youngest

Farming Oldest

Motivation Risk

Greed Great risk

Need No risk

Surrounding environment Relations

Wild and bitter

Beautiful and calm

Alone

Wife and children

Justice Health

Unjust Lazy

Just Laborious

Outcome

Wealth acquired by piracy or trade/commerce Alone at sea

Wealth acquired by just and hard work Surrounded by family at home

Death Category Size

Country Inferior

City Superior

Age Honor

Oldest Honorable

Youngest Unworthy

Activity Pleasures

Laborious and free The seasons and the stars

Lazy and lustful Prostitutes, gambling, drinking

Courageousness More courageous Health Trained to endure frost and burning heat; moderation; fresh air; longer life

Less courageous Flee sun in summer, lie in bed in winter; eat junkfood; pollution; short life

Entertainment Customs

Hear about torture; listen to calves, kids and lambs; watch bulls struggle and crops rustle Keep customs

Watch torture; go to the theatre and circus; watch wrestlers fight and boxers bleed Mix with foreigners and embrace foreign practices

The divine

See and commune with gods

Absence of gods

3.

Ancient Literary Examples of Comparisons

In Bellum Catilinae 53–54, the Roman author Sallust (86–35 BCE) presents a comparison of Caesar and Cato. The synkrisis should be considered a combined account of persons according to Theon’s guidelines, since the treatment of one person is interwoven with the treatment of the other. It is also a comparison to the equal, since neither Caesar nor Cato is preferred or set above the other.27 Fur27 Cf. William W. Batstone, “The Antithesis of Virtue: Sallust’s Synkrisis and the Crisis of the Late Republic” Classical Antiquity 7/1 (1988), 1–29. Batstone considers the non-evaluative ending to the synkrisis to have been a feature consciously chosen by Sallust, since it is

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thermore, Sallust seems to run through Theon’s list of categories to compare in a synkrisis of persons, since he starts out by mentioning the ancestry, age, eloquence, greatness of soul and renown of Caesar and Cato. This aligns very well with Theon’s list concerning good birth, education, excellence of offspring, offices they have held, their reputation, the condition of their bodies, and other external good. Theon states that it is also important to mention their actions, the reason for their actions and their beauty and steadfastness. Sallust presents this in his account when he comments on the benefactions and generosity of Caesar, and the cultivated self-control, propriety, and sternness of Cato. Theon also mentions that it is important to state whether the actions were made by choice or chance. We can see this when Sallust comments on Caesar making up his mind and Cato’s self-control and self-restrained moderation. Cato preferred to be, rather than merely to seem, virtuous. Finally, Theon mentions that it should be considered how much effort is put into the actions, and whether they are done beyond the expectations of age and apparent ability. Sallust seems to have this in mind when he states that Cato “did not vie in riches with the rich, nor in intrigue with intriguers, but with the energetic in merit, with the self-restrained in moderation, with the blameless in integrity. He preferred to be, rather than merely to seem, virtuous; hence the less he sought renown, the more it overtook him.”28 The underlying theme of Sallust’s synkrisis is ethical in the sense of ethos, since Sallust states, before engaging in the actual synkrisis, that he wants to describe the disposition and character of each. The Latin says “naturam et mores” which means either the nature or constitution (naturam) and habit or character (mores) of the two. The consequence of this is that Sallust works from the characters of the persons examined to the character (ethos) of the person reading. This aligns very well with Sallust’s compositional choice not to compare Caesar and Cato with an overt choice of one over the other. The readers of the synkrisis are not given answers, but have to read between the lines and draw their own conclusions. Sallust has erased the traditional features of krinein in the syn-krisis in order to make the reader step forward and invest himself in the comparison. The narrative context also supports this, since Cato and Caesar have just opposed each other in debate with a speech each (Bel Cat 51–52). The speeches asked the Senate (and the reader) about judgments for the proposals of each man, but the historical context did not resolve the deeper problems of the actual decisions made. Consequently, the juxtaposition of Cato and Caesar and the values they supposed to reflect “the difficulties and suspicions readers feel as they read, and the formal and logical problems of the synkrisis itself become an image or emblem of the crisis in the late Republic.” (3) 28 Sallust Bell. Cat. 54 (LCL).

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represent come to show in the inability of these men and values to work together for the greater good of the republic. In this sense, the unresolved comparison becomes both immediate and symbolic. Sallust’s lack of resolution brings the synkrisis to a new interpretational level. This is the ethical level “outside” the formal synkrisis, and it is the level of actual krinein in the life of the reader. What we can carry forward to our analysis of synkrisis in the Gospel of Mark is the observation that the antithetical or unresolved form of a synkrisis invites or provokes the reader to ask what the nature and theme of the antithesis is. When no obvious “answer,” choice or judgment results from the synkrisis, the reader must invest himself in the reading and take a stance towards one or the other of the persons juxtaposed in the synkrisis. Category Ancestry

Cato Almost equal

Caesar Almost equal

Age Almost equal Eloquence Almost equal

Almost equal Almost equal

Renown

Great because of benefactions and lavish generosity; Gentleness and compassion; Giving, relieving difficulties, forgiving; Refuge for the unfortunate Easygoing

The uprightness of his life; Sternness; No conferral of lavish gifts;

Nature Goals

Destruction for the wicked Steadfast Cultivated selfcontrol; Propriety; Sternness; Did not vie in riches with the rich, nor in intrigue with intriguers; Selfrestrained in moderation; Blameless in integrity; Rather be than seem virtuous

Hard work; Devoted to his friends Refused nothing worthy to be given; Craved a major command, army and fresh war to show his merit

In the Letter of Aristeas §107–111 (150–100 BCE), the author presents a comparison of Alexandria and Jerusalem. According to Benjamin Wright, who in 2015 wrote the first full-length commentary on the Letter of Aristeas, this passage amounts to a synkrisis of Alexandria and Jerusalem and their surrounding countryside.29 Even though the passage says very little about Jerusalem, it effectively sets up a comparison. The content of the synkrisis concerns the size of 29 Benjamin G. Wright, The Letter of Aristeas: Aristeas to Philocrates, or on the Translation of the Law of the Jews (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015), 223. Cf. also Benjamin Wright, “Greek Paideia and the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Letter of Aristeas,” in Jason M. Zurawski & Gabriele Boccaccini (eds.), Second Temple Jewish ‘Paideia’ in Context (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 93–112, at 103.

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the cities, the surrounding countryside and the agriculture that sustains the cities. In §109 we read that Alexandria surpassed all other cities in size and prosperity. However, given the way the author composed the juxtaposition, we may possibly detect a notion that Jerusalem fares better than the great city of Alexandria.30 Benjamin Wright is not the only one to have identified the passage as a synkrisis. Also Moses Hadas and Sylvie Honigman have pointed out that the passage displays a progymnastic synkrisis.31 Based on Theon’s guidelines, we may identify the passage as a separate synkrisis, since Jerusalem and its countryside are treated first, and afterwards there is a description of Alexandria and its countryside. According to the description, Jerusalem is an average city built with symmetry or fitting proportions, whereas Alexandria is a city of great size and population. Even though the surface level of the comparison seems neutral, Sylvie Honigman has noted that the terms of comparison are derogatory to Alexandria.32 According to Honigman, the description of Jerusalem as a city of moderate size echos the Aristotelian prescription of a moderate size for the ideal city.33 Hence, Jerusalem represents the ideal city when it comes to size, prosperity, proportion, population and the exploitation of the countryside, cultivation, the consequences for the citizens, and the quality of life for the citizens. In this sense, the theme of the synkrisis is not ethical, as in the example above from Sallust. Even if Alexandria on the surface fairs better than Jerusalem, the author has carefully portrayed Jerusalem according to the ideal dimensions of a city. The perceptive reader will know how to follow the implicit directions provided by the author, and will judge in favor of Jerusalem. Thus, the informed reader will take side with the author and know how to evaluate the comparison.

30 Cf. Wright, Letter of Aristeas, 223. 31 Moses Hadas, Aristeas to Philocrates (Letter of Aristeas), (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1951), 50, 145; Sylvie Honigman, The Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria: A Study in the Narrative of the Letter of Aristeas (London: Routledge, 2003), 18, 24. 32 Honigman, Septuagint and Homeric Scholarship, 24. 33 Cf. Aristotle Politics, 7.4.4, 1326a 5-b 25.

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Category

Alexandria and countryside

Jerusalem and countryside Fitting/suitable and wisely planned

City size

Surpassed all other cities

City prosperity City proportions

Surpassed all other cities

Fitting/suitable

Surpassed all other cities

Fitting/suitable

City population Countryside

Abundance of population

Fitting/suitable

Neglected

Broad and beautiful

Cultivation

Agriculture declined

Citizens

Unhappy and troubled

Abundance of fruitfulness; self-sufficient Not a problem Consequences Individual enjoyment Not a problem for citizens Prone towards pleasure Trade in decline Not a problem Sojourning no more than 20 days Not a problem Business-summoning within 5 days Not a problem Judges/agents ordered into the rural districts in Not a problem order that farming would not decline Restrictions on storehouses Not a problem Ideal quality of life

The Greek author Plutarch (46–120 CE) composed a great biographical project writing Parallel Lives of famous Greek and Roman men. As the final part of these Lives, we have nineteen formal comparisons (designated as such with a headline) from the twenty-two surviving Lives.34 Here, I will focus on the synkrisis of the Greek statesman and general Timoleon and the Roman consul Aemilius. The formal synkrisis between Timoleon and Aemilius is a combined account according to Theon’s guidelines. However, we should also take the preceding biographies into account. These are clear examples of a separate account, where persons are being compared one at a time. I will not present the categories in a table, because Plutarch almost exactly follows the list Theon described, as presented above. Plutarch openly reveals the theme of the Timoleon-Aemilius synkrisis in the prologue to the lives of Aemilius and Timoleon. The passage is important in order to understand the ethical character of the pair, and also because Plutarch comments on his own work. I began the writing of my “Lives” for the sake of others, but I find that I am continuing the work and delighting in it now for my own sake also, using history as a mirror and endeavouring in a manner to fashion and adorn my life in conformity with the virtues 34 Timothy E. Duff, “The Prologues” in Mark Beck (ed.), A Companion to Plutarch (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2014), 333–349.

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therein depicted. For the result is like nothing else than daily living and associating together, when I receive and welcome each subject of my history in turn as my guest, so to speak, and observe carefully “how large he was and of what mien,” and select from his career what is most important and most beautiful to know. “And oh! what greater joy than this canst thou obtain,” and more efficacious for moral improvement?35

This passage has programmatic significance not only for the Timoleon-Aemilius parallel but also for the other Plutarchan Lives. Indeed, Plutarch presents himself here as an ideal reader of the Lives. He uses biographical lives as a mirror in order to model his own life on the virtues of the characters of the Lives. He chooses what is most suitable for the improvement of his moral character. In this way, the ethical super-structure of the entire parallel project comes to the surface. The normal order of Plutarch’s Lives is that a Greek life is followed by a Roman one, and the first life often reflects the “normal” or simple pattern where the second shows an interesting variation. This means that the reader often encounters elements of recognition in the second life by recalling details, incidents, and themes from the first. Additionally, the first life receives a new meaning when the reader encounters the second. When Plutarch turns to the formal synkrisis in the end, the reader already recognizes parallels and knows how to connect and align themes and events in the two lives. And herein lies an important point: these subjects have been brought closely and intentionally next to each other by Plutarch, and there is not only a danger of misinterpreting the juxtaposition, but even of retrieving false information from one by not scrutinizing the counterpart. Plutarch has composed the Lives with an intentional metonymic relationship in view, and the final and formal synkrisis brings them into a complex metaphorical relationship, where a new ethical meaning appears. In this way, Plutarch uses synkrisis as a means of inviting readers to make their own evaluations, rather than offering any definitive judgment himself. He presents two characters (as does Sallust) and leaves it for the reader to judge between them in matters of ethos. What we can bring along to our analysis of synkrisis in the Gospel of Mark is the observation that Plutarch presents lives as a mirror in order to improve his own and the life of the reader. The comparative endeavor is ethical in the sense of ethos, and Plutarch has intentionally placed persons and actions next to each other for the purpose of moral improvement. The reader is asked to invest himself in the comparison and to take a stance for the sake of his or her own moral development.

35 Plutarch, Aemilius 1 (LCL).

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Synkrisis in Mk 5:21–43

In a formal sense, the Markan passage resembles a combined synkrisis. The A-BA’ structure presents two stories interwoven with each other with several connecting clues and a mutually interpretative relationship.36 The two stories can be seen as recounting two events being compared in a combined synkrisis, since there is a shift from one story to the other and then back again to the first. The objects of the synkrisis would then be either events involving things, or the situation or faith of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman. Whether it is one or the other does not invalidate the identification of the entire composition as a synkrisis, but merely reveals a complex literary composition. The combination or switching back-and-forth is not as elaborate as we saw above in the examples of Sallust (Cato/Caesar) and Plutarch (Timoleon/Aemilius). In these examples, the author switches back and forth several times. Instead, the Markan passage resemble the synkrisis in the Letter of Aristeas (Alexandria/Jerusalem). It may not immediately be clear that the author intends a comparison, but as we read along, the intricate relationship reveals more and more clearly that the two stories mirror each other and are meant to speak to each other. Many scholars point out that the intercalated stories rely heavily on contrasts and a few similarities. Transferred to the vocabulary of synkrisis this might indicate that Mark is comparing two uneven entities. One way to confirm this observation is to ask whether the points of correspondence (the categories applied) between the two stories might actually reflect a syncritical composition. If the categories can be said to correspond between the two stories, they tie the events together and enable the synkrisis. Hence, it should not be taken to reflect a weakness in the synkrisis that the two stories rely heavily on contrasts, because the contrasts do not undermine the comparison, but emphasize the underlying unifying principles. In fact, the categories correspond to such an extent that they indicate that two dissimilar persons or objects are compared. The fundamental features of the two stories (Jesus, the healings, fear, faith, secrecy/openness) and the explicit echoes of one story in the other underline their unity and correspondence. Additionally, the categories precisely reflect the idea that the stories are conceived and composed as a unity and that they echo each other. One story may concern a highly respected man and the other an unknown and ostracized woman, but such content-oriented differences do not negate the comparison, because the two stories mirror each other by virtue of the corresponding categories. 36 Alan Culpepper designates the passage a ”sandwich” and finds the A-B-A’ structure (Culpepper, Mark, 171).

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On a surface level, we can present the two stories in a table reflecting the situation of Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman. The surface level concerns their gender, name, occupation, status, relation to Jesus and other such superficial categories. Category Gender

Frame story Jairus Man

Center story The hemorrhaging woman Woman

Name Occupation

Jairus Leader of synagogue

Nameless Probably unemployed

Familial situation Religious/ moral status

Has a household and family

Alone and isolated

Highly respected

Excluded

Social status

High status and influential position Low status and inconspicuous po(leader of synagogue) sition (suffering, sick, poor) 12-year old girl 12 years of bleeding

Time frame (history) Relation to Jesus Emotional status

”when he saw him [Jesus]”

”she had heard about Jesus”

Encouraged not to fear

Comes in fear and trembling

Presented in this way, we start to see how highly synchronized and similar the two stories are, even if they rely more on contrasts than similarities. The entire conception of the two main characters’ situations makes them highly reflect each other, even if they are presented in inverse. This provides some indication as to the purpose of the comparison. Mark did not compose the intercalated sequence in order to undermine or subvert the contrasts. Even though the surface level of the story reflects two very uneven situations, the comparison does not position men against women, rich against poor, or pure against impure. The author wants to communicate something different and merely uses these contrasts as means to achieve that underlying purpose. We should keep in mind how Plutarch constructed (and manipulated) his sources and facts in order to communicate his ethical points. The similarities or “connectors” help to navigate the comparison. Both stories revolve around faith and fear. Both stories revolve around the virtual axis of Jesus’ advice or instruction “do not fear, only believe” (μὴ φοβοῦ, μόνον πίστευε, 5:36). The woman came in fear and trembling, but was told that her faith made her well (ἡ πίστις σου σέσωκέν σε, 5:34). When Jairus hears that his daughter has died, Jesus comforts him and tells him not to fear, but to believe. This indicates that the contrasts are instantiated on a superficial level and are merely used in order to illuminate a deeper point. In this sense, the unity and continuity

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between the two stories reflect a far greater correspondence than the surface level reveals. Both stories concern faith and how this faith relates and responds to Jesus. The actual healing scenes are also conceived in a highly contrastive manner. Again, the categories of comparison help to make it clear that the two stories are conceived and composed in unity. The physical location, the sphere, the actions, the speech, the means of healing, the healing words, the time frame, and many other categories correspond closely. Category

Jairus’ healing scene

Physical location

In the house

Sphere Actions

The private sphere Sees Jesus; Comes to Jesus for help; Falls at Jesus’ feet (before);

Consequence of actions Speech

Asks for a healing; Passive and awaiting Healthy daughter

The hemorrhaging woman’s healing scene In the crowd The public sphere Hears about Jesus; Comes to Jesus for help; Falls at Jesus’ feet (afterwards); Does not ask for a healing; Active and acting Healthy woman

“Come and lay your hands on her, so that “If I but touch his clothes, she may be made well, and live” I will be made well.”

Approach to Jesus Condition of sufferer

The inquiry is known/announced Ritually excluded by death

The inquiry is secret Ritually excluded by hemorrhage

Means of healing Time frame

Jesus touches the girl Delayed healing

The woman touches Jesus Instantaneous healing

Place of healing in relation to Jesus Announcement of healing

Healed “in front” of Jesus

Healed ”behind” Jesus

To be kept secret

Publicly exposed

Word-coincidence / Word-identity

Save/heal (σῴζω) Fear (φοβέω) Faith/believe (πίστις/πιστεύω)

Save/heal (σῴζω) Fear (φοβέω) Faith/believe (πίστις/ πιστεύω) Daughter (θυγάτριον/ θυγάτηρ) Much/many/all (πολύς/ πᾶς) Touching (ἐπιτίθημι/ἅπτω/ κρατέω)

Daughter (θυγάτριον/θυγάτηρ) Much/many/all (πολύς/πᾶς) Touching (ἐπιτίθημι/ἅπτω/κρατέω)

The table above indicates that the intercalated stories display themselves as a highly calculated piece of rhetoric. They are marked at almost every point by

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contrasts. This contrastive presentation reveals the intricate composition of the stories as almost exact mirror-images in reverse. To top this contrastive presentation off, the two stories are stitched even closer together by means of very vivid clues that echo in each story. Hence, the similarities the stories share further build upon their intricate relationship beyond their contrastive pattern. In fact, it seems difficult to imagine two more different characters than Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman. Their station and status in life stand in sharp contrast, as do their respective approaches to Jesus. When we realize how highly constructed the differences are, we also start to see how strikingly apparent the sameness becomes. The parallels and contrasts stand out as so striking that they cannot seem to be mere accidental. The literary composition make them transcend mere realism such that these two stories do not just reflect a historical incident where Jesus accidentally met a stranger on the road and was touched by an unknown woman. The author implants a far more profound point in this intercalation by having the stories call out to each other through their contrasts and similarities. Mark does not offer a headline to this passage designating it as a formal synkrisis as did Plutarch. Nor does he follow Theon’s list of categories when comparing two persons, as most probably Sallust and Plutarch did. Nor does he explicitly state that he compares Jairus to the hemorrhaging woman. Nevertheless, the progymnastic exercise in synkrisis still seems to be the micro-genre coming closest to capturing the literary activity at stake in this passage. Modern scholars have not been inattentive to the hints evoked by the passage, but they have found it difficult to locate them within the progymnastic synkrisis. One of the reasons for this may be that just as in the comparison of Alexandria and Jerusalem in the Letter of Aristeas, it is not immediately clear that a comparison is being performed. But as with all three contemporary examples above, some sort of finely adjusted juxtaposition and alignment takes place, which very much resembles what Theon described in his Progymnasmata as a synkrisis. Hence, even if scholarly literature on Mark indicates that it is highly questionable that the author received education at the level of the Progymnasmata, we still find the most proper and suitable scheme or guideline for interpreting this passage in the progymnastic literature.

5.

Conclusion

The above analysis has shown that the author of the Gospel of Mark examines Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman through the same lens of faith. He juxtaposes their persons and healing situations in a highly symmetrical yet contrastive matter. This indicates that a comparison is taking place. We can discern and evaluate this from the progymnastic literature and from contemporary literary

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examples. Hence, whether Mark received training on the level of the Progymnsamata or not, the progymnastic exercise in synkrisis provides a valuable point of entry into the literary and rhetorical logic of the Markan passage. The point of the Markan synkrisis seems to be theological in an ethical (ethos) sense. Mark does not intend to create many different forms or versions of faith, but to bring the reader to a better understanding of what traits and actions actually constitute faith. From Theon’s Progymnasmata we know that we can compare “the genus of males to that of females to find which of them is braver,”37 since a man’s and a woman’s bravery is one and the same. If we import this to the Markan synkrisis we may formulate the notion that whether we compare man to woman, high to low, or rich to poor, it does not matter; to believe is one and the same thing. What matters is how this faith responds to Jesus.38 This, then, is precisely the purpose of the comparison: to study people who believe in action. In this sense, the Markan passage aligns very well with the above presented examples of ancient literary comparisons. We have witnessed the same thing in both Sallust’s and Plutarch’s employment of synkrisis, even if they differ in minor aspects. In sum, if this is the purpose of the comparison, the author has (for pedagogical reasons) presented next to each other two different instantiations of believing people, two examples of faith, in different life situations. The assignment for the reader is then to distinguish what is essential to the phenomenon from what is accidental. Was it central that Jairus was a man, that he was highly respected, and that he saw Jesus on the way? Or was it central that the woman was a woman, that she had spent all her money on doctors, or that she had heard about Jesus and approached him secretly from behind? Working with these questions reveals the aspect of the synkrisis where the genre of comparison becomes ethical in the sense of ethos. This is where the author invites the readers to make their own observations in order to mirror their own lives to the compared couple.

37 Theon in Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 54. 38 This is partly confirmed by Mk 6:1–6 and the lack of miracles performed by Jesus in his home town.

Helen K. Bond

Mark as a Biography (bios) of a Philosopher

From around the early 1990s, there has been a broad consensus within New Testament scholarship that the gospels are to be identified as bioi, or ancient biographies.1 Fortunately, this identification has coincided with a “rediscovery” of biography amongst Classicists. No longer are biographers seen (and judged) as failed historians, but rather as sophisticated authors with their own particular agendas and concerns.2 In the following pages, I shall explore how Mark maps onto other bioi, paying particular attention to the characterisation of Jesus, asking where this leaves secondary characters, and – perhaps most importantly – exploring Mark’s account of Jesus’ death. First, though, it will be useful to provide a little more background, both about ancient biographies and about Mark more broadly as a biographer.

1 For an overview of the debate over the last 25 years, see Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography; 3rd ed. (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2018), I.1–112; also Craig S. Keener, Christobiography: Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2019). The ideas in the present essay come from my recent book, The First Biography of Jesus: Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020); fuller details can of course be found there. 2 Particularly useful here is the overview by Tomas Ha¨ gg, The Art of Biography in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), which provides introductions to each of the biographers noted on the following pages. See also Brian C. McGing and Judith Mossman (eds.), The Limits of Ancient Biography (Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2006); Rhiannon Ash, Judith Mossman, and Francis B. Titchener (eds.), Fame and Infamy: Essays for Christopher Pelling on Characterization in Greek and Roman Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015); and Koen De Temmerman and Kristoffel Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome: Narrative Technique and Fictionalization (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016).

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Greek philosophical bioi

While the borders among various genres in antiquity were frequently porous and flexible, particularly in the Hellenistic age, a recognisably biographical tradition did begin to emerge. The life which was to have the greatest impact on the development of Greek biography was that of Socrates, with Xenophon’s Memorabilia serving as a model for much later literature. The prominence of Socrates ensured that “the philosopher” would be a common and highly-regarded biographical subject, with well-known thinkers such as Plato, Pythagoras or Diogenes the Cynic enjoying a number of biographical treatments in the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In the second century CE, Lucian of Samosata composed a glowing bios of his teacher in his Demonax (and an equally scathing attack on the ridiculous life and death of another sophist in the Passing of Peregrinus). By the third century, Philostratus had written his lengthy Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and Diogenes Laertius had gathered together his Lives of Eminent Philosophers (a genealogy of philosophy itself). Latin biographies (or vitae) tended to be different. Rather than philosophers, Latin writers focussed on public figures – emperors, statesmen or generals – categories which linked easily with the traditional Roman interest in ancestors, public honour, the cursus honorum (the course of a man’s military and political posts), and funeral orations.3 Within Latin literature of the first century CE and beyond, the growing prominence of the princeps meant that even historians were subject to the magnetic pull of one man, so that historiography frequently became little more than a series of biographies.4 Many Latin vitae from the imperial period onwards were composed as collections of biographies of great men. The earliest surviving collection is Cornelius Nepos’ encyclopaedic On Famous Men (though only the section on generals now survives). Though short and of no great literary merit, these may well have provided the inspiration for Plutarch’s magisterial and hugely popular Parallel Lives from the early second century. While Nepos juxtaposed a series of lives under one heading, however, Plutarch’s genius lay in carefully selecting pairs of lives (characteristically one Roman, one Greek). And while Nepos’ lives were little more than sketches, Plutarch treated his subjects in much more detail, the pairing encouraging his readers to draw their own comparisons. In a similar vein, Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars charted the lives of 12 successive Roman principes, with the lives of Julius Caesar and Augustus

3 On Roman political biography, see Ha¨ gg, The Art of Biography, 187–238. 4 See Christopher B. R. Pelling, “Breaking the Bounds: Writing about Julius Caesar” in McGing and Mossman, Limits, 255–80; Christina Shuttleworth-Kraus, “From Exempla to Exemplar Writing History around the Emperor in Flavian Rome,” in Flavius Josephus and Flavian Rome, ed. Jonathan Edmondson, Steve Mason, and James Rives (Oxford: OUP, 2005), 181–200.

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serving as programmatic, one illustrating positive imperial qualities and the other their opposite. As will already be apparent, ancient bioi were extremely varied in terms of their structure and literary purpose. They might occupy a variety of positions on a number of sliding scales from the serious to comedic, from praise to blame, and from the solidly didactic to generally entertaining. Some (largely Latin) authors preferred a chronological arrangement while others favoured a topical approach (despite writing in Latin, Suetonius the antiquarian belongs in this latter group). Some (such as Plutarch) cast their work as a continuous narrative while others (such as Diogenes Laertius) offered little more than a jumble of anecdotes. And while most occupied a place somewhere between history and encomium, their flexible borders meant that features associated with other genres could easily be absorbed. Despite this variety, however, two features of ancient biography stand out clearly: first, the concern to commemorate a great life, and second a moralistic desire to learn from it. The concept of imitation, or mimesis, lay at the very heart of the Greek and Roman educational system. Students were encouraged not only to imitate great works from the past but to learn from the behaviour of great men (and occasionally women). Short stories illustrating virtues and vices (exempla in Latin, paradeigmata in Greek) were common not only in oratory but also in the works of philosophers (see Seneca, Moral Letters 6.5) and historians (see Tacitus, Annals 3.65).5 In a sense, biography was exempla writ large, a life laid out for others to imitate (or occasionally to avoid). Plutarch is quite clear on this point: “I began the writing of my Lives for the sake of others, but I find that I am continuing the work and delighting in it now for my own sake also, using history as a mirror and endeavouring in a manner to fashion and adorn my life in conformity with the virtues therein depicted” (Aemilius Paulus 1). The aim was not that readers should imitate the hero’s specific deeds – they were not being called upon to lead others into battle, to found cities or to govern nations. Rather, they were to learn to emulate the virtues displayed by heroes in these historical situations – loyalty, piety, courage, self-control, moderation, and so on.6 Biographies of philosophers established a meaningful relationship between the living and the dead. In effect, describing the life and teaching of a philosopher brought the respected man back to life and allowed him to be introduced to a new audience who might also revere his memory and choose to model their lives on his. While the philosopher’s teaching was important, it was perhaps even more 5 See further, Bond, First Biography, 46–51. 6 On this theme, see the nuanced discussion by Teresa Morgan, “Not the Whole Story? Moralizing Biography and Imitatio Christi” in Ash, Mossman and Titchener, Fame and Infamy, 353–66.

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crucial in a biography to set out his character (particularly his virtues) and to present his way of life as a model for others. A similar concern to encourage imitation can be found in Jewish bioi. Philo’s Moses consciously presents himself as an example for others (Life of Moses 1.158–59; see also 1.29), and Josephus’ retelling of biblical history in the first half of the Antiquities (itself a series of biographies) contains frequent calls to imitate his heroes (Ant. 1.14–15, 6.342, 8.418–20, 17.60). There was always a certain tension between regarding the subject of a bios as a unique, historically determined individual and yet at the same time offering that life as a paradigm for others. While this may have led to a certain “flattening” of character – such that biographical heroes become little more than the embodiment of certain virtues7 – the tension does not seem to have worried ancient authors unduly. Thus Philo can present Moses as “the perfect man” (Life of Moses 1.1), “loved by God as few others” (2.67), even “named God and King of the nation” (theos kai basileus; 1.158), while at the same time calling on others to imitate his way of life.8 Biographers were particularly interested in their subject’s deaths. The moment of death was widely regarded as an important window into the subject’s real nature, acting as the supreme indicator of a person’s character. Ancient rhetoricians advocated including not only the subject’s death but also “events after death” (which might include any unusual occurrences, the funeral and burial, the holding of games, etc.).9 A “good death” could be the crowning point of a virtuous life; conversely, a shameful death was a sure sign of a rogue.10 Good examples of a skilful use of death scenes to indicate character can be found in Suetonius’ accounts of his emperors’ deaths. A “good” emperor such as Augustus enjoys a noble, peaceful and dignified end, surrounded by his family. A ‘bad’ emperor such as Nero, however, has a shameful end, characterised by fear, snivelling, and an extravagant theatricality. Whatever the facts surrounding these men’s actual

7 On the important distinction between “character” (seen as a set of virtues) and “personality” (a more idiosyncratic set of individual quirks) see Christopher Gill, “The Character-Personality Distinction” in Christopher B. R. Pelling (ed.), Characterization and Individuality in Greek Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), 1–31. 8 On this work, see Louis H. Feldmann, Philo’s Portrayal of Moses in the Context of Ancient Judaism (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007). 9 On the link between the theorists and biographers, see Michael W. Martin, “Progymnastic Topic Lists: A Compositional Template for Luke and Other Bioi?,” NTS 54 (2008): 18–41. Whether or not these lists were strictly adhered to, they provide a general sense of what was expected. 10 On the “good death” in antiquity, see the studies by Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor. A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992) and Jan-Wilhelm van Henten and Friedrich Avemarie. Martyrdom and Noble Death: Selected Texts from Graeco-Roman, Jewish and Christian Antiquity (London: Routledge, 2002).

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deaths, Suetonius’ literary presentation aligns with his overarching presentations of their characters.11 The deaths of philosophers were of particular importance to their biographers. Philosophers offered practical guidance on how people should live (and die), so it was only to be expected that they should put those principles to good use in their own lives. In effect, the philosopher was the supreme example of his own doctrine. Broadly speaking, a “good death” in extreme old age signalled an endorsement not only of the philosopher’s integrity, but also of the truth and consistency of his teaching. Conversely, a “bad death” – perhaps from a debilitating disease or a pointless accident – undermined both the philosopher and his teaching.12 The two extremes can be illustrated from the works of Lucian of Samosata. His own teacher, Demonax, died peacefully in old age, exerting control over his own demise (Dem. 65); in contrast, Lucian’s satirical Passing of Peregrinus pokes fun at the showy end of a man preoccupied only with personal fame and glory (Peregr. 35–39). An exception to this were “philosophical martyrs”, men such as Socrates who died defending their teaching. Yet even here, despite the violence of their end, such men displayed a manly courage and dignity, defending their teaching to the last. We can conclude that the conventions of what we might call the “biographical tradition” were well known by the time Mark wrote his work in the 70s or so of the first century. One of the difficulties facing the modern scholar is the fact that most of the literature that has survived is from elite circles. We will see in a moment that while Mark’s educational level may be significantly higher than the form critics imagined, he is unlikely to have had any great literary pretensions. While most “middle brow” literature may not have survived, however, it is reasonable to imagine that a “trickle-down” effect led to the aping of literary techniques by more modest writers. Given the public recitation of much ancient literature, at festivals, poetry readings at the games, in law-courts, popular lectures and street-corner philosophers, the literary conventions of the educated elite would have effortlessly percolated down to the lower levels of society. Even with only a middling level of education, an intelligent and thoughtful author would be able to mimic the genres with which he had come in contact, and to ape some of their conventions and practice. A biography such as the Life of Aesop, 11 See further, Rhiannon Ash, “Never Say Die! Assassinating Emperors in Suetonius’ Lives” in De Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography, 200–16. 12 See here Sergi Grau, “How to Kill a Philosopher: The Narrating of Ancient Greek Philosopher’s Deaths in Relation to Their Way of Living,” Ancient Philosophy 30 (2010): 347–81; Eleni Kechagia, “Dying Philosophers in Ancient Biography: Zeno the Stoic and Epicurus,” in De Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography, 181–99; and Justin M. Smith, “Famous (or Not So Famous) Last Words.” Paper presented at the Markan Literary Sources Section of the SBL Annual Meeting. Atlanta, 2016.

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though very different from Mark’s work, does suggest that biographical literature was equally popular amongst the lower classes.13 All of this brings us to a consideration of Mark’s level of education, and his use of progymnastic features such as chreiai and synkrisis.

2.

Mark the Biographer

A century ago, the form critics characterised Mark as an uneducated editor, bereft of literary imagination and incapable of any kind of literary ambition. Fifty years of narrative criticism, however, has turned this on its head, revealing Mark to be a highly sophisticated writer, whose work displays consistent themes, subtle ironies and meaningful juxtapositions.14 More significantly for our purposes, the appearance of rhetorical criticism in the 1980s led to a reappraisal of Mark’s educational background, aided considerably by recent work on GraecoRoman paideia (or education).15 It now seems highly likely that we are dealing with an author who has passed through the first two levels of learning (though probably not the more formal third stage of training with a rhetor) and who was thoroughly in command of his material. In common with others, Mark would have learnt to write and expand chreiai (or anecdotes), gnomai (proverbial sayings), mythoi (fables) and die¯ge¯mata (short narratives). He would have read portions of Homer (particularly the Iliad), along with Euripedes, the maxims of Isocrates, and other poetic texts from the Greek tradition. The memorization and rewriting of these texts not only enhanced the pupil’s emerging literacy but also instilled Greco-Roman virtues and values into the child from a young age. 13 For fuller discussion of this particular work, see Richard Pervo, “A Nihilist Fabula: Introducing the Life of Aesop,” in Ronald F. Hock, J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins (eds.), Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 77–120; Grammatiki A. Karla, “Life of Aesop: Fictional Biography as Popular Literature?” in De Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography, 47–64; and David Konstan and Robyn Walsh, “Civic and Subversive Biography in Antiquity,” in De Temmerman and Demoen, Writing Biography, 47–64. 14 See for example David M. Rhoads, Joanna Dewey, and Donald Michie, Mark as Story: An Introduction to the Narrative of a Gospel. 3rd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012); or Elizabeth S. Malbon, Mark’s Jesus: Characterization as Narrative Christology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2009). 15 On rhetorical criticism, see Vernon K. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Burton L. Mack, Rhetoric and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990); and Robbins (ed.), The Rhetoric of Pronouncement. Semeia 64. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 1993). On ancient education, see Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds (Cambridge: CUP, 1998) and Raffaella Cribbiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).

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Less clear is Mark’s knowledge of the preliminary exercises, arranged in ascending order of difficulty, known as progymnasmata.16 These seem to have been followed somewhere between the second and third educational level. They taught the aspiring orator a fluency in expression and the ability to follow standard rhetorical arguments, while continual reading (now of prose genres too, including historical texts) not only ensured a complete saturation in Greek culture but also provided models of good writing for students to imitate in their own work. Our earliest example, that of Aelius Theon of Alexandria, gives a sense of what was expected as young men (girls had dropped out by this stage) attempted to enhance their mental dexterity through expanding, contracting, comparing, illustrating, and commenting upon well-known literary forms. Two examples will illustrate Mark’s relationship to the progymnasmata, his use of the chreia form and synkrisis. Much of Mark’s material consists of the chreia, or anecdote, defined by Ronald Hock as “a saying or action that is expressed concisely, attributed to a character, and regarded as useful for living.”17 Chreiai formed the backbone of biography, neatly capturing a person’s characteristic teaching or behaviour. As they progressed through their studies, students were taught various ways of adapting and elaborating a simple chreia, known as the ergasia. This appears to be missing from Theon, who instead offers a series of rather more straightforward “expansions” (or epekteino¯seis).18 The second-century rhetor Hermogenes of Tarsus, however, lists an eight-step method which seems to have been widely used. Students might elaborate a simple chreia by adding an encomium of the leading actor, by paraphrasing the story, by adding a rationale for the story’s retelling, by presenting the thesis in the opposite manner, by adding an analogy or an example, by adding the weight of an authority (usually the endorsement of a great literary figure), and perhaps ending with an exhortation to heed the moral of the story.19 Mark’s brief chreiai seem far removed from these more sophisti16 On the progymnasmata, see George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 10. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003). 17 Ronald F. Hock, “Introduction”, 26, in Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, vol. 1, The Progymnasmata (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986); see also Hock and O’Neil. The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises. Writings from the Greco-Roman World 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Vernon K. Robbins, “The Chreia” in David E. Aune (ed.), GrecoRoman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres. Sources for Biblical Study 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 1–23. 18 See Hock, “Introduction,” 17–18, 35–41 (with notes, 65–66, 68–74). For the suggestion that Theon’s work originally contained an elaboration, see Marion C. Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, the Classical World and the Rabbis. JSNTSup 227. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 81–2. 19 See Robbins, “The Chreia,” 1–23; also Alexander Damm, Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem: Clarifying Markan Priority. BETL 252 (Leuven: Peeters, 2013), 3–80.

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cated expansions, suggesting little real or sustained engagement with the programnastic exercises. The case is similar with Mark’s use of synkrisis (or comparison), a device frequently used in both encomium and invective and, by extension, biography. Scholars have occasionally detected in Mark what looks like the use of this rhetorical technique. Agusti Borrell, for example, finds it in Mark’s juxtaposition of Peter’s denial with Jesus’s steadfastness in front of the High Priest (14:53–72), and all of Mark’s characteristic intercalations or juxtaposition of scenes could conceivably be said to be a form of synkrisis.20 Yet Mark’s is a rather idiosyncratic use of the device, far removed from anything outlined in the rhetorical handbooks. Theon, for example, advised comparing only similar people (“where we are in doubt which are to be preferred”), though others such as Hermogenes and Aphthonius, were happy to extend synkrisis to include the contrast of two different people.21 The rhetoricians advise a range of topics which might form a helpful basis for comparison – the subjects’ city, family, nurture, deeds, and so on. While a more formal comparison might include a number of these topics, an author might choose to scatter a series of briefer comparisons throughout his work.22 There is a difference, of course, between the advice of the grammarians and actual practice, but still Mark’s use of the technique is rather quirky. What this may indicate is not so much someone with rhetorical training as an intelligent would-be author who was able to pick up certain subtleties of style from public recitations to supplement his already fairly solid education. Certainly, there is no clear evidence that Mark was aware of the more advanced progymnastic exercises: there is little use of proso¯poeia (the art of crafting speech suitable to a character), nor does Mark display any great ability to work with encomium or invective. In another area, Mark may be seen to conform to the advice of the grammarians. There can be no doubt that Mark’s Greek is inelegant: it tends to be paratactic (where short sentences are joined together with a simple kai), it is full of historic presents, and it avoids a more literate use of subordinate clauses in 20 Agusti Borrell, The Good News of Peter’s Denial: A Narrative and Rhetorical Reading of Mark 14:54, 66–72. Translated by S. Conlon. (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998). On synkrisis more generally, see Bond, First Biography, 171–8; and Michael W. Martin, “Philo’s Use of Syncrisis: An Examination of Philonic Composition in the Light of the Progymnasmata,” Perspectives in Religious Studies (2003): 271–97. The real master of the craft was Plutarch, whose paired lives encouraged readers to compare and contrast the two protagonists; see Timothy Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 21 On Theon: see Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 53. On Hermogenes: see Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 83–4 (part of this is lacking in the Greek original but is found in Latin translation). On Aphthonius, see Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 113–5. 22 On these topic lists, see Martin, “Progymnastic.” Obviously only topics which suited the author’s purposes would be highlighted.

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favour of periphrastic tenses. In recent years, a number of scholars have claimed that Mark’s work exhibits a “residual orality”, suggesting that originally oral material has left its shape on the finished gospel. Highlighted here are Mark’s love of hyperbole and exaggeration, the work’s simple plot, flashbacks, themes and variations on themes, frequent repetitions, groups of three, concentric structures, chiasms, inclusios, recurring formulae, echoes, and regular summaries.23 It seems more likely in my opinion, however, that Mark has included these elements because his work was designed to be read out to largely uneducated groups of early Christ-followers. Quintilian advised his students that they may need to adapt their material for people with little or no education (Institutes of Oratory 3.8), and the handbooks too advise prepon (or aptum), a quality of “propriety” or “appropriateness” that takes into consideration not only the contents of the speech but also the context in which it was given.24 This is an author who knows how to tell a good story in a colloquial style, to capture the imagination of his listeners, and to keep them interested. More broadly, Mark’s structure would have struck an ancient listener as quite natural. In common with most other biographies, the hero is the subject of almost every verb and the centre of almost every scene, focussing attention firmly on Jesus. (Even in a scene such as King Herod’s banquet in 6:14–29, the Baptist’s violent death points ahead to Jesus’ own, and the account encourages listeners to make connections with the banquet that Jesus provides for the 5,000 in the very next episode25). Mark’s work is arranged geographically, with Galilean material early on, Jerusalem material at the end, and a lengthy teaching journey in the middle (8:22–10:52). Within this broad arrangement, material is organised topically, featuring a series of conflict stories (2:1–3:6), a group of parables (4:1–34), a section on miracles (4:35–5:43), a cycle of gentile stories (7:1–8:10), and so on. Throughout, chreiai are strung together with few joining links and little sense of cause and effect; the impact of this on a listening audience would be to impress certain types of story on their consciousness, to highlight Jesus as one skilled in

23 The classic study here is Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q. Voices in Performance and Text. Reprinted with new introduction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); see also Kelly R. Iverson, “Orality and the Gospels: A Survey of Recent Research,” CR:BS 8 (2009): 71–106. 24 See the useful discussion in Damm, Ancient Rhetoric, xix–xxx. Demetrius’s advice to adopt a plain unadorned style may also be relevant here, even if he was writing for students who had already completed the progymnasmata (Style 4.191); a straightforward style may well have been appreciated in many circles. See the discussion in D. M. Schenkeveld, “The Intended Public of Demetrius’ On Style: The Place of the Treatise in the Hellenistic Educational System,” Rhetorica 18 (2000): 29–48. 25 For fuller discussion, see Bond, First Biography, 178–86.

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debate, a teller of parables, a miracle-worker, and so on.26 Only at the end, in the account of Jesus’ death, does Mark adopt a chronological approach to his material. A similar switch from a topical arrangement to a chronological account of the subject’s death can be found in other biographies, particularly Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars, Lucian’s Demonax, or some of Diogenes Laertius’ philosophers. While the lives of philosophers scarcely needed to be recounted chronologically (and generally were not), a person’s death did need to be told in a consecutive manner.27 Finally, it is worth noting one aspect of Mark’s work that would have struck non-Jewish audiences as very odd. Our author eschews all reference to Homer and pagan literature in favour of quotations from the Jewish Scriptures. Even when he is not quoting, his vocabulary and language is drawn from the language of the Septuagint (LXX), the Greek translation of the Scriptures. Even though Mark writes in Greek and draws on a specifically Greek genre (bios), it is clear that his thought-world is Jewish. We should hardly be surprised to find him drawing inspiration from the story of Israel, rejecting many of the values of the Roman world, and turning others on their head.

3.

Mark’s Portrait of Jesus

Mark’s presentation of his hero will be dominated by his death (see below), but it is worth spending some time examining his account of Jesus’ earlier life and ministry. In many respects, it is this attention to Jesus’ earlier activity that marks a distinctive shift with the turn to biography. For Paul, of course, the “gospel” was the good news of Jesus’ saving death and resurrection. By prefacing this with a biographical account of Jesus’ life (the “beginning” of the gospel, 1:1), Mark is in effect saying that this, too, is part of Christian proclamation or “gospel”.28 Mark’s

26 Another effect of Mark’s “episodic narrative” is to reinforce the impression that events are moving in accordance with a predetermined divine plan which characters are unable to influence; see Whitney T. Shiner, “Creating Plot in Episodic Narrative” in Ronald F. Hock, J. Bradley Chance, and Judith Perkins, Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 155–76. 27 Papias’ famous comment that Mark’s work lacked “order” (taxis) is probably a comment on the different order preserved by John rather than a criticism of Mark’s lack of rhetorical training. See Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 217–21. Clearly the switch to a chronological sequence for Mark’s passion narrative does not require the hypothesis of a specific source. 28 See the interesting article by Detlev Dormeyer, “Die Kompositionsmetapher ‘Evangelium Jesu Christi, Des Sohnes Gottes’ Mk 1.1. Ihre Theologische und Literarische Aufgabe in der JesusBiographie des Markus,” NTS 33 (1987): 452–68.

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focus is not only on Jesus’ death, but on the way in which he lived his life, which is set out clearly as an example for others to follow. Ancient biographers often say very little about a philosopher’s background. Two things only tend to be crucial: the hero’s home-town, and a note of his father’s name.29 Mark tells us from the start that Jesus comes from “Nazareth of Galilee” (a small settlement that would likely have been completely unknown to his original audience, 1:9); but although he knows the names of Jesus’ biological mother and brothers, he chooses not to name them until 6:3. Faced with such obscure origins, Mark could have chosen to stress that Jesus displayed impressive qualities despite his humble birth – a strategy advocated by Mark’s near contemporary Valerius Maximus.30 Theon, too, argues that it is “praiseworthy if someone from a humble home becomes great, as did Socrates, the son of the midwife Phaenarete and the stone carver Sophroniscus. It is also worth admiring a workman or someone from the lower class who makes something good of himself, as they say Simon the leather worker and Leontiun the courtesan became philosophers. For virtue shines brightest in misfortunes.”31 Alternatively, Mark might have stressed Jesus’ Davidic heritage, with other early Christian writers (Rom 1:3; later Matthew 1:1, 12:23, 15:22, 21:9). Instead, he chooses to give his hero a much more impressive paternity. The baptism in 1:9–11 is more accurately an adoption scene, at which Jesus is adopted by the God of Israel and named as his “beloved Son”.32 And the early chapters of the work show the audience what it means to be God’s Son. As is common in ancient literature, Mark presents Jesus’ character through observing him in action (“showing” rather than “telling”). Through successive anecdotes, the audience builds up a portrait of who Jesus is and how he conducts his life. Early on in the gospel, Jesus is presented in ways which any Roman observer would think of as positive. He is active in the public world, surrounded by male companions and teaching vast crowds of supporters. His ability to perform miraculous works marks him out as one chosen by God and filled with God’s Spirit (1:10). At the same time, the healings and exorcisms allow him to present himself as a benefactor, treating even irritating beggars and pushy mothers with compassion and self-control. He is continually engaged in controversy with 29 See Bond, First Biography, 125–8. Even when he provides no other details regarding his philosophers, Diogenes Laertius includes these two basic pieces of information. 30 Valerius Maximus, Memorable Doings and Sayings 3.4; he includes a whole section devoted to people who did well despite their inauspicious family background. 31 Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 52. The Greek word translated “stoneworker” here is hermogluphos, which James Butts translates as “sculptor,” “The Progymnasmata of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary” (dissertation, Claremont Graduate School, 1987), 475. The parallels between Jesus the tekto¯n and Socrates here are intriguing. 32 For full discussion, see Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World: Divine Sonship in Its Social and Political Context (Oxford: Oxford Univesity Press, 2011).

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opponents, always proving himself the victor in the agonistic world of male public debate. Those he bests are forced into silent withdrawal, shamed, and driven to plot against him in their envy. Throughout, he hides his exalted identity, presenting himself to the world as a man of modesty and restraint (a “Son of Man”), who refuses to accept worldly honour.33 This last trait chimes closely with Jesus’ teaching as he makes his journey to Jerusalem, where he makes it clear that those who would follow him must be ready to deny themselves and put themselves last (see especially 8:34–8, 9:35–7, 10:42–5). Now in a radical inversion of traditional concepts of honour and shame, the Markan Jesus states that to follow him is to make oneself a servant, to be ready even to lose one’s life if necessary.34 Underlying this portrait is a strong call to imitate Jesus.35 The very first disciples are invited to “follow” him (1:16–20, 2:13–4), and the call to “follow” occurs again at key points in the biography (8:34, 10:21, [10:28, 52]). Even the structure of the work invites the audience to see their own story as a continuation of that of Jesus. Mark makes it clear that the forerunner, John the Baptist, appears, preaches and is handed over (1:7, 14). Jesus himself appears, preaches and is handed over (1:14; 9:31; 10:33; 14:10; 15:21–47). And it becomes clear that followers of Jesus will also preach and be handed over to authorities (3:14, 13:10; 13:9–13). The verbs ke¯russo¯ (preach) and paradido¯mi (hand over) link these cycles and establish a pattern that draws followers into the story of Jesus. Furthermore, the work begins where all Christ-following journeys begin – with baptism – and ends with a renewed call to follow Jesus once again in Galilee (16:7), now with post-Easter faith. Mark does not include the long ethical discourses of Matthew 5–7 or Luke 6:17–49, but it is clear that followers are to learn from Jesus’ example and to model their lives on his.36

33 For a more literary reading of both the “Son of Man” expression and the Markan Secrecy motif, see Bond, First Biography, 142–9; also Elizabeth S. Malbon, “History, Theology, Story: Re-Contextualizing Mark’s ‘Messianic Secret’ as Characterization” in Christopher W. Skinner and Matthew R. Hauge (eds.), Character Studies and the Gospel of Mark (London: Bloomsbury, 2014), 35–56. 34 See David F. Watson, Honor among Christians: The Cultural Key to the Messianic Secret (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2010) for an excellent overview. 35 On this, see Richard A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 159–85; Larry W. Hurtado, “Following Jesus in the Gospel of Mark—and Beyond,” in Richard N. Longenecker (ed.), Patterns of Discipleship in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 9–29; Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation (London: T&T Clark, 1996); and David B. Capes, “Imitatio Christi and the Gospel Genre,” BBR 13 (2003): 1–19. 36 Mark differs from many biographies in that he fails to provide even the barest physical description of Jesus (we are not even told his age or marital status). One reason for this may be the stress on imitation in this work, a call which inevitably tends to smooth over idiosyncrasies both of character and appearance.

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Other Characters

Mark’s overriding interest in Jesus inevitably means that other characters recede into the background. In addition, Mark’s “episodic narrative”, composed of sequences of anecdotes, means that some characters appear only in one chreia and are never heard of again. Figures such as Simon-Peter’s mother-in–law (1:29–31), the Rich Man (10:17–22) or the High Priest (14:53–65) play their role and quietly disappear. More often than not, these characters act as foils to Jesus, allowing his qualities and virtues to come to the fore. We have already noted that “King” Herod acts as a contrast to Jesus, an example of a Gentile-appointed ruler who lords it over his people (10:42), his darkly violent banquet a foil to the messianic feast provided by Jesus. Even the series of carefully sketched favourable characters (the Syro-Phoenician Mother, Blind Bartimaeus, the Anointing Woman, and so on) exhibit one exemplary trait (faith, persistence, or devotion) and leave. Together they embody the qualities expected of disciples, though none is sufficient on his or her own as a model of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Even when characters appear across several chreiai, they have been moulded to fit the demands of a range of different episodes. Once again, their primary purpose is to reflect something of Jesus’ character, and their secondary status makes it difficult to construct any kind of character development, or anything approaching a “narrative arc”. This is particularly relevant for any assessment of the twelve disciples whose characterisation is notoriously ambiguous and inconsistent in Mark. It is natural for us to look to the Twelve for examples of discipleship, to identify with them, and to expect to find models in them for our own response. Yet this would be to misunderstand the nature of ancient biography. As already noted, it is Jesus who provides the model for followers; the purpose of the Twelve is to throw his characterisation into sharper relief.37 As Mark’s biography progresses, the Twelve move through three different phases. In the first part of the work, they are presented as loyal companions. They follow Jesus without question (1:16–20, 2:13–4), and Jesus defends them to opponents (2:18–22, 23–8) just as they are expected to stand up for him (2:15–7). The effect of this is to enhance Jesus’ standing as an exemplary and authoritative teacher who gathers a group of loyal and devoted followers around himself (the 37 Mark’s disciples have generated an enormous scholarly bibliography. For an excellent overview and analysis, see C. Clifton Black, The Disciples according to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate. 2nd ed. JSNTSupp 27 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012). I have found particularly useful Whitney T. Shiner, Follow Me! Disciples in Markan Rhetoric. SBLDS 145 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) and Scott S. Elliott, “‘Witless in Your Own Cause’: Divine Plots and Fractured Characters in the Life of Aesop and the Gospel of Mark,” Religion and Theology 12 (2005): 397–418.

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group also, of course, represents the church that will gather in Jesus’ name later on). If the Twelve are presented as model disciples in public, they take on a rather different role in private. As we move into the middle of the work, they seem continually to misunderstand Jesus, asking him to explain his parables (eg. in 4:10–13) or his teaching (eg. in 7:14–23 or 10:10–12), and their admiration for the large stones that make up the Temple allows Jesus to tell them what to expect in the future (13:3–37). In particular, they find it hard to understand the necessity for Jesus’ death (8:32–33), and his teaching on true greatness (9:33–37, 10:35–45). The topos of the questioning, even dim-witted, disciple is not uncommon in biography: Socrates’ companion-disciples learn through asking questions; Porphyry notes his own lack of understanding in his Life of Plotinus (a device that emphasises the difficulty of Porphyry’s teaching); and Philostratus’ account of Apollonius of Tyana frequently highlights the failings of Apollonius’ first disciple, Damis (who shares several features with Peter).38 As a literary trope, the misunderstanding disciple allows the teacher to explain things in greater depth; in effect, disciples’ questions form a peg on which the teacher can hang further instruction. We should not forget how counter-cultural and surprising Jesus’ teaching is in the central section of Mark’s work – the idea that followers should deny themselves and behave like slaves would have seemed very odd to Mark’s audience, even those familiar with the basic Christian message. The disciples’ obtuseness echoes the response many hearers would have had to Jesus’ message, and their questions allow Jesus the scope to explain his teaching more fully.39 As we move into the final chapters of the work the disciples are now characterised by a lack of courage, which ends in their desertion of Jesus at his arrest. While Mark uses two disciples to exemplify the negative traits of betrayal and denial (Judas and Peter, respectively), the main literary reason to remove the Twelve at this point is so that the spotlight shines ever more brightly on Jesus’ courageous, lonely and self-denying death. Similarly, Socrates’ grief-stricken friends throw his calm and courageous exit into sharp relief (Plato, Phaedo, 115e, 117d-e), and Philostratus often contrasts Apollonius’ courage with his disciples’ cowardice.40 Mark couches the disciples’ forsaking of Jesus in theological terms: they desert Jesus because it is the will of God, as set out by Scripture (eg. Zech 13:7 in relation to 14:27, and 14:49). But although others may well find themselves 38 For fuller discussion, see Vernon K. Robbins, Jesus the Teacher: A Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation of Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 125–69; Graeme Miles, “‘I, Porphyry’: The Narrator and Reader in the Vita Plotini,” Open Access Australasian Society for Classical Studies Proceedings, 2–5 February 2010. Perth: University of Western Australia, 2010. 39 For similar arguments, see Shiner, Follow Me!, 251; Ernest Best, “The Role of the Disciples in Mark,” NTS 23 (1976–7): 377–401, esp. 399; and William R. Telford, The Theology of the Gospel of Mark. New Testament Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 131–2. 40 On Apollonius’ disciples, see Shiner, Follow Me!, 132–5.

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called upon to emulate Jesus’ suffering, Mark makes it clear that Jesus’ death is not just an example of self-denial. His salvific death opens up a new way for followers to relate to God. Through his salvific death, Jesus ransoms people from all that enslaves them (10:45), thereby establishing a new covenant with God (14:24), comparable to the old covenant created at the exodus from Egypt.41 At this point in the narrative, then, Jesus has to go to his death alone; it is only later, after the resurrection, that others can follow – and Mark makes it clear that the Twelve will be reinstated and play a role in this later period (16:7, 1:17, 13:9–13). Mark’s disciples, then, are carefully plotted and constructed in order to heighten the biography’s portrait of Jesus – a gatherer of loyal companions, a teacher of difficult truths, and one who endures a lonely and salvific death. This last topic brings us to a closer analysis of the hero’s death in Mark’s biography.

5.

The Death of Jesus

Consideration of Mark as biography reminds us that, whatever sources Mark used (written or oral), his work is a literary piece exhibiting his own distinctive outlook. We have already seen that the death of a philosopher was important in underscoring the lasting value of his teaching. Of decisive significance in all of this was the way that the story was told. Small details could make a world of difference, transforming even an ignoble death into something praiseworthy and honorable. A good example here is the death of Socrates. Death by hemlock poisoning is a hideously painful way to go, involving muscle spasms, choking and vomiting, yet in Plato’s description the philosopher dies peacefully and in full control of his bodily functions as his soul tranquilly leaves his body. Plato’s account in the Phaedo clearly bears no relation whatsoever to historical events, yet his narrative formed the archetypal picture of a noble death to which many in antiquity aspired.42 Controversial figures often attracted competing accounts of their demise. Cornelius Nepos, for example, was quite well aware that some claimed that the Athenian naval commander Thermistocles died in prison, though he preferred to follow Thucydides who maintained that he died of a disease in Magnesia (On Famous Men 2.10); Diogenes Laertius gathered together various reports of his 41 The literature on this topic is huge, but the following are particularly useful discussions: Morna D. Hooker, Not Ashamed of the Gospel: New Testament Interpretations of the Death of Jesus (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1994); Sharyn Dowd and Elizabeth S. Malbon. “The Significance of Jesus’s Death in Mark: Narrative Context and Authorial Audience,” JBL 125 (2006): 271–97; and Cilliers Breytenbach, “Narrating the Death of Jesus in Mark: Utterances of the Main Character, Jesus,” ZNW 105 (2014): 153–68. 42 On this, see Christopher Gill, “The Death of Socrates.” ClQ 23 (1973): 25–8.

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philosophers’ deaths and noted them all (see the wildly diverging accounts of Diogenes’ end, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 6.2.76–7); and Philostratus reords several accounts of Apllonius’ end (Life of Apoll. 8.30–1). Presumably much depended on the attitude of the people doing the remembering: opponents might give the figure a bad end, an accidental or ignominious death, while friends remembered only the nobility and dignity of the final moments. In most cases, of course, a biographer would simply choose whichever suited his purposes best or adapt an existing account. In the case of Jesus, it is almost certain that there would have been various accounts of his death. Those put about by the Jewish priestly leaders and Rome would have presented him as an executed criminal, a failed leader who met a bad end. Those cherished by friends and followers would have turned to the Scriptures, variously presenting Jesus as a martyr, a scapegoat, or the paschal lamb; drawing particularly on the language of the Psalms or the prophets.43 As a biographer, Mark was free to describe his hero’s death in whatever manner suited his purposes; a certain amount of artistic licence was allowed, even expected, and last words were always open to “improvement”.44 The cross was a given, but the whole account could have been written up very differently – it might have been shorter, with more suitable last words, and a defiant Jesus embracing death with nobility (it is no accident that both Luke and John made changes in this general direction45). We must assume that Mark gives us a lengthy account, full of humiliating details, because that suits the message he wants to convey. He wants to present a Jesus who endures the extremes of self-denial, a Jesus full of despair and abandonment at the end, a Jesus who finds what solace he can in the psalms of lament.46 More so than any other evangelist, Mark makes it clear that Jesus is a suffering messiah. He knows from the start that he must die on the cross, that such is the will of God revealed through Scripture (2:20; 14:36, 49). He goes to Jerusalem in 43 It will be clear that I do not subscribe to the view (put forward by the form critics) that Mark inherited a pre-existing passion narrative which he felt obliged to pass on. Although I am quite certain that the evangelist drew on several sources, I am doubtful of our ability to reconstruct them at this remove. 44 Cicero, for example, maintained that historians had a right when describing death to “adorn it rhetorically and tragically” (Brutus, 11.42). On fiction even in the most “historical” of biographies, see De Temmerman and Demoen (eds.), Writing Biography; Bond, First Biography, 66–71. 45 On Luke, see especially Gregory Sterling, “Mors philosophi: The Death of Jesus in Luke,” HTR 94 (2001): 383–402. On John’s changes to Mark, see Helen K. Bond, “The Triumph of the King: John’s Transformation of Mark’s Account of the Passion” in Eve-Marie Becker, Helen K. Bond and Catrin Williams (eds.), John’s Transformation of Mark (London: Bloomsbury, 2020), 251–67. 46 For fuller discussion, see my article, “A Fitting End? Self-Denial and a Slave’s Death in Mark’s Life of Jesus,” NTS 65 (2019), 425–42.

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the full knowledge of what will happen to him (8:31–2; 9:30–31; 10:32–34), and spends a last evening with his friends during which he calmly speaks of what is to come (14:17–25). Mark hides nothing of his anguish and even despair as he goes to a lonely death, unsure even of God’s presence and concern (“My God, my God, why have you deserted me?” is his last terrible cry, 15:34). The Markan Jesus is publicly humiliated and mocked in his last hours. He is ridiculed after both of his trials (14:65; 15:16–20), and even on the cross the mockery continues, from the religious authorities, passers-by, and the two thieves executed with him (15:29– 32). Even the titulus – “King of the Jews” – pokes fun at his messiahship (though the audience, of course, appreciates the irony). The once confident Son of God who achieved such success in Galilee becomes all the more passive and unmanly as he undergoes the most shameful of deaths, one generally reserved for slaves and low-class brigands – in Cicero’s memorable phrase, “the greatest punishment of slavery” (Verr. 2.5).47 The reason for this becomes clear when we realise that Jesus’ death corresponds with the body of teaching in the middle section of the gospel. In 8:22– 10:45, as we have seen, Jesus reverses conventional ideas of honour and shame, so that true honour in the community that is emerging around Jesus consists not of worldly status, but of putting oneself last and being a servant of others. The highly artificial structure of these central chapters has often been noticed.48 In typically Markan style, Jesus three times tells his disciples that he must die, after which each is followed by the disciples’ misunderstanding and further instruction from Jesus. The overriding teaching that true honour in the Kingdom consists of being like a servant in one’s relation to others finds perfect expression in Jesus’ death, where crucifixion is the ultimate end of self-denial and slave-like behaviour.49 Thus, like the good philosopher, Jesus’ death is in perfect agreement with his teaching. Here, too, Jesus acts as a model for Mark’s audience. In 8.34, right at the beginning of that all-important block of teaching, Jesus says, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” And as the passion narrative progresses, the Markan Jesus demonstrates the kind of 47 On the “feminization” of victims of crucifixion, see Brittany E. Wilson, Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke-Acts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 39–75, 190–242 (Wilson is discussing the Lukan version, but her comments are even more apt for Mark). More generally, Tat-siong Benny Liew, “Re-Mark-able Masculinities: Jesus, the Son of Man, and the (Sad) Sum of Manhood,” in Stephen D. Moore and Janice C. Anderson (eds.), New Testament Masculinities. Semeia 45. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2003), 93–135. 48 See especially Alberto de M. Kaminouchi, “But It Is Not So among You”: Echoes of Power in Mark 10.32–45. JSNTSup 249 (London: T&T Clark, 2003). 49 For a perceptive literary analysis of this scene, see Rhoads, Dewey, and Michie, Mark as Story, 111.

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behaviour required by disciples. A notable feature of the biography in these last couple of chapters is the use of synkrisis. Jesus is continually contrasted with others so that his exemplary behaviour is thrown into sharp relief. At Gethsemane, for example, he remains awake, praying to the Father and alert to the temptations of the night, while even the innermost group of disciples are sleeping (14:32–42). Before the priestly council, Jesus responds boldly to the High Priest, openly admitting his identity, while Peter, outside in the courtyard denies everything before a group of servants (14:53–72). In the Roman governor’s court, Jesus is contrasted with Barabbas, one tainted with murderer and insurrectionary behaviour (15:6–15). And on the cross, Jesus’ public humiliation forms an ironic contrast with the charge against him, “King of the Jews”. Jesus knows what it is to be arrested by corrupt authorities and forced to stand trial; to have his closest followers betray him, deny him, and abandon him; and in his very last moments he experiences the very depths of human misery, isolation and despair. If Mark wrote for a fearful, anxious, even persecuted audience (as many have supposed and 13:9–13 seems to imply50), they would find a clear role model in Jesus. And yet, beyond the suffering, the note of hope and vindication is also present in Mark as both God and nature respond to Jesus’ death. First is the solar eclipse (15:33): in Philo’s opinion “eclipses announce the death of kings and the destruction of cities” (On Providence, 2.50), and within the biographical tradition they often herald regal deaths (the passing of Julius Caesar, Augustus and Herod are all said to have been accompanied by eclipses).51 Next is the tearing of the temple veil (15:38): a sign of God’s displeasure and the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.52 Third, a foreign executioner is converted (15:39): once again, the adversary who cannot help but be affected by the hero’s death is common in biographical and martyr literature, with Socrates’ prison guard serving as an example (Plato, Phaedo, 116c).53 Behind the narrative too are the muted, yet insistent, notes of the triumph – the true meaning of events for those “with eyes to 50 See also 4:17; 8:34; 10:37–40. See further, Hendrika N. Roskam, The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in Its Historical and Social Context. NovTSup 114. (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 27–74. On the Neronian persecution, which is often linked with Mark, see Christopher P. Jones, “The Historicity of the Neronian Persecution: A Response to Brent Shaw,” NTS 63 (2017): 146–5 51 On Julius Caesar, see Plutarch, Caesar 69.4–5; on Augustus, see Dio Cassius, Roman History 56.29.5–6; and on Herod, see Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 17.167. The occurrence could be variously interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure, or an indication that God or nature were mourning the deceased. 52 For fuller discussion of the literature here, see Bond, First Biography, 243–6; the breaking down of barriers that separate humans from God may be a secondary meaning here, but in view of Mark’s insistence elsewhere that the temple is doomed, this seems to be the most natural reading (see 12:9; 13:1–2; 14:58; 15:29). 53 For the view that the centurion’s confession is to be read as sarcastic, see Nathan Eubank, “Dying with Power: Mark 15,39 from Ancient to Modern Interpretation,” Biblica 95 (2014): 247–68.

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see”.54 Finally, Jesus is raised – as he promised – to the right hand of God, ready to return in glory (14:62; 16:7).

6.

Final Reflection

Biographical narrative had a number of advantages over a letter, a sermon, or a theological tract. By creating a sense of “knowing insiders” who are privy to Jesus’ private teaching, Mark galvanised his audience around a shared portrait of Jesus that spoke to their current circumstances and concerns. Set within a bios, Jesus was no longer a figure from the past, notable chiefly for his resurrection and present heavenly existence, but a tangible person who taught and healed, and who was finally rejected by all those in authority. Audiences could marvel at his miraculous deeds, learn from his humility and modest demeanour, and accompany Jesus in his hour of need, experiencing the darkness of despair alongside their Lord. Whatever prior knowledge they had of Jesus’ life could presumably have existed alongside the new Markan narrative. Christ-followers of the past, just like today, could probably live with multiple portraits of Jesus, each emphasising different facets of his life and work. Mark’s biography would have provided comfort to listeners who could take reassurance from the fact that their present hardships were not only foreseen by Jesus but part of God’s plan. Mark’s style throughout is deliberately mysterious and open ended. His stories do not always give easy answers, and the gospel of course ends mid-sentence in a context of terror and disobedience. The use of synkrisis and juxtaposition force the audience continually to find deeper meanings behind the surface level of the narrative, playing with multiple layers of meaning and subtle ironies. The chreia-form meant that even an illiterate hearer could remember a favourite story, replaying it in her mind as new meanings and associations gathered around it. And, all the while, the text offers the comfort of a saviour who had experienced the very worst that humanity was capable of; whatever Mark’s readers might be called upon to endure, they could want no better model than Mark’s portrait of Jesus.

54 On triumphal imagery in Mark’s crucifixion account, see the studies by Thomas E. Schmidt, “Mark 15.6–32: The Crucifixion Narrative and the Roman Triumphal Procession,” NTS 41 (1995): 1–18 and Allan T. Georgia, “Translating the Triumph: Reading Mark’s Crucifixion Narrative against a Roman Ritual of Power,” JSNT 36 (2013): 17–38.

Eve-Marie Becker

Markus, der Historiograph Ein Beitrag zum Autorschaftskonzept der frühesten Evangelienschrift

1.

Hinführung

Die Interpretation des Markusevangeliums – auch im Rahmen der progymnasmata-Studien – wirft Grundfragen auf: Wer ist „Markus“? Was ist ein „Evangelium“? Wie und warum kommt derjenige, den wir als Verfasser der frühesten Evangelienschrift verstehen, im letzten Drittel des 1. Jhs. dazu, eine Prosaerzählung zu schaffen, die – was ihre engeren Gattungsmerkmale angeht – als Gattung sui generis entsteht?1 In welcher Weise generiert „Markus“ mit seinem Schreiben die Gattung „Evangelium“ im Rahmen der frühchristlichen Literatur? Wieweit schafft Markus eine Sonderform frühkaiserzeitlicher Prosaliteratur? Was bedeutet es, die Evangelien als literarische Gesamtentwürfe als Gattung sui generis zu bezeichnen, ohne damit – anders, als vielfach behauptet2 – zugleich vorauszusetzen, die Evangelien seien bloße Sub-Literatur? Und schließlich: Finden sich im Markusevangelium einzelne Prosaelemente wieder, die in den antiken Lehrbüchern der progymnasmata begegnen (z. B. Aelius Theon; Hermogenes) – und wenn ja: welche? Die Erforschung und Interpretation des Markusevangeliums beginnt wie alle Forschung mit Fragen, die sich im Zuge der Auslegungs- und Forschungsgeschichte über viele Jahrhunderte wie Gesteinsschichten übereinander lagern. Die Markusforschung, die sich erst im 20. Jh. als eigenständiges Gebiet der Bibelwissenschaft profiliert hat, aber eine lange Vorgeschichte aufweisen kann, sucht diese Fragen mit Hilfe von Textbeobachtungen zum Markusevangelium und verwandten Texten und daraus hergeleiteten Hypothesenbildungen zu bearbei1 Vgl. etwa M. Dibelius, Geschichte der urchristlichen Literatur (hg. v. F. Hahn; München: Kaiser, 1990), 41. 2 So zuletzt H.K. Bond, The Biography of Jesus. Genre and Meaning in Mark’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2020), 1–2.

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ten. Im Rahmen der Evangelienforschung hat die Markusexegese der vergangenen etwa 200 Jahre Einsichten zu Tage gefördert, die einerseits die Frage nach den Entstehungsbedingungen des Markusevangeliums erschließen und andererseits die gattungsgeschichtliche Einordnung des frühesten Evangeliums ermöglichen und damit den literaturgeschichtlichen Ort des Markusevangeliums im Umkreis frühchristlicher Missions- oder ‚Propagandaliteratur‘3 erhellen. Dazu zählen zuletzt auch Untersuchungen zum Markusevangelium im Lichte der progymnasmata.4 In meinen eigenen Arbeiten zum Markusevangelium, die Richard A. Burridge zuletzt als „massive project over fifteen years“ bezeichnet,5 ordne ich die früheste Evangelienschrift als literarischen Gesamtentwurf (Makrotext) der hellenistischrömischen und -frühjüdischen Historiographie (Makrogattung) als eine eigene, personenzentrierte Mikrogattung zu, die neben der Biographie als gleichfalls spezifischer historiographischer Mikrogattung zu stehen kommt.6 Im Markusevangelium sind wiederum auf Mikrotextniveau einzelne Prosaelemente wie z. B. diegemata zu erkennen (vgl. Mk 11–12), die in den antiken Textbüchern zu den progymnasmata definiert sind7 und dort u. a. von Beispielen aus der antiken Historiographie hergeleitet werden.8 Die Zuordnung des Markusevangeliums zur antiken Historiographie als Makrogattungsbereich bringt verschiedene Implikationen und Folgerungen mit sich, die vor allem folgende Punkte betreffen:

3 In Anlehnung an die berühmte Beschreibung E. Nordens, Agnostos Theos. Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig: Teubner, 1913), 306–308. 4 S. dazu etwa die Beiträge im vorliegenden Band. 5 R.A. Burridge, „The Gospels and Ancient Biography“, in: Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of the Gospels. Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre(s) (ed. R.M. Calhoun et al.; WUNT 451; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020), 9–56, 25. – Wortgleich in: ders., „Matthew and Gospel Genre, A Critical Review of the Last Twenty-Five Years, 1993–2018“, in: The Gospel of Matthew in its Historical and Theological Context. Papers from the International Conference in Moscow, September 24 to 28, 2018 (ed. M. Seleznev et al.; WUNT 459; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 47–73, 57. 6 Zur wiederholten These, die Evangelien seien Biographien, vgl. verschiedene Beiträge in: R.M. Calhoun et al. (eds.), Modern and Ancient Literary Criticism of the Gospels. Continuing the Debate on Gospel Genre(s) (WUNT 451; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020) und darin speziell den Literaturbericht von R.A. Burridge, „Gospels“. 7 Vgl. z. B. die Definitionen bei Hermogenes (2. Jh. n. Chr.): G.A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata. Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Writings from the Greco-Roman World 10; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 75. Zur Anwendung auf die Evangelienexegese, vgl. E.-M. Becker, „Wie Lukas über den ‚Gott der Lebenden‘ spricht und für den sachkundigen Leser Geschichte schreibt. Lk 20,27–40par. Mk 12,18–27 im Vergleich“, in: J. Dochhorn et al. (Hgg.), Über Gott. Festschrift für R. Feldmeier zum 70. Geburtstag (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 207–222. 8 Hermogenes definiert die diegesis und das diegema von Herodot und Thukydides her, vgl. G.A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 75.

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die Verwendung von und den Umgang des Evangelisten mit Quellen und quellenähnlichen Sammlungen, die thematische und stilistische Gestaltung des ‚Evangeliums‘ als Prosaerzählung, die Verwendung von Prosaelementen im Mikrotextbereich (z. B. diegema), die narrative Konstruktion der literary memory, die zeitgeschichtliche Einordnung des frühesten Evangeliums in flavische Zeit, die mit einer literaturgeschichtlichen Profilierung flavischer Literatur in Verbindung steht,9 die Konzeption von Zeit- und Geschichtsdeutung im Modus des ‚Evangeliums‘, den literaturgeschichtlichen Ort des Markusevangeliums als Wegbereiter lukanischer Doppelwerkhistoriographie und johanneischer Offenbarungsrede und den theologiegeschichtlichen Ort des Markusevangeliums als Explikation paulinischer Christusverkündigung und Vorbereitung johanneischer Offenbarungschristologie.

Alle diese Fragestellungen habe ich in ihrer Relevanz für die Bestimmung des literarischen Charakters, des literaturgeschichtlichen Ortes und der theologiegeschichtlichen Einordnung der frühesten Evangelienschrift andernorts vielfach genannt und bearbeitet – bis hin zu der Frage, welche heuristische und didaktische Bedeutung die Diskussion über die Einordnung des Markusevangeliums in den Kontext antiker Historiographie im ‚classroom‘ habe.10 In diesem Beitrag spitze ich meine Position noch einmal zu, wenn ich Markus pointiert als ‚Historiographen‘ (im weiteren Sinne), d. h. als Autorperson bezeichne. (Damit ist nicht gemeint, dass Markus konzise die realbiographischen 9 Vgl. T. Baier, „Quintilian’s approach to literary history via imitatio and utilitas“, in: The Literary Genres in the Flavian Age. Canons, Transformations, Reception (ed. by F. Bessone/M. Fucecchi; Trands in Classics Supplementary Vol. 51; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2017), 47–61. 10 Vgl. dazu als wichtigste Publikationen (Monographien und Herausgeberschaften in chronologischer Folge): E.-M. Becker (Hg.), Die antike Historiographie und die Anfänge der christlichen Geschichtsschreibung (BZNW 129; Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2005); dies., Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie (WUNT 194; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006); dies./A. Runesson (Eds.), Mark and Matthew I. Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First-Century Setting (WUNT 271; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011); dies./A. Runesson (Eds.), Mark and Matthew II. Comparative Readings: Reception History, Cultural Hermeneutics, and Theology (WUNT 304; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); dies./T. Engberg-Pedersen/M. Müller (Eds.), Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays Part II. For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark (BZNW 199; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014 [Paperback 2017]); dies, The Birth of Christian History: Memory and Time from Mark to LukeActs (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); dies., Der früheste Evangelist. Studien zum Markusevangelium (WUNT 380; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

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Daten zum Leben und Wirken Jesu von Nazareth erfasst und als bruta facta wiedergegeben habe – er hat sich vielmehr auf die für ihn wichtigen Daten konzentriert!) Zugleich leuchte ich, wie der Rückblick auf die geistes- und forschungsgeschichtliche Herleitung des ‚Autor‘-Konzeptes zeigt, im Folgenden mit der Frage nach Markus als Autor einen andauernden ‚blinden Fleck‘ der Markusforschung aus, der auch in der gegenwärtigen progymnasmata-Forschung sonst nicht behandelt wird. Denn nach Markus als „Autor“, also demjenigen, der nicht nur Urheber (auctor) oder realer historischer Verfasser eines Werkes, sondern ein ‚individueller Schöpfer‘ von Literatur ist, dessen Rang sich – nach Quintilian (Inst. or. 10,1,37) – „nach seiner besonderen Leistung (virtus) in sprachlicher und stilistischer Hinsicht“ bemisst,11 wird gemeinhin nicht gefragt. Hier liegt ein bleibendes Desiderat der Markusforschung. Nun verbleibt „Markus“ zwar in Anonymität und Stillschweigen über seine Person. Gleichwohl lässt sich, gerade wenn wir sein Werk im Rahmen antiker Historiographie verstehen, auch eine Beziehung zu ihm als selbständig tätige Schriftstellerperson herstellen. Wir werden das Markusevangelium wegen dieser Anonymität seines Autors nicht der antiken Autorenliteratur orthonymen Typs (so z. B. Herodot, Thukydides, Polybius, Cicero, Sallust, Philo, Paulus, Josephus, Tacitus) zurechnen können. Doch ermöglichen sowohl die Arbeitsweise und der Schreibstil als auch der konzeptionelle Zugriff auf die Konstruktion seiner Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ-Erzählung Überlegungen zur Gestalt des Autors, die sich für die hermeneutische Kunst der Markusinterpretation als unverzichtbare Schlüsselkategorien erweisen.12 Erst durch die Autor-Gestalt vermittelt nämlich lässt sich die „Seele“ aller hermeneutischen Regeln zur Anwendung bringen.13 Die „Seele aller hermeneutischen Regeln“ ist nach Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–1777) die ‚hermeneutische Billigkeit‘, die von der „Vollkommenheit des Textes und des Autors“ ausgeht.14 Progymnasmata-Studien können auf Mikrotextniveau einzelne Prosaelemente im Text des Markusevangeliums aufspüren und identifizieren und damit neues Licht auf den dahinterliegenden Kompositionsprozess und den möglichen Ausbildungsgrad des Verfassers im Rahmen des progymnasmataTrainings werfen. Die Frage nach der hermeneutischen Bedeutung des Autorschaftskonzepts für das Textverstehen ist jedoch davon unabhängig und zusätzlich zu stellen. Im Folgenden werde ich daher die Entstehung des Autor11 S. Döpp, „Autor IV. Altphilologisch“, in: LBH (2009/2013), 62. 12 Vgl. auch O. Wischmeyer, Hermeneutik des Neuen Testaments. Ein Lehrbuch (NET 8; Tübingen/Basel: Francke Verlag, 2004), 54, die hier allerdings vor allem mit dem „Verfasser“Konzept arbeitet. 13 Vgl. dazu G. Kurz, Hermeneutische Künste. Die Praxis der Interpretation (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 22020), 236. 14 G.F. Meier, Versuch einer allgemeinen Auslegungskunst (Halle: C.H. Hemmerde, 1757), 124. – Hinweis darauf bei G. Kurz, Künste, 236.

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schaftskonzepts im Markusevangelium kurz forschungsgeschichtlich skizzieren und zeigen, wie die Betrachtung des Markus als Historiographie dem Autorschaftsdiskurs für das Textverstehen der frühesten Evangelienschrift neue Dynamik verleiht. Ich werde zudem am Schluss andeuten, wie die progymnasmataForschung vom historiographisch definierten Autorprofil des Markus profitieren und wie sie dieses weiter ausarbeiten kann.

2.

„Markus“: Der „Historiograph“ als „Autor“

2.1

Der lange Weg zum Autorschaftskonzept

Zu den Grundprinzipien neuzeitlicher Hermeneutik zählt, dass sich der Interpret/die Interpretin eines Textes in einen Autor und dessen Zeit versetzen kann.15 Dieses Grundprinzip textinterpretierender Wissenschaften hat – mit erheblicher zeitlicher Verzögerung – nur langsam die Evangelien- bzw. Markusforschung erreicht, da die Evangelien eher in und aus historischer Distanz wahrgenommen als mit Empathie (s. u.) erschlossen werden. Hatte noch die ältere patristische Überlieferung in den Verfassern der Evangelien apostolische oder apostelnahe Akteure und somit faktisch ‚Autoren‘ erkennen können (vgl. etwa Eusebius Hist. eccl. 2,15,1f.), so haben die Kanonisierung der Evangelien und die damit einhergehende Entwicklung einer Schriftlehre in der Folgezeit dazu geführt, die Evangelien als polyphone Schrift(en) über das „Evangelium“ in einem Schriftenverbund zu verstehen und von ihrem individuellen Autorbezug und den damit verbundenen geschichtlichen Produktionsbedingungen weitgehend zu lösen.16 Noch bei Paul Wendland (1864–1915) klingt diese kanongeschichtlich geprägte Sicht auf die Entstehungsbedingungen der Evangelien erkennbar nach.17 Schon Martin Luther kann zwar gelegentlich von „Markus“ als geschichtlicher Person sprechen, wenn er ihn – den möglichen Gründer der Kirche von Alexandria – in Anlehnung an die Vielfalt altkirchlicher Traditionen gleichwohl als jemanden bezeichnet, der kein Apostel war: Etliche nannten ihn „den Evangelisten, etliche anders“.18 Doch noch Johann Salomo Semler (1725–1791) arbeitet 15 Vgl. G. Kurz, Künste, 233. 16 Die mangelnde Rückbindung an die Person des Autors betrifft allerdings nicht nur die Evangelienauslegung, sondern den allgemeinen Umgang mit Texten bis in die frühe Neuzeit: Vgl. C. Lubkoll, „Autor V. Literaturwissenschaftlich“, in: LBH (2009/2013), 62–63, 62. 17 Vgl. P. Wendland, Die urchristlichen Literaturformen (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1912), 192f. 18 Vgl. z. B. M. Luther, „Wider das Papsttum zu Rom, vom Teufel gestiftet“ (1545), in: Luther Deutsch. Die Werke Luthers in Auswahl. Bd. 2 Der Reformator (hg. v. K. Aland; UTB 165; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 21981), 337–365, 358.

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sich in seinen Schriften zur Hermeneutik (1760 und 1786) an den bis dahin geltenden theologischen Grundprämissen einer hermeneutica sacra so ab,19 dass er zu einer literaturgeschichtlichen Bewertung der Einzelschriften des Neuen Testaments, geschweige denn zur Betrachtung von deren auktorialen Verfasserschaften nicht vordringt. Semlers Arbeiten ebnen wohl den weiteren Weg zur philologisch-kritischen und historisch-kritischen Exegese der Folgezeit,20 der vor allem die Evangelienforschung prägen wird. Doch weder die Quellenforschung des 19. Jhs. (Karl Lachmann [1793–1851] et al.), die sich zuvorderst auf die Bearbeitung der synoptischen Frage konzentrierte,21 noch die formgeschichtliche Forschung des frühen 20. Jhs. (Rudolf Bultmann [1884–1976], Martin Dibelius [1883–1947] et al.), die mit ihrer fokussierten Betrachtung von Mikroformen und deren Überlieferungsprozessen die paläontologische Bestimmung der Evangelien als analogielose Kleinliteratur durch Franz Overbeck (1837–1905)22 zu bearbeiten suchte, haben den Verfassern der Evangelien als Autoren, d. h. in schöpferischer und programmatischer Weise literarisch tätigen Einzelpersonen, eine notwendige Beachtung geschenkt. Von Semler bis Bultmann liegt die Aufmerksamkeit der kritischen Forschung in Theologie und Exegese vielmehr darauf, die – dem Geist des Protestantismus entsprechende – selbständige und selbstverantwortete hermeneutische Tätigkeit des Theologen bzw. Exegeten zu entdecken und zu stärken,23 nicht aber darauf, die empathische Kompetenz des Auslegers so zu fördern, dass er sich in die individuelle Person des frühchristlichen Autors „Markus“ hineinversetzen könnte.24

19 Vgl. M. Schröter, „Johann Salomo Semler. Vorbereitung zur theologischen Hermeneutik (1760)“, in: Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken. Von Origenes bis zur Gegenwart (hg. v. O. Wischmeyer et al.; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), 729–742; dies., „Johann Salomo Semler. Neuer Versuch die gemeinnüzige Auslegung und Anwendung des neuen Testaments zu befördern (1786)“, in: a. a. O., 743–754. 20 M. Schröter, „Vorbereitung“, 731: „Durch eine genaue Aufschlüsselung der unabdingbaren Voraussetzungen für ein adäquates Textverstehen mittels philologisch-kritischer und historisch-kritischer Methoden sollen zum einen die Grundlagen der älteren protestantischen Hermeneutik, die allererst Lehrelemente wie das dogmatische Kanonprinzip, die Attributenlehre der Schrift oder die Verbalinspirationsvoraussetzung ermöglichten, zum anderen die übertriebene Fokussierung auf die Ermittlung des sensus mysticus, wie sie dem Pietismus eigen war, abgewiesen werden.“ 21 Vgl. dazu etwa die Darstellung bei U. Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (UTB 1830; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 92017), 206–216. 22 Vgl. dazu E.-M. Becker, Markus-Evangelium, 38f. 23 So M. Schröter, „Neuer Versuch“, 748f.: „Die Beschreibung der hermeneutischen Aufgabe als persönlich-individuelle Angelegenheit“. 24 Vgl. G. Kurz, Künste, 233.

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Nun hatte bereits Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) bei seinen Überlegungen zur Hermeneutik – besonders in den durch ihn selbst veröffentlichten Akademiereden (1829) – ebendiese Empathie, die er als divinatorische Methode der Interpretation bezeichnete, eingefordert und für die allgemeine geisteswissenschaftliche Hermeneutik fruchtbar gemacht.25 Für Schleiermacher galt – mit den Worten Dietz Langes: „Um eine Rede oder einen Text verstehen zu können, muss ich in der Lage sein, mich in den Gehalt seiner Aussagen und in die Situation dessen, der sie äußert, hineinzuversetzen.“26 In „Hermeneutik und Kritik“, posthum durch Friedrich Lücke herausgegeben (1838), bringt Schleiermacher sein programmatisches Interesse an der Gestalt des Autors im Rahmen seiner Darlegung der psychologischen Methode wie folgt auf den Punkt: „Die Aufgabe enthält ein Zwiefaches, was in Beziehung auf die Totalität des Werkes sehr verschieden, aber in Beziehung auf dessen elementarische Produktion sehr ähnlich ist. Das eine ist, den ganzen Grundgedanken eines Werkes zu verstehen, das andere die einzelnen Teile desselben aus dem Leben des Autors zu begreifen. Jenes ist das, woraus sich alles entwickelt, dieses das in einem Werke am meisten Zufällige. Beides aber ist aus der persönlichen Eigenthümlichkeit des Verfassers zu verstehen.“27

In seinen eigenen Beiträgen zur Evangelienforschung hat Schleiermacher selbst die Forderung nach der Autorperspektive allerdings nicht eingelöst. Schleiermacher hat sich zum einen weitgehend darauf beschränkt, das doppelte Methodenpaar von divinatorischer und komparativer sowie grammatischer und psychologischer Interpretation – ganz dem Trend der aufblühenden Jesus-Forschung seiner Zeit entsprechend – auf die Erfassung der Person Jesu („Leben Jesu“, 1819/1864) zu applizieren. Schleiermacher suchte die hermeneutischen Methoden dabei so zur Anwendung zu bringen, dass das „Innere“ in der Lebensauffassung Jesu zu Tage treten kann. Die Evangelien erschöpften sich für ihn letztlich darin, biographische Quellen von begrenztem geschichtlichem Aussagewert zu sein – nach Lange sind insbesondere die Synoptiker für Schleiermacher „bloße Aggregate von Einzelerzählungen“.28 Da die synoptischen Evangelien von 25 Vgl. G. Kurz, Künste, 235. 26 So die Darstellung bei D. Lange, „Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher. Über den Begriff der Hermeneutik (1829)“, in: Handbuch der Bibelhermeneutiken. Von Origenes bis zur Gegenwart (hg. v. O. Wischmeyer et al.; Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2016), 771–783, 776. 27 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik mit besonderer Beziehung auf das Neue Testament. Aus Schleiermachers handschriftlichem Nachlasse und nachgeschriebenen Vorlesungen hg. v. Dr. Friedrich Lücke (Friedrich Schleiermacher’s sämmtliche Werke. Erste Abtheilung. Zur Theologie. Siebenter Band; Berlin: G. Reimer, 1838), 155f. (im Folgenden wird diese Ausgabe abgekürzt als: F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1838]). – Moderne Textausgabe: Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik. Hg. und eingel. v. M. Frank (stw 211; Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1977), 185 (im Folgenden wird diese Ausgabe abgekürzt als: F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1977]). 28 D. Lange, „Begriff“, 780.

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Schleiermacher in dreifacher Weise als defizitär verstanden werden – sie sind nicht mehr als biographische Quellen, die z. B. genaue Orts- und Zeitangaben vermissen lassen, und stehen zudem hinter Johannes zurück –, werden auch deren Autoren nicht in den emphatischen Prozess der Textinterpretation einbezogen. Schleiermachers hermeneutische Neuansätze wirken folgerichtig in erster Linie auf die Leben-Jesu-Forschung nach,29 sind aber für die Erforschung der synoptischen Einzelevangelien, so auch für die Markusforschung, eher insignifikant. Zum anderen bleibt auch im Rahmen einleitungswissenschaftlicher Fragen oder in „Hermeneutik und Kritik“ eine Würdigung der Evangelisten als emphatisch zu erfassenden Autoren aus. Schleiermacher bezeichnet die Evangelisten zwar als „Schriftsteller“ und rechnet die Evangelien – ähnlich wie bereits Semlers Zeitgenosse Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)30 – den „historischen Schriften“ zu. Die Evangelien sind ‚Geschichtserzählungen‘31 – diese Bewertungen wird Overbeck (1882 und 1892) 100 Jahre später in Frage stellen.32 Im Rahmen der Bibelkritik in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jhs. werden die Evangelisten als geschichtlich verankerte Schriftsteller verstanden. Gleichwohl sind damit in erster Linie ‚Urheber‘ (auctores) von Schriften mit Einfluss und Ansehen (auctoritas) gemeint. Schleiermacher erkennt den Evangelisten noch keine schöpferischen oder programmatischen schriftstellerischen Eigenschaften zu, sondern sieht die Evangelien als „Aneinanderreihungen einzelner Erzählungen“.33 Als Vertreter der „Diegesenhypothese“34 vermisst Schleiermacher in den Evangelien eine „Identität des Zusammenhanges“. Dass die Evangelien vor allem „Zusammenstellungen von früher einzeln oder in andern Verbindungen vorhanden gewesenen Fragmenten seien“, bemängelt er insbesondere bei Matthäus und Lukas, weniger bei Markus und „gar nicht auf dieselbe Weise“ bei Johannes.35 Was Schleiermacher letztlich an den Evangelien fehlt, um sie von ihrem Autorbezug her verstehen zu können, ist nichts anderes als deren Rückbindung an den „Keimentschluß des Verf(assers)“.36 29 Vgl. etwa A. Schweitzer, Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung. 9. Aufl. Nachdruck der 7. Aufl. (UTB 1302; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1984), 100–105. 30 Vgl. dazu etwa Lessings „Theses aus der Kirchengeschichte“, v. a. § 46, wo Lessing die Evangelien als „Geschichtsbuch von Christo“ bezeichnet, in: G.E. Lessing, Werke Band III. Vermischte Schriften (München: Artemis & Winkler, 21995), 107–114, 113. 31 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1838], 124. 32 Vgl. F. Overbeck, Über die Anfänge der Kirchengeschichtsschreibung. Programm zur Rektoratsfeier der Universität Basel (Basel 1892/Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1965); ders., „Über die Anfänge der patristischen Literatur“, in: HZ 48 (1882), 417–472. 33 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1977], 217. 34 Vgl. U. Schnelle, Einleitung, 207f. 35 Alle Zitate F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1838], 110f. 36 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1977], 189

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Mit dem Aufkommen der sog. redaktionsgeschichtlichen Schule legte die Markusforschung dem Evangelisten als Textproduzenten eigenes Gewicht bei. Gemeinhin gilt William Wrede (1859–1906) als ‚Pionier‘ der redaktionsgeschichtlichen Fragestellung wie auch der Markusforschung als eines bibelwissenschaftlichen Spezialgebiets.37 Wredes Arbeit (1901) steht gleichwohl noch stark unter dem Eindruck der Evangelienforschung des 19. Jhs. – das gilt in dreifacher Hinsicht: Wie Schleiermacher bezeichnet Wrede Markus erstens als „Schriftsteller“ einer geschichtlichen Darstellung und stellt ihn zweitens in eine größere Nähe zu Johannes als zu den Seitenreferenten. Geprägt von den Fragen der Leben-Jesu-Forschung und der Wahrnehmung des begrenzten Quellenwertes der Evangelien gibt Wrede drittens die skeptische Erkenntnis wieder, dass „Markus… keine wirkliche Anschauung mehr vom geschichtlichen Leben Jesu“ gehabt habe.38 In eben den drei Punkten, in denen Wrede an die Bibelkritik und Hermeneutik des 19. Jhs. anschließt, weist er zugleich auch weiter und bereitet die redaktionsgeschichtliche Frage und ihre Folgeerscheinungen bis in die Gegenwart vor: Für Wrede ist Markus nämlich nicht nur Schriftsteller, sondern lässt sich hinsichtlich seiner „schriftstellerischen Art“ begreifen – als Schriftsteller hat Markus eine „Geschichtserzählung“ geschaffen39; Wrede hält die Frage nach dem Verhältnis des Markus zu Johannes dezidiert offen40. Er arbeitet die Unterscheidung von historischer Jesusforschung einerseits und (literaturgeschichtlich geprägter) Evangelienforschung andererseits weiter aus. Die Markusexegese wird sich erst im Laufe des 20. Jhs. als eigenes Gebiet so profilieren,41 dass sie fortan nicht nur von der Jesusforschung, sondern auch von der quellenkritisch bestimmten Bearbeitung der synoptischen Frage zu unterscheiden ist. Die redaktionskritische Forschung misst dem Evangelisten Markus als Textproduzenten nun zwar die Bedeutung bei, die ihm seit Aufkommen der bibelkritischen Forschung nicht zuerkannt worden war. Bahnbrechend hat hier Willi Marxsens (1919–1993) Monographie von 1956 gewirkt.42 Anders, als von Marxsen 37 W. Wrede, Das Messiasgeheimnis in den Evangelien. Zugleich ein Beitrag zum Verständnis des Markusevangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1901). 38 W. Wrede, Messiasgeheimnis, 129 (im Original gesperrt gedruckt). 39 W. Wrede, Messiasgeheimnis, 143 und 129. 40 S. dazu zuletzt die verschiedenen Beiträge in: E.-M. Becker/H.K. Bond/C. Williams (eds.), John’s Transformation of Mark (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). 41 Beispielhaft sei hier darauf verwiesen, dass erst in der 10. Auflage des KEK die Kommentierung des Markusevangeliums im Rahmen eines selbständigen Bandes erfolgt: Vgl. C. Breytenbach, „Das Markusevangelium“, in: E.-M. Becker/F.W. Horn/D.-A. Koch (Hgg.), Der ”Kritisch-exegetische Kommentar” in seiner Geschichte. H. A. W. Meyers KEK von seiner Gründung 1829 bis heute (KEK Sonderband; Göttingen/Bristol: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), 106–123, 109. 42 W. Marxsen, Der Evangelist Markus. Studien zur Redaktionsgeschichte des Evangeliums (FRLANT 67; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956; 21959).

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projektiert,43 der Markus durchaus als „Individuum“ und „Schriftstellerpersönlichkeit“ sah,44 gilt es allerdings zu bedenken, dass die redaktionsgeschichtliche Arbeit weithin auf den Schultern der Quellen- bzw. Literarkritik und der Form- bzw. Überlieferungskritik zu stehen kam und kommt.45 Solange der Evangelist als „Redaktor“ verstanden wird, beschränkt sich – der redaktionsgeschichtlichen Forschung zufolge – seine Tätigkeit im Wesentlichen darauf, dasjenige Material, das der Evangelist aus Quellen, quellenähnlichen Sammlungen oder vorgestalteten Traditionskomplexen schöpft, wiederzugeben und zusammenzustellen. Darüber hinaus bearbeitet der Evangelist die Materialien einerseits an den Nahtstellen der Überlieferung (Einleitung, Schluss) und andererseits hinsichtlich ihrer sprachlichen Gestalt, so dass sie den terminologischen, thematischen und theologischen Tendenzen seiner Gesamtschrift entsprechen. Auch wenn dem Evangelisten als Textproduzenten im Rahmen der redaktionsgeschichtlichen Methode selbständige sprachliche und theologische Interessen zuerkannt werden, bearbeitet er im Wesentlichen Quellen- und Überlieferungsmaterial. Eine genuine oder schöpferische Kraft bei der individuellen Konzeption und Ausarbeitung der Evangelienform hingegen wird weder Markus noch den Seitenreferenten wirklich zugestanden. So kommt auch die neutestamentliche Literaturgeschichte noch zu Beginn des 21. Jhs. – etwa bei Gerd Theißen (2007) oder Konrad Schmid/Jens Schröter (2019)46 – nicht grundsätzlich 43 „Unter Rekurs auf Johannes Weiß erläutert er [= Marxsen, E-MB], dass nach seiner Auffassung die Redaktionsgeschichte keinesfalls zwingend aus der Formgeschichte hervorgeht“: P.-G. Klumbies, „Die Markusinterpretation Willi Marxsens und ihre Konsequenzen für die Christologie“, in: ders., Das Markusevangelium als Erzählung (WUNT 408; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 191–212, 196. 44 W. Marxsen, Evangelist, 9: Markus hat – anders als Matthäus und Lukas – „lediglich anonyme Einzeltraditionen vor sich. Die Leistung der eigenen Gestaltung ist also hier ungleich höher. Markus bringt… als erster das individualistische Moment in die Formung und Gestaltung der Tradition hinein.“ 45 Vgl. etwa klassisch definiert bei U. Schnelle, Einführung in die neutestamentliche Exegese (UTB 1253; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 82014), 165: „Neben der Quellenkritik und der Textanalyse hat die Redaktionsgeschichte die Methodik und die Ergebnisse der Formgeschichte und der Traditionsgeschichte zur Grundlage.“ 46 Unter deutlich erkennbarer Nachwirkung der redaktionsgeschichtlichen Forschung klingen die Beschreibungen bei Theißen (2007) oder Schmid/Schröter (2019) differenzierter, bieten im Ergebnis aber Ähnliches wie Wendland: „Die synoptischen Evangelien lassen sich zwar als Sammlung und Edition von Jesusüberlieferung verstehen, aber auch in ihnen [wie in der Paulusschule, E-MB] benutzen profilierte Theologen und Schriftsteller das von ihnen entworfene Jesusbild, um eigene Akzente zu setzen“: G. Theißen, Die Entstehung des Neuen Testaments als literaturgeschichtliches Problem. Vorgetragen am 27. 11. 2004 (Schriften der Philosophisch-historischen Klasse der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften 40 [2007]; Heidelberg: Winter, 2007), 182. „Die Verfasser der synoptischen Evangelien haben die Überlieferungen vom Wirken und Geschick Jesu aufgegriffen, sprachlich und inhaltlich bearbeitet und in ihre Jesuserzählungen integriert“: K. Schmid/J. Schröter, Die Entstehung der Bibel. Von den ersten Texten zu den heiligen Schriften (München: C.H. Beck, 2019), 312.

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über die Bewertungen hinaus, die für große Teile der Evangelienforschung im 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jhs. bestimmend waren, wie Wendland (1912) beispielhaft zeigt: „Mc ist [bei allem berechtigten Vergleich mit Herodot, der Sammler und Künstler ist, EMB] vielmehr Sammler und Redaktor als Schriftsteller.“47

Auch in den dominierenden Paradigmen der gegenwärtigen Markusforschung48 – dem narrative criticism oder der historischen Gattungsanalyse, die das Markusevangelium wahlweise in Analogie zu Aretalogien, Drama, Roman oder historiographischer Biographie zu stellen sucht – wird Markus kaum als historischer Autor wahrgenommen und gewürdigt. Während von Seiten des narrative criticism das Markusevangelium letztlich auf einen „narrative text“49 oder einen „Erinnerungstext“, in dem höchstens eine „Erzählstimme“ agiert,50 reduziert wird, beschränken sich Gattungsgeschichte und genre criticism tendenziell darauf, das Markusevangelium entweder in Beziehung zu hellenistischen Vergleichsliteraturen zu setzen (historische Gattungsanalyse) oder das Gattungsprofil der frühesten Evangelienschrift mit Hilfe von (modernen) Literaturtheorien nachzuzeichnen (genre theory). Der Autor „Markus“ findet dabei höchstens als Platzhalter für den historischen Verfasser Erwähnung. So schreibt die Evangelien- bzw. Markusforschung letztlich weiterhin das Diktum Wendlands fort: „Eine schriftstellerische Individualität ist er [= Markus, E-MB] nicht.“51

2.2

Autorschaftskonzepte im Rahmen antiker Historiographie

Die Sicht auf das Markusevangelium als historiographische Schrift eröffnet dagegen heuristische Möglichkeiten, wie dessen „Autor“ in und hinter seinem Text als individueller, schöpferisch wirkender Schriftsteller aufgespürt und zugleich in Hinsicht auf sein Traditionsbewusstsein gewürdigt werden kann. Hier liegt eine weitere methodische Implikation (s. o.), die mit der Zuordnung des Markusevan47 P. Wendland, Literaturformen, 201. 48 Vgl. dazu etwa die Forschungsübersicht bei D. Dormeyer, Das Markusevangelium (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2005), bes. 82–137. 49 Vgl. etwa C. Breytenbach, „Current Research on the Gospel of Mark. A Report on Monographs Published from 2000–2009”, in: Mark and Matthew I. Comparative Readings: Understanding the Earliest Gospels in their First-Century Setting (ed. E.-M. Becker/A. Runesson; WUNT 271; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 13–32, 20. 50 S. Huebenthal, Das Markusevangelium als kollektives Gedächtnis (FRLANT 253; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 22018), 156 und 341. 51 P. Wendland, Literaturformen, 201. – D. Dormeyer, Das Neue Testament im Rahmen der antiken Literaturgeschichte. Eine Einführung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993), 225 bewertet den „Aufbau des Markusevangeliums“ als „eine individuelle Leistung“ – bindet diese Bewertung aber gerade nicht an den Autor zurück.

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geliums zur antiken Historiographie in Zusammenhang steht. Die folgende Darstellung fasst stichpunktartig Wesentliches zum Autorschaftskonzept in der antiken Historiographie zusammen, das ich früher ausführlich erarbeitet habe.52 (1) Antike Historiographen schreiben mit Autorbewusstsein. Das gilt seit Herodot (Hist. Pr.) für die griechisch-römische Historiographie, während die hellenistisch-jüdischen Historiographen in überwiegender Zahl – Josephus ist hier eine Ausnahme! – anonym oder pseudonym tätig sind. Auch bei Markus (vgl. Kommentare des Evangelisten in Mk 7,19; 13,14) ist in Ansätzen ein solches Autorbewusstsein erkennbar. Dieses entwickelt sich von Markus zu Lukas weiter (Lk 1,1–4) – beide Autoren jedoch verbleiben im literaturgeschichtlichen Paradigma frühjüdischer biblischer, parabiblischer und verwandter Literaturen. (2) Historiographen verwenden und bearbeiten Quellen – dies können mündliche, dokumentarische oder literarische Quellen und Überlieferungen sein. Die Quellenverwendung ist ein Wesensmerkmal von Historiographie. Durch seine Verwendung von Quellen stellt sich der Historiograph einerseits programmatisch in Traditionszusammenhänge. Umfang, Art und Funktion der Quellenverwendung sind andererseits dem Historiographen anheimgestellt – hier liegt der individuelle Ermessensspielraum, den der Historiograph schöpferisch (aus)gestaltet. (3) Der Historiker versteht sich in dem Sinne als ‚Augenzeuge‘, dass er entweder die von ihm erzähle Geschichte selbst miterlebt hat oder seine (mündlichen oder schriftlichen Quellen) selbständig in Augenschein nimmt. Beide Formen der Zeugenschaft gelten als ‚Autopsie‘. Von seinem Selbstverständnis her agiert der Historiker als Zeitzeuge, der zugleich ‚Gewährsmann‘ für die ‚Wahrheit‘ seiner Darstellung ist (zur zeitgenössischen Ambivalenz dieses Anspruchs vgl. Lukian). (4) Antike Historiographen sind Prosaschriftsteller. Sie nutzen die literarischen, narrativen, rhetorischen und stilistischen Potentiale der Prosaform (z. B. Exkurse, Reden) in unterschiedlichem Umfang und mit individueller Ausprägung. Was für Herodot gilt – es gelingt ihm, unterschiedlichste Formen wie Anekdoten, Sentenzen, Reden u. a. miteinander zu verbinden53 –, gilt ähnlich auch für den Autor Markus. Entwickelte sich Herodot, nach Wolfgang Will, durch die Abfassung seiner Historien vom „Ethnographen zum Historiographen“,54 so ließe sich für Markus Analoges sagen: Markus wurde vom Christusverkünder zum Historiographen. Speziell in hellenistischer Zeit 52 Vgl. dazu vor allem die monographischen Arbeiten: E.-M. Becker, Markus-Evangelium; dies., Birth. Vgl. auch verschiedene Aufsätze in: E.-M. Becker, Evangelist. 53 Vgl. W. Will, Herodot und Thukydides. Die Geburt der Geschichte (München: C.H.Beck, 2015), 84. 54 W. Will, Herodot, 47.

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wächst die Formenvielfalt im Bereich der Historiographie – es entstehen vielfältige neue Mikrogattungen historiographischen Erzählens wie die Evangelienform. (5) In hellenistischer Zeit, d. h. seit Alexander dem Großen, nimmt zugleich die Personenzentrierung in der griechisch-römischen und frühjüdischen Geschichtsschreibung zu. Neben dem zu beobachtenden Boom an biographischer Literatur in der frühen Kaiserzeit begegnen personenzentrierte Darstellungen bereits in geschichtlichen Monographien (bellum-Literatur z. B. Polybius) oder in der Evangelienliteratur. (6) Wie andere Schriftsteller so treten auch Historiographen intentional in einen literarischen Wettbewerb miteinander, insbesondere mit Vorgängerwerken (s. Lk 1,1–4). Sogar diejenigen Historiker, die sich nicht auf Vorgängerwerke beziehen können, sondern historiographische Erstentwürfe schaffen (z. B. Herodot), treten in einen expliziten Diskurs mit vorausliegenden Quellen, Überlieferungen oder ‚Meinungen‘ (z. B. Herodot Hist. 1,1; vgl. Mk 1,2–3). (7) Als ‚Augen- und Zeitzeugen‘ (s. o. (3)) verfolgen antike Historiographen bei ihrer literarischen Betätigung verschiedene Schreibinteressen: (7.1) In Anknüpfung an die annalistische und antiquarische Tradition verstehen sich Historiographen als Hüter von memoria und Vermittler von Wissen – sie schaffen literary memory und tragen dabei als Evangelienschreiber zur Identitätsbildung in der frühchristlichen Bewegung bei.55 (7.2) Antike Historiographen definieren einen ereignisgeschichtlichen Darstellungszeitraum und deuten mit ihrer Darstellung Zeit und Geschichte. (7.3) Antike Historiographen charakterisieren ihre Protagonisten und tragen dabei zur ethischen Bewertung von Geschichtsabläufen bei. (7.4) In der historiographischen Darstellung und Deutung ereignisgeschichtlicher Zusammenhänge oszillieren fact und fiction. Nicht nur erfordert und fördert die teils begrenzte Quellenbasis die Gestaltung fiktionaler Erzählelemente. Vielmehr regt die Verpflichtung zur ‚wahrheitsgemäßen‘ Darstellung die Historiographen dazu an, die faktuale Darstellung mit Hilfe von fiction zu veranschaulichen und zu profilieren. Gerade wichtige Merkmale von Autorschaft – wie etwa die eigenständige Schöpfung literarischer Fiktion56 – werden auch bei Markus in fiktionalen Erzählelementen (z. B. Mk 9,2ff.) greifbar. 55 An dieser Stelle sehe ich Bezüge zum Ansatz bei S. Huebenthal, Markusevangelium, bes. 96– 124. Vgl. auch E.-M. Becker, „Shaping Identity by Writing History: Earliest Christianity in its Making“, in: RRE 2 (2016), 152–169. – Vgl. dazu auch die Beiträge von S. Huebenthal und E.M. Becker, in: Themenheft: Markusevangelium ZNT 47 (2021), 89–99 und 101–106. 56 Vgl. S. Döpp, „Autor“, 62.

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Kurzer Ausblick: Ertrag für „Markus“ und die progymnasmata und weiterführende Fragen

„Markus“ ist eine Titelbezeichnung, die der Evangelienschrift erst später, wahrscheinlich im 2. Jh., beigegeben wurde.57 Über den Wert eines Paratextes hinaus58 suchte diese Bezeichnung das Werk anhand einer namentlich genannten Verfassergestalt zu identifizieren. Doch wer ist „Markus“? Wie nahe kann die Markusforschung „Markus“ als individuellem Autor der frühesten Evangelienschrift kommen? Die moderne Evangelienforschung hat lange gebraucht, um den Verfasser „Markus“ als Autorperson (wieder) zu entdecken und zu würdigen. Hat es die redaktionsgeschichtliche Forschung im Ergebnis nicht vermocht, in „Markus“ mehr als einen Bearbeiter von Traditionsgut zu erkennen, so lösen gegenwärtig narrative criticism, genre theory und historische Gattungsanalyse den Text erneut weitgehend von der Frage nach der Person des Autors ab. Ähnliches gilt übrigens auch für zeit- und sozialgeschichtliche Ansätze.59 Was aber ergibt die Perspektive auf das Markusevangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie? „Markus“ ist kein Schriftsteller, den wir – wie etwa Herodot oder Thukydides60 – aus seinem Werk heraus biographisch näher fassen könnten. Auch bietet der Text des Markusevangeliums letztlich wenig verwertbare Hinweise auf z. B. die Ortskenntnis des realen Verfassers, seine Sprachkompetenz oder seine religiöse Prägung.61 Die Auslegungsgeschichte zeigt zudem, dass es nicht möglich scheint, den in der Evangelienüberschrift genannten „Markus“ mit einer jener frühchristlichen Markus-Gestalten, die in verschiedenen neutestamentlichen Schriften Erwähnung finden, zu identifizieren.62 Das Autorschaftskonzept, das antiken Historiographen zu eigen ist, erlaubt aber auch im Falle des anonym verfassten Markusevangeliums einen Blick hinter die Fassade des Textes: Der Verfasser verwendet Quellen (oder quellenähnliche Sammlungen), versteht sich als Augen- und Zeitzeuge (Mk 14,51), betätigt sich als Prosaschriftsteller, wählt – wie viele andere hellenistische Autoren – die Perso57 Zu den Evangelienüberschriften vgl. S. Petersen, „Die Evangelienüberschriften und die Entstehung des neutestamentlichen Kanons“, in: ZNW 97 (2006), 250–274, 267 und 273. 58 S. Petersen, „Evangelienüberschriften“, 274. 59 Vgl. z. B. G. Gelardini, Christus Militans. Studien zur politisch-militärischen Semantik im Markusevangelium vor dem Hintergrund des ersten jüdisch-römischen Krieges (NT.S 165; Leiden etc.: Brill, 2016). Gelardini betrachtet den Text des Markusevangeliums nach einzelnen „Episoden“ – der ‚Autor‘ und dessen Profilierung begegnet nicht und wird auch nicht methodisch als eigene Größe bedacht (a. a. O., 31–36). 60 Vgl. etwa W. Will, Herodot, 60–66. 61 Vgl. zuletzt G. Guttenberger, Das Evangelium nach Markus (ZBK NT 2; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2017), 24f.; H. Bond, Biography, 78–90. 62 Vgl. etwa Apg 12,12.25; 15,37.39; Kol 4,10; Phlm 24; 2 Tim 4,11; 1 Petr 5,13.

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nenzentrierung, tritt – während er eine Erzählform neu generiert – in bestehende (literarische) Diskurse ein, agiert als Hüter von memoria (z. B. Mk 14,9), deutet Zeit- und Ereignisgeschichte (z. B. Mk 1,4–16,8 als Erzählrahmen; 1,14f. als Zeitdeutung), bewertet Handlungsträger und schafft so Identifikationsfiguren und kombiniert faktuales (z. B. Mk 15,20bff.) mit fiktionalem (z. B. Mk 9,2ff.) Erzählen. Aus diesen Eckpunkten eines „Phantombilds“ ergibt sich das Profil oder die Signatur einer Autorperson, die zugleich traditionsgebunden und schöpferisch innovativ, ja im besten Sinne des Autorschaftskonzepts „programmatisch“ tätig war: „Der A(utor) erstrebt nicht Schönheit, sondern höchste Durchschlagskraft der Aussage“.63 Die weitere Auswertung der hellenistisch-römischen progymnasmata, die Einsichten in zeitgenössische Kompositionstechniken erlauben, wird zusätzliche Rückschlüsse auf den Bildungsgrad und die Schreibtechnik des „Markus“ und dessen Autorsignatur ergeben.64 In der progymnasmata-Forschung liegt ein wichtiges, bisher zu wenig beachtetes Forschungsfeld, das gleichwohl perspektivisch darauf zielen muss, nicht nur literarische Einzelelemente in der Evangelienschrift aufzuspüren, sondern auch zu einer Beschreibung der Gesamtkomposition zu gelangen: Welche progymnasmatischen Elemente begegnen im Markusevangelium, und welches Bild ergibt sich von Markus als (historiographischem) Gesamtwerk?65 Im Übrigen hat Schleiermacher das Verdikt, die neutestamentlichen Schriftsteller seien literarisch ungebildet, mit den Worten zu entkräften gesucht: „Gehören diese Schriftsteller zur Klasse der ersten Verkündiger des Evangeliums, waren sie von den Prinzipien desselben auf eine eminente Weise durchdrungen, sind sie es gerade gewesen, die bewirkt haben, daß das Christentum seine bestimmte Stelle in der Welt eingenommen, so ist Besseres von ihnen anzunehmen.“66

Wichtiger noch ist allerdings, „Markus“ als individuellen historiographischen Autor wahrzunehmen, der Innovatives in Traditionsgebundenheit schafft und programmatisches Schreiben im Streben nach Durchschlagskraft – nicht nach Schönheit! – erreicht. Und all diejenigen, die weiterhin den Blick auf „Markus“ als schöpferisch tätige Autorengestalt für entbehrlich halten, weil sie sein Werk für sprachlich und stilistisch minderwertig halten, seien an Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) erinnert, der in seinem letzten Buch (2002) eindrucksvoll gezeigt hat, wie sich die Entwicklung der westlichen Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte 63 W. Schemme, „Autor II.“, in: HWPh 1 (1971), 722–723, 722. 64 Vgl. dazu J.P.B. Mortensen, A Literary Profile of Mark: Mark’s Educational Background (in Vorbereitung); vgl. dazu die weiteren Beiträge in diesem Band. – Ähnliche Fragen werden zuletzt in R.M. Calhoun et al. (eds.), Literary Criticism nicht aufgenommen. 65 S. o. Anm. 7 und 8. 66 F. Schleiermacher, Hermeneutik und Kritik [1977], 231.

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wesentlich aus der „Preference for the Primitive“ speist.67 Unter Verweis auf Ciceros genus-Lehre (De orat. 3,98) hielt Gombrich fest: „The more the artist knows how to flatter the senses, the more he will mobilize defences against this flattery.“68 Aus produktions- wie rezeptionsgeschichtlicher Sicht also erweist sich Markus als schöpferisch tätige Autorengestalt oder artist – zugleich als entscheidender Konstrukteur und programmatischer Promotor frühchristlichen Geschichtsdenkens.

67 E.H. Gombrich, The Preference for the Primitive: Episodes in the History of Western Taste and Art (London: Phaidon, 2002). 68 E.H. Gombrich, Preference, 27.

Matthew D. C. Larsen

According to Mark as Hypomne¯mata: From Working Document to Pre-Literary Notes

My recent book, Gospels before the Book, showed how the earliest readers and users of According to Mark regarded it and used it not as “a book that was finished and published by an author,” but as an open and unfinished collection of notes.1 I was invited to contribute to this volume to build on the argument of the book in reference to the question of genre, ancient education, and Theon’s Progymnasmata.2 I will further my book’s argument here by asking: What kind of unfinished notes (ὑπομνήματα or other similar terms) was According to Mark and how does this relate to ancient education and use of rhetorical devices. According to Mark contains signs of being produced by someone with a degree of ancient education and traces of rhetorical devices. It is a story and not a string of non-sequential jottings, such as the Saying Source Q or According to Thomas. It is well known that According to Mark has signs of crafting, even perhaps careful crafting.3 While it lacks signs of literary polish, the textual tradition (as we have it) certainly shows signs of being told again-and-again. Put colloquially, it does not read as polished literature but it is broken in and well-worn. Ὑπομνήματα and commentarii do not belong so much to the world of literary genre as they do to the world of textual genre—the world of texts as working documents. That is, it is not like asking, “Is it a spy novel or a history textbook?” as asking, “Is it a 1 Matthew D. C. Larsen, Gospels before the Book (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). 2 I will not be repeating the claims of my book here, but building on them. In the book I lay out my argument for viewing According to Mark as an open or unfinished collection of notes, as its earliest readers and users did. That is, it was consistently read and used as ὑπομνήματα or some other set of similar descriptors. I also show that viewing the textual tradition, internally, as a set of open-ended notes solves a number of old problems with respect to According to Mark. In this essay, I will ask the question: what kind of ὑπομνήματα was According to Mark. 3 I acknowledge both an overall narrative structure and concentric circles of narrative logic, as well as a variety of stylistic features. For example, in my book I write: “One need not think in binary terms. It is not the case that [the textual tradition now known to us as the Gospel according to Mark] is either a narrative without any note collections or a collection of notes with no narrative structure whatsoever. Rather, it is an unfinished collection of notes with narrative logic.” Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 134.

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broadsheet newspaper or a Google doc?” According to Mark, in this analogy, is more like a Google doc than an author’s monograph published by a famous university press. Signs of education or rhetorical features do not mean that According to Mark was not experienced as unfinished notes. These are not mutually exclusive categories. Julius Caesar and Plutarch wrote commentarii and ὑπομνήματα. They possessed great rhetorical skill and enjoyed a good education, and yet also wrote rough and unpolished writings, which participated in the widespread and recognizable category of “unfinished” texts.4 Jewish writers also, like Josephus and the producers of the Community Rule texts from Qumran, wrote several editions and multiple authorized editions of their works, some more “corrected” or polished than others.5 My argument in this paper is twofold: (1) According to Mark was produced as para-literary notes and subsequently used as pre-literary notes and (2) as para-literary notes it possessed signs of rhetorical devices (such as irony and rhetorical questions) that were a part of its use as effective teaching notes. That is, According to Mark was produced as a working document containing signs of rhetorical education yet was received as an unfinished draft in need of continuation, correction, and revision.

1.

Varieties of Ὑπομνήματα

Ὑπομνήματα and commentarii were terms used to refer to many different types of texts, from pieces of everyday writing such as birth announcements to works read in modern-day Classics departments as paragons of Greek and Latin style and syntax. By dubbing something as ὑπομνήματα or commentarii, a text was being categorized in relation to its current level of polishedness, publicness, and literariness. It was being marked as a textual object other than a finished work of literature. The question was utility, rather than style. This is not to say that ὑπομνήματα/commentarii must have zero traces of literary stylistics. Rather they existed in a textual universe outside of, in parallel to, or en route to works of literature. To illustrate, I organize examples into three groups: non-literary, paraliterary, and pre-literary. First, ὑπομνήματα and commentarii can refer to non-literary texts. They can be birth announcements and death certificates—never intended to have any sort of narrative existence.6 They can be memoranda of sale.7 One could use the term 4 5 6 7

See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 11–36. See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 59–78. SB 4.7359 (Oct.–Nov. 111 CE); P. Tebt. 2.300 (9 Feb. 151 CE). O. Ber. 2.126 (16 Sept, 61 CE): a sale between a named individual (Kalleis, son of Haropchration) and a soldier of the cohors Ituraeorum.

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ὑπόμνημα to refer to an arrest warrant. For instance, there is a ὑπόμνημα from Sept 29, 71 CE in Karanis (Arsinoites) that identifies itself as a petition to a centurion requesting the arrest of two people that the petition accused of stealing olives.8 P. Oxy. 75.5055 (dated to the 2nd century CE) uses the term ὑπόμνημα to refer to the minutes of a legal hearing. It can also refer to an application, as in P. Ryl. 4.599, which is an application from a 68-year-old-man for admission to the gerousia.9 Tombstones inscriptions identify their text as a ὑπόμνημα.10 It can refer to bankers’ notes or exercise regimens left by physical trainers for their patients.11 One word could be used to refer to all of these various kinds of documents. The English word “notes” is the only word I can think of that roughly captures this staggering array of potential meanings. What they have in common is they are textual objects or documents, not literature, nor related to literature in any direct sense. They are textual objects that exist outside the textual universe of works of literature. Second is the category of para-literary ὑπομνήματα, which were not works of literature, but relate to literature in some parallel way. Some are parasitic, depending on other works of literature for their existence. A good example of this type would be the commentary tradition that emerges around the Homeric epics. These commentaries are called ὑπομνήματα.12 Another instance of a para-literary ὑπομνήματα would be lecture notes taken by students. A prime example is Arrian’s notes on the teachings of Epictetus.13 Arrian recorded notes of the lectures of Epictetus, who never wrote. Arrian called his lecture notes ὑπομνήματα. These notes were somehow published without Arrian’s consent, and he later added a preface making clear that his notes were not published works of literature. Arrian was not the author of what he wrote. Another example would be the technical

8 P. Oslo. 2.21 (29 Sept, 71 CE). See also P. Princ. 3.117 (55/54–4/3 BCE); P. Oslo 3.123 (12 Nov, 22 CE); P. Mich. 18.778 (193/192 BCE); P. Ryl. 2.135 (17 April, 34 CE); P. Ryl. 2.139 (23 July 34 CE). 9 P. Ryl. 4.599. Date: 28 Oct–27 Nov, 226 CE. 10 See Ath. Mitt. vol. 29, pp. 294–312. See also LSJ, s.v. ὑπόμνημα. THe entry in LSJ identifies the tomb itself as the ὑπόμνημα, but from the examples offered in Mitteilungen des deutschen archdologischen Instituts, Athenische, Vol. 29 it seems clear the ὑπόμνημα refers to the text inscribed on the tomb that described the one buried under the tomb, rather than the tomb itself. 11 Demosthenes 49.5; Plato, Statesman 295. See also Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 19–21; Matthew D. C. Larsen and Mark Letteney, “Christians and the Codex: Generic Materiality and Early Gospel Traditions,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 27.3 (2019): 383–415. 12 For instance, scholion B 133a refers to one of these commentaries as τὰ κατ᾽ Ἀριστοφάνην ὑπομνήματα Ἀριστάρχου. See Matthew D. C. Larsen, “Correcting the Gospel: Putting the titles of the Gospels in historical context,” in Rethinking ‘Authority’ in Late Antiquity: Authorship, Law, and Transmission in Jewish and Christian Tradition (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 78–103. 13 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 11–58.

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handbooks of doctors or other experts of techne¯.14 Such ὑπομνήματα, while working hard to disavow themselves as works of literature, exist in some kind of a liminal space between the non-literary and the literary.15 Another example that gives a sense of this type of para-literary notes would be P. Oxy. XVII. 2070. It is a fragmentary papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus that has been dated to the 3rd century CE of what appears to be a Jewish-Christian dialogue. More specifically, it seems to be an ongoing writing project of someone who was producing an anti-Jewish piece of writing. What is significant about this papyrus is that it has several corrections and rewritings throughout the dialogue. The main body and the corrections/rewritings were created by the same person, being in the same hand.16 Here we see someone producing (what I would like to call) a working document. More like a Google doc than a finished book. What is not clear from this fragmentary papyrus is whether or not the creator of the dialogue ever hoped to offer this dialogue to the general public as published literature.17 A third category is pre-literary ὑπομνήματα. These are texts that are created with the purpose of becoming or contributing to future works of literature yet are explicitly not literature themselves. They are drafts or “works-in-progress.”18 Sometimes they are created to be archives or raw material from which someone might produce works of literature. One of the more famous examples of this is Julius Caesar’s Gallic War, which is typically used as an exemplar of excellence in Latin style and syntax. Cicero complains that Caesar wrote commentarii of his military victories in Gaul, but that his “notes” of his time in Gaul possessed such 14 Galen, for instance, read his opponent Julian the Methodist’s works against Hippocrates’s Aphorisms and then over a six-day period Galen recorded improvised notes used for a demonstration against Julian, which later became his Against Julian. See Adv. Jul. 2.2 (18 A,253K). 15 See, for example, the discussion of Cicero, Julius Caesar, and Hirtius in Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 12–17. 16 P. Oxy. XVII.2070 (notes from editors, p. 9). Thus, P. Oxy. 2070 “is difficult to explain,” were it not the working notes of the initial creator of the dialogue. Further, “the substitution of τὸ κατὰ τήν for τὸ τῆς in l. 43 and λογίων for γραφῶν in l. 45 can hardly be mere correction of copyist errors” (P. Oxy. 17. 2070; notes from editors, p. 10). 17 Another similar example of such para-literary texts would be the community rule texts found at Qumran. See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 59–69. They exist in multiple versions without a linear relationship between them and contain textual corrections. These were not produced to become works of literature. Their concern was different: to be read and used by instructors (maskilim) of the community. These, being in Hebrew, do not identify themselves with the Greek word ὑπομνήματα, but it is not hard to imagine that had a Hellenistic Jewish writer (Philo or Josephus) read them they would have used precisely this term to describe them. They exhibit a priority of utility over literary polishedness, of revision and ongoing usage over finality, of process over product. 18 Sean Gurd, Work-in-Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

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literary polish that no one could have possibly taken them and polished them any further in their own work of literature, thus eclipsing their advertised purpose as commentarii. Aulus Hirtius, who was consul in 43 BCE, also acknowledged that Caesar’s commentarii were meant to be used by subsequent historians in the creation of their own works of literature, but that the “notes” were so polished that improvement was impossible. Therefore, rather than rewriting what Caesar had “drafted,” he decided to continue the Gallic Wars by adding an eighth book, picking up the unfinished work where Caesar had left it in Alexandria in 48/47 BCE.19 Another example comes from Aulus Gellius’s Attic Nights, which is famous for its highly intricate literary and linguistic sophistication, yet at the same time claiming to be commentarii: a commonplace book. In his preface, he characterizes his work “as an aid to my memory, like a kind of literary storehouse, so that when the need arose of a subject or a word which I chanced for the moment to have forgotten, … I could readily find and produce it.”20 While he claims that his commentarii are arranged topically or by word, and not in terms of order of narrative sequence, there is a clear overall narrative structure (in progress?) toward becoming the finished work. The advertised utility of such commentarii is as a sort of external memory, sorted according to word or subject in such a way as to be “readily [found] and produce[d].”21 Another illustrative example is the ὐπομνήματα that Josephus produced in the process of creating his Jewish War. As a prisoner in the Roman camp, he would write down all the events he saw and heard about from informers, having a unique position to stay most informed, being a prisoner himself and able to understand the native tongue of his comrades in the prison camp. During that time, nothing happened that escaped my attention. For I saw everything that happened in the Roman camp and I was writing it all down carefully and I alone understand all the news that the deserters reported. Later when I found some time for leisure in Rome, after all my materials had been prepared, I used some literary collaborators for help with the Greek language. That’s how I produced the tradition of what happened.22

What Josephus wrote would eventually become a work of history—but only later when he would find free time in the city of Rome, under the watch of the Flavian 19 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 12–17; Gurd, Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance (New York; Oxford University Press, 2012), 56–66; Christina Shuttleworth Kraus, “Hair, History, and Hegemony: Caesar’s Style and its Earliest Critics,” in Aspects of the Language of Latin Prose, ed. Tobias Reinhardt et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 97–98. 20 Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. praef. 1–2 (Rolfe, LCL). 21 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 125–127. 22 Josephus, Ag. Ap. 1.49–50. See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 52–53.

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emperors. During his time in the prison camp, he took down many notes. These surely would have had some kind of a narrative framework or, more likely, multiple overlapping yet not entirely coherent narrative frameworks. He had enough education at that time to be literate and thus would have learned the Progymnasmata-like forms of writing and incorporated them into his notes. Nonetheless, his command of Greek was such that he required collaborators to help him polish his Greek style and syntax for publication to a Roman imperial context. Whatever he wrote in the prison camp was not a finished work of literature. It was the rough and raw material from which he created his history of the Jewish War with Rome. A papyrus example of pre-literary notes comes from P. Berol. 11632. Sean Gurd has recently published on this papyrus showing that it demonstrates an author in the process of polishing, rewriting, and improving his writing.23 P. Berol. 11632 is a second century CE papyrus that narrates the siege of Rhodes by Demetrius Poliorketes (in 304 BCE). In addition to showing the author in the process of rewriting and revision, it also has striking similarities to Diodorus Siculus’s account of the same event,24 which adds a further layer to the textual exchange and rewriting.25 Here is one example of authorial revisions visible on the manuscript: line two begins with the first half of the name Amyntas (i. e. Amy-; Αμυ —), but then the writer realizes that the transition from the previous episode above to the new one is too abrupt. So, the writer strikes through Amy- and adds “And they did those things as I have said. Now Amyntas, sailing …” (κ[α]ὶ τὰ μὲν οὑ´ [τωc ´ἐπρη]ξαν. Ἀμύντηc δὲ πλέων . . . ), which is taken to be a smoother transition from one episode to another.26 This papyrus seems to give us clear material evidence of a writer polishing their pre-literary notes into a more literary form. There are both differences and similarities between the wide spectrum of non-, para-, and pre-literary notes. All required a degree of ancient education to be able to produce. Both para-literary and pre-literary would have often contained recognizable rhetorical devices or literary elements in some moment of editing. The question that remains to address is: if it is permissible to speak of According to Mark as open or unfinished notes, what kinds of notes would it have been?

23 Sean Gurd, “Revision in Greek literary papyri,” in Probabilities, Hypotheticals, and Counterfactuals in Ancient Greek Thought, ed. Victoria Wohl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 160–184. 24 See Diodorus Siculus, Lib. 20.93–94. 25 Gurd, “Revision,” 164. 26 Gurd, “Revision in Greek Literary Papyri,” 168.

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2.

According to Mark as Ὑπομνήματα

Over the past century we have witnessed an emerging binary of opinions about the education, literary skill, and even intelligence of “Mark.” Some have asserted that “Mark” had bad Greek and was a simple, uneducated compiler of tradition. Others read According to Mark as crafted by the hand of a literary genius, an author-figure that we now call “Mark.” Is there a way through this impasse? A third option? My approach has been characterized by some as a return to the form critics, treating According to Mark as though it had no signs of intelligent and meaningful literary features or signs of education. I would disagree with this assessment and assert that a correct understanding of what ὑπομνήματα were does not side thoroughly with the form critics or the narrative or performance critics, but interrogates the terms of engagement altogether, and perhaps, provides a way through the impasse. To determine what kind of unfinished notes According to Mark could have been, let me highlight some of the rough and unpolished elements of the textual tradition as well as some of the more carefully crafted elements, as well as some signs of literary education. Firstly, According to Mark uses the conjunctive καί and the adverb εὐθύς/εὐθέως extravagantly. As is well known, the textual tradition contains the adverb εὐθύς and its variant εὐθέως forty-two times.27 This lack of linguistic creativity creates the perception that the Markan Jesus was always harried and in a great rush. Similarly, the overuse of the conjunctive καί is a striking feature. Statistically speaking, in the first collection of notes that I delineate in my book (Mark 1:21– 3:6), 81.9% of the verses begin with καί and only 9.7% of the verses begin with anything other than καὶ/δέ. While most translations work to cover up this redundancy, I visualize the usage of καί in Mark 3, for example, in an appendix to illustrate how καί functions almost as a punctuation mark. This is precisely the kind of thing one would have written in an unfinished, working document (for use in everyday sort of speech and probably reflecting everyday speech), and precisely the kind of thing one would revise in later, more literary versions. As a case in point, we see this pattern happening as gospel traditions moves from According to Mark to According to Matthew. It is not useful to give a specific example here, as the pattern is so widespread, but it is more useful to look at the data itself. Based on the text as we have it in the most recent Nestle-Aland critical edition of the New Testament, καὶ accounts for 1,091 out of 11,304 words in According to Mark, or 9.7% of the total word count. In According to Matthew,

27 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 128.

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however, there is a 34% reduction in usage of the word καί.28 This is the sort of revision one made in revising an open or unfinished set of notes in Antiquity. In fact, we see exactly this sort of revision—replacing an overuse of καί with more literary conjunctive transitions—in P. Berol. 11632 mentioned above. On line 6 of P. Berol. 11632, the initial draft reads: αἵρεε καὶ βελέων δη|[μιουργοὺς. But the author later revises the initial καί with τε. Because τε is postpositive, something must precede it in the new clause. The author then adds πολλούς as an adjective further describing the workers (δημιουργοὺς).29 Of course, every writer will inevitably need to use the word καί at some points, but its overuse is something we would expect in ὑπομνήματα and expect to be reduced through revision in more polished works. I see the use of καί in the Gospel according to Mark is neither “bad Greek” nor some sort of creative literary invention. Rather it is what one might find in a working document or in a draft, which one would also expect not to see in more polished pieces of literature. Similarly, According to Mark contains a variety of grammatical errors. These are the kinds of things that have led some to refer to the Gospel according to Mark having “bad Greek.” Robert Stein, for example, points out several places where the Greek contains what he calls “the inferior quality of Markan grammar.”30 I would prefer to refer to many of these examples not as “bad Greek” but as the kind of Greek one might have heard as one walked through the forum of some provincial town in the Roman empire. It is not “bad” so much as common, everyday, or non-literary. Perfectly fine Greek to speak, but less than ideal to put in literature. One clear example of this type comes in Mark 16:6, in which the angel speaks to the women at the tomb. The Greek text according to the Nestle-Aland 28 reads: ἴδε ὁ τόπος ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν· If the producer(s) of the According to Mark were to turn this sentence in on an assignment in an undergraduate ancient Greek composition course, they would be marked as incorrect on at least two accounts. First, the sentence requires a plural imperative rather than singular, changing ἴδε to ἴδετε, because the angel was speaking to two women. Second, the object of the verb should be in the accusative, not the nominative. The clause should read: ἴδετε τὸν τόπον ὅπου ἔθηκαν αὐτόν. We have proof that some ancient readers thought this was the kind of Greek that needed to be polished or corrected, because this is

28 The number drops to 6.4% of the total word count (1,178/18,345). By comparison, in the Gospel according to John, καί accounts for 5.3% of the total word count [828/15,635). 29 Gurd, “Revision in Greek Literary papyri,” 169. 30 Robert H. Stein, Studying the Synoptic Problem: Origin and Interpretation, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 56–59.

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precisely the correction that According to Matthew makes to the textual tradition, while According to Luke avoids the phrase altogether.31 Another such example comes in Mark 10:20.32 In this verse, Jesus discusses how to keep the law with a young man. The young man replies: Διδάσκαλε, ταῦτα πάντα ἐφυλαξάμην. Both According to Matthew and According to Luke use the text in question as a source, and both correct the aorist middle verb ἐφυλαξάμην to the aorist active ἐφύλαξα. Concerning this, Robert Stein writes: “Mark has used a less common form of the verb.”33 The middle voice of φυλάσσω can have the sense of keeping watch, avoiding something or bearing something in mind,34 which would make a degree of sense in the context of Mark 10. Yet, the active of φυλάσσω is the more proper Greek voice to have the sense of keeping or observing a law or set of laws,35 which is the context of the young man’s conversation with Jesus. And, again, According to Matthew and According to Luke confirm this infelicity in proper literary Greek, when they both change the verb from ἐφυλαξάμην to ἐφύλαξα. Thus, this is not a sign so much of “bad Greek” or even wrong Greek, as it is a sign of lack of careful editing and revision, or at least lack of concern to edit for literary polish. A similar correction happens in P.Berol. 11632, when the author corrects the gender of γεινόμεναν to γεινόμενον, which is the correct use of gender for that context. These are the sort of mistakes made in drafts and fixed in revisions. In these instances, According to Matthew and According to Luke serve as concrete evidence from Antiquity of people finding the Greek of According to Mark to be unpolished and in need of rewriting. According to Mark also contains several unnecessary or incorrect details. While many examples could be given, for the sake of space I will focus on one pericope as an exemplar: Mark 5:1–20. As is well known, Mark 5:2–7 offers an abundance of details concerning the demoniac from Gerasa and his encounter with Jesus, and Matt 8:28–29 and Luke 8:26–28 cut out many of these details. According to Matthew takes the 58 words in Mark 5:3–5 and reduces them to 11. Besides multiplying one demoniac into two, the overall picture of the man does not change so much as the fine grain details of his condition are blurred out. The 31 δεῦτε ἴδετε τὸν τόπον ὅπου ἔκειτο. A similar instance is Mark 13:1, where the disciple say, ἴδε ποταποι᾿ λίθοι καὶ ποταπαί οι᾿δοδομαί, and According to Matthew (24:1) and According to Luke (21:5) acknowledge the problem and edit this part of the saying out. See also Mark 3:34 where According to Matthew changes the ambiguous and potentially misleading ἴδε to the much more common ι᾿δοῦ (Matt 12:49) and According to Luke omits the phrase altogether (Luke 8:19–21). At bottom, while it technically possible to take ἴδε as a particle, this is rarer and both According to Luke and According to Matthew note it as a problem in their rewriting of gospel tradition. 32 Stein, Synoptic Problem, 56–59. 33 Stein, Synoptic Problem, 56–59. 34 See LSJ, s.v., C.I.2; C.II. 35 See LSJ, s.v., A, B.2.b.

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later, more revised versions of gospel tradition are the shorter ones, as was also the case with the drafts and finished versions of some of Philodemus’s writings.36 One possible objection to viewing According to Mark as ὑπομνήματα might be that passages such as Mark 5:1–20 offer more vivid details that are experienced as moving to modern readers, and thus it is better “literature.” Again, this fails to appreciate how such notes worked in antiquity. This kind of collecting and recording of details that are of interest but not strictly necessary is exactly the kind of thing we might expect from ancient notes, especially notes that are part of a “working document”. The first century CE philosopher, teacher, and miracleworker, Apollonius of Tyana never wrote his teachings and the first published biography of him comes from the 3rd century writer, Philostratus. Philostratus claims, however, that one of the sources he used and rewrote were the notes (ὑπομνήματα) of Damis of Ninos, who was a disciple of the teacher. Concerning Damis, Philostratus’s writes: Damis’s Scrap Book was composed for this purpose, that he wished nothing about Apollonius to go unknown, but even his asides and random remarks to be recorded. It is worth noting the retort he made to a man who criticized this pursuit.37

Such disciples’ notes were precisely the kind of textual genre that would have recorded and preserved erroneous details, that are interesting but not necessary to any particular narrative. Similar to According to Mark, Damis’s style was “clear but rather unskilled” (σαφῶς μέν, οὐ μὴν δεξιῶς).38 According to Philostratus, Julia Domna (empress and wife of Septimus Severus) discovered them and asked him to turn them into proper literature: The notebooks containing the memoirs of Damis were unknown until a member of his family brought them to the attention of the empress Julia. Since I was a member of her salon (for she admired and encouraged all rhetorical discourse), she set me to alter these works of Damis and to take care over their style.39

Part of the revision from the unfinished notes of a disciples’ working document to a piece of literature involved removing unnecessary details and adding literary polish to the style. According to Mark, while it contains fewer stories, often provides the longest version of a story with the most (arguably unnecessary, though often enjoyed by modern readers) details. This fits with its reading as a collection of notes or a disciple’s working document and not (yet) literature or a book published by an author.

36 37 38 39

See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 69–72. Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, 1.19 (Jones, LCL) Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, 1.3 (Jones, LCL). Philostratus, Vita Apollonii, 1.3 (Jones, LCL).

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Additionally, According to Mark contains geographical errors. In Mark 5:1, the text recorded that Jesus came across the Sea of Galilee and landed in Gerasa. This is modern day Jerash, Jordan. This is nearly 40 miles south-by-southeast of the Sea of Galilee. In Mark 5:13, it says that the pigs into which the demons had gone “rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and were drowned in the sea” (NRSV). Thus, the text demands a scenario in which thousands of demon-possessed pigs ran the only recorded porcine ultramarathon in all of human history —from Jerash to the Sea of Galilee. There are textual variants to 5:1, but this seems to be the oldest part of the textual tradition.40 It is possible According to Mark meant the town of Gadara (six miles away from the Sea of Galilee) or the town of Kursi, which is near the Sea of Galilee and has traditionally been associated with the site. Either way, there is a problem of misstatement in the text. According to Matthew takes the path of least resistance and revises the story to read the region of Gadara (Matt 8:28), while According to Luke, whose producer was also unaware of the geography of lower Galilee (and thus the problematic claim), leaves the event as happening (impossibly) in the region of Gerasa. With the other “errors” mentioned above, these are not so much signs of “bad Greek” or lack of education as signs of lack of textual revision of a working document, whose producers had other priorities.41 In contrast to the presence of unnecessary details, According to Mark also contains many ambiguities and potentially misleading statements. I offer only one example here. In Mark 6:1–6a, Jesus returns to Nazareth, his hometown, and things do not go well. They did not believe in him there and “he was not able to do any miracles there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them.” The Greek offers the jarring “was not able,” which is itself ambiguous, but certainly opens the possibility for one to read that Jesus lacked the power to do a miracle. According to Matthew changes the phrase to “he did not do any miracles there, because of their unbelief,” which is much less ambiguous. In P. Berol. 11632, we witness the author similarly filling in ambiguities as a part of the process of revising his draft. In the last line of Column 2 (line 48), the author had written “when a herald came from Demetrius.” He then seems to notice the ambiguity of the sentence and later revises to add “to talk about ransom,” in order to clarify the purpose of the arrival of the herald. Thus, the papyrus demonstrates that attention to potential ambiguities was a part of (at least one) ancient writers’ concerns during the process of revising a text. According to Matthew was treating According to Mark in a way analogous to how the writer of P. Berol. 11632 revised his own draft. 40 See Adela Yarbro Collins, Mark: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 263–264. 41 Given the lateness of the manuscript tradition, it is not possible to speak out spelling errors, which were likely also part of the early iterations of the Gospel.

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At the same time, however, According to Mark also has several signs of education and careful crafting of stories and even use of rhetorical devices. I will briefly point to two: its use of rhetorical questions, its use of irony, and its reversal of auditory expectations. In the textual tradition of According to Mark (as we now have it), the character of Jesus asks 60 questions (see Appendix B). 59 of these questions come from 1:1 to 14:48. This comes out to a question in nearly every 10th verse on average (10.05%). Of these 59 questions, I read 48 of them as fitting nicely under the rubric of what ancient rhetorical handbooks would call a “rhetorical question” (ἐρώτησις). In the Aristotelian tradition, for example, questions (ἐρώτησις) were used as a means of recapitulation, showing that one had effectively succeeded in a rhetorical showdown against an opponent.42 Similarly, Rhetorica Ad Herennium 4.15 notes that rhetorical questions were used to sum up and amplify one’s points against an adversary. In According to Mark, Jesus asks 48 such rhetorical questions throughout the story, with the clear effect of coming off as commanding both to his disciples and in the face of his opponents. In the last 80 verses, however, there is only one question, which by percentage drops from 10.05% of verses to 1.25%. Furthermore, this last question may be best categorized not as a rhetorical question but as an ἀπορία, which expresses confusion, weakness, and doubt.43 No answer is given to an aporia question, because it is already anticipated.44 Thus, both ἐρώτησις and ἀπορία are both “rhetorical,” but they serve directly opposite rhetorical functions. One serves to express control of a situation; one expresses helplessness. One serves to express confidence; one expresses despair. The final question in the Gospel according to Mark, and the only one in the last 80 verses, is: “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” This is an ἀπορία question. Thus, the producer of According to Mark strategically employed the kinds of questions one would learn about in ancient education contexts, and there is a dramatic change in the usage as the story proceeds. This does not stand in contradiction to the claim that According to Mark was ὑπομνήματα. Many ὑπομνήματα had elements of careful rhetorical crafting and signs of education. It does suggest, however, that According to Mark 42 Aristotle, Rhetoric, 3.19.5; cf. also Ps-Aristotle, Rhet. Alex., 20.5. 43 Such questions were common in Greek tragedy and similar types of literature. Ashton Waugh McWhorter, “A Study of the So-called Deliberative Type of Question (τί ποιήσω;) as found in Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,” Transactions and Proceeding of the American Philological Association 41 (1910): 157. A. W. McWhorter noted that the typical ἀπορία in narratives such as Greek tragedies involves the following: the speaker, in the midst of a difficulty, may find himself perplexed, distressed, entirely at a loss, and then the question, whether in the form of an appeal to another or self-addressed, amounts to an expression — an exclamation — of grief, of despair” (emphasis his). 44 Ibid. LSJ, s.v., lists a gloss of ἀπορία used in dialectic as a question for difficulty, discussion, or puzzle.

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was a regularly used “work-in-progress” working document for teaching and preaching purposes. In my book, I argue that According to Mark breaks down in five collections of notes, which could have served as a basis for teaching or preaching, and these rhetorical devices suggest this material was used again-andagain. The textual tradition of According to Mark (as we now have it) shows signs of good and well-worn oral storytelling (recorded in written form) but not (yet) good literature. Similarly, According to Mark uses irony in a way that coheres with the constellation of definitions of irony that appear in ancient rhetorical handbooks. A degree of fixity and flexibility exists in the discussion of key terms in the ancient rhetorical handbooks, but it is often surprising to see the degree of uniformity— and the use of irony (ει᾿ρωνεία, ironia) is one such example. The definition that seems to constitute something of a center comes from Pseudo-Aristotle’s Rhetorica ad Alexandrum: Ει᾿ρωνεία δ᾽ἐστὶ λέγειν προσποιούμενον ἢ [ἐν] τοῖς ἐναντίοις ὀνομασι τὰ πράγματα προσαγορεύειν.45 The key elements in this definition are: (1) saying the opposite of what is meant (2) while pretending not to say it. It is a form of doublespeak.46 Cicero says that such an ironic inversion of the meaning of a word is a time-tested means of provoking laughter. Quintilian considered jokes and irony closely linked to one another. In Institutio Oratoria, 6.3.68, Quintilian’s suggested irony to be used as a joke at the mockery of an opponent’s death. This precise kind of irony appears throughout Mark 15. Jesus’s opponents used irony in a joking manner to mock his death. For example, the soldiers mock Jesus by dressing him in purple, the color of royalty, and then salute him as King of the Jews. As the discussion above implies, this was meant to provoke laughter among Jesus’s opponents by saying the opposite of what they believed to be true, while mocking his death. They said he was King of the Jews, but they believed and intended to communicate the exact opposite. There are several examples of this type of rhetorical irony in Mark 15:25–32. In particular, the two sets of mocking statements (15:29–30, 15:31–32) use a doublespeak to provoke mockery and laughter from Jesus’s opponent. 29 Καὶ οἱ παραπορευόμενοι ἐβλασφήμουν αὐτὸν κινοῦντες τὰς κεφαλὰς αὐτῶν καὶ λέγοντες· Οὐὰ ὁ καταλύων τὸν ναὸν καὶ ⸂οι᾿κοδομῶν ἐν τρισὶν ἡμέραις⸃, 30 σῶσον σεαυτὸν ⸀καταβὰς ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ.

45 Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, 21. 46 Cicero, while discussing how to begin a speech in an indirect way (as opposed to a frank way), says that such an ironic inversion of the meaning of a word is a time-tested means of provoking laughter. Yet, as Aristotle said, irony shows contempt (καταφρονητικὸν γὰρ ἡ ει᾿ρωνεία; Ars Rhetorica, 2.2.25). An example of this type of humor may elucidate the way irony function to create laughter.

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31 ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς ἐμπαίζοντες πρὸς ἀλλήλους μετὰ τῶν γραμματέων ἔλεγον· Ἄλλους ἔσωσεν, ἑαυτὸν οὐ δύναται σῶσαι· 32 ὁ χριστὸς ὁ ⸀βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ καταβάτω νῦν ἀπὸ τοῦ σταυροῦ, ἵνα ἴδωμεν καὶ ⸀πιστεύσωμεν. καὶ οἱ συνεσταυρωμένοι ⸀σὺν αὐτῷ ὠνείδιζον αὐτόν.

Jesus’s opponents say the opposite of what they mean. These two examples along with the example in Mark 15:16–20 follow closely the use of irony that a student would have learned in ancient rhetorical education. Yet, there is also an element of double-irony at work, too. The text has the characters use rhetorical irony to mock Jesus, but at the same time they express and even claim the views of the ones who use this text as their working document of the gospel. Again, this use of rhetorical irony does suggest, however, that According to Mark was still a workin-progress, a working document for use by teachers or preachers, employing rhetorical devices that the producers had no doubt learned in the course of their education. It functions best when utilized in oral/aural teaching or preaching. All of these features (use of rhetorical questions, rhetorical irony, and aural interplay) do not stand in contrast to reading According to Mark as ὑπομνήματα. Rather, they help us think about what kind of ὑπομνήματα According to Mark would have been. Such unfinished writings could, and in fact often did, show signs of this level of education and careful crafting of stories. For instance, Julius Caesar’s Gallic War were marked as commentarii and Plutarch described his On the tranquility of the soul as ὑπομνήματα.47 Yet both easily outstrip any claim to stylistic and syntactical excellence in According to Mark. So, According to Mark simultaneously contains many signs of rough and simple style and language, several errors or misstatements and unnecessary details, yet at the same time shows signs of being produced by someone with some degree of rhetorical education (whether formal or informal) who produced some stories that have signs of being careful crafted and thoughtfully reworked over time in a teaching or preaching context.

3.

Conclusion

So, if early readers and users referred to the textual tradition we now know as According to Mark as ὑπομνήματα (or some other variant of the word or some other way of expressing unfinished or rough notes), what kind of ὑπομνἠματα were would it have been? It is clear that According to Mark was not non-literary notes. The difference between the para- or pre-literary ὑπομνἠματα is not about 47 See Larsen, Gospels before the Book, 12–17, 26–29

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whether or not there were any signs of rhetorial education or carefully crafting of stories, as both could contain rhetorical devices and could serve as a repository for stories told again-and-again. The difference is about whether or not there is a trajectory implied towards works of literature. It is a question about an ongoing textual process rather than a stable literary product. It is also a question of what one intends to do with a text. Para-literary notes are more utilitarian and do not have the goal of becoming more polished and perhaps even a published work of literature. Pre-literary notes exist to become something else. I am proposing that the producer of the textual tradition known as the According to Mark produced para-literary notes, a working document of the gospel, but later continuators (e. g., the author himself; the continuators who produced the endings of Mark 16; the fellow producers of gospel tradition, such as According to Matthew and According to Luke; Q; the collective memory of communities of faith; etc.) eventually treated it as pre-literary notes for the production of their own iterations of the gospel, even while never quite fully “finishing” the (or even a) version of the gospel. Gospel tradition, in this way, should be viewed as a living, vibrant, and forward moving textual tradition. Finally, I draw attention to an important comparandum for readers to think with: Damis’s Scrap Book. Damis’s produced his notes (ὑπομνήματα) with no intention of them becoming a book. They were a repository of “[Apollonius’s] journeys, … sayings, speeches, and predictions”, created for his own personal purposes. Presumably, they were his working document that aided his memory as he told and retold these stories to himself and others. They were made by someone who had been educated enough to write, and yet his style of writing was simple. They were useful to him, but off putting to someone expecting more formal, literary Greek. Damis’s notes were para-literary. While we do not have these notes anymore (and perhaps they were a literary invention), they provide a tight analogy to what we find in the textual tradition known to us today as According to Mark. About a century later, however, Philostratus was handed these notes and asked to turn them into literature. This involved removing unnecessary stories or details, incorporating other sources, and polishing his simple style. This provides a tight analogy for those who produced the various ending of the Mark 16, According to Matthew, According to Luke, Tatian’s Gospel, and many others. Throughout most of the first and second century, the gospel was a variety of interrelated textual traditions, which existed in various forms of in-progress instantiations, each of which were working documents for the people or communities who used them. Somewhere along the line of this process, some version of this working document became standardized and then became canonized, and it now goes by the name of According to Mark.

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Appendix A: Use of Καί in Mark 3 Mk 3:1 Mk 3:2 Mk 3:3 Mk 3:4 Mk 3:5 Mk 3:6 Mk 3:7 Mk 3:8 Mk 3:9 Mk 3:10 Mk 3:11 Mk 3:12 Mk 3:13 Mk 3:14 Mk 3:15 Mk 3:16 Mk 3:17 Mk 3:18 Mk 3:19 Mk 3:20 Mk 3:21 Mk 3:22 Mk 3:23 Mk 3:24 Mk 3:25 Mk 3:26 Mk 3:27 Mk 3:28 Mk 3:29 Mk 3:30

Καὶ ει᾿σῆλθεν πάλιν ⸀ει᾿ς συναγωγήν, καὶ ἦν ἐκεῖ ἄνθρωπος ἐξηραμμένην ἔχων τὴν χεῖρα. καὶ παρετήρουν αὐτὸν ει᾿ τοῖς σάββασιν θεραπεύσει αὐτόν, ἵνα ⸀κατηγορήσωσιν αὐτοῦ. καὶ λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τῷ ⸂τὴν χεῖρα ἔχοντι ξηράν⸃· ⸀Ἔγειρε ει᾿ς τὸ μέσον. καὶ λέγει αὐτοῖς· Ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν ⸀ἀγαθοποιῆσαι ἢ κακοποιῆσαι, ψυχὴν σῶσαι ἢ ἀποκτεῖναι; οἱ δὲ ἐσιώπων. καὶ περιβλεψάμενος αὐτοὺς μετ’ ὀργῆς, συλλυπούμενος ἐπὶ τῇ πωρώσει τῆς καρδίας αὐτῶν, λέγει τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ· Ἔκτεινον τὴν ⸀χεῖρα· καὶ ἐξέτεινεν, καὶ ἀπεκατεστάθη ἡ χεὶρ ⸀αὐτοῦ. καὶ ἐξελθόντες οἱ Φαρισαῖοι ⸀εὐθὺς μετὰ τῶν Ἡρῳδιανῶν συμβούλιον ⸀ἐδίδουν κατ’ αὐτοῦ ὅπως αὐτὸν ἀπολέσωσιν. Καὶ ὁ Ἰησοῦς ⸂μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ ἀνεχώρησεν⸃ πρὸς τὴν θάλασσαν· καὶ πολὺ πλῆθος ἀπὸ τῆς Γαλιλαίας ⸀ἠκολούθησεν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς Ἰδουμαίας ⸀καὶ πέραν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου ⸁καὶ περὶ Τύρον καὶ Σιδῶνα, πλῆθος πολύ, ⸀ἀκούοντες ὅσα ⸀ἐποίει ἦλθον πρὸς αὐτόν. καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ ἵνα πλοιάριον προσκαρτερῇ αὐτῷ διὰ τὸν ὄχλον ἵνα μὴ θλίβωσιν αὐτόν· πολλοὺς γὰρ ἐθεράπευσεν, ὥστε ἐπιπίπτειν αὐτῷ ἵνα αὐτοῦ ἅψωνται ὅσοι εἶχον μάστιγας. καὶ τὰ πνεύματα τὰ ἀκάθαρτα, ὅταν αὐτὸν ⸂ἐθεώρουν, προσέπιπτον⸃ αὐτῷ καὶ ⸀ἔκραζον ⸀λέγοντα ὅτι Σὺ εἶ ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ. καὶ πολλὰ ἐπετίμα αὐτοῖς ἵνα μὴ ⸂αὐτὸν φανερὸν⸃ ⸀ποιήσωσιν. Καὶ ἀναβαίνει ει᾿ς τὸ ὄρος καὶ προσκαλεῖται οὓς ἤθελεν αὐτός, καὶ ἀπῆλθον πρὸς αὐτόν. καὶ ἐποίησεν ⸀δώδεκα, ἵνα ὦσιν μετ’ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἵνα ἀποστέλλῃ αὐτοὺς κηρύσσειν καὶ ἔχειν ⸀ἐξουσίαν ἐκβάλλειν τὰ δαιμόνια· καὶ ⸂ἐποίησεν τοὺς δώδεκα, καὶ⸃ ἐπέθηκεν ⸂ὄνομα τῷ Σίμωνι⸃ Πέτρον, καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου καὶ Ἰωάννην τὸν ἀδελφὸν τοῦ Ἰακώβου (καὶ ἐπέθηκεν αὐτοῖς ⸀ὀνόματα Βοανηργές, ὅ ἐστιν Υἱοὶ Βροντῆς), καὶ Ἀνδρέαν καὶ Φίλιππον καὶ Βαρθολομαῖον καὶ Μαθθαῖον καὶ Θωμᾶν καὶ Ἰάκωβον τὸν τοῦ Ἁλφαίου καὶ Θαδδαῖον καὶ Σίμωνα τὸν ⸀Καναναῖον καὶ Ἰούδαν ⸀Ἰσκαριώθ, ὃς καὶ παρέδωκεν αὐτόν. Καὶ ⸀ἔρχεται ει᾿ς οἶκον· καὶ συνέρχεται πάλιν ⸀ὁ ὄχλος, ὥστε μὴ δύνασθαι αὐτοὺς ⸀μηδὲ ἄρτον φαγεῖν. καὶ ἀκούσαντες οἱ παρ’ αὐτοῦ ἐξῆλθον κρατῆσαι αὐτόν, ἔλεγον γὰρ ὅτι ἐξέστη. καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς οἱ ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων καταβάντες ἔλεγον ὅτι Βεελζεβοὺλ ἔχει καὶ ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἄρχοντι τῶν δαιμονίων ἐκβάλλει τὰ δαιμόνια. καὶ προσκαλεσάμενος αὐτοὺς ἐν παραβολαῖς ἔλεγεν αὐτοῖς· Πῶς δύναται Σατανᾶς Σατανᾶν ἐκβάλλειν; καὶ ἐὰν βασιλεία ἐφ’ ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ δύναται σταθῆναι ἡ βασιλεία ἐκείνη· καὶ ἐὰν οι᾿κία ἐφ’ ἑαυτὴν μερισθῇ, οὐ ⸀δυνήσεται ⸂ἡ οι᾿κία ἐκείνη σταθῆναι⸃· καὶ ει᾿ ὁ Σατανᾶς ἀνέστη ἐφ’ ἑαυτὸν καὶ ⸀ἐμερίσθη, οὐ δύναται ⸀στῆναι ἀλλὰ τέλος ἔχει. ⸂ἀλλ’ οὐδεὶς δύναται⸃ ⸂ει᾿ς τὴν οι᾿κίαν τοῦ ι᾿σχυροῦ ει᾿σελθὼν τὰ σκεύη⸃ αὐτοῦ διαρπάσαι ἐὰν μὴ πρῶτον τὸν ι᾿σχυρὸν δήσῃ, καὶ τότε τὴν οι᾿κίαν αὐτοῦ ⸀διαρπάσει. Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πάντα ἀφεθήσεται ⸂τοῖς υἱοῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὰ ἁμαρτήματα⸃ καὶ ⸂αἱ βλασφημίαι ὅσα ἐὰν⸃ βλασφημήσωσιν· ὃς δ’ ἂν βλασφημήσῃ ει᾿ς τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον, οὐκ ἔχει ἄφεσιν ει᾿ς τὸν αι᾿ῶνα, ἀλλὰ ἔνοχός ἐστιν αι᾿ωνίου ⸀ἁμαρτήματος. ὅτι ἔλεγον· Πνεῦμα ἀκάθαρτον ἔχει.

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Mk 3:31 ⸂Καὶ ἔρχονται⸃ ⸂ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ αὐτοῦ⸃ καὶ ἔξω ⸀στήκοντες ἀπέστειλαν πρὸς αὐτὸν ⸀καλοῦντες αὐτόν. Mk 3:32 καὶ ἐκάθητο ⸂περὶ αὐτὸν ὄχλος⸃, ⸂καὶ λέγουσιν⸃ αὐτῷ· Ἰδοὺ ἡ μήτηρ σου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί ⸀σου ἔξω ζητοῦσίν σε. Mk 3:33 καὶ ⸂ἀποκριθεὶς αὐτοῖς λέγει⸃· Τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου ⸀ἢ οἱ ἀδελφοί ⸀μου; Mk 3:34 καὶ περιβλεψάμενος ⸂τοὺς περὶ αὐτὸν κύκλῳ⸃ καθημένους λέγει· Ἴδε ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί μου· Mk 3:35 ὃς ⸀γὰρ ἂν ποιήσῃ τὸ θέλημα τοῦ θεοῦ, οὗτος ἀδελφός μου καὶ ⸀ἀδελφὴ καὶ μήτηρ ἐστίν.

Appendix B: Questions from Jesus in the Gospel according to Mark: 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22

2.8: τί ταῦτα διαλογίζεσθε ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ὑμῶν; [rhetorical] 2.9: τί ἐστιν εὐκοπώτερον, ει᾿πεῖν τῷ παραλυτικῷ· ἀφίενταί σου αἱ ἁμαρτίαι, ἢ ει᾿πεῖν· ἔγειρε καὶ ἆρον τὸν κράβαττόν σου καὶ περιπάτει; [rhetorical] 2.19: μὴ δύνανται οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμφῶνος ἐν ᾧ ὁ νυμφίος μετ᾿ αὐτῶν ἐστιν νηστεύειν; [rhetorical] 2.25–26: οὐδέποτε ἀνέγνωτε τί ἐποίησεν Δαυὶδ ὅτε χρείαν ἔσχεν καὶ ἐπείνασεν αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ μετ᾿ αὐτοῦ, πῶς ει᾿σῆλθεν ει᾿ς τὸν οἶκον τοῦ θεοῦ ἐπὶ Ἀβιαθὰρ ἀρχιερέως καὶ τοὺς ἄρτους τῆς προθέσεως ἔφαγεν, οὓς οὐκ ἔξεστιν φαγεῖν ει᾿ μὴ τοὺς ἱερεῖς, καὶ ἔδωκεν καὶ τοῖς σὺν αὐτῷ οὖσιν; [rhetorical] 3.4: ἔξεστιν τοῖς σάββασιν ἀγαθὸν ποιῆσαι ἢ κακοποιῆσαι; [rhetorical] 3.4: ψυχὴν σῶσαι ἢ ἀποκτεῖναι; [rhetorical] 3.23: Πῶς δύναται Σαταωᾶς Σατανᾶν ἐκβάλλειν; [rhetorical] 3.33: Τίς ἐστιν ἡ μήτηρ μου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοί μου; [rhetorical] 4.13: οὐκ οἴδατε τὴν παραβολὴν ταύτην, καὶ πῶς πάσας τὰς παραβολὰς γνώσεσθε; [rhetorical] 4.21: μήτι ἔρχεται ὁ λύχνος ἵνα ὑπὸ τὸν μόδιον τεθῇ ἢ ὑπὸ τὴν κλίνην; οὐχ ἵνα ἐπὶ τὴν λυχνίαν τεθῇ; [rhetorical] 4.30: πῶς ὁμοιώσωμεν τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἢ ἐν τίνι αὐτὴν παραβολῇ θῶμεν; [rhetorical] 4.40: Τί δειλοί ἐστε; [rhetorical] 4.40: οὔτω ἔχετε πίστιν; [rhetorical] 5.9: Τί ὅνομα σοι; [real; however cf. Collins et al: seeking the name of the demon is normative exorcistic activity] 5.30: τίς μου ἥψατο τῶν ἱματίων; [real] 5.39: τί θορυβεῖσθε καὶ κλαίετε; τὸ παιδίον οὐκ ἀπέθανεν ἀλλὰ καθεύδει. καὶ κατεγέλων αὐτοῦ [rhetorical but misunderstood] 6.38: Πόσους ἄρτους ἔχετε; ὑπάγετε ἴδετε. [real] 7.18: οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀσύνετοί ἐστε; [rhetorical] 7.18–19: οὐ νοεῖτε ὅτι πᾶν τὸ ἔξωθεν ει᾿σπορευόμενον ει᾿ς τὸν ἄνθρωπον οὐ δύναται αὐτὸν κοινῶσαι ὅτι οὐκ ει᾿σπορεύεται αὐτοῦ ει᾿ς τὴν καρδίαν ἀλλ᾿ ει᾿ς τὴν κοιλίαν, καὶ ει᾿ς τὸν ἀφεδρῶνα ἐκπορεύεται, καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα; [rhetorical] 8.5: Πόσους ἔχετε ἄρτους; [real] 8.12: Τί ἡ γενεά αὕτη ζητεῖ σημεῖον; [rhetorical] 8.17: τί διαλογίζεσθε ὅτι ἄρτους οὐκ ἔχετε; [rhetorical]

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8.17: οὔπω νοεῖτε οὐδὲ συνίετε; [rhetorical] 8.17: πεπωρωμένην ἔχετε τὴν καρδίαν ὑμῶν; [rhetorical] 8.18: ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες οὐ βλέπετε καὶ ὦτα ἔχοντες οὐκ ἀκούετε; [rhetorical] 8.18–19: καὶ οὐ μνημονεύετε, ὅτε τοὺς πέντε ἄρτους ἔκλασα ει᾿ς τοὺς πεντακισχιλίους, πόσους κοφίνους κλασμάτων πλήρεις ἤρατε; [rhetorical] 8.20: ὅτε τοὺς ἑπτὰ ει᾿ς τοὺς τετρακισχιλίους, πόσων σπυρίδων πληρώματα κλασμάτων ἤρατε; [rhetorical] 8.21: οὔπω συνίετε; [rhetorical] 8.23: Εἴ τι βλέπεις; [real?] 8.28: Τίνα με λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι; [real?] 8.29: Ὑμεις δὲ τίνα με λέγετε εἶναι; [real?] 8.36: τί γὰρ ὠφελεῖ ἄνθρωτον κερδῆσαι τὸν κόσμον ὅλον καὶ ζημιωθῆναι τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ; [rhetorical] 8.37: τί γὰρ δοῖ ἄνθρωπος ἀντάλλαγμα τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ; [rhetorical] 9.12: Ἠλίας μὲν ἐλθὼν πρῶτον ἀποκαθιστάνει πάντα· καὶ πῶς γέγραπται ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἵνα πολλὰ πάθῃ καὶ ἐξουδενηθῇ; [rhetorical] 9.16: Τί συζητεῖτε πρὸς αὑτους; [real?] 9.19: ὦ γενεὰ ἄπιστος, ἕως πότε πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἔσομαι; [rhetorical] 9.19: ἕως πότε ἀνέξομαι ὑμῶν; [rhetorical] 9.21: πόσος χρόνος ἐστὶν ὡς τοῦτο γέγονεν αὐτῷ; [real?] 9.33: Τί ἐν τῇ ἑδῷ διελέχθησαν; [rhetorical] 9.50: ἐὰν δὲ τὸ ἅλας ἄναλον γένηται, ἐν τίνι αὐτὸ ἀρτύσετε; [rhetorical] 10.3: Τί ὑμιν ἐνετείλατο Μωυσῆς; 10.18: τί με λέγεις ἀγαθόν; [rhetorical—οὐδεὶς ἀγαθὸς ει᾿ μὴ εἷς ὁ θεός.] 10.36: Τί θέλετε με ποιήσω ὑμῖν; [real deliberative] 10.38: οὐκ οἴδατε τί αι᾿τεῖσθε. δύνασθε πιεῖν τὸ ποτήριον ὃ ἐγὼ πίνω ἢ τὸ βάπτισμα ὃ ἐγὼ βαπτίζομαι βαπτισθῆναι; [rhetorical] 10.51: Τί σοι θέλεις τοιήσω; [real deliberative] 11.17: οὐ γέγραπται ὅτι ὁ οἶκός μου οἶκος προσευχῆς κληθήσεται πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν; [rhetorical] 11.30: τὸ βάπτισμα τὸ Ἰωάννου ἐξ οὐρανοῦ ἦν ἢ ἐξ ἀνθρώπων; [rhetorical] 12.15: Τί με πειράζετε; [rhetorical] 12.16: Τίνος ἡ ει᾿κὼν αὕτη καὶ ἡ ἐπιγραφή; [rhetorical] 12.24: οὐ διὰ τοῦτο πλανᾶσθε μὴ ει᾿δότες τὰς γραφὰς μηδὲ τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ θεοῦ; [rhetorical] 12.26: οὐκ ἀνέγνωτε ἐν τῇ βίβλῳ Μωϋσέως ἐπὶ τοῦ βάτου πῶς εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς λέγων· ἐγὼ ὁ θεὸς Ἀβραὰμ καὶ [ὁ] θεὸς Ἰσαὰκ καὶ [ὁ] θεὸς Ἰακώβ; [rhetorical] 12.35: Πῶς λέγουσιν οἱ γραμματεῖς ὅτι ὁ Χριστὸς υι᾿ὸς Δαυίδ ἐστιν; [rhetorical] 12.37: αὐτὸς Δαυὶδ λέγει αὐτὸν κύριον, καὶ πόθεν αὐτοῦ ἐστιν υἱός; [rhetorical] 13.2: βλέπεις ταύτας τὰς μεγάλας οι᾿κοδομάς; [rhetorical] 14.6: τί αὐτῇ κόπους παρέχετε; [rhetorical; καλὸν ἔργον ἠργάσατο ἐν ἐμοί.] 14.37: Σίμων, καθεύδεις; [rhetorical] 14.37: oὐκ ἴσχυσας μίαν ὥραν γρηγορῆσαι; [rhetorical] 14.41: καθεύδετε τὸ λοιπὸν καὶ ἀναπαῦεσθε [rhetorical] 14.48: ὡς ἐπὶ λῃστὴν ἐξήλθατε μετὰ μαχαιρῶν καὶ ξύλων συλλαβεῖν με; [rhetorical] 15.34: καὶ τῇ ἐνάτῃ ὥρᾳ ἐβόησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς φωνῇ μεγάλῃ· ελωι ελωι λεμα σαβαχθανι; ὅ ἐστιν μεθερμηνευόμενον· ὁ θεός μου ὁ θεός μου, ει᾿ς τί ἐγκατέλιπές με; [ἀπορία]

Sylvie Honigman

Mark’s Gospel as a cultic biography in the tradition of the Judean and Demotic stories narrativizing knowledge

1.

Introduction

The debate around the literary genre of Mark’s Gospel involves three prevailing theories.1 For some, it belongs to a sub-category of biography (or mixes several ones), namely that of the Judean2 biographies of prophets and a sub-category of Greco-Roman biographies purportedly tailored for a popular audience.3 The second theory claims that Mark best compares with the ancient novel; while the third points to the affinities between the Gospels and Acts in general—and Mark in particular—and Greek historiography.4 The first two theories share the premise that Mark’s Gospel is popular literature. This idea dates back to Clyde Weber Votaw’s study of 1915, in which the author first likened the gospels to Greco-Roman popular biographies, a category 1 The ideas put forward in this essay developed out of an informal conversation with Jacob Mortensen, for which I am grateful to him. I also wish to thank the participants of the Sandbjerg conference for their useful comments on my paper, in particular, Anders Klostergaard Petersen, Matthew Larsen, and Justin Strong, and likewise the anonymous reader. The present discussion, however, remains my own responsibility. 2 I use “Judean” to signify that in my view Judean identity in Hellenistic and early imperial times was primarily ethnic, both in Judea itself and elsewhere (for instance, in Alexandria). I use “Jewish” (in inverted commas) when citing other scholars. 3 Richard A. Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, SNTSMS 70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); David E. Aune, The New Testament in Its Literary Environment, LEC 8 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 46–76; “The Gospels as Hellenistic Biography,” Mosaic 20.4 (1987): 1–10. 4 The novelistic theory is discussed below in this introduction. The primary advocate of the comparison with Greek historiography is Eve-Marie Becker, Das Markus-Evangelium im Rahmen antiker Historiographie, WUNT 194 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). Also, N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992), defined the canonical Gospels as a “combination of Hellenistic biography and Jewish history” (or storytelling; p. 418); and Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), stressed that biography is a form of historiography “in the general sense of writing about the past,” and in which the line between history and personal story is blurred (94).

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which in his view also included such works as Arrian’s Discourse of Epictetus, Plato’s Apology, Xenophon’s Memorabilia, and Philostratus’ Apollonius of Tyana.5 In 1989 Mary Ann Tolbert adjusted this theory by suggesting that through its stylistic and linguistic features the gospel in question belongs to the same social and cultural world of Hellenistic popular literature as the GrecoRoman novels of imperial times.6 Subsequently, Lawrence Wills correctly objected that the imperial novels that Tolbert referred to were anything but popular literature, pointing instead to what he called “Hellenistic popular novels.”7 Moreover, he promoted the view that the corpus of works in question should include both Greek texts (“Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, Pseudo-Callisthenes’ Life of Alexander, Ninus and Semiramis”) and what he sees as “Jewish novellas,” that is, an early form of novel (“Greek Esther, Greek Daniel [Susanna], Tobit, Judith, and Joseph and Aseneth”). In this way, Wills brought his own investigation into the novelization of Judean stories in Hellenistic times to bear on Markan studies.8 He also endorses the scholarly trend investigating the contribution of various narrative traditions from the eastern Mediterranean to the origins of the Greek novel.9 At the same time, Wills introduces a crucial reservation. As he points out: “The indigenous novelistic literature of the ancient world is what prepared the way for the gospel. Yet the gospel is not fiction, in the sense of an invented world that is recognized as such by both author and reader, but a cult narrative, and similar in some ways to the ‘historical novel.’”10

Ultimately, Wills compares the Gospel of Mark (and that of John) with Greek popular aretalogical biographies—the Life of Aesop or the Life of Secundus the Silent Philosopher—which he defines as “novelizations of cult narratives,” while at the same time stressing that the gospels differ from those in their “seriousness

5 I follow the summary in Lawrence A. Wills, The Quest of a Historical Gospel: Mark, John, and the Origins of the Gospel Genre (London: Routledge, 1997), 10–11. 6 Mary Ann Tolbert, Sowing the Gospel: Mark’s World in Literary-Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989). 7 Lawrence A. Wills, Historical Gospel, 11. For a recent endorsement of this view, see, for instance, Scott S. Elliott and Eric Thurman, “Unsettling Heroes: Reading Identity Politics in Mark’s Gospel and Ancient Fiction,” in Reading and Teaching Ancient Fiction: Jewish, Christian, and Greco-Roman Narratives, ed. Sara R. Johnson, Rubén R. Dupertuis, and Christine Shea (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018), 71–86. 8 Wills, “The Jewish Novellas,” in Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context, ed. J. R. Morgan and Richard Stoneman (London: Routledge, 1994), 223–38; The Jewish Novel in the Ancient World (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995). See further “Jewish Novellas in a Greek and Roman Age: Fiction and Identity,” JSJ 42 (2011), 141–65. 9 See now, for instance, Tim Whitmarsh, Beyond the Second Sophistic: Adventures in Greek Postclassicism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2013). 10 Wills, Historical Gospel, 12.

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of purpose.”11 In addition, Wills also compares Mark with Judean biographies of prophets. In sum, he sees the gospels as biographical in content, novelistic in form, popular in their social location, and a cult narrative of the dead in their function. To my mind, the affinities between Mark’s Life of Jesus and these Greek “popular biographies” are partial, at best. In the Greek cultural sphere, there existed a sharp distinction between popular and learned literature. While elite authors such as Aristotle acknowledged the practical value of “popular stories” for instilling standards of ethical behavior, they would not have imitated—or exploited—such works to put forward their ideas, but used distinct, well-identified generic and rhetorical codes to this end.12 Not only, as Wills concedes, are the tone and purpose of Mark’s Gospel very different from those of Greek popular biographies, but moreover the latter hardly offer adequate parallels for key aspects of Jesus’ portrayal in Mark: Jesus is not simply a teacher of popular wisdom, but of halacha.13 Furthermore, he is also a prophet, a new Moses, a king, and the son of God sharing in God’s powers, from which stems his ability to heal people and even return them from the dead.14 Now, while learned halachic debates are totally incongruous in a “popular” work, as just noted, they are perfectly 11 Wills, Historical Gospel, 12. The connection with indigenous narratives seems to be that “the general role of the myth of salvation in the novels does have an analogy in the contemporary mysteries,” including those related to Isis and Dionysus. See ibid. If so, the connection is weak indeed. 12 On the reception of popular stories by elite writers, see Teresa Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 4–5. 13 John Van Maaren, “The Gospel of Mark within Judaism: Reading the Second Gospel in Its Ethnic Landscape” (Dissertation, Hamilton, Ontario, McMaster University, 2019); and this volume. For the depiction of Jesus as a Rabbi, see the following passages: Jesus commands to the fast (2:18–22); and to the Sabbath (2:23–28). See also his explanations of the parables (4:1– 9 and 10–12). The latter recall the debate about the way of accessing knowledge that had been raging among Judean literati since Hellenistic times (Ben Sira: through human reasoning; Apocalyptic: through otherworldly revelation; mantic wisdom: through divination; see the Pesˇer of Habakkuk). On this matter, see Jason M. Silverman, Persepolis and Jerusalem: Iranian Influence on the Apocalyptic Hermeneutic. New York, NY, and London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2012), 11, 20–22. 14 Jesus as prophet: see the multiplication of the loaves and the fish (6:31–45) and the feeding of the crowds (8:1–9): compare Elisha and Elijah in 1 and 2 Kings. As Moses: he gathered the Twelve on the mountain, like Moses in mount Sinai. As a Teacher of halacha: Jesus commands to the fast (2:18–22); and to the Sabbath (2:23–28). See also his explanations of the parables (4:1–9; 10–12), which belongs to a well-established tradition of debate about the way of accessing knowledge—for Ben Sira, it was through human reasoning; in apocalyptic works, through otherworldly revelation; other works promoted mantic wisdom; and divination. Compare also the Pesˇer of Habakkuk). As king: the Romans treat him as a king by derision. As God as in Psalms: he calms down the tempest (4:35–41); he resuscitates the girl (5:21–43); he walks on the sea (6:48–50). This list is partly indebted to H. N. Roskam, The Purpose of the Gospel of Mark in its Historical and Social Context, NT Suppl. 114 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 228–29.

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at home in Demotic and Judean narrative stories alike. In this essay I retain Wills’ identification of Mark as a narrative associated with a cultic context, while exploring what I see as two alternative and to some extant correlated genealogies of the work’s genre, which are both partly or wholly rooted in non-Greek literary traditions, namely Demotic stories of Hellenistic times narrating the lives of magicians of old—which in some cases were demonstrably linked to cults—and the half-historiographic, half-mythicized biographies of Hellenistic kings, both Ptolemaic and Seleucid. Demotic narratives may be relevant to the study of Mark’s Gospel in several ways, which incidentally happen to offer different bearings on the issue of the place where Mark’s Gospel was composed. First, as I argue elsewhere, alongside the long-since recognized influence of Egyptian and Demotic Instructions on Judean sapiential literature, Demotic short stories influenced the development, not to say the genesis, of what I will call Judean stories (or short stories) of Persian, Hellenistic and early imperial times, such as Ruth, MT Daniel 1–6, Tobit, MT Esther, and Judith.15 In my view, the Judean works, like their Demotic counterparts, originated as and remained a sub-category of wisdom alongside instructions (sayings). That is to say, I question the increasingly popular view that across the Hellenistic East, traditional narrative forms gave way to novelistic works devised for the entertainment of (to quote Wills again) a “broader, more literate audience” inhabiting the great urban centers that grew during the Hellenistic era.16 In my view, while Judean narratives unquestionably underwent a stylistic evolution under the influence of Greek Hellenistic prose, this did not result in a radical shift in purpose; entertainment never became an end in itself, but remained subordinated to “serious purposes.” Correlatively, their characterization as “popular” literature is also questionable. In truth, in Egypt and 15 See Sylvie Honigman, “Novellas for Diverting Jewish Urban Businessmen or Channels of Knowledge: Redefining Judean Short Stories of Hellenistic Times,” forthcoming in Ancient Narrative 2020. This is not to deny the coeval influence of narrative genres coming from the East, such as the court tale, on which see L. M. Wills, The Jew in the Court of the Foreign King: Ancient Jewish Court Legends (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Intriguingly, although MT Daniel 1–6 is composed of court tales, Tawny L. Holm argued for parallels with Demotic narratives. See Of Courtiers and Kings: The Biblical Daniel Narratives and Ancient StoryCollections (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013). See further below. Egyptian and Demotic influences on Judean wisdom literature is demonstrated in Proverbs—22:17–24:22 rewrites the Instruction of Amenemope (Amen-em-apt)—and debated in Ben Sira and 4QInstructions. For a critical view, see Matthew J. Goff, “Ben Sira and Papyrus Insinger,” in Early Christian Literature and Intertextuality, I; Thematic Studies, ed. Craig Evans and H. Daniel Zacharias, LNTS (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 54–64. For the influence of Egyptian wisdom texts on Judean narratives, see Wills, Jew in the Court, 42–43, with further references. 16 See Wills, Historical Gospel, 11. Also, Wills, “Jewish Novellas.” On the novelization of literature in Hellenistic times, see also, for instance, Michael E. Vines, The Problem of Markan Genre: The Gospel of Mark and the Jewish Novel (Leiden; Boston; Köln: Brill, 2002).

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Judea narratives were not simply a sub-genre of sapiential literature, but were used to explore any category of knowledge that was of interest to the elite scribes who composed them. Their identification as “popular” literature derives from their plain style and (delusive) lack of literary sophistication being evaluated according to the conventions characterizing the Greek cultural realm and not in their own terms. If we apprehend the Judean stories in this way, Mark’s Life of Jesus appears as a late example of this kind of literature—the Story of John likewise, the Baptist’s Death embedded in it (6:17–28) certainly is; and the affinities between Demotic narratives and Mark’s Life of Jesus would only constitute a late example of the continued impact of Demotic literature on Judea. However, the cultural influence of Demotic literature was by no means limited to Judea. Firstly, following the encounter between Demotic and Greek traditions in Ptolemaic Egypt, Demotic narratives influenced the development of the early Greek novel, through which motives harking back to Demotic writings spread throughout the Mediterranean.17 Secondly, we cannot rule out that, like Judean literature, Demotic genres and themes directly influenced other traditions of story-telling (i. e., without the Greek mediation) not only in the southern Levant, but throughout Syria.18 When it comes to the nature of Demotic influences on Judean story-telling and potentially on Mark’s Life of Jesus, the range of aspects that need considering include formal (stylistic) and compositional features, along with thematic and cultural markers (such as the conception of time, the way of representing the past, and the status of fiction), and likewise parallels in social function provide further clues. In the present essay I explore some of these facets.19 Next, I dwell on the two biographical genres which in my view are cross-referenced in Mark’s Life of Jesus, the Demotic stories of magicians, and the Hellenistic royal biographies. I argue that the relationship between Mark and these texts is one of competitive imitation, a concept I borrow from Karl Galinsky’s insights on the relationship between Jesus’ early followers and the Roman imperial cult.20

17 See, for instance, I. C. Rutherford, “Kalasiris and Setne Khaemwas: Greek Novels and Egyptian Models,” ZPE 117 (1997), 203–9. Demotic works for which a Greek version is documented include the Dream of Nectanebo, the Myth of the Sun’s Eye, and the Oracle of the Potter. See, for instance, Stephanie West, “Divine Anger Management: The Greek Version of the Myth of the Sun’s Eye (P.Lond.Lit. 192),” in The Romance between Greece and the East, ed. Tim Whitmarsh and Stuart Thomson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 79–90. 18 See the concept of “textual network” worked out by Daniel Selden, “Text Networks,” Ancient Narrative 8 (2010), 1–24. 19 For other aspects, see Honigman, “Novellas.” 20 Karl Galinsky, “The Cult of the Roman Emperor: Uniter or Divider?” In Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult, eds. J. Brodd, and J.L. Reed (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 1–21.

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Notably, the Egyptian magician is a topos of Greco-Roman literature—not least Nectanebo in the episode of Alexander’s nativity in the Alexander Romance. However, as Philippe Matthey has pointed out, these literary magicians bear little relation to how magic (to keep to this term) was actually practiced in Egypt itself.21 A key issue, then, will be to discern whether affinities between Jesus and Egyptian magicians derive from the Greek or the genuinely Egyptian type. I will argue that the latter is the case. Now, while the dynamics of textual circulation noted above leaves the question of the place where Mark’s Gospel was composed relatively open, my theory would strongly suggest a Syrian origin—and possibly even Palestinian—rather than somewhere in the Western part of the Roman empire. In anticipation of my discussion below, the comparison of Mark’s Life of Jesus with Judean narratives of the “traditional” kind and with Demotic story-telling may ultimately help bring together the three theories on the genre of Mark’s Life of Jesus which I identified at the outset—biography, novel (redefined as “story”), and Greek historiography. This is because on the one hand, both in the Demotic and Judean traditions, narratives can depict the life of certain figures of old (such as prophets in Judea), and on the other hand, their literary form was in essence flexible and hence readily borrowed the stylistic features of other genres. Due to space constraints the following discussion can only be preliminary.22

2.

Defining Judean and Demotic Narratives

2.1

“Jewish Fiction” vs. “Judean Narratives”

Hellenistic times were a period of intense literary activity in Judea and in major settlements of Judean population in the Mediterranean, first and foremost Alexandria. Works were composed and circulated in up to three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) and multiple versions. According to certain scholars, some of these works—primarily those written in Greek—evidence an increased sophistication in their narrative techniques, alongside certain thematic innovations, to the point of justifying their characterization as “Jewish novellas” (or “fictional works”) and forerunners to the Greek novel. This interpretation was pioneered by Lawrence Wills, who linked this development to increased ur-

21 Philippe Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou: Nectanébo II entre l’histoire et la légende. Thèse préparée sous la direction du professeur Philippe Borgeaud (Université de Genève, 2012), en vue de l’obtention du diplôme de Doctorat ès Lettres de l’Université de Genève. DOI: 10.13097/archive-ouverte/unige:24160; URN: urn:nbn:ch:unige-241608. See pp. 157–74. 22 See also my complementary study, Honigman, “Novellas.”

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banization and a rise in literacy in the Hellenistic world.23 Crucially, Wills associates this stylistic—or rather, in his view, generic—evolution with a radical shift in the social function of the Jewish novellas, compared to the “traditional” narrative genres, and hence also in their readership. That said, in a sophisticated manner his definition of these works as “popular literature” refers not to the “number of readers or their educational level” but to the “social function” of such writings: they had no institutionalized social use, and instead were performed or read purely for entertainment.24 This view is questionable on several grounds, not least because the narratives of LXX Esther and Judith—the two works which according to Wills most clearly support the comparison with the Greek novel—end with the mention of collective rituals and the establishment of commemorative festivals.25 In my view, we need to decouple social function from style. While the stylistic and narrative evolution is undeniable, in terms of content the works do not exclusively cater to the concerns of private individuals. Salvation is collective, and most if not all the texts explore a wide range of issues of communal interest. In a nutshell, they illustrate how to practice certain rules of purity in a given social environment (e. g., how to respect food taboos in the royal court); they explore new forms of piety (new practices of bodily purity and prayers), and how to use certain techniques of knowledge—divinatory wisdom, prophecy, and revealed knowledge (apocalypticism); and they put new forms of knowledge (such as new conceptions of history, and new forms of wisdom) to use. To put it differently, each category of knowledge which Judean literati of Hellenistic times deemed relevant to tackle was explored through a variety of discourses and literary forms, both narrative and non-narrative, and virtually all aspects of intellectual life could be narrativized. For instance, wisdom was subdivided into sayings (instructions) and court tales, which thereby may be described as “narrativized wisdom.”26 Prophecy was subdivided into oracular re23 Wills, “Jewish Novellas.” For further bibliography, see Honigman, “Novellas.” 24 Wills, “Jewish Novellas in a Greek and Roman Age,” 145–46. See further Honigman, “Novellas.” 25 OG Esther 10:10. Judith 16: 18–20 mentions a rite of sacrifice, but not the establishment of a festival. However, the book parodies the account of Judas Maccabee’s victory over Seleucid general Nicanor found in 2 Macc 14–15, which was tied to a Purim-like festival (Nicanor’s Day), and some scholars define Judith as a carnivalesque work, like Esther. See Philip F. Esler, “Ludic History in the Book of Judith: The Reinvention of Israelite Identity?” Biblical Interpretation 10 (2002), 107–43; Honigman, “Commemorative Fictions: Athens (480 BCE), Jerusalem (168 BCE), and Alexandria (38 CE),” in Memorializing Collective Violence in Judean Narrative Traditions, ed. Julia Rhyder and Sonja Amman. HEBAI, forthcoming. 26 For a complementary perspective on the relationship between narrative and wisdom, see Will Kynes, “Wisdom defined through Narrative and Intertextual Network: 1 Kings 1–11 and Proverbs,” in Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (eds.), Reading Proverbs Intertextually, LHBOTS (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2019), 35–47.

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sponses and the prophetic books, which insert the oracles per se in a narrative frame purporting to be the biography of the figure to whom the said prophecies are attributed. Stories can also narrativize matters of halacha. The book of Tobit, whose Aramaic fragments were found in Qumran, has been associated with other Aramaic texts composed in the second century BCE which dealt with matters of priestly genealogy, and according to some scholars the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36) composed slightly earlier was concerned with this issue, as well.27 Of course, these various categories of knowledge are not exclusive, and narratives frequently explore—or emplot!—several categories at once: for instance, the book of Daniel narrativizes the technique of revealed knowledge and situational concerns about food taboos and the exclusive service of the Judean deity.28 By this token, in terms of their didactic purpose and social function, the Judean short stories of Hellenistic times remained fairly close to their counterparts of the Persian era, even if, naturally, their thematic content evolved to reflect contemporary changes. Likewise, while there is indeed evidence that their circulation beyond priestly circles increased, this evolution may be related not only (or not so much) to increased urbanization and literacy, but also (or rather) to the concomitant spread beyond priestly circles of purity rites, and likewise to the emergence of new forms of piety, whose shared function was to maintain (or invent afresh) the religious and emotional ties between Judeans across the Mediterranean and the Jerusalem temple following the exclusive centralization of the sacrificial rites there. We may reasonably presume that this novel religious organization prompted the need for new didactic texts, and fictionalized narratives were particularly suited for this purpose.29 In broad terms, Mark’s Life of Jesus fits well in this literary environment, especially if, as proposed above, we consider Judean biographies as a narrativized didactic genre related to wisdom. Incidentally, this is true not only of the twelve biographies of the minor prophets, but also of the individual biographies of kings included in the Books of Chronicles.30 Moreover, the claim of a basic continuity in didactic purpose and social function between narratives composed by Judean literati in Persian and Hel27 Devorah Dimant From Enoch to Tobit: Collected Studies in Ancient Jewish Literature (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 173–212; Martha Himmelfarb, “Temple and Priests in the Book of the Watchers, the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks,” in Between Temple and Torah: Essays on Priests, Scribes, and Visionaries in the Second Temple Period and Beyond (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013) 79–92. 28 On Judean narratives, see also Honigman, “Novellas.” 29 This definition admittedly comes close to Wills’, but I insist on the primarily didactic function of these texts. Moreover, as noted above, we cannot infer from their style that they broke free of the institutional setting. 30 Regarding prophets, the Book of Jonas in particular shares novelistic features with other stories of Hellenistic times. For more on kings, see above, n. 25.

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lenistic (and early imperial) times, respectively, enables us to solve a crucial problem in a simple manner. Wills’ sharp distinction between the “traditional genres” and what he calls the “Jewish novellas” ultimately leads him into an impasse in his bid to pin down the genre of Mark’s Gospel. As he notes, whereas in his view the Jewish and Greek early novels were aimed for entertainment, Mark’s Gospel has a “serious” purpose, and accordingly the text is devoid of humor. But “seriousness of purpose”—albeit not necessarily lack of humor— precisely characterizes the Judean traditional narratives. Moreover, as Esther and (likely) Judith show, the Judean narratives of Hellenistic times could be tied to cultic settings.31

2.2

Demotic Narratives

The claim of continuity may further be supported by the comparison with Demotic narratives. Because those were found in well-defined archaeological contexts, they supply both evidence about the social identity of those who produced them and must have remained their primary consumers, and an incontrovertible chronological framework. Prior to discussing these matters, however, a brief introduction to these texts is in order. I will also spell out the clues which point to Demotic influences on Judean story-telling starting in Persian times. As in Mesopotamia, in Egypt self-contained stories of relatively short length couched in a diverting tone developed into a written literary genre from a very early date. The genre was mature by the time of the Middle Kingdom (ca. 2055– 1700 BCE).32 That said, new sub-genres emerged with the shift to Demotic in Persian times. Some (such as the court tale) seemingly owed much to foreign influences,33 but others may be indigenous and related to religious shift. In particular, the popularity of animal stories may derive from that of animal cults from Persian times on, and the prominent place of women in Demotic literature has been tied to the cult of Isis, whose centrality only increased under the Ptolemies.34 The extant corpus shows that numerous stories memorialized an31 See also 3 Macc, and of course the Hanukkah narrative and the story of Nicanor in 1 and 2 Macc. 32 Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings. Vol. 1: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), 169–92, 211–36 33 On the court tale, see Wills Jew in the Court, 42–44. 34 On Demotic stories, see John Tait, “Egyptian Fiction in Demotic and Greek,” in Greek Fiction: The Greek Novel in Context, ed. J. R. Morgan and Richard Stoneman (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 203–22; Joachim F. Quack, Einführung in die altägyptische Literaturgeschichte III: Die demotische und gräko-ägyptische Literatur (Münster: LIT, 2009), 17–97. For translations, see Friedhelm Hoffmann and Joachim F. Quack, Anthologie der demotischen Literature (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2007). On the link between female characters in Demotic

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cient pharaohs and ancient priests, and magic is often involved.35 Particularly prominent are the narrative cycles centered on Inaros, which rework memories of the Assyrian invasion of Egypt, along with that featuring Setne Khaemwas, ancient priest of Memphis and a prominent magician.36 The emergence of self-contained stories in the Judean tradition in Persian times seems to have been prompted by multiple influences. As just noted, court tales appear to originate in the East, but Tawny Holm has pointed to what in her view are several tokens of Demotic influences on MT Daniel 1–6: the composition as a narrative cycle revolving around a figure (Daniel), and—most relevant to my discussion below—Daniel’s use of magic as a divinatory means.37 In my view, the Demotic tradition of story-telling may have contributed additional themes: stories about commoners (e. g., Ruth and Boaz; Job; and Tobit, compare The Eloquent Peasant; the Story of Amasis and the Sailor); and female characters (Ruth, Esther, Judith, and Salome in the Story of John the Baptist’s Death). The absence of animal stories in the Judean corpus may be evidence that the themes borrowed were chosen with care; implicit references to the Egyptian animal cult were not to be encouraged. Or rather, the Judean literati who composed the narratives presumably adapted them to their own needs. Given that in Egypt magic was inherently related to divination and prophecy, there may be a thematic parallel between the biographies of magicians in Egypt and those of prophets in Judea in terms of the social function magicians and prophets fulfilled in each society, respectively.38

2.3

Demotic and Judean Narratives as Serious Literature: The Evidence of their Ancient Reception

As noted above, the comparison between Judean and Demotic narratives gives ballast to the claim that story-telling was and remained serious literature, even learned, while at the same time knowingly cultivating the underlying diverting quality. Egyptian works bear witness that the latter was fully assumed. From the Middle Kingdom period on, tales were often gathered into collections framed by

35 36 37 38

literature and the cult of Isis and Osiris, see Stephen Vinson, “Good and Bad Women in Egyptian and Greek Fiction,” in Greco-Egyptian Interactions: Literature Translation, and Culture, 500 BCE–300 CE, ed. I. Rutherford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 245–66. See section 2 below. On the Inaros cycle, see Quack, Einführung, 50–70; on Setne Khaemwas, see below, section 2.2. Holm, Courtiers and Kings, On Daniel magician, ibid., 98–114. On court tales, see above, n. 14. To be precise, stories of prophets existed in the Demotic literature, but they relate to Egyptian prophets (who formed a well-defined category of temple personnel) and therefore seem to function differently from the Judean prophetic biographies.

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the story of a pharaoh, either bored or suffering from a hangover, ordering someone to tell him stories for his amusement.39 Yet, as noted above, the said stories also had a didactic or instructive value. Naturally, to make sure that the stories lived up to their audience’s expectation of enjoyment, their literary devices of creating distractions needed regularly updating. This dynamic could explain the novelization of certain texts that too place in Hellenistic times.40 At the same time, archaeology does not support the view that Demotic narratives were geared primarily at entertainment. All the extant texts were retrieved through excavations, and most of them come from a small number of sites, all of them temple libraries. The main one belongs to a temple located in Tebtunis in the Fayyum (Middle Egypt), and consists in an extensive archive of literary texts of all kinds. The extant copies date to the first and second centuries CE, but the works were first composed in Hellenistic times.41 Now, twenty-five per cent of the corpus altogether were narratives.42 Such a proportion in a temple library is evidence that well into Roman imperial times, these works were conceived as learned literature. Finally, evidence that tales in ancient Near Eastern societies were considered serious literature comes from their reception by ancient historians. Authors such as Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and possibly also Thucydides, quoted Babylonian and Egyptian tales in their Histories, and this is irrefutable evidence that they held these tales as reliable sources for Greek investigative history (historia).43 Similarly, Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities (a work that he conceived as a piece of Greek historiography) paraphrases several Judean tales, and in his Proem to the work he makes clear that he held those works as prophetic literature.44 Likewise, the history of Egypt that the Egyptian priest Manetho wrote in Greek at the behest of one of the first Ptolemies shares affinities with the Demotic tales memorializing the heroes of pharaonic Egypt.45 In sum, both in Egypt and Judea, the traditional indigenous narrative continued unabated into imperial times, and it is this genre, not the novels, with which Mark’s Gospel interacted. 39 The Story of Amasis and the Sailor. 40 For further discussion, see Honigman, “Novellas.” 41 Kim Ryholt, “On the Contents and Nature of the Tebtunis Temple Library: A Status Report.” In Tebtynis und Soknopaiu Nesos: Leben im römerzeitlichen Fajum, ed. S. Lippert and M. Schentuleit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005), 141–70. 42 Ryholt, “Tebtunis Temple Library,” 147. 43 The stories of Pharaohs Sesostris and Pheros cited by Herodotus (2.102–11) are attested as tales in the Petese story sequence from the Tebtunis library. For further references and bibliography, see Honigman, “Novellas.” 44 See Josephus’ paraphrase of 1 Esdras in his Antiquities 11.1–158. Josephus included the tale (Ant. 11.33–58) on an equal footing with the Ezra document. 45 Jacco Dieleman, and Ian S. Moyer, “Egyptian Literature,” in A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, ed. James J. Clauss and Martine Cuypers (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 429–47, at 436.

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Demotic Narratives: Compositional Influence

Moreover, the multiple influences on Judean stories were not simply thematic, but affected also rules of composition. Several compositional features common in Egyptian instructions and Demotic narratives may have impacted Judean story-telling. As just noted, the cycle of court stories featuring Daniel in MT Daniel 1–6 may be a Demotic legacy. Likewise, the format of questions and answers between Jesus and his disciples is well attested in Ptolemaic Egypt, and while it is found in a number of texts composed in Greek, in all likelihood it originates in Demotic literature.46 A key example is the Book of Thoth, an extended “dialogue, mainly between a master … and a pupil, the mr-rh, ‘he-who˘ wishes-to-learn’.”47 The popularity of this work “among the priestly elite of the temples of Sobek and elsewhere” is borne out by the unusual number of extant manuscripts, namely forty.48 Interestingly, the Greek texts that replicate this dialogical format invert the hierarchical order compared to the Demotic tradition, as the king makes the question and the sages answer. Examples include the Dialogue between Alexander the Great and the Ten Indian Gymnosophists, which is documented in a papyrus dating to ca. 100 BCE (P. Berol. inv. 13044); the allegorical interpretation of the Law attributed to the High Priest Eleazar and the Symposium in the Letter of Aristeas (Ar. 128–72; 187–300); and the Banquet of the Three Pages in LXX 1 Esdras. Equally interesting with regard to Mark’s Life of Jesus, a frequent literary device attested from the Middle Kingdom up until Hellenistic times involved lumping together set pieces of various literary nature and/or content within a frame-story. A noteworthy example is the Demotic Myth of the Sun’s Eye, which is composed of a frame-story narrating how the “son of Thoth” was sent to Nubia where Tefnut, the daughter of the sun-god, had fled, in order to induce her to return to Egypt. Within this frame, readers are treated to “a discourse in which animal fables lead to ethical and theological reflections, as Thoth placates and instructs the volatile, and potentially dangerous, goddess.”49 The Myth of the

46 M. Reiser has listed several affinities between Mark’s Gospel and the Alexander Romance; all of these may be redefined as affinities with Demotic narratives. See Markus Reiser, “Der Alexanderroman und das Markevangelium,” in Markusphilologie, ed. H. Cancik, WUNT 33 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1984), 131–63. 47 Richard Jasnow, “Between Two Waters: The Book of Thoth and the Problem of GrecoEgyptian Interaction,” in Greco-Egyptian Interaction, ed. Ian Rutherford (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 317–56, at 318. 48 Jasnow, “Between Two Waters,” 321. 49 West, “Divine Anger Management,” 79.

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Sun’s Eye in known through fragments of both the Demotic original and the Greek translation;50 another notable example is the Story of Petese.51 As I have argued elsewhere, this Demotic compositional technique may have been adapted by Alexandrian poets of the third century BCE, and it may also explain the very unusual composition of the Letter of Aristeas, a work composed by an Alexandrian Judean author living in Alexandria presumably in the second half of the second century BCE.52 While the Life of Jesus constitutes Mark’s frame-story, it juxtaposes sections of miscellaneous content, including halachic matters, parables, and a story within the story (Salome and John the Baptist’s Death). This latter device may also have Judean precedents, such as the Story of the Three Guards slotted into LXX 1 Esdras 3:1–5:6, and the court tale featuring Joseph in Genesis 37:2–48:22. Likewise, the numerous examples of rhetorical exercises (progymnasmata) which modern studies have identified in Mark’s Gospel may be seen as a stylistic updating of this composition to the literary taste of the author’s time. In essence the form of the tale is flexible to the extreme, with the consequence that it can easily incorporate new foreign influences.53

2.5

Summary

Judean and Demotic narratives are unquestionably literary fictions, and their tone is entertaining. Not only that, but they made sure to remain so by incorporating new narrative devices and in this way evolve apace with the changing taste and expectations of their audience and readers. However, these formal features were put at the service of learned literature.54 50 For the Demotic text, see Françoise de Cenival, F. Mythe de l’Oeil du Soleil; and Friedhelm Hoffmann and Joachim Friedrich Quack, 195–229, and 356–60. For the Greek text, see West, Stephanie. “The Greek Version of the Legend of Tefnut.” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 55 (1969) 161–83, and previous note. 51 Kim Ryholt, The Story of Petese son of Petetum and Seventy Other Good and Bad Stories, The Carlsberg Papyri 4 (Copenhagen: The Carsten Niebuhr Institute, 1999). See Ryholt’s commentary, pp. 70–91. 52 Honigman, “Literary Genres and Identity in the Letter of Aristeas: Courtly and Demotic Models.” In A Question of Identity: Social, Political, and Historical Aspects of Identity Dynamics in Jewish and Other Contexts, ed. Dikla Rivlin-Katz, Noach Hacham, Geoffrey Herman, and Lilach Sagiv (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 223–44. 53 Damien Agut-Labordère mentioned a Demotic ecphrasis to me (personal communication, July 2018). On the influence of the Homeric epic on the Inaros cycle, see Ian Rutherford, “The Earliest Cross-Cultural Reception of Homer? The Inaros Narratives of Greco-Roman Egypt,” in Greco-Roman Interactions, 88–106. 54 Other aspects of style which may be relevant to Mark’s Gospel are discussed in Honigman, “Novellas.” See in particular, the discussion on the plain style of the tales, which contrasts with the rhetorical fabric of Greek works produced in elite circles. Likewise, I examine how the Judean literati of Persian and Hellenistic times were exposed to various conceptions of time

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In what follows I will examine two kinds of literary biographies which, in my view, are relevant to understand the origins of Mark’s Life: Demotic biographies of magicians, and the biographies of Hellenistic kings, which were related to the ruler cult.

3.

Biographies of Magicians and Kings

As noted in the Introduction, Jesus’ identity in Mark is plural: Jesus is a prophet, a new Moses, a teacher of the Law, a king, and the son of God whose powers he shares, including that of healing people and bringing the dead back to life.55 This multifaceted identity primarily borrows from literary archetypes—as the wellknown affinity between Jesus’ Life and the biblical56 biographies of the twelve minor prophets and allusions to Moses show. However, to phrase the matter in semiotic terms, the intertextual relationship between Mark’s Life of Jesus (as the hypertext) and established biographical sub-genres (as hypotexts) may have worked in various ways. In the case of the biblical biographies of prophets, it worked by way of imitation. In contrast, the relationship with the biographies of magicians and kings examined below should rather be defined as one of competitive imitation. Furthermore, the literary figure of Jesus may also incorporate biographical elements not necessarily associated with any established biographical template. Intertextuality with Moses is a case in point. Likewise, according to Josephus (War 1.68–69; Ant 13.300), John Hyrcanus, the first Hasmonean king, claimed for himself the threefold status of high priest, king, and prophet, and Jesus’ plural identity may per se be intended as an oblique marker of Jesus’ kingship referencing this Hasmonean antecedent. Two episodes in Mark’s Gospel discussed below may similarly reference the archetype of the Egyptian magician.

and as many ways of representing the past. The affinities of Mark’s Life of Jesus with Greek historiography could offer one more example of this process of borrowing foreign ways of representing the past 55 See above, n. 13. 56 I use the term “biblical,” not “Judean,” to avoid confusion, because it is uncertain whether Mark referenced early Hebrew versions of the prophetic books, or the Old Greek ones (that is, early versions of the Septuagint). This language issue does of course not prejudge Mark’s place of activity. On this issue, see Gregory K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2007).

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Revered Figures of Magicians in Greco-Roman Egypt

The first archetype that I discuss is that of Egyptian magicians from the pharaonic past. In Ptolemaic and imperial times, they were remembered in two ways, which in some cases—albeit by no means in all of them—were clearly correlated: popular cults, and narratives.57 Mark’s Jesus is definitely not a magician in the Greek sense of the word, but the picture alters when we consider the Egyptian conception of magic.58 The term of “magic” derives from a Greek term (mageia), and to borrow Robert Ritner’s “working definition,” it designates “activit[ies] that seek to obtain [their] goals outside the natural laws of cause and effect.”59 In the Greek cultural and social realm, these goals are usually pragmatic—such as love spells —and moreover, Greek practitioners usually manipulate objects alongside writing down spells and curses.60 Finally, Greek mageia is not an institutionalized practice and its practitioners operated at the margins of society, often (to quote Fritz Graf) as “itinerant religious entrepreneur(s).”61 The Egyptian concept of hk3 (heka) underlying the Egyptian practices was different.62 Together with its ˙ ˙ divine personification (Heka, Magic), it is attested from the Old Kingdom up to ˙ imperial times. As the son of demiurgic god Re-Atum, Heka is “the hypostasis of ˙ the creator’s own power which begets the natural order,” and also Re’s “external 63 manifestation,” or ba-spirit. According to Egyptian cosmogony, creation is reenacted every day with the new sunrise, and each night Re confronts and defeats the serpent of chaos “by virtue of the magic (hk3) of Isis and the ‘Elder Magician’ ˙ (hk3 smsw).”64 ˙

57 In my discussions of magic and magicians in Egypt and in Demotic literature, I am indebted to Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou. I borrowed numerous bibliographical references and some surveys from this PhD. 58 The comparison between Jesus and magicians is nothing new, but he has been compared to Greek practitioners. See, for instance, Daniel Ogden, Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 71–86. 59 Robert K. Ritner, The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Chicago: Institute of Oriental Studies, 1993), 1. The definition of magic is fiercely debated. See also, for instance, Fritz Graf, “Defining Magic – not Again?!” (https://www.academia.edu/4054884/Graf_Magic, accessed August 4, 2020). For a taxonomy of “magicians,” see also David Frankfurter, Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2019). 60 On the materiality of magic, see the essays collected in Dietrich Boschung and Jan N. Bremmer (eds), The Materiality of Magic (Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink, 2015). 61 Graf, “Defining Magic.” 62 On heka, see Ritner 1993: 14–28; Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou, 161–69. ˙ Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, 17, 23. 63 Ritner, 64 Ibid., 18. Of course, alongside this defensive aspect, the power of hk3 could also be de˙ See ibid., 20–22. structive, and both gods/goddesses and humans could be subject to it.

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In imitation of Heka, gods and humans could use the power of magic to ˙ defend the cosmic order. Pharaohs performed a daily ritual to support the cosmic struggle of the Sun over the Serpent of chaos, and in their capacity as royal deputies, high priests performed similar rituals in their temples. Kings and priests could also use magic for other purposes, and virtually all priests reputedly possessed some kind of magic power.65 According to Matthey, these rituals are what stimulated the imagination of Greek authors into reshaping Egyptian kings and priests—such as Nectanebo in the Alexander Romance—as trickster-magicians.66 Moreover, Demotic stories themselves promoted figures who used their demiurgic powers for fairly disreputable purposes, such as necromancy.67 However, in the Egyptian scribal tradition, these demiurgic powers are not primarily put to improper use. Figures of demiurgic magicians derived from men famed for their learning, who moreover were had prominent social statuses. They are often kings, princes, and high priests, who had become learned scribes. Indeed, it seems that Amenemhat III, pharaoh of the Twelfth Dynasty and the object of a popular cult in Ptolemaic and imperial times, was revered in the temple of Hermouthis in Narmouthis (modern Medinet Madi in the Fayyum) as the founder of said temple. Under the name of Porramanres—derived from his Egyptian regnal name—he is celebrated in the last of the four hymns composed in Greek by a certain Isidoros, and which were inscribed on the temple gates. The text describes him as partaking in Heka’s ˙ powers: he is the offspring of a god, a rival of the gods, commanding the elements and speaking to the birds—like Jesus speaking to the fig tree.68 Imhotep (Greek Imouthes), the architect of Pharaoh Djoser of the third dynasty (ca. 2670–2650 BCE) and builder of his celebrated pyramid, had an even more brilliant cultic trajectory than Amenemhat III. As the son of Ptah to the Egyptians and Asklepios to the Greeks, Imhotep had a temple in Memphis, and to judge from the personal names used in the city, his cult was of major importance there.69 Priests of the highest rank as commoners turned to Imhotep to have a son or for a cure, and as Dorothy Thompson noted, “the prayers and expectations of the Egyptian stelae with the tales of miracles that the god performs are … similar 65 For a list of magician-kings, see Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou,166–69. For priests, see ibid.: 174–78. 66 See Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou,179–82. 67 See, for instance, the first story of Setne Khaemwas discussed below. 68 Hymn 4, ll. 10–24. See Vera Frederika Vanderlip, The Four Greek Hymns of Isidorus and the Cult of Isis (Toronto: Hakkert, 1972). Slightly revised translation in http://philipharland.com /Courses/Readings/3105/Isidoros%2C%20Hymns%20from%20Temple%20of%20Isis%20at %20Narmouthis.pdf. For a commentary, see Ian S. Moyer, “Isis at the Gates of the Temple,” in Greco-Egyptian Interactions, 209–244, at 230–37. 69 Dorothy J. Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 19–22, 194–96.

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in tone and content to contemporary Greek inscriptions from the shrine of the god Asklepios at Epidaurus.” In sum, Imhotep’s healing powers made him as much as a rival to Jesus as Asklepios himself.70 There existed a narrative featuring Djoser and Imhotep.71 Despite the Graeca interpretatio of the Egyptian heka as mageia—and hence ˙ the modern use of the term of “magic” to refer to heka—there existed a fun˙ damental conceptual difference between the two. In my view, if we take Mark’s portrayal of Jesus as a king and a new Moses in earnest, his character compares with the Egyptian demiurgic magicians of high social status in a far more convincing way than with the freelance religious practitioners who were familiar figures in early imperial times.72 Jesus’ resuscitation of the young girl (Mark 5:21– 43) may well knowingly cross-reference the demiurgic power of Egyptian priests, and other deeds likewise seem to refer to a kind of power over nature very similar to the Egyptian heka, as when he walks on the water, commands the loaves and ˙ fish to multiply, and when he curses the fig tree into drying out.73

3.2

Literary Magicians: The Demotic Stories

Cults revering historical figures of old to whom creative powers were attributed certainly contributed to these figures being known to Greeks living in Egypt, and we cannot rule out that their fame would have reached outside Egypt, especially in neighboring regions where the influence of all things Ptolemaic (including Demotic74) were pervading. These cults were presumably supported by narratives, 70 Quotation ibid.: 195. 71 A copy of this text was identified in the deposit of the Sobek temple in Tebtunis (P. Carlsberg 85). See Ryholt, “Tebtunis Temple Library,” 156. 72 On which see further below, section 2.3. As Matthey points out, King Solomon also came to be associated with magic. See Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou, 166, with further references, n. 551. 73 The conceptual difference between heka and mageia is also important because while Greek practical magic was punished under ˙Roman imperial legislation, the kind of demiurgic power associated with heka was of a different order. Inscriptions of the second and third centuries ˙ CE from Syria attribute a similar kind of demiurgic powers to the emperor, as the commemoration of aqueducts and canalizations bringing water to cities across the mountains or roads repairs took over implicit religious overtones. As Master of the Water and Stone elements, the emperor was celebrated as a Baal. See, for instance, CIL III 207 (inscription graved in the mountain pass of the Lycus river, south of Berytos); CIL III 199 (marking the road linking Damascus and Abila). See Hadrien Bru, “Le culte impérial dans l’Orient romain: mythes, rites et structures,” in Kaiserkult in den Provinzen des Römischen Reiches: Organisation, Kommunikation und Repräsentation, ed. Anne Kolb and Marco Vitale (Berlin; Boston: de Gruyter, 2016), 57–78, and further below, section 2.4. 74 On Demotic influences on Judean literature of Persian and Hellenistic times, see Honigman, “Novellas.”

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and Greeks would certainly have been curious enough about the revered figures to prompt the stories memorializing them to be translated and circulated.75 However, stories of learned magicians were not necessarily bound to a cultic setting. Rather, they are one of the most common (possibly the most common) sub-genres of Demotic narrative literature.76 These literary figures derived from men of Pharaonic times who, as noted above had prominent social status during their lives. For instance, the figure of Setne Khaemwas in the narrative cycle named after him was based on a historical figure, Khaemwas, son of King Ramses II and high priest of Ptah in Memphis—a function reflected in his title, Setne, a late form of the priestly title Stm—who in his lifetime earned the reputation of being a learned sage.77 As the chief administrator of the Memphite sanctuaries and cemeteries, he took care of abandoned tombs and renewed the funerary cults of their owners.78 This activity shaped his literary figure, since in the first tale Setne Khaemwas revived Naneferkaptah, a late royal prince and learned scribe and magician who was buried in Memphis, because he coveted a magic book written by the god Thot himself which was in Naneferkaptah’s possession. In Setne Khaemwas II, the magician is Khaemwas’ son, and a reincarnation of a magician of old.79 Setne Khaemwas was never deified, and in these stories he puts his magical powers to improper use, only to be outsmarted and punished by Naneferkaptah, whom he believed to have tricked. And although we can therefore safely rule out that the Gospel tradition would have sought to use him as a positive model, the figure was not altogether ignored, because stories featuring him appear to have been known outside Egypt. Herodotus may have already mentioned him, and Ian

75 See above, n. 17. The Greek version of the Dream of Nectanebo has been dated to the first half of the second century BCE (UPZ 81). The Greek versions of the Myth of the Sun’s Eye and the Potter’s Oracle are known through papyri dating to imperial times but may derive from earlier versions. Also relevant to our discussion is an aretalogy to Asclepius–Imouthes (P.Oxy. 1381). On echoes of the figure of Setne Khaemwas in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica, see further below in this section. 76 For a survey of the extant texts true to 1999, see Ryholt, Story of Petese, p. 83. 77 Two stories relating to Setne Khaemwas—known as Setne Khaemwas I and II—are extant, but some scholars classify the story of Sethon, priest of Ptah in Memphis, in Herodotus (2.141) as a third related tale. For a summary of the two works, see Rutherford, “Kalasiris and Setne Khaemwas,” 205. For English translations, see Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature Volume III: The Late Period (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 125–51; Steve Vinson, The Craft of a Good Scribe History, Narrative and Meaning in the First Tale of Setne Khaemwas (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018). 78 See Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. III, 125. 79 Another instance of a woman summoning the ghost of her deceased husband to question him appears in the story of Petese. See K. Ryholt, Story of Petese, 80.

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Rutherford has suggested that the figure of the Egyptian priest Kalasiris in Heliodorus’ Aethiopica was loosely based on that of Setne Khaemwas.80 At the same time, as noted above, we cannot preclude that other Demotic stories of demiurgic magicians made their way outside Egypt through translations. The extant copies of Demotic narratives belonged to the priestly libraries of temples which were located in the Fayyum, an area in which Greek settlements were exceptionally dense, and the documentary papyri confirm that at least in Roman times—and presumably earlier—the personnel of these temples lived in a bilingual environment.81 Bilingualism and cross-cultural influences definitely come to the fore in the translations of Demotic texts that have reached us.82 More to the point, these early translations may have remained faithful to the Egyptian concept of the demiurge, while the topos of the Egyptian magician-trickster was a later development.

3.3

Mark’s Jesus and the Egyptian Demiurgic Magician

Alongside the cultural translation of the concept of “magic,” the Greek figure of the Egyptian magician was fostered by a different social phenomenon. Exploiting the fame of Egypt for all things magical, Egyptian practitioners seem to have played a conspicuous role in the trend of self-authorized, or “freelance” experts in religion, who were everywhere to be found in the Roman empire.83 Their pervading presence and ambivalent reputation among elite circles explain why the Egyptian magician became a recurrent figure in the Greek novels of imperial times,84 and their persistence in both the religious landscape and the literature of the Roman empire would have been a strong incentive for the authors of the Gospel tradition to reference this social type, all the more so since magic was also associated with healing powers: alongside magicians, Egyptian doctors garnered fame throughout the empire. At the same time, Mark’s Jesus is not a magician in the Greek sense of this occupation. Rather, as suggested above, there are affinities between the way Jesus shares in God’s powers in the Gospel, and how the socially prominent figures replicated the creative power of Heka in the Egyptian tradition. Furthermore, ˙ 80 Rutherford, “Kalasiris and Setne Khaemwas,” 205. 81 Pieter van Minnen, “Boorish or Bookish? Literature in Egyptian Villages in the Fayum in the Greco-Roman Period,” Journal of Juristic Papyrology 28 (1998), 99–184, at 108–110, 143–144, 167–168. 82 See above, n. 16. 83 Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Early Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). 84 See Matthey, Pharaon, magicien et filou, 169–74, with further bibliography, p. 169, n. 563.

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because the freelance practitioners who flourished across the Roman empire were of low social status, they presented themselves as servants of a god, and were never deified.85 This is again in contrast with the Egyptian demiurges of old. In sum, while the Greek representation of the Egyptian magician spawned the need for the Gospel tradition to address this ubiquitous rival, the figure Jesus competes with in Mark was that of the Egyptian imitator of Heka—a social type ˙ which was not mediated by the Greek imaginary, and may have been known outside Egypt thanks to early translations of Demotic texts. For cultural and geographical reasons, this figure would presumably have been known primarily in the eastern part of the Mediterranean.

3.4

Hellenistic Royal Biographies and the Ruler Cult

The second archetype which in my view contributed to shape Mark’s figure of Jesus relates to the royal biographies associated with the Hellenistic ruler cult. This genre was not limited to the Ptolemaic dynasty, but is also attested with the Seleucids. In the two realms, the biographies clearly served the needs of dynastic propaganda, and were presumably composed at an early date at the instigation of the kings themselves. Based on their content and function, we may infer that they were associated with the official royal cult, that is, the cult which was set up by the court itself, not by the Greek cities, and which was served by high priests appointed by the kings—in Egypt, in Alexandria; and in the Seleucid empire, in every province of the empire. Unfortunately, the original versions of these biographies are lost, and their content can only be reconstructed through later quotations and indirect clues, such as the iconography on coinage. The Ptolemaic story reshaped Ptolemy I’s genealogy in several ways. To quote Ludwig Koenen’s summary thereof: “Philip, the father of Alexander, had a lover, Arsinoe, herself a descendant of Herakles and sharing most of the ancestors of the house of Philip. When she was pregnant, Philip married her off to Lagos. The child, the later Ptolemy I, was exposed, but an eagle fed him and, extending his wings, protected him from sun and rain.”86

As an illegitimate son of Philip II, Ptolemy I was Alexander’s half-brother. The “exposed” child is a common theme in royal biographies of the ancient Medi85 Nectanebo in the Alexander Romance is a servant of Sarapis, and Lucian’s Alexander of Abonouteichos has a serpent revered as a god (Lucian of Samosata, Alexander the False Prophet). 86 Ludwig Koenen, “The Ptolemaic King as a Religious Figure,” in Images and Ideologies: SelfDefinition in the Hellenistic World, ed. Anthony Bulloch et al. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 25–115, at 44–45.

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terranean—starting with Sargon of Akkad—and a particularly convenient device for usurpers lacking dynastic legitimacy. Because the father of the exposed child is unknown, he may be divine, and the eagle feeding Ptolemy as a baby makes him “almost appear as a son of Zeus.”87 Moreover, the image of the wings protecting the infant against the elements references the traditional iconography of the pharaoh being protected by the wings of Horus the falcon.88 The Ptolemaic coinage spread this imagery, as the reverse featured Zeus’ eagle. The Seleucids responded with a myth of their own, whereby Seleucus I was fathered by Apollo, who visited his mother Laodice while she was asleep, and Seleucus was born bearing the image of Apollo’s anchor on his thigh, which was similar to the device engraved on a ring that Apollo himself had given to Laodice when she became pregnant; the birthmark also appeared on the thigh of the king’s descendants, as a natural proof of their divine ascendance.89 This myth was propagated throughout the Seleucid kingdom by means of the Seleucid coinage, on which the anchor, as a dynastic emblem, appeared as a counter-mark.90 These two biographies conflate the two central aspects of the kings’ identity, the royal and the divine. Moreover, they mixed historical data and mythical patterns. The former consist in historical names and situations which are historically correct and reference the mimetic representation of reality characteristic of Greek historiography. The mythical pattern exploited by the Ptolemies Hellenized a basic myth of pharaonic royal ideology.91 Because of this blend of the historical with the mythical, they provided a literary template which must have been immensely attractive to the authors of the Gospel tradition. Given that they were advertised through coinage and were likely correlated to the official ruler cult, these biographies were well known and therefore their template could be readily accepted by virtually everybody. Like these royal biographies, Mark’s Life of Jesus mixes historical data and mythical patterns primarily borrowed from the Judean tradition. Of course, Mark wrote in the days of the Roman empire, not in Hellenistic times. However, in Syria the Hellenistic tradition continued. As Hadrien Bru has shown, the imperial inscriptions commemorating the outstanding undertakings of the emperors in Syria in the second and third centuries CE played on the imagery (and imaginaire) of Syrian religion. For instance, construction works such as the building of aqueducts and the opening of roads through the moun87 88 89 90

Ibid., 44. Ibid., 45. Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus 15.4. Daniel Ogden, The Legend of Seleucus: Kingship, Narrative and Mythmaking in the Ancient World (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 23–67. 91 The Seleucids exploited a myth linked to the indigenous cult of Atargatis at Bambyke which the dynasty supported. See Ogden, Legend of Seleucus, 174–246.

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tains fostered the image of the emperor as master of the natural elements such as water and mountains.92 To conclude this matter: studies on the NT have long since emphasized that the depiction of Jesus in Paul’s letters borrowed themes from the imperial ideology spelled out in the Res Gestae.93 My suggestion that Mark’s Bios of Jesus was inspired by the royal and imperial biographies as those were reinterpreted in Syria is in tune with this approach.

4.

Conclusions

Demotic stories of demiurgic magicians and the Hellenistic royal biographies belong to different literary genres. Crucially, their mode of referentiality to the world is different. The stories fictionalize the biographies of famed characters of pharaonic times, whereas as far as we can judge, the royal biographies were a blend of Greek historiography and myth. That said, the two were linked to established cults. Mark’s Life of Jesus references all these aspects, and therefore, as I have argued here, the two sets of texts are relevant to the study of its genre. As noted in the Introduction, some scholars stress a shift in the mode of story in late Hellenistic times, which they characterize as “novelization.”94 In my view, a far more radical shift in cognitive terms was their shift in the way of representing reality, which tends to be less stylized, and more mimetic. For lack of a better term, this evolution may be characterized as “historicization,” and in my view it was far more consequential than the texts’ alleged novelization. At the same time, this historicization was subordinated to the overall genre of the Gospel, which in my view is best described as a biographical “story,” in the sense discussed above.

92 See Bru, “Culte impérial dans l’Orient romain,” and above, n. 73. 93 See, for instance, in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians. 94 Wills, Historical Gospel; Vines, Problem of Markan Genre.

John Van Maaren

Constructing Mark’s Social Setting: Fissures in Gentile Mark; Blueprints for Jewish Mark

1.

Introduction

There is a growing awareness that many texts included among what is now called the New Testament are best understood as ancient Jewish literature.1 Historicalcritical readings of Matthew, Luke-Acts, John, the letters of Paul, James, and Revelation have re-situated these texts within the social boundaries of ancient Judaism.2 However, no similar study has addressed the Gospel of Mark.3 In a 1 I understand Jewishness in the first century as an ethnicity. Benedikt Eckhardt, Ethnos und Herrschaft: Politische Figurationen Judäischer Identität von Antiochos III. bis Herodes I., SJ 72 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2013), 4. According to the sociological and anthropological constructivist consensus, ethnicity is an ascribed characteristic that emerges and is constantly reworked through social contact across ethnic boundaries. Through these contacts, different features emerge that function to distinguish members of one ethnic group from another. Accordingly, Jewish ethnicity is not monolithic, but differs by individual, time, and location and is influenced by a variety of macro- and micro-social characteristics. What is held in common by all Jews is a claim to be Jewish and the distinguishing feature of all non-Jews and any persons who cease to be Jews, is that they do not claim to be Jewish. For a more detailed discussion of my understanding of ethnicity, see John Van Maaren, “Mapping Jewishness in Antiquity: New Contributions from the Social Sciences,” JAJ 9 (2018): 421–54. 2 For an early example of the study of Matthew within Judaism see J. Andrew Overman, Matthew’s Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). For more recent discussion, see especially Anders Runesson and Daniel M. Gurtner, eds., Matthew within Judaism: Israel and the Nations in the First Gospel, ECL (Atlanta: SBL, 2019). Albert Schweitzer was a forerunner of reading Paul within Judaism. Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1911), 185. For an early example see Lloyd Gaston’s, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1987). For the current discussion, see especially Gabrielle Boccaccini and Carlos A. Segovia, eds., Paul the Jew: Rereading the Apostle as a Figure of Second Temple Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016); Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). Other New Testament texts have received comparatively less focus: Luke-Acts: Isaac Oliver, Torah Praxis after 70 CE: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts, WUNT 2/355 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). John: Wally Cirafesi, “John within Judaism: Ethnicity, Religion, and the Shaping of Jesus-Oriented Jewishness in the Fourth Gospel” (PhD Diss., University of Oslo, 2019). James: Dale C. Allison, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the

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recent essay summarizing the state of the question on Mark’s Jewishness, Lawrence Wills writes, “while a great continuity with Judaism was found in one New Testament text after another, there was one very important exception: the Gospel of Mark. The earliest of the gospels—and therefore the closest in time to Jesus— and the gospel that many now count as the boldest theologically, seemed to remain in the ‘gentile’ fold.”4 Two texts have exerted disproportionate influence in upholding this gentile Markan edifice: the handwashing incident in 7:1–23, which for many so clearly indicates a no-longer Torah observant social setting, and the parenthetical comment, embedded in the handwashing incident (7:3–5), which explains customs of “all the Jews,” suggestive of a primarily non-Jewish audience. These two texts often lead scholars attuned to the Jewishness of New Testament writings to side-step Mark. For example, in Isaac Oliver’s excellent study of Torah observance in Matthew and Luke-Acts, he explains his rationale for not including Mark: “the gospel of Mark, so I firmly believed, announces the abrogation of the ritual aspects of the Jewish law, including kashrut.” By the time Oliver encountered alternative ways of reading Mark 7, “too much work had already been done to turn back and include a thorough analysis of Mark in this monograph.”5 There are, as Oliver notes, cracks in the constructed edifice that is gentile Mark: a number of short studies addressing key passages and individual themes have advanced readings that suggest an inner-Jewish social setting for the Gospel of Mark, leading a growing number of scholars to suggest that Mark also should be read within Judaism.6 It is the goal of this essay to collect the contributions of these studies while also adding a few contributions of my own.7

3

4 5 6

Epistle of James, ICC (New York: T&T Clark, 2013). Revelation: esp. John W. Marshall, Parables of War: Reading John’s Jewish Apocalypse, SCJ 10 (Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2001); Cf. Sarah Emanuel, “Roasting Rome: Humor, Resistance, and Jewish Cultural Persistence in the Book of Revelation” (PhD Diss., Drew University, 2017). The closest is Daniel Boyarin’s popular-level book The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ (New York: New Press, 2012), which limits its analysis to a few points about Torah and Christology. Three earlier unconvincing studies reached similar conclusions: Dean W. Chapman, The Orphan Gospel: Mark’s Perspective on Jesus, BibSem 16 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993); Wolfgang Roth, Hebrew Gospel: Cracking the Code of Mark (Oak Brook, IL: Meyer-Stone, 1988); Johannes Majoros-Danowski, Elija im Markusevangelium: Ein Buch im Kontext des Judentums (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008). “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” in Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies in Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend, ed. Isaac Kalimi, BRLJ 51 (Boston: Brill, 2016), 69–86, esp. 71. Torah-praxis after 70 CE, 32. E. g., John G. Gager, Who Made Early Christianity? The Jewish Lives of the Apostle Paul, ALHR 18 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015), 95; Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Markus-Evangelium,” RAC 24:173–207, esp. 180.

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First, I summarize the current state of Markan research, noting that gentile, or post-Jewish Mark continues to cast its shadow over Markan and New Testament studies, even as select studies have severely compromised, if not toppled, each of the pillars supporting the gentile Markan edifice. Second, I re-consider the significance of Mark’s relationship to Paul, noting that the Paul within Judaism paradigm, if accepted, significantly alters the meaning of Mark’s purported affinities to Paul for understanding Mark’s social setting. Third, I engage the main pillars of gentile Mark, noting overlooked studies and, when appropriate, adding suggestions of my own as a blueprint for an alternative—and I would argue more stable—construction of Mark’s social setting. This suggested Markan setting (1) is within the social boundaries of the first-century Jewish ethnic group, (2) assumes Torah observance as the standard for righteousness and kingdom entrance, (3) retains an Israelite-centric perspective, (4) looks forward to an eschatological re-gathering of the twelve tribes in an earthly kingdom of God, and (5) evinces at most a peripheral interest in the nations. I conclude by noting possible implications for Markan purpose, genre, and areas for further research. As with any short summary essay, each topic is dealt with summarily and the footnotes direct readers to more detailed analyses of select texts and issues.

2.

The Jewishness of Mark in Current Scholarship

The only status quaestiones on the Jewishness of Mark’s Gospel, of which I am aware, is Lawrence Wills’s 2016 aptly titled essay “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark.”8 He treats select passages, as a full treatment is beyond the scope of his essay. His assessment provides a helpful starting point and so I outline it here. Wills begins by outlining the broad contours of the often-told story of the postWorld War II re-consideration of the relation of the New Testament texts to firstcentury Judaism in order to highlight the Gospel of Mark as the lone exception— a text that Wills notes continues to be read as a post-Jewish Gospel. Wills emphasizes the impact of Mark’s purported theological affinities with Paul on the portrayal of Mark as post-Jewish.9 He summarizes these similarities as follows: 7 Many of my thoughts are from my dissertation. John Van Maaren, “The Gospel of Mark within Judaism: Reading the Second Gospel in Its Ethnic Landscape” (PhD Diss., McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, 2019). 8 Lawrence M. Wills, “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” in Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies in Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend, ed. Isaac Kalimi, BRLJ 51 (Boston: Brill, 2016), 69–86. 9 For this, Wills relies on Joel Marcus, “Mark: Interpreter of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000): 473–87. For an updated argument, see Joel Marcus, “Mark: Interpreter of Paul,” in Mark and Paul: Comparative Essays Part II: For and Against Pauline Influence on Mark, ed. Eve-Marie Becker, Troels Engberg-Pedersen, and Mogens Müller, BZNW 199 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), 29–49.

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1) Mark seems to express Paul’s theology of faith over law; Mark seems to depict Jesus abrogating Jewish purity and kosher laws. 2) Mark seems to narrate a mission of Jesus moving from Jewish territory to gentile territory. 3) Mark seems to include historical inaccuracies on Jewish matters regarding the trial and crucifixion, and also on the nature of Jewish law. 4) Mark explains customs of “the Jews,” suggesting that the audience is gentile and needs this information spelled out. 5) There are details that indicate gentile, not Jewish custom, for instance, starting the day at sunrise, and assuming that women can initiate divorce. 6) Mark, like Paul, seems at times to be negative about Peter and the disciples. Wills notes that each of the above six points has been questioned but chooses to focus on the “largest theological matters,” which turn out to be the first two points. First, Wills grants that Mark emphasizes faith over law (#1), but contextualizes this by emphasizing that faith was already increasing in importance in Judaism, not as opposed to law, but as “the psychological commitment to follow God’s demand in Jewish law.”10 Second, Wills questions the supposed Markan Jesus’s mission to the nations (#2), pointing out that Mark’s narration of Jesus’s proclamation itinerary that extends to Tyre, Sidon, the Decapolis, and Caesarea Philippi may not depict a movement from Jewish to Gentile territory, but rather an exploration and reclaiming of the expanded ancestral boundaries of Israel. Wills uses the remainder of his essay to focus on three key passages for the construction of a Pauline, post-Jewish Mark: the healing of the leper (1:40–45), the woman with the flow of blood (5:25–34), and Jesus’s confrontation with the Pharisees and Scribes over hand washing (7:1–23). Each of these passages relates to Mark’s purported abrogation of purity laws. Wills’s approach to dealing with each passage is to emphasize the eschatological timeframe of Mark’s narrative, noting that in other Jewish texts a new outpouring of holiness often accompanies the eschaton. According to Wills, then, Jesus’s apparent disregard for maintaining purity when he first touches the unclean leper (1:41) and later is touched by the woman with the flow of blood (5:27) is because of Jesus’s status as the eschatological agent who bestows holiness and so is not susceptible to impurity, and not because purity/impurity no longer matters. Jesus’s dispute over handwashing with the Pharisees and scribes (7:1–23), and especially the narrator’s parenthetical comment καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα (“cleansing all food,” 7:19), depicts, not the abrogation of Levitical law for a post-Jewish Jesus-movement, but conveys the “eschatological purification of all foods.”11 10 Wills, “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” 74. 11 Wills, “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” 85.

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In summary Wills makes two basic moves to re-root the Gospel of Mark in first-century Judaism: (1) emphasize similarities between Mark’s purportedly post-Jewish indicators and other roughly contemporaneous Jewish literature (esp. Qumran), and (2) contextualize apparent disregard for things Jewish (esp. purity) within Mark’s assumed eschatological framework for the activities of Jesus, noting that the Israelite prophets also looked forward to these changes. I agree with Wills that both a detailed knowledge of first-century Judaism and the assumed eschatological context of the Markan narrative are important aspects of an accurate historical understanding of Mark’s Gospel as Jewish literature. Still, these purported post-Jewish indicators in Mark’s gospel also admit of other, sometimes more mundane, explanations. We will consider these after briefly addressing Mark’s relationship to Paul.

3.

Re-Considering the Importance of Mark’s Relationship to Paul

Wills notes that the importance of Mark’s relation to Paul for establishing Mark as Jewish/post-Jewish has been diminished by the insights of the New Perspective on Paul which presents Paul as no longer fully divorced from Judaism. Wills points out that, ironically, from the New Perspective on Paul, post-Jewish Mark appears more “Pauline” than Paul. The re-appraisal of Paul should give Markan scholars pause before making too much of a connection with Paul. Yet, there is another, more recent, reassessment of Paul that should be part of the conversation: The Paul within Judaism paradigm.12 According to this paradigm, Paul, as the apostle to the nations (Rom. 1:5, 13–16), addressed his letters exclusively to non-Jewish Jesus followers.13 An implication of this audience is that Paul’s polemics against circumcision and the juxtaposition of faith and works of the law are not directed against the Jewish law and Judaism as such, but against those who have instructed his non-Jewish addresses to convert and become Jewish in order to fully benefit from adherence to Jesus. That is, Paul adamantly opposes making conversion to Judaism a necessity for non-Jewish Jesus-followers. This Paul who is within Judaism has no problem with Judaism—he upholds the law (cf. Acts 21:24), acknowledges the covenant (Rom 11:28–29), and maintains a privileged place for Israel (Rom 3:1; 11:1)—but rejects any suggestion that 12 C.f., Jacob P. B. Mortensen, Paul among the Gentiles: A “Radical” Reading of Romans, NEZT 28 (Tübingen: Narr Francke, 2018); Mark D. Nanos, Reading Paul within Judaism (Eugene: Cascade, 2017); Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017); Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). 13 For a nice summary of main points of the Paul within Judaism paradigm, see Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 12–18.

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members of the nations must become Jewish in order to be saved, for this is to misunderstand the promises to Abraham. On this paradigm, then, Paul attests to distinct expectations among early Jesus-followers: One set for members of Israel, and another set for the nations. This Paul is very much the originator of a distinctly non-Jewish form of Jesus following, but conceived within a Jewish eschatological framework by an apostle who himself remains fully Torah observant. If accepted, the Paul within Judaism paradigm would retain the possibility that the Gospel of Mark—insofar as it can be shown to be associated with Paul—may be a gentile gospel that is directed to the nations (e. g., Mark 7:3–4) who are not expected to observe the law. However, this gentile Mark would not be post-Jewish insofar as the mission to the nations—understood in the framework of the Paul within Judaism paradigm—represented a new component of a predominantly Jewish movement that had in no way repudiated Judaism. While the Gospel of Mark could, in this way, be gentile and yet not supersessionist,14 in my estimation, the evidence tips the scales in favor of Mark reflecting a Jewish, law observant form of Jesus-following with distinctly Jewish future expectations. It is to this that we now turn.

4.

Testing the Structural Integrity of Gentile Mark; Blueprints for Mark within Judaism

As we turn to consider purported indicators of a gentile or perhaps post-Jewish Mark (two related, but distinct claims), it is important to note that the above six indicators are not of equal importance. Possible indicators of a gentile milieu such as inaccuracies about Jewish customs (e. g., handwashing, 7:3), and local geography (5:1, 13; 7:31), and familiarity with non-Jewish customs such as beginning the day at sunrise rather than sundown (15:33–34) or allowing a woman to initiate divorce (10:12), may alternatively reflect Jewish practice in the diaspora, where Jewish communities assimilated to Greco-Roman society to varying degrees.15 Further, arguments for these purported inaccuracies depend on contrasts with scholarly reconstructions of common ancient Jewish practice, often tentative at best and usually privileging ideal practice over local-specific evi-

14 Cf. Suzanne Watts Henderson, “Was Mark a Supersessionist? Two Test Cases from the Earliest Gospel,” in The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus, ed. Lori Baron, Jill Hicks-Keeton, and Matthew Thiessen, ECL 24 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2018), 145–68. 15 Cf. John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE), HCS 33 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996).

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dence.16 Similarly, negative depictions of the disciples may reflect traditionally held stories, are not limited to Mark, and stop well-short of a repudiation of these figures. Accordingly, and like Wills, I find the issues of the relationship of faith to Jewish law and the role of non-Jews in the Markan narrative to be central. As we turn to these key and mutually-supporting pillars—especially the abrogation of Torah and Jesus’s progressively non-Jewish mission—we find that, remarkably, they are implicit, never stated directly in Mark’s narrative. For example, in the only monograph-length study of the law in Mark’s Gospel, Heikki Sariola concludes that Mark accepts parts of the law (esp. Decalogue), but weakens or rejects others (e. g., sabbath, ritual purity, and dietary restrictions). Surprisingly, Sariola concedes that this splitting of the law is implicit and acknowledges that elsewhere in Mark’s narrative the law is explicitly affirmed without serious reservation about his thesis.17 Similarly, in the most sustained argument for a distinct mission to the nations by the Markan Jesus, Kelly Iverson concedes that this Markan theme remains implicit, indicated by clear narrative signals.18 In contrast to Sariola’s discovery of an implicit splitting of the law and Iverson’s demarcation of a mission to the nations communicated through implicit narrative signals, Mark’s Jesus explicitly states the opposite of both: Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and scribes, stating that “you abandon the commandment (τὴν ἐντολήν) of God and hold to human tradition” (7:8; cf. 7:9) and refuses the Greek Syrophoenician woman’s initial request by noting that he is sent to the children (i. e., Israel), not the nations (7:27). Let us take Mark’s explicit statements affirming the law and identifying Israel as Jesus’s target audience as clues to begin testing the integrity of the post-Jewish Markan edifice. Mark, unlike Paul (Gal 3:1), nowhere explicitly juxtaposes faith with the Jewish law. In fact, the πίστις, πιστεύω, πιστικός lexeme is never associated with deliverance from the coming destruction or entrance into the kingdom (i. e., salvation), but most often represents the human posture that enables healings,

16 On a woman’s right to divorce in Judaism, see Tal Ilan, “Notes and Observations On a Newly Published Divorce Bill from the Judean Desert,” HTR 89 (1996): 195–202, esp. 201–2; Tal Ilan, Jewish Women in Greco-Roman Palestine: An Inquiry into Image and Status (TSAJ 44; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 146; Hannah Cotton and Elisha Qimron, “XHev/Se Ar 13 of 134 or 135 CE: A Wife’s Renunciation of Claims,” JJS 49 (1998): 108–18; and˙Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 214. On Jewish use of different calendars, see especially James C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (New York: Routledge, 1998), 84. 17 Heikki Sariola, Markus und das Gesetz: Eine redaktionskritische Untersuchung, AASF 56 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1990), 245. 18 Kelly R. Iverson, Gentiles in the Gospel of Mark: “Even the Dogs under the Table Eat the Children’s Crumbs,” LNTS 339 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007), 104.

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exorcisms, and other miraculous acts in the immediate present.19 Faith is explicitly noted as the key human prerequisite for healing in relation to the four persons carrying the paralytic (2:5), the woman with a flow of blood (5:34), the synagogue ruler and his daughter (5:36), the father of an epileptic son (9:23–24), and the blind Bartimaeus (11:52). Similarly, faith, or lack of faith, in Jesus’s miraculous power is associated with the calming of the sea (4:40) as well as the withering of the fig tree and the associated teaching on petitionary prayer (11:22– 24). Elsewhere the faith lexeme generally designates confidence that what someone says is true.20 This sense of believing what someone says is true also fits the introductory summary of Jesus’s proclamation: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe (πιστεύετε) in the good news” (1:15)—that is, accept the truth of Jesus’s proclamation that the kingdom of God is near. In Mark’s logic, acceptance of Jesus’s message is not the end goal, but should prompt repentance (μετανοεῖετε; 1:15) from sin (2:17) which for Mark consists of disobeying the commandments of God (e. g., 7:8–9).21 In contrast to faith, law observance is an assumed part of righteousness at a number of places in the narrative.22 The importance of law observance is stated most overtly in Jesus’s rebuke of the Pharisees: “you abandon the commandment (τὴν ἐντολήν) of God and hold to human tradition.”23 Elsewhere, correct understanding and correct practice of the law are both closely tied with membership in the kingdom of God. Arseny Ermakov pointed this out in a short essay and

19 Anders Runesson makes this same point in relation to Matthew’s Gospel. Divine Wrath and Salvation in Matthew: The Narrative World of the First Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2016), 140–41. 20 The chief priests, scribes, and elders should have believed John the Baptist (11:31) and the disciples are not to believe every announcement that the Messiah is here (13:21). 21 By association, confidence in the truth of someone’s teaching also seems to be the sense of references to faith in Jesus, whether children who believe (πιστευόντων; 9:42), or chief priests and scribes who mockingly offer to believe if Jesus will come down from the cross (πιστεῦσωμεν; 15:32). If faith in Jesus designates confidence in Jesus, lack of faith (ἀπιστιᾳ; 9:24) results in fear (4:40; 5:36). 22 The word νόμος (“law”) does not occur in Mark, but related terms do. Sariola, Markus und das Gesetz, 18. Related words include ἐντολή (“commandment”): 7:8, 9; 10:5, 19; 12:28, 31; ἒχεστιν (“it is permitted”): 2:24, 26; 3:4; 6:18; 10:2; 12:14; and Μωϋσης (“Moses”): 1:44; 7:10; 9:4, 5; 10:3, 4; 12:19, 26. 23 7:8; cf. 7:9. The crucial importance of the law that is noted explicitly in Mark 7 coheres with other glimpses into the writer’s assumptions about the law. For example, the writer emphasizes that the timing of Joseph of Arimathea’s burial of Jesus’s body (15:42–43) and that of the three visitors to the tomb (Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome; 16:1) is dictated by the need to observe the sabbath. Elsewhere Jesus commands the healed lepros to go to the priest and “offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded” (Mark 1:44). and John the Baptist rebukes Herod for marrying his brother’s wife and thereby violating Lev 18:16 (Mark 6:18). In each of these examples, the writer of Mark assumes that law obedience matters.

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here I rely on his discussion.24 One the one hand, the law must be understood correctly in order to enter the kingdom of God. This is most clear when a scribe questions Jesus about the greatest commandment (ἐντολὴ πρώτη) in the law (12:28–34). After the scribe agrees with Jesus’s dual answers of the love of God (Deut 6:4–9; 11:13–21; Num 15:37–41) and love of neighbour (Lev 19:18) and proceeds to favorably compare these to “all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices” (12:28–33), Jesus responds “you are not far from the kingdom of God” (12:34). Right understanding of the law is, according to this story, necessary for entrance into the kingdom. While some commentators read the scribe’s answer to imply the abrogation of sacrifice,25 the comparative language (i. e., “greatest commandment,” “more important”) and the allusions to 1 Kgdms 15:22 and Hos 6:6 which both assume the continued importance of sacrifice, suggests that the writer of Mark also assumes the continued validity of sacrifice.26 On the other hand, the law must be obeyed to enter the kingdom of God. This is most clear in Jesus’s answer to the man’s question about what he must do to gain eternal life (10:17–22), an encounter overtly focused on kingdom entrance criteria. Jesus’s response to the man’s inquiry is to remind him of the commandments he already knows: “you know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother” (10:19). The implication is that eternal life—identical with entrance into the kingdom of God (10:17, 24, 25)—is attained by observing the commandments. After the man states that he keeps these, Jesus replies “you lack one thing” (10:21) and directs him to give his wealth to the poor in exchange for eternal life. When Paul’s faith/ works dichotomy is read into Mark, this is commonly seen as an addition to law observance and indicative of a different standard of righteousness.27 Yet Jesus’s directive is more simply explained as pointing out one commandment that the

24 “The Salvific Significance of the Torah in Mark 10.17–22 and 12.28–34,” in The Torah in the New Testament: Papers Delivered at the Manchester-Lausanne Seminary of June 2008, ed. Michael Tait and Peter Oakes, LNTS 401 (London: T&T Clark, 2009), 21–31. 25 Morna Hooker concludes the phrase would have been understood as a condemnation of temple worship, but only because of an assumed context where the writer and readers did not offer sacrifice. A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark, BNTC (London: Continuum, 1991). 289; Cf., Günther Bornkamm, “Das Doppelgebot der Liebe,” in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann zu seinem 70. Geburtstag, ed. Walther Eltester, 2nd ed. (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1957), 85–93, esp. 85, 89–90. 26 Adela Yarbro Collins writes “That does not mean that cultic sacrifices do not need to be made, or still less that they ought to be abolished.” Mark: A Commentary, Herm. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 576. 27 For example, Robert H. Gundry writes “Jesus upsets the notion that keeping the commandments brings eternal life.” Mark: A Commentary on His Apology for the Cross (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 555.

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man has not kept: “love your neighbor as yourself.”28 Later in the Markan narrative Jesus identifies the love of neighbor as one of the two most important commands in the law (12:31) and this man’s accumulation of “many possessions” (10:22) and apparent disregard for the poor (10:21) is a rather overt transgression of Lev 19:18.29 If this background is correct, Jesus’s instruction to the man to sell his possessions is aimed at bringing the man back into obedience with Lev 19:18.30 The logic throughout the passage is that living according to God’s law given to Moses is the standard of righteousness and necessary for entrance into the kingdom of God/eternal life. Accordingly, we can agree with Wills that, in Mark, faith represents “the psychological commitment to follow God’s demand in Jewish law”31 and add that the Jewish law is intimately linked with salvation and kingdom entrance. There is, however, one passage that for many seems to disallow our understanding of faith and law in Mark—that is, the handwashing incident in Mark 7:1–23. This passage is most commonly read as portraying Jesus abrogating the ritual purity laws (“Τhere is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile,” 7:15)32 and the narrator explaining that Jesus allowed all foods (esp. non-kosher foods) to be eaten (“cleansing all food,” καθαρίζων πάντα τὰ βρώματα). While space precludes a full treatment of this important passage, here I simply note that another reading of the passage has been developed, first by Yair Furstenberg,33 in which Jesus advocates a Levitical understanding of impurity as originating in bodies and moving outward. Jesus objects 28 Lev 19:18. For a similar conclusion regarding Matthew’s version, see Runesson, Divine Wrath and Salvation, 124–26. 29 Michael Peppard makes a related argument that the one command the man failed to keep was “do not defraud” (Mark 10:19). He points out that this is the only commandment listed by Jesus that is not part of the decalogue (It occurs twice in Torah: Deut 24:14–15; Lev 19:13). “Torah for the Man Who Has Everything: ‘Do Not Defraud’ in Mark 10:19,” JBL 134 (2015): 595–604, esp. 599–600. Peppard argues that an analysis of the ways a person could become wealthy in the first century suggest that the command “do not defraud” is meant as a critique of the man’s wealth. In a zero-sum economy with land as the scarcest resource, it was primarily landowners who, through exploiting workers, could gain wealth. If this background is correct, Jesus’s instruction to the man to sell his possessions is aimed at bringing the man back into obedience with Deut 24:15/Lev 19:13 so that he in fact does not incur guilt (Deut 24:15). Peppard’s conclusion, like that suggested here, would make law observance the criterion of righteousness that Jesus demands of the man. 30 There is abundant evidence that Jews in antiquity often associated giving to the poor (almsgiving) with eternal rewards. E. g., Prov 10:2; Hos 6:6; Dan 4:24; Tob 4:5–11; Sir 21:9–13. Gary A. Anderson, Sin: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 144–46. 31 “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” 74. 32 οὐδέν ἐστιν ἔξωθεν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ει᾿σπορευόμενον ει᾿ς αὐτὸν ὃ δύναται κοινῶσαι αὐτόν, ἀλλὰ τὰ ἐκ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐκπορευόμενά ἐστιν τὰ κοινοῦντα τὸν ἂνθρωπον. English translation is from the New Revised Standard Version. 33 “Defilement Penetrating the Body: A New Understanding of Contamination in Mark 7.15,” NTS 54 (2008): 176–200.

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to Pharisaic innovation, not law observance, and then clarifies this for his disciples with an example from moral impurity (7:17–23).34 This reading fits with our understanding of the interplay between faith and law in Mark, and has the distinct advantage of not making Jesus set aside part of the law immediately after accusing the Pharisees of the same (ἀθετεῖτε τὴν ἐντολὴν τοῦ θεοῦ; 7:9). A common objection to the above reading of the handwashing incident is that it ignores the story’s place in Mark’s narrative—immediately preceding the most extensive of Jesus’s purported excursions into gentile territory as he departs to travel north to Tyre where he encounters the Syrophoenician woman (7:24–31) before passing through Sidon and on to the Decapolis. This second pillar— Jesus’s progressive focus on gentiles—thereby functions to reinforce a reading of the handwashing incident which portrays Jesus abrogating parts of the law in preparation for a focus on gentile followers. However, this second pillar is likewise unstable. Kelly Iverson provides the most extensive argument for a separate gentile mission in Mark’s narrative that increasingly becomes the focus of Jesus’s proclamation and so I will interact with his argument here. For Iverson, Mark’s Jesus undertakes four gentile journeys. He first visits the region of Gerasa (5:1–20), then aborts a trip to Bethsaida (6:45–53), before an extended journey through Tyre, Sidon, and the Decapolis (7:24–8:9). On Jesus’s final trip to gentile territory, he travels as far north as Caesarea Philippi, stopping at Bethsaida on the way (8:22–9:29). Iverson concludes: “As Mark’s narrative unfolds, there is increasing emphasis and attention devoted to the gentile mission. The gentile journeys become progressively longer in duration and separated by increasingly briefer periods of narrative space.”35 As noted above, Iverson concedes that this progressive gentile mission is implicit, developed by narrative signals. These narrative signals are (1) the absence of Jewish institutions (esp. synagogues) and leaders (esp. scribes and Pharisees) in gentile areas, and (2) the language of “crossing over” (4.35; 5.1, 21; 6.45, 53; 8.13) to mark the spatial boundaries between Jewish and gentile territory. However, neither narrative clue is used consistently, for the language of crossing over is not used for the land “crossings” into gentile territory (7:24, 9:29), or even all sea crossings (8:10), and scribes show up in Caesarea Philippi (9:14), a “narrative signal” of Jewish space in purportedly gentile territory. Further, on Jesus’s purportedly third gentile mission, Jesus rebuffs the Syrophoenician woman’s request for healing by stating he was sent to the children (i. e., Israel), and this after he has, according to many, already initiated a Decapolis-wide proclamation to gentiles (5:20), and made a 34 For this later point, see John Van Maaren, “Does Mark’s Jesus Abrogate Torah? Jesus’ Purity Logion and Its Illustration in Mark 7:15–23,” Journal of the Jesus Movement in Its Jewish Setting 4 (2017): 21–41. 35 Kelly R. Iverson, Gentiles in the Gospel of Mark: “Even the Dogs under the Table Eat the Children’s Crumbs,” LNTS 339 (New York: T&T Clark, 2007).187.

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second, aborted attempt to proclaim the good news to gentiles (6:45–53). It seems that this pillar of a progressively gentile mission, like that of the abrogation of the law, is unsteady, and that both can mutually support gentile or post-Jewish Mark only by leaning precariously into the other. Wills notes that an alternative explanation for Jesus’s excursions into gentile territory is an exploration of the expanded boundaries of ancient Israel.36 When this possibility is combined with Jesus’s stated target audience as Israel (7:27), it opens the possibility that the persons Jesus targets are the Jewish residents of these areas. Josephus attests to Jewish communities large enough for substantial unrest at the time of the first Jewish revolt in each of the places Jesus visits (War 2.466–483; Life 61). The one exception, of course, is the Syrophoenician woman (7:24–31)—a character who interrupted Jesus while he sought solitude, and the only person whose request for healing was initially rejected in Mark. On the assumption that the Markan Jesus targeted the Jewish residents during his travels to Tyre, Sidon, the Decapolis, and Caesarea Philippi, Mark’s extended emphasis on the woman’s ethnicity makes sense: She, as a member of the nations, was the anomaly among Jesus’s encounters and it is her outsider status that explains Jesus’s reticence to heal. According to my argument above, Israel remains Jesus’s target audience throughout the narrative. It is also possible that Mark makes no mention of a future mission to the nations. In contrast to Matthew’s Gospel, which includes at least four indications of a future mission to the nations (Matt 3:9; 12:18, 21; 24:14) and culminates with the directive to “go make disciples of all nations (πάντα τὰ ἔθνη)” (Matt 28:19), Mark includes just one possible reference to a future mission to the nations (“the good news must first be proclaimed to all the nations,” 13:10).37 While space does not permit a full discussion of this passage, I will simply note that the all-important prepositional phrase “to all the nations” (ει᾿ς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη)—most often read as indicating the target audience of the future proclamation (e. g., “the good news must first be proclaimed to all nations,” NRSV) and placed at the end of 13:10 by nearly all translations—is in fact found at the beginning of the verse and may just as well be grouped with “those” (i. e., the governors and kings) before whom the disciples will stand trial as witnesses to their impending judgment. This alternative reading was argued most fully in a neglected study by George D. Kilpatrick.38 Kilpatrick provided four arguments in 36 “The Jewishness of the Gospel of Mark,” 72. 37 13:9–10: Βλέπετε δὲ ὑμεῖς ἑαυτούς· παραδώσουσιν ὑμᾶς ει᾿ς συνέδρια καὶ ει᾿ς συναγωγὰς δαρήσεσθε καὶ ἐπὶ ἡγεμόνων καὶ βασιλέων σταθήσεσθε ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ ει᾿ς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς καὶ ει᾿ς πάντα τὰ ἔθνη πρῶτον [δὲ] δεῖ κηρυχθῆναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον. 38 “The Gentile Mission in Mark and Mark 13:9 11,” in Studies in the Gospels: Essays in Memory of R. H. Lightfoot, ed. Dennis E. Nineham (Oxford: Blackwell, 1955), 148–58. Kilpatrick’s argument was defended by James K. Elliott, “The Position of the Verb in Mark with Special

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favor of his proposed reading. (1) It would fit Mark’s preference for verb-initial constructions;39 (2) Matthew’s redaction of Mark 13:9–13 links the nations with the governors and kings (Matt 10:18), apparently assuming this reading; (3) The textual variant δὲ, attested in a few early witnesses (esp. W, Θ, 565), while not likely original, requires this reading, indicating that some early interpreters assumed this reading; (4) If the preposition ει᾿ς designates the recipients of the proclamation (κηρύσσειν ει᾿ς), it would be the only occurrence in first-century literature of the Jesus movement and a departure from the typical use of the dative case. While either reading is grammatically possible, Kilpatrick’s contribution opens the possibility that Mark makes no mention of a mission to the nations, either during the life of Jesus, or among his earliest disciples. To summarize, the narrative world that I am suggesting for Mark is one that assumes Jesus’s proclamation of the approaching Kingdom of God targets Israel. This proclamation, understandably, takes Torah observance as the standard of righteousness and a basic requirement for kingdom entrance. This narrative world provides the blue prints for a construction of Mark’s social setting within the social boundaries of the first-century Jewish ethnic group, a proposed edifice that would rest on pillars that are explicitly stated in Mark’s story rather than purported narrative themes that are at best implicit in the narrative. This Israelite-centric perspective of Mark finds support elsewhere in Mark. For example, the way that Mark’s narrative categorizes and ranks people groups. Most significantly, while commandments for Israel are assumed to be relevant for his intended audience (12:29), τα ἔθνη (“the nations;” 10:33, 42; 11:17; 13:8 [2x]; 13:10) consistently designate alterity at both the narrative and compositional levels of the Gospel of Mark. The otherness of the nations is especially clear when Jesus contrasts typical leadership practices “among the nations” with expected practice among his disciples: “You know that among the nations (τῶν ἐθνῶν) those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you” (10:42–43). Insofar as ideal leadership practices among the disciples represent expected leadership characteristics of the Jesus-movement, Jesus’s instructions also speak to the compositional setting of Mark. Similarly, during the approach to Jerusalem Jesus predicts that, after his arrest, the chief priests and scribes will hand Jesus over “to the nations” (τοῖς ἔθνεσιν, 10:33). In this text, the action of the Jewish leaders that Jesus foresees is depicted as a betrayal of ethnic solidarity and Jesus is most Reference to Chapter 13,” NovT 38 (1996): 136–44. Etienne Trocmé adopts this reading. L’Evangile Selon Saint Marc, CNT 2 (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2000), 321, 345. Morna Hooker finds it plausible. A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark, BNTC (London: Continuum, 1991), 310–11. 39 By one estimate, Mark 13 includes 64 verbs in the initial position, 8 medial verbs, and 21 final position verbs. James Keith Elliott, “The Position of the Verb in Mark,” 137.

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vulnerable when he is at the mercy of the foreign and undifferentiated nations. In both these texts, the primary other of Mark’s present reality seems to be the nations/pagans/gentiles/non-Jews and not the Jews as a people group. Similarly, all the historical memories of the narrative are those of the Jewish people, never those of Greeks, Romans, or others.

5.

Implications and areas for further research

In conclusion, let us think about possible implications and areas of further research for Mark as Jewish literature. One area of study is the nature of the expected kingdom of God in Mark (1:15; 4:11, 26, 30; 9:1, 47; 10:14, 15, 23, 24, 25; 12:34; 14:25; 15:43).40 Mark never explains the kingdom of God, but, for the narrative, it is clearly future (1:15; 9:1; 13:30; 14:25). If Jesus’s target audience is Israel and his excursions into the surrounding areas are explorations of the expanded borders of ancient Israel, a real possibility is that Mark conceives of the Kingdom of God in terms of Israelite restoration eschatology, including the regathering of the lost tribes.41 This possibility is supported by the few spatial indicators that depict the Kingdom of God (9:1; 13:26; 14:62) “coming” and the very corporeal depictions of the looming destruction—that is, physical death (8:34–38) and being cast into the Hinnom valley (γέεννα; 9:43–47). If these blueprints for the Gospel of Mark as a Jewish text have any merit and we assume that the social setting of the writer and intended readers is within the social boundaries of first-century Judaism, what implications does this have for the identification and study of the progymnasmata in the Gospel of Mark? It should be self-evident that a Jewish social setting is compatible with GrecoRoman paideia because first-century Jews were part of the Greco-Roman world and Mark’s use of Greek indicates he had some education. In this sense, the study of the progymnasmata in Mark is a useful corrective to erroneously assuming a hermetically sealed Jewish world which is certainly not the case for the writer of Mark or any other persons and their texts in antiquity. How then might Mark’s use of the progymnasmata intersect with our reading of Jewish Mark? While a detailed analysis must await further investigation, here I make just a couple suggestions. First, the analysis of individual Markan passages 40 The phrase “kingdom of God” (ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ) is used fourteen times in Mark’s Gospel Unlike Luke and Matthew, Mark never uses the phrases “kingdom of heaven” or “kingdom of the father.” 41 This is often posited of the historical Jesus. E. g., Joel Willitts, “Jesus, the Kingdom and the Promised Land: Engaging N. T. Wright on the Question of Kingdom and Land,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 13 (2015): 347–72. It has not, as far as I am aware, been argued for the Markan narrative.

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in terms of Theon’s progymnasmata might demonstrate literary coherence where scholars have often found narrative layers. To give just one example, Mark’s role in crafting the handwashing incident in Mark 7:1–23 has most often been seen as that of a redactor of earlier material. This allows scholars to posit a historical Jesus who assumes law observance (e. g., 7:8, 9), and a writer and community who no longer observe purity regulations (7:15, 19). If, however, the different elements in the story can be shown to be part of, for example, the ancient genre of thesis, the story would appear to be a coherent whole and Jesus’s accusation that his opponents set aside the law of Moses and his own directives about purity (7:15), must be read as part of a single Markan story, suggesting that Mark’s meaning of 7:15 and 7:19 are in line with Jesus’s stated valuation of the law of Moses. This would compel scholars to adopt readings of 7:15 and 7:19 that assume law observance, supporting a reading of Mark within Judaism. Second, how might Mark’s use of the progymnasmata be influenced by his sense of Jewish solidarity with his intended audience? For example, if the parables are best categorized as fables, how might Mark’s fables be influenced by literary forms he has encountered in the textualized ancestral memories of Israel? That is, how has Mark’s Jewish worldview, as expressed in his narrative, been influenced by his Greco-Roman education? This and other questions of the intersection between Jewish Mark and the progymnasmata would benefit from a thorough investigation. Third and finally, what implications might the Jewishness of Mark’s gospel have for Mark’s macro genre? On the one hand, an inner-Jewish social setting for Mark and his intended audience seems compatible with each of the leading candidates for Mark’s genre, whether biography, historiography, a learned tale, novel, or hypomnêmata as discussed in this volume. Accordingly, Mark’s Jewishness is not decisive for the question of genre. On the other hand, the particular configuration of Mark’s symbolic world may have some bearing on the question of genre. If, as I have suggested, the good news of Mark’s Jesus and that of Mark’s gospel as a whole is the arrival of the kingdom of God, if this kingdom is understood as the national restoration of Israel, and if this restoration is expected immanently, there is an urgency and subversiveness to Mark’s text. The extent to which biography, or historiography included these elements may shed light on Mark’s genre. These elements also raise the related question of Mark’s audience and purpose. If the writer shares a sense of Jewish solidarity with the intended audience and if the good news is national restoration, one possible audience might be diaspora Jewish communities who may need Aramaic terms defined (3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 9:43; 10:46; 14:36; 15:22, 34) and Judean Jewish customs explained (7:3–4). In this case, the purpose might be similar to the purpose of the Markan Jesus’s excursions into gentile lands—that is, to proclaim the good news to the dispersed of a regathering of Israel. We may speculate, then, that Mark

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could have been written for diaspora Jews about the expected regathering of those dispersed among the nations. Incidentally, this has some affinities with the earliest tradition that associates Mark with Peter and Rome, and can account for the indicators of authorial familiarity with Greco-Roman customs.42 While it is currently commonplace to present Mark as the interpreter of Paul as the apostle to the nations (Rom 1:5, 13–16), perhaps Papias was correct in his statement that Mark was the interpreter of Peter as apostle to the circumcision (Gal 2:7–9).43 This conjecture, and its relation to Mark’s genre would benefit from further investigation.

42 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 3.1.2 43 Eusebius, Church History, 3.39.15

Author index

Adrados, Francisco Rodriguez 44, 46, 59 Aemilius 128–130, 137 Ajax 120 Amenemhat III 204 Aristotle 55 seq., 66, 127, 115, 182 seq., 191 Barclay, John M. 216 Barthes, Roland 13, 93 seq. Bauckham, Richard 8, 89, 144, 189 Beavis, Mary Ann 37, 119 Becker, Eve-Marie 8 seq., 13, 101, 150, 155–157, 160, 163, 165–167, 189, 213 Berger, Klaus 20 seq., 27 Boccaccini, Gabrielle 126, 211 Bond, Helen K. 8 seq., 14, 18, 101, 111, 117, 135, 137, 142 seq., 145 seq., 150, 152, 155, 163, 168 Bornkamm, Günther 219 Boyarin, Daniel 212 Bultmann, Rudolf 19, 101, 160, 219 Burridge, Richard A. 8, 18, 135, 146, 156, 189 Butts, James R. 19, 21, 31 seq., 66 seq., 70, 76, 120 seq., 145 Byrskog, Samuel 20, 28, 89 Caesar 124–126, 130, 136, 144, 152, 172, 174 seq., 184 Cato 40, 124–126, 130 Chapman, Dean W. 212 Cirafesi, Wally 211 Collins, Adela Yarbro 7, 77, 85, 108–110, 112, 118 seq., 181, 187, 219 Cribiore, Raffaella 40 seq.

Culpepper, Alan 119, 130 Cunningham, Valentine 91, 94 Damm, Alex 19 seq., 71, 141, 143 Demetrius 107, 143, 176, 181 Dewey, Joanna 17 seq., 27, 34 seq., 140, 151 Dibelius, Martin 9, 19, 101, 155, 160 Dijk, Gert-Jan van 44–46, 48, 58 seq. Diogenes Laertius 136 seq., 144 seq., 149 Duff, Tim 121, 128, 142 Eckhardt, Benedikt 211 Edwards, James R. 117 seq. Emanuel, Sarah 212 Eriksson, Anders 69 Eusebius 80, 159, 226 Fernández-Garrido, Regla 68, 76, 82 seq. Frank, Georgia 98 seq., 161 Gager, John G. 212 García, María Alejandra Valdés Gaston, Lloyd 211 Gérard Genette 13, 94 Gibson, Craig A. 69, 91 Gnilka, Joachim 75 seq. Gombrich, Ernst 169 seq. Goodacre, Mark 97 seq. Gurtner, Daniel M. 211 Hadas, Moses 127 Hägg, Tomas 18 Haufe, Günter 51 seq.

71

228 Heath, Jane 20, 43, 99, 107 Henderson, Suzanne Watts 216 Hermogenes 13, 20–22, 46, 66, 68, 71, 90, 92, 103 seq., 120 seq., 123, 141 seq., 155 seq. Herodot 37, 68 seq., 82, 90, 103 seq., 107, 110, 199, 206 Holzberg, Niklas 44, 59 Homer 41, 43, 57, 68, 81 seq., 91, 94, 104, 140, 144, 201 Honigman, Sylvie 8, 14, 127, 189, 192–196, 199, 201, 205 Hooker, Morna 149, 219, 223 Hultgren, Arland 52, 57 Ilan, Tal 217 Imhotep 204 seq. Jairus 13, 117 seq., 121, 130–134 John Hyrcanus 202 John the Baptist 108 seq., 146, 198, 201, 218 Josephus 109 seq., 112, 115, 136, 138, 152, 158, 166, 172, 174 seq., 199, 202, 222 Jülicher, Adolf 37 seq., 45, 53, 55 seq. Keener, Craig S. 135 Kennedy, George A. 7, 20, 26, 42, 44, 57, 63, 67–69, 71, 73, 76–78, 80 seq., 83, 90–93, 101–104, 108, 115, 120 seq., 134, 141 seq., 145, 156 Khaemwas, Setne 193, 198, 204, 206 seq. King Herod 108, 143 Koenen, Ludwig 208 Koester, Craig 98 Kuhlin, Joel 12, 63, 97 Lachmann, Karl 160 Larsen, Kasper Bro 89, 91 seq., 96 Larsen, Matthew D. C. 14, 63, 64, 74, 86, 171–175, 177, 180, 184, 189 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 162 Letteney, Mark 63, 173 Libanius 13, 90 seq., 120, 123 Lucian of Samosata 136, 139, 208 Lücke, Friedrich 161

Author index

Mack, Burton 7, 19, 21, 23, 102, 140 Magill, Thomas F. 19, 22 Majoros-Danowski, Johannes 212 Marcus, Joel 74, 77, 118, 213, 216 Martin, Michael 7, 17, 19 seq., 32, 38, 40, 63, 109, 120 seq., 123, 138, 142, 159, 199 Marxsen, Willi 163 seq. Matthey, Philipe 194, 203–205, 207 McCall, Marsh H. 56 seq. Meier, Georg Friedrich 158 Moeser, Marion 19–21, 23–25, 141 Morgan, Teresa 40, 58, 64, 137, 140, 190 seq., 197 Mortensen, Jacob P. B. 7, 13, 117, 169, 189, 215 Nanos, Mrk D. 211, 215 Nectanebo 193 seq., 204, 206, 208 Neyrey, Jerome H. 19, 33 Neyrinck, Frans 117 seq. Odysseus 120, 122 Oliver, Isaac 211 seq. Overbeck, Franz 160, 162 Overman, J. Andrew 211 Parrott, Rod 19, 21, 32 Parsons, Mikeal 7, 19 seq., 32, 38, 40, 45, 63, 102, 123 Patillon, Michel 20, 63, 120 Peppard, Michael 145, 220 Pernot, Laurent 64 Perry, Ben Edwin 44, 46 seq., 49, 58 seq. Philo 112, 115, 120 seq., 138, 142, 152, 158, 174 Philodemus 107, 109, 180 Piedrabuena, Sandra R. 68 Pinheiro, Marília P. Futre 64, 81 Plato 40, 47, 64 seq., 69 seq., 72, 92, 94, 136, 148 seq., 152, 173, 190 Plutarch 13, 23, 25, 68, 82, 121, 128–131, 133 seq., 136 seq., 142, 152, 172, 184 Polybius 12, 63, 65–67, 81, 84, 86, 158, 167 Reich, Keith A. 76, 205 Ritner, Robert 203

229

Author index

Robbins, Vernon 7, 18 seq., 21–23, 63, 89, 102, 140 seq., 148 Runesson, Anders 157, 165, 211, 218, 220 Ryholt, Kim 199, 201, 205 seq. Sallust 13, 124–127, 129 seq., 133 seq., 158 Salome 198, 201, 218 Salyer, Gregory 19, 21 Sariola, Heikki 217 seq. Schleiermacher, Friedrich D. E. 161–163, 169 Schmidt, Karl Ludwig 72, 119, 153 Schweitzer, Albert 162, 211 Scott, Bernard Brandon 38, 52, 55, 64, 114, 147, 190 Segovia, Carlos A. 211 Semler, Johann Salomo 159 seq., 162 Shepherd, Tom 117 seq. Snodgrass, Klyne 37, 45, 52 Socrates 56, 64, 72, 136, 139, 145, 148 seq., 152 Stanton, Graham 37 seq. Stern, David 55 seq. Storr, Gottlob Christian 51 Strickland, Michael 42, 57, 102, 115 Suetonius 136–139, 144

Theißen, Gerd 52, 55, 58, 164 Théon, Aelius 20, 63, 120 Thiessen, Matthew 215 seq. Thucydides 68 seq., 106 seq., 149, 199 Thukydides 156, 158, 166, 168 Tilg, Stefan 64, 66 seq., 81 seq. Timoleon 128–130 Trocmé, Etienne 79, 223 Valerius Maximus 145 Vouga, Francois 37, 55 seq. Webb, Ruth 69, 91 seq., 94 seq. Wendland, Paul 159, 164 seq. Whitaker, Robyn J. 89, 95 Wills, Lawrence 8, 190–192, 194–197, 210, 212–215, 217, 220, 222 Wrede, William 163 Wright, Benjamin 8, 117, 126 seq., 189, 224 Xenophon

82, 136, 190

Yamasaki, Gary 96 Young, David M. 40, 42, 57, 102, 115 Zetterholm, Magnus

211, 215

Subject index

account 39, 52, 55, 63 seq., 66, 70, 83, 86, 90, 94, 96–98, 110, 125, 128, 135, 138, 143 seq., 148–150, 153, 176–178, 195, 226 – combined account 122, 124, 128 – separate account 122, 128 Aesop 44–46, 49, 54, 56 ancient biographies 8, 22, 135 aporia 182 auctor 158, 162 audience 7, 59, 76 seq., 80–83, 86, 89–91, 93–98, 137, 143–146, 148 seq., 151–153, 189, 192, 199, 201, 212, 214 seq., 217, 222–225 authority 17, 30, 32, 63, 92, 104–106, 108, 141, 153, 173 Autor 158–162, 165–169 Autorbewusstsein 166 Bibelkritik 162 seq. biography 7–9, 12, 14, 18, 23 seq., 27, 101, 117, 135–150, 152 seq., 155 seq., 168, 180, 189, 194, 196, 225 – biographies (Hellenistic royal) 14, 22, 24, 128, 136–138, 143 seq., 146, 150, 189– 191, 193, 196, 198, 202, 208–210 – biographies of Hellenistic kings 192, 202 bracketing 117 characterisation 14, 74, 99, 104–106, 114, 135, 138, 140, 146 seq., 192, 194 chreia 7, 11, 18–33, 41–43, 60, 78, 102, 141, 147, 153

– chreia exercises 12, 17 seq., 21–24, 27, 34 seq. – chreia proper 20, 26–28, 30–33 collective memory 185 comment 21, 25–35, 50, 56, 64, 87, 109– 111, 125, 128, 144, 151, 189, 212, 214 community rule 172, 174 comparison 7–13, 18, 21, 23, 25, 37–39, 44 seq., 48 seq., 51–53, 55–61, 65, 74, 86, 96, 107, 117, 119–136, 142, 178, 189, 194 seq., 197 seq., 203 – categories for comparison 123 – comparison to the equal 121, 124 – synkrisis 7, 11, 117, 120–130, 133 seq., 140–142, 152 seq. – combined synkrisis 130 – syncritical composition 130 compression 21, 24 seq., 28 seq., 58 confirmation 21 seq., 26 conjunctive καί 177 contradiction 21, 25–27, 29–34, 182 death 12, 14, 46, 54, 63 seq., 70, 72, 74 seq., 77–81, 85 seq., 111 seq., 124, 132, 135 seq., 138 seq., 143–145, 148–152, 172, 183, 193, 198, 201, 224 demiurgic power 204 seq. – creative power 205, 207 – demiurgic magician 204 seq., 207, 210 demotic narratives 192–194, 197–201, 207 – demotic stories 14, 189, 192 seq., 197, 204 seq., 207, 210 – demotic story-telling 194

232 diaspora 216, 225 seq. draft 13 seq., 87, 172, 174, 178–181 ekphrasis 69, 89–99 elaboration 11, 18, 21 seq., 71, 102, 141 embeddedness 117 enargeia 91, 93 epimythium 44, 47, 59 eschatology 7 seq., 213–216, 224 ethical incorporation of the reader 121 ethnicity 11, 104, 211, 222 – ethnic 13, 50, 189, 191, 211, 213, 223 ethos 18, 107 seq., 115, 121, 125, 129, 134 Evangelium 8, 19, 23, 75, 101, 118 seq., 144, 155–157, 159 seq., 163, 166, 168 seq., 189, 212 events 64–67, 72–77, 80–83, 85, 89, 94, 96– 99, 104, 107, 111, 119 seq., 129 seq., 138, 144, 149, 152, 175 expansion 21, 24 seq., 58, 141 seq. fable 11 seq., 37–61, 67, 71, 92, 140, 200, 225 – definition 19 seq., 27, 37, 44–46, 51 seq., 55, 58, 66, 69, 78 seq., 84, 91–95, 98 seq., 102, 115, 117, 120, 156, 183, 195 seq., 203, 208 – ethical fable 50 seq. – fable definition 12, 39, 43–45, 48 seq., 60 – fables as coded speech 54 – myths about the fable 48 seq., 60 – rational fable 50 seq. faith 13, 30, 111, 119 seq., 130–134, 146 seq., 185, 214 seq., 217–221 fiction 40, 52, 140, 144, 150, 167, 190, 193– 195, 197 seq., 201 – fictional 40, 140, 194 – fictionalise 210 focaliser 96 framing 47, 117, 119 gaze 71, 86, 90, 95–99 genre 7–12, 14, 18, 22, 37–39, 44 seq., 47– 49, 51–55, 58, 60, 64, 85, 101, 104, 117 seq., 133–137, 139, 141, 144, 146,

Subject index

155–157, 165, 171, 180, 189 seq., 192– 197, 199, 201 seq., 206, 208, 210, 213, 225 seq. – genre theory 165, 168 gentile 14, 41, 143, 147, 211–217, 221 seq., 224 seq. – gentile mission 221 seq. geography of lower Galilee 181 Gethsemane 152 gnoma 140 healing account 118 Hermeneutik 158–163, 169 Historiographie 8, 112, 115, 156–159, 165– 168, 189 imitate 103 seq., 137 seq., 141, 146 imitation 92–94, 103, 106 seq., 137 seq., 146, 193, 202, 204 impurity 214, 220 seq. Ineinanderschachtelung 118 inflection 21, 23 seq., 28 intercalation 13, 117–120, 133, 142 interlocutor 26 seq., 29–35, 40, 101, 104, 110 interpolation 117 seq. Jewish novella 190, 192, 194 seq., 197 Judaism 14 seq., 30, 49, 138, 191, 211–217, 224 seq. Judean narrative 192, 194–198 – Judean story-telling 193, 197, 200 – Judean tale 199 judgement 70, 120 seq., 125 juxtaposition 57, 120, 125, 127, 129, 133, 140, 142, 153, 215 Kleinliteratur

160

law 17, 24, 41 seq., 126, 139, 147, 173, 179, 200, 202 seq., 212, 214–222, 225 letter writing 103 Life of Aesop 46, 54 seq., 139 seq., 147, 190 likeness 55, 58 literary memory 157, 167

233

Subject index

magic 194, 198, 203–207 – magician 14, 192–194, 198, 202–208 mashal 52, 58 metaphor 58 mythos 44–46, 48, 140 narrative 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 23, 34, 38, 43– 48, 52–61, 63–65, 67–74, 76, 79, 82–86, 89–99, 101 seq., 109–111, 113, 116–119, 125, 127, 135, 137, 140, 142, 144, 147, 149–153, 157, 165 seq., 171 seq., 175– 177, 180, 182, 190–199, 201, 203, 205 seq., 209, 214 seq., 217 seq., 220–225 – episodic narrative 48, 144, 147 – narration 12 seq., 32, 43, 63–73, 76, 78, 80–86, 90, 92–95, 99, 117, 214 – narrative 43, 94, 156 – narrative criticism 140, 165, 168 – orders of narration 63 seq., 66, 73, 84 non-literary 172, 174, 178, 184 novelistic 189–192, 196 – novelisation 190, 192, 199, 210 – novelization > novelisation orality studies

18

paideia 126, 140, 224 parable 37–39, 43, 45, 47–61, 143 seq., 148, 191, 201, 212, 225 – narrative parable 37, 39, 51, 55 – true parable 55, 58–60 para-literary 14, 172–174, 176, 185 pre-literary 14, 172, 174, 176, 184 seq. progymnasmata 7, 10–14, 17–22, 26, 34, 39 seq., 42 seq., 48, 50 seq., 55, 58, 60, 63, 66 seq., 69, 89–94, 97, 99, 101–104, 108, 116, 120 seq., 123, 133 seq., 141–143, 145, 155 seq., 158 seq., 168 seq., 171, 176, 201, 224 seq. – ancient progymnastic textbook standards of comparison 120 Propagandaliteratur 156 Prosaschriftsteller 166, 168 proverb 39, 51 seq., 54, 58 seq., 192, 195 purpose of evaluation 121

read between the lines 125 realism 93, 96, 133 Redaktionsgeschichte 163 seq. refutation 21, 26, 65 reminiscence 17–19, 21–25, 27–29, 33– 35, 78 restatement 21, 23 rhetorical criticism 101 seq., 140 rhetorical culture 18 rhetorical question 59, 172, 182, 184 righteousness 213, 218–220, 223 sacrifice 195, 219 sandwich construction 117 sandwiching 117 saying source Q 171 scribe 28, 30, 53, 86, 193, 196, 204, 206, 214, 217–219, 221, 223 Septuagint 52, 56, 60, 109 seq., 112–114, 127, 144, 195, 200–202 short story 12, 43, 55, 64 seq., 69–72, 74– 79, 82–86 simile 12, 38 seq., 52, 54–57 similitude 55, 58 speech-in–character 11, 13, 101–106, 108, 111–114, 116 – ethopopoeia 103 seq., 115 seq. – prosopopoeia 102 seq., 115 seq. style 8, 65, 72, 76, 78–80, 93, 95, 106seq., 109– 111, 113 seq., 116, 142seq., 151, 153, 172, 174–176, 180, 184seq., 193, 195 seq., 201 the sower 12, 38 seq., 52–55, 58–60 the twelve 147–149, 191, 196, 202, 213 the wicked tenants 12, 38 seq., 52–60 titulus 151 Torah 196, 211–213, 216 seq., 219–221, 223 Verschachtelung 118 Verschmelzung 118 visual piety 98 seq. vividness 13, 89, 91–93, 96 working document 171 seq., 174, 177 seq., 180 seq., 183–185

Index of Scriptures

Matthew 13:10 51 14:1 70 15:15 51 27:11 113 27:13 113 27:17, 21–24 75 28:19 222 Mark 1:2–3 167 1–13 72 2:1–12 28 2:1–3:6 28 2:13–17 28 2:18–22 28 2:21–22 31 2:23–28 28 3:1–6 27 3:20–35 117 3:23 51 3:27 38 4:1 53 4:2 52 4:3–9 38 4:10 148 4:11 51 4:12 48 4:13 52 4:13–20 54 4:21 38 4:26–29 38 4:30–32 38 5:21–43 117 5:27 214

6:7–32 117 6:14–29 110 6:16 13 6:17–28 193 6:22–3 109 7:1–23 212 7:3–5 212 7:17 51 7:19 214 8:22–10:52 143 9:49–50 38 11:12–25 117 12:1 48 12:1–12 38, 39, 53 12:12 54 13:28 38 13:34 59 13:35–37 59 14:1–11 117 14:1–16:8 70 14:53–72 117 15 111 15:1–47 85 15:2, 4 112 15:9 112 15:12 112 15:14 112 15:15 51 15:16–20a 74 15:16–32 63 15:20b–27 74 15:25 85 15:25–32 183 15:29–32 151

236 15:40a 95 15:42 85 15:47 95 16 95 16:4 95 16:5 96 16:6 178 Luke 4:23 51 5:36 51 6:39 51 8:10 51 9:7–9 110 9:9 109 14:7 51 23:3–4 114 23:14–16, 22 114 John 19:1 114 20:1 97 20:5 98 20:6–7 98 20:8 98 Acts 21:24 215 Rom 1:5 215 1:13–16 215 3:1 215 11:1 215 11:28–29 215 Gal 2:7–9 226 3:1 217 Num 15:37–41 219 Lev 19:18 219 Deut 6:4–9 219 11:13–21 219 1 Samuel 12 49 Hosea 7.12 114

Index of Scriptures

Daniel 1–6 Esther

192 190

Theon, Prog. 1 46 4 44 8 103 47–49 90 60.5–6 67 79.20 78 118.7–120.11 90 118.12 91 216.1–5, 8–10 22 Plutarch Mor. 210E 28 23 218F 2 23 Aemilius 1 129 Lucian, Dem. 14 25 20 27 23 26 46 26 50 25 59 24 Aesop’s fables 46 Plato Resp. 2.376e–377a 40 Gorg. 465e 64 Symp. 203b–c 69 The Republic 10.614.a–621.b 69 Phaedo 116c 152 Sukkot 28a 41 Babrius, Fab. Prologue 2 49 95 45 Aphthonius, Fab. 1 50

237

Index of Scriptures

2 46 27 47 38 47 Pseudo–Hermogenes, Prog. 1 [2–3] 46 John of Sardis, Prog. 1 50 Nicolaus the Sophist, Prog. 2 50 Vita Aes. 140 54 Aristotle Rhet. 2.20.2–5 56 Politics 7.4.4, 1326a 5–b 25 127 Apsines, Art of Rhetoric 6.1 57 Tryho, Tropes I 5 56 Tarrheus frag. 1 58 Polybius 1.14.6–7 65 1.13.9–10 65 1.4.2 65 1.14.3–6 65 Cicero Inv. 1.29.27 66 De orat. 3.98 170 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 2.15.1f. 159 3.39.14–16 226 Hermogenes, Prog. 9 103 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lys. 7.13 105 8.1–14 106 19.16–26 105 19.22–3 105

Isocr. 11.16–18 106 Imit. 31.2.5–6 106 Thuc. 1 106 3 106 27 106 36 107 41 107, 116 Pomp. 3 107 Sallust, Bel. Cat. 51–52 125 53–54 124 54 125 Letter of Aristeas §107–111 126 §109 127 Seneca, Moral Letters 6.5 137 Tacitus, Annals 3.65 137 Josephus Ant. 1.14–15 138 6.342 138 8.418–20 138 17.60 138 War 2.466–483 222 Life 61 222 Philo, Life of Moses 1.1 138 1.29 138 1.158–59 138 2.67 138 Lucian, Demonax 135 Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars Quintilian, Inst. Or. 10.1.37 158 Res Gestae 210

136