Corpus-Paul

["Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>]

Dear Mark,

Thanks for your long post which just came a few minutes ago (it is 4:15 a.m. 
Atlantic
time or Eastern Daylight time).  I hope I am not boring other people out of 
their
minds!

It seems to me that a central issue is what one may make of Galatians 1-2.  
Are you
saying that the places Paul mentions in the narratio of Galatians are the 
complete
itinerary for Paul before the Jerusalem Conference?  Rhetorically it seems to 
me that
the real import of this section of Galatians is to specify the times and 
circumstances
in which Paul was in Jerusalem in order to deal with the apparent charge of 
his being
a subordinate apostle.  So maybe he is mentioning places only in the relative 
vicinity
of Judaea (and for that matter Galatia), but not bothering to mention other 
cities
farther away where he has founded churches, such as in Macedonia.  If cities 
in
Macedonia where he founded churches weren't pertinent to the case he is 
making in
Galatians, Paul was probably doing a very appropriate thing rhetorically by 
omitting
mention of them, in order to make his narratio  "brief, lucid, and plausible" 
(brevis,
aperta, probabilis).  After all Cicero in citing Greek rhetorical guidelines 
tells us
that a narratio should begin with what needs to be said but is not to burden 
the
reader or listener with useless details (De inventione 1.28).  Quintilian 
tells us
something extremely similar in 4.2.31-32 where he says this:  "Most writers, 
more
especially those of the Isocratean school, hold that it [the narratio] should 
be
lucid, brief, and plausible (lucidam, brevem, verisilimilem) for it is of no
importance if we substitute clear (perspicuam) for lucid, or credible or 
plausible.  I
agree with this classification of its qualities... ."  The Rhetorica ad 
Herennium also
refers to these three qualities of the narratio in 1.14.  So it is clear that 
the very
young Cicero in De inventione is referring to earlier rhetorical tradition 
about the
narratio, which is surely Greek tradition.  Thus I am led to believe that the 
places
Paul mentions in Galatians 1-2 should not necessarily be considered the 
complete list
of regions where Paul did his ministry as apostle.  (On this point see also 
Robert
Jewett, Chronology, p. 23 including n. 90.)

I also do not think that Galatians in rhetorical genus is entirely judicial 
-- it has
very significant deliberative elements.

All best wishes,
Frank W. Hughes
Codrington College
in sunny Barbados