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  • From: "Frank W. Hughes" <fwhughes AT sunbeach.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: 1 Thessalonians and the early Paul
  • Date: Fri, 09 Apr 1999 05:05:40 -0300


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





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