This volume sets out to demonstrate how the progymnasmata, the ‘building blocks of ancient Mediterranean literature’ (p. 275), should be the starting point for critical study of New Testament literature. As the preliminary exercises for those going on to declamation, they are the ‘theoretical lens’ (p. 281) through which we can understand the more advanced rhetorical handbooks and indeed much of Christian literature itself. The authors present this book as an introduction to the progymnasmata: each chapter deals with a different exercise, defining it, and giving examples first from ancient pagan literature and then from early Christian, New Testament and often Jewish texts as well. It is an excellent resource for anyone wishing to understand these exercises (or indeed to find examples for teaching) and on the whole makes a strong case for their key role in understanding New Testament texts.
Chapter 1 deals with the chreia, defined by Theon (the main, though not only, theorist cited) as a ‘brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person’ (p. 18). An interesting aspect of this chapter is the suggestion that studying the way in which students were trained to elaborate, expand and condense chreia could throw light on the transmission of Jesus material within the Gospels. This is also the argument that emerges from the next two chapters: Chapter 2 covers fable (or mythos), ‘a fictitious story/statement that gives an image of truth’ (Theon, p. 46), explaining the exercises by which students manipulated the form, for example by providing a variety of conclusions for the same fable. The authors offer a range of examples from pagan literature, and then argue for Jesus’ parables as examples of the form. They go on to suggest that the practice of manipulating and recasting the fable makes it very doubtful that we can have access to anything like the ipsissima verba of Jesus – just the essential idea the fable/parable conveys.
Chapter 3, on narrative, discusses the elements of narration (person, action, place, time, manner, cause) and the editorial exercises recommended for practising manipulation of narrative: these include both compression and expansion of narrative, adjusting narrative time relative to story time (so that the beginning, middle and end are narrated in every possible combination). The summaries of these exercises are tantalising (and the authors give details of accessible – though limited – editions of the progymnasmata in their conclusion, for further reading). The argument of this chapter is that the sophistication of ancient training in editing narrative is not reflected in the approach of scholars to New Testament material. The point is well made.
Chapter 4, on ekphrasis, is perhaps the weakest in terms of its application to New Testament texts. The extensive descriptions ‘bringing what is portrayed clearly before the sight’ (p. 109) just do not exist to any great degree in canonical Christian literature, except perhaps in the book of Revelation, which unaccountably is cited only in a footnote here (albeit with useful references).
Chapter 5, on speech-in-character, is more successful and finds a range of examples (albeit brief) within parables and Paul's letters; its most interesting sections offer some very perceptive close readings of Festus’ speech in Acts 25, and the epistolary ‘speeches-in-character’ of the apostolic decree (Acts 15) and Lysias’ letter (Acts 23).
Chapter 6, on encomium, is one of the most extensive: several pages are taken up with different lists of topoi both from the progymnasmata and the rhetorical handbooks. New Testament scholars will be familiar with encomium as one of the possible suspects for the genre of gospel: this chapter concentrates primarily on the Pauline letters. One interesting conclusion, demonstrated through extensive discussion, is that the Philippians hymn, rather than being an interpolation, is in fact typical of other encomiastic compositions in Paul generally.
The final chapter on syncrisis, comparative evaluation for praise and blame, starts to raise interesting questions for this reader as to how far Graeco-Roman literary method is involved in some of the New Testament examples cited, and how far they are examples of rabbinic types of argument (such as qal wa-homer): especially because the bulk of the examples are taken from Paul and Hebrews, the most Jewish of the New Testament letters. It would have been interesting to see this possibility acknowledged and discussed.
This review has been able only to skim over the highlights of this rich resource for those wishing to embark on study of the progymnasmata. Parsons and Martin start some intriguing hares in the field of synoptic studies and indeed rightly (in my view) charge New Testament scholars with a lack of literary sophistication in our dealings with our texts. The authors are also right to point out that the progymnasmata give insight into the ideology of ancient culture, not just its prose composition. The book is not uniformly convincing, and I for one would be interested to see further work on rabbinic styles of rhetoric and their relationship to Graeco-Roman culture. However, it is a treasury of resources and I recommend it.
