Alex Damm, «Ancient Rhetoric as a Guide to Literary Dependence: The Widow’s Mite», Vol. 97 (2016) 222-243
This essay applies conventions of ancient rhetoric to the analysis of the literary sequence of Mark and Luke’s Gospels. With an eye on basic and more advanced rhetorical handbooks, I outline two significant rhetorical conventions for improving upon literary sources: clarity (perspecuitas) and propriety (aptum). When we ask whether the evangelist Mark has applied these principles to the adaptation of Luke's Gospel (following the Griesbach Hypothesis), or whether Luke has applied these principles to the adaptation of Mark (following the Two-Document and Farrer Hypotheses) in the pericope of the Widow's Mite, we find that the latter scenario is more plausible.
AnCiEnT rHETOriC AS A GUiDE TO LiTErAry DEPEnDEnCE 235
over, by adding individual words to Luke: to. gazofula,kion (mark
12,41b); evlqou/sa (mark 12,42a); auvth/j (mark 12,44b). in all, then,
mark’s changes to Luke foster a relatively expansive and verbose style.
Our knowledge of the rhetorical handbook tradition implies that mark’s
additions are a little odd in instructional material, which should be quite
plain. But given the artfulness which Theon permits in a chreia, mark’s
embellishments still appear acceptable.
There are, however, two features in mark’s alleged adaptations
which look suspicious. First, certain of mark’s changes arguably attenuate
clarity. in one instance, mark replaces Luke’s clear term avlhqw/j (“truly”)
with a more regional, culture specific term avmh,n, a replacement which
seems odd given that the more universally Greek avlhqw/j exists already in
mark’s source 35. more suspicious still is mark’s odd adjustment to Luke
in 12,44. As marshall observes, Luke’s u`sterh,matoj (21,4) is a more
common word than mark’s term u`sterh,sewj. Hence, under the 2GH,
mark replaced Luke’s relatively common (and so clear) Greek term,
u`sterh,matoj, with the quite uncommon synonym, u`sterh,sewj 36.
in addition, in the closing verse (21,4), as Fitzmyer suggests, Luke
employs somewhat clearer syntax than mark by advancing mark’s
appositive phrase, “her whole livelihood”, to a position immediately
after pa,nta and before the relative clause “which she had”. For mark
to make the opposite shifts indicates obfuscation of syntax 37.
35
LSJm, avmh,n s. v. For region-specific terms as potentially unclear, see DAmm,
Ancient Rhetoric and the Synoptic Problem, 71, citing G. O. rOWE, “Style”, Hand-
book οf Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period 330 B.C.-A.D. 400 (ed. S. E.
POrTEr; Leiden – new york – Köln 1997) 123-124. Of course, if mark’s commu-
nity is fully comfortable with Semitic idioms, then the use of avmh,n makes sense,
on which see E. P. SAnDErS – m. DAViES, Studying the Synoptic Gospels (London
– Philadelphia 1989) 72. J. mArCUS, Mark 1–8, 33-36, believes that mark writes
in Syria and that his community might have migrated from Palestine. For the
case that mark wrote in or close to the italian peninsula, see GUnDry, Mark,
1043-1044.
36
mArSHALL, Luke, 752. To judge by LSJm, there does not appear to be
a difference in meaning between mark’s u`sterh,sewj and Luke’s u`sterh,matoj.
But marshall indicates that Luke’s u`sterh,matoj is relatively common (and this
appears to be the case according to LSJm). Hence it is arguably counterintuitive,
on the grounds of rhetorical clarity, for mark to replace this with the less common
u`sterh,sewj.
37
FiTZmyEr, Luke X-XIV, 1322. According to GUnDry, Mark, 729-730, mark
12,44b reads: “[T]his [poor widow] out of her lack threw [into the treasury] abso-
lutely everything she had (pa,nta o[sa ei=cen), her whole livelihood”. Gundry adds:
“Stressing the contrast . . . are . . . the forward placement and sheer length of ‘out of
her lack absolutely everything she had,’ and the addition of an appositive ‘her whole