An idea that has bounced around in my head for over twenty years. Πάντ'αινον = the whole ainos. In Homeric Greek the definite article drops so panta ton ainon becomes pant' ainon, παντα αινον "all the praise." Indeed it is this form which is used to describe Nestor's speech after the death of Patrocles. As Nagy notes the term ainos means 'coded words' or speech almost exactly in the manner in which Alexandrian Christians would employ the Platonic term gnostic (it is also the related to the term 'enigma'). It is apparently understood that Nestor secretly communicated 'coded messages' in this speech to his son to help him win the chariot race established in Patrocles' honor.
In Iliad 23.652 Achilles proceeds from the chariot race to the next contest “when he had heard the whole tale of Neleus’s son,” ἐπεὶ πάντ’ αἶνον ἐπέκλυε Νηλεΐδαο; the view that aînos, “tale,” has the connotation “coded message” in Homer is strongly supported by its occurrence in this line (for aînos as “coded message” see Nagy 1979:235–241, who points to the related forms ainíssomai, “utter an oracular response,” and aínigma, “riddle”); aînos, “coded message,” would seem to be the precise term for the speech that Nestor has just delivered (cf. Meuli 1975 [1954] 752, who also sees a hidden meaning in Nestor’s aînos, but identifies it as Nestor’s veiled hint that he should receive the remaining prize; Alden 2000:102–110 offers another solution to the riddle posed by the word aînos in Iliad 23.652, namely that Nestor once accepted with restraint an unfair defeat by the Molione and that he thus contrasts favorably with Menelaus when tricked by Antilochus). In terms of seeing what is hidden from view, the spectators in the chariot race of Iliad 23 are put in the same position as the Homeric audience, and they thus represent the Homeric audience in this episode: the race becomes invisible to the spectators at the turning post, and thus an object of dispute, and it is in relation to the turning post that the Homeric audience must also see what is hidden from view. For the spectators the dispute about the leader in the race is resolved at the end of the race; for the Homeric audience the issue of the turning post’s relevance in the race is resolved by Nestor’s acceptance of last prize at the end of the episode as a whole.
v652, πάντ' αἶνον
There is no agreement regarding the exact meaning of αἶνον in this phrase. The word has a semantic field that goes from “fable, story with a teaching” to “praise.” Both values are appropriate here, but the scholiast bT already affirms that we must understand in this context that an allusion is made to a hidden meaning of the story of Nestor that Achilles has understood, an interpretation followed by CSIC and Richardson, which, however, recommends with reason to leave the translation open (“the whole tale”). I follow this recommendation, in particular because the polysemy of αἶνος is impossible to preserve; In any case, and unlike most translators, I use a temporo-causal translation for the ἐπεί, leaving the interpretation of the phrase a little more open. https://texto.iliada.com.ar/canto23.html
Nagy Iliad .02.217–219"The story told by Phoenix about Meleagros and Kleopatra is introduced at the very beginning, I.09.524, by the expression houtō ‘this is how’, which conventionally introduces a discourse containing a moral message, such as a fable. The Greek word for such discourse is ainos, the meaning of which is impossible to translate by way of any single English word. For want of a better alternative, I define ainos pragmatically as ‘coded words’—a ‘coded message’" https://chs.harvard.edu/curated-article ... d-odyssey/
On the Song of the Sirens (used by the Alexandrian Christians as relating to Christ on the cross because Odysseus was tied to the mast of a ship with wax in his ears:
Come here, Odysseus, you of many riddling words [ainoi], you great glory to the Achaean name, |185 stop your ship so that you may hear our two voices. |186 No man has ever yet sailed past us with his dark ship |187 without staying to hear the sweet sound of the voices that come from our mouths, |188 and he who listens will not only experience great pleasure before homecoming [néesthai] but will also be far more knowledgeable than before, |189 for we know everything that happened at Troy, that expansive place, |190 —all the sufferings caused by the gods for the Argives [= Achaeans] and Trojans |191 and we know everything on earth, that nurturer of so many mortals—everything that happens.
Nagy again: subject heading(s): poluainos ‘of many riddling words; of many fables; fabled’; Polyphemus[; ainos ‘coded words; fable’]
The translations ‘of many fables’ or more simply ‘fabled’ reflect the specialized meaning of ainos as ‘fable’. In addressing Odysseus this way, the Sirens are recognizing the hero’s fame as a master of ainos, which is a form of speech that can more generally be described as a coded message (on which see the comment on I.09.524–599). So, Odysseus is recognized as ‘able to speak about many things in code’. Such coded speech is by nature ‘riddling’, as we see from the meaning of ainigma ‘enigma, riddle’, which is a derivative of ainos. In order to survive, Odysseus must master many different forms of discourse, many different kinds of ainos. That is why he is addressed as poluainos ‘having many different kinds of ainos’ by the Sirens here when he sails past their island, O.12.184. (What follows is epitomized from H24H 10§43.) Even the transparent meaning of Polyphemus, Poluphēmos, which is the name of the Cyclops blinded by Odysseus, foretells the hero’s mastery of the ainos. As an adjective, poluphēmos means ‘having many different kinds of things said’, derived from the noun phēmē, ‘thing said’, as at O.20.100and at O.20.105. See the comment at O.20.098–121, 3§23. This adjective poluphēmos ‘having many different kinds of things said’ is applied as an epithet to the singer Phēmios, O.22.376, portrayed as singing songs that have many different meanings: see the comments at O.01.342 and O.02.035 (see also BA 17). In the case of Polyphemus, the very meaning of his name, which conveys the opposite of the meaning conveyed by the false name of Odysseus, Outis, ‘no one’, foretells the verbal mastery of the hero who blinded the monster. [[GN 2017.06.15 via BA 240, PH 236–237.]]
O.21.110
subject heading(s): ainos ‘coded words; fable; praise’
Telemachus recognizes here that the praise deserved by Penelope is self-evident, in the sense that the word ainos here can mean ‘praise’. What is less clear, however, is whether he fully recognizes—as of yet—the right words to use for encoding and decoding what should be said about his mother. The further meaning of ainos as ‘coded words’ leaves room for such lack of full clarity. [[GN 2017.08.08 via BA 235.]]
612 and 613 (Πάντα αινον) are numbers used everywhere in Jewish mystical literature related to the 613 laws of Moses. There are numerous gematria for this "covenant" "Torah" etc.
Irenaeus says that Clement and his Alexandrian tradition took especial interest in the line:
The prophetic spirit also distinguishes us as children. "Plucking," it is said, "branches of olives or palms, the children went forth to meet the Lord, and cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord; " light, and glory, and praise, with supplication to the Lord: for this is the meaning of the expression Hosanna when rendered in Greek. And the Scripture appears to me, in allusion to the prophecy just mentioned, reproachfully to upbraid the thoughtless: "Have ye never read, Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise?" (Οὐδέποτε ἀνέγνωτε ὅτι ἐκ στόματος νηπίων καὶ θηλαζόντων κατηρτίσω αἶνον). (Paed 1.5.13.2)
The importance of ainos in the daily life of the Church of Alexandria is apparent in the closing hymn of the Instructor:
Praising the thanksgiving praice (αἰνοῦντας εὐχάριστον αἶνον) to the only Father and Son, Son and Father, the Son, teacher and pedagogue, together also with the Holy Spirit. All for the One in whom is all, for whom all things are One, for whom is eternity, of which all are members, whose glory is the aeons. Since the Pædagogue has brought us into His Church, and joined us to Himself, in return for His gracious guidance and instruction, it will be well for us being there to offer up αἶνον to the Lord, (Ἐπεὶ δὲ εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἡμᾶς καταστήσας ὁ παιδαγωγὸς αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ παρακατέθετο τῷ διδασκαλικῷ καὶ πανεπισκόπῳ λόγῳ, καλῶς ἂν ἔχοι ἡμᾶς ἐνταῦθα γενομένους μισθὸν εὐχαριστίας δικαίας κατάλληλον ἀστείου παιδαγωγίας αἶνον ἀναπέμψαι κυρίῳ).
Irenaeus knows this ainos is important to Mark and the Alexandrian community as he notes:
And the first heaven indeed pronounces Alpha, the next to this Epsilon, the third Eta, the fourth, which is also in the midst of the seven, utters the sound of Iota, the fifth Omicron, the sixth Upsilon, the seventh, which is also the fourth from the middle, utters the elegant Omega,"--as the Sige of Marcus, talking a deal of nonsense, but uttering no word of truth, confidently asserts. "And these powers," she adds, "being all simultaneously clasped in each other's embrace, do sound out the glory of Him by whom they were produced; and the glory of that sound is transmitted upwards to the Propator." She asserts, moreover, that "the sound of this uttering of praise, having been wafted to the earth, has become the Framer and the Parent of those things which are on the earth." He instances, in proof of this, the case of infants who have just been born, the cry of whom, as soon as they have issued from the womb, is in accordance with the sound of every one of these elements. As, then, he says, the seven powers glorify the Word, so also does the complaining soul of infants.(8) For this reason, too, David said: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings Thou hast perfected praise;"(9) and again: "The heavens declare the glory of God."(10) Hence also it comes to pass, that when the soul is involved in difficulties and distresses, for its own relief it calls out, "Oh" (W), in honour of the letter in question,(11) so that its cognate soul above may recognise [its distress], and send down to it relief.
The idea that ainos is some how equivalent to a secret gospel is found also in the Stromata:
To inquire, then, respecting God, if it tend not to strife, but to discovery, is salutary. For it is written in David, "The poor eat, and shall be filled; and they shall praise the Lord that seek Him. Your heart shall live for ever." For they who seek Him after the true search, praising the Lord, shall be filled with the gift that comes from God, that is, knowledge. And their soul shall live; for the soul is figuratively termed the heart, which ministers life: for by the Son is the Father known. γέγραπται γὰρ ἐν τῷ ∆αβίδ φάγονται πένητες καὶ ἐμπλησθήσονται καὶ αἰνέσουσι κύριον οἱ ἐκζητοῦντες αὐτόν· ζήσεται ἡ καρδία αὐτῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα τοῦ αἰῶνος. οἱ γὰρ ζητοῦντες κατὰ τὴν ζήτησιν τὴν ἀληθῆ αἰνοῦντες κύριον ἐμπλησθήσονται τῆς δόσεως τῆς παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, τουτέστι τῆς γνώσεως, καὶ ζήσεται ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτῶν (5.1.12.1 - 2)
Alexander of Jerusalem:
Again the above-mentioned Alexander, in a certain letter to Origen, refers to Clement, and at the same time to Pantænus, as being among his familiar acquaintances. He writes as follows:
For this, as you know, was the will of God, that the ancestral friendship existing between us should remain unshaken; nay, rather should be warmer and stronger. For we know well those blessed fathers who have trodden the way before us, with whom we shall soon be; Pantænus, the truly blessed and master ((Πάνταινον, τὸν μακάριον ἀληθῶς καὶ κύριον) and the holy Clement, my master and benefactor, and if there is any other like them, through whom I became acquainted with you, the best in everything, my master and brother. (Eusebius HE VI:13.8-9)
These things are sufficient to evince the slander of the false accuser, and also the proficiency of Origen in Grecian learning. He defends his diligence in this direction against some who blamed him for it, in a certain epistle, where he writes as follows:
When I devoted myself to the word, and the fame of my proficiency went abroad, and when heretics and persons conversant with Grecian learning, and particularly with philosophy, came to me, it seemed necessary that I should examine the doctrines of the heretics, and what the philosophers say concerning the truth. And in this we have followed Pantænus, who benefited many before our time by his thorough preparation in such things (τοῦτο δὲ πεποιήκαμεν μιμησάμενοί τε τὸν πρὸ ἡμῶν πολλοὺς ὠφελήσαντα Πάνταινον, οὐκ ὀλίγην ἐν ἐκείνοις ἐσχηκότα παρασκευήν), and also Heraclas, who is now a member of the presbytery of Alexandria. I found him with the teacher of philosophic learning, with whom he had already continued five years before I began to hear lectures on those subjects. (ibid 19)
Photius 118 It is said that Clement was the pupil of Pantaenus and his successor as head of his school, and that Pantaenus heard teachers who had seen the apostles, and had even heard them himself. (Πάνταινον τῶν τε τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἑωρακότων ἀκροάσασθαι , οὐ μὴν ἀλλὰ καί τινων αὐτῶν ἐκείνων διακοῦσα).
It's the holidays so I have a lot of things to do including seeing my aunt. But I will hash this out over the next few weeks.
Apparently there is a relationship between χρεία (the word Mark is said to have made his gospel) and “αἶνος."
Das Wort αἶνος und die älteste Form der griechischen Tierfabel .
Wir finden die ältesten Spuren einer Anwendung jener kernigen tendenziösen Reden , welche das Wesen der χρεία ausmachen , sowohl in dem alten Worte « αἶνος » selbst als in der mit demselben von den Dichtern bezeichneten ältesten Form der Tierfabel . Das Wort αἶνος als solches kommt bei Homer im Ganzen viermal vor ; davon zweimal in der Bedeutung < Lob » , so Il . XXIII . , 795 :
( Αντίλοχ ' , οὐ μέν τοι μέλεος εἰρήσεται αἶνος , Αλλά τοι ἡμιτάλαντον ἐγὼ χρυσοῦ ἐπιθήσω) und Od . XXI . , 110 : ( Καὶ δ ̓ αὐτοὶ τόδε γ ' ἴστε · τί με χρὴ μητέρος αἴνου ; ) , einmal in der Bedeutung « sinnvolle Rede , Gleichnis >> Od . XIV . 508 : ( Ὦ γέρον , αἶνος μέν τοι ἀμύμων , ὃν κατέλεξας ) und endlich vielleicht in der Bedeutung von < Rede >> schlechthin II . XXIII . , 652 : ( Ως φάτο , Πηλείδης δὲ πολὺν καθ ' ὅμιλον ̓Αχαιῶν Ωιχετ ' , ἐπεὶ πάντ ' αἶνον ἐπέκλυε Νηλεΐδας ) , woselbst es aber ebensogut « Lob » heißen könnte.
Mit Recht hebt Buttmann hervor , daß der Begriff << Rede » in dem Worte aivos an der einzigen Homerischen Stelle , wo es mit Sicherheit nicht das Lob bezeichnet ( Od . XIV . 508 ) , sondern auf die kurze Erzählung des Odysseus geht , deren sinnvoller schlauer Zweck von Eu- mäos wohl verstanden wird , eine ganz bestimmte Wen- dung hat . Nicht « Rede » im allgemeinen Sinne des Wortes schlechthin gleichbedeutend mit « Gespräch » oder Erzählung ist hier unter aivos verstanden , sondern eine sinnvolle , zu einem bestimmten Zwecke klug erfundene Rede . Und Odysseus , der gewissermaßen ein Vertreter dieser Gattung von Reden ist , führt als Einziger das Epitheton « πολύ̣αινος » , das , wie Buttmann sicher richtig an- nimmt , weder als noλópodos noch mit « Lob » zusammenhängend , sondern lediglich auf diese Art von klug aus gedachten Reden sich beziehend aufgefaßt werden muß . Wenn auch das Wort aivos später bei den Tragikern1 zuweilen ganz gleichbedeutend mit λóyos verwendet wurde , so ist ferner die Beziehung zu berücksichtigen , auf welche Crusius aufmerksam macht , daß αἶνος einen alten be- kannten , von Mund zu Mund gehenden Spruch bezeichnen kann . 2 >> Diese Auffassung , welche durch die von ihm an- gezogenen Stellen zur größten Wahrscheinlichkeit erhoben erscheint , und womit auch die Redewendung ἐν αἴνη εἶναι = « im Gerede sein » , « berühmt sein zusammenhängt ( vgl . Herod . III . 74 πρὸς δ ̓ ἔτι ἐόντα ἐν αἴνῃ μεγίστῃ τὸν Πρηξάσπεα ἐν Πέρσησι ; und Herod VIII . 112 καὶ Θεμιστοκλέα ὡς εἴη ἐν αἰνῇ μεγίστη τῶν στρατηγῶν ; und Herod . IX . 16 Οὐκῶν ... deckt sich vollständig mit der von Quintilian 5 , 11 , § 19 aufgestellten Definition ' , und an mehreren Stellen aus den Fragmenten des Euripides muß entschieden des Wort aivos dem Begriffe proverbium im Sinne eines von Mund zu Mund gehenden Spruches gleichgesetzt werden . Hiermit wären wir schon auf eine Reihe von Zügen gestoßen , welche unverkennbare Verwandtschaftsmerkmale mit unserer xpeía aufweisen ; bevor wir jedoch resumieren , worin dieselben bestehen , soll die Begriffsfeststellung einer weiteren Stufe des aivos abgeschlossen werden.
Bei Hesiod1 stellt sich derselbe als eine ethische oder moralisierende Zwecke verfolgende Tierfabel dar , deren Fiktion gleichsam die Einkleidung , die äußere Hülle der in ihr versteckt ruhenden Ironie vom « Rechte des starkeren bildet.
Der Schwerpunkt jener Fabel ist natürlich der Aus- spruch des Adlers ( Aapovin ti λéλyxas etc. ) , welcher , wie mir scheint , geradezu alle diejenigen Merkmale auf- weist , welche in dem Voranstehenden als charakteristisch für den Begriffe αἶνος im Sinne einer bedeutungsvollen , unter Umständen von Mund zu Mund gehenden Rede bezeichnet wurden . Selbst wenn man nicht so weit gehen wollte , in der Thatsache der Benennung dieser Fabel mit dem Worte aivos eine direkt technische Bezeichnung der Tierfabel mit jenem Namen anzunehmen, so kann man sich doch der Thatsache nicht verschließen , daß die Fabel in diesem speziellen Falle wegen des schlagenden tenden- ziösen Ausspruches , der den Kern ihres Wesens ausmacht , von Hesiod so genannt wurde1 . Wenn also das Wort aivos an sich auch ohne Beziehung auf die Tierfabel wäre , so ergiebt sich doch aus dem frühen Sprachgebrauch , daß es die chrienartige sprichwörtliche Redensart war , in welcher die älteste Anwendung der Tierfabel gemacht wurde . Ganz in der nämlichen Weise wendet Archilochos den Begriff alvos an , wenn er in seiner Erzählung von Fuchs und Adler ' die Lehre verbirgt , daß die Freundes verräter , wenn sie auch der Rache des Beleidigten wegen Mangels an Stärke entfliehen , dennoch von der göttlichen Strafe erreicht werden , und in seiner Fabel vom Affen und Fuchs den thörichten Adelsstolz geißelt . Diese Anfänge der griechischen Tierfabel zeigen ganz deutlich , daß die Tiere nur herbeigezogen wurden zur Einkleidung der menschlichen Verhältnisse , welche absolut den Kernpunkt derselben bilden , so daß wir es bei dem . aivos keineswegs mit dem Anfang einer volkstümlichen Tiersage zu thun haben , sondern - und auf ihn , sowie auf die ganze Masse der sententiösen Tierfabeln mag sich ganz besonders beziehen , was O. Müller a . a . O. vielleicht nicht ganz mit Recht von der griechischen Tier- fabel überhaupt sagt daß er die ganz und gar freie Erfindung solcher ist , die es verstanden , für ein eigentüm- liches menschliches Verhältnis ein Gleichnis in einer Tierwelt zu finden , die einerseits ihren wirklichen Charakter behält , aber zugleich durch einige Vernunft und Sprache in den Stand gesetzt wird , ihn in das erforderliche Licht zu setzen » . Dem scheint mir nicht entgegenzustehen , daß Archi- lochos ( Fr. 86 Bergk ) durch das alvós tis àvdpóñшv an- deutet , daß ihm ein derartiger Überlieferungsstoff bekannt ist , denn da wir das Wort aivos aus Mangel an einer un- zweifelhaften Belegstelle nicht als technischen Ausdruck für die alte Tierfabel annehmen dürfen , können wir lediglich dürfen , können wir ledig- lich vermuten , daß Archilochos den der Fabel zu Grunde liegenden Sinnspruch in irgend einer Form überkommen hat , daß dagegen die Einkleidung desselben ein Werk seiner freien Erfindung ist . Wenn wir nun auf unsere xpsia zurückgreifen und den im vorigen Kapitel dargelegten Begriff derselben mit der nunmehr genügend festgestellten Bedeutung des aivos1 vergleichen , so können wir hinsichtlich des innersten Wesens trotz der Verschiedenheiten im Einzelnen nicht nur eine hervorragende Zusammengehörigkeit beider litteraturgattungen konstatieren sondern es erscheint sogar zwischen dem schlichten Begriff des Wortes aivos , wie uns dasselbe schon bei Homer2 entgegentritt , bis hinauf zur eigentlichen vollendeten xpeía eine fortlaufende Entwick- lungskette gegeben . Man vergegenwärtige sich dass αἶνος in ursprünglichen Sinne eben die sinnvolle Rede be- zeichnet , durch welche ein bestimmter Zweck oder Nutzen erreicht werden soll , ferner daß aivos im Sinne der alten Tierfabel eine derartige , bestimmten Tieren unter bestimmten Umständen untergeschobene , sinnvolle Rede ist , sowie endlich , daß der Schwerpunkt der meisten Chrien durch einen derartigen nützlichen Ausspruch , der nur hier menschlichen Persönlichkeiten beigelegt ist , gebildet wird .
Der Hauptunterschied zwischen αἶνος and chreia besteht darin, dass beim ersteren die Träger der Lehre per- sonifizierte Tiere , bei der letzteren ganz bestimmte mensch- liche Persönlichkeiten sind . Wie sehr in die Augen springend dieser Kontrast auch sein mag , eine große Wesens verschiedenheit bedeutet er nicht , einmal , weil , wie schon auseinandergesetzt wurde , beiden Litteraturgattungen das gemeinsame Merk- mal eigen ist , daß der Kern ihres Wesens durch die « nützliche Lehre » , die sie zum Ausdruck bringen , cha- rakterisiert wird , und andererseits , weil von dem Momente an , wo überhaupt eine Personifikation vorliegt , der Schwer- punkt in der Thatsache und nicht in den naheren Umstanden derselben zu suchen ist. Man könnte sich ja die im Hesiodeischen aivos zum Ausdruck gelangende Lehre zum Beispiel ebensogut aus dem Munde eines siegreichen Barbarenfürsten etwa einem Sänger des besiegten Volkes gegenüber -die entsprechen- den Modifikationen natürlich vorausgesetzt kommend vorstellen , und dann hätten wir ja die vollendetste Chreia , die man sich nur denken könnte . - Wir sehen also , daß , wenn wir Ähnlichkeiten und Verschiedenheiten der beiden Erzählungsarten abwägend einander gegenüberstellen , das Gemeinsame so bedeutend überwiegt , daß eine nicht abzuleugnende Wesensgleichheit zu Tage tritt welch letztere meines Erachtens so groß ist , daß man getrost sagen kann : In der ältesten Form der der griechischen Tierfabel haben wir zugleich die erste Vorstufe der xpeia .
The word αἶνος and the oldest form of the Greek animal fable.
We find the oldest traces of an application of those robust, tendentious speeches which constitute the essence of the χρεία, both in the old word "αἶνος" itself and in the oldest form of the animal fable which the poets use to describe it. The word αἶνος as such occurs four times in Homer; twice of which means “praise”, says Il. XXIII. , 795:
( Αντίλοχ ' , οὐ μέν τοι μέλεος εἰρήσεται αἶνος , Αλλά τοι ἡμιτάλαντον ἐγ ὼ χρυσοῦ ἐπιθήσω) and Od . XXI. . XIV. 508: (Ὦ γέρον, αἶνος μέν τοι ἀμύμων, ὃν κατέλεξας) and finally perhaps in the meaning of <speech >> par excellence II. XXIII. , 652: (ως φάτο, πηλείδης δὲ πολὺν καθ 'ὅμιλον ̓αχαιῶν ωιχετ', ἐπεὶ πάντ 'αἶνον ἐπέκλυε νηλεΐδας), but it could also be called "Praise".
Buttmann rightly emphasizes that the term "speech" in the word αἶνος makes more sense in the only Homeric passage where it certainly does not refer to praise (Od. XIV. 508), but refers to the short story of Odysseus Eumaeus' clever purpose, which is well understood, has a very specific twist. What is meant here by αἶνος is not “speech” in the general sense of the word, which is synonymous with “conversation” or narrative, but rather a meaningful speech cleverly invented for a specific purpose. And Odysseus, who is to a certain extent a representative of this genre of speeches, is the only one who uses the epithet “πολύ̣αινος”, which, as Buttmann certainly correctly assumes, is neither noλópodos nor related to “praise”, but only in this kind of clever way intended speeches must be understood as referring. Even if the word αἶνος was later sometimes used synonymously with λóyos by the tragedians, one must also take into account the relationship to which Crusius points out that αἶνος can describe an old, well-known saying that passed from mouth to mouth. 2 >> This view, which appears to be elevated to the highest degree of probability by the passages he has drawn on, and with which the phrase ἐν αἴνη εἶναι = "to be in the talk", "to be famous" is connected (cf. Herod. III. 74 πρὸς δ and Herod VIII. 112 καὶ Θεμ and Herod 1, § 19 Definition ', and in several places from Euripides' fragments the word αἶνος must be equated with the term proverbium in the sense of a saying passed from mouth to mouth. With this we would have already come across a number of features which have unmistakable characteristics of relationship with our χρεία However, before we summarize what these consist of, the definition of a further stage of the αἶνος should be completed.
In Hesiod1 it presents itself as an animal fable that pursues ethical or moralizing purposes, the fiction of which forms, as it were, the covering, the outer shell, of the irony about the “right of the stronger” that lies hidden within it.
The focus of that fable is of course the saying of the eagle (Aapovin ti λéλyxas etc.), which, as it seems to me, has all the features that have been described in the foregoing as characteristic of the concept of αἶνος in the sense of a meaningful, under Circumstances of word-of-mouth speech were referred to. Even if one does not want to go so far as to assume that the fact of naming this fable with the word αἶνος is a directly technical designation of the animal fable with that name, one cannot ignore the fact that the fable in this particular case is because of the Hesiod called it that way because of the striking tendentious statement that constitutes the core of their being. Even if the word αἶνος itself had no relation to the animal fable, it still follows from early usage that it was the χρεία-like proverbial saying in which the oldest application of the animal fable was made. Archilochus uses the term αἶνος in exactly the same way when, in his story of the Fox and the Eagle, he conceals the teaching that the traitors of friends, even if they escape the revenge of the offended because of a lack of strength, are still affected by divine punishment and in his fable of the monkey and the fox he castigates the foolish pride of the nobility. These beginnings of the Greek animal fable show very clearly that the animals were only used to clothe human relationships, which absolutely form the core point of it, so that we can see it here. αἶνος in no way have to do with the beginning of a popular animal legend, but - and to it, as well as to the whole mass of sententious animal fables, what O. Müller a. a. O. perhaps not quite rightly says of the Greek animal fable in general that it is the completely free invention of those who understood how to find a parable for a peculiar human relationship in an animal world that, on the one hand, reflects its real character retains it, but at the same time is enabled by some reason and language to put it in the necessary light ». It does not seem to me to contradict the fact that Archilochus (Fr. 86 Bergk) indicates through the αἶνος tis àvdpóñшv that he is familiar with such a tradition, because since we do not use the word αἶνος as a technical one due to the lack of an undoubted reference As to the expression for the old animal fable, we can only assume that Archilochus received the axiom on which the fable is based in some form, but that the covering of it is a work of his own invention. If we now go back to our χρεία and compare the concept of it presented in the previous chapter with the meaning of αἶνος, which has now been sufficiently established, we can not only state an excellent connection between the two literary genres with regard to the innermost essence, despite the differences in detail, but there even appears to be a difference The simple concept of the word αἶνος, as we already see it in Homer2, is given a continuous chain of development right up to the actual completed χρεία. One should remember that αἶνος in the original sense refers to the meaningful speech through which a certain purpose or benefit is to be achieved, furthermore that αἶνος in the sense of the old animal fable is such a meaningful speech foisted on certain animals under certain circumstances, as well Finally, the focus of most χρεία is formed by such a useful saying, which is only attached to human personalities here.
The main difference between αἶνος and χρεία is that in the former the bearers of the teaching are personified animals, in the latter they are specific human personalities. No matter how striking this contrast may be, it does not mean a great difference in essence, firstly because, as has already been explained, both literary genres have the common feature that the core of their essence is represented by the "useful teaching". , which they express, and on the other hand, because from the moment a personification occurs at all, the focus is to be sought in the fact and not in the immediate circumstances of it. One could, for example, just as easily imagine the teaching expressed in the Hesiodic αἶνος coming from the mouth of a victorious barbarian prince to a singer of the defeated people - assuming of course the appropriate modifications - and then we would have the most perfect Chreia that one can could only imagine. - So we see that when we weigh up the similarities and differences of the two types of narrative, the common predominates so significantly that an undeniable similarity in essence emerges, which in my opinion is so great that one can confidently say: in the oldest In the form of the Greek animal fable, we also have the first precursor to the χρεία.
People should recognize that Secret Mark will cause a bigger problem than homosexuality for Christianity. I think ultimately αἶνος will temper what Papias meant by χρεία = myth. Even Irenaeus's viva voce reference seems to fit in here. cf. Liddell Scott entry for πολυαινος , ον, (αἰνέω):
A.much-praised, Homeric epith. of Odysseus, Il.9.673, 10.544, 11.430, Od.12.184; but expld. alternatively by Hsch. as = πολύμυθος (cf. “αἰνέω” 1, “αἶνος” 1).
Last edited by Secret Alias on Fri Dec 22, 2023 1:53 pm, edited 4 times in total.
The reader should be able to see why unconsciously or not the discovery of Secret Mark is such a threat for traditional religious believers. The invention of Morton Smith the mythmaker is to counter what is obvious about Mark the evangelist now. He was the original mythmaker. From Ben Smith:
MrMacSon wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 4:11 am
A chreia (pl. chreiai) was/is a brief statement-narration or action aptly attributed to a specific person or something analogous to a person. A chreia usually conformed to one of a few patterns, the most common being "On seeing..." (ιδών), "On being asked..." (ἐρωτηθείς), and "He said..." (ἔφη).
There were three types of chreiai: sayings chreiai, action chreiai, and mixed chreiai. A chreia may be expanded, elaborated, or abbreviated.
Your posting has been hitting on all cylinders lately.
My recent thread about the Memorabilia ties in explicitly to the matter of the chreia:
Denis M. Searby, “The Unmentionable Greek Apothegm,” page 9: The word ἀπομνημόνευμα (apomnēmoneuma) derives from the strengthening prefix ἀπο (cf. note 4 above), the verb μνημονεύω (remember), and the common ending -μα signifying the result of a process (etc.): a thing to be especially remembered. It may be rendered as memoir, mention, recollection, reminiscence.... Remembrance or memory is the key concept; an apomnēmoneuma is a record of some words or some incident worth remembering.... The key thing is that the apomnēmoneuma is presented as something remembered, something historical, even if, in fact, one may question its historicity; it need not be witty or pointed, just memorable. The apomnēmoneuma is longer than the apothegm or chreia, even if the latter is defined as a short apomnēmoneuma. Apomnēmoneumata is a relatively common word in titles, occurring most famously as the title of Xenophon’s recollections of Socrates. Both Athenaeus and Plutarch cite various works by this title, as does Diogenes Laertius; by far the most important for the latter is Favorinus’ Ἀπομνημονεύματα. Unlike apophthegmata, it does not seem to occur, as far as I know, in the titles of anonymous collections of anecdotes in extant manuscripts. [Link.]
Aelius Theon is pretty clear about this (in the translation, "reminiscence" = ἀπομνημόνευμα):
Aelius Theon, Progymnasmata, apud L. Spengel, Rhetores Graeci, volume 2, pages 96-97, lines 19-30 + 1-10 (translation slightly modified from that of George Alexander Kennedy): 96.19-30 A chreia is a brief utterance or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person, and maxim and reminiscence are connected with it. Every brief maxim attributed to a person creates a chreia. A reminiscence is an action or a saying useful for life. The maxim, however, differs from the chreia in four ways: the chreia is always attributed to a person, the maxim not always; the chreia sometimes states a universal, sometimes a particular, the maxim only a universal; furthermore, sometimes the chreia is a pleasantry not useful for life, the maxim is always about something useful in 97.1-10 life; fourth, the chreia is an action or a saying, the maxim is only a saying. The reminiscence is distinguished from the chreia in two ways: the chreia is brief, the reminiscence is sometimes extended, and the chreia is attributed to a particular person, while the reminiscence is also remembered for its own sake. A chreia is given that name par excellence, because more than the other [exercises] it is useful for many situations in life, just as we have grown accustomed to call Homer “the poet” because of his excellence, although there are many poets. / 96.19-30 Χρεία ἐστὶ σύντομος ἀπόφασις ἢ πρᾶξις μετ' εὐστοχίας ἀναφερομένη εἴς τι ὡρισμένον πρόσωπον ἢ ἀναλογοῦν προσώπῳ, παράκειται δὲ αὐτῇ γνώμη καὶ ἀπομνημόνευμα· πᾶσα γὰρ γνώμη σύντομος εἰς πρόσωπον ἀναφερομένη χρείαν ποιεῖ. καὶ τὸ ἀπομνημόνευμα δὲ πρᾶξίς ἐστιν ἢ λόγος βιωφελής. διαφέρει δὲ ἡ μὲν γνώμη τῆς χρείας τέτρασι τοῖσδε, τῷ τὴν μὲν χρείαν πάντως ἀναφέρεσθαι εἰς πρόσωπον, τὴν δὲ γνώμην οὐ πάντως, καὶ τῷ ποτὲ μὲν τὸ καθόλου, ποτὲ δὲ τὸ ἐπὶ μέρους ἀποφαίνεσθαι τὴν χρείαν, τὴν δὲ γνώμην καθόλου μόνον· ἔτι δὲ τῷ χαριεντίζεσθαι τὴν χρείαν ἐνίοτε μηδὲν ἔχουσαν βιωφελές, τὴν δὲ γνώμην ἀεὶ περὶ τῶν ἐν 97.1-10 τῷ βίῳ χρησίμων εἶναι· τέταρτον ὅτι ἡ μὲν χρεία πρᾶξις ἢ λόγος ὑπάρχει, ἡ δὲ γνώμη λόγος ἐστὶ μόνον. τὸ δὲ ἀπομνημόνευμα δυσὶ τοῖσδε κεχώρισται τῆς χρείας· ἡ μὲν γὰρ σύντομος, τὸ δὲ ἀπομνημόνευμα ἔσθ' ὅτε ἐπεκτείνεται, καὶ ἡ μὲν ἀναφέρεται εἴς τινα πρόσωπα, τὸ δὲ ἀπομνημόνευμα καὶ καθ' ἑαυτὸ μνημονεύεται. εἴρηται δὲ χρεία κατ' ἐξοχήν, ὅτι μᾶλλον τῶν ἄλλων πρὸς πολλὰ χρειώδης ἐστὶ τῷ βίῳ, καθάπερ καὶ Ὅμηρον πολλῶν ὄντων ποιητῶν κατ' ἐξοχὴν τοῦτον μόνον καλεῖν εἰώθαμεν ποιητήν.
It is this educational world of ancient literacy that Papias and other Greek patristic authors (including Justin) are apparently channeling as they describe the composition of the gospels:
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, page 215: The translation of pros tas chreias as “according to needs” has now been largely abandoned in favor of the view that Papias uses chreia here as a technical rhetorical term to describe the form in which Peter delivered his teachings about Jesus. The argument was first made by R. O. P. Taylor in 1946. He pointed out that the chreia was a rhetorical form defined and described in the ancient handbooks of rhetoric that were guides to elementary education. He quoted the definition given by Aelius Theon: “A Chreia is a concise and pointed account of something said or done, attributed to some particular person” (Theon, Progymnasmata 3.2-3). Taylor also observed “that the definition exactly fits the detachable little stories of which so much of Mark consists — which are, indeed, characteristic of the first three Gospels.” Taylor’s interpretation was taken up by Robert Grant. Then, without reference to Taylor, the same interpretation of Papias’s phrase was later championed by Kürzinger, who made it part of his broader argument for the use of rhetorical terminology throughout the fragments of Papias quoted by Eusebius. Since then it has been quite widely accepted.
Papias apud Eusebius, History of the Church 3.39.15-16: 15 “And the Elder would say this, ‘Mark, who had become the interpreter of Peter, wrote accurately, yet not in order, as many things as he remembered of the things either said or done by the Lord [τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ κυρίου ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα]. For he neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, Peter, who would make the teachings into chreiae [ὃς πρὸς τὰς χρείας ἐποιεῖτο τὰς διδασκαλίας], but not making them as an ordering together of the lordly oracles [ἀλλ' οὐχ ὥσπερ σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν ποιούμενος λογίων], so that Mark did not sin having thus written certain things as he remembered them [ὡς ἀπεμνημόνευσεν]. For he made one provision, to leave out nothing of the things that he heard or falsify anything in them.’” 16 These things therefore are recorded by Papias about Mark. But about Matthew he has said these things, “Matthew therefore in the Hebrew dialect ordered together the oracles, and each one interpreted them as he was able.”
The same overlap of concepts is present here: the memory of certain words and deeds being transmitted as chreiae (or anecdotes, if you will).
And the famous (supposed) Pantainos reference in Stromata:
Concerning these, some are from Assyria, and others are Hebrews in Palestine from ancient times. But having encountered the last one (but in power, he was the first), I rested, having hunted a hidden (one) in Egypt. (ὑστάτῳ δὲ περιτυχὼν (δυνάμει δὲ οὗτος πρῶτος ἦν) ἀνεπαυσάμην, ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ θηράσας λεληθότα).
It always struck me as gospels Clement mentions in his writings. Assyrian (= Tatian). Hebrew = (Matthew). Hidden one in Egypt = Secret Mark.
Die griechische Fabel , der Aisopeios logos , ist jedenfalls von den anderen Kategorien vielsagender Rede αἶνος , χρεία nicht zu trennen und durchaus eine Beispielerzählung . Diese Fabeln könnten nach ihrer Zu- 2 ) Niedlich zeigt sich dieser Glaube an die Wichtigkeit jedes Präzedenzfalles , der kraft einer stillschweigend angenommenen öffentlichen Meinung in jedem Fall etwas be- weist , wenn der einfache Mann , wie man täglich beobachten kann , sich dadurch quali- fizieren und vermehrtes Gehör verschaffen will , daß er beginnt : Ich habe erst gestern zu meiner Frau gesagt , usw.
The Greek fable, the Aisopeios logos, cannot be separated from the other categories of meaningful speech αἶνος, χρεία and is definitely an example story. 2) This belief in the importance of every precedent, which, by virtue of a tacitly accepted public opinion, proves something in every case, is beautifully demonstrated if the common man, as can be observed every day, thereby qualifies himself. fication and wants to make it more widely heard that he begins: I just said to my wife yesterday, etc., something like: https://books.google.com/books?id=wInYO ... AF6BAgIEAI
I think Nagy just borrowed from German sources most of his colleagues couldn't read.
Another one which might explain why the study of the gospel was fitting in a scholarly setting:
E. FRAENKEL , Horace , Oxford : Clarendon Press , 1957 , 112-13 . Téngase en cuen- ta que tanto la χρεία como el αἶνος formaban parte de los ejercicios elementales ο προγυμ váσuaτa que los rétores prescribían a sus alumnos , como después teorizaron Teón , Hermó- genes y Aftonio
E. FRAENKEL, Horace, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957, 112-13. Keep in mind that both the χρεία and the αἶνος were part of the elementary exercises ο προγυμ váσuaτa that the rhetors prescribed to their students, as Theon, Hermogenes and Aphtonius later theorized. https://books.google.com/books?id=RvQmA ... AF6BAgHEAI
Another reference bringing in a term from Justin Martyr related to the gospel:
Hooley, commenting on the several appearances of the word satis in Satires 1, notes: 'If satire in its root sense is all about overstuffing poems, or books of poems, with this and that, Horace would innovate by reading the pun [on satis] negatively: (new) satire is about defining limits, finding satisfaction with satis, enough.'13 I am concerned here with what is satis in reading 1.7—what Syme 1939, 231. Fraenkel (1957, 119–120) and Courtney (2013, 112) label the story in 1.7 an αἶνος; Fiske (1920, 324–325), a χρεία or, more specifically, an ἀπομνημόνευμα. See Fiske 1920, 156–167, for a discussion of these terms. 13 Hooley 2007, 34. 11 12 https://dokumen.pub/at-the-crossroads-o ... igion.html
How come all this mythicist stuff never references actual scholarship on myths and mythology? Here is a very interesting title The Fables of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke: A New Foundation for the Study of Parables and this extended section:
5 The Fable in Graeco-Roman Education
Theon explains, in the first century, the reason for the two is that fables are composed in both prose and verse. As in Greek prose and poetry more broadly, the term λόγος is used for prose fables while μῦθος is used for those in verse. λόγος is the term used for Demetrius of Phalerum’s collection,96 in the John Rylands papyrus, in all but two cases in the Life of Aesop,97 and throughout the Augustana Collection, which is the paradigmatic prose fable collection.98 The use of μῦθος appears, of course, in the paradigmatic verse fable collection of Babrius,99 to which we can add the verse fables at the three levels of education, including the various progymnasmata, which label the section on fable: ΠΕΡΙ ΜΥΘΟΥ.100 As Theon also points out, on occasion we find both terms being used.101 Since one of the primary ways to engage with fables throughout the ages has been to prosify or versify them, this is to be expected. Prose narrative texts will often depict a character composing or speaking in verse fables (e.g. Plato). Verse narratives will often depict a character composing or speaking it gives” (Nicolaus, Prog. 1); “He says μῦθος is, as it were, a kind of λόγος, since the ancients used μυθεῖσθαι to mean λέγειν” (John of Sardis, Prog. 1). This is, of course, Diogenes Laertius’s term for the collections of Demetrius and not necessarily that used by Demetrius himself (Diogenes Laertius, Vit. 5.5.80). One can never be too sure about how much rewriting has taken place in the text of The Life of Aesop, but as it is preserved in the G manuscript at least, μῦθος is used on one occasion out of the dozen or so to introduce a fable (Vit. Aes. 97). Similarly, μῦθος is used in the G manuscript on one of the occasions that the genre as a whole is referred to (Vit. Aes. 40bc). λόγος is also used for “fable” by Dio Chrysostom, Hab. 72.13; Plutarch, sept. sap. conv. 164b; Theon, Prog. 4; Quintilian, Inst. 5.11.19–21; Martial, Epigr. 3.20.5; and in The Life of Aesop (Vit. Aes. 7, 100). μῦθος is the first word of Babrius’s second prologue, there used to describe the genre as a whole. μῦθος is the term he uses for many individual fables as well: Fab. 18, 22, 31, 34, 36, 38, 59, 96, 107, 116. Babrius, Fab. Prologue 2.6 refers to the collection of Cybisses, interestingly, as λόγοι rather than μῦθοι, suggesting that Cybisses’s collection was in prose. As a designation for the genre “fable,” μῦθος is used in Pseudo-Demetrius’s On Style 157–158, however the date of this text is much disputed (3rd BCE–1st CE). Even if it is early, it is certainly not by Demetrius of Phalerum; nevertheless, it is heavily influenced by Aristotle, possibly directly. For the date and authorship, see Stephen Halliwell, et al, Poetics. Longinus: On the Sublime. Demetrius: On Style, LCL 199 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 310–15 who inclines to date it to the second century BCE (311). In Galen and the scholia Platonica, μῦθος is used for etiological fables, which are indeed “mythic” in that sense of the term, while λόγος is used for the standard type of fables. For the key primary texts, see van Dijk, Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi, 90. in prose fables (e.g. Aristophanes). Thus, that the two terms would become entangled in certain contexts is not the least surprising.102 Understanding this phenomenon of using both μῦθος and λόγος together is also helpful in the context of the progymnasmatists. Theon and PseudoHermogenes both consciously distinguish μῦθος, which is used for the fable narrative, from λόγος, which is used for the promythia and epimythia. Theon, for example, says, “It is possible to provide a conclusion whenever, after the fable (μύθου) has been stated, we venture to bring in some gnomic statement (λόγον) fitting it” (Theon, Prog. 4).103 A scholion on this phrase puts it in still clearer terms: “The epimythium here teaches (λέγει) a lesson (λόγον), for indeed the epimythium is a lesson (λόγος) that is brought out from the fable (μῦθον) and shows what is useful in it.”104 Pseudo-Hermogenes puts it this way: “The lesson (λόγος) explaining the moral will sometimes be put before the fable (μῦθον), sometimes after it” (Hermogenes, Prog. 1 [trans. adapted from Kennedy]).105 The use of these terms in this context then, helps to distinguish the fable body from its lesson. Summarily, the fable is so old that the terminology for it evolved with the Greek language. In the first century, μῦθος and λόγος are used for fables in verse and prose, respectively, while αἶνος was the primary term in use before these. That there were multiple terms available for one genre in different contexts was known and commented on by ancient authors such as Theon above and Quintilian below, and is a remarkable indication of genre consciousness. Ancient authors applied these multiple fable terms with their various connotations to creative ends, such as Plato in 3.3.2. Perhaps the most interesting examples of this multi-lexeme genre awareness occurs in the W recensions of The Life of Aesop. It is in this recension that the first sentence describes Aesop as not just a λογοποιός, but a λογομυθοποιός, making sure to incorporate both 102 As van Dijk demonstrates, μῦθος gradually overtakes λόγος as the standard term used to refer to a fable in the Medieval period (see Ainoi, Logoi, Mythoi, 85). By the Medieval period (quite a bit later than we need to concern ourselves with), μῦθος is used even for the (mostly) prose recensions (Vindobonensis and Accursiana). 103 ̓Επιλέγειν δὲ ἔστιν ὧδε, ὅταν μύθου ῥηθέντος ἐοικότα τινὰ γνωμικὸν αὐτῷ λόγον ἐπιχειρῶμεν κομίζειν. 104 Λόγον ἐνταῦθα τὸ ἐπιμύθιον λέγει, καὶ γὰρ ἐπιμύθιόν ἐστι λόγος ὁ πρὸς τὸν μῦθον εἰσφερόμενος, καὶ δηλῶν τὸ ἐν αὐτῷ χρήσιμον. The scholion is found in Christian Walz, Rhetores Graeci (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1832–1836), 1:259, lines 24–27. The placement is given as “med p. 178” with “Τὸν λόγον δὲ οὕτως ἐποίσομεν.” 105 Ὁ δὲ λόγος ὁ τὴν ὠφέλειαν δεκνὺς τὴν ἀπὸ τοῦ μύθου ποτὲ μὲν προταχθήσεται, ποτὲ δὲ ὑποταχθήσεται. I will argue in 13.2 that the L fables employ this same technique, for example, in Luke 18:6. genre terms in his title. Not to be left out, the third genre term, αἶνος, appears later in the story when Aesop adopts a son, who receives the name Αἶνος. To round out the appearance of the other two terms in The Life for “fable,” the author incorporates the third term for the genre, with a wink and a nod, as the child of Aesop.106 As to what form exactly these authors have in mind, this is the subject of Chapter 10. In Latin, fabula and its diminutive fabella are the most common terms used for individual fables as well as the genre, derived from the Latin verbal form for (cf. fari) + bulla—a very general word for “to speak” or “to talk” (cf. Greek φημί).107 Fabula, “talk” and “narrative,” is thus the same as the Greek fable terminology. Though his discussion of the fable genre is not extensive, Quintilian is helpful for establishing the fable terminology in Latin. Immediately preceding his comments about the relationship between fable and proverb, we read:108 “Consider also those fables ( fabellae) which, though not originating with Aesop (for Hesiod seems to be the first author of them), are best known under Aesop’s name … Horace too did not regard the use of this type as undignified even in poetry: witness the lines, “As the shrewd fox said to the ailing lion …”109 The Greeks call this an ainos (Aἶνoν), and speak of Aesopic fables (λóγoυς) (as I said) and ‘Libyan [fables]’;110 some Roman writers use the word apologatio, though the name has not been accepted in common use. Close to this is the genre of paroimia (παροιμίας) a sort of abbreviated fable ( fabella brevior) understood allegorically: ‘Not my load, he says: the ox takes the panniers’” (Inst. 5.11.19–21 [trans. adapted from Russell, LCL]).
Once more, this first century author is remarkably accurate in the details he offers us, such as his knowledge that Hesiod contains the first Greek fable. Like Theon, Quintilian also tells us about the different terminology used for this single form in Greek. Quintilian also offers us one more crucial service since we are dealing with evidence from two languages here: Greek and Latin. One must tread lightly equating Greek and Latin concepts without such an explicit notice, but Quintilian provides us with precisely this, equating fabula with 106 The author is deliberate in this choice of name. See Ioannis Konstantakos, “Characters and Names in the Vita Aesopi and in the Tale of Ahiqar. Book II: The Adoptive Son,” Hyperboreus 15 (2009): 325–39. 107 See LSJ, 776; OLD 665, 720. 108 Quintilian also mentions the fable in Inst. 1.9.2. 109 Horace, Ep. 1.1.73. The fable survives in many versions, see Perry 142, 258. On the indignity of the fable, see Chapter 9. 110 Et Horatius ne in poemate quidem humilem generis huius usum putavit in illis versibus: quod dixit vulpes aegroto cauta Leoni. Αἶνον Graeci vocant et Αἰσωπείους, ut dixi, λόγους et Λιβυκούς. λόγος. If this bridge from Greek to Latin is good enough for Quintilian, one of the preeminent orators at the time of the Gospels, it should be good enough to ferry us across from Greek to Latin. As is the standard scholarly practice today, the Latin texts and Greek texts are the same genre, “fables.” Martial provides us with one more plank from the first century to shepherd us over the bridge between Greek and Latin with his reference to the fabulist Phaedrus. Phaedrus, of course, referred to his fables with the Latin word fabula, and Martial’s epigrams were likewise composed in Latin. Despite the Latin source text and Martial’s vernacular, Martial goes out of his way to refer to Phaedrus’s Latin fables using the Greek term λόγοι in the following epigram to a certain Canius Rufus: Dic, Musa, quid agat Canius meus Rufus: utrumne chartis tradit ille victuris legenda temporum acta Claudianorum? an quae Neroni falsus astruit scriptor, an aemulatur improbi λóγoυς Phaedri? Tell me, Muse, what is my friend Canius Rufus doing? Is he putting on paper the acts of Claudian times for posterity to read? Or does he emulate the compositions that a mendacious writer ascribed to Nero or the fables of rascal Phaedrus? (Martial, Epig. 3.20.1–5 [trans. Bailey, LCL])
If we should connect this statement to the fabulist Phaedrus, then we have a second Latin author doing us the kind service of equating the Latin and Greek terminology for the fable. In the first century then, there were multiple terms referring to the fable that the genre picked up over the centuries. This fact was widely recognized in the first century by various authors who applied the terms to emphasize different aspects of the fable and used them to theorize the genre. This practice provides us with a remarkable indication of genre consciousness. All the terms relate to notions of speaking, and together with the other concepts—fiction, truth, falsehood, simile, and story—are captured together in Theon’s definition, “fable is a fictitious story picturing truth,” μῦθος ἔστι λόγος ψευδὴς εἰκονίζων ἀλήθειαν (Theon, Prog. 1). 5.8
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, trans. adapted from Gibbs)39
Like the first two stages, the progymnasmata offered a curriculum of exercises of increasing difficulty, from the simplest rhetorical forms to the basics of declamation. According to Quintilian, Pseudo-Hermogenes, Aphthonius, and Nicolaus, the first and most basic exercise of progymnastic rhetoric is, as the reader should be able to guess, the fable (μῦθος). This is then followed by narrative/narration (διήγημα, διήγησις), chreia (χρεία), maxim (γνώμη), refutation (ἀνασκευή), confirmation (κατασκευή), and so on. Depending on how the exercises are divided, the total comes out to between ten and fourteen in all. Theon follows a slightly different order, beginning first with chreia (under which he includes maxim), placing fable second, narrative third, and so on.40 So, when a student began their rhetorical training, the first or second exercise that he trained in was the fable. As Bonner argues, the selection of fable, along with chreia and maxim to begin the exercises probably reflect an effort to interlock the secondary and tertiary levels—the grammarian and the progymnasmata—and to ease the transition.41 Thus, some of the first exercises resemble what the students would have done at the secondary level. To begin with fable, chreia, and maxim also had the advantage of being familiar to the student from the primary stage, when they were used to practice writing their letters and memorization. Nicolaus the Sophist tells us explicitly in his preface that the fable serves this transitional function: We must speak about each in turn, and first about the fable. Just as by avoiding what is difficult in complete hypotheses those who arranged these things invented the use of progymnasmata, so they put the fable first among them as being naturally plain and simpler than the others and as having some relationship to poems. In their transition from poems to rhetoric, students should not all at once encounter things that are strange and unusual to them. Let us speak first, therefore, about fable. (Prog. 1) 39 See again the parallels in Judg 15:4–5 and Babrius, Fab. 11 (Perry 283). 40 For the list of all the exercises and a chart of their order in each author, see Kennedy, Progymnasmata, xiii. 41 Education in Ancient Rome, 252. Quintilian tells us that some of the early exercises from the third level, such as the chreia, can be used at the end of the second stage (Inst. 1.9.3).
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Thus, in this third stage of education, the fable receives pride of place as well. It is on the fable that ancient authors like the evangelists cut their teeth on rhetorical expression. While it is beyond the scope of our discussion to treat the full progymnasmata curriculum in detail, because of the attention it has received by New Testament scholars, we will turn only briefly to one other exercise (the chreia) before devoting our attention to the fable.42 5.6.1 The Chreia New Testament scholars have known the chreia exercise long enough to demonstrate the positive results of using the progymnasmata as a guide to the forms in the Gospels.43 This fact makes the chreia an appropriate dry run for applying the fable exercise to this same end. 42
Other exercises used in conjunction with fables and fable telling, such as prosopopoeia, will be brought into the discussion where relevant. 43 As we saw in the introduction, a couple of suggestive essays have examined this possibility since Parsons made this statement. See especially Stigall, “The Progymnasmata and Characterization in Luke’s Parables,” and now the monograph by Parsons and Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament. For scholarship on the now “well-furrowed field” of the chreia, see James G. Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs: Aphoristic Thinking and Biblical Literature, Bible and Literature Series 2 (Sheffield: Almond, 1981); George Wesley Buchanan, “Chreias in the New Testament,” in Logia: Les paroles de Jésus—The Sayings of Jesus: Mémorial Joseph Coppens, ed. Joël Delobel, BETL 59 (Leuven: Peeters, 1982), 501–505; idem, Jesus, the King and His Kingdom (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1984); James R. Butts, “The Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels,” BTB 16 (1986): 132– 38; Catherine Hezser, “Die Verwendung der hellenistischen Gattung Chrie;” Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric; Kindstrand, “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition;” James R. Butts, “The Voyage of Discipleship: Narrative, Chreia, and Call Story,” in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee, ed. Craig A. Evans (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 199–219; Burton L. Mack, Anecdotes and Arguments: The Chreia in Antiquity and Early Christianity (Claremont, CA: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, 1987); Martin J. Buss, “Appropriateness in the Form Criticism of the Teaching Source: A Response to James Williams,” Semeia 43 (1988): 115–19; John Dominic Crossan, “Aphorism in Discourse and Narrative,” Semeia 43 (1988): 121–40; Mary Gerhart, “Generic Competence in Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 43 (1988): 29–44; Robbins, “The Chreia”; James G. Williams, “Parable and Chreia: From Q to Narrative Gospel,” Semeia 43 (1988): 85–114; Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1989); Fergus King, “The Chreia: The Return of the Form-Critic,” Africa Theological Journal 22 (1993): 76–90; Burton L. Mack, “Persuasive Pronouncements: An Evaluation of Recent Studies on the Chreia,” Semeia 64 (1993): 283–87; Jerome H. Neyrey, “Questions, ‘Chreiai’, and Challenges to Honor: The Interface of Rhetoric and Culture in Mark’s Gospel,” CBQ 60 (1998): 657–81; Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises; Marion C. Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, the Classical World and the Rabbis, JSNTSup 227 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2002); Anders Eriksson, “The Old Is Good: Parables of Patched Garment and Wineskins as Elaboration of a Chreia in Luke 5:33–39 about Feasting with Jesus,” in Rhetoric, Ethic,
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A chreia, plural chreiai, is something like an “anecdote”—a succinct, selfcontained, narrative of the simplest kind.44 For a definition we can turn once more to Theon, who defines a chreia as “a concise statement or deed that has been appropriately attributed to some specific person or something analogous to a person” (Theon, Prog. 3 [trans. mine]).45 The later progymnasmatist Pseudo-Hermogenes defines a chreia as “a recollection of a saying or action or both, with a pointed meaning, usually for the sake of something useful” (Prog. 3). In the classical tradition, the fable and the chreia have been neighbors since Demetrius of Phalerum. If Diogenes Laertius is reliable in his presentation of Demetrius’s works, we note that next on the list of works after his collection of fables is a collection of chreiai (Vit. 5.81).46 The chreia can even be identical in form to the fable except for the primary difference that chreiai are short narratives about a specific person like Diogenes, while fables are about general characters and can have morals appended. The two genres are easily adaptable into each other. As we just learned, for Theon and the other progymnasmatists, the chreia was one of the basic preliminary exercises adjacent to the fable. Also like the and Moral Persuasion in Biblical Discourse: Essays from the 2002 Heidelberg Conference, ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and Anders Eriksson (New York: T & T Clark International, 2005), 52–72; Mikeal C. Parsons, Body and Character in Luke and Acts: The Subversion of Physiognomy in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006); idem, Luke: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist; Thomas D. Stegman, “Reading Luke 12:13–34 as an Elaboration of a Chreia: How Hermogenes of Tarsus Sheds Light on Luke’s Gospel,” NovT 49 (2007): 328–52; Kathy Reiko Maxwell, Hearing between the Lines: The Audience as Fellow-Worker in Luke-Acts and Its Literary Milieu, LNTS 425 (London: T&T Clark, 2010); Keith A. Reich, Figuring Jesus: The Power of Rhetorical Figures of Speech in the Gospel of Luke, BibInt 107 (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Hock, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Commentaries; Collin Blake Bullard, Jesus and the Thoughts of Many Hearts: Implicit Christology and Jesus’ Knowledge in the Gospel of Luke, LNTS 530 (New York: T&T Clark, 2015); Meghan Henning, “Chreia Elaboration and the Un-Healing of Peter’s Daughter: Rhetorical Analysis as a Clue to Understanding the Development of a Petrine Tradition,” JECS 24 (2016): 145–71. 44 As Ronald Hock is quick to note, it is a difficult word to translate; “anecdote” is probably the closest we shall come (“General Introduction,” in Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 1–60, here 49 n. 1). The examples in this section should flesh out the meaning. 45 Χρεία ἐστι σύντομος ἀπόφασις ἢ πρᾶξις μετ ἐ ὐστοχίας άναφερομένη εἴς τι ὡρισμένον πρόσωπον ἢ ἀναλογοῦν προσώπῳ. Reference numbers follow the Kennedy edition. 46 Like his fable collection, Demetrius’s chreia collection is also lost to history. In Diogenes’s life of Antisthenes, we also find listed a work termed: χρείαν Σοφοκλέους (Vit. 7.19). Likewise of Aristippus we find a work named χρεία πρὸς Διονύσιον (Vit. 2.84). Like Demetrius’s work, the works of Aristippus and Antisthenes have not come down to us, but it does suggest this may have been a tradition of the Socratics. See further Jan Fredrik Kindstrand, “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition,” Elenchos 7 (1986): 217–43.
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fable, the chreia was a ubiquitous form in the ancient Mediterranean world. As Hock notes, citing Dio Chrysostom, “anyone could quote some chreiai of Diogenes the Cynic.”47 As we saw above on the Bouriant papyrus, at the primary stage of education, several of these were to be copied out by children for writing practice. Diogenes Laertius (Vit. 6.2) records a great many of them: When Plato defined man as a two-footed, featherless creature and was highly esteemed, Diogenes plucked a rooster, carried it into the school, and said, “This is Plato’s man!” (Vit. 6.2.40 [trans. Hicks, LCL])48 When Lysias the druggist asked him if he believed in the gods, “How can I help believing in them,” said he, “when I see a god-forsaken wretch like you?” (Vit. 6.2.42) To the question what is wretched in life he replied, “An old man destitute.” Being asked what creature’s bite is the worst, he said, “Of those that are wild a sycophant’s; of those that are tame a flatterer’s.” Upon seeing two centaurs very badly painted, he asked, “Which of these is ‘Chiron’ [‘worse man’]?” (Vit. 6.2.51) Seeing the child of a courtesan throw stones at a crowd, he cried out, ‘Take care you don’t hit your father.” (Vit. 6.2.62)
Understandably, philosophers and intellectuals feature prominently in the chreia tradition, and we have a few of Aesop as well:49 When a certain man had been torn by the bite of a vicious dog he dipped a piece of bread in his own blood and tossed it out to the evildoer, because he had heard that this was a remedy for such a wound. Then said Aesop: “Don’t let any more dogs see you doing this, lest they devour us alive when they learn that guilt is rewarded in this way.” (Phaedrus, Fab. 2.3) Aesop, on being asked by someone how a great upheaval might happen among people, said, “If those who have died should arise and demand back what belonged to them.”50 47 Hock, “General Introduction,” 7. On the widespread knowledge of Diogenes’s sayings, Dio Chrysostom says, “Diogenes was also well provided with statement and answer on each and every topic. And the masses still remember the sayings of Diogenes, some of which he may have spoken himself, though some too were composed by others” (Hab. 11 = Or. 72.11, trans. adapted from Crosby, LCL). Dio Chrysostom also shows that he is aware that many of the chreiai attributed to Diogenes are spurious. 48 All translations of Diogenes Laertius, unless otherwise indicated, are from R. D. Hicks in the LCL. 49 On Aesop as an intellectual, see Chapter 9. 50 Trans. mine. This is item number 128 in Leo Sternbach, “De Gnomologio Vaticano Inedito,” Wiener Studien 10 (1888): 11–49, 211–60, here page 24. Several more chreiai of Aesop are found there.
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New Testament scholars have identified a great many chreiai of Jesus in the Gospels, including Luke: Upon entering the temple, Jesus began to drive out those who were selling things there; and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer;’ but you have made it a den of robbers.’” (Luke 19:45–46) The same day, upon seeing someone working on the Sabbath, Jesus said to him, “Man, if you know what you are doing, you are blessed! But if you do not, you are accursed and a transgressor of the Law!” (Luke 6:4b in Codex Bezae [trans. mine])51
A cluster of chreiai appears in Luke 9:57–62: As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another Jesus said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (trans. adapted from NRSV)
From these examples, we get a sense of what the chreia is like. If we may speak of a kind of “pure” form of the chreia, it is a witty, short saying, often with a satirical or comic edge, and easy to memorize.52 They are attributed to a specific person, prompted by a specific situation, normally in scenarios such as “upon seeing,” “upon hearing that,” and “upon being asked” especially, among a few others such as “once when,” or “used to say.” They can take the form of short dialogues and as they are adapted into narrative, such as the gospels, they show more variety. Given their number, it is clear that before the gospels were penned, many of Jesus’s deeds and sayings had been transmitted in the form of chreiai. While the extent is a matter of ongoing debate, it is also clear that the chreia form was used as a basic rhetorical building block of the New Testament Gospels. Given the extent of this research, we must note again the remarkable absence of the discussion of fable. As Parsons remarks: 51 τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ, θεασάμενός τινα ἐραζόμενον τῷ σαββάτῳ, εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Ἄνθρωπε, εἰ μὲν οἴδας τί ποιεῖς, μακάριοις εἶ· εἰ δὲ μὴ οἴδας, ἐπικατάρατος καὶ παραβάτης εἶ τοῦ νόμου. 52 The chreia is the predominant form in the Philogelos, a popular ancient joke collection. The fable collections of Aesop have also been compared to such a collection (Temple and Temple, The Complete Fables, xviii).
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5 The Fable in Graeco-Roman Education If the chreia tradition is a well-furrowed field in biblical studies, the second topic of the progymnasmata, the fable, is relatively untouched. This is somewhat surprising since 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’s parables.53
Since we have ample confirmation of the Gospel authors using the chreia to preserve and hand down anecdotes about Jesus, it would be surprising if the fable form, including the practices of creating collections of them, were not used to the same end for Jesus’s fables. 5.6.2 Working with the Fable In a brief statement, Theon summarizes the training techniques learned by students to master the fable: As an exercise, mythos, is treated in a variety of ways, for we state the fable and inflect its grammatical form and weave it into a narrative and we expand it and compress it. It is possible also to add some explanation to it, or if this is prefixed, an appropriate fable can be adapted. In addition, we refute and confirm it. (Theon, Prog. 4)
Theon then goes on to elaborate on these points. He begins by repeating how students interacted with the fable at the earlier education stages, first to memorize them and then to inflect the story in its grammatical forms—in all the different cases and numbers. This is done not simply as a training exercise in grammar, but because mixing up the forms and constructions, such as direct and indirect discourse, produces a pleasing variety. The next task for the student is to learn how to weave a fable into a broader narrative context. This tells us that an author trained in the progymnasmata would know how to incorporate fables into a narrative. These would include written narratives and also those examples of the orators seen in Chapters 2 and 3 when delivering their speeches. Theon gives us an example of the techniques an author might use to incorporate fables into a narrative, such as they are in the gospels: 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 53 Mikeal C. Parsons, “Luke and the Progymnasmata,” in Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse, eds. T. Penner and C. Vander Stichele, SBLSymS 20 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 43–63, here 49–50.
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the Lydian seems to me to have suffered something similar to this camel,” followed by the whole story about him. (Theon, Prog. 4)
In other words, the process of weaving the fable into a narrative is not complicated. As Theon describes it, there are two obvious approaches, putting the narrative first before the fable, or putting it after the fable. 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. With The Life of Aesop and Phaedrus to compare, we will be able to witness just how weaving in a fable is accomplished in Luke’s Gospel, especially with the aid of the chreia.54 The next technique a student learns is how to expand and contract a fable, again of keen interest for us as we try to detect the ways the Gospel authors reworked their materials and attempt to recover some earlier pre-Gospel form of Jesus’s fables. On this technique, Theon is most laconic, saying simply that a fable is expanded by lengthening the remarks of the characters, and by adding details, “by describing a river or something of that sort.” For condensing a fable, Theon simply says “do the opposite.” On the technique of expanding and contracting a fable, Pseudo-Hermogenes gives a similar explanation: “Sometimes fables need to be expanded, sometimes to be compressed. How would this be done? If we sometimes recount the fable in a bare narrative, at other times invent speeches for the given characters” (Prog. 1). This example from Pseudo-Hermogenes essentially confirms what Theon has told us, that condensing involves removing non-essential details and direct speech, reporting the fable story indirectly,55 or generally using few words. The expansion of a fable involves, in particular, inventing or lengthening the speech beyond what we find normally. These techniques of fable expansion, compression, and the use of invented speeches, called prosopopoeia or ethopoeia, are discussed with respect to the Lukan fables in 10.6 and Chapter 11. 5.6.3 Applying the Morals For what the fable exercise can tell us about interpreting the fables of Jesus, Theon’s subsequent explanation is especially relevant. The next task relates to the relationship of a fable to a moral—what the later progymnasmatists call the epimythium, or if it is before the fable, the promythium. Theon describes the task as follows, “after the fable has been stated, we venture to bring in some 54 55
See, for example, 10.7, 13.2, and 13.7. By “indirectly” we should take to mean that it maintains narrator focalization, i.e., does not properly enter the story world of the fable. For further discussion of this technique in the Lukan fables, see 10.6.2.
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gnomic statement fitting it.”56 He gives as an example of a widespread and well-known fable of a certain dog carrying a piece of meat beside a river, who upon seeing his reflection, thinks it is another dog with a bigger piece of meat, and drops what he had to jump in the river.57 Theon follows the fable by composing an epimythium for it, “We shall add the following comment: ‘You should note that often those hankering for greater things destroy themselves as well as losing what they have.’”58 Next, Theon describes the options available for the moral: There can be several conclusions for one fable when we take a start from the contents of the fable, and conversely one conclusion when many fables reflect it. After proposing the simple meaning of the conclusion, we shall assign the young to imagine a fable suitable to the material at hand. (Theon, Prog. 4)
In other words, as we have glimpsed earlier in our sampling of Phaedrus, and as we will discuss in much greater detail below in Chapter 12 regarding the Gospels, when a fable is transmitted independently or in a collection, it can have more than one moral. Working the other direction, as with its usage in rhetoric and oratory that we have seen in Chapters 2 and 3, when fabulists know the moral they wish to demonstrate, they may choose from a number of 56
All quotations in this paragraph are from Prog. 4. Theon does not use the technical vocabulary of epimythium, but this is clearly what he is describing. Our earliest reference to the term “epimythium” is by Lucian (2nd century CE), who writes: “Permit me this joke at my own expense, in the spirit of Momus. I refuse to draw the moral (ἐπιμύθιον), I swear; for you already see how the fable applies to me” (Dionysus 8 [trans. Harmon, LCL]). Thus, the term was clearly already established by the mid-second century CE. Sophron of Syracuse (fl. 430 BCE) wrote a mime with the title Promythion (Προμύθιον), but as the LCL notes, it is unlikely to have anything to do with the later moral of the fable. Among the progymnasmatists, it is first used by Aphthonius: “When the moral (παραίνεσιν) for which the fable has been assigned is stated first, you will call it a promythium (προμύθιον), when added at the end, an epimythium (ἐπιμύθιον)” (Aphthonius, Prog. 1). The earlier progymnasmatists, Theon and Hermogenes, among other authors, refer to these framing devices as λόγος or ἐπίλογος. The OLD does not give either epimythium or promythium, which means that they occur for the first time after 200 CE in Latin. Mythos as a Latin loan-word, however, does occur and is given in the glossary of Sextus Pompeius Festus (late second century CE), who did an abridgement of Verrius Flaccus’s On the Meaning of Words. So, it is almost certainly a loan-word by the turn of the Era (Verrius was the tutor of Augustus’ grandsons). 57 Phaedrus, Fab. 1.4; Babrius, Fab. 79; Aphthonius, Fab. 35; Perry 133. The fable is already known well enough by the time of Democritus (born ca. 460 BCE) that he could refer to it simply as “the desire for more spoils than one has, like the Aesopic dog.” This is preserved in a fragment in Stobaeus, Flor. 3.10.68. 58 On the significance of this address to “you,” see 12.6.
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fables that they believe will teach the lesson. Alternatively, one can begin with the lesson and compose a new fable to fit it, a practice known to the rabbis and perhaps reflected in the gospels.59 In the educational context, how is this task of inventing fables and morals accomplished? 5.6.4 Inventing Fables and Morals As we would expect, the lessons the student masters with the fable have taken place in stages of increasing sophistication. At the progymnasmata stage, students have reached the level at which they can now give a lesson upon hearing a fable and apply a fable upon hearing a lesson. Here, the student’s encounter with the fable in the progymnasmata has turned a corner. At the first and second stage, education has largely been a matter of receiving information, acts of rote memorization, repetition, and imitation—the lessons designed to teach morals and to familiarize students with their culture and literature. As Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron describe it, this involves the perpetuation of the received social, political, and economic hierarchies and norms of the culture.60 At the second stage, a student trained in grammar by adapting the literature of this received tradition material into different grammatical categories. In a sense, tasks like putting verses of Homer or fables into the plural accusative from the singular nominative, for example, served as training wheels for independent composition. At this third stage, the student takes an active role, expected now to compose literature outright. This begins with the fable. As before, the steps in the progymnasmata start off small. The first step, the simplest, is for the student to hear a fable and to tell the teacher what it teaches. This can be done by inventing a gnomic statement or applying, for example, a maxim that one already knows. Here is an example of a fable for which a modern reader should be able to invent a moral without great difficulty: An ox-driver was bringing his wagon home from the village when it fell into a deep ravine. Instead of doing something about it, as the situation required, he stood by idly and prayed for help to Heracles, of all the gods the one whom he really worshipped and held in honor. Suddenly the god appeared in person beside him and said: “Take hold of the wheels. Lay the whip on your oxen. Pray to the gods only when you are doing something to help yourself. Otherwise your prayers will be useless.” (Babrius, Fab. 20)
59 60
See the discussion in the next chapter, 7.3.4, and in 16.5. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture, trans. Richard Nice, 2nd ed. (London: Sage, 2000).
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5 The Fable in Graeco-Roman Education
A modern reader of this fable may feel the inclination to scribble in the margin the apocryphal slogan, “God helps those who help themselves!” Applying this lesson to the fable is the same instinct the ancients had.61 It is this very inclination that is the origin of many of the morals added to the fables in the manuscripts that have come down to us, like. We may also consider that to one who reads this fable with its epimythium attached, the maxim, “God helps those who helps themselves” rings a little truer than before. The reason is that the fable confirms it. Even though the fable reader knows that a fable is a false story, it nevertheless reinforces the idea that “God helps those who help themselves” is the truth. It is also possible, as Theon tells us, to come up with any number of other lessons from a given fable. The correctness of a lesson applied to a fable, which is the quality of the student’s answer, is subjective. Since those educated in the modern world do not swim in the fables like the first-century student, the inverse task of generating a fable from a maxim or gnomic statement would seem a far greater challenge. But for the ancient student who will have heard many fables by this time, it was not apparently particularly onerous. Theon describes the task as follows: After proposing the simple meaning of the conclusion, 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)
From this statement, a few things are clear. First, Theon assumes that anyone who has reached this stage of education will have memorized a great many fables they have encountered in writing. Second, he alerts us to the vibrancy of fables in oral culture. Third, Theon takes for granted that students have already invented fables of their own by this point, if not in previous schooling then
61
In the Augustana Collection, a fable similar in plot—about a rich man who stays aboard a sinking ship to pray while others swim to safety—supplies an explicit epimythium: “A rich Athenian man was sailing with certain others, and when a violent storm occurred and the ship capsized, all the other men began to swim away, but the Athenian called out invoking Athena with a myriad of pleas that he might be saved. Then one of the fellow seafarers swimming alongside said to him, ‘Also move the hand with Athena!’ [Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ ξεῖρα κίνει] So then it is necessary that we also, along with calling to the gods, give consideration also to those things that we may do ourselves” (Perry 30; trans. mine). There is some word play going on with “Σὺν Ἀθηνᾷ καὶ ξεῖρα κίνει” that might be clearer with some unpacking. κίνει governs both “hand” and “Athena:” “Move/set in motion the hand,” i.e., “Swim!” and “Athena will be moved (provoked to action)/set in motion.”
5.7 Defining the Fable
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as an extra-curricular activity that they did for fun.62 While the twenty-first century reader may be at a loss as to how to compose a fable, students into the early Modern period did so with ease, having been raised with the genre and utilizing it in informal and formal educational settings. Grasping the basic literary mechanics of the fable (see Chapter 10), the characters (see Chapter 11), and knowing many examples removes most of this difficulty. 5.7
Clement and Origen already seem to be part of a tradition that studied the gospel as a formal school curriculum. I've always learned to read this as if it was somehow "an invention" on their part and that the proper place for the gospel and Christianity was in a more "primitive" setting. But now I am starting to doubt that. When Papias says that Mark used chreia to make his gospel the inference is starting to come in mind that he was developing it as part of a "course" of some elementary instruction as Clement and Origen were wont to put it. We don't think of Christianity in these terms. But clearly Clement and Origen did. We have inherited a rare boorish understanding of Christianity as "properly belonging" to peasants and the rabble. But what agenda was at work here? Are the Jews ever uneducated? Is there such a thing as a stupid Jew (pardon my bigotry and prejudices). This notion that Christianity developed among "rustic people" by and for the canaille is starting to sound so silly. Morton Smith then, as the forger of this letter must have been part of a plot to "improve" Christianity. To make it seem more erudite and respectable. Was he really aware of Mark using chreia would connect it to the elementary instructions of antiquity? I will have to reread Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark but from my own naive understanding the knowledge that chreia meant a kind of fable was relatively recent. I don't think that those who studied the gospels and Patristics in the 1960s were aware of the implications of Papias's statement about chreia. There was a tendency to misread this statement to mean something else and then someone in the 80s I believe noted that chreia meant a kind of fable. Will have to re-examine this. But my sense here is that Clement is outlining a kind of educational process for Christian initiates in Alexandria that resembles Origen's writings and thus contextualizes Origen himself in an Alexandrian tradition associated with Mark but specifically connected with Mark using chreia in a way that wasn't generally known in 1958. Of course there is the old trope of Morton Smith having supernatural Satanic power mastering ancient Greek, being able to write in the style of Clement and Mark, knowing all sorts of things at a level that wasn't generally known at the time and now unraveling Papias's statement about Mark using chreia for his gospel that I don't believe was generally recognized in 1958. Will have to double check all this.
There is a statement in the book above:
New Testament scholars have known the chreia exercise long enough to demonstrate the positive results of using the progymnasmata as a guide to the forms in the Gospels.43
43 As we saw in the introduction, a couple of suggestive essays have examined this possibility since Parsons made this statement. See especially Stigall, “The Progymnasmata and Characterization in Luke’s Parables,” and now the monograph by Parsons and Martin, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament. For scholarship on the now “well-furrowed field” of the chreia, see James G. Williams, Those Who Ponder Proverbs: Aphoristic Thinking and Biblical Literature, Bible and Literature Series 2 (Sheffield: Almond, 1981); George Wesley Buchanan, “Chreias in the New Testament,” in Logia: Les paroles de Jésus—The Sayings of Jesus: Mémorial Joseph Coppens, ed. Joël Delobel, BETL 59 (Leuven: Peeters, 1982), 501–505; idem, Jesus, the King and His Kingdom (Macon: Mercer University Press, 1984); James R. Butts, “The Chreia in the Synoptic Gospels,” BTB 16 (1986): 132– 38; Catherine Hezser, “Die Verwendung der hellenistischen Gattung Chrie;” Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric; Kindstrand, “Diogenes Laertius and the Chreia Tradition;” James R. Butts, “The Voyage of Discipleship: Narrative, Chreia, and Call Story,” in Early Jewish and Christian Exegesis: Studies in Memory of William Hugh Brownlee, ed. Craig A. Evans (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 199–219; Burton L. Mack, Anecdotes and Arguments: The Chreia in Antiquity and Early Christianity (Claremont, CA: Institute for Antiquity and Christianity, 1987); Martin J. Buss, “Appropriateness in the Form Criticism of the Teaching Source: A Response to James Williams,” Semeia 43 (1988): 115–19; John Dominic Crossan, “Aphorism in Discourse and Narrative,” Semeia 43 (1988): 121–40; Mary Gerhart, “Generic Competence in Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 43 (1988): 29–44; Robbins, “The Chreia”; James G. Williams, “Parable and Chreia: From Q to Narrative Gospel,” Semeia 43 (1988): 85–114; Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma, CA: Polebridge, 1989); Fergus King, “The Chreia: The Return of the Form-Critic,” Africa Theological Journal 22 (1993): 76–90; Burton L. Mack, “Persuasive Pronouncements: An Evaluation of Recent Studies on the Chreia,” Semeia 64 (1993): 283–87; Jerome H. Neyrey, “Questions, ‘Chreiai’, and Challenges to Honor: The Interface of Rhetoric and Culture in Mark’s Gospel,” CBQ 60 (1998): 657–81; Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises; Marion C. Moeser, The Anecdote in Mark, the Classical World and the Rabbis, JSNTSup 227 (London: Sheffield Academic, 2002); Anders Eriksson, “The Old Is Good: Parables of Patched Garment and Wineskins as Elaboration of a Chreia in Luke 5:33–39 about Feasting with Jesus,” in Rhetoric, Ethic,
You see, this is my exact point. How could Morton Smith in 1958 have known something thirty years before it was generally recognized in scholarship i.e. that Mark's use of chreia fit into an educational platform of antiquity? AND ON TOP OF IT NEVER WRITE A PAPER ON WHAT HE KNEW? It's madness. Papias's statement about Mark and chreia form only occurred in the 1980s. Smith might have been clever but he wasn't Satan. He didn't possess supernatural powers. Those who believe this nonsense in my mind epitomize the WORST aspects of religious belief systems, the hocus pocus superstitions of "demonic powers" controlling the world and the like. Has no proper place in scholarship. The Letter to Theodore knew things about antiquity that wasn't generally known until thirty years after its discovery.
I really wish I could pay a student to write this paper. I hate writing papers. If it didn't feel there was an injustice here I would be literally living all my days in pleasure-seeking activities and hedonistic pursuits. Not a joke. The only thing that curbs my desire to carouse is that an injustice is being perpetrated by silly people who just don't want their world turned upside down. I don't like this quality of human nature. People have to learn to accept change.
