Alexander Loney, «Narrative Structure and Verbal Aspect Choice in Luke.», Vol. 18 (2005) 3-31
In order to represent the actions of past-time narrative, Luke can choose
to employ either the aorist or the imperfect tense, that is, either the perfective
or the imperfective aspect. By selecting one tense over the other Luke
manipulates verbal aspect to give organization to his episodic narrative and
to create contrastive prominence (enargeia) within individual pericopes. In
this way, he follows in the tradition of his historiographical predecessors
–most notably Thucydides– who, through their subtle play with verbal aspect,
composed narratives concerned with at once the factual representation
of the past and their own contemporary, didactic purposes.
30 Alexander C. Loney
from the previous ones in that it does not have a stated aorist verb of
motion. The verb is, instead, implied in v. 43 by Jesus’ statement that he
must continue to travel on to other cities where he can preach, although
he is being hindered from leaving. After this statement in the diegetic
mode, which thus implies a diegetic verb of motion, the second, mimetic
part of the cadence follows with its imperfective ÎºÎ·Ï ÏƒÏƒÏ‰Î½ that pre-
supposes Jesus did make a successful departure and now is preaching.
This truncated yet effective cadence completes the pericope and sustains
the general theme of Jesus’ ministry that will unfold over the rest of the
gospel account.
This third pericope of chapter four is more intricate than the previ-
ous two and it contains several vigorous examples of mimetic discourse,
used to enliven the narrative and give enargeia to the gospel account. The
usual transitional instances of perspectival modulation are present as
well, including certain modulations that are only semi-transitional. The
whole structure of discourse modes for the chapter is set down at the end
of the article on a diagram that should aid in comparing the features of
aspect, cadence, and perspective across pericopes. As this diagram rep-
resents, I have shown that chapter four of Luke’s gospel consists of three
sections demarcated by verbal aspect choice. Luke’s principal manner
of manipulating verbal aspect for structural significance is via cadences
which evoke two modes of discourse, the diegetic and mimetic. These
modes of discourse have different concerns: the former is concerned with
making a factual/historical account from a removed perspective and the
later with a “vivid†representation of events as though before the eyes
of the reader. Through switching between these modes, Luke creates a
vigorous narrative that graphically depicts the events of the gospel as well
as exhibiting a complex, interwoven structure.
From this structural analysis of chapter four we could interpret the
regular operation of verbal aspect in the entire Lukan corpus along the
lines of this model. Luke’s historiographical methodology, as stated in his
preface (1,1-4), is to use the testimony of others to make his own record
of events. Unsurprisingly, his sources show much of the same material as
he does, but Luke’s particularly original work is the ordering of the events
and sayings into a dynamic, cohesive whole. This is what Luke means by
his stated purpose of writing an orderly (καθεξ ς) account71. To this end,
Luke employs aspect choice to great effect, on a level of sophistication
that has echoes of Thucydides72.
71
See M. Völkel, “Exegetische Erwägungen zum Verständnis des Begriffs καθεξ ς im
lukanischen Prologâ€, NTS 20 (1973-74) 289-99.
72
I would like to thank all my friends and colleagues who reviewed and critiqued vari-
ous drafts of this paper: David Fink, David Moffitt, Patrick Jones, Tait Chamberlain, and
most of all Arthur Verhoogt, whose generosity and diligence are a blessing to his students.
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