37 Style and Stylistcs, with Special Reference to Luke case, there always is a point of reference. One cannot speak, for example, of an ‘archaism’ without referring to the synchronic language system. One cannot speak of a ‘metaphor’ without referring to the normal, i.e. the literal, meaning. And one cannot speak of the low and unusual frequency of the order ‘personal pronoun (e.g. σου) + noun’ in a text without referring to the ‘normal order’ (i.e. the high frequency) ‘noun + personal pronoun’ (e.g. σου) in the language system. In view of the fact, however, that the notion ‘deviation from a norm’ has a too normative connotation, it seems better to speak of repetitive ‘variations’ a text displays within a given code or language structure, the reference being a comparable variation within the language code or in another text. The ancient division into low, middle, and elevated styles is better understood as variations, because “none of these three styles is seen as ‘deviant’ in respect to any other, although each is, obviously, different from others”26. When Luke shows a number of distinctive language features in comparison to Matthew and/or Mark or any other writer, one could speak of his characteristic style. His style is the result of conscious (or unconscious) choices among an innumerable potential of possible language features. Style is a distinctive and systematic kind of ‘language variation’ used by a speaker/author, text, or group of persons/texts, within the limits of a specific language structure, in comparison to another speaker/author, text, or group of persons/texts. The reference to describe the characteristic style of a person/text/group is a comparable person/text/group chosen by the one who aims to study the style of a person/text/group. One could object that a stylistic study of a text should not necessarily be comparative. It seems to us, however, that comparison is always essential to the study of style27. Comparison is the basic methodological principle, for example, of Henry J. Cadbury’s standard study on the style and literary method of Luke28. And even when one studies the stylistic features of a text in itself, the student always has in mind a set of rules, according to which he qualifies some language features as characteristic or not for the style of an author or a text. They can be of qualitative nature (e.g. deviance from common grammar rules) or of quantitative nature (e.g. relative frequency or absence of certain T. Todorov, “The place of Style in the Structure of the Text”, in S. Chatman (ed.), 26 Literary Style: A Symposium (Oxford 1971) 32. Cf. N.E. Enkvist, “On the Place of Style in Some Linguistic Theories”, in S. Chatman 27 (ed.), Literary Style: A Symposium (Oxford 1971) 54: “Comparison is always the essence of all study of style: the very concept and feel and texture of style arise through comparison of the structure of the text we are studying with the structures of other texts”. H.J. Cadbury, The Style and Literary Method of Luke, 2 Vols. (Harvard Theological 28 Studies, 6; Cambridge, MA 1919/1920 [= New York 1969]).