Adelbert Denaux, «Style and Stylistcs, with Special Reference to Luke.», Vol. 19 (2006) 31-51
Taking Saussure’s distinction between language (langue) and speech
(parole) as a starting point, the present article describes a concept of ‘style’
with special reference to the use of a given language system by the author of
Luke-Acts. After discussing several style definitions, the question is raised
whether statistics are helpful for the study of style. Important in the case of
Luke is determining whether his use of Semitisms is a matter of style or of
language, and to what extent he was influenced by ancient rhetoric. Luke’s
stylistics should focus on his preferences (repetitions, omissions, innovations)
from the range of possibilities of his language system (“Hellenistic Greek”),
on different levels (words, clauses, sentences, rhetorical-narrative level and
socio-rhetorical level), within the limits of the given grammar, language
development and literary genre.
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Style and Stylistcs, with Special Reference to Luke
with conciseness, with gentleness or asperity, magnificence or subtlety,
gravity or wit. The next essential is to decide by what kind of metaphor,
figures, reflexions, methods and arrangement we may best produce the
effect we desire†(VIII, 3,40-41)79.
- The fourth virtue or quality of style is the “appropriateness of speechâ€
(XI,1) (apte dicere). “This topic is discussed by Cicero in the third book
of the de Oratore, and, although he touches on it but lightly, he really
covers the whole subject when he says, One single style of oratory is not
suited to every case, nor to every audience, nor every speaker, nor every
occasion†(XI,1,4)80. When one reads Acts 17,16-34, one wonders whether
the author of Luke-Acts had not heard somewhere the recommendation
which Quintilian formulates thus: “It, likewise, makes no small difference
whether we are speaking in public or in private, before a crowded audience
or in comparative seclusion, in another city or our own, in the camp or
in the forum: each of these places will require its own style and peculiar
form of oratory†(XI,1,47)81.
Adelbert DENAUX
Catholic University Leuven
Tiensestraat 112
B-3000 Leuven (BELGIUM)
Cf. Butler, The Institutio Oratoria 3, 232-3, Iam hinc igitur ad rationem coniuncti
79
transeamus. Cuius ornatus in haec duo prima dividitur, quam concipiamus elocutionem,
quo modo efferamus. Nam primum est, ut liqueat, augere quid velimus an minuere, concitate
docere an moderate, laete an severe, abundanter an presse, aspere an leniter, magnifice
an subtiliter, graviter an urbane. Tum, quo translationum genere, quibus figuris, qualibus
sententiis, quo modo, que postremo collocatione id, quod intendimus, efficere possimus.
Cf. H.E. Butler (ed.), The Institutio Oratoria. Vol. 4 (LCL, 127; Cambridge, MA -
80
London 1922 [repr. 1993]) 157, Non omni causae neque auditori neque personae neque
tempori congruere orationis unum genus; see also: Nec tantum, quis et pro quo sed etiam
apud quem dicas, interest†(XI,1,43), “Tempus quoque ac locus egent observatione propria
(XI,1,46).
Cf. Butler, The Institutio Oratoria 4, 180-81, Et loco publico privatone, celebri an
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secreto, aliena civitate an tua, in castris an foro dicas, interest plurimum, ac suam quidque
formam et proprium quendam modum eloquentiae poscit.
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