Torah in the Mouth.pdf

Torah in the Mouth, Writing and Oral Tradition in Palestinian Judaism, 200 BCE - 400 CE
Jaffee, Martin S., Samuel and Althea Stroum Professor of Jewish Studies, University of Washington
Print publication date: 2001, Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: November 2003
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-19-514067-5, doi:10.1093/0195140672.001.0001
rhetor used to say that gifted students are children of gods,” Theon instructs:
we inflect in this way: singular to singular, for example, “Isocrates the rhetor used to say that the gifted student is a child of gods.”
Dual to dual: “The two rhetors named Isocrates used to say that the two gifted students are two children of gods.” Plural to plural:
“The rhetors named Isocrates used to say that gifted students are children of gods.” (210, 19–24) 20
Such an exercise would not, of course, ever gain reflection in a public oration. It was purely preliminary, part of the discipline of rooting the
text firmly in the mind by running it, so to speak, through its paces.
More complex inflections involved grammatical cases. These require the rewording of the chreia, usually transmitted in the nominative
case, into other cases. Thus:
In the genetive case we will inflect in this way. If it is a sayings-chreia, we will add to it “the statement is remembered” or “the
saying is recalled of the one speaking.” It is good style to add the former after the recitation of the whole chreia. For example:
“Isocrates the rhetor's statement, when he said gifted students are children of gods, is remembered. (211, 5–11) 21
Or, again:
In the accusative case we will generally add to any chreia the words “they say,” “it is said.” For example, “They say (or it is said)
that Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, on seeing a rich young man who was uneducated, said: ‘This fellow is silver-plated filth.’”
(203, 5–8) 22
In both of these examples, the written text is worked through the memory by disciplined exercises in recasting its language. The product
of this exercise is knowledge of the text as a multiform literary reality. The written version retains its form as transmitted, but it is
malleable in light of the needs of the rhetorical situation. The text is at once its written version and the possiblities of its oral
transformations.
Theon's discussion became foundational to the entire genre of Progymnasmata and was cited (explicitly or by allusion) and amplified by
later Sophistic teachers. A particularly important example is that of the late second-century Sophist, Hermogenes of Tarsus. His
discussion of the forms of the chreia and its inflections is much briefer than Theon's, but he introduces a subject of great relevance to the
discussion of the interplay of oral and written texts. With marvelous theoretical rigor, he describes the manifold ways in which the public
speaker may interweave chreiae into his discourse and adapt for his own purposes stories or epigrams widely known to his audience.
Hermogenes identifies this rhetorical practice as “elaboration” (ergasia) and defines it in terms of eight procedures: Praise (enkomion);
Paraphrase (paraphrasis); Rationale (aitia); Statement from the Opposite (kata to enantion); Statement from Analogy (ek paraboles);
Statement from Example (ek paradeigmatos); Statement from Authority (ek kriseos); Exhortations (paraklesis). These rhetorical
procedures introduce the audience to the wisdom contained in it and unfold the implications and authority of it in a disciplined, easily
followed manner.
end p.131
Taking as his text the chreia, “Isocrates said that education's root is bitter, its fruit is sweet,” Hermogenes illustrates these procedures as
follows. The report of the chreia (step 2) is actually only a single element of a complex discourse to which it is structurally central:
(1) Praise: “Isocrates was wise,” and you amplify the subject moderately.
(2) Then the chreia: “He said thus and so,” and you are not to express it simply but rather by amplifying the presentation.
(3) Then the rationale: “For the most important affairs generally succeed because of toil, and once they have succeeded they bring
pleasure.”
(4) Then the statement from the opposite: “For ordinary affairs do not need toil, and they have an outcome that is entirely without
pleasure; but serious affairs have the opposite outcome.”
(5) Then the statement from analogy: “For just as it is the lot of farmers to reap their fruits after working with the land, so also is it for
those working with words.”
(6) Then the statement from example: “Demosthenes, after locking himself in a room and toiling long, later reaped his fruits: wreaths and
public acclamations.”
(7) It is also possible to argue from the statement by an authority. For example, Hesiod said: “In front of virtue gods have ordained sweat”
. . . .
(8) At the end you are to add an exhortation to the effect that it is necessary to heed the one who has spoken or acted. (7, 16–8, 8). 23
Hermogenes' method of elaboration supplements Theon's inflections as a further example of how rhetorical training was devoted to the oral
transformation of written texts. In elaboration, the chreia's text (step 2) serves as the springboard for a discourse that moves back and
forth between the text itself and other cultural intertexts (steps 3–8), weaving the whole into a morally compelling rhetorical tapestry. Here,
instead of the words of the text itself being changed (as in Theon), the chreia's meaning is enriched by being woven into an expanded
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