Second expanded edition: What Are They Saying About the Parables? (Chapter 6, Part 4): Rhetoric--Parsons, Martin, Farmer, and Gowler

Mikeal Parsons and Michael Martin devote a chapter to the fable in their book, Ancient Rhetoric and the New Testament. They begin by noting that the exercises on fable in the progymnasmata not only taught foundational literary skills through such practices as paraphrase, expansion and compression, and refutation and confirmation, all of which led to “compositional mastery” of the fable; fables also involve character formation (45–49).

In a significant expansion of Beavis’s list of basic similarities, Parsons and Martin note that the parables of Jesus exhibit “the same literary features and practices” as found in (other) examples of fables in antiquity (for details see the book). Jesus’ parables (1) feature the same kinds of subjects and classifications; (2) exhibit “realism”; (3) exhibit a similar amount of “moralizing” as described in the progymnasmata and found in ancient fables; (4) display the same simple, conversational style as prose fables; (5) occasionally contain the same kind of inflection (e.g., variations in case and number) as prescribed in the progymnasmata and also occasionally found in fables; (6) are often woven into the larger narrative in a manner delineated in the progymnasmata and evident in most Greek and Hebrew fables; (7) undergo the same kinds of paraphrase and expansion/contraction explained in the progymnasmata and evident in the transmission of fables—comparing the differing versions of the same parable in Matthew, Mark, and/or Luke reflect such “editorial” practices (59–62). 

The importance of the progymnasmata for parable studies goes well beyond the fable, however. In 1961, for example, William Farmer discovered a progymnastic pattern in some sections of Luke in which an introduction is followed by three closely-related sayings and the third “saying” is an illustrative parable (13:1–9; 15:1–32; cf. 12:13–21, where the Rich Fool parable illustrates the saying in 12:15).  This structure, he argues, is generated by the progymnastic rhetorical tradition of citing, paraphrasing, expounding, and illustrating a chreia (307–10).   

Theon, who defines chreia as “a recollection of a saying or action or both, with a pointed meaning, usually for the sake of something useful,” notes that a chreia can be expressed as an enthymeme.  As Richard Vinson discovered, the narrative enthymeme is one of Luke’s preferred rhetorical techniques. Enthymemes in Lukan parables, for example, are distinctive qualitatively and quantitatively, because they allow characters to speak for themselves to a greater extent than in Mark or Matthew’s parables—e.g., characters explaining their motives—which creates a more complete characterization of them. 

In my writings, I extend this concept in parable interpretation by demonstrating how the Lukan parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:16–20) works “enthymematically.”  For example, the unexpressed element of an enthymeme serves as a way to engage the hearers/readers more actively in a way parallel to how parables require hearers/readers to fill in enthymematic literary, social/cultural, and other gaps.