The Affections of the Soul: Pathos, Protreptic, and Preaching in Hellenistic Thought (original) (raw)

When we examine the role of pathos in the Pauline epistles, we are doing something quite complicated. We are discussing a group of texts written in the early Christian era which bear the weight of nearly two millenia of historical interpretation. We cannot, as Jowett advocated, "read the Bible as any other work of literature" (1860). Differences over readings of "Ode to a Grecian Urn" might, at their most overwhelmingly significant, lead to intense discussions during a conference panel attended by some thirty or forty people or debates in journals read by a few thousand specialists. People, however, have fought wars, been martyred, and been burned as heretics over the interpretation of the Bible. What makes sacred literature distinctive is intention and reception. Paul was not writing, as were Longus and Plautus, to provide light entertainment, and his works were not read or heard for topical humor (like Aristophanes') or risqué charm (like Catullus'). When we consider how to understand the use of pathetic appeal in the Pauline epistles, we need to contextualize his rhetorical strategies in terms of religious rather than secular purpose, and effect on the soul (as in philosophical protreptic) rather than on opinion (as in deliberative and forensic oratory). Thus we need to understand the rhetorical strategies, and especially the appeals to emotions, in the Pauline epistles in light of the philosophical theories of protreptic, the emotions, and the soul rather than, or at least in addition to, the handbooks of practical rhetoric.