Review: Biblical Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity

Author(s): Thomas Conley

Review by: Thomas Conley
Source: Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Autumn 1986), p. 423
Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the International Society for the
History of Rhetoric
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/rh.1986.4.4.423.1
Accessed: 01-01-2016 01:38 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/
info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content
in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship.
For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

International Society for the History of Rhetoric and University of California Press are collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 01 Jan 2016 01:38:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

REVIEWS

Thomas Conley
BibUcal Epic and Rhetorical Paraphrase in Late Antiquity by
Michael Roberts, ARCA: Classical and Mediaeval Texts, Liverpool
(Francis Cairns, 1985), pp. x-l-253.
Roberts here traces the influences of the Classical rhetorical exercize
otpararphrasis/metaphrasis(cf.,e.g.,Theon,Progymrmsmata62.Wfi.
Spengel)
on mediaeval biblical paraphrase, particularly as exempUfied by the hexameter versions of biblical texts by such writers as SeduUus, Marius
Victorius, and Avitus. After he devotes two chapters to the ancient theory
and practice of the paraphrase as it can be found in sources from Plato (of
Homer) to Late Antiquity (including some papyrus texts from the Fourth
and Fifth Centuries discussed in this context for the first time), Roberts
considers in detaU the Christian assimilation of the method of paraphrase
and amplification of biblical narratio. "Paraphrase" stands roughly halfway
between grammatical commentary and preaching. This book thus helps to
fiU a gap in our understanding of how patristic and mediaeval scholars
went about generating the latter from the former. What is now needed is a
comparable study on mediaeval Greek sources, which are plentiful but
largely ignored.

Johannes Tauler: Sermons, translated by Maria Shrady, The Classics

of Western SpirituaUty, New York and Toronto, Paulist Press: 1985.
pp. xvi-l-183. $9.95 (paper).
Tauler (c. 1300-1361) was a German Domincan preacher most famous
perhaps as an interpreter and propagator of the teachings of Meister
Eckhardt. Shrady has used Hoffmann's 1961 edition of the sermons* in
her presentation of twenty-three of Tauler's sermons. Of the three great
preachers in the mystical tradition in mediaeval Germany (Eckhardt, c.
1260-1328; Heinrich Suso, 1295-1366; and Tauler), Tauler is probably the

* Georg Hoffmann, Johannes Tauler, Predigten I, Vollstdndige Ausgabe (Einsiedeln,

1961). Hoffmann, in tum, translates into Modem German from the original Middle
High German.
423

This content downloaded from 142.150.190.39 on Fri, 01 Jan 2016 01:38:12 UTC
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions