Hermogenes’ Progymnasmata

How Luke Transformed a Jewish Prophet into a Greek Hero

Abstract

Relying on the historical-critical method, I propose an analysis of the nature of the Gospel of Luke and its possible dependency on Greek rhetorical conventions. Taking into account the highly literate nature of this Gospel, this paper puts forward the case that its author has been educated in the Greek rhetorical exercise of encomion, as documented in Hermogenes’ progymnasmata. Empowered by his knowledge of encomion, Luke probably used Mark as a template to compose a eulogy of Jesus of Nazareth. In light of this, I suggest a list with the correspondence between Hermogenes’ encomiastic topics and the pericopae used by Luke in his Gospel. Considering the hypothesis that the Gospel of Luke is best understood as an encomion, I propose an assessment of its implications to the reconstruction of the historical Jesus.