Abstract
Acts has been the subject of exhaustive enquiry from historical, source,
redactional, literary, and other angles. The aim of this thesis is to read
Acts as would someone with an education typical of that time. The clearer it
is that such rhetorical grounding was sufficient basis for an intelligible
interpretation, the more likely that Acts was extroverted enough to be
addressed to a general readership. Since it was the practice to interpret
history in terms of individuals not general movements, as is exemplified in
theoretical statements of Cicero and Seneca and in the practice of Thucydidas,
Sallust, Livy and Tacitus, the school exercise of character
description forms the basis of analysis and interpretation,
as illustrated from 14.8-19.
By use of the theory of Theon and suitable practical examples in Homer,
Sailust, Dosephus, etc., the typical form of the character sketch is outlined,
as are common topics in it as used in Acts, thus identifying the
examples in Acts. With reference to such as Seneca, Tacitus, Vergil and
Polybius, it is shown how this exercise was used in historiography to
introduce minor, and offer obituaries of major, characters, and so it
emerges that in Acts these sketches introduce the Church, and that Paul,
receiving valedictory description, is the dominant figure. Reference to
historiographers also identifies the use of descriptions as digressions which yet advance the inquiry, 18.24-28 proving to be such
a
typifying digression. Adding Theon's exercise of comparison,
and again with reference to Plutarch, Xenophon, Catullus, etc., 4.32-5.11
and 8.4-40 (Lucian affording a significant comparison) are shown to be like
digressions. 21.37-9 and 22.25-8 are also comparisons, but 9.32-10.48 is a
climactic grouping of characters. Menander's On Ecideictic provides the
theoretical basis for the interpretation of character sketches in travel
rhetoric, and Lucan a practical instance. Situations of arrival and
departure occur at 15.6—16 and 20.36—21.16. For 21.39—26.39, the theory
of Cicero's De Inuantione and the Rhetorica ad Herannium on dicanic oratory
form the basis for discussion of the defence speech and its
effect on characterisations within it. The themes which emerge are
reviewed under the following heads: opposition and advance; resurrection;
piety; a dialectical relationship with the Dews; connection with the
higher echelons of society; lack of secretiveness; invitation to something
with a certain mystique; innocence and justice.
Brief remarks on what Acts may have to say to the contemporary West
conclude the exploration of what it said in its own time.
