curus (10.28.13)—but none of these texts has survived either. Cicero’s frag-
mentaryHortensiusis known largely for its role in persuading the young
Augustine to take up philosophy (Conf. 3.4.7). An extant Greek inscription
mentions a competition for composing logoi protreptikoiin the Athenian
ephebate (IGII 2119). The evidence is thus enough to indicate that logoi pro-
treptikoiconstituted a recognized class of philosophical writing long before
Josephus’s time, even though our most complete examples come from his
time and later.
Unfortunately, the dearth of early examples is matched by a complete
absence of theoretical discussion in both the handbooks of rhetorical the-
ory and the progymnasmata(manuals of rhetorical exercises). To be sure,
the rhetors discuss to protreptikonin the general sense of persuasion, as a par-
allel technique to to apotreptikonor dissuasion, but they do not discuss a
kind of discourse or dialogue aimed at encouraging conversion to the philo-
sophic life (Aune 1991, 279). Aune (1991, 280) reasonably suggests that
this deficiency results from the ancient standoff between rhetors and philoso-
phers: the rhetors simply did not recognize as noteworthy exhortations to
philosophical conversion. Whatever the cause of this lack may be, however,
the best we can do now is to rely on contemporary scholars who have made
inductive analyses of particular texts and the phenomenon as a whole.
A seminal article is Mark D. Jordan’s attempt (1986) to eke out a generic
definition of philosophic protreptic from four examples: the Socratic “inter-
ludes” in Plato’s Euthydemus, Aristotle’s Protrepticus(hypothetically recon-
structed from fragments), Seneca’s 90th epistle (which sets out to correct
Posidonius’s lost Protrepticus), and Iamblichus’s fourth-century CEProtrep-
ticus.Also helpful is the summary portion of David Aune’s recent chapter
arguing that the Christian letter to the Romans is a logos protreptikos(1991).
Neither Jordan nor Aune has an interest in Contra Apionem,and neither
identifies it as an example of the genre. Nevertheless, a survey of their
observations concerning the genre incline me toward such an association.
Jordan does not consider it possible to define the genre either by a
characteristic structure or by a set of concrete aims, since representatives
of all schools wrote protreptikoiin different forms and for somewhat differ-
ent audiences, and defined their aim (the highest good) differently. Jordan
settles for a situational definition, namely: “each author confronts a hearer
whose choice is the target of many other persuasions. The unity of philo-
sophic protreptic...would seem to lie in the [sic] this ‘exigence,’ in the
hearer’s moment of choice before ways-of-life....Protreptics are just those
works that aim to bring about the firm choice of a lived way to wisdom.”
(1986, 330).
nora
(Nora)
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