Syncrisis and Encomium: Reading Hebrews through Greek Rhetoric

Although the use of rhetoric to interpret NT texts, even Hebrews, is hardly new, here I employ an unfamiliar, and so unused, source of Greco-Roman rhetoric, the progymnasmata (preliminary rhetorical exercises). They provide excellent examples of genres that form the skeleton and substance of the argument in Hebrews. These progymnasmata consisted of twelve to sixteen exercises of increasing difficulty, among which I focus on "comparison" (σύγκρισις) and "encomium" (ἐγκώμιον). Pro-gymnastic rhetoric states that "comparisons" are made out of the "headings" of the "encomium." Thus, one comparison is in fact two encomia, for example, Jesus and Israelite priests, each figure described according to traditional encomiastic patterns.