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St. Augustine, who was trained in the heights of the Latin rhetorical tradition, found Scripture rhetorically primitive when he was looking at it from the outside, before his conversion. But he became far more impressed with the rhetorical power of both the Old and the New Testaments once he began to grasp their inner meaning. There are in fact many different rhetorical flourishes in Scripture, and some of the most satisfying of them employ what we might call “sequences” of various kinds. Indeed, rhetorical sequences seem to play an important role in most languages—such as the common habit of ending a speech with a triad of phrases, as Abraham Lincoln did in the Gettysburg Address: “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.
There are a number of different kinds of sequences in Scripture. Perhaps the most fundamental are the sequences of seven, which was a Hebrew word with the same consonants as the word for “completeness” or “wholeness”. Consider, for example, the seven days of Genesis and the seven churches, seven seals, and the seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation. But almost wherever we turn in Scripture, we encounter rhetorical sequences of various kinds, sometimes involving specific numbers, but also highlighting the unfolding of events, the connection between multiple concepts or ideas, or the nature of the Divine gifts.
Continued below.
www.catholicculture.org
There are a number of different kinds of sequences in Scripture. Perhaps the most fundamental are the sequences of seven, which was a Hebrew word with the same consonants as the word for “completeness” or “wholeness”. Consider, for example, the seven days of Genesis and the seven churches, seven seals, and the seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation. But almost wherever we turn in Scripture, we encounter rhetorical sequences of various kinds, sometimes involving specific numbers, but also highlighting the unfolding of events, the connection between multiple concepts or ideas, or the nature of the Divine gifts.
Continued below.
Sacred Scripture’s rhetorical power
Just as we do in our own writing, the sacred writers in Scripture use various kinds of rhetorical sequences to heighten the power of important passages.
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