Rhetorical Structure and Design in Paul's Letter to Philemon

Abstract

What has Paul to do with Quintilian? For a host of scholars this question would answer itself, rhetorically. A stock device, the rhetorical question has long been favored in argument. Even Paul is no exception. “Where is the wise man?” he asks. “Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” (1 Cor 1:20). Paul would appear to be dismissing everything his contemporary, Quintilian, stood for. Yet one point remains. As Cicero once wrote of Plato, “it was when making fun of orators that he himself seemed to be the consummate orator.” The following, a rhetorical study of the letter to Philemon, will suggest that Paul too employed basic tactics of persuasion taught and widely practiced in his day.

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