Metalepsis, paragraphe and the scholia to Hermogenes - Leeds ...

MALCOLM HEATH, METALEPSIS, PARAGRAPHE AND THE SCHOLIA TO HERMOGENES
about conjecture? (He mentions only the legal issues and definition.) Strictly
speaking, John argues (620.2-622.5), paragraphe cannot be conjectural; being
documentary, the paragraphe itself must be legal. How, then, can Hermogenes
envisage paragraphe based on definition? He does not mean that the issue is
definition, but that the way the argument is developed may emphasise the
definitional aspect. As for paragraphe based on conjecture—which John himself
has acknowledged—although, strictly speaking, there is no such thing, theorists
developed the concept for a special purpose. It may happen that a paragraphe
depends on a claim that is disputed in point of fact; then there is a conjectural
question that has to be settled in order to determine the validity of the paragraphe.
That is the situation with regard to Against Timarchus.
John’s reference to Against Timarchus does not mean that he assumes that a
paragraphe involves two hearings. He comments that a paragraphe is ‘often’
introduced without the primary case, giving Against Timarchus as an illustration
(625.12-14). This is not as strong as Sopater’s claim for the uniqueness of Against
Timarchus, but it stills follows that the paragraphe is not always introduced
separately, and nothing that John says rules out (for example) a single hearing in
which a conjectural question has to be settled to resolve a dispute about the factual
presuppositions of a paragraphe, before the parties proceed to further legal
argument about the paragraphe and then to the primary case. Elsewhere he says
that, once the question about the admissibility of the case has been argued out, the
speaker will proceed to address the primary case kat¦ perious…an—that is, as
something not strictly necessary that makes a show of the abundant resources
available to him (234.10-18). This way of thinking about the primary case implies
that it is possible, but not necessary, to address both questions in one speech, and
that whether this is done is in some measure at the discretion of the speaker.
John is one of the sources used by the commentator who goes by the name
‘Sopater’ in the ‘three-man commentary’ of RG 4 (§3.4). This commentator also
made use of the Sopater of RG 5. But the material taken from these two sources
was heavily, if inconsistently, adapted. Hence we must regard the commentary
which goes under Sopater’s name in RG 4 as a substantially different work from
that of the Sopater of RG 5. I offer a suggestion about the identity of the author in
§3.5, but here for convenience refer to him as deutero-Sopater. 42
Evidence that deutero-Sopater used more than one source, and was not always
consistent in combining them, is easy to come by. He incorporates Sopater’s
criticism of Hermogenes’ claim that non-documentary metalepsis is about the
admissibility of the case. At the beginning it is adapted so as to report the criticism
non-committally (mšmfontai ... tinej ... 276.21-277.8). This adaptation is almost
unavoidable, since the contrary view has just been asserted (276.17-21), but it is
not carried through consistently (289.7-24). Sopater’s criticism of Hermogenes’
treatment of the prior question in the case of the man who consults the oracle is
taken over (284.26-285.4), although it is also mentioned that Hermogenes has
defenders on this point (285.9-17). The distinction between complete and
incomplete paragraphe (283.24-284.2) rubs shoulders with the contrast between
42 The text of the ‘three-man commentary’ is given in Appendix 4.
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