6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
This is a great example of what St. Augustine meant when he discussed majestic oratory. Paul is exhorting Timothy to stand firm in his work, and uses very deep, moving language to do so.
There are some very clear metaphors to be seen here, such as fighting a good fight, finishing a course, and being offered (to my knowledge, there is no record of Paul being a warrior, a runner, or a lamb). Paul also uses asyndeton in verse 7, with no conjunctions between the clauses describing what he has done. He also uses synechdoche, as he refers to the kingdom of heaven as a "crown of righteousness", referring to that one part of heaven as the whole, though whether this is synechdoche or metaphor really depends on whether or not we think that crowns are involved there.
The deep eloquence of these verses must have been very moving to Timothy, and probably helped him to finish his own course in the dark days that lay ahead of him.
I think this also relates really well to how St. Augustine said that eloquence in the scriptures feels almost inseparable from the scripture's meaning. In other words, content and form can't be wholly separated, and how in the scriptures, God's words can't be said another way.
ReplyDeleteGreat identification of synecdoche, Spencer. If the crown is referring to a person, we could also throw in the possibility of metonymy.
ReplyDeleteI have never though of this passage of scripture in a rhetorical way, and this really is a gold mine. Paul obviously had time to think about what and how he wrote things, and as Kelly pointed out I think this is a great indemnification of synecdoche. Also I never though about how he talks about a part of heaven, heaven being a place we are not familiar with.
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