Clivedurdle

Anyone know anything about this?

http://journals.cambridge.org/action...ne&aid=3628024

Toto

It's not talking about the gospel story line, just the parable of the sower. This is nothing new.

From your source This note goes on to speculate that Quintilian and the gospels had a common source, which might have been a Jewish comedy, based on the style and meter of Quintilian's quote.

From the similar passage in gThomas, Peter Kirby's comments note:

stephan huller

It may be old but it is interesting. Here's the English translation of the passage

3*1*The skilful teacher will make it his first care, as soon as a boy is entrusted to him, to ascertain his ability and character. The surest indication in a child is his power of memory. The characteristics of a good memory are twofold: it must be quick to take in and faithful to retain impressions of what it receives. The indication of next importance is the power of imitation: for this is a sign that the child is teachable: but he must imitate merely what is taught, and must not, for example, mimic someone's gait or bearing or defects.*2*For I*have no hope that a child will turn out well who loves imitation merely for the purpose of raising a laugh. He who is really gifted will also above all else be good. For the rest, I*regard slowness of intellect as preferable to actual badness. But a good boy will be quite unlike the dullard and the sloth.*3*My ideal pupil will absorb instruction with ease and will even ask some questions; but he will follow rather than anticipate his teacher. Precocious intellects rarely produce sound fruit.*4*By the precocious I*mean those who perform small tasks with ease and, thus emboldened, proceed to display all their little accomplishments*p57without being asked: but their accomplishments are only of the most obvious kind: they string words together and trot them out boldly and undeterred by the slightest sense of modesty. Their actual achievement is small, but what they can do they perform with ease.*5*They have no real power and what they have is but of shallow growth: it is as when we cast seed on the surface of the soil: it springs up too rapidly, the blade apes the loaded ear, and yellows ere harvest time, but bears no grain. Such tricks please us when we contrast them with the performer's age, but progress soon stops and our admiration withers away.6*Such indications once noted, the teacher must next consider what treatment is to be applied to the mind of his pupil. There are some boys who are slack, unless pressed on; others again are impatient of control: some are amenable to fear, while others are paralysed by it: in some cases the mind requires continued application to form it, in others this result is best obtained by rapid concentration. Give me the boy who is spurred on by praise, delighted by success and ready to weep over failure.*7*Such an one must be encouraged by appeals to his ambition; rebuke will bite him to the quick; honour will be a spur, and there is no fear of his proving indolent.8*Still, all our pupils will require some relaxation, not merely because there is nothing in this world that can stand continued strain and even unthinking and inanimate objects are unable to maintain their strength, unless given intervals of rest, but because study depends on the good will of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.*9*Consequently if restored and refreshed by a holiday*

Clivedurdle

Thanks, (how did you quote from the link?).

But if even a parable can be tracked back to something else, is there anything original and historical?

stephan huller

What's the reason for assuming a Jewish Comedy? The assumption that Mark couldn't read Latin? That's not a strong argument.

Clivedurdle

Rose does say "immediate" source.

stephan huller

There is a way to reconcile Mark having read Quintillian before writing the gospel. While the Institutes was written 95 CE as Wikipedia notes:

An earlier text,*De Causis Corruptae Eloquentiae*("On the Causes of Corrupted Eloquence") has been lost, but is believed to have been "a preliminary exposition of some of the views later set forth in [Institutio Oratoria]" (Kennedy, 24).

stephan huller

or Mark could have been one of Quintillian's students which would be a better argument for the Agrippa = Mark thesis than anything I ever came up with

stephan huller

Words should be scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it once has found favorable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth. (Seneca, Epistles 38.2)

It might be worth noting that the parable of the sower can be regarded as a criticism of sorts of the sower. The material in Mark 4

Clearly the sower acts in accord with Seneca's dictum. However one can make an argument that Mark is not proscribing the behavior merely commenting upon the value of secrecy. In other words, if Satan doesn't know where you sow, he can't destroy your seed.

Is it too much to suggest that Mark, the student or hearer of Quintillian has picked up something of his criticism of Seneca's indiscriminate sowing? From Wikipedia:

Vorkosigan

Mark is second century, so reading Quintilian would be no problem. But there's no way to demonstrate it for sure because such metaphors were common in antiquity.