Nibley on Rhetoric XVIII

Nibley on modern rhetoricians:

In its vagueness and all-pervasiveness the term rhetoric came very close to our own "business," or better, "public relations." No one could say exactly what it was, yet no one had the slightest doubt about its real nature or its absolutely predominant place in the world. The rhetorician was a general promoter, ingratiating himself with powerful individuals or groups to run off with a handsome cut of the profits from clever deals engineered by himself, handling other people's affairs in the law courts, guiding public opinion, generally flattering and running errands for the great---the god Mercury, the winged messenger and factotum with the money bags. Hermes the thief, with the ready tongue and winning manners shows how established the type really is. The rhetor is "a pushing, driving, money-chasing operator," says Lucian, "who leaves any sense of decency, propriety, moderation, and shame at home when he goes to work." "I do not make money," Dio protests, "I am not interested in crooked deals. . . . I do not promote things in the market place---for I am not a rhetor!" . . .  On the lower level, the cities swarmed with fast-talking operators who could always get it for you wholesale and whose skill at making something super-colossal out of nothing was excelled only by their know-how in the art of smearing. (Hugh Nibley, "Vicotriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:255-56.)

Nibley on Rhetoric XVII

Nibley on the independence of rhetors:

Rhetoric, according to Augustine, is the art which, animated by necessity rather than "purity," scatters to the populace from its overflowing bosom (the Roman equivalent of pockets) an abundance of delights, thus leading them to comply with his interests. You can get what you want our of people if only you give them what they want---without question and without hesitation. The rhetor, say Philo, is the slave of a thousand masters, the public is a whore, and he is her minion and her lap-dog. (Hugh Nibley, "Vicotriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:259.

Nibley on Rhetoric XVI

Nibley on why we should pay attention to rhetoric:

Pointing out the dangers and defects of rhetoric does not change the habits of rhetoricians. The young Hippocrates, in the beginning of the Protagoras, blushes when he admits to Socrates that he is taking up rhetoric --- but that does not change his plans. Like the passions and appetites it feeds on, rhetoric is one of the great constants in human history. Because it is a constant, nothing can tell us better the direction in which a civilization is moving or how far it is along the way. Like the residue of certain radioactive substances, rhetoric, leaving an unmistakable mark on all that it touches, may yet prove to be the surest guide to the history of our own times. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:274.)

What does it say about us that one of the top entertainment shows is about rhetors?

Nibley on Rhetoric XV

Nibley on rhetoric and the fate of the Roman Empire:

The effect of this sort of thing [rhetoric] on serious thought and learning can be imagined, but it does not need to be: the whole history of the Empire is there to illustrate it and to confirm in every detail all the charges that Plato had with unerring insight brought against rhetoric in the beginning. Hippias, Gorgias, Polus, Prodicus, and the other great Sophists "achieved wonderful reputations," Dio Chrysostom recalls, "and acquired great wealth in public activities from cities, dynasts, kings, and private individuals. . . . They spoke a great deal, but were sadly lacking in intelligence," and they confounded issues and destroyed philosophy. It was in their interest to do so, for they confessed that public ignorance was their greatest ally. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:265.)

Nibley on Rhetoric XIV

Nibley on why rhetoric is bad for society:

The landslide of vulgarization once started could not be stopped. Good men were intimidated and banished from the cities by mobs who could always count on finding orators that would never contradict them, society reserving its richest rewards for those who could justify, condone, and confirm its vices. (Hugh Nibley, "Vicotoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:260.)

Nibley on Rhetoric XIII

Nibley on rhetoric and corruption:

It was always remembered that there was a bad as well as a good side to rhetoric; but what was not recognized was a fatal Gresham's Law by which bad rhetoric, art, and education, like bad money, will always force the better product out of circulation. There can be no truce between the two, since each is a standing rebuke to the other. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:257-58.)

Nibley on Rhetoric XII

Nibley notes that rhetors refuse to accept responsibility:

This refusal to accept responsibility, which reaches its perfection in the great Christian orators of the fourth century, went hand in hand with a cynical admiration for the clever ruse, the lie that was not a lie. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:257.)

Nibley on Rhetoric XI

Nibley discusses why rhetors tend from mediocre to terrible:

The orator must stoop to conquer, and a quick and frightening rebuke awaits him is he does not stoop low enough. For all his toadying, Dio was banished for being unsociable, Libanius had to clear himself of the same terrible charge, and Apuleius was investigated time and again because he was suspected of being an introvert. Go easy on philosophy, Cicero advises, don't talk over people's heads---they don't like orators who make them feel stupid; best to keep your books at home for private leisure. He might have cited the case of Hermodorus, who was banished from the illustrious city of Ephesus because he was guilty of excelling in something: "If he must excel," they said, "let him go and excel over somebody else!"

Nibley on Rhetoric X

Nibley on the paradox of rhetoric:

Rhetoric is the art of perfection itself; if it is not perfect, it is nothing, for nothing is sadder than a great attempt that falls short. There is no excuse for stupidity here, let alone immorality; rhetoric should be left strictly alone by those not properly endowed for it. But who is properly endowed? To that question the experts threw up their hands in despair and declared in a single voice that the perfect orator simply does not exist. The choice was between perfection and a fiasco --- and perfection was out of the question. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252-53.)

Nibley on Rhetoric IX

More of Nibley's comments on rhetoric:

The final plea of the orators in defense of their art was the protest that unscrupulous and unqualified men had misrepresented it inside the profession and out. Rhetoric is a terrible instrument in the hands of the wrong man, we are assured; it is often necessary to defend things like murder which, though bad in themselves, are under certain circumstances innocent and praiseworthy --- the orator can make them seem good or bad at will, and so the most important qualification for every orator to have is honest intent, without which "nothing is more pernicious in public or private affairs than eloquence." So we get the constant refrain that the orator must be a paragon of virtues; his is the most difficult and demanding of all arts requiring qualities of character and brain that are virtually non-existent in this imperfect world. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252.)

Nibley on Rhetoric VIII

Nibley discussing Cicero's complaint about philosophers:

"It [philosophical style] is chaste and upright," he [Cicero] concludes, "an uncorrupted virgin, so to speak." And what was his rhetoric by contrast? (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:252.)

Nibley on Rhetoric VII

Cicero's very proper assurance that a rhetor will not hesitate to speak the truth when it serves his purpose is more damaging than any long catalogue of charges brought against rhetoric by its enemies. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10: 252.)

Ouch.

Nibley on Rhetoric VI

If nothing is rarer than a good orator, nothing is commoner than bad ones. The rewards of rhetoric are tremendous; are such rewards to be left lying about unclaimed until the perfect orator comes along? As might be expected, the worst people took to rhetoric like ducks to water. For rhetoric preached the gospel of success. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:253).

Nibley on Rhetoric V

Nibley on the honesty of rhetoric:

"We must allow the rhetor to make false, daring, and somewhat misleading and captious statements," Gellius smugly observes. . . .

Such statements as that, meant to be a defense of the profession but actually a rather damaging indictment of rhetoric, proclaim the uneasiness that is never far from the surface of ancient treatises on oratory, the awareness that there is something basically wrong about the thing. No one denied, of course, that rhetoric could be abused --- "cannot any good thing be misused?" asks Anthony, but the question was whether it was bad as such, by nature. That was a disturbing question which could hardly be asked of an honest trade, and the rhetoricians hurt their case by protesting too much, constantly calling attention to the billowing smoke by insisting that the fire was not a serious one. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:250-51.)

Nibley on Rhetoric IV

More of Nibley on rhetoric:

It is not surprising that the orator lives in a world of high-sounding intangibles --- res, humanitas, honores, savitas, officia, gratiae, laus, commendationes, admiratio, and so forth --- which on every page of Cicero's letters turn out to be but a verbal system for a hard and sordid game of exploitation and survival played without scruples and without loyalties. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:250.)

Nibley on Rhetoric III

More on the history of rhetoric:

With the so-called Second Sophistic the rhetorical schools, having won over the emperors to their program and thereby having gained control of public education, no longer felt it necessary to continue the old lip-service to science and philosophy but openly opposed and bested them at every turn. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:247.)

Nibley on Rhetoric II

More on the development of rhetoric from Hugh Nibley:

Gorgias shares with his friend Protagoras the glory and guilt of selling rhetoric to the world. Protagoras concluded that he was wasting his time trying to sound the secrets of the universe in a short lifetime, burned his books in the marketplace, and turned to teaching rhetoric, achieving the immortal fame of being the first man to make a hundred minas at the trade. His famous dictum that man is the measure of all things led only too easily to the rhetorical gospel that anything goes, "the Philistine morality" which in the end destroyed Greek civilization. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," CWHN 10:246-47.)

Nibley on Rhetoric

Hugh Nibley was gifted in using words but despised rhetoric in the sense of "the technique of skill of persuading the many." He wrote a number of critiques of rhetoric, with some trenchant lines:

Philosophy plus rhetoric produces Sophistry. "The Old Sophistic," says Philostratus, "considered rhetoric necessary to Philosophy." The man who first most successfully promoted the formal study of rhetoric was that same Gorgias whom the Sophists hailed as the father of their art. By mixing rhetoric with philosophy he turned it to Sophistry, for which offense Plato takes him grimly to task. The charge is that he is turning his talents from the honest search for truth to the business of cultivating appearances. (Hugh Nibley, "Victoriosa Loquacitas," in CWHN 10:245-46).

The Battle of the Rhetoricians

In 1 Esdras 3-4, Darius who had been eating and drinking, sets up a contest of rhetoricians:

Each of us will present an argument about what is most compelling, and the one whose account appears the wisest, Darius will give him a great gift (1 Esdras 3:5)

The whole trope of a rhetorical contest has deep roots in ancient Mesopotamia, being a popular genre for both Sumerian and Akkadian rhetors, but it is most known from Greek and Roman uses and abuses. The contest in Esdras seems to owe more to the Greco-Roman style contests.

The first rhetor insists that the most powerful influence over men is wine (1 Esdras 3:17-24). His arguments sound like a advertisement for the Word of Wisdom:

All men who drink it err in judgment (1 Esdras 3:18).

And when he wakes from wine, he cannot remember anything he has done (1 Esdras 3:23).

The second rhetor argues that the most powerful influence over men is the king (1 Esdras 4:1-12). After all, whatever he commands just or unjust is done.

The third rhetor argues that the most powerful influence over men is women (1 Esdras 4:13-32). For those who think that the ancient world was filled with misogynist brutes, This passage is well worth the read.

Zerubbabel argues that the most powerful influence over men is the truth (1 Esdras 4:34-41). His argument is that:

Wine is unjust; kings are unjust; women are unjust; all the children of men are unjust; and all their works are unjust; such are all things. But the truth is not among them, and they are destroyed in their iniquity (1 Esdras 4:37).

(The Greek uses the same term for both iniquity and unjust.)

Zerubbabel wins the contest. His gift for winning is to be transferred to Coile-Syria and rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.

The choice of things that influence men is interesting: wine, women, rulers, and truth. Darius is depicted as an idealist because truth probably has the least actual practical influence in human affairs.