The triadic synergy of Hellenistic poetics in the narrative epistemology of Dionysius of Halicarnassus and the authorial intent of the evangelist Luke (Luke 1:1-4; Acts 1:1-8)

Abstract

Dionysius of Halicarnassus' critique of Thucydides' prose 'arrangement' provides the closest parallel in thought and rationale to Luke's opening assertions regarding the 'clear certainty' of the significance of all the events that he will configure in the sequence of his narrative. Undergirding both texts is a Hellenistic poetics of a trialectic synergy of (i) rhetorical 'management' of the emplotment of the narrative by the composer to (2) effect within discrete audiences realized cognitive and empathic understandings (3) of the author's intended messages and emphases. This commonly shared diēgētic epistemology illuminates the composition of the church's Gospels as persuasive narrative performances.