Tuesday, June 14, 2005

 

Rhetorical Device

Help! There seems to be one rhetorical device common to the following passages, but I can't think of its name.

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.15.43 (tr. J.E. King):
Furthermore too every good thing is joyful; now what is joyful deserves credit and esteem; moreover what can be so described is also glorious; now if glorious it is assuredly praiseworthy; moreover what is praiseworthy is surely also right; what is good therefore is right.

atque etiam omne bonum laetabile est; quod autem laetabile, id praedicandum et prae se ferendum; quod tale autem, id etiam gloriosum; si vero gloriosum, certe laudabile; quod laudabile autem, profecto etiam honestum; quod bonum igitur, id honestum.
Paul, Romans 8.16-17:
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.
Shepherd of Hermas 16.7 (tr. Lightfoot, Harmer, and Holmes):
Their powers are controlled by one another, and they follow one another, in the order in which they were born. From Faith is born Self-Control; from Self-Control, Sincerity; from Sincerity, Innocence; from Innocence, Reverence; from Reverence, Knowledge; and from Knowledge, Love. Their works, therefore, are pure and reverent and divine.
J.E. King (in his Loeb translation of Tusculan Disputations) says it's an example of sorites, but that's a philosophical term, and I thought there was another name.



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