The Topos of Divine Testimony through Deeds in Plutarch’s Lives and Luke/Acts

In his work Topica, Cicero describes a topos available to the orator which he terms “divine testimony.” According to Cicero, the witness of the gods is the most reliable form of testimony available to one arguing a case; further, the gods testify both through utterances (oracles) and deeds, which include various signs and portents in nature, dreams, sounds and fire from heaven, and the entrails of sacrificial animals. Given this background, this paper will explore both Plutarch’s Lives and Luke/Acts in order to analyze potential instances of divine testimony through deeds in these works. The paper first analyzes the Lives, arguing that it is through these deeds that the gods place their stamp of approval (or disapproval) on the actions of those whom Plutarch is describing, which in turn provides Plutarch’s readers with insights into the character of his heroes, giving them models of virtue and vice to emulate or avoid. The paper then turns to the Gospel of Luke (as well as the book of Acts), in order to find examples of the topos of divine testimony through deeds in these works. These are then compared to those found in the Lives, and from these comparisons conclusions are drawn concerning how an ancient audience would have understood the rhetorical use of this topos in the Lives and Luke/Acts. Through this analysis, this paper attempts to demonstrate that ancient audiences would have understood the instances of divine testimony through deeds in Plutarch’s Lives and Luke/Acts in related and similar ways, primarily as divine legitimation of the characters in these works.