general moral exhortation of wide application than sustained deliberative argument on specific problems (Aune 1987:191; also Mitchell 1991: esp. 50–53 for distinction between paraenesis and deliberative rhetoric). It is characterised more by the presence of precepts and maxims than systematic argumentation that is characteristic of protreptic. On the other hand, we need to define protrepsis more precisely in formal terms, not just functionally. A recent study on the protreptic discourse reveals that