A Memorizable Form As hypothetical as this must remain, only if we try to retrovert the sayings of Jesus into Aramaic or sometimes also into Hebrew1 can we evaluate fully their often poetical structure. According to my estimate, about 80 per cent of the separate saying units are formulated in some kind of parallelismus membrorum. To this one has to add other poetical techniques such as alliteration, assonance, rhythm and rhyme.2 All these artificial forms were functional and not merely ‘ornamental’,