Chapter II: 1

ST. AUGUSTINE ON PREACHING (_DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA_, IV)

With this elaborate pedagogical tradition a clean break is made by St. Augustine. The fourth book of his _De doctrina christiana_[2] has historical significance in the early years of the fifth century out of all proportion to its size; for it begins rhetoric anew. It not only ignores sophistic; it goes back over centuries of the lore of personal triumph to the ancient idea of moving men to truth; and it gives to the vital counsels of Cicero a new emphasis for the urgent tasks of preaching the word of God.

Abstractly and in retrospect the very character of Christian preaching seems necessarily to reject sophistic. But at the time this seemed anything but inevitable. Sophistic was almost the only lore of public speaking then active. It dominated criticism and education. The Greek fathers Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory Nazianzen might expose its falsity of conception; but they could not escape it. It had brought them up. Its stylistic habits were ingrained in their expression. Augustine too had been brought up on sophistic. Nor could he escape it. Again and again his style rings with its tradition.[3] Not only had he learned it for good; he had taught it. He had been himself, in Plutarch’s sense and Strabo’s, a sophist. We must hasten to add that the great Christians of the fourth century, if they could not escape sophistic, at least redeemed it by curbing its extravagance and turning it to nobler uses. But Augustine did much more. He set about recovering for the new generation of Christian orators the true ancient rhetoric. He saw that for Christian preaching sophistic must not only be curbed; it must be supplanted. Against the background of his day his quiet, simple book, renouncing the balances and figures of his other works without renouncing their fervor, is seen to be a startling innovation.

Not the least striking trait of the innovation is its reserve. Augustine does not attack sophistic as the Gregorys do; he ignores it. In Chapter xxxi of Book II he had, indeed, mentioned it. Discussing there not style, but matter, he had contrasted the necessary training in argument with sophistic quibbling, and had then added, forecasting Book IV, that superfluous stylistic ornament also is sophistic.

But training in argument on questions of all such kinds as
are to be investigated and resolved in sacred literature
is of the highest value; only we must beware of the lust
for quarrelling, and of the puerile display of skill in
disappointing an opponent.... This sort of quibbling conclusion
Scripture execrates, I think, in the text _Qui sophistice[4]
loquitur odibilis est_. Even though not quibbling, a speech
seeking verbal ornament beyond the bounds of responsibility to
subject matter (_gravitas_) is called sophistic. II. xxxi.

But an uninformed modern reader of Book IV would hardly be aware that sophistic existed. No denunciation could be more scathing than this silence. In Augustine’s view of Christian preaching sophistic simply has no place. A good debater, instead of parrying he counters. He spends his time on his own case. A good teacher, he tells his neophytes not what to avoid, but what to do. He has so far renounced sophistic that he has no concern to triumph. He wishes simply to teach sound rhetorical doctrine. He achieves an extraordinary conciseness not so much by compression as by undeviating straightforwardness.

A reader familiar with the times, however, will be reminded of sophistic by many allusions. Single phrases or sentences some of them, a few more extended, they all serve to illuminate by contrast the true rhetoric.

All these things, when they are taught by rhetors, are thought
great, bought at a great price, sold with great boasting. Such
boasting, I fear, I may suggest myself in speaking so; but I
had to answer those ill-educated men who think that our authors
are to be despised, not because they lack the eloquence which
such critics love too much, but because they do not use it for
display. vii.

[But an audience of Christian sobriety] will not be pleased
with that suave style in which though no wrong things are
said, right things slight and frail are adorned with foamy
circumlocution. xiv.

I think I have accomplished something not when I hear them
applauding, but when I see them weeping. xxiv.[5]

Display, inflation, thirst for applause—every reader of Augustine’s time would recognize in these allusions a repudiation of sophistic.

For Augustine thinks that Christian preaching is to be learned best from Christian preachers. As if in reply to Julian’s scornful “Let them elucidate their Matthew and Luke,”[6] he recommends not only for doctrine, but for rhetoric, the Epistles, the Prophets, and the Fathers, and proceeds to analyze their style. The analysis, though based on the current Latin version, is generally transferable to the Greek, since it is much simpler than the classification set forth by sophistic. It exhibits sentence movement simply in climax, period, balance—those devices which are most easily appropriated and most useful. The general ancient counsels of aptness and variety are applied specifically to preaching. As to cadence (_clausula_), Augustine dispenses with all subdivisions, and even makes bold to assert that it must sometimes be sacrificed. Similarly omitting all classification of figures, he manages to suggest in a few words what figures are for. In a word, he shows how to learn from the Canon and the Fathers the rhetoric that is vital to homiletic.

This rhetoric, not only simpler than sophistic, but quite different in emphasis, is set forth in the terms of Cicero. Augustine has gone back four and a half centuries to the days before _declamatio_. The instruction that he draws from his analysis of Christian literature is planned upon the “instruct, win, move” (_docere_, _delectare_, _movere_) of _De oratore_ and upon the corresponding three typical styles (_genus tenue_—_medium_—_grande_) of _Orator_.[7] Evidently Augustine had the greater Cicero, not the lesser that sufficed for the Middle Age. He neither quotes nor cites any other rhetorician; and though his doctrine of aptness and of variety is common throughout the older rhetoric, for this too he had no need to go beyond the master’s two great works. Nor have any others been more persuasive as to imitation,[8] which is Augustine’s controlling idea. This first Ciceronianism, too immediately aware of the perverted imitation of style taught by sophists to fall into the archaism and redundancy of later worship of Cicero, is a penetrative recovery of Cicero’s larger meaning. Augustine’s application of the three typical styles is more just and more practically distinct than Cicero’s own. Would that all Ciceronians had been equally discerning!

TABULAR VIEW OF ST. AUGUSTINE’S _DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA_ IV

A. For learning to preach, models are more fruitful than rules i-v
B. Eminent models are offered by the literature of Christian
eloquence vi-viii
1. Christian eloquence not merely comparable with pagan,
but distinctive.
2. Analysis of _Romans_ v. especially of climax, period,
clauses, etc.
3. Analysis of _2 Corinth._ xi. 16, especially of variety.
4. Analysis of _Amos_ vi. especially of figures.
C. Christian preaching must fulfil all three typical tasks of
oratory summarized in Cicero’s _docere_, _delectare_,
_movere_ ix-xix
1. _docere_, subordinating even _integritas_ to clearness ix-xi
2. _delectare_, necessary as a means, never an end xii-xvii
3. _movere_, to carry assent into action xviii, xix
D. The three corresponding styles of oratory, Cicero’s
_tenue_, _medium_, _grande_, are exemplified in the Canon xx
1. _genus tenue_ (_submissum_) in _Galatians_ iv. 21 and iii.
15 as demanding trained reasoning and memory.
2. _genus medium_ (_temperatum_) in 1 _Timothy_ v, _Romans_
xii, xiii, as rhythmical, but with cadence often
sacrificed.
3. _genus grande_ in _2 Corinthians_ vi. 2, _Romans_ viii.
28, _Galatians_ iv. 10, the last without the usual
stylistic means.
E. They are also exemplified in St. Cyprian _Ad Cæcilium_ and
_De habitu virginum_, St. Ambrose _De Spiritu_ and _De
virginibus_ xxii
F. No one of the three can effectively be constant xxii, xxiii
G. Constancy is rather in the aim, which is always persuasion xxiv-xxvi
1. The speaker’s life is the greater means of persuasion
in the third style xxvii-xxviii
(Appended Note) The recital of borrowed sermons is permissible xxix
Conclusion, with reminder of prayer, in thanksgiving xxx, xxxi

The fourth book of the _De doctrina Christiana_ is specifically linked by its proem to the preceding three as setting forth presentation (_modus proferendi_). Books I-III have dealt with study of the subject matter (_inventio_); Book IV is to deal with expression. Augustine thus makes the traditional fivefold division twofold. _Inventio_, which under sophistic had lapsed, he restores to its rightful place and gives it a new application to the exegesis of Scripture. Of the remaining four left to his second heading he discusses only style (_elocutio_). Delivery and memory are mentioned incidentally; plan is omitted. The omission is not negligent. The first chapter warns us not to expect a manual of rhetoric. Nevertheless a modern student cannot help wishing that so suggestive a treatise had both applied to preaching the ancient counsels as to plan and exhibited the New Testament in this aspect. Thus to analyze for imitation not only the style of the Pauline epistles, but their cogency of order, would doubtless have made the work unduly extensive. One hopes that seminarians of the fifth century were stimulated, and that seminarians of the twentieth century will be stimulated, by the example of the treatise itself to study _Romans_ not only for appeal, but for cogency. Meantime Augustine’s fourth book remains one of the most fruitful of all discussions of style in preaching.

Who dare say that the defenders of truth should be unarmed
against falsehood? While the proponents of error know the
art of winning an audience to good will, attention, and open
mind,[9] shall the proponents of truth remain ignorant? While
the [sophist] states facts concisely, clearly, plausibly,[10]
shall the preacher state them so that they are tedious to hear,
hard to understand, hard to believe? While the one attacks
truth and insinuates falsehood by fallacious argument, shall
the other have too little skill either to defend the true or to
refute the false? Shall the one, stirring his hearers to error,
urging them by the force of oratory, move them by terror, by
pity, by joy, by encouragement, and the other slowly and coldly
drowse for truth? ii.

But to learn such skill from rules, he goes on, is the way rather for boys than for men who have immediately before them the urgent tasks of preaching.

For eloquence will stick to such men, if they have the talent
of keenness and ardor, more easily through their reading and
hearing of the eloquent than through their following of the
rules of eloquence. Nor does the Church lack literature, even
outside the Canon established in the citadel of authority,
to imbue a capable man with its eloquence, even though his
mind be not on the manner but on the matter, provided he add
practise in writing, in dictating, finally also in composing
orally[11] what he feels according to the rule of piety and
faith. Besides, if such talent be lacking, either the rules of
rhetoric will not be grasped, or if by great labor some few of
them are partially grasped, they will be of no avail.... [Young
preachers] must beware of letting slip what they have to say
while they attend to saying it in good form. iii.

They must, indeed, know the principles of adaptation (iv), and develop their expression as far as they can; but they will do so best by imitation.

Whoever wishes to speak not only with wisdom, but with
eloquence.... I rather direct to read or hear the eloquent and
to imitate them by practise than advise to spend his time on
teachers of the art of rhetoric. v.

Expressed in modern terms, Augustine’s position is that rhetoric as a classified body of doctrine is properly an undergraduate study. It is not the best approach for seminarians because its method is analytical. The young preacher, needing rather promotion than revision, will advance more rapidly by imitation.

Starting from this principle, that the more fruitful study for learning to preach is imitation of Christian eloquence, Augustine proceeds to show (vi-viii) how distinctive is the eminence of such models and how repaying to analysis. His vindication should be pondered by those who still permit themselves to disparage without distinction the literary value of the New Testament, and by those who, granting poetic to Ambrose, remain unaware of his rhetoric.

At this point the question, perhaps, arises whether our
authors, whose divinely inspired writings constitute for
us a canon of most salutary authority, are to be called
philosophers[12] only, or also orators. To me and to those
who agree with what I am saying, the question is very easily
answered. For where I comprehend them, nothing can seem to me
either more philosophical or more eloquent. And all, I venture
to say, who rightly comprehend what they speak, comprehend at
the same time that they could not have spoken otherwise. For as
there is an eloquence becoming to youth, another to age, nor
can that be called eloquence which does not befit the character
of the speaker, so there is an eloquence becoming to men most
worthy of the highest authority and evidently inspired. Our
authors have spoken with such eloquence. No other is becoming
to them, nor theirs to others. For it is like themselves; and,
the more it rejects display, the more it ranges above others
not by inflation, but by cogency. Where on the other hand I do
not comprehend them, though their eloquence is less apparent
to me, I have no doubt that it is such as I find it where I
do comprehend. The very obscurity of inspired and salutary
utterances has been tinged with such eloquence that our minds
should be stimulated not only in study [of their meaning], but
in practise [of their art]. Indeed, if there were leisure,
all the virtues and graces of eloquence with which those are
inflated who put their style ahead of the style of our authors
not by greatness, but by distension, could be exhibited in the
sacred literature of those whom divine Providence has sent to
instruct us and to draw us from this corrupt world to the world
of happiness. But what delights me more than I can say in their
eloquence is not what it has in common with pagan orators and
poets. What I rather admire, what fills me with amazement, is
that the eloquence which we hear around us has so been used,
as it were through another eloquence of their own, as to be
neither deficient nor conspicuous. For it should be neither
condemned nor displayed; and they would have seemed to do the
one if they shunned it, the other if it became noticeable. Even
in those places where perhaps it is noticeable to experts, such
is the message that the words in which it is expressed seem
not to be sought by the speaker, but to subserve that message
naturally, as if one saw philosophy issuing from her own home
in the heart of the philosopher, and eloquence following as an
inseparable servant even when not called.[13] vi.

The vindication of an eloquence distinctly Christian has the more weight because its doctrine of form and substance echoes from Cicero the best ancient tradition. The older tradition had in Augustine’s time been so overlaid that he could do no better service to rhetoric than to recall it. In fact, Christian eloquence redeemed public speaking by reviving the true persuasion.

The insistence on the Ciceronian doctrine that style is not separable has a bearing more than historical. Not only for Augustine’s time, but for any time, the truism must be reasserted. His iteration is more than preoccupation with Cicero, more than repudiation of sophistic. It springs from the cardinal importance of the truism for homiletic. In the pulpit the sophistic heresy of art for art’s sake becomes intolerable.

Augustine’s next step (vii) is to support his general claims for Christian eloquence, and to show how it may be studied, by analyzing briefly three typical passages. In the first, _Romans_ v. 3-5, he analyzes prose rhythm under the familiar heads of classical sentence movement (_compositio_): phrases and subordinate clauses (_cæsa_), coordinate clauses (_membra_), period (_circuitus_), climax (_gradatio_), adding the equivalent Greek terms.[14]

RHYTHMICAL ANALYSIS OF _ROMANS_ V. 3, 4, 5

(1) καυχώμεθα ἐν ταῖς θλίψεσιν, (1) Gloriamur in tribulationibus,

(2) εἰδότες ὅτι ἡ θλῖψις ὑπομονὴν (2) scientes quod tribulatio
κατεργάζεται, patientiam operatur,

(3) ἡ δὲ ὑπομονὴ δοκιμήν, (3) patientiam autem probationem,

(4) ἡ δὲ δοκιμὴ ἐλπίδα, (4) probatio vero spem,

(5) ἡ δὲ ἐλπὶς οὐ καταισχύνει, (5) spes autem non confundit,

(6) ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται (6) quia caritas Dei diffusa est
ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν, in cordibus nostris,

(7) διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου τοῦ (7) per Spiritum sanctum qui datus
δοθέντος ἡμῖν. est nobis.

The passage is short enough, and the sentence movement simple enough, to be grasped readily. Its balance is striking without being monotonous, and is reinforced by a linking iteration that leads to a climax.[15] He is a wise teacher who begins with an instance so memorable. It must have seized even more quickly a generation familiar with both the terms and the method.

The next example, _2 Corinthians_ xi. 16-31, shows the same sentence devices carried through a much longer reach, and is therefore used both to reinforce the first and to add the importance of rhythmical variety. The counsel of variety, though a commonplace of the older rhetoric, had especial point by contrast with the sophistic fondness for trimming and prolonging balances. Incidental to the exhibition of variety is a reminder of aptness; and the analysis concludes:

Finally all this breathless passage is closed with a period of
two members.... But how after this impetus the brief statement
interposed comes to rest, and rests the reader, how apt it is
and how charming, can hardly be said. vii.

The analysis of the third example, _Amos_ vi. 1-6, leads the study to longer and more sustained rhythmical reaches. Lest it seem the more difficult in the more figurative version of the Septuagint, Augustine quotes it “as translated from the Hebrew into Latin style through the interpretation of the priest Jerome, expert in both languages.”

ANALYSIS OF _AMOS_ VI. 1-6

(1) Woe to them that are at ease (1) Væ qui opulenti estis in
in Zion and trust in the Sion et confiditis in
mountains of Samaria, monte Samariæ, optimates,
which are named chief capita populorum,
of the nations, to whom ingredientes pompatice
the house of Israel came! domum Israel;

(2) Pass ye unto Calneh, and (2) transite in Chalanne et
see; and from thence go videte, et ite inde in
ye to Hamath the great: Emath magnam, et descendite
then go down to Gath of in Geth Palæstinorum,
the Philistines: be they et ad optima
better than these kingdoms? quæque regna horum, si
or their border latior terminus eorum
greater than your border? termino vestro est:

(3) Ye that put away the evil (3) qui separati estis in diem
day, and cause the seat malum, et adpropinquatis
of violence to come near; solio iniquitatis;

(4) That lie upon beds of ivory, (4) qui dormitis in lectis eburneis,
and stretch themselves et lascivitis in stratis
upon their couches, and vestris; qui comeditis
eat the lambs out of the agnum de grege, et vitulos
flock, and the calves out de medio armenti;
of the midst of the stall;

(5) That chant to the sound of (5) qui canitis ad vocem psalterii:
the viol,

(6) and invent to themselves (6) sicut David putaverunt se
instruments of musick, habere vasa cantici,
like David; that drink bibentes in phialis vinum,
wine in bowls, and anoint et optimo unguento
themselves with the chief delibuti;
ointments:

(7) but they are not grieved for (7) et nihil patiebantur super
the affliction of Joseph. contritione Joseph.

Much more urgent, leaping to attack, rising, prolonging, varying, subsiding to a pregnant close, the prophecy widens the conception of rhythmical range. Marking the rhythms briefly, Augustine uses it also to show the oratorical force of figures.[16] Thus a few pages of analysis are made to yield wide and definite suggestion. This, perhaps, is their outstanding merit; while they show the student what to look for, they invite him to go on for himself. But the pedagogical achievement does not stop there. The professor of rhetoric has seen that rhetorical analysis must be simplified, and that it must be made progressive. Where else shall we find so much drawn from three analyses? The first reduces the complicated lore of rhythm to its essentials. The second, reinforcing and extending these, dwells upon aptness as a corrective of rhetorical zeal, and as a constructive principle. The third, quoting rhythms still more urgent with emotion, passes to the emotional value of concrete words. To bring the over-classified lore of sophistic back to the simplicity of Aristotle was a service not only to homiletic, but to all rhetoric. A greater service was to substitute for the static and formalized pedagogy of the day a vital order. Augustine had been doubtless a popular professor; Christianity made him a great teacher.

Pedagogically, therefore, even his incidental definitions are worth noticing. That the function of grammar is traditionally to impart correctness of speech (iii) is used to support the contention that even this elementary skill comes best in fact from imitation. The period (vii) is defined so as to throw the emphasis on delivery. Its “clauses are suspended by the speaker’s voice until it is concluded at the end.” Therefore it “cannot have fewer than two clauses.” So he points out in the passage above from _Amos_ that the rhythm is available for delivery (_in potestate pronuntiantis_) either as a series of six or as three pairs, and that the latter is more beautiful. So he suggests limiting analysis to give room for oral interpretation.

This same passage which we have set as an example can be used
to show other things relevant to the rules of eloquence. But a
good hearer is not so much instructed by discussion in detail
as he is kindled by ardent delivery. vii.

The next and longest section (ix-xix) is based on Cicero’s “inform, please, move” (_docere_, _delectare_, _movere_). Distinguishing each of these tasks clearly, Augustine is at the same time careful to unite them, by progressively iterative transitions, in the single and constant task of persuasion. In exposition (_docere_) clearness may demand the use of popular expressions. What avails correctness in a diction that is not understood?

He who teaches will rather avoid all words that do not teach.
If he can find correct words that are understood, he will
choose those; if he cannot, whether because they do not exist
or because they do not occur to him at the time, he will use
even words that are less correct, provided only the thing
itself be taught and learned correctly. ix.

The correctness (_integritas_) of diction boasted by the sophists, and carried by them even to the pedantry of archaism, is here faced squarely. The assertion that it must sometimes be sacrificed, the making of clearness absolutely paramount, is the bolder at a time when Christian preaching was not yet recognized as having secure command of elegance. Unmistakable clearness, Augustine goes on, is so much more important in preaching than in discussions permitting question and answer that the speaker must be quick to help unspoken difficulties.

For a crowd eager to grasp will show by its movement whether it
has understood; and until it has given this signal the subject
must be turned over and over by various ways of expressing it—a
resource beyond the power of those who deliver speeches written
out and memorized.[17] x.

No warrant here, he adds (xi), for dilation beyond the demands of clearness, but good warrant for making instruction pleasant and appealing in order to hold attention. Passing thus to the two other tasks of oratory, he quotes (xii) Cicero’s “to instruct is of necessity, to please is for interest, to move is for victory.”[18] The three are then both carefully distinguished and shown to be a sort of geometrical progression. The first is first of necessity. It must be mastered; but it is rarely sufficient. To supply the lack, the second demands more rhetoric by demanding further adaptation to the audience; but it too must remain insufficient. So the third task, to move, is not merely the third item in a classification; it is the final stage in a progress. That progress is increasingly emotional. The last stage demands not only all the rhetoric of the preceding, but also the art of vivid imagery[19] and of urgent application. So Augustine arrives at one of those linking summaries which constitute almost a refrain.

Therefore the eloquence of the Church, when it seeks to have
something done, must not only explain to instruct and please to
hold, but also move to win. xiii.

The next chapter (xiv) warns against resting in the second stage.[20] To make the pleasing of the audience an end in itself is the typical vice of sophistic. If preaching tolerates it, “the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.” Augustine quotes, not these words of St. Paul, but Jeremiah, and rises to denunciation of mere pleasing. “Far from us be that madness.” One of Cyprian’s rare descriptive passages is adduced to show how “the wholesomeness of Christian preaching has recalled his diction from [sophistic] redundancy and held it to a graver eloquence of less display.” As the ultimate objection to the sophistic ideal is moral, so is the preacher’s ultimate resource. Since his strength is derived from a source deeper than human skill, his best preparation is prayer. Augustine is not above enforcing this reminder by playing upon the words _orare_, _orator_, _oratio_. Nevertheless human skill is to be cultivated. Prayer itself proves the folly (xvi) of making no other preparation. He who abjures human lore of preaching because God gives us our messages might equally well abjure prayer because God knows us and our needs. The Pauline counsels specify how Timothy should preach. As God heals through doctors and medicines, so he gives the gospel to men by men and through man.

The transition (xvii) to the final task of moving men to action is another full and explicit iteration of all three, and at the same time a preparation for the next section on the corresponding three typical styles. Since the subject matter of preaching is always great, at least in implication (xviii), does it not always demand a great style? No; for a great matter (xix) may at the time rather demand exposition; and this in turn demands a restrained style. Again, a great matter may at the time rather demand praise or blame; and here enters the second task of so adapting the style as to win sympathy.

But when something ought to be done, and we are talking to
those who ought to do it and will not, then the great subject
is to be expressed greatly and in such wise as to bend their
minds.... What subject is greater than God? Is it therefore
not a subject for instruction? Or how can any one expounding
the unity of the Trinity do it except by confining himself to
exposition, that so difficult a distinction may as far as is
possible be understood? Is ornament demanded here, and not
rather argument?[21] Is there here something that the audience
is to be moved to do, and not rather something that it is to
be taught to learn? Again, when God is praised in himself or
in his works, what a vision of beautiful and splendid diction
rises before any one praising as well as he can him whom no one
praises aright and no one fails to praise in some way or other!
But if God be not worshipped, or if idols be worshipped with
him or even in his stead, whether dæmons or any other created
being, then to meet so great an evil, and from this evil to
save men, the preaching too must be great. xix.

Augustine has passed (xvii-xix) from Cicero’s three tasks of oratory to his three typical styles by applying to the preacher Cicero’s definition of the orator: “He, then, shall be called eloquent who can speak small things quietly, larger things proportionally, great things greatly.”[22] Thus the three styles are _genus submissum_ (or _tenue_), _genus temperatum_ (or _medium_), and _genus grande_. As in Cicero, these correspond to _docere_, _delectare_, _movere_, and the second is connected with panegyric.

Augustine now proceeds to exemplify the first style (xx) from _Galatians_ as calling for skill in reasoning and for a memory trained to bring in objections and difficulties where they can best be met. This debater’s memory is precisely the ancient _memoria_, the fifth of the traditional parts of rhetoric. It seems to have fallen into abeyance under sophistic. What the sophists boasted was verbal memory, which Augustine merely mentions in his appendix as something quite different.[23]

The same chapter (xx) exemplifies the second, or median style from _Timothy_ and _Romans_ as having the charm of aptness. Here Augustine confronts squarely the sophistic habit of making rhythmical beauty paramount and the pagan disparagement of Christian style. Some one may find the cadence of _Romans_ xiii. 14 defective. Certainly it would soothe the ear more rhythmically if the verb came last.

But a graver translator has preferred to keep the usual
word-order [and, he might have added, the logical emphasis].
How this sounds in the Greek used by the apostle they may see
whose expertness in that language goes so far. To me at least,
the word-order, which is the same as in our version, does not
seem there either to run rhythmically. Indeed, the stylistic
beauty (_ornatum_) which consists of rhythmical cadences is
defective, we must confess, in our authors. Whether this is
due to our versions, or whether, as I incline to think, the
authors deliberately avoided these occasions for applause, I
do not venture to affirm, since I confess that I do not know.
But this I know, that anyone who shall make their cadences
regular in the same rhythms—and this is done very easily by
shifting certain words that have equal force of meaning in the
new order—will recognize that these inspired men lacked none of
those things which he learned as great matters in the schools
of the grammarians or rhetors. Moreover, he will discover many
sorts of diction of so great beauty as to be beautiful even in
our customary language, much more in theirs, and never found in
the literature with which [the sophists] are inflated. But we
must beware lest the addition of rhythm detract from the weight
of inspired and grave sentences. Most learned Jerome does not
carry over into his translation the musical skill in which
rhythm is learned most fully, though our prophets did not lack
even that, as he shows in the Hebrew meters of some of them;
[and he gave this up] in order to keep truth to their words....
As in my own style, so far as I think I may do so modestly, I
do not neglect rhythmical cadences,[24] so in our authors they
please me the more because I find them there so rarely. xx.

The third, or great style, whether it be elegant or not, has for its distinguishing quality the force of emotional appeal. The instances are from _2 Corinthians_ vi and _Romans_ viii. _Romans_ is a long epistle, not a sermon. Though it was read aloud, of course, it is essentially a treatise, a philosophy of history. It is largely expository and argumentative. Since it is addressed primarily to reflection and reason, its main artistic reliance is on cogency of order. But even here presentation does not remain purely logical. For persuasion it must rise also emotionally. As we read in _Acts_ xvii the outline of the apostle’s Areopagus speech, we discern beyond the logical chain of propositions an expanding conception of the Life-giver. Who can doubt that the style too, as in _Romans_, rose to _grande_? The traditional doctrine of the peroration, easily as it may be abused, is only the expression in rhetoric of the audience’s final demand and the speaker’s final answer. That demand and that answer are emotional.

Adding _Galatians_ iv, Augustine says of it:

Although the whole epistle, except in the elegant last part, is
written in the plain style, nevertheless the apostle inserts
a certain passage of such moving force that it must be called
great even though it has no such embellishments as those just
cited.... Is there here either antithesis, or subordination for
climax, or rhythm in phrase, clause, or period? None the less
for that there is no cooling of the great emotion with which we
feel the style to glow. xx.

After quoting without further comment examples from Cyprian and Ambrose, Augustine shows (xxii, xxiii) the need of variety. More even than other forms of oratory, preaching seems to suffer from a stylistic level. No one of the three styles, least of all the third, can effectively be prolonged; the change from style to style gives relief; and subordination of what might be heightened may enhance the emotion of what must be. What must be heightened is what is to rouse the audience to action. So the test of achievement in the third style is not applause, but tears and change of life (xxiv). So also the end of all eloquence, in whatever style, is persuasion (xxv).

In the restrained style the orator persuades of truth. In the
great style he persuades to action. In the elegant style is
he to persuade himself that he is speaking beautifully? With
such an end what have we to do? Let them seek it who glory
in language, who display themselves in panegyrics and such
exercises, in which the hearer is neither to be instructed nor
to be moved to any action, but merely to be pleased. But let us
judge this end by another end. xxv.

Thus Augustine is more explicit than Cicero in showing that the three typical styles are but three ways (xxvi) of achieving a single end, even as the three corresponding tasks, though one of them absorbs attention at a time, are but three aspects of the single task. Nor can persuasion dispense with a means beyond art, the appeal of the speaker’s life[25] (xxvii). Though the Church speaks not merely through a man, but through his office, persuasion needs for full effect his whole influence. Because his life is without shame, the preacher speaks not shamelessly (xxviii), not only with restraint and charm, but with power, to win obedience to the truth.

The historical significance of the _De doctrina christiana_, important as it is, should not obscure its value as a contribution to homiletic. The first homiletic, though one of the briefest, remains one of the most suggestive. It omits no essential; while it reminds us of the general principles of rhetoric, it emphasizes those applications to preaching which are distinctive; and it proceeds pedagogically. Though the _doctrina_ of the title refers strictly to exposition, and this is amplified and iterated as a constant necessity, Augustine includes specifically and from the start both charm and appeal, and concludes by showing emotional appeal to be the final stage of the comprehensive task of persuasion. Homiletic is an application of rhetoric long established as permanent, consistent, and in both materials and conditions fairly constant. That it is also comprehensive, demanding all three typical styles, including argument in its exposition, winning sympathy in order to urge action, varying its art[26] while holding to its single aim, is most suggestively established here in its first great monument.

Not only does Augustine forbid the arid and the tedious, not only does he insist on emotional appeal; he also vindicates for Christian eloquence the importance of charm. This was the more delicate because charm was both abused by contemporary sophists and still suspected by contemporary preachers. Augustine presents it at once frankly and with just discrimination. To make it an end in itself, he is careful to show, is indeed sophistic; but to ignore it is to forget that preaching is a form of the oratory of occasion.[27] The Areopagus speech of St. Paul,[28] though it is only summarized in _Acts_ xvii, is evidently occasional, and has clear indications of that adaptation to win sympathy which is Augustine’s interpretation of Cicero’s _delectare_. The speech on occasion, favorite form of oratory in Augustine’s time, had been conventionalized to the point of recipe. The recipes, though he knew them all, Augustine simply ignores; the field he redeems. He shows Christian preaching how to cultivate it for real harvest. History has shown no other direction of rhetoric to be so peculiarly homiletic.

Already Christian eloquence had reached conspicuous achievement in panegyric and more widely in the field of occasional oratory. The pagan sophist must look to his laurels. But these very triumphs had brought the danger of lapsing into too familiar conventions. What in pagan oratory might be no worse than pretty or merely exciting, in Christian oratory would be meretricious. To hold his difficult course, the preacher, as Augustine reminds him again and again, must at every moment steer for his message. He must never deviate. Though sophistic lost its dominance centuries ago, it has never been quite dead, and it always besets preaching. Therefore a constant concern of homiletic is to exorcise it by a valid rhetoric; and no book has ever revealed this more succinctly, more practically, or more suggestively than the _De doctrina christiana_.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Reprinted by courteous permission from vol. XXII (April, 1925) of Proceedings of the (British) Classical Association, to which it was presented under the title _St Augustine and the rhetoric of Cicero_.

[2] In _Patrologia latina_ and in the Vienna _Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum_; reprinted, Missouri Lutheran Synod, St. Louis, 1882; translated (1) by Dods (M.), Edinburgh, 1872-1875 (reprinted in Schaff’s Nicene and post-Nicene Fathers), (2) by Baker (W. J. V.) and Bickersteth (C.) in _Preaching and teaching according to St. Augustine_ (Book IV only, with _De catechizandis rudibus_), London, 1907, (3) by Sister Therèse, S.N.D. (IV, with text and commentary), Washington, 1928.

To the references and abbreviations at the head of Chapter I add: Barry (Sister Inviolata), _St. Augustine the orator_, Washington, 1924 (in the Catholic University of America Patristic Studies, VI); and Christopher (J. P.), _S. Aureli Augustini ... de catechizandis rudibus_ translated with an introduction and commentary, Washington, 1926 (in the same series, VIII).

[3] For detailed analysis, see Barry.

[4] Even though the application of the text from _Ecclus._ xxxvii. 20 be questioned, the rebuke of sophistic display, whether in dialectic or in style, is none the less clear.

[5] Other allusions may be found in the passages quoted below from vi, from xiv, and from xxv.

[6] βαδιζόντων εἰς τὰς τῶν Γαλιλαίων ἐκκλησίας ἐξηγησόμενοι Ματθαῖον καὶ Λουκᾶν. Julian, _Epist._ 42, cited in Gibbon’s twenty-third chapter.

[7] ARP 51, 56. The reminiscences of Cicero are so numerous as to show a pervasive preoccupation. See J. B. Eskredge, _The influence of Cicero upon Augustine_, etc. (Chicago dissertation), 1912.

[8] E.g., _De oratore_, II. xxi. 88.

[9] The traditional maxim for the _exordium_, _reddere auditores benevolos, attentos, dociles_, as again in iv.

[10] The traditional maxim for the _narratio_.

[11] Exercitatione sive scribendi, sive dictandi, postremo etiam dicendi. Cf. the close of xxi.

[12] Thus I venture to translate _sapientes_, remembering the connotation of the word both for Augustine and for his master Cicero.

[13] So toward the close “The Christian preacher prefers to appeal rather with matter than with manner, and thinks neither that anything is said better which is not said more truly, nor that the teacher must serve words, but words the teacher.” xxviii.

[14] For this sort of analysis see ARP, Chapter v, and the terms in the index. For the more elaborate sophistical analysis see Méridier, Guignet, and the other studies of Greek fathers cited above. To suggest such further study, the Greek of the first example and the King James English of the third have been set beside. St. Augustine not only confines himself to the Latin version, but disclaims competence in Greek style.

[15] The linking iteration is characteristic of climax as practised by sophistic.

[16] Chapter xxix of Book III relegates the study of figures to _grammatica_; but there also Augustine reminds his readers that figures, without regard to books or teaching, are a natural expression of the imaginative impulse.

[17] As to this form of _memoria_ see also Chapter xxix.

[18] Docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere victoriæ. Or. xxi. 69, with _docere_ for the original _probare_.

[19] Ante oculos dicendo constituis (xii) recalls the _De sublimitate_, and behind that the _Rhetoric_ of Aristotle. Its immediate source is doubtless Cicero.

[20] The warning is repeated where Augustine is gathering the three tasks into the final and constant idea of persuasion: “But that which is handled in the way of charm ... is not to be made an end in itself (xxv) ... nor does it seek merely to please.” Nothing is more admirable in Augustine’s exposition than this expert linking of his chain of progress.

[21] Numquid hic ornamenta et non documenta quæruntur?

[22] _Orator_, xxix. 101.

[23] Cf. xxix with the quotation from x above; and see _memoria_ in the index to ARP.

[24] For his cadences, see Barry.

[25] Aristotle, _Rhetoric_ I. ii.

[26] That the Scriptures enter all the three fields of oratory indicated by Aristotle in _Rhetoric_ I. iii, is suggested by the language of a passage in Augustine’s third book: _Non autem adserit [scriptura] nisi catholicam fidem rebus præteritis et futuris et præsentibus. Præteritorum narratio est, futurorum prænuntiatio, præsentium demonstratio_, III. x. For the last two words suggest in the context ἐπιδεικτικός, and hence δικανικός for the first phrase of the sentence and συμβουλευτικός for the second, according to the Aristotelian division. If so, Augustine has not followed Cicero’s reducing of the fields to two (ARP 47, 53).

[27] In the passage quoted above from Chapter xix, and in other places there are clear references to occasional oratory.

[28] See Norden, _Agnostos Theos, Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede_. Leipzig, 1913. But this speech, to judge from the indications of _Acts_ xvii, was as original in plan as in idea.