Recently, I attended a training meeting for those involved in leading the church up front through the various elements of a Sunday morning gathering. In the course of giving feedback, one of my pastors made this comment about reading Scripture publicly: \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to put on a show, but we are trying to serve people.\u201d Why would a church give so much time to considering what and how someone speaks in the five minutes between worship songs and a Sunday sermon? Simple: words matter. Such careful attention to speaking words publicly is not a contemporary concern alone but also concerned one of Christianity\u2019s earliest and foremost thinkers: Augustine of Hippo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some Christians today are suspicious of rhetoric. Some might assume that the apostle Paul\u2019s avoidance of \u201celoquent wisdom\u201d in 1 Corinthians 1:17 is a blanket dismissal of all forms of rhetoric. More likely, in a church context that gravitated towards Christian celebrities (1 Cor. 1:11\u201313), Paul is combatting a type of rhetoric that draws attention away from the cross of Christ and more to the individual preacher.[1]<\/a><\/sup><\/sup> Similarly, others may assume that Paul\u2019s injunction about \u201cspeaking the truth in love\u201d in Ephesians 4:15 should take priority over speaking with beautiful persuasion. However, Paul\u2019s command here doesn\u2019t prohibit eloquence so much as place guardrails on it. Contrary to both of these suspicions, and as Augustine will show, Paul himself demonstrates an effective use of rhetorical eloquence.[2]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustine of Hippo (354\u2013430 AD), whose thinking would become the foundation of much of Western theology, wrote about the public ministry of the Word in his short treatise De Doctrina Christiana<\/em> (On Christian Teaching<\/em>) at the end of the fourth century.[3]<\/a><\/sup> On Christian Teaching<\/em> is composed of four books: the first three books discuss \u201cthe mode of ascertaining<\/em> the proper meaning\u201d of Scripture (hermeneutics), and the fourth book focuses on \u201cthe mode of making known<\/em> the meaning\u201d (rhetoric).[4]<\/a><\/sup> \u201cRhetoric\u201d (rhetorica<\/em>)\u2014the study of effective and persuasive speaking\u2014was a particular skill in Augustine\u2019s world. Ars rhetorica<\/em> (the art of rhetoric) was the pinnacle of Roman education and a central component to Roman political life.[5]<\/a><\/sup> Augustine himself was trained in these rhetoric schools, and, for a time, was even a rhetoric teacher.[6]<\/a><\/sup> Thus, when Augustine\u2019s takes up \u201cthe mode of making known the meaning,\u201d he naturally does so in terms of the art of rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustine , however, warns his readers that his work is not a book about \u201cthe rules of rhetoric.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/sup> Despite this warning, Augustine is no opponent of rhetoric. On Christian Teaching<\/em> provides an extended consideration of how rhetoric is well-suited to be used by the Christian teacher. In this article, I hope to encourage Christians towards intentional, eloquent, and persuasive speaking by examining how Augustine views rhetoric as it relates to the Christian teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustine\u2019s understanding of rhetoric begins by noting that \u201cthe faculty of eloquence,\u201d which embodies the practice of rhetoric, is a common good. It is a good that Christian teachers should avail themselves of.[8]<\/a><\/sup> Since Christians and non-Christians alike have this skill available to them, Augustine ponders, \u201cwhy do not good men study to engage it on the side of truth, when bad men use it to obtain the triumph of the wicked and worthless causes, and to further injustice and error?\u201d[9]<\/a><\/sup> In other words, to borrow from C.S. Lewis, we might say that \u201cgood rhetoric must exist for no other reason than bad rhetoric must be answered.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scripture, too, Augustine shows, is no opponent of eloquence. Scripture is the most eloquent of texts, weaving together both wisdom and eloquence.[11]<\/a><\/sup> Its eloquence, though, is not of pagan origin, as Augustine\u2019s readers are likely used to, but \u201cpeculiarly their own.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/sup> Augustine looks to Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, when he addresses the Corinthians regarding those who may consider him a fool, and to the prophet Amos, when he speaks against \u201cthose who are at ease in Zion\u201d (Amos 6:1).[13]<\/a><\/sup> The rhetorical eloquence possessed by the biblical authors is an eloquence that accompanies wisdom, like a servant to his master or a handmaiden to her mistress.[14]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n While a common resource and one that is masterfully employed by the biblical authors, eloquence has a proper place: \u201cif wisdom were walking out of its house, that is, the breast of the wise man, and eloquence, like an inseparable attendant, followed it without being called for.\u201d[15]<\/a><\/sup> Eloquence must never be employed or preferred apart from wisdom and truth. In fact, Augustine will later insist that a teacher who has wise speech but is unable to speak eloquently \u201cshould speak wisely without eloquence.\u201d[16]<\/a><\/sup> Why? Because to love is to speak about the truth. Thus, men should refrain from speaking eloquently when they lack truth and wisdom. He warns that \u201cwe must beware of the man who abounds in eloquent nonsense, and so much the more if the hearer is pleased with what is not worth listening to, and thinks that because the speaker is eloquent what he says must be true.\u201d[17]<\/a><\/sup> Thus, eloquence is an attendant to wisdom\u2013\u2013a beneficial, even necessary, companion\u2014but something that should be set aside for the sake of prioritizing truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n This priority for true<\/em> and wise<\/em> speech before eloquent<\/em> speech, however, does not keep Augustine from insisting on the important role of rhetorical eloquence. Eloquence, for Augustine, is ideally suited to help the Christian teacher fulfill his duty. This primary duty is to \u201cteach what is right and to refute what is wrong.\u201d[18]<\/a><\/sup> He considers clarity<\/em> to be the primary virtue of Christian teaching.[19]<\/a><\/sup> He writes, \u201cFor teaching, of course, true eloquence consists, not in making people like what they disliked, nor in making them do what they shrank from, but in making clear what was obscure<\/em>.\u201d[20]<\/a><\/sup> Thus, the primary aim of teaching is to be understood by those who are being taught.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be easy enough for Augustine to leave the matter here and simply say that \u201cto be understood\u201d is a sufficient mark of a good teacher. However, he pushes the Christian teacher even further by exhorting them to \u201cstrive about words.\u201d[21]<\/a><\/sup> Borrowing from Cicero, the great Roman orator, he considers how the goal of rhetoric is \u201cto teach, to delight, and to persuade.\u201d[22]<\/a><\/sup> The goal of the Christian teacher is easily seen in the first: a teacher must teach<\/em> what is true.[23]<\/a><\/sup> Augustine quips, \u201cHe, then, who speaks with the purpose of teaching should not suppose that he has said what he has to say as long as he is not understood.\u201d[24]<\/a><\/sup> This is to say, mere understanding<\/em> in one\u2019s audience is not the only goal; the teacher\u2019s task is much more: \u201cThe eloquent divine, then, when he is urging a practical truth, must not only teach so as to give instruction, and please so as to keep up the attention, but he must also sway the mind so as to subdue the will.\u201d[25]<\/a><\/sup> Pleasure and persuasion are other necessities for the Christian teacher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Thus, Christian teachers should \u201cstrive about words.\u201d[26]<\/a><\/sup> By this, Augustine means that the Christian teacher has a burden for using certain words over others\u2014not simply to say<\/em> something but to speak with intentionality.[27]<\/a><\/sup> He writes, \u201cTo speak eloquently, then, and wisely as well, is just to express truths which it is expedient to teach in fit and proper words.\u201d[28]<\/a><\/sup> Augustine reviews the various modes that a speaker can use for different effects and different audiences\u2014the temperate mode, the moderate mode, and the majestic (i.e., compelling) mode\u2014all of which can be found modeled in Scripture and the doctors of the church. These different modes are required by the nature of the Christian teacher\u2019s office, because audiences will all have different needs: sometimes they need to be instructed and other times to be moved to action. These varying situations require the teacher to alter his style to accomplish these goals. [29]<\/a><\/sup> Thus, rhetorical eloquence should be pursued so that the Christian teacher might more effectively carry out his task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Having seen how Augustine considers rhetorical skill invaluable to the Christian teacher\u2019s task, we must infer from Augustine that the pursuit of rhetorical eloquence in service to Christian teaching is important. Furthermore, Augustine notes how the subject of Christian teachers far surpasses those of political rhetoricians: \u201cBut we are treating of the manner of speech of the man who is to be a teacher of the truths which deliver us from eternal misery and bring us to eternal happiness.\u201d[30]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n Is this pursuit of rhetorical eloquence just for Christian teachers? Not at all! Rhetorical eloquence should be pursued by all Christians. He writes,<\/p>\n\n\n\n wherever these truths are spoken of, whether in public or private, whether to one or many, whether to friends or enemies, whether in continuous discourse or in conversation, whether in tracts, or in books, or in letters long or short, they are of great importance. Unless indeed we are prepared to say that, because a cup of cold water is a very trifling and common thing, the saying of our lord, that he who gives a cup of cold water to one of his disciples shall in no wise lose his reward, is very trivial and unimportant.[31]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Indeed, have you found yourself in situations where you have needed to instruct, delight, or move a brother or sister in Christ? This is a central component to Christian living (Col. 3:16; Heb. 3:13), which makes the pursuit of rhetorical eloquence in service to Christ\u2019s people a worthwhile one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, how should we pursue rhetorical eloquence? Augustine has a simple charge: \u201cas infants cannot learn to speak except by learning words and phrases from those who do speak, why should not men become eloquent without being taught any art of speech, simply by reading and learning the speeches of eloquent men, and by imitating them as far as they can?\u201d[32]<\/a><\/sup> Augustine gives good news to the everyday Christian: you do not have to go to the schools of rhetoric to learn how to speak skillfully. All you must do is take in good words: read and listen to words well spoken. In the course of his work, Augustine holds up the Scriptures and early doctors of the Church as models. Now more than a millennium since Augustine, we might add so many more examples of wordsmiths who are worthy of imitation.[33]<\/a><\/sup> May we take up this great task of refining our speech that we might not just put on a show, but serve people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n1. John Calvin, Calvin\u2019s Commentaries (Complete)<\/em>, trans. John King; (Edinburgh: Calvin Translation Society, 1847), comment on 1 Corinthians 1:17.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
2. Augustine will look to 2 Corinthians 11 to see this, but you might also consider Paul\u2019s beautiful meditation on love in 1 Corinthians 13, his persuasive letter to Philemon, or his poetic outburst of praise in Romans 11:33\u201336.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
3. Unless noted, all Augustine quotations are from On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, trans. J. F. Shaw, Great Books of the Western World 18, ed. by Mortimer Adler (Chicago: Encylopaedia Britannica, 1994), 697\u2013784.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
4. Augustine, On Christian Teaching, IV.I.1, emphasis added. Further references to On Christian Teaching<\/em> will refer specifically to Book IV.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
5. Marcia L. Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition, 400\u20131400<\/em> (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1998), 5; Cicero, De Oratore, I.VIII.34.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
6. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography <\/em>(Berkley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1969), 36, 65.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
7. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, I.I.2.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
The Goodness of Rhetoric<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
8. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.2.3.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
9. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.2.3.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
10. See C.S. Lewis, \u201cLearning in Wartime,\u201d in The Weight of Glory<\/em> (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1980), 58.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
11. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.6.9.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
12. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.6.9. Here, clearly, Augustine identifies the uniqueness of divine revelation.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
13. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.7.12\u201313, 15\u201320.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
14.Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.6.9, 12.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
15. Augustine, On Christian Teaching<\/em>, IV.6.10.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
16. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.28.61.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
17. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.5.7.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
A Teacher\u2019s Duty<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
18. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.4.6.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
19. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.8.22.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
20. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.11.26, emphasis added.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
21. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.28.61.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
22. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.12.27.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
23. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.12.27.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
24. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.12.27.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
25. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.13.29.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
26. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.28.61.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
27. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.28.61.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
28. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.28.61.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
29. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.12.27\u201313.29, 19.38, 23.52, 26.57.<\/h6>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
How Then Shall We Speak Well?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
30. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.18.37.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n
31. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine<\/em>, IV.18.37.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n