Augustine's Theology of Preaching

2. Pagan Oratory

2 Pagan Oratory Augustine holds a foundational place in the development of the Christian sermon. This is partly due to the fact that he began life as a professional teacher of rhetoric. His conversion led to him being changed from a professor of rhetoric into a Christian preacher. His unique experiences put him in the position of being able to offer self-conscious reflection upon the nature of preaching and its relationship to oration. The fruit of this is seen in De Doctrina Christiana, which will be considered in a subsequent chapter. Augustine knew well that there was debate about the relationship between pagan oratory and Christian thought; he mentioned Julius’ edict forbidding the teaching of rhetoric to Christians.1 When he heard the Manichee, Faustus, Augustine was initially impressed with his oratory, only to be disillusioned by the lack of underlying knowledge.2 As Augustine reviewed his secular career as an orator, he was hesitant about the profession’s value, writing “I was selling the skill of speaking, if it is possible to excel through being taught.”3 Augustine attempted to distinguish between good and bad uses of rhetoric: “ And without deceit I was teaching deceits, not that they might use these against the head of the innocent, but in due course on behalf of the head of the guilty.”4 The goal of this chapter is to help us understand how Augustine’s experiences of oratory prepared him to formulate the views on preaching which he developed. We shall first consider the contributions of five orators who in various ways impacted Augustine. We shall then attempt to extrapolate what secular oratory bequeathed to Augustine as a preacher. 1. conf. 8.10 (CCL 27, 119). 2. conf. 5.11–12 (CCL 27, 62). 3. “Ego uendebam dicendi facultatem, si qua docendo praestari potest.”, conf. 8.13 (CCL 27, 121). 4. “Et eos sine dolo docebam dolos, non quibus contra caput innocentis agerent, sed aliquando pro capite nocentis,” conf. 4.2 (CCL 27, 40). 23 How did pagan oratory seek to change people? To persuade and change people was the goal of oratory. Considerable effort was devoted by rhetoricians to considering the methods and morality of oratory. Augustine wrote harshly of his time as a professional orator in Confessiones and gave a more nuanced opinion in De Doctrina Christiana. That he reached the level of teaching rhetoric for a living suggests the extent of his immersion in the art. It may be that the disdain he expresses for oratory in Confessiones has led to its significance being passed over by modern interpreters. Peter Brown helpfully reminds us that Augustine’s educational background had deep consequences for his outlook; it focused his life upon words and eloquence.5 As we explore the debates had by pagan orators about how listeners may be changed, we hope to capture something of Augustine’s outlook as a pagan orator; his Christian preaching cannot be seen for what it was without due reference to pagan rhetoric. From the wide selection of sources which could be profitably studied, we have selected five who, in various ways, had substantive connections to Augustine, via quotation, influence, admiration or proximity. The most famous figure who influenced Augustine’s rhetoric was Cicero. However, we need to appreciate that Cicero himself embodied earlier orators’ insights. Augustine’s thought looked back “chronologically and intellectually to the pre-Christian world of Cicero, Augustine’s principal model, but Cicero himself enshrined a generic retrospection.”6 For this reason, not only Cicero but also earlier orators whom he engaged with contributed to Augustine’s views of rhetoric. Cicero’s retrospective embodiment of other orators’ insights means that we must, in due course, consider some of his most important interlocutors: Gorgias and Plato. GORGIAS ( (483–375 B.C.E.) Gorgias may be presented as merely glorying in the brute power of words to overcome opposition;7 he did indeed write “Speech is a powerful ruler.”8 However, The Encomium of Helen suggests that Gorgias did not merely present 5. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo (London: Faber & Faber, 2000), 36–7. 6. Catherine Conybeare, “The Duty of a Teacher: Liminality and Disciplina in Augustine’s De Ordine,” in Augustine and the Disciplines, from Cassiciacum to Confessions, ed. K. Pollmann and Mark Vessey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 50. 7. Colin Higgins, “Gorgias,” in The Sophists: An Introduction, ed. Patricia O’ Grady (London: Duckworth, 2008); Soteroula Constantinidou, Logos into Mythos: The Case of Gorgias’ Encomium of Helen (Athens: Institut...