Augustine in His Own Words (continued)
The Preacher 145 wounds, He lifted him onto His beast, He brought him to an inn, He entrusted him to the innkeeper (Lk 10:30–35). To what innkeeper? Perhaps to [Paul] who said, "We are ambassadors for Christ" (2 Cor 5:20). The Doctor also gave two coins to pay for healing the wounded man; perhaps these are the two precepts on which the whole Law and the prophets are based. Therefore, brothers and sisters, in this time the Church, too, in which the wounded man is healed, is the inn of the traveler; but for the Church itself the possessor's inheritance is on high.45
Preacher as Tour Guide
Around 403, Deogratias, a deacon from the church in Carthage, requested that Augustine "write something on catechizing inquirers."46 Deogratias was in charge of evangelizing new converts, and while he had theological acumen, the routine of teaching had begun to wear thin. Augustine answered with On Catechizing Beginners (De catechizandis rudibus). This brief treatise is a gem in many ways. Augustine recognized that the bearing of the messenger affects the bearing of the message and insisted that a good teacher needs more than pedagogical tricks and techniques. Teaching is about loving. From On Catechizing Beginners:
(12.17) Now if we feel disgusted because we are so often repeating things geared to the little ones, familiar things, let us equip ourselves with a brother's or a father's or a mother's love, and by linking our hearts to theirs, those things will again seem new to us. For so great is this feeling of compassion that when people are touched by us as we speak, and we by them as they learn, we each dwell in the other, and so it is as if they speak in us what they hear while we, in some way, learn in them what it is we teach. Isn't it quite common that when we show certain beautiful, spacious locales, whether in town or out in the countryside, to those who have never seen them before, we who have been in the habit of passing them by without any enjoyment find our own delight renewed by their delight at the novelty of it all? And how much more enjoyable the closer our friendship, because as we come together more and more through this bond of love, what had gotten old becomes new to us all over again. But if we have made some progress in contemplative matters, we do not wish those who are learning from us simply to enjoy and be amazed when they gaze upon human handiwork, but we want them to en-
45. Jo. ev. tr. 41.13 (BA 73A:376–78); trans. Rettig, FOTC 88:148–49 (modified). Augustine would develop this imagery at length in the Pelagian controversy: e.g., nat. et gr. 43.50, 52.60. See Chapter 10.
46. This has been traditionally dated to either 399 or 400. Hombert, Nouvelles recherches de chronologie augustinienne, 41–44, has argued for shifting this work to 403.