Teaching Christianity (continued)
style, brilliant in the moderate, vehement and forceful in the grand manner, but still for saying true things that really need to be heard? But if anyone is unable to do both, let him say wisely what he does not say eloquently, rather than say eloquently what he says unwisely. 29, If however he cannot even do this, let him so conduct himself that he not only earns a reward for himself, but also gives an example to others, and so his manner of life can itself be a kind of eloquent sermon.
Conclusion: Those who cannot compose their own sermons should learn by heart and preach those of acknowledged masters
62. There are, of course, some people who can declaim and enunciate well, but cannot think up and compose anything to say and declaim. But if they take things that have been written eloquently and wisely by others, and proffer them to the people, provided they have that role to play,[67] they are not acting improperly. For in this way too we get the useful result of there being many preachers of the truth without there being many masters, if all say the same thing, taught by the one true master, and there are no schisms among them.[68] Nor should such men be deterred by the words of the prophet Jeremiah, through whom God reproves those who steal his words, each one from his neighbor (Jer 23:30). Those who steal, after all, are purloining what does not belong to them; but God's word does belong to those who do what he tells them. In fact, it's the man who speaks well and lives badly that really speaks words that do not belong to him. For any good things that he says seem to be the product of his own wits, but do not go along at all with his morals. And so the ones who God said are stealing his words are those who want to give the appearance of being good by speaking what belongs to God, when in fact they are bad by doing what belongs to themselves.
Nor, in fact, is it they who are saying the good things they do say, if you pay careful attention. How, after all, can they be saying in words what they are contradicting in deeds? It was not for nothing, you see, that the apostle said about such people: They claim that they know God, but contradict it with their deeds (Ti 1:16). So in one way it is they who are saying it, and again in another way it is not they who are saying it, since each thing is true that Truth has said. Speaking of such people, What they say, he said, do, but what they do, do not do, that is, do what you hear from their mouths; do not do what you see in their works; for they say, he went on, and do not do (Mt 23:3). Therefore, although they do not do, they still say. But in another place where he is chiding such people, Hypocrites, he says, how can you say good things, since you are bad? (Mt 12:34). And consequently it is not they who say even the things they do say, when they say good things, inasmuch as by will and work they contradict what they say.
Thus it can come about that a learned but bad man may compose a sermon in which the truth is proclaimed, to be spoken by another man who is not learned, but is good; when this happens, he is himself handing over from himself what does not belong to him, while the other man is receiving what is in fact his own from someone it does not belong to. But when good men who are believers do this service for good men who are believers, both parties are saying what is their own, because God too is theirs and the things they are saying are his. And those who are unable to compose these good sermons make them their own, when they compose themselves to live according to what they contain.
30, 63. But whether you are at this very moment about to preach to a congregation, or give a talk to any kind of group, or whether you are on the point of dictating something that is to be preached to a congregation, or to be read by anyone who wishes and is able to, you should pray that God may put good words into your mouth. After all, if Queen Esther prayed, when she was going to speak in the king's presence for the temporal salvation of her people, that God might put suitable words into her mouth, how much more should you pray to receive such a favor, when you are toiling in word and teaching for the people's eternal salvation?
Those, however, who are going to say something that they have received from others, should pray for those they receive it from even before they do so,[69] that they may be given what they hope to receive from them; and when they have received it, they should pray both that they themselves may give it out well, and that those they give it out to may take it well; and on the successful conclusion of the talk they must give thanks to the same God from whom they cannot doubt that they have received it, so that he that boasts may boast in the one[70] in whose hand are both we and our words (Wis 7:16).
31, 64. This book has turned out longer than I wished, and than I expected. But for the reader or listener to whom it is acceptable it will not be too long, while anyone who does find it too long, and who wants to know what it contains, should read it piecemeal. As for those who are not interested in knowing what is in it, they should not complain about its length. I, for my part, give thanks to our God that in these four books I have set out to the best of my poor ability, not what sort of pastor I am myself, lacking many of the necessary qualities as I do, but what sort the pastor should be who is eager to toil away, not only for his own sake but for others, in the teaching of sound, that is of Christian, doctrine.
Notes
[1]. A rather free paraphrase, I have to admit. He is stating what any public speaker must set out to do from the moment he first opens his mouth; he must render his audience, literally, "benevolent, attentive, and docile."
[2]. A play on words in the Latin: Quis ita desipiat, ut hoc sapiat?
[3]. This passage bears out my contention in the Translator's Note that the whole work had been undertaken as a kind of manual to help the clergy with their preaching. Augustine does not propose to send the priests and deacons, grown men, back to the schools of rhetoric— though he hopes they may be able to study the subject in their spare time. No, it is the adolescentes among the clergy, that is to say the lectors or readers, who were frequently boys in their teens, that could advantageously be sent along to the schools of rhetoric. We must remember that there were no seminaries in those days, and these young lectors would be receiving their "ecclesiastical" education, at least in a Church organized like Augustine's at Hippo Regius, and possibly Aurelius' at Carthage, in a house of clergy from senior priests. And some of them, the older ones, would already be involved in pastoral duties, from which they should not be taken in order to go and study rhetoric.
[4]. Here he may well have had debates with the Donatists in mind, or talks to Catholics about Donatism; the true story of the original schism had to be told again and again, and appeal to be made to the documents of the case, whether to the court records of the time of Constantine, or also, as the dispute widened to include theological disagreements, to the works of Cyprian.
[5]. In the Latin text this section begins with the previous sentence; but the older editors before the Maurists put their chapter division here —I think with better judgment.
[6]. That is, in a word, preaching. He is writing for the African clergy, in particular, perhaps, for their bishops.
[7]. Cicero, On Rhetoric (De Inventione Rhetorica) 1, 1.
[8]. Not entirely consistent with what he has just said in the previous paragraph—he uses the same expression in both places, verba tenere. But here he is urging clergymen of the second category of that paragraph, those who see into the heart of the scriptures, to rise to the category of those who can also quote them at will— particularly if they lack the skill of eloquence.
[9]. Qui propriis verbis minor erat, in the text—while he was less in his own words, he can also grow. I emend to quod propriis verbis minus erat.
[10]. Saints Cyprian of Carthage and Ambrose of Milan were his prime models of sound ecclesiastical eloquence; Saint Hilary of Poitiers very definitely in third place.
[11]. A rather wordy paraphrase of an excessively succinct, and hence obscure, sentence. For the thought, see Book II, 7–8 above.
[12]. See Col 1:13.
[13]. Here "ours" means that of the Gentile—Latin—classics.
[14]. Literally, "by a voice of pronunciation," pronuntiationis voce; presumably a technical use of the word pronuntiatio. Here and in the rest of this section the allusions are mostly to Cicero and Quintilian, the arch-grammarian. Most English names for the figures of speech referred to derive from the Greek rather than the Latin, and have come to signify punctuation marks, which the ancients were quite innocent of, rather than kinds of phrase.
[15]. The first of the kolons that precede the round, or period.
[16]. The first clause, or membrum, here is, I think, the single word
Alioquin, Or else.
[17]. From here on his analysis at times seems very idiosyncratic. But he was, unlike his translator, a trained rhetorician! Also, however, again unlike his translator, he did not have the benefit of punctuation in his texts.
[18]. All he has done so far is analyze the eloquent structure of the passages quoted; he has not noted the apostle's use of such figures of speech as irony, metaphor, hyperbole—or, in English, underand over-statement, comparisons, and so forth.
[19]. I have supplied some such word as existimarent; the text does seem defective here.
[20]. He forgets that one of his selected passages came from Romans.
[21]. See above, Book II, 7.
[22]. The Greek Septuagint, or LXX for short. I think this may be the only place in which he states a preference for Jerome's Vulgate over earlier versions based on the Septuagint—perhaps as a kind of posthumous olive-branch to that redoubtable man, who had died in 420.
[23]. Which Augustine himself, so he tells us, was all too prone to indulge. See Confessions X, 33.
[24]. He is alluding to the story of Joseph and his brothers here, Gn 37, 39—45. But Amos in all probability simply meant the northern kingdom of Israel by the name "Joseph," its two principal tribes being those descended from Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Manasseh; see Gn 48. Augustine alludes to him with a play on words which I cannot reproduce in English: vel in malis quae pendit, vel in bonis quae rependit. You can pay penalties in English, in the sense he uses pendit here, but not evils.
[25]. Why doesn't he know? Perhaps because it was so long since he had taught rhetoric. But this profession of ignorance is really just another device for insinuating that it is not really necessary formally to study the art of rhetoric in a school of rhetoric.
[26]. In their ingenia, a word for which there seems to be no good
English equivalent. These eloquent and percipient men could doubtless be reduced to Cicero and Quintilian.
[27]. Ad rumpenda fastidia. I take it he is remembering his own fastidiousness as a conceited young rhetorician, which had blocked his appreciation of the scriptures, owing to the "rusticity" of their Latin.
[28]. Reading velandos for the celandos, covering, of the text, there being, I take it, an allusion to 2 Cor 3:15.
[29]. Following upon the law, which the prophets were sent to remind
Israel of.
[30]. Reading with M, ea quantum possunt perspicuitate dicendi, instead of CCL's et quantum possunt. This would attach the phrase to the next clause/sentence, in which the main verb has been changed rather carelessly from the third to the first person plural.
[31]. Cicero, The Orator 23, 75.
[32]. The word "bloods," sanguinibus in the Latin. In fact the translators both of the Latin from the Greek and of the Greek from the Hebrew were simply being excessively literal, and not worried very much about the result being somewhat meaningless. No doubt they assumed, as Augustine did, that this indicated the divine mysteriousness of the text, and was grist to the mill of those seeking spiritual meanings.
[33]. A bone. As a matter of fact, Lewis & Short, under os, does give ossum as a "collateral form," on the authority of Varro; but perhaps Varro quoted it as a vulgar solecism. Since African ears did not, as Augustine goes on to say, distinguish short from long syllables, they might understand os to mean a mouth (plural ora) rather than a bone (plural ossa). See Book III, note 5, 6, and 7.
[34]. Cicero, The Orator 21, 69: ut doceat, ut delectet, ut flectat; docere necessitatis est, delectare suavitatis, flectere victoriae. In fact Cicero wrote ut probet etc…; probare necessitatis est…—a slightly more stringent requirement than docere.
[35]. He presumably has in mind the stylish and elegant pornography which is what much of Latin literature was, or would certainly have seemed to be in his eyes—all those passages in the Loeb editions which the translators have left untranslated.
[36]. Cyprian, To Donatus 1 (3, 12–14 H)
[37]. He is punning on the two meanings of the word orator; an orator and a pray-er, and its close connection with oratio, prayer (without the hyphen).
[38]. A rather baffling concluding sentence, seeing that it is presumably the gospel of Jesus Christ that he has in mind. But as usual with Augustine, Christ's divinity tends to overshadow his humanity; he was not "a mere man."
[39]. At the beginning of section 32.
[40]. Cicero, The Orator 29, 101.
[41]. Modica. He adds,…hoc est, moderata. Modicis enim "modus" nomen imposuit; nam modica pro parvis abusive, non proprie dicimus. For it is "mode" that has given its name to modest things, because we use "modest" for minor things by an abuse of language, not properly. None of this applies in English.
[42]. Meaning both from the pulpit and from our higher official position as bishops and priests.
[43]. Ecclesiastical judges—that is, bishops—had to hear a great deal of secular litigation, disputes about inheritances and so forth brought to them for arbitration. This was an imposition which Augustine resented deeply, but could not get out of.
[44]. The difference between catechesis, or instruction, and kerygma, or the proclamation of the word.
[45]. What he is saying here really only applies in the Latin. The text runs, et carnis providentiam ne feceritis in concupiscentiis, translating the Greek word for word in the same order. Augustine is saying that to have written et carnis providentiam in concupiscentiis ne feceritis would have made a more rhythmic conclusion, clausula numerosior.
[46]. The word I am translating "rhythm" is numerus, literally number; and he is here alluding to the text of Wis 11:20.
[47]. See the prologue to Jerome's commentary on Job.
[48]. Nisi extremis partibus. I think extremis must refer, so to say, to both sides of the middle, not just to the end—to the letter's two extremes. But it is an odd expression of an extremely odd judgment.
[49]. Letter 63 to Caecilius, 2–4: CSEL 3,702, 7–703, 8.
[50]. See Gn 9:10–23.
[51]. On the Holy Spirit, 1, prologue: PL 16, 703C -704B.
[52]. See Jg 6:11–21.
[53]. On the Dress of Virgins 3: CSEL 3,189, 11–18.
[54]. See Lk 10:42.
[55]. Cum incipiet in vobis virginitas honorari, literally, when virginity in you begins to be honored. He is clearly referring to their final crown of glory; but his implication that virginity is not being honored now is strange, since it was highly honored by Christians. But no doubt he is thinking that it is not being honored by society at large.
[56]. On Virgins 2, 1, 7–8: PL 16, 209A-C.
[57]. These two final sentences seem rather inconsequential.
[58]. Cyprian, On the Dress of Virgins, 15–16: CSEL 3,198 -100. It is in my view to Augustine's credit that he never stooped to this favorite theme of some preachers, from the Fathers to the present day; at least no sermon of his on the topic, to my knowledge, has survived. If he did preach any, perhaps he was rather ashamed of them, and took steps to see that they did not survive.
[59]. Ambrose, On Virgins, 1, 6, 28: PL 16, 196–197.
[60]. Voces premit, an allusion to Virgil's Aeneid IX 324, and balanced against sed lacrimas exprimit.
[61]. Modern Cherchel in western Algeria, on the coast. The event he describes took place in 418 or 419. This text, oddly enough, seems to be the only reference to it in his writings. So the event is dated from the time of his writing this fourth book of Teaching
Christianity, rather than the other way round. But in Letter 190, written in 418, he does mention that he had just been there on Church business imposed on him by Pope Zosimus.
[62]. Caterva. F. van der Meer, in Augustine the Bishop (E.T. London, 1961), 410, or rather his English translator, renders this as "the great row." But the word means a band or crowd of people, and here possibly alludes to the inhabitants divided up into two rival bands, in what looks like having been almost a ritual blood-letting.
[63]. Would-be ecclesiastical orators.
[64]. Emending id agere debere of the text to ita agere debere. This makes it possible to treat the Illa tria with which the paragraph begins as the object of agere. If its object is id, then Illa tria is left hanging loose, with no grammatical relation to the rest of the sentence.
[65]. See Jn 14:6.
[66]. See 1 Tm 1:5; Rom 13:10.
[67]. Si eam personam gerunt; if they bear the persona, the role, or possibly the dignity, the rank—presumably of a pastor. I did wonder if this were not an early ecclesiastical use of the word persona in the sense that eventually resulted in the English use of the word "parson" for a beneficed clergyman, or indeed any clergyman.
[68]. See 1 Cor 1:10; Mt 23:8.
[69]. Here it looks as if he is thinking of a clergyman—a bishop, perhaps?—who has commissioned a ghost writer to write his sermons for him, not of the one who fetches down a volume of sermons by Newman, or Bossuet (Cyprian, Ambrose—or Augustine) from his library shelf.
[70]. See 1 Cor 1:31; 2 Cor 10:17.