Teaching Christianity
clauses are best recited if the voice is slightly raised after the first two, and the period is brought to an end by dropping the voice at the third.
20. We come finally to what concludes all this: And they felt nothing for the grinding down of Joseph; it can be said in a continuous breath, as one clause, or more elegantly divided by a pause after and they felt nothing, and then with this distinction made, rounded off by for the grinding down of Joseph as a two-clause period. But in either case, it was an admirably charming touch that he did not say, "And they felt nothing for the grinding down of their brother," but instead of "their brother" put Joseph. In this way you could take any brother at all as being signified by the proper name of that one whose fame stood out among his brethren, whether in the evils he suffered at their hands or in the good he repaid them with.[24] Whether indeed this trope, by which we are led to understand any brother you like in Joseph, is propounded in that art of rhetoric which I both learned and taught, I do not know.[25] What a beautiful touch it is, though, and how it moves those who read and appreciate it, there is no point in anybody being told, if he cannot perceive it for himself.
21. And there are yet more things indeed, relating to the rules of eloquence, which can be discovered in this very same passage that we have presented as an example. But the good listener will not so much be instructed by its being diligently analyzed as fired by its being passionately recited. It was not, after all, composed by mere human industry, but it poured out as a divine message both wisely and eloquently from the prophet's mind, its wisdom not being preoccupied with eloquence, but its eloquence not withdrawing from wisdom. For if, as some of the most eloquent and percipient of men have been able to see and have said, things that appear to be learned in the art of oratory would never have been observed and noted down and put into form as this systematic doctrine, unless they had first been there in the minds and natural capacities of the orators,[26] small wonder, surely, if they are there to be found in these men, who were sent by the maker of minds and natural capacities. Accordingly, let us acknowledge that our canonical authors and teachers were indeed eloquent as well as being wise, with the kind of eloquence that befitted persons of that category.
Further suggestions and advice for preachers
8, 22. But while we have taken some examples of eloquence from their writings which can be understood without difficulty, we certainly must not think that they are to be imitated by us in those things which they said with a useful and salutary obscurity, to exercise and after a fashion to hone the minds of readers, and to break the fastidious habits[27] and whet the appetite of those who are eager to learn, while also casting a veil over[28] the minds of the ungodly, whether to prompt their conversion to a more Godfearing frame of mind, or to ensure their exclusion from sacred mysteries. Those prophets did in fact speak in such a way that later generations, who would understand them rightly and expound them, would be able to uncover the other kind of grace, different indeed, but following upon the first kind[29] in the Church of God.
Their expositors, therefore, should not speak in the same sort of way, as though putting themselves forward with a similar authority to be expounded; but in all their commentaries and sermons they should first and foremost and supremely work away at being intelligible with what[30] lucidity of diction they can muster. It is important that the cause of what we say being less readily or easily understood should not lie in our manner of speaking, but that it should be attributable either to the person who does not understand being very slow-witted, or to the things we are wishing to explain and point out being so difficult and subtle.
9, 23. For there are some things, in fact, which of their very nature are hard or impossible to understand, however much and in whatever way, as plainly as you like, they are gone over and analyzed by the speaker; and such things are only rarely, if there is some urgent need, or absolutely never to be presented in the hearing of the people. It is another matter though with books, which are so written that they hold the reader's attention when they are understood, and when they are not understood need not vex those who decline to read them. In conversations, too, with some people we should not shirk the duty of helping them to understand truths which we ourselves have already grasped, however hard they are to understand, and however laborious the effort of discussing them may be. That is, of course, if our listeners, or those we are having a conversation with, evince an eager desire to learn and do not lack the mental capacity in some way or other to grasp what is being suggested. In this case the teacher has to worry, not about how eloquently he is teaching, but how convincing his evidence is.
10, 24. A diligent quest for such evidence is sometimes neglectful of the more polished words, and is interested, not in those that sound well, but in those that indicate and suggest what the speaker wishes to prove. So a certain authority, when dealing with this kind of speech, says that there is to be found in it a certain "diligent negligence." [31]
This, however, while cutting out embellishments, does not go so far as to cultivate the uncouth. Good teachers, though, will or should be so concerned with teaching, that if a word can only be correct Latin if it is obscure or ambiguous, while in common speech it has an incorrect form that avoids ambiguity or obscurity, they will speak it in the way the uneducated, not the way educated people are used to. For if our translators did not shrink from saying, I will not assemble their conventicles from bloods (Ps 16:4), since they felt it was pertinent to the context to put this noun in the