Teaching Christianity (continued)
plural, though in the Latin language it is only used in the singular,[32] why should the dedicated teacher, speaking to the unlearned, shrink from saying ossum rather than os,[33] to avoid the single syllable being thought to belong to the plural ora rather than to the plural ossa, when African ears cannot distinguish between short and long vowels?
What is the point, after all, of correctness of speech which the hearers are unable to follow and understand, seeing that there is absolutely no point in speaking at all, if the people do not understand, whom we are speaking to precisely in order that they may understand? So the person who is teaching will avoid all words that do not in fact teach; and if instead of them he can correctly use others that are understood, he will prefer to choose them. But if he cannot, either because there are none such, or because they do not occur to him at that moment, he will also use words that are not so correct, provided the matter itself is being taught and learned correctly.
25. And it is not indeed only in conversation, whether with one or several persons, but also and above all in preaching to the people, that we should make every effort to be understood. In conversations, after all, everyone has the chance to ask questions. But where all are silent so that one may be heard, and all faces are turned expectantly toward him, neither custom nor good manners allow anyone to ask about what they have not understood; and for that reason the speaker should take every care to help the silent listener.
For the multitude greedy for knowledge usually indicates by its movements whether it has understood; and until it does so, the matter in hand should be gone over with every possible variety of approach and utterance. Now this is something that is simply not in the power of those who recite sermons they have prepared and learned by heart, word for word. As soon, though, as it is evident that the point has been understood, the preacher should either stop, or pass on to another point. For just as a speaker who clears up things people want to know is welcome, so too one who drums in things they already know is burdensome—to those listeners, at least, whose whole expectation was hanging on the solution of the difficulties in the matters being set before them. Because if you also aim at giving the audience pleasure, you can also say things they already know very well; but here it is not what is said, but the way it is said that holds their attention.
But if the hearers are already familiar with this too, and enjoy it, then it makes almost no difference whether the speaker is reading it aloud, or saying it of his own. It is the common experience, after all, that things that are well written are not only read with enjoyment by those who come to them for the first time, but also do not fail to be enjoyed when read again by those who know them and whose memory of them has not faded away. Such writings, of course, are also listened to with pleasure by both kinds of person. But when people are reminded of what they have already forgotten, they are being taught.
However, I am not now discussing ways of pleasing an audience; I am talking about how those who wish to learn are to be taught. This is done in the best way when listeners both hear something true and understand what they hear. When this end is attained, the point should not be labored any further as though it had to go on and on being taught; perhaps, though, they need to be urged to take it to heart and remember it. If that seems to be the case, it must be done discreetly, to avoid irritating and boring them.
11, 26. Precisely this is eloquence, then, in the matter of teaching: to ensure, not that what was thought repellent should be found to be pleasing, or that something disliked should still be done, but that a point that was obscure or simply missed should be indicated and cleared up. If this is done, however, in a disagreeable way, only a few listeners will get any profit from it, and those the most serious, who are eager to know what there is to be learned, however dismally and crudely it is expressed. When they have attained this object, they feed enjoyably on truth itself; it is indeed the characteristic trait of good minds and dispositions to love in words what is true, not the words themselves.
What, after all, is the use of a golden key if it cannot open what we want, or what is wrong with a wooden key if it can, since all we are looking for is that closed doors should be opened to us? But yes, there is a certain similarity between feeding and learning; so because so many people are fussy and fastidious, even those foodstuffs without which life cannot be supported need their pickles and spices.
Three functions of eloquence: to teach, to delight, to sway
12, 27. An eloquent man once said, you see, and what he said was true, that to be eloquent you should speak "so as to teach, to delight, to sway." Then he added, "Teaching your audience is a matter of necessity, delighting them a matter of being agreeable, swaying them a matter of victory." [34] Of these three, the one put first, that is the necessity of teaching, is to be found in the things we are saying, the remaining two in the way we say it. Therefore the person who is saying something with the intention of teaching should not consider he has yet said anything of what he wants to the person he wishes to teach, so long as he is not understood. Because even if he has said something he understands himself, he is not to be regarded as having said it to the person he is not understood by, while if he has been understood, he has said it, whatever his way of saying it may have been.
If on the other hand he also wishes to delight the person he is saying it to, or to sway him, he will not succeed in doing so whatever his way of saying it may have been; but in order to do so, it makes all the difference how he says it. Now just as the listener needs to be delighted if you are to