Teaching Christianity
hold his attention and keep him listening, so he needs to be swayed, if you are to move him to act. And just as he is delighted if you speak agreeably, so in the same way he is swayed if he loves what you promise him, fears what you threaten him with, hates what you find fault with, embraces what you commend to him, deplores what you strongly insist is deplorable; if he rejoices over what you declare to be a matter for gladness, feels intense pity for those whom your words present to his very eyes as objects of pity, shuns those whom in terrifying tones you proclaim are to be avoided; and anything else that can be done by eloquence in the grand manner to move the spirits of the listeners, not to know what is to be done, but to do what they already know is to be done.
28. But if they still do not know, they must, of course, be taught before being moved. And perhaps when they are simply informed of the matters in hand, they will be moved in such a way that there is no need for them to be moved any more by greater eloquence of a more forceful kind. When there is a need of this, however, it must be done; and the need arises precisely then, when they know what should be done, and do not do it. And thus teaching is a matter of necessity. People, after all, are able both to act and not to act upon what they know; who though would ever say that they should act upon what they do not know? And that is why swaying an audience is not a matter of necessity, because it is not always needed, if the listener gives his full assent to the person who is teaching, or also delighting him. The reason, though, why it is a matter of victory is that an audience can be taught and delighted, and still not give their full assent to the speaker. And what use will those two be if this third thing is lacking?
But neither is delighting an audience a matter of necessity, seeing that when things that are true are being pointed out in a speech, which is what the function of teaching is about, it is not the concern of the speaker, nor is it expected of him, that either his matter or his speech should give delight; but his matter by itself, being true, delights simply by being shown to be so. Which is why it frequently happens that even falsehoods give delight when they are convincingly laid bare and revealed to an audience. It is not because they are false, you see, that they delight, but because it is true that they are false, the speech by which this is shown to be true also gives delight.
13, 29. There are, however, fastidious people who do not take pleasure in the truth if it is presented in any old fashion, but only if it is presented in such a way that the speaker's style too is pleasing; and that is why no slight place in the art of eloquence is also allotted to the function of giving delight. Adding it, all the same, is not enough for the hardened cases who do not profit either from having understood or from having been delighted by the style of the person teaching them. What good, after all, do these two things do the man, who both admits that what has been said is true, and has high praise for the speech it has been said in, and still does not yield that full assent, which is the only thing the speaker is concentrating his attention on, when he is trying by what he says to persuade to a particular course of action?
For if the things that are being taught are of the kind which it is sufficent to believe or know, consenting to them simply means admitting that they are true. When, however, something is being taught that has to be done, and is precisely being taught so that it may be done, in vain does the way and style in which it is said give pleasure, if it is not put across in such a way that action follows. It is the duty, therefore, of the eloquent churchman, when he is trying to persuade the people about something that has to be done, not only to teach, in order to instruct them; not only to delight, in order to hold them; but also to sway, in order to conquer and win them. There still remains, in fact, that type to be swayed by eloquence in the grand manner to give his full assent, in