Hence arise those incentives to vice, that they paint their faces (continued)
saw them weeping. Their applause only showed they were being instructed and delighted, while their tears indicated that they were being swayed. When I observed these, I was confident, even before the outcome confirmed it, that I had beaten that monstrous custom, handed down from their fathers and grandfathers and their remote ancestors, which was laying hostile siege to their breasts, or rather was in full possession of them. I soon finished the sermon, and turned their hearts and tongues to giving thanks to God. And here we are, something like eight years or more later, and by the good favor of Christ nothing of the sort has since been attempted. There are many other experiences which have taught me that people have shown by their groans rather than their shouts, sometimes also by their tears, and finally by the change in their lives, what the grandeur of a wise man's speech has achieved in them.
54. People have also frequently been changed by the calm and plain kind of speaking—but so as to know what they were ignorant of, or to believe what used to strike them as incredible; not, however, to do what they already knew should be done and were reluctant to do. For swaying that kind of stubbornness, after all, hard-hitting talk in the grand manner is needed. Again, when praise and blame are being eloquently distributed, while this belongs to the moderate style, some people are so affected that not only are they delighted by the eloquence displayed in praising and blaming, but they themselves also start trying to live in a praiseworthy way and to give up a blameworthy kind of life. But do all who are delighted by this style also imitate the examples given, as all who are swayed by the grand manner proceed to act? And do all who are being taught in the plain style ipso facto know or believe to be true what they were ignorant of?
25, 55. From all this one concludes that those two kinds of speaking which are intended to achieve something are supremely necessary for the person who wishes to speak both wisely and eloquently. But the one which engages in the moderate style, that is in order to delight the hearer by its very eloquence, is not to be made use of for its own sake, but in order that matters which are being usefully and properly talked about, even though they do not call for a style that either instructs or moves, because an audience is being addressed which is both knowledgeable and favorable, might the more readily win that audience's assent and stick in its memory.
After all, the universal task of eloquence, in whichever of these three styles, is to speak in a way that is geared to persuasion. The aim, what you intend, is to persuade by speaking. In any of these three styles, indeed, the eloquent man speaks in a way that is geared to persuasion, but if he doesn't actually persuade, he doesn't achieve the aim of eloquence. Now in the calm, plain style he persuades his hearers that what he is saying is true; in the grand manner he persuades them to do the things they know should be done and are not being done; in the moderate manner he persuades them that he is speaking beautifully and with many a flourish —and what need do we have of an aim like that? Let those people aim at it who glory in their tongues, and who pride themselves on panegyrics and suchlike speeches, where the audience does not have to be taught anything or moved to action, but solely and simply to be delighted.
We, however,[63] should refer this aim to another one; that is, we should wish to achieve by this style what we wish to achieve when we speak in the grand manner, which is that good morals should be loved and bad morals shunned. This is appropriate when people are not so alienated from such a course that they apparently have to be driven to it by the grand manner of speaking—when, for example, they are already set on it, but need to be prodded into going about it more zealously, or reminded to persevere in it firmly. So it is that we may make use of the embellishments of the moderate style, not just to show off, but sensibly, not content with the aim simply of delighting our hearers, but doing this rather, so that in this way too they may be helped toward the good object about which we wish to persuade them.
26, 56. We have stated above that if the person who is speaking wisely also wishes to speak eloquently, he should so[64] manage those three styles that he is heard with understanding, with pleasure, and with compliance. But this is not to be taken in the sense that each of these three is to be attributed to one each of those, so that it pertains to the calm, plain mode to be heard with understanding, to the moderate mode to be heard with pleasure, and to the grand mode to be heard with obedient compliance, but rather that the speaker should always have these three intentions, and as far as possible act to realize them, even when he is concentrating on just one of those styles. After all, we do not want even what we say calmly and plainly to bore people; and thus we want it to be heard not only intelligently, with understanding, but also gladly, with pleasure.
What in fact are we aiming at, when we support with divine testimonies what we say in our teaching, but that we should be heard with obedient compliance, that is that these testimonies should be believed, with the assistance of him to whom it was said, Your testimonies have come to be exceedingly believed (Ps 93:5)? Again, what is the person looking for, who is narrating facts to learners, but to be believed, even though he is talking in the plain, unadorned manner? And who would be willing to listen to him, unless he also held the hearer's attention with some pleasantness of style? Because, of course, if he is not understood, it's obvious to all of us that he cannot be heard either with pleasure or with compliance.
It frequently happens, though, that when the most difficult problems are being solved in the calm, plain mode,