Confessions

The Preaching of Augustine (354–430)

by

Augustine represents the preaching of the Latin church, a style that may be traced from Tertullian through Cyprian to Ambrose, Augustine’s spiritual father, and mentor. The Latin style of preaching shows an acquaintance with classical literature, Latin rhetoric, and symbolism.

Augustine addresses the matter of homiletics in the fourth book of De Doctrina Christiana. He basically argues that the sermon should be an exposition of the text. Concerning approach, he urges the speaker to appeal to the intellect, feeling, and will (to teach, delight, and influence). He mentions three styles of preaching—the restrained, the moderate, and the grand. He advises against the grandiose style, however, because audiences will not tolerate it. Augustine makes a strong case for a restrained style in which the form of the sermon reflects the content.

Augustine has written works of very high literary merit, apart from his theological and homiletical writings. His Confessions form one of the most unique and strangely impressive works in all literature—one of the books that everybody ought by all means to read. His City of God has been called a “prose epic” and is a combination of history, philosophy, and poetry that has a power and a charm all its own. His work on Christian Teaching is the first treatise on sacred rhetoric and homiletics.

Augustine’s Sermons

But if we had nothing else from Augustine than his sermons, of which some 360 remain that are reckoned genuine, we should recognize him as a great preacher, as a richly gifted man, and should feel ourselves powerfully attracted and impressed by his genius, his mighty will, his passionate heart, and deeply earnest piety.

Augustine favored allegorizing, like every other great preacher of the age except Chrysostom. But his sermons are full of power. He carefully explains his text and repeats many times, in different ways, its substantial meaning. He deals much in dramatic question and answers, and in apostrophe; also in digression, the use of familiar phrases, and direct address to particular classes of persons present, using in general great and notable freedom. Yet freedom must be controlled, as in Augustine it commonly is controlled by sound judgment, right feeling, and good taste.

The chief peculiarity of Augustine’s style is his fondness for and skill in producing pithy phrases. In the terse and vigorous Latin, these often have great power. The capacity for throwing off such phrases is mainly natural, but may be indefinitely cultivated. And it is a great element of power, especially in addressing the masses, if one can, after stating some truth, condense it into a single keen phrase that will penetrate the hearer’s mind and stick.

City of God, The

by

The most renowned thinker among of the fourth and fifth centuries was Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa (350-430). Trained at Carthage, he became a teacher at Carthage and Rome, and later was a professor of rhetoric at Milan. There he came under the influence of Ambrose and became a Christian. He had such conviction about personal sin and forgiveness that it shaped his thinking about theology. During his thirty-five years in the bishopric of Hippo, he worked out a system of Latin theology that became the Catholic standard for more than a thousand years. Augustine’s insistence on the personal relation of humanity to God made him acceptable even to the Protestants of the sixteenth century. In his Confessions Augustine wrote his spiritual autobiography. Convinced of the reality of sin, he felt that his only escape was through the mercy of God. Augustine was also the father of a philosophy of history, set forth in his City of God. He lived at a time of political and social upheaval when the foundations of the Roman Empire were being undermined. The Visigoths sacked the city of Rome in the year 410. Many pagans felt that Rome’s misfortunes were the consequence of the neglect of the old gods. Augustine wrote to show that the decline of paganism was due to other causes and to foretell the triumph of the Christian order in place of the empire whose end was near. He believed that God intended that the Church should rule the State rather than the State the Church.

Impact: Augustine’s idea of the City of God became the political philosophy of the medieval papacy.