Roer, Hanne, Academic institution: University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Applauding Augustine: The Performance of Early Christian Rhetoric
Augustine (354-430) spectacularly broke with rhetoric, the symbol of his former pagan life, in his Confessions. At the time of his conversion, Augustine gave up his life as orator and teacher of rhetoric because this meant selling words with no regard to their truth. He generally regarded art, especially the theatre, with suspicion, as is evident in The City of God.
In his On Christian Doctrine Augustine revised the ancient (Ciceronian) art of rhetoric, outlining the possible functions for the Christian preacher. Since there is a structural and historical close relation between rhetoric and the art of acting (hypokrisis), Augustine faced a dilemma. He solved it partly by replacing classical literature with the Bible and the Church Fathers as models, partly by forming a terminology that avoided the theatrical associations of Greek rhetoric (cf. Philip Burton).
The break with Classical rhetoric was also a way of transcending the elitist character of ancient education. Augustine’s rhetoric was a potential medium of mass communication inviting Christians from all social classes and origins. However, the audience did not always act in accordance with Augustine’s ascetic ideals of decorum in public meetings. In several of Augustine’s sermons we get a picture of a noisy audience frequently shouting and applauding him, as was usual at the time (e.g. Sermones 37, 52, 101, 151, 179 and in particular Letter 213). It seems as if Augustine had to accept this theatrical behavior in order to communicate with his heterogeneous congregation.
Though he often argues in favor of a humble style, claiming that it might also lead to the applause of the audience (De doctrina christiana IV 26), a more elaborated style seems to have been the more efficient. Acclamations had become a ceremonial part of public meetings making it possible for certain parties to voice their opinion in the hierarchical, late Roman Empire. I shall argue that the extensive research in this area done by historians (A.H.M. Jones, Peter Brown, Charlotte Roueché, Hans-Ulrich Wiemer), especially historians of law (Jill Harries, Caroline Humfress), casts new light on Augustine’s rhetorical practice. He actually never broke with forensic rhetoric (also evident in Sermo 52, cf. Humfress) which proved indispensable for a bishop with many different obligations.
Applauding Augustine.
Francois Dolbeau who in 1990 discovered 26 new sermons of Augustinein a Mainz-library, later wrote that he – coming from medieval studies – was surprised to learn that not very much had been written about Augustine’s sermons. That picture is being revised and the many, unfortunately often futile attempts at dating the hundreds of sermons, thus establishing a chronology, are now being supplemented by critical studies. Literary, semiotic and most important rhetorical criticism cast new light on Augustine’s preaching and, generally speaking, on the relationship between preacher and audience in late antiquity. Hence we can distinguish between two approaches, a context-orientated one based on the recent historical research into late antiquity, and another based on closereadings of individual texts.
In this paper I will first look at those of Augustine’s sermons that most obviously reveals something about the interaction between preacher and audience, in other words the sermons in which he addresses the audience and tells it how to behave. In several of Augustine’s sermons we get a picture of a noisy audience frequently shouting and applauding him, as was usual at the time. These scenes remind us about the importance of acclamations in late antiquity, which in fact long have been the object of intensive research, Augustine being an important patristic source to the understanding of public acclamations. After outlining this historical background I move to a close reading of sermons…. Trying to understand how Augustine creates his model audience, i.e. the second persona. How do the processes of identification work? How does Augustine persuade his audience into accepting a Christian identity that at some important points conflict with the structure of the Roman city life?
Augustine’s sermons:Sermones 37, 52, 101, 151, 179 and Letter 213.
Johannes Zellinger: “Der Beifall in der altchristlichen Predigt” – an early article describing the lively behavior of audiences in churches and at councils from mid fourth century: jumping, shouting, waving handkerchiefs, applauding. We find descriptions and lamentations over this in Origines, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem the Syrian, Jerome, John Chrysostom (begging his audience to understand that Church is not a theater, telling them that church is like a painting – silent! – and the preacher a painter), and of course Augustine. The picture he depicts, is not as animated but the bishop seems to have forced to interrupt shouts and hecklings. The audience would shout in order to show that it had understood an interpretation. Zellinger’s examples are from:
Sermo 151 (PL 38 cols. 819): Unde omnes acclamastis, nisi quia omnes agnovisti?
Sermo 52, 8 (ibid. 362): Ex his enim vocibus vestris, quemadmodum intellexeritis, adverto.
Sermo 101, 7 (ibid. 609): Video vos cito intellexisse, nec tamen debeo iam finire. Non enim omnes cito intellexistis. Vidi in voce intelligentes, plures video silentio requirentes.
Sermo 37, 12 (ibid. 229): Iam acclamatis: credo quod agnoscitis, quae sunt duplicia pallia.
Other examples in : Sermo 179, 6 (ibid. 970) and Enarratio in Ps. CXLVII, 15 (PL 37 1923)
The congregation often interrupts him when reading bible passages they already knew well, examples are from:
Enarratio in Ps. CXLVII, 15 (PL 37 1923) Quomodo exultastis omnes?... Nihil dixeram, nihil exposueram; versum pronuntiavi et exclamastis? A. A. O. In this sermon Augustine gets interrupted all the time (vgl. Ebd. 1923 1930).
Sermo 96, 4 (PL 38 587): Quid laudastis? Ecce quaestio est, et tamen iam laudastis
Sermo 131, 5 (a a o 731): Video quia clamando praevenitis. Quid enim dicturus sum, scitis, clamando praevenitis
Sermo 76, 4 (a a o 481): Quid praecedetis, qui quod dicturus sum nostis?
Doctr chr IV26: crebro et multum acclamatur ita dicentibus (Aig siger at også en dictio submissa med den rette rytme kan give stort bifald)
Sermo 19.6: aug complains that his Carthaginian audience is dwindling on account of the December games
Zellinger: the sermon was entertainment, play, and the compositio verborum was essential. “We moderns, and Germans should not disapprove it because: Es waren eben Orientaler und Südländer, und die Sprache, die sie hörten, war das melodische Griechisch und Lateinisch (p. 411)
Sermo 339 1 (PL 38 1480): Laudari autem a male viventibus nolo, abhorreo, detestor: dolori mihi est, non voluptati. Laudari autem a bene viventibus, si dicam nolo, mentior, si dicam volo, timeo, ne sim inanitatis appetentior quam soliditatis. Ergo quid dicam? Nec plene volo nec plene nolo. Non plene volo, ne in lade humana pericliter: non plene nolo, ne ingrate sint, quibus praedico.
Background:
Charlotte Roueché in her article “Acclamations in the Later Roman Empire” (1984) defines acclamations as “unison expressions of wish, opinion or belief, by a large gathering of people, often employing conventional rhythms and turns of phrase” (p. 181). The modern term acclamation, meaningful to modern audiences, is however used about a whole range of different activities (Latin: conclamatio, vox, adclamatio, Greek: phone, ekboesis, euphemia among others). The earliest known examples are ritual and religious, such as the acclamation of “Triumphe” and “Thalassio” in a wedding. In city council meetings at Tyre in 174 the councilors would express consent their consent by repeating epephonesan. By the mid fourth century it seems it have been an established practice for church councils to approve proposals by exclamation, e.g. placet or more complex acclamations. Acclamations were also used in the honouring of individuals and in Rome particularly of the emperor. It is Roueché’s point that we do not know if “acclamations came gradually into increasing use under the Roman Empire. What is certain is that, from the later second century A.D. there was a steady increase in recording and reporting acclamations verbatim” (p. 184). For example we have full verbatim accounts of acclamations from the councils in Chalcedon 451 and Constantinople in 536 (“The Council of Chalcedon appears to have been the first occasion when acclamations were extensively used by opposing parties in such a gathering. The bishops of Asia and of Egypt engaged in an energetic exchange of demands and insults, expressed in acclamatory formulae; they are introduced with words such as exeboesan, standard terminology for acclamations”, p. 186). Libanius in the fourth century tells us that teachers of stenography were rivals of teachers of rhetoric.
Augustine is an important patristic source on church assemblies, especially Letter 213 in which Augustine describes the circumstances regarding his successor as Bishop of Hippo, Eraclius, in 426. Augustine quotes the acclamations…and he also gives an impressions of their functions: “ A notariis ecclesiasticis excipiuntur quae dicitis; et meus sermo et vestrae acclamations in terram non cadunt. Apertius ut dicam, ecclesiastica nunc gesta conficimus; sic enim hoc esse, quantum ad homines attinet, confirmatum volo (The presence of the notarii ensures that both address and acclamations are preserved; and it is the two together which go to make up ‘gesta ecclesiastica’, p. 186).
Structure of accl: Roueché’s article deals with personal/individual acclamations (Albinus, Aphrodisias), but she also describes a general pattern for these acclamations following the same rules for a long period and in a very large area. The pattern: First there is often an assertion of belief in God, then honours are paid to the emperor, and sometimes also to church authorities and imperial dignitaries. After this introduction an acclaiming assembly proceeds to specific acclamations in praise of some individual, or requests. Typically these acclamations follow a metrical pattern based on the number of syllables and their accentuation, rather than on vowel-length (p. 189). Later by the middle Byzantine period, when all acclamations were precomposed,this structure was reinforced by musical accompaniment. But in the later Roman period many acclamations were more loosely structured, allowing for improvisations. The public knew these easily recognized rhythms making it possible for large assemblies to vary and improvise standard acclamations (190). Roueché concludes that acclamations were used at dedicatory ceremonies and played an important role in the knitting together of cities: acclamations expressed hopes for a given individual, praising his friends and wishing defeat for his enemies
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