Ugustine And Rhetoric

It will remain the standard for a long time to come.

Temporality, Eternity, and Wisdom invites readers into the text of Augustine's most widely read book to consider if rhetoric conflicts with Christianity and if Christians should condemn and abandon its use. In the Confessions, Augustine seems to answer such questions with an emphatic yes. Through a comprehensive review of the classic text, Calvin L. Troup argues that Augustine does indeed reject the dominant rhetorical tradition of the late Roman Empire, known today as the Second Sophistic. Troup notes, however, that Augustine's rejection of that rhetoric dates from long before his conversion. Troup argues that when Augustine converts, the semiotic integration of time and eternity in the incarnate Christ motivates him to espouse a substantial, practical alternative to the Second Sophistic that is nonetheless a form of rhetoric--a Christian rhetoric.

"This monograph places Augustine's martyr discourse in the context of classical rhetoric in order to flesh out the claim that such discourse is inherently rhetorical. It is argued that Augustine's martyr discourse can be understood as rhetorical in three ways: First, Augustine develops and deploys his understanding of martyrdom within particular rhetorical contexts. This is the weakest and most general sense of "rhetorical" that will appear in this study, falling short of, yet providing the necessary context for, the more technical analyses that make up the heart of the book. Second, Augustine uses techniques of classical rhetorical argumentation to construct his martyrs and to create their theological significance. This claim refers less to techniques of ornamentation or style than it does to those techniques more associated with the category of inventio and to some degree dispositio. Third, in Augustine's depiction, the martyrs themselves are ideal Christian rhetors"--

Despite an enormous amount of literature on St Augustine of Hippo, this work provides the first examination of what he taught about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Augustine expounded Christ's resurrection in his sermons, letters, Answer to Faustus the Manichean, the City of God, Expositions of the Psalms, and the Trinity. Saint Augustine on the Resurrection of Christ: Teaching, Rhetoric, and Reception explores what Augustine held about the centrality of Christ's resurrection from the dead, the agency of Christ's resurrection, and the nature of his risen existence. Leading scholar, Gerald O'Collins, investigates the impact of his resurrection on others and his mediatory role as the risen High Priest. O'Collins then unpicks Augustine's rhetorical justification for the resurrection of Christ: evidence from creation, human history, and the desires of all human beings. This groundbreaking study illustrates the enduring significance of Augustine's teaching on and apologetic for the resurrection, and updates, augments, and corrects what Augustine held.

Follows the threads of ancient rhetorical theory into the Middle Ages and examines the distinctly Medieval rhetorical genres of perceptive grammar, letter-writing, and preaching. These various forms are compared with one another and placed in the context of Medieval society. Covering the period 426 A.D. to 14.

Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-430) studied and taught rhetoric for nearly two decades until, at the age of thirty-one, he left his position as professor of rhetoric in Milan to embark upon his new life as a Christian. This was not a clean break in Augustine's thought. Previous scholarship has done much to show us that Augustine integrated rhetorical ideas about texts and speeches into his thought on homiletics, the formation of arguments, and scriptural interpretation. Over the past few decades a new movement among scholars has begun to show that Augustine also carried rhetorical concepts into areas of his thought that were beyond the typical purview of the rhetorical handbooks. In Rhetorical Economy in Augustine's Theology, Brian Gronewoller contributes to this new wave of scholarship by providing a detailed examination of Augustine's use of the rhetorical concept of economy in his theologies of creation, history, and evil, in order to gain insights into these fundamental aspects of his thought. This study finds that Augustine used rhetorical economy as the logic by which he explained a multitude of tensions within, and answered various challenges to, these three areas of his thought as well as others with which they intersect-including his understandings of providence, divine activity, and divine order.

Rhetorics of Reason and Desire traces the appearance of rhetoric in key literary works from classical times to the Middle Ages, focusing on the reception and transformation of Ciceronian rhetoric in Vergil's Aeneid, Augustine's Confessions and On Christian Doctrine, and the lyrics of the early troubadours.

In De cura pro mortuis gerenda Augustine interweaves an assessment of burial near the memorial of a martyr with a series of dream narratives. The seeming lack of coherence between argument and narrative in this treatise has puzzled many scholars. Combining an analysis of the overall structure of the argument and a detailed philological commentary, this study shows that Augustine’s text forms a well-composed unity. The study is based on discourse-linguistic and narratological concepts as well as an analysis of the global structure of the narratives. Relying on this combined approach Rose demonstrates how Augustine explores the full breadth of his narrative material in the service of his argument. In addition, this book situates Augustine’s text in its cultural-historical context.