Humanistae

Augustine and Preaching

I saw this quote on Jeff Meyer's blog, Corrigenda. I thought you guys would appreciate it.

Jeff says, "A passage from Fredrick van der Meer's wonderful biographical study Augustine the Bishop comes to mind:

Neither in Hippo nor in Carthage did Augustine have ground for complaining that his hearers were not receptive to their fingertips, and indeed in that day an orator who sought contact with his audience never failed to find it. Augustine certainly did so. Even the transcriptions of the notarii, from which much light and shade has naturally disappeared, show us that many sermons were punctuated by loud applause, sometimes, indeed, by complete dialogues between speaker and audience, all of which have been faithfully reproduced. Applause on these occasions was not so much a token of praise as of concurrence, or it was simply an indication that the listeners had followed the argument. Where a modern audience might do no more than slightly nod their heads or purse their lips, the people of Antiquity would use their voices to let the speaker know that they had understood him, that they had recognized a text or grasped a pun. This practice was so universal that Augustine actually reckoned with it, and even encouraged it, dividing his audience, on one occasion, into shouters and silent. "This lot of people indicate to me by their shouts that they had understood me, while the others indicated by their silence that they needed a more detailed explanation." Sometimes the shouts were confined to those who had been baptized--as, for instance, when there was some reference to the eucharistic feast which the catechumens could not understand. Thus the bishop, who at the time was dealing with the story of Joseph in Egypt, when "he heard a speech he did not understand," once called out to the unbaptized: Be baptized, then you will understand a language which as yet has no meaning for you! Then you will learn where your heart should truly be. When, upon this, the faithful, who recognized the reference to the sursum corda, acclaimed him, he went on: When I say these things many understand me and call out to me, while others remain mute, because they have never heard the language which they now fail to understand.

It is very apparent from all this that Augustine could always reckon on a lively interest, even when dealing with questions of pure dogma. When he began to quote a text that was popular or well know, they would interrupt him at the first words. . . . On one occasion he spoke about a man who, on his way to woo his bride, was attacked by a lion, and strangled it; immediately the church was filled with shouts of "Samson!" . . . . Once, when he was preaching in the basilica of Restitutus in Carthage on the passion of our Lord, he closed a superb climax with the words, "and last of all, domini exitus mortis--'With the Lord are the issues of death.'" Immediately came the cheers, for they had recognized three words from the Psalms. Yes, he agreed, it is in the Psalms. . . . Sometimes the applause tended to be premature. On one occasion the congregation guessed that he was going to analyze the idea of mundus and give it its double meaning of "wicked world" and of the "pure world created by God." They showed plainly that they had divined his purpose and Augustine cried out, "What have I said? What is there to cheer about? We are still battling with the problem and you have already started to cheer!"

Time and time again it is plain that the applause brings him on to a new idea, and he almost invariably reacts to it in some positive way. On occasion he could parry and strike back. . . It often happened that he gave expression to his pleasure in being understood: "Your cries show me that you have understood, but I ask permission of those who have understood me to give a brief explanation of what has been said, for the benefit of those who have not" (van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop [London: Sheed and Ward, 1961], pp. 427-430).

He did not find this everlasting repetition of applause in the least wearisome, despite the fact that, strictly speaking, he should have disapproved of it. He most certainly never ceased to react to it. When once they cheered at the words "for the joy of beholding my Lord," he immediately burst in upon them, exclaiming, "Why do you call out? Why are you carried away? Is it not because a little of this love [of God] is glowing within you?"