The Rhetoric of Conversion and the Conversion of Rhetoric in Augustine’s Confessions

Rocki T. Wentzel (Ohio State University)

During the earlier books of the Confessions, Augustine uses models from pagan literature to illustrate his worldly desires. Once these models become inadequate to describe the events leading up to his conversion, Augustine turns to Christian exempla, which not only structure his narrative but shape the conversion experience itself. These exempla, which are critical in Augustine’s pivotal decision of celibacy, are proffered by the hands of Continentia, depicted by Augustine as a seductive rhetorician. He does not, however, abandon the earlier models but appropriates their erotic language in his portrayal of Continentia and in the final stages of his narrative. In doing so, Augustine not only tells the story of his converted desire but also effects a conversion of rhetoric in the process.

Augustine, by illustrating his conversion as a product of Continentia’s rhetoric and using rhetoric of his own to persuade his audience, situates rhetoric centrally in his conversion. Raised and educated in a world of rhetoric dominated by the Second Sophistic, Augustine marks a transformation in rhetoric born out of an “attempt to assimilate classical rhetoric to Christian needs” (Mazzeo, 175). Augustine combines Ciceronian fundamentals with a return to the truth and instruction valorized in Plato’s Phaedrus, but with a Christian twist: persuasion depends upon, not character or proofs, but the audience’s sense of caritas, that human love which most resembles the love of God (Confessions, 10.3.4). That is not to say that character carries no weight. According to Kennedy “to Augustine ethos is Christian works, the life of the teacher, and the extent to which it accords with his teaching” (Kennedy, 157). In other words a Christian rhetor is himself acting as an exemplum. Augustine is displaying his wretchedness (bad ethos) to his audience, while also exhibiting the renewal of his character through God’s grace and victory over his vileness.

The Christian rhetoric of the Confessions is marked notably by giving and imitation. No one comes to Continentia unless she is granted by God (neminem posse esse continentem nisi tu dederis 6.11.20). Continentia, in turn, extends exempla, the imitation of which results in conversion. Augustine, in narrating his conversion story through exempla and offering himself as an exemplum, participates in an ongoing process of imitation, charity, and persuasion, in the hopes that others will follow his example by discovering to what extent they must cry out to God.

Works Cited

Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony. 1962. “The Rhetoric of Silence.” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol.23, No.2.

Kennedy, George A. 1980. Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times. Chapel Hill.