7. And almost all men who make use of eloquence do not cease to do all of those things which I have mentioned.
UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT
Why does Augustine seem to react so strongly against the "secular" rhetoricians, even as he is using many of their ideas? Does he seem to be overstating his opposition to them?
Why does Augustine believe that Christians should learn how to argue persuasively? What consequences might follow if Christians are untrained in rhetoric while pagans and heretics are well versed in it?
Why does Augustine believe that people cannot learn to be persuasive by reading other people's theories of how to be persuasive? What does he recommend instead?
Why does Augustine say that people should read "ecclesiastical literature" to find models of good rhetoric? Why does he exclude other kinds of persuasive texts?
What should the objectives of Christian teaching be, according to Augustine? What role does rhetoric play in achieving these objectives?
MAKING CONNECTIONS
Both Augustine and Wayne Booth (p. 198) write about the difficulty of teaching people how to be persuasive by explaining rules and concepts. Do the two agree on the best way to solve this problem? Where do they agree and where do they disagree?
Throughout this selection, Augustine appears to be addressing a reluctance in the Christian community to study secular topics such as rhetoric and persuasion, topics that Augustine himself believes are important to understand. How do his arguments
compare to those that Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (p. 189) makes about allowing women to study secular branches of knowledge?
3. The great medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas was deeply influenced by the writings of Augustine. Read Aquinas's argument on war from Summa Theologica (p. 483) and assess whether or not it could be considered Christian rhetoric of the sort that Augustine advocates in this passage.
WRITING ABOUT THE TEXT
Evaluate Augustine's contention that rhetoric can be better learned by imitation than by following rules. Do you think he is correct? Does it apply to other fields of study as well? What might be the limitations of this approach to education?
Compare Augustine's view of rhetoric to Plato's (p. 166). Augustine believes that rhetoric can be used for good or for bad, while Plato believes that it is inherently dangerous and likely to lead to deception. Who do you think is right? Why?
sor juana ines de la cruz
from La Respuesta [1691]
JUANA INЈS DE ASBAJE Y RAMfREZ DE SANTILLANA (1651-1695) was born near Mexico City. At the time, all of present-day Mexico was part of the Spanish colony called New Spain. Juana was the illegitimate daughter of a prominent Spanish officer. She was raised by her mother, the daughter of a prominent local farmer, and grandparents, and by all accounts was an intellectual prodigy from a very young age. While still a child, she learned Greek and Latin from the books in her grandfather's library and began writing poetry in both Spanish and the Mexican Aztec language.
By her teens, Juana was known throughout New Spain as a writer and poet. She attracted the patronage of the viceroy of New Spain, Antonio Sebastian de Toledo, who had her poems published throughout the colony and in Spain. As a woman in a highly patriarchal society, however, she had very few opportunities to continue her education except through the church. In 1669, she entered the Order of Saint Jerome, a cloistered order of nuns, where she became Sor (Sister) Juana Ines de la Cruz.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz is remembered today as one of Mexico's greatest poets and national treasures. Her picture is on the widely circulated 200 peso bill (worth about 15 U.S. dollars), and statues of her have been erected in public spaces throughout the country. In her own lifetime, though, she faced constant censure from a religious establishment that did not believe that women had the right to an education.
La Respuesta ("The Answer") is addressed to a fictional fellow sister, Sor Filota, but is actually a response to the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz, who had recently reprimanded her for having published comments critical of a male Portuguese priest. In her response, Sor Juana describes her own education and upbringing and attributes her desire to learn and write to God. She also argues that women, like men, need to study subjects in many different fields if they are to understand the Holy Scriptures and the teachings of the church, and she points to many great women of the Bible and of classical antiquity who served God and society by becoming learned. Like most writers of her day, Sor Juana bases most of her rhetoric on appeals to the authority of scripture and on logical conclusions that can be drawn using reason from sacred texts.
My most illustrious senora, dear lady. It has not been my will, my poor health, or my justifiable apprehension that for so many days delayed my response. How could I write, considering that at my very first step my clumsy pen encountered two obstructions in its path? The first (and, for me, the most uncompromising) is to know how to reply to your most learned, most prudent, most holy, and most loving letter. For I recall that when Saint Thomas, the Angelic Doctor of Scholasticism, was asked about his silence regarding his teacher Albertus Magnus,[78] he replied that he had not spoken because he knew no words worthy of Albertus. With so much greater reason, must not I too be silent? Not, like the Saint, out of humility, but because in reality I know nothing I can say that is worthy of you. The second obstruction is to know how to express my appreciation for a favor as unexpected as extreme, for having my scribblings printed, a gift so immeasurable as to surpass my most ambitious aspiration, my most fervent desire, which even as an entity of reason never entered my thoughts. Yours was a kindness, finally, of such magnitude that words cannot express my gratitude, a kindness exceeding the bounds of appreciation, as great as it was unexpected—which is as Quintilian2 said: aspirations engender minor glory; benefices, major. To such a degree as to impose silence on the receiver.
When the blessedly sterile—that she might miraculously become fecund—Mother of John the Baptist saw in her house such an extraordinary visitor as the Mother of the Word,3 her reason became clouded and her speech deserted her; and thus, in the place of thanks, she burst out with doubts and questions: And whence is to me [that the mother of my Lord should come to me?] And whence cometh such a thing to me? And so also it fell to Saul when he found himself the chosen, the annointed, King of Israeclass="underline" Am I not a son of Jemini, of the least tribe of Israel, and my kindred the last among all the families of the tribe of Benjamin? Why then hast thou spoken this word to me? And thus say I, most honorable lady. Why do I receive such favor? By chance, am I other than an humble nun, the lowliest creature of the world, the most unworthy to occupy your attention? "Wherefore then speakest thou so to me?" "And whence is this to me?" Nor to the first obstruction do I have any response other than I am little worthy of your eyes; nor to the second, other than wonder, in the stead of thanks, saying that I am not capable of thanking you for the smallest part of that which I owe you. . . . And, in truth, I have written nothing except when compelled and constrained, and then only to give pleasure to others; not alone without pleasure of my own, but with absolute repugnance, for I have never deemed myself one who has any worth in letters or the wit necessity demands of one who would write; and thus my customary response to those who press me, above all in sacred matters, is, what capacity of reason have I? what application? what resources? what rudimentary knowledge of such matters beyond that of the most superficial scholarly degrees? Leave these matters to those who understand them; I wish no quarrel with the