Inner voices exposed: Fictitious therapeutic dialogues in Augustine’s Sermones ad populum

Abstract

The therapeutic intentions of Augustine’s preaching have recently been noted by scholars who have focused on how the cures of varying states of emotions are discussed in the sermons. One of the techniques used in this task was sermocinatio, or fictitious dialogue between different characters during the sermon. In this article, I will discuss three different cases in which Augustine makes use of this traditional rhetorical device in voicing out varying reactions and inner responses to ethical instructions on forgiveness, greed and fear. As in other contexts of the fictitious dialogues in Augustine’s sermons, the preacher regularly attempts to answer these voices with the living, authoritative voice of Scripture, thus confronting his hearers with a directly personal and divine address. The aim of this address is to offer functional and habitual therapy for common forms of temptations in Augustine’s audience. The entertainment value of these dialogues is designed to make them persuasive and easy to remember in actual instances of mala cogitatio.

Introduction

The use of sermocinationes, or fictitious dialogues,¹ in Augustine’s sermons is mentioned not only in recent and older handbooks, but also by scholars discussing the various themes of the sermons, or offering more extensive analyses of Augustine’s practices of biblical exegesis.² Indeed, not even a casual reader can miss the nearly ubiquitous presence of these anonymous, generic, or named voice-overs in the sermons.

Thomas Martin has shown how Augustine was able to appropriate Paul’s living voice in formulating and answering a host of theological and exegetical problems.³ Martin illustrated how the device of sermocinatio becomes much more than an entertaining relief amidst more serious preaching matters: the “live” interviews with Paul give Augustine’s own Pauline interpretation the authority of an authentic biblical voice.⁴ In his study on Augustine’s rhetorics, Lutz Mechlinsky also commented on the use of the device in both exegetical and polemical contexts.⁵ In Mechlinsky’s view, fictitious dialogue, or dialektikon, was used e.g. to arm Augustine’s audience with ready-made answers for discussing with “heretics.”⁶ Somewhat more recently, Robert Dodaro has demonstrated the ways in which Augustine used living voices and dialogues to persuade his audience not to rush into violent and riotous action.⁷ Furthermore, Gert Partoens has offered a close reading of Augustine’s polemical strategies in an anti-Pelagian sermon (s. 165), and also analyzes Augustine’s cunning use of fictitious dialogue in order to indoctrinate and entertain his audience with a semifictional version of the Pelagian notion of sin and baptism.⁸

Apart from a handful of studies focusing on individual sermons, there are, however, no comprehensive and systematic analyses of Augustine’s use of the device in the Sermones ad populum (s.) that cover the entire collection of his extant sermons. Even a cursory survey of the sermones reveals that Augustine was able to use living, first person voices in a variety of ways and in speeches of disparate lengths and for different purposes. ⁹ To claim that the device was used mainly for creating variety and emotional suspense is to underestimate the theological and rhetorical potential of sermocinatio used by Augustine.¹⁰ In recent years, general studies on Augustine’s preaching have appreciated the bishop’s skills in orchestrating biblical texts into moving and exciting voices that challenge and goad his listeners to communicate with the divine word.¹¹ In this article, my aim is to demonstrate how fictitious dialogues served Augustine’s goals as a preacher to address the inner motives and desires of the members of his audience in ways that can be labelled therapeutic; in other words, these sermocinationes were designed to provide practical tools for identifying one’s emotions, to expose the cognitive processes related to the most common forms of both the “first thoughts,” or pre-passions, and proper emotions, and finally, to direct and submit the inner speeches of these emotions to the address of divine voice in the Bible.¹²

It has to be kept in mind, however, that the uses of fictitious dialogues were not limited to therapeutic purposes, because imaginary conversations and interrogations were, of course, useful in polemical and catechetical contexts too, as some previous analyses have shown.¹³ More than an external ornament in order to amuse the appreciative audience or to stir the interest of a more indifferent one, fictitious dialogues proved to be an essential tool for the preacher in shedding light on the hidden and quiet emotive objections of the listeners by wording them in expressis verbis during the sermon, and then answering them with the divine voices of Scripture.

Therapeutic sermocinationes – How to respond to inner evil thoughts and temptations?

With the use of fictitious therapeutic dialogues, Augustine addressed his audience with imaginary characters, giving voice to different suggestive thoughts (malae cogitationes) and/or emotions which disrupted Christian virtues. Typically in the sermons, these thoughts and emotions included anger and hatred (ira, odium) and the consequent lust for revenge; fear (timor) of bodily suffering resulting from choosing the right way of conduct; or the desire (cupiditas, concupiscentia) for wealth, comfort, or securing happiness in this life. In the Stoic theory of emotions, a simple classification of emotional responses into a four-fold division of fear, pain, pleasure, and joy was used – Augustine’s familiarity with these classifications and theories is well known and exhaustively studied.¹⁴ However, their appearance and use in his sermons, especially in regard to how Augustine identified them and provided methods of therapy for each variation of these emotions, remains a fruitful field of research. Since Sarah C. Byers’s and Paul Kolbet’s ground-breaking studies, it has been an established fact that one of Augustine’s main tasks as a preacher was to apply the theoretical commonplaces of ancient therapies of emotions into his oral discourses, and also to offer practical guidance in breaking harmful habits with various effective cures.¹⁵ Especially Byers’s work has convincingly revealed the underlying theoretical patterns of Augustine’s sermons.¹⁶ In the following sections, I will investigate a selection of Augustine’s sermocinationes, which show us a preacher who aims to mould his audience and persuade them to order their emotions according to their new life in Christ. The selection has been made to represent sermocinationes that occur as combined to the generic emotions of the ancient theorists (cupiditas, timor) or are otherwise familiar from the philosophical traditions and the discussions on the emotions and their therapy (ira). Thus, in the following three sections we will see how Augustine addresses the emotions of anger (ira, or its hardened form, hatred, odium), desire (cupiditas), and fear (timor) by way of the device of fictitious dialogue. As it happens, instances of these emotions are also quantitatively the most common topics addressed in the therapeutic sermocinationes.¹⁷

While many of these therapeutic dialogues aimed at giving form to various kinds of evil inner thoughts (malae cogitationes) in order to tease them out into the light and then provide a cure for them,¹⁸ the dialogues also have an entertaining value as such; in other words, Augustine the preacher has a keen eye for the comical element in one’s greedy or bitter hidden thoughts. This fits well with Augustine’s own theoretical views on the goals of preaching in general, as proposed in De doctrina christiana (particularly the goals of mouere and delectare),¹⁹ but is also found in a more specific observation in De catechizandis rudibus (cat. rud.) 19, where Augustine directs the Carthaginian deacon Deogratias to “identify” or name various cogitationes in order to pique the hearers’ interest while preaching to them.

Because there are no clear reasons why such a person would, without saying a word, no longer be willing to listen, something is to be said to him, once he is seated, to counter chance thoughts of worldly affairs (cogitationes saecularium negotiorum). As I have said, this can be done in a good-humoured or in a serious vein. If it is really thoughts such as these that had seized hold of his mind, they will then shrink back, as though accused by name (nominatim accusatae); but if this is not the case, and it is simply the fact that our hearer is worn out from listening, then his flagging attention can be reawakened when, in the manner I have indicated, we say something unforeseen and exceptional about such thoughts, as if in fact they were what was responsible for his inattention.²⁰

This passage shows not only the preacher’s realistic view of the challenges in holding the listeners’ attention, but also his insistence on giving a cognitive and audible form to the random and disrupting cogitationes lingering in the minds of the listeners. In Augustine’s view, it is worthwhile identifying (or, at least trying to identify) and confronting these thoughts with emotive force (hilari aut tristi modo, note that Augustine explicitly also recommends a comical application of identifying cogitationes), both for rhetorical and theological reasons.

Exercises in forgiveness: dialogues with angry voices

The emotion of anger (ira) was a common topic in the ancient therapy of emotions.²¹ Augustine’s list of generic emotions in conf. 2, 13 combines, as was usual, anger with the wish for revenge for the sake of justice.²² In s. 49, Augustine wants his listeners to imagine themselves in an everyday situation in which they have grown to hate someone. Thus, the sermon is a practical exercise in addressing a hardened habit (odium) of anger (ira). This exercise in virtue begins with the preacher exhorting his hearers to search their souls and to “judge themselves” (s. 49, 5).²³ Judging oneself is a task conducted using the words of the Bible, which work like a mirror (speculum) in which one can see one’s true moral condition. The preacher, however, does not immediately offer his hearers any particular scripture passages to aid them. Instead, he describes an instance from “human affairs” (quod abundat in rebus humanis). Imagine, suggests Augustine, that you have two friends, who start to hate each other. Both of your friends try to win you over to their side. And so, their voices (uox) are heard in the basilica: “You are not my friend, since you are my enemy’s friend.”²⁴ The preacher advises his hearers to find a cure for the disease of anger (iratus) and hate (odium).²⁵ A sermocinatio follows:

Say to him:

 

YOU:

Why do you want me to be his enemy?

FRIEND:

Because he’s my enemy (he answers).

YOU:

So you want me to be your enemy’s enemy? What I ought to be the enemy of, is your vice. This one you want to make me the enemy of, is a human being. You have another enemy, whose enemy I ought to be, if I am your friend.

FRIEND:

Who is this other enemy of mine? (he answers).

YOU:

Your vice.

FRIEND:

What’s my vice? (he asks)

YOU:

The hatred you hate your friend with.²⁶

Only after staging this setting, does the preacher give his audience the first scriptural advice on forgiveness, drawn from Matt. 7: 3–4 on a splinter and a plank in the eye. Augustine explains that “anger,” a temporary lapse into the state of ira, may habituate into a much more serious sickness of the soul, that is, a cultivated habit of hatred (ira inueterata fit odium), and that these states are denoted respectively by the images of the splinter and the plank in Jesus’ parable. The description of the process of habituation shows both an acute eye and experience on the side of the bishop. The gradual progress of growing hatred consists of consents which are repeated again and again and prolonged enjoyment of the emotion, together with a careful nurture and irrigation of the “stick” (festuca).²⁷ “You went to sleep with it, and you got up with it.”²⁸

From this point on, Augustine seems to converse with a vaguely defined “you” (tu) – the fictitious friend who has fallen prey to hatred? a member of the audience nursing odium? or better still, both? – and exhorts them to stop cultivating the vice and to start pulling out the hatred.²⁹ Then, in §7-10, Augustine challenges the hating friend/listener with the voices of the Bible, the liturgy, and God himself to abandon hatred and to forgive one’s friend. Hatred is, however, persistent, and so is the hateful voice, which in turn makes a series of excuses for the state of the hater, conflated here as contrasting voices in the first person:

YOU:

What does hating matter? And what’s wrong with a man hating his enemy?

JOHN:

Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.

AUG:

Whoever hates, is a murderer!

YOU:

What do I care about being a murderer? ³⁰

PRAYER IN THE LITURGY:

Forgive us our debts, just as we too forgive our debtors.

AUG:

Are you going to say them [sc. the words of prayer], or aren’t you?

YOU:

I’m not saying them. […]

AUG:

Tell your soul:

YOU:

Stop hating. How will I pray, how will I be able to say Forgive us our debts? Well, I can say this, of course, but how can I say what follows? Just as we too.

AUG:

We too what?

YOU:

Just as we too forgive.³¹

Augustine then reminds the hater of the example of Jesus on the cross. The audience has to listen to their Lord’s voice: “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” Again, the hater comes up with an excuse:

YOU:

But he could do that (you say to me). I can’t. I, after all, am just a man, he’s God. I’m a man, that man is the God-man.³²

The preacher generously admits to his opponent that doing what Jesus did may simply be too much (multum est) for a human being. At this point, the preacher introduces the person of Saint Stephen, the protomartyr. The sermon climaxes in a lively show of Augustine depicting the stoning of Stephen and his act of forgiveness “in front of the eyes” (Augustine constantly repeats uideamus, spectemus, quasi ante oculos nostros) of the audience.³³ Augustine creates suspense in making his audience guess how deeply Stephen would have hated the Jews from the bottom of his heart, and what kind of cold and hard words could have come out from his lips. The preacher, together with his fictitious opponent, finally addresses Stephen himself: “What do you say? Let me hear. Let me see whether I may at least be able to imitate you.” Augustine ends the sermon with the voice of Stephen giving the final response to the habitual hater. The last word is given not to the bitter excuses of odium but to forgiveness.

STEPHEN:

Lord, do not hold this crime against them.

AUG:

Saying this, he fell asleep. Oh, what blissful sleep, what true and perfect rest! There you are (ecce), that’s what resting really is – praying for enemies.³⁴

Sermon 179A (=s. Wilm. 2) on the Ten Commandments and caritas as the fulfilment of the law winds up in a context of cure and convalescence in §6.³⁵ As in s. 49, Jesus’ instruction to forgive one’s debtors leads Augustine to engage in a discussion with a fictitious voice from the audience on the subject of revenge and forgiveness. Here too the sermocinatio can be seen as the preacher’s attempt to grasp the inner speech of the soul that he wishes to cure by giving an audible voice to the emotional temptation of hate and lust for revenge.³⁶ Augustine introduces a fictitious “Bitter Christian” who has been harmed by another person who has “taken his money.” The Bitter Christian only “cheats himself,” however, if forgiveness is not extended to the offender.

In any event, you are going to say:

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

He was extremely brutal; he was after my blood (sanguinem quaerit).³⁷

AUG:

He was after the blood of your flesh; you yourself were after the death of your soul.

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

I won’t forgive him (he says). He’s done me such harm; he’s crossed me and opposed me so much.

AUG:

You’re treating yourself much worse.

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

I won’t forgive him.

AUG:

I beg you, pardon him, forgive him.

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

But he isn’t begging me.

AUG:

You do his begging for him.

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

No, I certainly will not forgive him.³⁸

In this way, the preacher describes – with perfect accuracy and in colourful tones – the persistent inner speech always ending with the same anguished conclusion: “I will not forgive.” Even the preacher’s offer to liaise between the two parties and apologise on the part of the offender is of no avail. The habit is hardened; anger and hatred (ira, odium) make the inner voice of the fictitious speaker repetitious and persistent, just as a consuetudo in hating would make a real person as well.

Augustine then confronts the Bitter Christian by pointing out that the real offender does not live outside or next door, but rather is found in his own inner life (habes intus quod domes). The Bitter Christian should retreat to within himself (redi ad te) and direct all anger and opposition towards a much more dangerous enemy than the offender in business. At this point, the preacher brings another person and voice into play, that of the apostle Paul. Augustine advises his bitter friend that he should start perceiving both his inner thoughts and his inner enemy as the “law of sin in his members” (Rom 7:23–25, lex peccati quae est in membris meis). Nonetheless, the Bitter Christian will not give up and makes yet another objection:

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

But he’s plundered me.³⁹

Augustine weaves this objection into Paul’s words of lex peccati taking the inner ego captive. This is a much worse fate to anyone than having lost some money. The preacher thus combines the revengeful and bitter inner speeches of the Bitter Christian with Paul’s reply, which he subsequently reads from Rom 7: 23–25. Introducing Paul as a voice addressing the Bitter Christian also works as an instrument of recognition; the soul awakens to identify its real enemy and the real fight, which is not waged against sums of money in court, but rather waged inside the heart (intus), in favour of a virtuous life. This is reflected in the language of the preacher, as words and actions such as “seeing,” “observing,” “identifying,” and “recognising” abound (non adtendis, non uides, agnouisti, uidisti, cognouisti, intellege, uide).⁴⁰ The call to identify the inner enemy of concupiscence correctly, leads to a final objection from Augustine’s partner in dialogue:

BITTER CHRISTIAN:

But I take delight in justice.

Again, the preacher cleverly anticipates a common excuse for harbouring resentment and bitterness: vengeance is supposedly sought for the sake of justice; anger and hatred are harboured because of justice. Augustine, however, seems sceptical of the sincerity of such a motivation and patiently continues to address the Bitter Christian with the voice of Scripture. Therefore, the preacher deliberately echoes the words of the resisting inner objection to fit nicely with Paul’s description of the Christian ego in Rom 7.⁴¹ Thus, Paul, once again, exhorts the bitter Christian to “take delight in God’s law” precisely by fighting against his temptations, hatred and lust for revenge. Such recognition leads the Christian to take on the role of the wounded man on the road to Jericho who was found and tended by Christ and his sacraments and, being brought to the inn, was “cured in the Church” (in ecclesia curaris).⁴²

In the above cases, we have seen how Augustine applies analyses of anger, a common example discussed in ancient theories of emotions, into his sermons and sermocinationes. The fictitious voice of an angry person is presented as a cognitive model of how the emotion of anger (ira) and its habituated form, hatred (odium), “sound” when confronted with the Christian obligation to forgive one’s enemies. These cases also testify to Augustine’s careful and nuanced appreciation of the procedures related to “curing” long-standing habits of harbouring bitterness and wishing for revenge in one’s inner thoughts – pulling out such emotional splinters from one’s flesh is not a quick job, and has to be conducted with a continuous exposure to biblical admonitions and examples, such as Stephen, who prayed for his enemies even in his adversities. Finally, Augustine emphasises the importance of correctly identifying one’s emotional responses: biblical voices (for instance, the apostle Paul’s voice in Romans 7) offer cures for anger and hatred by naming and revealing the correct state of a habituated emotion to the listener, thus leading her to seek an effective cure in the hands of Christ and His body.

The evil moth of greed

In addition to treating the evil thoughts of hatred and lust for revenge by means of sermocinationes, Augustine also frequently addresses other forms of temptation – those of greed and avarice (auaritia, cupiditas) – by means of living voices. Desire (cupiditas, libido) in its various forms was one of the generic emotions in the Stoic tetrachord and appeared often in discussions among ancient theorists of emotions.⁴³ In preaching, Augustine often addressed this generic emotion in its particular form of greed, making for entertaining pieces of fictitious dialogue.⁴⁴ Thus, for example, in s. 61, 4, Augustine introduces a fictitious trader and gives him some peculiar advice for investment: to give up money and start collecting righteousness.⁴⁵ The trader prefers having his money:

AUG:

I’m advising you how to make a profit; learn the tricks of trading. After all, you admire a trader who sells lead and acquires gold; won’t you admire a trader who disburses money and acquires righteousness?

TRADER:

But I (you say) don’t disburse money because I haven’t got any righteousness. Let the fellow who has some righteousness disburse money. I haven’t got any righteousness. At least let me have some money.⁴⁶

After this exchange, the preacher admonishes his interlocutor to become a “beggar of God” (mendicus Dei), and offers the trader Christ’s promise in the Gospel (qui petit accipit).⁴⁷

Somewhat further on in the same sermon, Augustine draws yet another parody of the egoistic drives of a generic Rich Man whose answers undoubtedly sounded just as offensive to the preacher’s congregation as they do to us today:

AUG:

Let your superfluities provide the poor with their necessities.

RICH MAN:

But I (you say) have expensive meals, I eat expensive food.

AUG:

What about the poor man?

RICH MAN:

Cheap stuff; the poor eat cheap food. I eat expensive food.

AUG:

I’ve a question […] the expensive food goes into you; what happens when it’s gone in? If we had mirrors in our stomachs, wouldn’t we be disgusted by all the expensive foods you have stuffed yourself with? […]

RICH MAN:

But my expensive dishes (you say) taste nicer.⁴⁸

The Rich Man repeats his words and contrasts his own needs and wellbeing (ego, ego) to the cheap food of the poor: the language and phrases used by this character are deliberately egoistic, evoking images of a wealthy and selfish glutton whose moral reasoning (“my dishes taste nicer”) is ridiculously materialistic.⁴⁹ When concluding this dialogue, the preacher reminds his interlocutor that if he aspires to be a Christian, he should remind himself of the reality of having to travel a common road together with poor Christians (unam uiam ambulatis).

Sermon 177 opens with a reading of 1 Tim 6:7–10, after which the preacher leads his congregation immediately into the crux of things (§1) by introducing a personification of Auaritia.⁵⁰ She is a woman of bad reputation amongst the philosophers and orators, but the preacher claims this is only in words. In reality, says Augustine, everybody wishes her to be their mistress (suscepta). The stage is thus set for the preacher to attempt an address of such an inner enemy to teach his congregation how much more valuable the inner riches of righteousness and love are (§§2-4). From s. 177, 5 onwards, however, Augustine moves to examine the subject using the inner thoughts and voices of the rich and the poor, both tempted by the seductions of greed. In §5, he warns his audience not to lie during the liturgy, because there should be no conflict within their hearts when they are exhorted to “lift up their hearts” (sursum corda). An inner dialogue ensues between a Christian’s heart (cor), and the voice of Christ (ueritas) in Matt 6:21.⁵¹ Augustine the therapist continues extensively to challenge the inner states and voices of his hearers who, in turn, then object and make excuses in order to get around the preacher’s accusations and warnings. Consequently, the preacher first presents a colourful description of the restless life of a greedy person (greed being compared to a disease), and subsequently introduces a fictitious Christian who claims not to love his wealth and money at all, and who, therefore, thinks he is perfectly safe to join the Eucharistic liturgy. Augustine confronts this Christian with the voice of Paul in 1 Tim. Augustine wants his partner in dialogue to “say the words in his heart and from his heart,” voicing these thoughts in explicit oratio recta.⁵²

The therapeutic address continues with a fictitious rich person claiming to avoid all temptations that his riches may pose to him and refraining from placing his hope on uncertain wealth. Augustine again proffers medical attention to combat the disease with the help of Paul’s words.⁵³

In s. 177, 11, Augustine directly challenges the inner speech of the rich Christian who makes excuses against the apostle’s final test concerning whether auaritia resides as a secret mistress in the hidden chamber of one’s heart. Augustine calls this inner speech “evil thoughts” (malae cogitationes), stating that they fester the hearer’s heart with their voices like an insect buzzing in one’s ear (tinea, “moth”, cf. Matt 6:20):

MOTH:

I won’t give, in case I don’t have anything tomorrow.

MOTH:

If I haven’t got savings deposited, who will give me anything, when I start being in want?

MOTH:

I’ve plenty to live on, quite enough to live on; [B]ut what if I have to go to law? What will I meet such expenses with?⁵⁴

Augustine then suggests that there is a wonderful insecticide that will squash the mosquito of the evil thoughts (mala cogitatio, cogitationis uermiculum, maligna tinea). This cure is the voice of God (hoc tibi Deus dicit), promising something great to the worrisome Christian. The sermon then ends with the preacher proclaiming a divine promise from the Scripture in oratio recta:

GOD:

I will not forsake you; I will not desert you. You were afraid of I don’t know what evils, for that reason you were saving up money; count me as your guarantor (fideiussorem).

AUG:

That’s what God says to you. It isn’t a man, not your equal or you yourself […]⁵⁵

As we have seen, s. 177 offers yet another illustrating case of Augustine’s attempt to flesh out the inner thoughts and objections of his hearers in voices that are spoken out loud and subsequently confronted by the authoritative voices of Paul and God. Within a single sermon the process is rather extensive and shows Augustine’s craft as a public speaker and as a therapist of evil thoughts. He anticipates the initial responses of his hearers’ thoughts to the exhortations of not loving wealth and puts the fictitious rich Christian to a practical test that will demonstrate the quality of his love in an exterior and measurable way.⁵⁶

A constant feature of Augustine’s sermons, therefore, is giving voice to objections and excuses when preaching about greed and wealth. Thus, for example, he composes a dialogue with a beggar (s. 14, 3–5) who relies too much on having no money at all. In s. 21, Augustine talks with “someone” (aliquis) who tries to weasel herself out of heeding the preacher’s words on the true value of creation and God and of the right order of one’s loves. Augustine even gives voice to voiceless created things (creatura) to demonstrate that the created order of things requires a qualified order of loves.⁵⁷ God himself (and in §9, his servant Job) finally enters the scene to answer these inner voices of temptation and excuses and this is explicitly noticed by the bishop. “That’s what the Lord your God is saying to you inside, where only you can hear, and the one who is speaking there is the one who speaks the truth. […] Don’t turn a deaf ear.”⁵⁸

In s. 86, Augustine introduces two prosopa of seducing ladies (dominae) to his audience, Ms. Avarice (auaritia) and Ms. Extravagance (luxuria).⁵⁹ Both of these personifications have their own “speeches,” or ways of talking (allocutiones), and the preacher presents both of their arguments.⁶⁰ Augustine warns his congregation that these voices do not simply issue straightforward commands, but rather they appeal and tempt with propositions that may sound familiar to his hearers (“save up for your children,” “take thought for yourself in the future,” “you are going to die, and you don’t know when,” and “treat yourself well”).⁶¹ Augustine does not contradict or refute these arguments, but deconstructs them, as it were, and gives them a new content. The second half of the sermon is thus a clever deconstruction of the voices and words of auaritia and luxuria, in which Christ appropriates the words of the temptations with quite the opposite meanings. One should indeed take thought for the future – not in this life, however, but in the life everlasting. Moreover, the advice given by Ms. Extravagance should also be heeded: to genuinely treat oneself well is to give to the Lord and the poor. Thus, the preacher attempts to take advantage of the form of the inner speech within his hearers, and of their temptations and silent objections, by filling them with a new content.

Avarice has no possible objection to make. You shouted at these words. Speak against her, don’t let her defeat you, don’t let her have more influence over your hearts than the one who exhorts us to lift up our hearts […] Listen [to the Lord], accept his good advice. Don’t spare your treasures, spend as much you can. This used to be the voice of extravagance; it has become the voice of the Lord (italics mine).⁶²

The larger theological context of these dialogues is also clear enough. Augustine locates them in the inner life of a baptised Christian who must grow in caritas and not give in to the seducing suggestions of his inner enemies.⁶³ By using traditional rhetorical devices such as prosopopoeia and sermocinatio, the preacher first gives an oral and exterior form to evil thoughts, and then offers the cure to his listeners, i.e. the words and living voices of Scripture.⁶⁴

As with the case of anger and hatred, Augustine addressed the emotion of desire and its particular form of greed in his sermons by using fictitious dialogues and personifications. Once again, sermocinationes reveal Augustine’s familiarity with the definitions and problems related to the more theoretical expositions of emotions. In connection with greed, Augustine once more gives voice to the inner speeches of malae cogitationes, or the suggestive temptations that entice the listener to submit to avarice: the congregation is entertained with images and imperative sentences of Greed, commanding them to follow egoism and luxurious lifestyles. The fictitious dialogues exploit images of habit and repetition (the Rich Glutton, a persistent buzzing insect), and they are composed to reveal to the listeners the real motivation of the deceptively rational arguments that are most often presented in justifying greedy and egoistic actions. These voices are opposed to divine biblical voices, once again designed to provide the much-needed medicine for the malady of greed.

He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse

Our third case of therapeutic fictitious dialogues concerns situations in which Augustine depicts the members of his audience as being under pressure to give false testimony and to lie. Such a situation triggers several staged dialogues in the sermones ad populum. At first sight, such a special and particular setting does not seem to have a bearing on the commonplaces of ancient theories of emotions, but a closer reading of the dialogues reveals these sermocinationes to be exercises in controlling and addressing fear (timor), again, one of the generic emotions of the Stoic tetrachord.

Thus, in s. 36, 10 we find a “poor man” (pauper) who is threatened by a “powerful man” (potens) to give false evidence against the latter’s enemy. The preacher gives voice to two different replies to such pressure: the first is a brief denial, which, however, falters under severe threats; the second is a more extensive monologue of a person who will not be persuaded to lie even under threat to her property or life.⁶⁵

Variations of this situation appear e.g. in s. 94A, 3, where the acts of martyrs are re-interpreted to fit different cases in Augustine’s own time. The preacher claims that to give false evidence is comparable to denying Christ during persecution. To illustrate his case, Augustine constructs a dialogue between himself and a feeble Christian who has surrendered to the coercion of an “aristocrat” (nobilis), and points out that even threats against one’s bodily health or life are less dangerous than doing damage to one’s own soul by lying.⁶⁶

Again, in s. 107, 8–10, the preacher casts his audience in slightly different roles at critical occasions, as in when they are pressed to comply with a powerful person’s wishes and threats. In the first case, the Christian is called to act as a judge in a fictitious case and thus meets the temptation of corrupting justice. The preacher gives the following voice to the temptation: “I am offending this man, he’s very powerful at the moment, he will insinuate bad things about me –I’m outlawed, I will lose everything I have.”⁶⁷ Augustine then turns to the other case, represented by a poorer Christian, who has no hope of being a judge. This social segment of the bishop’s audience has its own temptations which are described in a more extensive fictitious dialogue between the poor Christian, the powerful person and Christ.

AUG:

A rich and powerful man sends for you, to give some false evidence on his behalf. What are you going to do now? Tell me. You’ve a nice little property; you’ve worked hard, you’ve built it up, you’ve saved. That man is insistent:

POWERFUL MAN:

Give false evidence on my behalf, and I will give you so much of this and so much of that.

AUG:

You, not being the sort to have your eyes on what belongs to others, say:

POOR CHRISTIAN:

I couldn’t dream of it: I’m not after what God hasn’t wished to give me, I don’t accept it. Leave me alone.

POWERFUL MAN:

You don’t accept what I can give? I’ll take away what you have.⁶⁸

The voice of the powerful person forms a test and a temptation for Augustine’s congregation, and the preacher invites his listeners to undertake a severe mental exercise: “Take your seat of judgment on yourself, set yourself before yourself and stretch yourself on the rack (equuleum) of God’s commandment, and torture yourself with fear (timore), and don’t be soft on yourself; answer yourself.”⁶⁹ The living voices of such a situation not only verbalise a realistic form of discourse in which the Christian is able to identify his fears and anticipate this kind of scenario beforehand so as to prepare himself for the coming upheavals,⁷⁰ but Augustine also provides his hearers with firm and consoling answers, again, in the voice of Christ (and a little later on, in the voice of Job 1:21), in the following way:

POWERFUL MAN:

I will strip you of what you have acquired with such hard work, unless you give false evidence on my behalf.

AUG:

Give him back:

CHRIST:

Beware of all avarice. O my servant (he will say to you) whom I have redeemed and set free, whom from being a servant I have adopted as a brother, whom I have placed in my body as a part of it, listen to me: let him strip you of what you have acquired, don’t let him strip you of me. You are holding onto what is yours in case you perish? Haven’t I told you, Beware of all avarice?⁷¹

The setting of these cases always presents Augustine’s congregation with a powerful person and a poor underdog. Fear of losing one’s health, savings, or reputation, looms over these mini dramas, and the preacher composes fictitious voices willing to use false words and oaths to escape such threating situations. Following Stoic wisdom of reining in fear, Augustine reminds his audience, again with the device of sermocinatio, that one should not fear losing things that are of mediocre value, such as money or health. Using fictitious dialogues as tools for his therapy, the preacher invites his listeners to prepare for future emotional upheavals by identifying such situations with the help of the fictitious voices and by practising answers to these temptations with the voice of Christ.

Conclusions

The three classes of therapeutic dialogues and voices presented above on anger, desire, and fear demonstrate the ways Augustine addressed common emotional temptations, familiar from both the ancient theorists and Augustine’s own theological works, in the context of his sermons, and more specifically, with the device of sermocinatio.

The above cases do not exhaust the abundance of therapeutic dialogues in the sermones ad populum – however, they illustrate clearly enough what Augustine conceived the preacher’s task to be as a therapist of the soul. The sermocinationes on the temptations of anger and hatred, desire and greed, and finally of fear, serve as instruments in revealing and giving voice to the inner speech and cogitationes of Augustine’s Christian hearers. This fits well to Paul Kolbet’s description of Augustine’s preaching in more general terms:

“Augustine deliberately crafted his sermons to involve his hearers in a reflective process whereby the heretofore unperceived blockages that inhibited their self-perception were brought to the surface and articulated. […] Such reflection served to show the soul to itself as it was. What had been believed implicitly had to be subjected to scrutiny before it could be explicitly denied. The very act of articulating propositions weakened their persuasive force.”⁷²

In his influential study, Kolbet briefly characterises one of the “critical skills” of the preacher, namely, that of giving voice to the “various responses to the divine word, including outright opposition to the scriptural insight.”⁷³ In this task, Augustine found an excellent tool in the device of sermocinationes, or fictitious dialogues, and prosopopoeia, or personarum ficta inductio. The device was more than suitable for articulating and catching attitudes that the preacher considered perilous for the ongoing progression of Christian life in his flock. Augustine also seems to follow his own theoretical advice in cat. rud. 19 as he formulates these attitudes in a lively and often entertaining fashion.

As shown in this article, the therapeutic sermocinationes address existing commonplaces of ancient theories of emotions by discussing the Stoic generic emotions of cupiditas and timor, in addition to ira, one of the most common types of individual emotions appearing in philosophical discussions on emotions. Moreover, Augustine’s sermocinationes reveal his understanding of how emotional temptations work as suggestive inner speeches, or malae cogitationes, often appearing in repetitive patterns, and being therefore potentially habituated into emotional consuetudines, or semi-automatic, fixed responses to various situations. With these sermocinationes, Augustine emphasises the importance of the correct identification of one’s emotional responses, be they only the initial stages leading to an emotion proper, or rationalizations of disordered behaviour based on the cognitive contents and imperatives of any given emotion. Finally, these fictitious dialogues appear to be therapeutic also in that their composer was not satisfied in merely analysing how his listeners may hear tempting voices, but also wished to confront these temptations with the curative voices of the Bible and Christ. Indeed, it is difficult to find a sermocinatio constructed around an emotion that is not, in the end, submitted to a dialogical setting with the divine voice as the cure for the debilitating illnesses of anger, desire, and fear.

Thus, the ultimate aim of giving voice to the inner objections, temptations, and “evil thoughts” of the members of the audience is, finally, to make them participants in conversing with God and in being addressed by Christ. Such a conversation has a concrete aim in the preacher’s mind, also appearing in his theory on delivering sermons: the audience has to be persuaded to action.⁷⁴ This can be forcefully perceived from, e.g. s. 25, 8, in which the preacher gives the final voice to Christ. This voice receives an audible reaction from the congregation, which the preacher, in turn, approves of: “When he said to him, Come down, Zacchaeus: today I must stay in your house (Lk 19:5) I could hear your sighs of congratulation. You were, all of you, so to say, in Zacchaeus (omnes in Zachaeo fuisti), and welcoming Christ.” In the sermon, the living and present voice of Christ then exhorts the hearers to meet him “lying under the arches, attend to him being hungry, attend to him shivering with cold, attend to him being in need, attend to him being a foreigner.” The audience is invited, through the preacher, to join an on-going conversation and life with Christ and his voice. The actualisation of Christ’s voice and the ensuing emotions of the audience “in Zachaeus” will only bear final fruit if the members of the congregation acknowledge Christ also by their actions.⁷⁵

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 In the ancient rhetorical handbooks, the device of using fictitious persons and their voices was known as prosopopoeia, or personarum ficta inductio, or ethopoeia; talking to and with them could also be called dialogoi, or sermocinationes, or apostrophe. Terms vary also in modern scholarship: impersonation, fictitious dialogue, dialektikon, speech-in-character, role-play etc. In his sermons, Augustine most simply refers to them as voces or verba of So-and-So. For Quintilian’s flexibility in the terminology, see Quint. Inst. 9, 32. A recent and concise summary of the device in the ancient handbooks is King, Speech-In-Character, 19–57.

2 For handbooks, see Olivar, La predicación cristiana antigua, 366, 607; and Rebillard, “Sermons, Audience, Preacher,” 96–7. For Augustine’s use of the device in catechetical sermons, see Harmless, “The Voice,” 36–7. On the role of prosopopoeia in Augustine’s exegesis, see Cameron, Christ Meets Me Everywhere, 179–85.

3 Martin, “Vox Pauli.”

4 Ibid., 237–72.

5 Mechlinsky, Der modus proferendi.

6 Ibid., 80, 153–4, 209–10, 231, 248–52.

7 Dodaro, “Augustine’s Use,” 327–44.

8 Partoens, “Augustine on Predestination,” 40–1.

9 For examples of what in this article will be referred to as therapeutic dialogues, see ss. 14, 3–5; 21, 6–9; 29B, 5–7; 36, 10; 49, 5–10; 61, 4–12; 65A, 4–11; 69, 3; 72auct, 10; 81, 4–5; 86, 14–17; 90, 9; 90A, 6–7; 107, 8–10; 107A; 94A, 2–3; 108, 4–7; 113, 6; 154, 12; 159, 7; 159A, 6–9, 13; 177, 1–11; 179A, 7; 180, 7–8; 210, 12; 211, 3–4; 213, 2; 229E, 3; 231, 5; 354A, 5–8. Instances of using the fictitious dialogue are not limited to therapeutic purposes, as Augustine used them also in various polemical contexts. To name but one such context, the preacher of Hippo frequently addressed the themes of the Donatist controversy with sermocinationes. See ss. 46, 14–15; 47, 18; 88; 137, 12; 162A, 7–9; 164; 181; 183; 265, 6; 266; 313E, 4; 359, 8; 359B, 17–22; 360; 360C, 5; 400.

10 Variation is invariably mentioned as the reason for the appearance of the device by e.g., Barry, St. Augustine, the Orator, 134–8; Mohrmann, “Saint Augustin prédicateur,” 391–402; and Mechlinsky, Der modus proferendi, 80, 259. For other preachers, see, e.g., Graumann, “St. Ambrose,” 592.

11 See, in particular, Harrison, The Art of Listening, 133–68; and Kolbet, Cure of Souls; Kolbet, “Rhetoric, Redemption,” 351–78.

12 By the term therapeutic, I thus refer to the ancient therapy of emotions, shared in different forms by various authors, both in pagan and Christian contexts. For general introductions, see e.g. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire; Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen, Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy; Sorabji, Emotion; Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient Philosophy.

13 Cf. Uthemann, “Forms of Communication,” 153–77. Uthemann situates Severian’s sermons in the more general context of “diatribe”, in which the use of fictitious dialogues contributed only one, albeit important, element; my focus in this paper is restricted to sermocinationes, but Uthemann’s characterisation of the diatribe-style and subject choice in Severian’s homilies offers a relevant analogy for my purposes: “the diatribe was originally a form of discourse intended to transmit answers to concrete questions of life and to stimulate the hearers to new thought and ethos.”

14 See, e.g. Brachtendorf, “Cicero and Augustine,” 289–308; Knuuttila, Emotions in Ancient Philosophy, 152–72.

15 Byers, Perception; Kolbet, Augustine and the Cure.

16 Kolbet, Cure of Souls; Byers, Perception. See her introduction (pp. 1–22) for the connection between the Stoic epistemological and linguistic theories on the one hand and the duties and devices of trained speakers as described in the rhetorical handbooks on the other. Byers has emphasised the visual, or pictorial nature of the first stages of emotions (p. 23–54). Although giving a brief account (pp. 23–54) of how Augustine conceived the “inner speech” as suggestiones, or temptations that have a sentential, cognitive form of “whisperings” and “murmur,” and even noting (p. 35) Augustine’s description of such suggestiones as “silent discourse” (sermocinatio tacita, s. 229E, 3), the device of fictitious dialogues is more or less ignored in her study as a tool of analysing and providing cures for diverse emotional temptations. For the preacher’s activity as a therapist in general, see Kolbet, “Augustine among the Therapists,” 91–114.

17 For a list of these sermocinationes, see n. 9 above. Anger (and forgiveness, or letting go of one’s hatred) appears in the sermocinationes of ss. 49; 90; 179A; 211; 213; desire, or greed, in ss. 14; 21; 61; 65A; 68; 72auct; 86; 90A; 107A; 113; 114A; 159A; 177; 231; 239; and fear, in ss. 36; 81; 94A; 107.

18 For evil thoughts in the moral psychology of Christian authors in a larger context, see Sorabji, Emotion, on Origen (pp. 343–56) and on Evagrius (pp. 357–71). For the term cogitationes, see Byers, Perception, 32.

19 Mechlinsky, Der modus proferendi, 259.

20 Cat. rud. 19 (CCL 46: 144, transl. Canning, WSA, Instructing Beginners in Faith, V, 102–103) cum enim causae incertae sint, cur iam tacitus recuset audire, iam sedenti aliquid aduersus incidentes cogitationes saecularium negotiorum dicatur, aut hilari, ut dixi, aut tristi modo: ut si ipsae sunt quae mentem occupauerant, cedant quasi nominatim accusatae; si autem ipsae non sunt, et audiendo fatigatus est, cum de illis tamquam ipsae sint, - quando quidem ignoramus, - inopinatum aliquid et extraordinarium, eo modo quo dixi, loquimur, a taedio renouatur intentio. For hilaritas in a more general sense in this work, see Harmless, Augustine and the Catechumenate, 160–2.

21 See e.g. Cic. Tusc. 3, 5, 11; 4, 19, 44. Byers, Perception, stresses the importance of Seneca’s de ira in Augustine’s preaching (e.g., p. 20–1).

22 Conf. 2, 13 ira uindictam quaerit. See also ciu. 14, 15 libido ulciscendi, quae ira dicitur.

23 For this sermon as a spiritual and therapeutic exercise, see Kolbet, “Rhetoric, Redemption,” 368.

24 S. 49, 6 (CCL 41: 618) haec uerba tibi dicit: non es amicus meus, qui es amicus inimici mei. quae uox huius est ad te, ipsa est et illius ad te.

25 It is clear that the fictitious friend is already suffering from a proper emotion of hatred and not only from the preliminary stage of a rising temper.

26 S. 49, 6 (CCSL 41: 619, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/2, 337) dic illi: quare uis ut sim inimicus illius? respondebit: quia inimicus meus est. uis ergo ut sim inimicus inimici tui? inimicus esse debeo uitii tui. iste cui me uis facere inimicum, homo est. est alius inimicus tuus, cui esse debeo inimicus, si amicus tuus sum. respondebit: quis est alius inimicus meus? uitium tuum. respondebit: quod est uitium meum? odium quo odisti amicum tuum. I am adopting Martin’s (“Vox Pauli,” 256) typographical solution to aid the modern reader in discerning between the voices.

27 Byers, Perception, 113: “this organic rendering of the splinter is an unexpected bit of exegesis, given that there is no hint of it in the scriptural passage itself (nor is there any connection with anger therein).”

28 S. 49, 7 cum illa dormisti, cum illa surrexisti. eam in te ipso excoluisti, falsis suspicionibus irrigasti, uerba adulantium et ad te mala uerba de amico deferentium credendo, nutristi festucam, non auulsisti. For the exegesis of the speck and the plank in Augustine’s sermons and its application to fit the Stoic theory of emotions, see Byers, Perception, 113–5. Augustine’s language in s. 49 suggests to me that he is dealing here with a momentary lapse into a proper emotion (anger) as opposed to a habituated state of hatred, rather than with the threshold between a prepassion and an emotion proper.

29 On vague identities in rhetorics, see Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor, 123–30.

30 S. 49, 7 (CCSL 41: 620, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/2, 338) et respondes mihi et dicis mihi: quid est odisse? et quid mali est quia odit homo inimicum suum? […]: qui odit fratrem suum, homicida est. qui odit, homicida est. […] quid ad me, ut homicida sim?

31 S. 49, 7–8 (CCSL 41: 620–1, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/2, 338) dimitte nobis debita nostra, sicut et nos dimittimus debitoribus nostris. […] postremo interrogo: dicetis, an non dicetis? odisti, et dicis? respondebis mihi: ergo non dico. […] dic animae tuae: noli odisse. quomodo orabo, quomodo dicam: dimitte nobis debita nostra? possum quidem hoc dicere, sed quod sequitur quomodo dicam? sicut et nos. quid? sicut et nos dimittimus.

32 S. 49, 10 (CCSL 41: 621, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/2, 339) sed potuit hoc facere dicis mihi ego non possum. ego enim homo sum, ille deus. homo ergo, homo ille deus homo.

33 Picturing and painting such scenes was another usual device (euidentia, enargeia). See Rylaarsdam, Chrysostom on Divine Pedagogy, 231–8.

34 S. 49, 11 (CCSL 41: 622, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/2, 340) domine, ne statuas illis hoc delictum. hoc dicto obdormiuit. o felix somnus, et quies uera! ecce quod est requiescere, pro inimicis orare.

35 S. 179A, 6 (CCSL 41Bb: 641).

36 For libido uindicandi in the sermons, see Kolbet, “Rhetoric, Redemption,” 366–7.

37 S. 179A, 7 (CCSL 41Bb: 642) Postremo dicturus es: “Multum saeuit, sanguinem meum quaerit.” This is a rather rare phrase in Augustine, probably denoting the colloquial style of the discourse here, and then giving the preacher the lead to his quip on fleshly blood and the fate of the soul.

38 S. 179A, 7 (CCSL 41Bb: 642, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/5, 311–2) Ille sanguinem carnis tuae; tu mortem animae tuae. “Non ignosco,” inquit, “multum me laesit, multum mihi aduersarius fuit.” Peior tibi es. “Non ignosco.” Rogo te, ignosce, dimitte. “Sed non me rogat.” Tu pro illo roga. “Prorsus non ignosco.”

39 S. 179A, 7 (CCSL 41Bb: 642, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/5, 312) “Sed expoliauit me.” For similar voiced counterarguments of the fictitious interlocutor on the theme of forgiveness and mercy, and of the personification of Greed on the reluctance of giving away money to help the poor, see e.g., s. 114A, 5.

40 See also s. 90, 9 on a sermocinatio between a praying man and God. According to Augustine, acknowledging justice and punishment for sinful actions has to lead, in the first place, to an inward turn, by which one recognises one’s own need for forgiveness.

41 S. 179A, 7 (CCSL 41Bb: 642).

42 Ibid. For a parallel ecclesiological reading of the parable in Donatist preaching, see Tilley, “Donatist Sermons,” 383, 387–8.

43 For the terminology and a survey of Late Antique sources on cupiditas and libido, see Nisula, Functions of Concupiscence, 15–34; 193–200.

44 For greed as a common topic in Augustine’s preaching, see Sanlon, Theology of Preaching, 99–120. For poverty in Augustine’s sermons, see also Allen and Morgan, “Augustine on Poverty,” 119–70, with literature.

45 For s. 61, see Dunn, “Poverty in Augustine’s Homilies,” 176–8. Dunn does not discuss the sermocinationes, however.

46 S. 61, 4 (CCSL 41 Aa: 267–8, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/3, 143–4): Consilium do lucrorum, disce mercari. Laudas enim mercatorem qui uendit plumbum et acquirit aurum; et non laudas mercatorem qui erogat pecuniam, et acquirit iustitiam? “Sed ego”, inquis, “non erogo pecuniam, quia non habeo iustitiam. Eroget pecuniam qui habet iustitiam. Ego non habeo iustitiam, habeam uel pecuniam!”

47 See Allen and Morgan, “Augustine on Poverty,” 133, 152–3.

48 S. 61, 12 (CCSL 41 Aa: 274, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/3, 148) [Q]uae sunt tua superflua, sint pauperibus necessaria. “Sed ego”, inquis, “pretiosas epulas accipio, pretiosis cibis uescor. pauper quid? uilibus; uilibus cibis uescitur pauper; ego”, inquit, “pretiosis”. Interrogo uos: quando fueritis ambo satiati, pretiosus cibus ad te intrat; quid fit, cum intrauerit? Nonne, si specularia in uentre haberemus, de omnibus pretiosis cibis erubesceremus, quibus saturatus es? […] “Sed melius”, inquit, “mihi sapiunt apparata pretiosa.” Note that there is a slight difference in distributing different lines to different voices in Hill’s translation and the Latin edition of CCSL 41 Aa.

49 See King, Speech-In-Character, 20, 29, 37 (n. 6), for the requirement in fictitious addresses of language that fits the morals of the imaginary character.

50 For this sermon, see Sanlon, Theology of Preaching, 107–12.

51 S. 177, 5 (CCSL 41 Bb: 572–3). For cor as the place of inner judgment and consent, see Byers, Perception, 31 (n. 45).

52 S. 177, 7 (CCSL 41 Bb: 575).

53 S. 177, 10 (CCSL 41 Bb: 579).

54 S. 177, 11 (CCL 41 Bb: 580–1, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/5, 287) “Non dabo, ne cras non habeam.” […] “Si thesaurum non habuero, quis mihi dabit cum egere coepero?” Deinde: “Abundat unde uiuam, sufficit unde uiuam, sed quid, si impingat mihi calumnia: unde me redimam? quid, si mihi necesse sit litigare: unde sumptus impendam?” The words si impingat […] redimam are omitted in Hill’s translation (WSA, Sermons, III/5, 287).

55 S. 177, 11 (CCL 41 Bb: 582, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/5, 287–8) Non te derelinquam, non te deseram. Timebas mala nescio quae, propterea pecuniam reseruabas: me tene fideiussorem. Hoc tibi Deus dicit – non homo, non par tuus aut ipse tu, sed Deus tibi dicit: Non te derelinquam, non te deseram. Cf. en. Ps. 36, 3, 6. For the financial terms and images in Augustine's rhetoric on poverty, see Allen and Morgan, “Augustine on Poverty,” 131 (n. 35).

56 See Sanlon, Theology of Preaching, 109–12.

57 See also s. 72auct, 10 (= s. Dolbeau 16). In s. 65A, 4–11, the created things, together with the Christian’s parents and children and spouse, are given tempting voices which try to seduce the preacher’s audience to love them more than God. These voices (uoces) have to be silenced (taceant). See also s. 113, 6 and s. 159A (=s. Dolbeau 13), 6–9, 13, and s. 90A (s. Dolbeau 11), 6–7.

58 S. 21, 6 (CCL 41: 282) Haec tibi loquitur dominus deus tuus intus, ubi non audit nisi tu, et ipse ibi loquitur, qui uera loquitur. Quid enim hac locutione uerius? Noli obsurdescere. For similar lines, see s. 68, 11–2.

59 Noted by Mohrmann, “Saint Augustin écrivain,” 60–1.

60 For another kind of a seductive female personification, see s. 159, 7 where Augustine introduces to his audience a personification of Justice as an enticing and beautiful lady who calls the members of the audience to enjoy (frui) her and despise bodily pleasures and pains.

61 For hormetic impressions and their imperative sentential form in the Stoic theory of emotions, see Byers, Perception, 23–54.

62 S. 86, 14–7 (PL 38: 530, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/3, 404) quid dicat auaritia non habet. clamastis ad uerba ista. loquimini contra illam, non uos uincat, non plus ualeat in cordibus uestris, quam redemptor uester. non plus ualeat in corde uestro, quam ille qui monet ut sursum corda habeamus. […] ipsum audi, accipe bonum consilium. noli parcere thesauris tuis, eroga quantum potes. luxuriae uox orat: domini uox facta est. In the forthcoming CCSL edition, the final sentence runs: luxuriae uox erat, thus justifying Hill’s translation. I am grateful to Professor François Dolbeau for this information. See also s. 123, 5, where Augustine is more straightforward in taking over the voice of Christ.

63 See also s. 154, 12, where Augustine depicts the personification of concupiscence at the door of the Christian’s heart “kicking up a rumpus” (strepentem), and advises his audience to reply to its blabbering voice with Paul’s words (Rom 7:22). For the dialogues in this sermon, see Martin, “Vox Pauli,” 262–5, who emphasises them as a “teaching tool” and as “a means of showing the authority and authenticity of his own reading of Paul”. Another variant of a voice-over of the Christian agon can be found in s. 107A on losing money.

64 Byers, Perception, 169–70, mentions continuous meditation on the Law as one of the four cognitive therapies prescribed by Augustine; “frequenting the religious services of the Church is singled out as a lifestyle that supports this affective therapy, since the Church is the place where the moral law is preached, and its source is acknowledged.”

65 S. 36, 10 (CCSL 41: 442).

66 S. 94A, 2–3 (MA 1, 252–3). See also s. 81, 4–5, where the Christian’s friend suggests complying with a rich oppressor’s (potens) request for a false testimony, and even appeals to Scripture (Ps 116:11 “Every man is a liar”) to justify such a lie. The temptations of false language are also the subject of s. 180 on James 5:12 (“Above all, do not swear”). In §7-8, Augustine paints various voices giving false oaths and swearing by their loved ones, or by God himself. The preacher reminds his audience of the serious consequences of making a false oath in the name of God and warns that this will lead to the death of the soul, even though the audience objects, by way of a fictitious dialogue, that a host of perjurers go unpunished as the bishop speaks. The sermocinatio is composed in a gossipy, repetitious and colloquial air: s. 180, 8 (CCL 41 Bb: 672) [Deus] non in omnes uindicat; ideo homines aedificantur ad exemplum. “Ego scio, ille mihi falsum iurauit et uiuit.” Ille tibi falsum iurauit et uiuit? “Falsum iurauit et uiuit; ille falsum iurauit.” Tu falleris. Si et tu haberes oculos unde uideres mortem huius, si et tu in eo quod est mori et non mori, non fallereris, uideres huius mortem. For the contents and context of this sermon, see Yates, “Is the Tongue Tamable?” 81–98. As Yates notes (p. 87), the central idea of the sermon is the eradication of a habit that cannot be reconciled with post-baptismal Christian life; again, a suitable context for the therapeutic treatment of the preacher.

67 S. 107, 8 (PL 38: 631).

68 S. 107, 9 (PL 38: 631, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/4, 115) uocat te diues et potens, ut pro illo dicas falsum testimonium. quid facturus es modo? dic mihi. habes bonum peculium: laborasti, acquisisti, seruasti. exigit ille: dic pro me falsum testimonium, et tantum et tantum dono tibi. tu qui non quaeris aliena: absit a me, inquis: non quaero quod mihi noluit deus dare, non accipio; recede a me. non uis accipere quod do? quod habes tollo.

69 S. 107, 9 (PL 38: 631). See here Fuhrer, “Das ‘Zeitalter der Angst,’” 61–85, 82–3.

70 Cf. Byers, Perception, 153–61, on prerehearsal of future calamities as a form of cognitive therapy.

71 S. 107, 9 (PL 38: 631, transl. Hill, WSA, Sermons, III/4, 115) tollo tibi quod cum tanto labore acquisisti, nisi pro me falsum testimonium dixeris. da illum: cauete ab omni auaritia. o serue meus, dicet tibi, quem redemi et liberum feci, quem de seruo fratrem adoptaui, quem in corpore meo membrum posui, audi me: tollat quod acquisisti, me tibi non tollet. ne pereas, seruas tua? nonne tibi dixi, cauete ab omni cupiditate?

72 Kolbet, Cure of Souls, 182.

73 Ibid., 188.

74 Doctr. christ. 4, 27.

75 S. 25, 8.