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4 - The arts of preaching

from I - THE LIBERAL ARTS AND THE ARTS OF LATIN TEXTUALITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Alastair Minnis
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Ian Johnson
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
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Summary

In Christian society, preaching is a formal response to the injunction the risen Christ had given to his apostles to ‘go out to the whole world and proclaim [praedicate] the Good News to all creation’ (Mark 16:15; cf. Matthew 10:16–17). Whatever form it has taken through history, its content or subject (the Good News, i.e. the word of God as revealed and deposited in Scripture) and its purpose (instruction and emotional appeal aiming at conversion and moral perfection) have remained constant elements. Preaching thus is an essential ministry that has been carried out since the beginnings of Christian history. From early times on, it was naturally accompanied by reflections and instructions on its nature and form. Thus, in his treatise on how to understand and explain Scripture, De doctrina christiana, Augustine devoted the last of four books to such questions as the relation between wisdom and eloquence, the various functions the latter might have, and the use of rhetorical art in preaching. In a more practical vein, Gregory the Great in his Cura pastoralis provided specific advice on what the spiritual shepherd (called praedicator in 3.19ff.) should say to various social and moral groups and types in his attempt to foster virtue and eradicate vice. And for many centuries church authorities collected homilies preached by the Fathers and made them available for official use in the liturgy. Yet in spite of such longstanding practice and concomitant instructions on how to carry it out, it was not until the late twelfth century that the conception of preaching as a rhetorical art gained its full realisation in the proclamation of the sermon as an art form which obeyed rules that could be taught to, and followed by, individual preachers.

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