Rhetoric of faith of Augustine of Hippo

Unlike his predecessors, Augustine of Hippo reinterprets the value of eloquence and its ability to explain the truths of the Revelation, so many philosophical ideas are articulated in rhetorical discourse. Augustine pays particular attention to methods, which can help formulate thoughts about God. A new sphere of oratory is Christian eloquence, in which, according to the philosopher, speakers who pronounce speeches prepared in advance and learned literally are treated as inactive. The rhetoric of Augustine always brings people a living Word, personal, prophetic, invocatory, which integrates the rhetorical style of Antiquity and the Christian content the philosopher refers to as a "Vessel of the Spirit". He argues that Christian rhetoric has nothing to do with sophistry as it is filled with deep spiritual meaning. The verbal art of a preacher is never eloquent for the sake of eloquence due to the fact that a word leading to understanding is both a thought and a meaning. The word has its own being, so it has a meaning in itself, regardless of its content, because it is also a sign. The Christian eloquence of Augustine united the art of speech and the art of reasoning, eloquentia, based on theology. The word of a philosopher is the doctrine of truth, and rhetoric is the expression of this doctrine. Therefore, Augustine teaches to compare meanings, see objects and phenomena from different angles, which, according to the philosopher, promotes the use of various stylistic devices in a selected sequence, a change of devices results in better understanding. He often uses the stylistic devices which were criticized in the text of the Revelation. Augustine neglects correctness to be more expressive and clear in his many of his letters and sermons, which even creates an impression that these works are not his. The rhetorical word of Augustine, expressed in a philosophical language, reveals the universal character of Christian ideas, as well as a long and complex process of spiritual search for truth, innate for a person of any era. Philosophy, starting from representatives of patristics, not only seeks to answer the questions posed by the idea of the modern era, but also tries to connect what the true people of the era perceive with the temporal situation in which that truth emerges and is perceived. The comprehension of truth allows understanding the specifics of European thinking in its origin.

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