Chapter

15.—Of the Method in Which Our Address Should Be Adapted to

Different Classes of Hearers.

23. But now, perhaps, you also

demand of me as a debt that which, previous to the promise which I

made, I was under no obligation to give, namely, that I should not

count it burdensome to unfold some sort of example of the discourse

intended, and to set it before you for your study, just as if I

were myself engaged in catechising some individual. Before I do

that, however, I wish you to keep in mind the fact that the mental

effort is of one kind in the case of a person who dictates, with a

future reader in his view, and that it is of quite another kind in

the case of a person who speaks with a present hearer to whom to

direct his attention. And further, it is to be remembered that, in

this latter instance in particular, the effort is of one kind when

one is admonishing in private, and when there is no other person at

hand to pronounce judgment on us; whereas it is of a different

order when one is conveying any instruction in public, and when

there stands around him an audience of persons holding dissimilar

opinions; and again, that in this exercise of teaching, the effort

will be of one sort when only a single individual is being

instructed, while all the rest listen, like persons judging or

attesting things well known to them, and that it will be different

when all those who are present wait for what we have to deliver to

them; and once more, that, in this same instance, the effort will

be one thing when all are seated, as it were, in private conference

with a view to engaging in some discussion, and that it will be

quite another thing when the people sit silent and intent on giving

their attention to some single speaker who is to address them from

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume III/Doctrinal Treatises of St. Augustin/On the Catechising of the Uninstructed/Chapter 15