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Inner voices exposed: Fictitious therapeutic

dialogues in Augustine’s Sermones ad populum

Timo Nisula

To cite this article: Timo Nisula (2022) Inner voices exposed: Fictitious therapeutic dialogues in
Augustine’s Sermones ad populum, Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology, 76:1, 4-28,
DOI: 10.1080/0039338X.2021.1937312

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/0039338X.2021.1937312

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Studia Theologica - Nordic Journal of Theology, 2022
Vol. 76, No. 1, 4–28, https://doi.org/10.1080/0039338X.2021.1937312

Inner voices exposed: Fictitious

therapeutic dialogues in Augustine’s
Sermones ad populum

Timo Nisula

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 anon-
ymous, 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
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis
Group
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attri-
bution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
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medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed,
or built upon in any way.
 Timo Nisula 5

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 Some-
what 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-Pela-
gian sermon (s. 165), and also analyzes Augustine’s cunning use of fictitious
dialogue in order to indoctrinate and entertain his audience with a semific-
tional 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 col-
lection 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 pur-
poses. 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 Augus-
tine’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 con-
texts 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
6 Inner voices exposed

for the preacher in shedding light on the hidden and quiet emotive objec-
tions 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 selec-
tion 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 sermo-
cinationes that occur as combined to the generic emotions of the ancient the-
orists (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
 Timo Nisula 7

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 dia-
logues also have an entertaining value as such; in other words, Augus-
tine 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 (nomi-
natim 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 atten-
tion 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 chal-
lenges in holding the listeners’ attention, but also his insistence on
giving a cognitive and audible form to the random and disrupting cogi-
tationes 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 Augus-
tine explicitly also recommends a comical application of identifying cogi-
tationes), 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
8 Inner voices exposed

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 situ-
ation 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 Augus-
tine, 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 splin-
ter 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 sick-
ness 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
 Timo Nisula 9

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 Forgive us our debts, just as we too forgive our
THE LITURGY: 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 proto-
martyr. 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
10 Inner voices exposed

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 Augus-
tine 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 for-
giveness 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 your-
self 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 colour-
ful tones – the persistent inner speech always ending with the same
anguished conclusion: “I will not forgive.” Even the preacher’s offer to
 Timo Nisula 11

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 per-
ceiving 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). Nonethe-
less, 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 recog-
nition; 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 harbour-
ing 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 motiv-
ation 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
12 Inner voices exposed

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 reveal-
ing 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 col-
lecting 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?
 Timo Nisula 13

TRADER: But I (you say) don’t disburse money because I haven’t got
any righteousness. Let the fellow who has some righteous-
ness 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 congre-
gation 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
14 Inner voices exposed

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 con-
tinues 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 claim-
ing to avoid all temptations that his riches may pose to him and refrain-
ing 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 cogi-
tationes), 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 uer-
miculum, 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:
 Timo Nisula 15

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 Augus-

tine’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 temp-
tation 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 argu-
ments.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
16 Inner voices exposed

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. Extrava-
gance 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 tempta-
tions 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 prosopo-
poeia 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, sermocina-
tiones 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 jus-
tifying greedy and egoistic actions. These voices are opposed to divine
biblical voices, once again designed to provide the much-needed medi-
cine for the malady of greed.
 Timo Nisula 17

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 per-
suaded 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 con-
structs a dialogue between himself and a feeble Christian who has sur-
rendered 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 differ-
ent 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 temp-
tation: “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
18 Inner voices exposed

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 uphea-
vals,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 I will strip you of what you have acquired with such
MAN: 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 threat-
ing situations. Following Stoic wisdom of reining in fear, Augustine
reminds his audience, again with the device of sermocinatio, that one
 Timo Nisula 19

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 identify-
ing 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 dialo-
gues in the sermones ad populum – however, they illustrate clearly
enough what Augustine conceived the preacher’s task to be as a thera-
pist 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 Augus-
tine’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 scrip-
tural insight.”73 In this task, Augustine found an excellent tool in the
device of sermocinationes, or fictitious dialogues, and prosopopoeia, or per-
sonarum 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.
20 Inner voices exposed

As shown in this article, the therapeutic sermocinationes address exist-

ing 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 philosophi-
cal discussions on emotions. Moreover, Augustine’s sermocinationes
reveal his understanding of how emotional temptations work as sugges-
tive inner speeches, or malae cogitationes, often appearing in repetitive
patterns, and being therefore potentially habituated into emotional con-
suetudines, 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 disor-
dered behaviour based on the cognitive contents and imperatives of
any given emotion. Finally, these fictitious dialogues appear to be thera-
peutic 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, tempta-
tions, 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 con-
gratulation. 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 con-
versation 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 acknowl-
edge Christ also by their actions.75
 Timo Nisula 21

Timo Nisula, Department of Theology, Åbo Akademi University, Bis-

kopsgatan 16, Åbo 20500, Finland, timo.nisula@sley.fi

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 hand-
books 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 contro-
versy 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 differ-
ent forms by various authors, both in pagan and Christian contexts. For general intro-
ductions, see e.g. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire; Sihvola and Engberg-Pedersen,
22 Inner voices exposed

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 dialo-
gues 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 con-
crete 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 connec-
tion 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, cog-
nitive 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 analys-
ing 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, Redemp-
tion,” 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.
 Timo Nisula 23

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 suspicio-
nibus 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 Augus-
tine’s sermons and its application to fit the Stoic theory of emotions, see Byers, Percep-
tion, 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 for-
giveness 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.
24 Inner voices exposed

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 Preach-
ing, 99–120. For poverty in Augustine’s sermons, see also Allen and Morgan, “Augus-
tine 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 super-
flua, sint pauperibus necessaria. “Sed ego”, inquis, “pretiosas epulas accipio, pretiosis
cibis uescor. pauper quid? uilibus; uilibus cibis uescitur pauper; ego”, inquit, “pretio-
sis”. 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 calum-
nia: 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, “Augus-
tine on Poverty,” 131 (n. 35).
56. See Sanlon, Theology of Preaching, 109–12.
 Timo Nisula 25

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 obsurdes-
cere. 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 con-
silium. 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 audi-
ence 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 com-
plying 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 ficti-
tious dialogue, that a host of perjurers go unpunished as the bishop speaks. The sermo-
cinatio 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;
26 Inner voices exposed

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 con-
tents 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 thera-
peutic 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 acqui-
sisti, 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.

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