ABSTRACT
The trend among scholars has been to minimize Saint Augustine's originality in favor of the once commonly held opinion that the core of his teaching is simply derived from Cicero's rhetorical works. Book IV of Augustine's De doctrina Christiana, which has long been acclaimed as the first handbook of Christian rhetoric. Like the Orator and the De oratore, the De doctrina Christiana assigns to the orator the threefold duty of "teaching", of "pleasing", and of "persuading". It would be futile to deny that, in elaborating his views on Christian oratory, Augustine has relied extensively on the tradition of Roman rhetoric in which he had been trained. To discuss openly the points on which at a deeper level the divergences between the Christian and the classical views of truth become truly significant would have necessitated the public disclosure of a whole gamut of problems that are of no interest to most Christians or, as far as that goes, to most preachers.
