ABSTRACT
Teaching is central to Augustine’s own activity — in his capacity as a bishop, as a polemicist, and as a writer of the Confessions themselves. He sets forth two different styles of teaching and two different mechanisms of learning: fear-inspiring compulsion and free curiosity or desire. Using threats and beatings, his teachers used his fear to compel him to learn his early lessons in reading and writing, and in learning Greek. Augustine’s more complex presentation of the teachers underscores the idea that teaching is not merely about presenting truth persuasively or palatably. Indeed, perhaps what is most striking about Augustine’s account of his teachers is the ever-present disjunctions between their activities and his own complex path of learning. For this reason, Augustine’s juxtaposition of Faustus and Ambrose not only illustrates the several and separable strands of teaching that can lead to learning; it also underscores the very irony of teaching itself.
