Augustine, eloquence, and appropriation of classical rhetoric

Augustine writes, "Therefore a certain eloquent man [Cicero] said, and said truly, that he who is eloquent should speak in such a way that he teaches, delights, and moves. Then he added, 'To teach is a necessity, to please is sweatness, to persuade is victory.'" It can be said that Augustine takes these classical rhetorical virtues of eloquence and "puts them to Christian use" (Doyle, "Augustine's Sermonic Method", Westminister Theological Journal, 39, 1976-77, 213).

(Andre Resner, Preacher and the Cross, Eerdmans, 1999, pp49-50)