Rhetorical Economy in Augustine’s Theology

Brian Gronewoller, Rhetorical Economy in Augustine’s Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021). 9780197566558.

Reviewed by Zachary Taylor, University of Chicago, zjtaylor@uchicago.edu.

In Book IX of his Confessions, Augustine dramatically describes his retirement from an ambitious career as a rhetorician in the imperial Roman bureaucracy. In accordance with a frequent theme in the text up to this point, he draws a sharp contrast between the vain ambitions of his former peers and pupils at Milan and the contemplative quest for truth he would soon pursue with his friends and family at Cassiciacum (9.2.2):

It pleased me in your sight not to make a noisy spectacle of withdrawing the service of my tongue in the marketplace of unbridled speech, but instead to slip away quietly, so that young men who were not meditating on your law, not meditating on your peace, but instead on mad falsehoods and court battles, would not purchase from my mouth the weapons of their frenzy.1

From his own portrayal, it would seem that upon his conversion to Christianity Augustine made a clean break with the rostrum and its many vices.

Previous scholarship has demonstrated that Augustine’s conversion and later rise to prominence as a bishop of Hippo did not entail the definitive break with rhetoric that Confessions would have us believe. Several scholars have shown that Augustine draws heavily from rhetorical theory in the construction and delivery of his sermons, his homiletic theory, and his scriptural hermeneutic. Beyond this, a new trend in Augustinian scholarship has identified how Augustine incorporates rhetorical concepts into his theology.2 Brian Gronewoller situates his book, Rhetorical Economy in Augustine’s Theology, in relation to this “new movement” in Augustinian studies (2). He builds on this literature to make a noteworthy contribution centered on the concept of “rhetorical economy.” In particular, Gronewoller advances two interrelated theses: first, he contends that Augustine uses the concept of rhetorical economy to explain “God’s activity of arranging creation, history, and evil” (4); with this much established, he claims, second, that we must then “admit a new fountainhead of documentary evidence into our research on Augustine’s theology”—namely, the Latin rhetorical tradition (5).

Gronewoller clarifies what he means by “rhetorical economy” in the first chapter. First, he observes that the aim of rhetoric in the Latin tradition was persuasion by means of “accommodation,” which refers to qualities inherent in a well-ordered text or speech whose component parts fit with one another both internally (within the text or speech) and externally (between the text or speech and its audience and occasion) (13). Gronewoller then explains that Quintilian uses the term “economy” (oeconomia) to refer to the principles of accommodation: a text embodies these principles when it resembles the orderliness of a Roman household (15–16).3 The concept of rhetorical economy, therefore, is closely related to the notion of order in a well-crafted text or speech, and it is this conceptual link that proves so fruitful for Augustine in his articulation of the divine order instituted by God. As Gronewoller states in the epilogue, Augustine “translated rhetorical economy from his previous life as a rhetor to his new life as a theologian” (155). The concept of rhetorical economy provided him a logical framework he would employ to explain and defend the economical arrangement of scripture, creation, history, and providence. 

In the final section of the first chapter, Gronewoller expands on previous scholarship to demonstrate that Augustine uses rhetorical economy in his scriptural hermeneutics to explain God’s authorship of the Christian scriptures.4 He shows that Augustine understands the Holy Spirit as akin to an author who employs Latin rhetorical theory in both its harmonization of the Old and New Testaments and its accommodation of divine truths to human minds (23–27). While this chapter makes plain that Augustine incorporates the concept of rhetorical economy in an area that “naturally intersects” with rhetorical theory (30), the next chapter lays the foundations for Gronewoller’s more audacious claim—namely, that Augustine uses rhetorical economy “to conceptualize creation, history, and all divine activity therein over the course of his career” (32). The major upshot of this chapter, which canvasses several treatises, letters, and sermons, is that Augustine conceives of creation as a book authored by God, whose divine activity is a speech. Similarly, Augustine understands individual parts of creation and history as akin to words in a text or speech arranged by God into a well-ordered whole, just as an orator arranges words into a persuasive speech (59–60). Importantly, Gronewoller demonstrates that Augustine not only incorporated rhetorical concepts into this theology in the immediate aftermath of his conversion (after he retired as a professor of rhetoric) but also much later as bishop of Hippo.

Whereas Part I of the book defines the concept of rhetorical economy and establishes the basis for Gronewoller’s later claims, Part II analyzes Augustine’s use of rhetorical economy both in his theologies of creation and history and in his theodicy. Gronewoller’s method in these chapters has two principal movements. First, he subjects a wide array of treatises and sermons to close textual analysis to demonstrate the prominence of rhetorical economy in how Augustine explicates a theological position. For example, Gronewoller aptly observes how, in Sermon 29D, Augustine borrows a phrase from Cicero’s discussion of rhetorical economy5 to conceptualize the order of the human body (86).6 In a similar vein, he points to how, in On Order, Augustine names the rhetorical concept of antitheton to describe God’s arrangement of good and evil within creation.7 Insofar as antitheton is one tool with which an author produces an economical speech, rhetorical economy is central to Augustine’s explanation for how God incorporates evil into the divine order of creation (90–96).

The second movement of Gronewoller’s method explores the logic of rhetorical economy in Augustine’s theological positions more deeply: whereas the first movement is focused on intertextual references or the use of specific rhetorical terms, the second movement unpacks Augustine’s use of rhetorical economy to explain why the logical framework it provides uniquely suits his theological aims. In chapter four, for instance, Gronewoller asserts that Augustine employs rhetorical economy in On True Religion both to explain God’s providential arrangement of history and to defend this providential order from claims of inconsistency: just as a syllable may be perfectly incorporated into a beautiful verse while unable to perceive the beauty of the whole verse due to its temporal existence, finite human persons are likewise inhibited in their ability to perceive the beauty of God’s arrangement of history (102–5).8 Similarly, in chapter five, Gronewoller claims that the logic of rhetorical economy helps Augustine resolve a knotty problem at the heart of his theodicy: if, as Augustine maintains, God is not the source of evil, then how does God remain provident over what has its source outside of God? To answer this question, Augustine differentiates between the divine activities of creation and arrangement in a manner “conceptually similar to the rhetorical steps of invention and arrangement in both content and sequence” (138).9 Through this logic, Augustine states that while God did not create evil, God nevertheless arranges evil and thus remains providentially sovereign over it (142–46).    

Gronewoller summarizes his central conclusions and their further implications in an epilogue. He helpfully points out, for example, the apologetic and polemical contexts in which Augustine initially employs the concept of rhetorical economy to respond to his Manichaean opponents (157). He also notes how this study presents an otherwise overlooked portrait of God that manifests from Augustine’s use of rhetorical economy: “God, for Augustine, is the quintessential orator, and creation (including its movement through time) is God’s speech” (160). A word or two from Gronewoller about the relevance of this portrait to contemporary Christian theology would have been helpful. If, with Augustine, we liken God to the quintessential orator, does this elucidate theological doctrines other than those addressed in the book? Are there any undesirable implications that follow from this portrait?

Gronewoller’s principal claim in the epilogue, however, is that while previous scholars have identified conceptions of ordo in classical philosophy (such as in Stoicism) as influences on Augustine’s conception of divine order, Augustine relies far more on the logic of rhetorical economy to articulate his notion of order.10 The centrality of rhetorical economy over and above other influences is important, Gronewoller asserts, insofar as it allows Augustine “to explain the intersection of several Christian doctrines as well as the lived experience of his interlocutors” (158). That is, the concept of rhetorical economy more obviously coheres with fundamental Christian positions about God and God’s providence, just as it more aptly helps Augustine explain how these doctrines are true amidst the ostensible disorder of human experience. Thus, Gronewoller persuasively demonstrates that not only does Augustine lean more heavily on the concept of rhetorical economy than most scholars previously assumed, but that it also makes sense that Augustine deploys this concept rather than alternative conceptions of order taken from classical philosophy—conceptions associated with claims about God that run contrary to Augustine’s Christian commitments. As Gronewoller puts it, “Augustine most likely saw in rhetorical economy a logical framework that accomplished his theological goals without violating other theological commitments, all while requiring no adjustment to the logic of the model itself” (159). 

Gronewoller’s point here is powerful: it means that Augustine’s use of rhetorical economy is neither merely convenient, nor simply a byproduct of his previous rhetorical career, but rather the consequence of sustained reflection on the nature of the concept and its ability to explain a web of interrelated theological positions. With this conclusion, Gronewoller helps answer one major question that hovers over his analyses in the rest of the book, namely, whether the concept of rhetorical economy is for Augustine a superficial ornament that simply elucidates theological doctrines otherwise coherent even in its absence or, alternatively, it functions as a sine qua non without which some of Augustine’s core theological positions become, at best, difficult to understand or, at worst, incomprehensible. Gronewoller’s provocative answer seems to be that the concept of rhetorical economy fundamentally structures Augustine’s theological reflection. Without it, we may not be able to fully understand, for example, the logic behind Augustine’s theodicy.

If this bold claim is true, then Augustinian scholars would do well to heed Gronewoller’s insistence that we study seminal authors in the rhetorical tradition (such as Quintilian) just as closely as Plato, Origen, and the Christian scriptures to understand Augustine’s theology (160). With this volume, Gronewoller helpfully reveals new avenues of research into the profound conceptual relationship between rhetorical concepts and Augustinian theology. As such, this book should appeal to historians, scholars of classical rhetoric, and historical and constructive theologians interested in how Augustine’s Latin rhetorical context influenced his theology at a deep and hitherto unexplored level. 

Table of Contents

Introduction (1–10)
Part I: Foundations
1. Augustine’s Use of Rhetorical Economy in His Scriptural Hermeneutic (11–31)
2. Creation, History, and God’s Activity as Speech (32–60)
Part II: Creation, History, Evil
3. Augustine’s Use of Rhetorical Economy in His Theology of Creation (63–97)
4. Augustine’s Use of Rhetorical Economy in His Theology of History (98–134)
5. Augustine’s Use of Rhetorical Economy in His Theodicy (135–53)
Epilogue: Ratio ordinis oeconomici (155–61)

Notes

1. Thomas Williams, trans., Confessions (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2019), 140.

2. As prominent examples, Gronewoller cites Robert Dodaro, Christ and the Just Society in the Thought of Augustine (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 135–45; Michael Cameron “‘She Arranges All Things Pleasingly’ (Wis. 8:1): The Rhetorical Base of Augustine’s Hermeneutic,” Augustinian Studies 41, no. 1 (2010): 55–67. 

3. See Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria 7.10.11–12; 3.3.9.

4. See De moribus ecclesiae catholicae et de moribus Manichaeorum 1.17.30 and 1.28.56.

5. See Partitiones Oratoriae 6.21.

6. See Sermo 29D.6.

7. See De ordine 1.7.18.

8. See De vera religione 22.42-3.

9. Gronewoller’s principal source text for this claim is De Genesi adversus Manicheos 1.3.5. He confirms his conclusions with a second close analysis of De libero arbitrio 3.9.27.

10. For previous work cited by Gronewoller on the similarities between Augustine’s notion of order and classical philosophy, see Virgilio Pacioni, “Order,” trans. Matthew O’Connell, in Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 598–99; Peter Slater, “Goodness as Order and Harmony in Augustine,” in Augustine: From Rhetor to Theologian, ed. Joanne McWilliam, Timothy Barnes, Michael Fahey, and Peter Slater (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), 151–59; Anne-Isabelle Bouton-Touboulic, L’Ordre caché: La notion d’ordre chez saint Augustin (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2004).