Note 26 — Chapter II · [1] ST. AUGUSTINE ON PREACHING (DE DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA, IV)

That the Scriptures enter all the three fields of oratory indicated by Aristotle in Rhetoric I. iii, is suggested by the language of a passage in Augustine’s third book: Non autem adserit [scriptura] nisi catholicam fidem rebus præteritis et futuris et præsentibus. Præteritorum narratio est, futurorum prænuntiatio, præsentium demonstratio, III. x. For the last two words suggest in the context ἐπιδεικτικός, and hence δικανικός for the first phrase of the sentence and συμβουλευτικός for the second, according to the Aristotelian division. If so, Augustine has not followed Cicero’s reducing of the fields to two (ARP 47, 53).