Style
In
paragraph 1, Saint Augustine introduces the idea of forgiveness in a mixture of
all three styles and various rhetorical techniques. He mostly includes low style to teach his
audience about forgiveness, but starts his speech in an exhortation to “not despise
these words, my brethren.” Furthermore,
he moves us when he laments about how human it is to get angry: “It is human to
get angry: would that we did not have this power!” He effectively empathizes with his audience
through his lament while still decrying anger at the same time. He also moves into middle style with his simile. When he speaks of anger, he compares it to a
“tender young twig” which is entertaining and instructive simultaneously, so he
is combining a low and subdued style with some entertaining middle style by way
of simile.
Simile
Why the
simile is so effective for his readers is because it is almost an imitation of
traditional scriptural style or even a parable, like Jesus speaking about the
olive tree that does not give forth fruit.
So Augustine’s Christian audience already can recognize the simile and
learn to “uproot [anger] and cast it out, [so that] it will amount to nothing.” This simile allows us to visualize anger like
a weed or tree and learn how to cast it out.
It also separates anger and hatred from the individual. Anger is a separate item growing inside the
person. Anger is not the person.Scripture
Comparing
this simile to the actual scripture of Matthew 7:3 about the beams and the
motes allows Augustine to be scripturally backed up with his argument against
anger with additional information about how wrong it is to have anger when you
have your own problems as well.
