Adam Ployd: The Rhetorical Ordering of Knowledge in Augustine’s Martyrs

The “pagan” authorities yelled and screamed, mad and inarticulate. But the martyrs maintained equilibrium, speaking clearly and calmly, even though their bodies were suffering all sorts of torture. This contrast is an oft-repeated theme in Augustine’s sermones ad populumand enarrationes in Psalmos. Moreover, it is a key example of the rhetorical nature of martyr discourse in late antiquity. As socio-cultural historians have emphasized over the last two decades, martyr texts are not so much objective records as rhetorical constructions serving theological and ideological ends within a variety of Christian communities. This is even more the case in Christian preaching on feast days as bishops work to redirect the cultic energy of martyr veneration toward pursuit of moral or even polemical ends.      In this paper I argue that the “raging pagan/articulate martyr” trope in Augustine’s preaching is best read against the background of classical rhetorical theory and, in particular, the perennial theme of whether or not rhetoric counts as a form of knowledge. I argue that in depicting martyrs and persecutors in these terms, he is weaponizing the idea of rhetoric as not just a technebut a moral techne. The possession or lack of rhetorical skill represents, in the particular case of the martyrs, a way to discern the truth of their cause and the villainy of their oppressors’.