Editing Homiletics (section)

== Middle Ages ==
[[File:Chaire.medievale.png|thumb|Preaching from a medieval pulpit]]
{{tone|section|date=February 2020}}
According to the Catholic Encyclopedia:
{{Blockquote|text=It has been commonly said by non-Catholic writers that there was little or no preaching during that time. So popular was preaching, and so deep the interest taken in it, that preachers commonly found it necessary to travel by night, lest their departure should be prevented. It is only in a treatise on the history of preaching that justice could be done this period. The reader is referred to Digby's "Mores Catholici", vol. II, pp. 158-172, and to Neale, "Mediæval Sermons". As to style, it was simple and majestic, possessing little, perhaps, of so-called eloquence as at present understood, but much religious power, with an artless simplicity, a sweetness and persuasiveness all its own, and such as would compare favourably with the hollow declamation of a much-lauded later period. Some sermons were wholly in verse, and, in their intense inclusiveness of thought, remind one of the Sermon on the Mount: —
<poem>Magna promisimus; majora promissa sunt nobis:
Servemus hæc; adspiremus ad illa.
Voluptas brevis; pœna perpetua.
Modica passio; gloria infinita.
Multorum vocatio; paucorum electio;
Omnium retributio</poem>

(St. Francis, as quoted by Digby, op. cit., 159.)|author=Patrick A. Beecher|title=Homiletics|source=Catholic Encyclopedia 1913<ref name="CE" /><ref>Digby, op. cit., 159.</ref>}}

[[Image:Giotto - Legend of St Francis - -17- - St Francis Preaching before Honorius III.jpg|thumb|[[Francis of Assisi]] Preaching before [[Honorius III]]]]
The preaching of the time was characterized by:<ref name=CE/><ref>For examples, the reader is again referred to the collection of "Mediæval Sermons" by Neale.</ref>
* heavy use of Biblical quotation, integrated throughout, sometimes with a [[mystical]] interpretation shaped by Eastern influences
* sermons targeted towards the poor and ignorant
* simplicity, the aim being to impress a single striking idea
* use of familiar maxims, examples, and illustrations from life
* vivid sensory imagery for dramatic effect

[[Scholasticism|Scholastic philosophy]] supplied an almost inexhaustible store of information; it trained the mind in analysis and precision; while, at the same time, it supplied a lucidity of order and cogency of arrangement such as we look for in vain in even the great orations of Chrysostom.<ref name=CE/>

Philosophy regards man only as an intellectual being, without considering his emotions, and makes its appeal solely to his intellectual side. And, even in this appeal, philosophy, while, like algebra, speaking the formal language of intellect, is likely to be wanting from the view-point of persuasiveness, inasmuch as, from its nature, it makes for condensation rather than for amplification. The latter is the most important thing in oratory – "Summa laus eloquentiæ amplificare rem ornando." [[Fénelon]] (Second Dialogue) describes it as portrayal; [[De Quincey]], as a holding of the thought until the mind gets time to eddy about it; [[John Henry Newman|Newman]] gives an analysis of it;<ref>(Idea of a Univ., 1899, p. 280)</ref> his own sermons are remarkable for this quality of amplification as are those of [[Bourdaloue]] on the intellectual, and those of [[Massillon]] on the intellectual-emotional side, v. g. the latter's sermon on the Prodigal Son. Philosophy, indeed, is necessary for oratory; philosophy alone does not constitute oratory, and, if too one-sided, may have an injurious effect – "Logic, therefore, so much as is useful, is to be referred to this one place with all her well-couched heads and topics, until it be time to open her contracted palm into a graceful and ornate rhetoric".<ref>(Milton, "Tractate of Education")</ref> What has been here stated refers to philosophy as a system, not to individual philosophers. It is scarcely necessary to say that many Scholastics, such as Thomas and Bonaventure, were noted preachers.<ref name=CE/>