What are some major changes in rhetoric from ancient Greece to Christian Europe?

Rhetoric in Christian Europe mainly took the form of Church preaching and sermons. St. Augustine was one figure in particular who was responsible for giving rhetoric a new domain. These sermons were highly persuasive and meant to explain specific texts in the bible that the lower class illiterate people could not read. Therefore, because of there ability to influence, clergy members became highly regarded figures. In addition to preaching the word of god, christian Europe also utilized letters as medium of rhetoric. However, these letters followed a specific format consisting of five different parts. Furthermore, Women were responsible for running small family business, thus had to engage in letter writing. Nonetheless, these letters were still of masculine style because male secretaries would actually write the letters. The context of Europe becoming predominantly Christian was due to the efforts of people like St. Augustine. These missionaries made it their goal to convert as many people as possible to see the absolute truth in god. They did so by using rhetoric, in fact, St. Augustine was trained in rhetoric prior to converting himself.

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Charles Palandati