Since Ancient Athens and the Roman Empire, rhetoric has grown in that students are now challenged to not just memorize rules and organizational guidelines, but to actually pay attention to what they listen to or read in order to imitate their technique.

Following Athens and Rome, much of the emphasis was placed on writing and religious speaking.  Students were not just working on memorizing words from previous writers, but were encouraged to fully understand the context and the meaning behind what was written. By understanding the meaning, the students would be able to expand and create their own rhetoric by mimicking the method and style of the given work.  This is very similar to what we attempt to do with our “deep reading” and understanding what it is the writer was actually attempting to say.  St. Augustine said that to read scripture and memorize without fully understand will only create confusion if the student attempted to repeat it.  However if they understood the meaning and the language used, the student would be able to accurately portray the true meaning.

This pressure to understand came from the newly found importance of Christ and the bible.  St. Augustine says that a good Christian will read the bible and fully attempt to understand it because what would they be believing in, what would the point be, if they did not understand the religion at its core meaning.  On the other hand, rhetoric furthered religion because of the religious sermons and those that preached during church. By giving religion a stage and a means to disseminate understandable beliefs through a large group of people very quickly, rhetoric was able to facilitate the spread of Christianity.