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The most forceful rejection of eloquence I am aware of is Christ's: "Get thee behind me, Satan," an admonition extended in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 4 and 5) to an ethic recommending the plain style, plain dealing, humility, truth, and justice.
He adds: "Since the Gospels and Paul's epistles—though not solely because of them—it has become harder to make the case for eloquence." Certainly some of the good evangelicals I grew up among thought so.
And yet is it really so hard to make the case for eloquence on Christian terms? What could be more eloquent, more blessedly superfluous, than Creation itself? All those beetles, those unseen creatures of the deep, those galaxies upon galaxies—all unnecessary. Shakespeare was unnecessary. My new grandson Gus is unnecessary.
Donoghue tells us that he once "thought of compiling an anthology, a commonplace book, in which every chosen item would drive readers into an altitudo of pleasure—to think that there could be such eloquence, sentences, cadences, in what seems otherwise an ordinary world." But don't we respond to the eloquence he celebrates precisely because there is no "ordinary" world? Our world is fallen, yet the gratuitous goodness of Creation persists, and the restoration of all things is promised.
Among evangelicals, suspicion of eloquence is in part an inheritance from the Reformation, still potent after five centuries. In a piece for Books & Culture some years ago ("Flagitious Corruptions," March/April 2000), I referred to that splendid book Christ and Architecture: Building Presbyterian/Reformed Churches (Eerdmans, 1965), quoting the caption that accompanied a photo of a church interior:
Note the honest use of concrete block as the interior surfacing, the honest use of precast beams and precast slabs of the roof. There is no attempt here to cover this basic material with older, more acceptable, materials. The materials are honest. At the same time note the use of concrete for the pulpit, font and organ support. There is no pretense; these materials are doing the job well without camouflage of any sort.
Striking, isn't it, how this valorizing of the "honest" rhymes with talk about "honesty" that was in the air in 1965 in circles far removed from church architecture.
If eloquence is associated with "pretense" and all that implies, it is also suspect because it lacks weight. You can't eat it. It won't save souls, prevent global warming, reduce the spread of AIDS or the incidence of abortion.
Yes, all true, and this is why eloquence is precious. "Eloquence, as distinct from rhetoric, has no aim: it is a play of words or other expressive means. It is a gift to be enjoyed in appreciation and practice." Those earnest folk who scorn frivolity should recognize that their argument is with God himself. He has given us this world, with all its wonders and perplexities.
Eloquence consistently directs us beyond itself to that which eludes and exceeds expression and indeed understanding. Donoghue quotes Diderot: "The word is not the thing, but a flash in the light of which one perceives it." In this respect eloquence is akin to music, and Donoghue has a chapter entitled "Song Without Words." I'd love to sit in on a seminar or a reading group in which the two texts were On Eloquence and Jeremy Begbie's Resounding Truth or Theology, Music and Time. Undervaluing music, or treating it with punishing austerity, goes hand-in-hand with undervaluing eloquence.
Let us forswear false dichotomies. We are not faced with a choice between savoring eloquence and serving our brothers and sisters, or between eloquence and truth:
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