Convincere con allegria: istruzione e catechesi in Agostino

In his De catechizandis rudibus Augustine explains the utility of gaudium (vs tædium) in order to persuade the listener to faith. Many years after, in the fourth book of De doctrina christiana (the rhetorical one) gaudium has no effective function. There are probably two reasons for this disappearance: the passage of Augustine ‘from dialogue to violence’ in the struggle against the heretics; his conversion to the theology of Grace which stresses the importance of persuadere by God compared with human docere.