Abstract

The ancient early Christian authors had a high level of communicative
competence. This competence was expressed in their great artistry in oratory,
writing and in their understanding the meaning of the communication
contexts. To show and describe the communicative competence of the
Church Fathers, the author of the present article focuses on the metaphors
used by them. At the beginning, a metaphor as a rhetorical device is explained,
in terms of what kind of function it has and how it works. In the
second phase, the specific examples of metaphors that referred to poverty
and wealth were chosen and their interpretations expounded. In the final
section, the topic in question is summarized and then the conclusions come
to are related to contemporary religious communication and the transmission
of the faith in the digital world.