The sublime style was for rousing emotions, the intermediate for administering praise or blame and the lowly for teaching. It is wholesome for anthropologists struggling to interpret ritual to recall this long tradition of inquiry into the relation of style to subject matter and social relations. Auerbach’s book is devoted to the study of what changes in the traditional form of discourse occurred under the impact of Christian ideas. Note too that the lowly: style was called lingua humilis, related to humus, soil, and meaning literally low, low-lying and of small stature.