CHRISTIANITY AND NEOPLATONISM IN AUGUSTINE

ON A SENTENCE OF CONTRA ACADEMICOS (III,19,42): “UNA VERISSIMAE PHILOSOPHIAE DISCIPLINA”

Abstract

This article examines the question concerning the relations between Christianity and philosophia in a passage of Contra Academicos. The reference to Plato and “Platonism” throughout Augustine’s first writings requests some reflections on the reciprocal influence of Platonism and Christianity in his conversion (386). Is the Augustinus Philosophus, which composes a series of writings between 386 and 391, so different from that described in the Confessions and from that who will become bishop of Hippo in 395? Is he more a “Platonic philosopher” and much less a “penitent”, who would be more influenced, to a great extent, by the Neoplatonic philosophy than by Christian faith? Thus, how is to be understood the Augustinian thought in his first works, where he is particularly marked by the reading of the so-called Libri platonicorum (Books of the Platonists), in comparison with the works of maturity, where he is fully conscious of the Christian truths and would have overcome the “Platonism” of his beginnings? This is the famous controversial question regarding the “evolution” and/or the continuity of Augustine’s thought, which I intend to explore from an emblematic proposition of Book III (19,42) of his first philosophical work.