AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

NEOPLATONIC CONSIDERATIONS

Abstract

It is a peaceful point, when we seek to understand the bases of the philosophy of Augustine of Hippo, his debt to Neoplatonism. Decisive to his understanding of the relationship between unity and multiplicity, as well as for the problem of the evil in its connection with the existence of a first Principle (the Good), Neoplatonism makes up a large part of the central works of the hyponense such as: Confessionum libri tredecim, De ordine and De uera religione. Thus, the objective of this work consists in to expose some elements that affiliate, although maintaining what is specific, the Augustinian thought to the Neoplatonic henology, in particular, of Plotinus, taking as a central point the notion of absolute freedom that defines the Plotinian One, in its process of unfolding (próodos) at hypostatic levels, as the founding principle of all real (multiple) without, however, being reduced to any specific reality. I start from the conviction that this aspect is indispensable for the understanding of Augustinian metaphysics.