ARISTOTLE’S PROTREPTICUS, CICERO’S HORTENTIUS AND AUGUSTINE’S REFERENCE TO THE ISLAND OF THE BLESSED IN THE BOOK DE TRINITATE

Abstract

In Chapter 9 of Book XIV of The Trinity, Saint Augustine intends to respond to the question whether the virtues will disappear in the future life. He answers that it is a controversial question as to know if the virtues, which nourish a right life in this adverse existence, will no longer exist after we have been brought into eternal life; there we will no longer need them. For Augustine, eternal life means a life close to God, therefore, a fully blessed life. To give an example of this, he quotes the Hortensius, where the author mentions the Island of the Blessed, which, in Greek mythology, corresponds to a place of bliss and recompense. This is the equivalent of the Paradise or Eden of the Christians. He concludes saying that, in the afterlife, will no longer need of the cardinal virtues. They will remain only as a pale remembrance left in our soul when we still were in this world. What Augustine did not know is that the quotation of Hortensius was in fact a quotation of Aristotle’s Protrepticus.