My fellow NTS thesis writer from last year (we were the only two at the time) wrote his on Plotinus and Augustine, if you care to get some bibliographic info from him. Greg Miller: gmillhouse@gmail.com.

Hmm, well I guess I actually don’t need convincing of the neo-platonism of Augustine — it is pretty self-evident in the Confessions alone. Take a look at book X where he does the inner movement of ascension through memory thing. However, what most people miss in this section (ch. 40) is that he says that what he finds at the end of this journey is a lie, because you do not “get” to God through inner reflection, but instead through Jesus Christ, who is fully human and fully divine (see X.40 where he undercuts the ‘intermediary’ language, going against neo-platonic ideas of the levels/ascensions to God where the Father, at least in gnostic thought, was thought to be the ‘demiurge’ and the Son the real God).

The point of contention, then, is that people just think that is all Augustine is, as if it somehow compromised his Christianity. So, there are claims that Augustine is always starting from the ‘unity’ of God and then moving to the Tri-unity, and so, the story goes, this is another indication that “the West” is so much more indebted to and at the stranglehold of Greek (neo-)Platonism than Christianity itself. Leithart’s post in referencing Ayers and others attempts to begin to cut through that. Also, in reading through De Trinitate myself, I also just don’t see how Augustine is “beginning” with the unity. He is always starting from Scripture where he finds the different persons of God and then also arguing that these are the same “substance” (saying, rather more humbly than people seem to remember: “whatever that is”) in God.

It would be interesting to ask Mark Bilby some of these questions about Augustine and neo-platonism — he’s teaching this year at PLNU and has done a lot of reading on Augustine but has also taken a class from Milbank (when he was at U. of Virginia) on neo-platonism.

I have a feeling that when I read through Hanby’s book I’ll be posting more thoughts as well, as I know he tackles this stuff…he’s really familiar with Plotinus and all that.

Thanks y’all.

Peace,

Eric

IIRC Augustine had little direct exposure to Plato, but was more heavily influenced by Plotinus and other late-antique neo-platonists. There are some significant differences between Plato and the neo-platonists, which is worth keeping in mind.

Glad to hear you’re safe, btw.