¹ ‘Ennead VI 4–5 in the Works of Saint Augustine,’ in Revue des études Augustiniennes , 9 (1963) 1–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² See the conclusion of the above article, 39. Google Scholar

³ Augustins Bekehrung (Tübingen 1923). Henceforth cited as Bekehrung. Google Scholar

⁴ Ibid. 238. He immediately appends that Augustine subsequently interprets this theory in the light of Genesis. The question is, to what extent does Augustine interpret Genesis in the light of this theory?Google Scholar

⁵ H. de Leusse, ‘Le Problème de la préexistence des âmes chez Marius Victorinus Afer,’ Recherches de science religieuse 29 (1939) 197–239, esp. 198 and 236ff.Google Scholar

⁶ By Fr. Paul Henry, Plotin et l'Occident (Louvain 1934) 66–7., henceforth: Plotin. Google Scholar

⁷ For a recent summary on this question—though perhaps slanted in some regards toward a Porphyrian hypothesis—see J.J. O'Meara, ‘Augustine and Neo-Platonism’ Recherches Augustiniennes I (Paris 1958) 91–111. CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁸ (2d ed. Paris 1943) 67ff. Henceforth: Introduction. We cite from this work rather than from its recent American translation, The Christian Philosophy of Saint Augustine (New York 1960) since this latter is doubtless less accessible than the former, which it reproduces without significant change. Google Scholar

⁹ Ibid.Google Scholar

¹⁰ De civ. Dei 11.23. 1–2.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ep. 166.9. 27.Google Scholar

¹² See Bardy, G., La cité de Dieu, BA 35 (Paris 1959) 10, n. 1; and Goldbacher's discussion of chronology in the Vienna edition of Augustine's letters, CSEL 58.44.Google Scholar

¹³ For the details on this controversy see P. de Labriolle, in L'histoire de l’Église (Fliche-Martin) III, De la Mort de Théodose ἁ l'election de Grégoire le Grand (Paris 1947) Chapter II 31–46; and his principal source, Cavallera, F., Saint Jérôme (2 vols., Louvain 1922) esp. I, 193–286. Henceforth: Jérôme. Google Scholar

¹⁴ See Dudden, F. H., The Life and Times of St. Ambrose (2 vols. [pagination continuous] Oxford 1935) 2.457. Henceforth: Ambrose. Google Scholar

¹⁵ See Ep. 67 to Jerome, which is clearly a request for information. Cavallera, Jérôme II 48 (see the text which corrects the approximation given in the table on the same page) prefers 399 as the date of this letter. Google Scholar

¹⁶ See especially his plea to Valerius for time to study, Ep. 21.3 (date: 391). More directly touching our question, De libero arbitrio 3.59. Thonnard, F.J. BA 6, (2d ed. 1952) 126, dates this book in the neighborhood of 395, nine years after his conversion. See also Bardy, G.'s remarks, ibid. 495–9 and in Les révisions, BA 12 (1950) 567. This latter work is a precious mine of information, particularly on the chronology of the Saint's works.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Introduction, 94–5.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Ibid. 68.Google Scholar

¹⁹ See note 16 supra. Google Scholar

²⁰ De lib. arb. 3.59, translation: Dom Mark Pontifex, ACW 22, (Westminster 1955).Google Scholar

²¹ It contains both the senses of ‘deviate’ and ‘fall’ conveyed by the Greek term. For the occurrence of the latter in a locus which there is good reason to think Augustine read (cf. our article, cited supra n. 1), see Ennead VI 5.12.16. Google Scholar

²² The terms (a divinorum librorum catholicis tractoribus) are different, but the substance recalls his complaints against Origen, De civ. Dei 11.23.1–2. Google Scholar

²³ The controversy dates from the publication of an article by Fr. Y. de Montcheuil Recherches de science religieuse 23 (1933), (reprinted in his Mélanges théologiques (Paris 1946) 93–111, in answer to Fr. Charles Boyer's ‘Dieu pouvait-il créer l'homme dans l’état d'ignorance et de difficulté,’ Gregorianum 11 (1930) 32–57. In 1954 it still showed no signs of abating: see the contributions of Trapé, Boyer, Le Bourlier, De Lubac to Augustinus Magister, and the discussion, AM III 247–61.Google Scholar

²⁴ De lib. arb. 3.53. Compare the question as put by Evodius, ibid. 1.23.Google Scholar

²⁵ Ibid. 3.51, 52, 54.Google Scholar

²⁶ See Ibid. 3.53: ut quiescant, et adversus Deum murmurare desistant; also his treamtent of each of the hypotheses, ibid. 54–8 and the summary-conclusion, 59: we should not think (sentire) aliud de illo [scil. creatore] quam est. Google Scholar

²⁷ Ibid. 3.58.Google Scholar

²⁸ Ibid. Google Scholar

²⁹ La philosophie de Plotin (Paris 1928) 68. The entire chapter, pp. 47–69, is valuable for an understanding of the diverse tensions in Plotinus’ theory of the soul. Google Scholar

³⁰ Sixth in the chronological order, this treatise is relatively early. Google Scholar

³¹ Ibid. 1 entire.Google Scholar

³² See note 30, supra. Google Scholar

³³ As many of his predecessors seem to have done, opting for either the pessimistic or the optimistic position. See Festugière, A.J., La révélation d'Hermès Trismégiste 2 (Paris 1953) 63–96. This attempt at reconciliation is already a first hallmark of the Plotinian theory.Google Scholar

³⁴ See Schwyzer, H. RE s.v. ‘Plotinos’ 547–8; but see also Puech, H.C., ‘Plotin et les Gnostiques,’ Sources de Plotin, Entretiens sur l'Antiquité Classique. Fondation Hardt, V; henceforth, Sources (Vandœuvres-Génève 1960) 159–174; also the subsequent discusion, 175–190, esp. 183. Compare ibid. Dodds, E. R.’ study, ‘Numenius and Ammonius’ 1–32 (discussion, 33–61). The resulting picture is one of more decided development than Schwyzer was prepared to admit when writing his article for RE. Its direction generally is away from a semi-Gnostic dualism toward a more Stoic optimism. Unaware of this development, and taking his Plotinus without regard for chronology, Augustine shows the tensions even more clearly, perhaps, than the Plotinus of any given treatise.Google Scholar

³⁵ Sources 185.Google Scholar

³⁶ Enn. V 8.12.9. This treatise dates from Plotinus’ anti-Gnostic period, see loc. cit. n. 35.Google Scholar

³⁷ Enn. IV 8.5 entire. Plotinus returns to this nettling problem in Enn. III 2.18.29ff. and IV 3.12–13. Note that the latter two treatises are expressly referred to in De civ. Dei; see Henry, , Plotin, 122–3.Google Scholar

³⁸ See our article, cited above, n. 1, especially nn. 14 and 15. Google Scholar

³⁹ ‘ Spiritualité et immortalité de l’âme chez saint Augustin’ AM I 329–34.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ A number of additional arguments (besides those listed by Verbeke) occur in suggestive parallel in both treatises: note particularly the curious argument concerning sleep in Enn. IV 7. 8⁵ and De imm. animae 23. The question deserves a special study, which would be very revealing on Augustine's working methods and perhaps also on his philosophic formation. Plotinus, for example, combats the entelechy and harmony theories of the soul with parallel arguments (ibid. 8⁴ and 8⁵); this seems to have led Augustine to assume (ibid. 17 that they were one and the same theory). Google Scholar

⁴¹ See Henry, , Plotin, 138. Taking as a hypothesis that Augustine read this treatise before Cassiciacum would, we suggest, illuminate some obscurities in those writings.Google Scholar

⁴² Art. cit. n. 1, supra. Google Scholar

⁴³ Or, if preferred, our method could be construed after the hypothetical fashion suggested in n. 41. The fact that these treatises help explain obscurities in Augustine's text and in the movement of his thought (without, however, deforming it) would itself constitute evidence of their relevance, to be confirmed, if possible, by further data of a more philological nature. See the methodological remarks in our former article, pp. 4–5 and nn. 21, 26, and 31. Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Such expressions abound at Cassiciacum, see for example De ord. 1. 29 and 2. 30–1; De b. vita 1–5; and J.J. O'Meara's edition of Against the Academics, ACW 12, notes 8 and 9 to Book 1, with references. Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Enn. IV 8.1.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Cf. Enn. IV 8.5.17–29 and De b. vita 3–5 (three classes of souls) and Sol. 1. 23–25 (two classes). Note especially Sol. 1.23, those in the higher class nec doctore indigent, sed sola fortasse admonitione. His credere, sperare, amare satis est. But the notions of faith, hope and charity (ibid. 12–14) bear careful examination. Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Enn. IV 8.4.29–30. Cf. Sol. 2 entire, but especially 34–5.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ This is particularly clear in Sol. 2, where the reminiscence theory is in close connection with the ascent through the disciplinae, 34–5. It explains much of the De ordine’s concentration on the ordo studiorum, 2.14–17 and especially 30–31 where its connection with the regressus animae is stressed. Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Enn. IV 8.7.1–11, esp. line 5.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Porphyrios und Augustin (Halle 1933)17ff. Henceforth: Porphyrios. Google Scholar

⁵¹ See for example, O'Meara in ACW 12. 22–3 and notes; Courcelle, P., Les Lettres Grecques en Occident (2d ed. Paris 1948) 159ff.Google Scholar

⁵² Consisting of inferring Porphyrian influence for themes in Augustine's early works which the aging bishop later associates with Porphyry. See our article (cited note 1, above) especially note 39, and also O'Meara, ACW 12, note 110 of the Introduction and the citations given there. Note how importantly O'Meara features the fuga a corpore theme in this regard. Google Scholar

⁵³ See Enn. III 2.9.20, where Plotinus is concerned to show that the universality of Providence does not deprive man of responsibility for his actions. Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Enn. IV 8.7.5. Here its connection is different from the above, as we shall shortly see. We are indebted to Mr. Pollet, G. for this information on the occurrence of the μέση τάξις notion in Plotinus, information he was enabled to furnish thanks to his researches toward a Plotinian Lexicon.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ See especially De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.3. (henceforth: De Genesi.) Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid. and 2.19, where his spiritual exegesis has purged Genesis of the ‘sacrilegious’ Manichaean interpretation whereby it was God who encouraged carnal intercourse in paradise; cf. his ingenious theory of copulatio spiritalis, ibid. 1.30.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ See Dudden, , Ambrose. Vol. 2, 459. See also ibid. 458 for the principle of digna Deo; and cf. Rollero, P., ‘La Expositio evangelii secundum Lucam di Ambroggio come fonte della essegesi’, Agostiniana (Turin 1958) esp. 14–17; 129–132; 137–40.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ De Genesi 1. 30; cf. 1.27–28, allegorical interpretation of the creation of man and woman. To what extent is the animalis pars truly a ‘part’ of a substantial and individual man? The Platonic passage from εδος to μέϱος and back when speaking of the ‘parts’ of the soul bids us be cautious; and the symbolic atmosphere which is all-pervasive here warns us that Augustine may not be using the term in a sense which seems most immediately obvious to us. How settle the question? By examining the rest of the work and assigning to this ambiguous phrase a meaning consonant with the obvious meaning of the whole. We shall see that the functional relationship between the ratio and the animalis pars is manifestly Neo-Platonic.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ De Genesi 1.30: the spiritual marriage of ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ symbolizing the rational and sensible parts of human nature, was to bring forth spirituales foetus immortalium gaudiorum. It must be remembered that Augustine has already made the soul part of that “spiritual creation” which is symbolized by the viridi agri (2.4) which is irrigated by the intelligible light of the Verbum (2.6).Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Cf. Conf. 7.16–17, where Augustine's first step in his reflections on the libri platonicorum is in terms of this classic Platonic distinction. Google Scholar

⁶¹ See, for example, Augustine's allusion to the hierarchy of beings in Conf. 3.9, the priora opera Dei being the spiritalia, while the corporeal universe implicitly receives the denomination of posteriora. The same distinction can be found frequently in Plotinus, but especially relevant to Augustine's paradise image is its use in Enn. V 8.12–13, where the notions of inferiority and (natural, not temporal) posteriority are linked. Google Scholar

⁶² As contained in Enn. IV 3.25ff., which Augustine read, and which Winkler, K. finds active at Cassiciacum: see ‘La Théorie augustinienne de la mémoire à son point de départ,’ AM I. 511–19.Google Scholar

⁶³ See our previous article, cited in note 1, above. As might be expected, there are moments and therefore works of Augustine in which one or other treatise of Plotinus seems to dominate his attention. Google Scholar

⁶⁴ We shall see shortly that Augustine shares the problematic which explains the occurrence of this anomalous passage in a deeper sense than mere textual rapprochements could ever do it; at the same time, however, that problematic is never clearer than in the Plotinian text which here served to remind Augustine of the need to ‘justify’ the fall. Google Scholar

⁶⁵ See Enn. IV 8.4, 11–28: we have merely summarized it here. Google Scholar

⁶⁶ Ibid.; and cf. the text cited above p. 12, in parallel with Enn. IV 8.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Plotinus, therefore, would reject the thought of the soul's ‘pure’ spirituality; the soul preserves a natural relation with the body and the sensible universe, but one which makes it ideally present ‘to’ (not ‘in’) that universe, present in an absent sort of way. Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Note the distinction: whereas the anima is the subject of peccatum (De Genesi 2.5: antequam anima peccaret), the term homo seems more appropriate to our fallen condition: only after that fall was there a homo laborans in terra, (ibid). Though obliged by the sacred text to admit man as created from the clay of the earth, Augustine seems to reduce the force of that admission with the immediate reminder that this was before he was transported into paradise, ut a Verbo Dei consummaretur (ibid. 2.10.) This seems to mean that man's creation was itself completed by that consummation, so that the normative divine idea of man is that of a spiritual creature. Hence Augustine can say that the basic flaw of the Manichaean anthropology arises from its starting point: multum errent qui post peccatum considerent hominem, cum in hujus vitae mortalitatem damnatus est; (ibid. 1.29). Add that we look forward to a renovatio, a liberatio which Augustine terms a commutatio in angelicam formam (ibid. 1.29; 2.32), in virtue of which, by following the spiritual Adam, Christ, we become once more the spiritual creation, the viride agri, having been restored to the paradise which we lost by sin (2.10). Cf. De quant. animae 78, where the soul is naturally par angelo, and inferior only in consequence of sin. Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Conf. 1.7. Note the context: Augustine admits: nescio unde venerim huc; cf. ibid. 9: dic mihi, utrum alicui iam aetati meae mortuae successerit infantia mea … fuine alicubi aut aliquis? Thus, in a doubt which may be resolved as the Confessions proceeds, he leaves the question open: Ibid. 10, he praises God de primordiis ET infantia mea, quae non memini. Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Cf. De Genesi 1.29; (for other variations, ibid. 1.19. 26; 2.15, 38, 40). Compare De lib. arb. 2.53, the culminating definition of sin, and De Genesi 2.15 where a similar compression is achieved, the term mors now standing for the entire complex of fallen-condition properties. Google Scholar

⁷¹ Cf. Enn. IV 7.11 and ibid. 9, line 23, where the term is applied to wood and stone in contrast with the soul. Augustine's distinction De imm. animae 16, between anima-animata-exanime, with the latter then termed mortuum, seems an echo of this terminology. See also the coincidental but striking grouping of the same terms (wood, stone, death) in the Plotinian original of Augustine's death-bed quotation, Enn. I 4.7.20–26: ‘One that sets great store by wood and stones, or, Zeus! by mortality among mortals, cannot yet be the proficient, whose estimate of death, we hold, must be that it is better than life in the body.’ Such verbal correspondences mean very little to us; there is much evidence to suggest that they meant a great deal to Augustine. Google Scholar

⁷² De Genesi 2.15.Google Scholar

⁷³ Ibid. 1.30.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Ibid. 2.5, 6; cited below.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Ibid. 2.32, cited below, p. 17.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ See note 68, supra. Google Scholar

⁷⁷ De Genesi 2.10. Google Scholar

⁷⁸ We have tried to show (art. cit. note 1, above, pp. 28–37) that in the Confessions Augustine most often uses the Plotinian image of the ‘Head’ (Enn. VI 5.7.1–14) as the imaginative backdrop of this intus-foras distinction. At this point in his career, however, and dealing with the analogous but not identical concept of the intima, the corresponding image is drawn rather from Enn. III 7, as we shall shortly see. Cf. note 68, above. Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Cf. also the σννάμφω of Plotinus’ description of the fall in Enn. VI 4.14.25. Mackenna renders the term suggestively with the phrase: ‘We have lost that first simplicity, we are become the dual thing.’ (Italics ours). Google Scholar

⁸⁰ De Genesi 2.23 develops this link between the “tunics of mortality” and the resulting possibility of dissimulation and hypocrisy.Google Scholar

⁸¹ This seems the force of Plotinus’ πάμπαν where Henry-Schwyzer (accepting Vitringa's reading) place it. Cf. Enn. V. 8.3. 21ff. for Plotinus’ acceptance of corporeality in heaven; here he seems to warn that that body will not be the kind familiar to our ordinary experience. Mackenna probably (‘though they may occupy bodies in the heavenly region’) and Bréhier certainly (‘tant qu'elles ont leur corps dans le ciel’) work from a different positioning of πάμπαν. Google Scholar

⁸² Enn. IV 8.8.1–9: Plotinus offers the suggestion with the admission that it ‘clashes with the general view.’ This is, in fact, one of the most characteristic and personal of Plotinus’ views on the soul and her fallen condition, making all the more significant the traces of the same theory in Augustine.Google Scholar

⁸³ Enn. V 8.11. 19–20.Google Scholar

⁸⁴ In De musica 6.7–8, Augustine is trying to show how much of the illusory there is in our everyday impression that the body can act upon the soul in its fallen state: such a capacity on its part, he advises his disciple, would be real cause for wonder. He then goes on (ibid. 9–10) to elaborate (with help from Plotinus, we may think: see Enn. IV 4.22ff. which Augustine seems to have interpreted in the light of additional suggestions in Enn. I 4.10 where the present problematic is remarkably paralleled) his celebrated theory of sensation as an active ‘attention of the soul to the passio corporis.’ That attention becomes sharpest when the soul encounters some difficultas in its normal animating activity, one which produces the distraction from the higher activity of contemplation which is traced to its cause in De musica 6.37ff. The cause is, as one might guess, the fall of the soul. Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Compare De musica 6.49 and Enn. I 4.10, where (see note 84) absorption in intellectual activity is shown to take our minds completely off any routine lower activity we may be engaged in at the same time. Google Scholar

⁸⁶ De quant. animae 55. On whether, in Plotinus’ system, all elevation corresponds to ‘diminution de conscience’ (Bréhier, Ennéades Y 149, note 1—à propos of the exact passage from Ennead V 8.11 cited above, p. 19), see Schwyzer, H.R.'s careful “ ‘Bewusst’ und ‘unbewusst’ bei Plotin” in Sources, 341–378. Augustine may be excused for holding, as regards corporeal consciousness, essentially the same view as Bréhier.Google Scholar

⁸⁷ See De imm. animae 3–4 (comparing with Enn. IV 7.9); De ord. 2. 3–7, 18–21. Google Scholar

⁸⁸ This is one of the background implications in De ord. 2.11–13 and 18–21; the overt question is whether the actions of the stultus (translate: ‘sinner’) are performed in ordine; the real question is whether Deus omnia agit as the universality of Providence seems to imply; cf. ibid. 1, 1, aut certe mala omnia Dei voluntate committi. Plotinus’ formulation of the problem is the same, cf. ‘On Providence,’ Enn. III 2.7, and 10, and 12; III 3.3, and 4, where he is unable to hide his acute embarassment before this question. In the De ord. sections referred to (as well as in De ord. 2. 22–3), the only solution offered is that the actions of the stultus do not elude God's logically subsequent ordering activity. What drives Augustine in both instances to point out the need of an ordo studiorum before being fit to gain insight into such question is his own awareness that this is an escape from rather than a solution of the questions which he has posed entirely too squarely to get out of it that easily. He is looking for a scheme such that the sinner can commit sin, and God not commit it, while at the same time the dualistic solution of the Manichees is foiled, and the exigencies of participation theory are conscientiously observed. Google Scholar

⁸⁹ See De lib. arb. 1. 4: the statement of the question is beguiling if one takes voluntas in a chosiste manner. Augustine really wants to know how God can give us a free will whose very free act is reducibly His, without making Him the auctor of the sins we commit. Google Scholar

⁹⁰ De lib. arb. 2. 53; cf. Conf. 7.22 and De quant. animae 78. The structure of both thought and image in all these texts is the same: our fall plunges us from the Summa, God, our ‘common’ object of (contemplative) beatitude, into the ima of corporeal creation; and its root is a ‘turning away’ from God through the proud desire to have something proprium. Why this structure appeals to Augustine as his way out of the difficulty mentioned in notes 88 and 89, above, we shall see presently in connection with the pondus motif.Google Scholar

⁹¹ See our article, pp. 15–20. Google Scholar

⁹² See Henry, , Plotin, 123; the solution is drawn from the very section he finds Augustine citing in De. civ. Dei. Google Scholar

⁹³ Enn. IV 3. 12–13.Google Scholar

⁹⁴ Enn. IV 8.5, 1ff. and III 2.12.7ff. He is evidently bothered by the problem, as well he might be. Google Scholar

⁹⁵ In De civ. Dei 10.30.30 precisely in connection with Enn. IV 3.12; see Henry, , loc. cit. note 92 above.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ Conf. 13.10. See the context.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Conf. 7.12: stimulis internis; 4. 22, pondera; 7.23, pondus. The idea without the term occurs frequently, e.g. 5. 14 and 23.Google Scholar

⁹⁸ See Green, W.M. ‘Initium omnis peccati superbia. Augustine on pride as the first sin,’ U. of California Publications in Classical Philology 13 (1949) 407–31. Theiler, W., Porphyrios, 28, tries to show that the concept which he finds so important in both Augustine and Plotinus, must therefore have been in the Porphyry who (he would have it) transmitted Neo-Platonic thought to Augustine.Google Scholar

⁹⁹ De Genesi 2.12, cited above, p. 12.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁰ See the description of the fall in Enn. IV 8.4.11–28 in addition to the texts cited below, notes 101, 103. Note that a certain ‘interference’ was likely in Augustine's reading of all these texts, so that he found the coloration of one in the occasionally more neutral language of the others. Google Scholar

¹⁰¹ Enn. I 6.5.22ff. But see the following section as well, I 6.6.Google Scholar

¹⁰² See Puech, H.C., Le Manichéisme, son fondateur, sa doctrine (Paris 1949) 68–71 and 76–8. Note the relation of ὑλῆ with concupiscence. Augustine claims to Honoratus that he has conserved all he found true in Manichaeism: De utilitate credendi 36: quod apud eos verum didiceram, teneo. Any understanding of his hardy effort to erect an intellectus fidei must bear in mind that such a (legitimate in itself) intention carries risks with it.Google Scholar

¹⁰³ Enn. I 8 (chronologically = 51^st of the 54 treatises) which, as Bréhier notes (Ennéades I, 51) embodies the same theory of evil as the treatise on Beauty I. 6.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁴ De lib. arb. 1.8ff.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁵ See note 103 above. Google Scholar

¹⁰⁶ Enn. VI 4.15.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁷ De Genesi 2.20 and 39.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁸ Porphyrios, 36ff. Cf. I Jo. 2. 15–16.Google Scholar

¹⁰⁹ De musica 6.44.Google Scholar

¹¹⁰ Its presence in Porphyry Theiler must deduce from its presence in Plotinus; see note 98 above. Google Scholar

¹¹¹ Ibid. 57. Theiler overlooks the adjustments Augustine must make in Plotinus in order to achieve the provisional synthesis of the De vera religione. Some of the portions of his work where that labor is most evident are, for that very reason, most illuminating on the real sources he is remolding: hence the importance of the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, which Theiler, like most scholars, accords only passing attention.Google Scholar

¹¹² See note 16. Bardy's arguments, be it observed, impose a later date for the second book than for the first, but it remains quite possible that it was written shortly after the De Genesi contra Manichaeos, De musica and De magistro, which show many analogies with it. Google Scholar

¹¹³ Augustine is explaining the allegory of the seven days of creation, and is in the finale of the first book. His formal exegetical task is over, and it is possible that this portion constitutes a conclusion added later. Google Scholar

¹¹⁴ Gen. 2.14. The triad, in which the venter and pectus mentions are really a doublet, seems to be one of those peculiarities of the translation Augustine is using; see De Genesi 2. 27. Google Scholar

¹¹⁵ If, that is, one admit with Theiler that Augustine's curiositas reflects a Porphyrian polemic against the imagination, for which his major piece of evidence is the fact that it is found in that connection in Augustine. We would suggest, on the contrary, that its terminal function in Augustine is a result of sifting it through the anti-image analysis of Ennead VI 4–5, a process which had definitely anti-Manichaean point. See note 116, infra. Google Scholar

¹¹⁶ The main defect that Augustine finds in his former intellectual comportment is this habit of inquiring into spiritalia terreno oculo; see Conf. 5.19 and our article (cited note 1 above) especially the texts cited in notes 13 and 33. Google Scholar

¹¹⁷ See Le Temps et l'Éternité chez Plotin et saint Augustin (Paris 1933) 102–30. A cursory examination of the eleventh book of the Confessions will suggest that the discussion of time and eternity there follows quite faithfully the pattern of Plotinus’ own treatise, III 7. Notice, for instance, the picturesque observation in both authors (Enn. III 7.1 and Conf. 11.17) that ‘time’ seems a simple question until the question is actually put; Augustine's definition of time, moreover, as a distentio animi (11.39) reproduces Plotinus’ own Διάστασις … ζωῆς, which occurs in Enn. III 7.11. 41, in the same section we are about to cite in parallel with his description of the fall into time. The intermediate steps of the argument all follow the pattern set by Plotinus, once it is seen how much Augustine manages to couch the refutation of contrary views in terms of the metrical observations which constitute his De musica adaptation of this treatise. Google Scholar

¹¹⁸ Of which the last sentence of our text is simply a résumé; see Enn. III 7.11. Google Scholar

¹¹⁹ Enn. IV 8.411ff: the soul becomes ‘partial and self-centered; in a weary desire of standing apart they find their way, each to a place of its very own.‘ Both underlined terms (the translation is Mackenna's) stand for Plotinus’ ἑαυτῶν; cf. Augustine's parallel insistence on such terms as suum, proprium, ad seipsam in the texts (De Genesi 2.22 and 24) we are about to examine.Google Scholar

¹²⁰ Ennéades, V 15 note 1 (referring to Enn. V 1.1).Google Scholar

¹²¹ Henry, , Plotin, 127, confirmed by O'Meara, ACW 12, 161.Google Scholar

¹²² See our art. cit. note 1 above, especially pp. 18–20. Google Scholar

¹²³ Ibid. pp. 21–27 and also here, notes 119 and 90, above. Note once again that other treatises reinforce the importance of the proprium concept, at the same time compelling Augustine to amalgamate their meanings into one that answers to his own complex preoccupations.Google Scholar

¹²⁴ See Sol. 2.9ff where Augustine is working out this whole topic of veritas, falsitas and mendacium in terms of image and reality. Google Scholar

¹²⁵ Art. cit. note 1, above, pp. 29–37.Google Scholar

¹²⁶ Showing a certain amount of interference from Enn. IV 3, the Plotinian theory of language as arising from the fall into the opacity of the terrestrial body; see pp. pl. 18–19 above. Google Scholar

¹²⁷ See Ennead VI 5.12 and art. cit., note 1 above. Google Scholar

¹²⁸ For this distentio notion see note 118 above. Google Scholar

¹²⁹ Bekehrung, 142ff.Google Scholar

¹³⁰ Sol. 1.23: note the fortasse, however. But cf. Conf. 6.8 and De utilitate credendi 20–24 which still leave this possibility open.Google Scholar

¹³¹ For the latest discussion of this question and an abundant bibliography, see Fr. Solignac, A.'s Introduction to Les Confessions BA 13–14 (Paris 1962) I 19–26.Google Scholar

¹³² De Genesi 2.4.Google Scholar

¹³³ See De Genesi 2.4 and ibid., 39: decipitur Adam, non Christus, sed Christianus; also ibid. 41: laboret jam Adam in agro suo. … Ipse det mulieri escam etc. Cf. Conf. 4.29, where Adam has become Augustine or the reverse: Iusseras enim … ut terra spinas et tribulos pareret mihi et cum labore pervenerim ad panem meum. Google Scholar