Augustine, Aristotle, and the Confessions

The Thomist 67 (2003): 607-22 AUGUSTINE, ARISTOTLE, AND THE CONFESSIONS MICHAEL P. FOLEY University ofNotre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana THOUGHAUGUSTINE'SFAMILIARITYwithAristotlehas in general been well documented, its deeper implications remain unclear.1 On the one hand, Augustine knew enough about Peripatetic thought to appeal to it when he needed to-so much so, in fact, that in their bitter correspondence Julian of Eclanum mockingly calls AugustineAristoteles poenorum.2 Unlike several other Church Fathers, Augustine held no disparaging views of Aristotle and generally referred to him with respect. Augustine calls the books of Aristotle "recondite and obscure" (reconditos et obscuros), a statement not intended as a criticism, for the point of the passage in which the remark occurs is how to understand the books of the Old Testament, which are also laudably recondite and obscure.3 Augustine does say at one point that Aristotle is not Plato's equal, but the inferiority in question concerns eloquence-et eloquio Platoni quidem impar-not philosophical merit.4 Indeed, the very idea of starkly contrasting Plato and Aristotle, so natural to us who live in the luminous shadow of Raphael's "School ofAthens," would seem exaggerated 1 Cf. G. Christopher Stead, "Aristoteles," in Augustinus-Lexicon, ed. Cornelius Mayer (Basel: Schwabe & Co, 1994), 445-48; Michael W. Tkacz, "Aristotle, Augustine's Knowledge of," in Augustine through the Ages, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 58, 59. 2 Augustine, Contra Iulianum 3.199. Citations of Augustine in the footnotes, unless otherwise noted, are to the Confessions. 3 Augustine, De utilitate credendi 6.13. It is for this reason that I would disagree with Stead's characterization of this remark as a "complaint" about Aristotle's obscurity (Stead, "Aristoteles," 445). 4 Augustine, De civitate Dei 8.12. 607 608 AUGUSTINE, ARISTOTIE, AND THE CONFESSIONS and almost vulgar to Augustine, who writes in his first work as a Christian believer: Regarding the education, teaching, and mores by which the soul is taken care of: because there was no lack ofthe most astute and discerning men to teach in their discussions that Aristotle and Plato harmonize with each other in such a way that [only] to the unlearned and inattentive do they seem to conflict, there has crystallized over many centuries and through many arguments, in my opinion, a single discipline of philosophy most true.5 Such a cautious yet sanguine view of the compatibility of Plato and Aristotle does not stray far from the opinion of say, Cicero, who expresses similar sentiments in his dialogues6 and who even addresses both Plato and Aristotle as friends.7 What bears noting for our present considerations is that Augustine is hereby appropriating the opinion as his own, an appropriation that may suggest something more than mere trust in his philosophically eclectic predecessors. On the other hand, however, it is generally agreed that Augustine's knowledge ofAristotelian thoughtwas, as Michael W. Tkacz puts it, "limited and indirect."8 Latin Christians in the fourth and fifth centuries had hardly any first-hand exposure to Aristotle's original writings except for a few treatises on logic, a paucity that forced thinkers like Augustine to rely on Cicero, Varro, and various Neoplatonists for an avenue into Peripatetic philosophy as a whole.9 Needless to say, these mediators did not 5 "Quod autem ad eruditionem doctrinarnque attinet et mores quibus consulitur animae, quia non defueruntacutissirni etsolertissimi viri, qui docerent disputationibus suisAristotelem ac Platonem ita sibi concinere, ut imperitis minusque attentis dissentire videantur, multis quidem saeculis multisque contentionibus, sed eliquata est, ut opinor, una verissimae philosophiae disciplina" {Augustine, Contra Academicos 3.19.42). Except where noted, all translations in this essay are mine. 6 See Cicero, Academica 1.4.17ff., 2.5.15. Cicero's view was also common in Neoplatonism (cf. Stead, "Aristoteles," 445; Tkacz, "Aristotle, Augustine's Knowledge of," 58). 7 Cicero, Pro Murena 31.64. 8 Tkacz, "Aristotle, Augustine's Knowledge of," 58. 9 Augustine, of course, also had little direct contact with Plato's dialogues and thus had to rely on the same mediators, but the difference here is that, at least in the case of Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, the mediators primarily saw themselves...