In this book I have advanced a significant new interpretation of Confessions 7.9.13–7.21.27. I reject the standard interpretation of this narrative, according to which Augustine is describing events that transpired over the course of a few months in the summer of 386. I also reject O'Connell's view, according to which Augustine is not intending to provide an historical account of his intellectual development in this narrative. My view is that Augustine does mean to recount historical events – moreover, I believe that his recounting is considerably more precise than is generally appreciated – but that the period of time in question extends over roughly ten years (386–c. 395). I have supported this contention with two independent, yet complementary, arguments. First, I have argued that the Photinian Christology described at Confessions 7.19.25 is to be identified with the Christology of Augustine's early writings (386–c. 391), and that Augustine did not reject this Christology until c. 395. Second, I have argued that Augustine's ‘Platonic ascents’ (Confessions 7.10.16 and 7.17.23) describe the method of ascent that Augustine was developing from 386 to 391, and that Augustine did not reject this method of ascent until c. 395. I believe that this interpretation makes the best sense not only of Augustine's early writings, but also of the narrative in the Confessions itself. On the standard reading of this narrative, there are a number of obvious anachronisms that must somehow be accounted for.

In this chapter I will examine the person and work of Jesus Christ, as expressed in Augustine's early writings (386–91). In these writings Augustine regards Jesus Christ as a wise man who has been inwardly illuminated by the Virtue and Wisdom of God, enabling him to serve as an intermediary between the viciousness and foolishness of man and the Virtue and Wisdom of God. His authority is recognized through the numerous miracles of his life, from his virgin birth to his death and resurrection. These miracles are signs of intelligible realities that the fool is admonished to believe. They also provide examples of virtue, by the imitation of which the soul of the fool may be purified. In this way Jesus Christ provides the masses with a well-defined path to salvation, which may be called ‘the way of authority’.

THE PARADOX OF LEARNING

In order to better appreciate the significance of the way of authority, it will be useful to situate our discussion within the context of Augustine's early theory of learning. Our specific point of departure will be Augustine's treatment of the paradox of learning. According to this paradox, first articulated in Plato's Meno, learning is impossible. Inquiry into what is known is unnecessary, and inquiry into what is unknown is impossible, since one does not know what to look for. Thus, it seems that nothing can be learned. Plato attempts to resolve the paradox with his theory of recollection.

In the previous chapter I argued that the Platonic ascents of Confessions 7.10.16 and 7.17.23 are descriptions of the method of ascent that Augustine was developing from 386 to 391, and that Augustine did not reject this method of ascent until 396, in On Christian Doctrine. If I am correct about this, then I have provided additional support for the central claim of part i – i.e. that Augustine did not reject his Photinian Christology until c. 395 – since the author of the Confessions indicates that his rejection of this Christology is linked with his rejection of the ‘Platonic ascents’. However, there is a specific consequence of my argument that may seem somewhat problematic. My argument has the Platonic ascents continuing after the famous ascent shared by Augustine and his mother Monica, an ascent that occurred at Ostia in 387, sometime between Augustine's baptism in April and his birthday on 13 November. However, the Ostia experience is clearly presented by the narrator of the Confessions as a model of a successful ascent of the soul, in contradistinction to the failed attempts of book 7. What distinguishes the Platonic ascents from the Ostia ascent, as we will see, is that only the latter relies upon the Mediator. Can we really maintain, then, that Augustine continued with his Platonic ascents even after the much more successful experience that he attained at Ostia?

This book examines what is typically characterized as Augustine's ‘intellectual conversion’: his discovery of the difference between Platonism and Christianity, as described in the second half of Confessions 7. My primary aim is to show that Confessions 7.9.13–7.21.27 is best understood as a description of Augustine's intellectual development from 386 to c. 395. I therefore offer a close reading not only of this central section of the Confessions but also of a number of important passages and themes in Augustine's early writings. This reading will, I hope, be of value for general readers and specialists alike. For general readers it may serve as an introduction to Augustine's early thought and to the development of his philosophical and theological ideas until the Confessions. Specialists will find in it a challenge to the prevailing assumption that the second half of Confessions 7 is an account of Augustine's insights and experiences during the summer of 386, prior to the time of his conversion in the Milanese garden. My book invites the reader to consider afresh the unjustly maligned problem of Augustine's conversion in 386: was it to Platonism or to Christianity? I must confess that I am not entirely sure how to answer that question. But I am convinced, as against the legions of modern scholars who have taken their cue from Pierre Courcelle's Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (1950), that the question itself is a legitimate one.

Augustine's concern with Platonic ascent disappears from view after On True Religion (390/1). However, this is no indication that he suddenly rejected the project; after all, his literary output as a whole dropped off sharply after 391. O'Donnell sees a ‘writer's block’ taking hold of Augustine during the period between 391 and the Confessions, although it is also important to bear in mind that the practical demands of Augustine's ecclesiastical duties had robbed him of the ‘liberal leisure’ (liberale otium) in which he had once hoped to retire. And on the intellectual side, Augustine was now largely preoccupied with reading Scripture (Augustine readily admitted that his knowledge of Scripure was inadequate) and refuting Manichaeism. That the project of Platonic ascent fell by the wayside after 391 may be attributed to these new (or at least newly pressing) concerns. Augustine's silence is not necessarily an indication that he rejected the project. We must approach the question from a different direction.

In order to resolve this question, I propose to examine Augustine's On Christian Doctrine (begun in 396). This work exhibits a significantly different attitude to the liberal disciplines from that in Augustine's early writings. It amounts to the first expression of his rejection of Platonic ascent.

ON CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE (396)

Augustine's On Christian Doctrine was written in two distinct stages, separated by some thirty years. In 396–7, Augustine wrote the first two books and the bulk of the third book.

The first ascent is described in one paragraph (7.10.16), and the second ascent in another (7.17.23). Between these two paragraphs Augustine spends fully six paragraphs recounting his reflections upon the nature of being (7.11.17), the relationship between being and goodness (7.12.18), the nature of good and evil (7.12.18–7.13.19), the nature of the true and the false (7.15.21) and the nature of sin (7.16.22). For the most part, scholars seem to regard these six paragraphs as filler, if their almost complete neglect in the literature is any indication (a neglect that is all the more conspicuous given the attention lavished upon the ascents themselves). This is very puzzling. On the face of it, these paragraphs would seem to offer a wealth of important material relating to Augustine's intellectual development. Has this potential treasure chest gone largely untouched because of the widespread assumption that the period of time separating Augustine's discovery of the ‘books of the Platonists’ (7.9.13) from his ‘Pauline revolution’ (7.21.27) was no more than a few months? Of course, I argued in part i that this view of Augustine's development must be rejected. We are not relying upon that argument here; nevertheless, it is clear that the significance of these six paragraphs must be examined afresh. Is it possible that the author of the Cassiciacum dialogues is not yet the person who has resolved the issues described in these six paragraphs?

THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST

What is the relationship between the divine and human natures in Christ? Augustine's thinking on this essential Christological problem underwent a considerable amount of change. As a Manichaean, he believed that Christ was divine and only appeared to become human. His rejection of Manichaeism then led him in the opposite direction: stressing Christ's humanity, he fell into the Photinian heresy according to which Christ was a pre-eminent wise man, participating perfectly in divine wisdom but ultimately distinct from that wisdom. He eventually rectified this error as well and arrived at his mature understanding of Christ as fully human and fully God: ‘True man, true God: God and man the whole Christ. This is the Catholic faith. Whoever denies that Christ is God is Photinian; whoever denies that Christ is man is Manichaean.’ When did Augustine arrive at this understanding? In this chapter, I will argue that the evidence points to c. 395.

The classic statement on the relationship of the two natures was formulated at the Council of Chalcedon (451): Christ, as to his deity ‘consubstantial with the Father’, as to his humanity ‘consubstantial with us’, is one person (prosōpon) and one substance (hypostasis), uniting the two natures ‘without confusion, without change, without division, without separation’. The later Augustine was an important influence upon the Chalcedonian formulation, which is clearly anticipated in such statements as the following: ‘the same God who is man, and the same man who is God, not by a confusion of nature but by a unity of person’.

The central claim of this book is that Confessions 7.9.13–7.21.27, which tells the story of Augustine's intellectual conversion to Christianity, is a description of Augustine's intellectual development from 386 to c. 395. In other words, I contend that Augustine was not intellectually converted to Christianity until c. 395. In part i I supported this claim by arguing that the Photinian Christology of Confessions 7.19.25 is to be identified with the Christology of ‘the way of authority’ that is elaborated in Augustine's early writings (386–91) and is not substantially modified until c. 395. In part ii I will support this claim through an examination of Augustine's ‘Platonic ascents’, as described at Confessions 7.10.16 and especially 7.17.23. In particular, I will argue that 7.17.23 is a summary of a type of ascent of the soul that Augustine describes in the period from 387/8 to c. 391, and which formed the basis for his ambitious educational programme in the liberal disciplines. Augustine envisioned this method of ascent as providing a path to salvation through reason, independent of authority, but rejected this approach c. 395. Augustine's new attitude, as we will see, is evidenced by a significantly different treatment of the liberal disciplines in On Christian Doctrine.

THE LIBERAL DISCIPLINES AT CASSICIACUM

The way of authority is a path to salvation for the masses, providing an alternative to the arduous philosophical curriculum that can only be undertaken by an elite few.