Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Not a Body: the Catalyst of St. Augustine’s Intellectual Conversion in the Books of the Platonists

  • Article
  • Published:
International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In his Confessions, Augustine says that he achieved great intellectual insight from what he cryptically calls the “books of the Platonists.” Prior to reading these books, he was a corporealist and was unable to conceive of incorporeal beings. Because of the insurmountable philosophical problems corporealism caused for the Christian belief he was seeking, Augustine claims that this was the greatest intellectual barrier he faced in converting to Christianity. As such, the specific contents and effects of these Platonist books are of great biographical and philosophical interest. Heretofore, the explanation of the contents and effects of these books has not been forthcoming. This essay aims to supply it. I argue that Augustine learned the mereological distinction between pertensive and entensive presence in the books of the Platonists. This distinction is required for properly conceiving of incorporeal beings. In support of this thesis, I show that Augustine himself says that he learned this very distinction, that the distinction is present in Platonist texts that scholars agree were among “the books of the Platonists,” that the distinction is present in one of Augustine’s earliest works, and that this distinction is uniquely capable of resolving the philosophical difficulties he faced as a corporealist.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. ep. 119.5 (2003, p. 127). All abbreviations of Augustine’s texts are the customary ones.

  2. conf. 7.9.13, p. 108; 7.20.26, p. 116; 8.2.3, p. 121. All references to Augustine’s Confessions will utilize the English translation, page numbers, and paragraph numbers of Thomas Williams’s (2019a) edition.

  3. conf. 5.10.19, p. 74; cf. 5.11.21, p. 75: “still, more than anything else, it was bodily things that held me captive….”

  4. conf. 7.17.23, p. 113.

  5. (1992, p. 416).

  6. (1992, p. 413).

  7. I note in particular remarks from Frederick Van Fleteren (Fitzgerald 1999, “Ascent of the Soul,” p. 65; “Porphyry,” p. 662; and “Spiritual Being,” pp. 812–813), Goulven Madec (1994, p. 108), Jean Pèpin (1964, p. 126; 2000, pp. 87–88), and Christian Tornau (Augustine 2020, pp. 325, 328), Giovanni Catapano’s discussion of Augustine and Plotinus (2005, pp. 372–390), Robert O’Connell’s wonderful meditation on Plotinus’s Ennead VI, 4 and 5 and their relation to Augustine’s thought (1963, esp. pp. 2, 6–10), and chapters in Stephen Menn’s Descartes and Augustine (1998, pp. 73–167).

  8. In this way, I am availing myself of a class of evidence which, according to Menn (1998, p. 80), others have either ignored or have not fully utilized on this subject.

  9. (1992, p. 413).

  10. conf. 7.1.2, p. 99.

  11. conf. 7.1.1, p. 99; cf. conf. 5.10.19, pp. 73–74.

  12. conf. 3.7.12, p. 36; cf. his remarks about Christ at 5.10.20, p. 74: “I could believe about him only what I could picture in my empty imagination.”

  13. conf. 4.15.26, p. 57.

  14. conf. 4.15.27, p. 57; though not associated with pride, Augustine elsewhere blames the state of his soul for his attachment to sensible things, e.g. in conf. 3.1.1, p. 29: “And so my soul was sick; all covered in sores, it rushed outside itself, eager to scratch its miserable itch with the touch of sensible things.”

  15. conf. 7.7.11, p. 107.

  16. ep. 120.2.7 (2003, p. 133).

  17. 10.8.11 (2002, p. 53).

  18. conf. 4.15.24, p. 56. For the sake of clarity, when Augustine says “in the mind” he does not mean “with the mind”—i.e. the vision of the “mind’s eye.” Thus, being unable to see corporeal things “in the mind” means that one does not find any corporeity or corporeal properties which pertain to the mind. For a corporealist, where there is no corporeity or corporeal properties there is not anything.

  19. See A Treatise of Human Nature 1.3.1.7 and 1.4.6.3–4 (2000, pp. 52, 165) for the intellect and the soul respectively.

  20. Paulsen (1990, p. 114) and Griffin & Paulson (2002, p. 104).

  21. For the corporealist background of the Roman world and Christianity, see Paulsen (1990, 1993), Griffin & Paulsen (2002), Fitzgerald (1999, “Soul” p. 807), Brown (2000, pp. 75–76), and Teske (1984, p. 65), (2008a, pp. 56–57, 63, 70–71), & (2008b, pp. 22–23). Regardless of whether this was true of most Christians, or only of the Christianity that Augustine would have been exposed to, the end result for Augustine is the same. More philosophically sophisticated Christians, such as Tertullian, thought of God as corporeal but non-anthropomorphic (Teske 2008a, p. 56). Indeed the latter day corporealist Thomas Hobbes simply claimed to be a Christian in the same vein as Tertullian when he was accused of holding that God was a body (1840, p. 429).

  22. 2002 (p. 105). Teske similarly notes that “prior to Augustine, at least in Western Christianity, there was no philosophical concept of incorporeal being, of being that is whole wherever it is (totus ubique)” (2008b, p. 22); cf. Teske 2008a, p. 70.

  23. (1968, p. 87).

  24. (1968, p. 99). This shows that, though he was a corporealist while he was a Manichean, his Manicheanism was not a necessary condition for his corporealism. Indeed, even if we put aside his harboring some Stoic corporealist ideas, when he briefly turned to Academic skepticism after his extrication from Manicheanism, he judged in the manner of an Academic skeptic that corporealism was the more probable view (conf. 5.14.25, p. 77).

  25. 1984, p. 65; ‘materialist’ here means the same as what I mean when I say ‘corporealist.’ Cf. Griffin & Paulsen (2002, p. 101).

  26. Griffin & Paulsen (2002, pp. 106–107) and Teske (2008a, pp. 56–57, 63).

  27. (2000, p. 75); cf. Menn’s discussion of Platonism’s reemergence, its anti-Stoical character, and its project of “de-Stoicization and decorporealization” (1998, pp. 89–91).

  28. conf. 3.4.7, p. 32.

  29. conf. 3.4.7, p. 32.

  30. conf. 3.4.8, p. 33.

  31. conf. 3.4.7, pp. 32–33.

  32. conf. 3.4.8, p. 33; my emphasis. Cf. 4.16.29, p. 58: after remarking on beauty in bodies, Augustine writes “you [(God)] had commanded—and so it was done in me—that the earth should bring forth thorns and thistles for me, and with difficulty would I attain bread.”

  33. conf. 5.10.19, pp. 73–74. That this error is associated specifically with corporealism, and is later to be solved by his reading of the books of the Platonists, is confirmed by O’Donnell (1992, p. 316).

  34. conf. 5.11.21, p. 75. As O’Donnell notes (1992, p. 318), the “masses” are the corporeal substances referred to in conf. 5.10.20. Augustine repeats this sentiment later in 7.7.11, p. 107. As an interesting point of comparison, Plotinus says that those who attend only to thoughts of sensible things are like “heavy birds who are weighed down by the many things they have taken from the earth, and are unable to fly up, although nature has given them wings” (Ennead V, 9, §1, in Menn 1998, p. 103; my emphasis).

  35. I note that Scott MacDonald similarly assesses such remarks as reporting Augustine’s “intellectual follies and frustrations,” which were “the result of ignorance or error regarding God’s nature” as a spirit (2001, p. 75). Cf. Menn’s analysis of Augustine’s intellectual journey in which he describes Augustine as being “trapped” and in need of “escape,” as “trying to conceive God rightly,” and as being “unable to progress toward the desired wisdom” (1998, pp. 135–136; my emphasis). Though I neglect to elaborate on them in this essay, I believe that Augustine is also alluding to this same intellectual struggle in conf. 4.15.26 (cf. O’Donnell 1992, p. 261), 6.4.5, and 7.1.2.

  36. conf. 5.14.25, p. 77.

  37. conf. 6.1.1, pp. 78–79.

  38. conf. 6.4.6, p. 82.

  39. conf. 6.4.6, p. 83: “I wanted to be made as certain of things I could not see as I was certain that seven plus three is ten.”

  40. conf. 6.4.6, p. 82.

  41. conf. 6.4.6, p. 82.

  42. conf. 6.10.17, p. 91. This is in reference to Nebridius, who came to stay with Augustine in Milan at this time.

  43. 1992, p. 369.

  44. conf. 6.11.18, p. 92.

  45. conf. 6.11.19, pp. 92–93.

  46. conf. 6.16.26, p. 97; cf. conf. 6.11.20, p. 93: these “shifting winds” were “driving [his] heart this way and that”; he felt that “times were passing” and that he “delayed turning to the Lord.”

  47. conf. 7.1.1, p. 99; my emphasis. Of this moment in the text, O’Donnell observes that Augustine “puts on paper the view of God that he had carried with him unconsciously through Manicheism and skepticism…” (1992, p. 392) and that what Augustine writes here is another example of his “struggle to think about God” (p. 393). Moreover, Augustine describes himself as falling into “baseness and emptiness” for at that time he was “unable to conceive of any substance other than the sort that can be seen by the eyes of the flesh.”

  48. conf. 7.5.7, p. 103.

  49. conf. 7.7.11, p. 106; the search alludes back to the discussion in 7.5.7. Augustine continues, describing his turmoil like this: “Such agonizing labor pains in my heart, such groaning, my God! […] And although my vigorous questioning was silent, the unspoken griefs of my heart were loud voices crying out to your mercy. You knew what I was suffering; no one else did. […] Could [even my closest friends] have heard all the tumult of my soul, which I had neither time nor tongue to express? I was wailing in the groaning of my heart…” (conf. 7.7.11, pp. 106–107).

  50. (1992, p. 436); my emphasis.

  51. This was a dilemma raised by the Manichees of which Augustine was likely to be aware prior to his intellectual conversion (see Teske 1984, p. 73, quoting the Manichean Fortunatus from Augustine's c. Fort. 5: “Is there something outside of God, or is everything in God?”). Given Augustine’s long exposure to Manicheanism and his own acceptance of uncreated corporeal evil, I suspect that he at once rejected the notion that God would incorporate evil as a part. This fits nicely with the fact that the young Augustine consciously accepted that God’s presence was limited, viz. at conf. 5.10.20, p. 74: “…it seemed more pious to believe that you, my God,…were altogether unbounded—with one exception: the fact that there was a mass of evil opposed to you meant that I had to acknowledge you were bounded in one respect.” Hence it is reasonable to assume that a dilemma such as this informed his thinking about God prior to his intellectual conversion.

  52. I note that God’s omnipotence would also be implicated: if God could not delete and subsequently replace the evil bodies by filling the space left in their absence with good bodies, then God is not all powerful. Cf. conf. 7.5.7, p. 103: “…why would [God] not bring into being good matter from which he would create all things, and destroy and annihilate the matter that was evil?”

  53. conf. 5.10.20, p. 74; cf. Teske (1984, p. 73).

  54. conf. 5.10.20, p. 74.

  55. This is said with the understanding that we make room for both the direct creation of evil or for evil as an indirect but known consequence of the creation of other things. God is ultimately responsible for both. Cf. Augustine’s concerns at conf. 7.3.5, pp. 101–102.

  56. conf. 5.10.20, p. 74: “the fact that there was a mass of evil opposed to you meant that I had to acknowledge you were bounded in one respect.”

  57. Cf. Teske’s characterization of the same issues (2008b, pp. 22–23, fn. 79).

  58. I include this note for readers who are unfamiliar with these concepts and the related terminology. There are two other pairs of terms that correspond to ‘pertensive’ and ‘entensive’ in the sense that they target the mereological distinction at issue: ‘circumscriptive’—‘definitive’ and ‘meremeric’—‘holenmeric.’ However, each pair involved or still involves connotations which go beyond this purely mereological distinction and so make them less suitable than the pair I have chosen to use.

    Concerning the circumscriptive-definitive presence distinction, according to Pierre Bayle, until the seventeenth century, “all our learned men” affirmed three species of presence: circumscriptive, definitive, and repletive (1991, pp. 280–281); cf. (1738, p. 143)). (The distinction can be traced at least to Thomas Aquinas (see below) and William of Ockham (Quod. I, Q.4, A.3 & IV, Q.21, A1; (1991, pp. 25 & 330)), but it would be nice to have a complete history of this terminology.) Now, because I am focusing solely on the issue of mereology, I have collapsed “repletive” into “definitive” because they have the same mereological character. The scholastics and their intellectual heirs recognize this and yet typically do not collapse this distinction because it was important to them to distinguish the presence of finite, created spirits from the presence of God; finite spirits are present definitively whereas God is present repletively (cf. Thomas Aquinas, (ST I, Q.52. A.2, co.; 1952, p. 280), Martin Luther (1961, pp. 214–216), and Pierre Du Moulin (1624, pp. 27–28); though I note that one entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia (Francis 1907) makes no explicit mention of finitude when it defines definitive presence). As such, despite targeting the relevant mereological concept, “definitive” tends to involve connotations of creatureliness and finitude and “repletive” involves connotations of infinitude, despite their identical mereological character. To avoid these non-mereological connotations, I have avoided using this terminology.

    The original meaning of ‘holenmeric’ (affirmed by “holenmerians”), a term coined by Cambridge Platonist Henry More, specifically involved the spatial existence of a spirit (i.e. that spirits are “somewhere”). More contrasted it with “nullibism,” the view that spirits exist, but non-spatially (i.e. they are “nowhere”—though they can act on bodies in space and are understood to be wholly, but virtually or operationally, present wherever they act) (More 1925, pp. 183–184, 189; cf. Reid (2012, p. 141)). This was the crux of his disagreement with Descartes about the nature of spiritual presence in the universe (see More’s contentions at AT 5: 301 & 304 and Descartes’s own position at AT 5: 342). Thus, “holenmeric” (etymologically: “whole-in-part”) was not originally part of a purely mereological distinction even though More did couple it with the appropriate mereological character (1925, p. 184). However, it has recently been repurposed into an appropriately mereological distinction by Robert Pasnau with the introduction of ‘meremeric’ (“part-in-part”) as its mereological complement (2011, p. 18). Despite its resuscitation, for those familiar with the early-modern debates between holenmerians and nullibists, “holenmeric” is not a strictly mereological notion. As such, and despite its felicitous etymological character, I have avoided using this terminology as well.

    The original meaning of ‘entension’ was “the phenomenon of a material object being wholly located in multiple places” (Parsons 2001, p. 1). Like “holenmeric” this has implications of spatial existence which are extraneous to the mereological distinction. However, in more recent literature on divine omnipresence, “entension” appears to have been more or less sterilized of any implications of materiality, and some philosophers have even been careful to distinguish the mereological issue from the issue of spatial existence (Inman 2017). Thus, for the sake of maximal clarity, I prefer the terminology of ‘pertension’ and ‘entension.’ Further, in order to express the character of the presence of bodies and spirits, I have adopted a neological, adjectival form of these terms. I have chosen ‘pertensive’ and ‘entensive,’ but ‘pertensional’ and ‘entensional’ would have worked as well.

  59. From this point onward, I primarily speak only of incorporeal or spiritual substances. However, it is consistent with this distinction that things which are not thought of as substances are entensively present. For example, the imperfect instantiation of universal forms in a body which give that body intelligible being is by virtue of the entensive presence of those forms in that body. It is against such forms that the goodness and perfection of the body may ultimately be compared.

  60. In making this point I am taking inspiration from René Descartes and his use of this example in communicating the causal influence of the mind on the body to Princess Elisabeth (2000, p. 215; AT 3: 667–668).

  61. Scholastics sometimes called this sort of influence the “contact of power,” e.g. in Aquinas (ST I, Q.8, A.2, ad.1; 1952, p. 35).

  62. This example need not be literally true or scientifically acceptable for the idea to be adequately communicated.

  63. conf. 7.10.16, p. 110.

  64. conf. 7.14.20, p. 112.

  65. conf. 7.20.26, p. 116.

  66. conf. 3.7.12, p. 36; my emphasis.

  67. conf. 6.3.4, p. 82.

  68. That scholars agree that these were among the “books of the Platonists” Augustine read or had access to is summarized by Tornau: “today most scholars accept the compromise that the ‘books of the Platonists’ comprised some treatises of Plotinus (e.g., Enneads I.6, I.2, V.1, VI.4–5) and a selection from Porphyry (Sententiae and, perhaps, Symmikta Zetemata)” (2019, §4). A selection of the fragments which remain of Porphyry’s Symmikta Zetemata can be found in Dillon & Gerson (2004, pp. 195–199).

  69. Enneads, VI, 4, §4, 30–35, (trans. Gerson, 2004, p. 114).

  70. Cf. the interpretation of this passage by Emilsson and Strange (2015, p. 141).

  71. 1963; see esp. pp. 7–8, 25.

  72. I employ the translation of O’Connell (1963, p. 29) which is based on MacKenna’s (1952, p. 300).

  73. Cf. Enneads, IV, 3, §23, 1–5; “a living body is illuminated by soul,” (1952, p. 153).

  74. Fr. 261 (trans. Dillon 2004, p. 198); cf. Remes (2014, pp. 109–110).

  75. §35 (1823, p. 222).

  76. §35 (1823, p. 224). I have modified Taylor’s translation slightly, taking note of Guthrie’s translation of the same segments of text (1988, pp. 55–57). The mereological character of incorporeal beings is also invoked at §40 (1823, p. 230).

  77. §36 (1988, pp. 56–57).

  78. Cf. O’Donnell (1992, p. 416, fn. 14), O’Connell (1963, p. 3, fn. 14; pp. 19, 28), and Pèpin (2000, p. 126).

  79. imm. an., 16.25 (1947, p. 46).

  80. In Fitzgerald (1999, “Immortalitate animae, De,” p. 443).

  81. For this date, see Brown (2000, p. 85).

  82. Or perhaps not omnipotent (as I noted earlier).

  83. This is in contrast to Teske’s suggestion that incorporealism and the privation theory of evil are individually sufficient to resolve the issue (2008b, pp. 24–25). As I show, it must be both.

  84. I note that I have not yet seen any clear explanation in extant literature of the exact relationship between the incorporeality of God and the existence and nature of evil. I believe that the explanation given here supplies this.

  85. conf. 3.7.12, p. 36.

  86. b. vita, 1.4 (2019b, pp. 20–21).

  87. (2000, pp. 76).

  88. (1990, p. 148).

  89. supra fn. 5.

  90. conf. 7.17.23, p. 113.

References

  • Aquinas, T. (1952). Summa Theologica. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province and revised by Daniel J. Sullivan. Vol. 1. 2 vols. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc.

  • Augustine. (1947). The Fathers of the Church: The Immortality of the Soul; The Magnitude of the Soul; On Music; The Advantage of Believing; On Faith in Things Unseen. Edited by Hermigild Dressler, Robert P. Russell, Thomas P. Halton, William R. Tongue, and M. Josephine Brennan. Translated by Ludwig Schopp. Vol. 4. Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.

  • Augustine. (2002). On the Trinity. Edited by Gareth B. Matthews. Translated by Stephen McKenna. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Augustine. (2003). The Works of St. Augustine: A Translation for the 21st century: Letters 100–155. Edited by Boniface Ramsey. Translated by R. J. Teske. Vol. 2. 2 vols. New City Press.

  • Augustine. (2019a). Confessions. Translated by Thomas Williams. Indianapolis: Hackett.

  • Augustine. (2019b). On the Happy Life. Edited and translated by Michael P. Foley. Vol. 2. 4 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  • Augustine. (2020). De immortalitate animae. Edited and translated by Christian Tornau. Vol. 7. Leiden: Brill.

  • Bayle, P. (1738). Historical and Critical Dictionary. Translated by Pierre des Maizeaux. Vol. 5. London: Printed for J. J. and P. Knapton [etc.].

  • Bayle, P. (1991). Historical and Critical Dictionary: Selections. Translated by Richard H. Popkin and Craig Brush. Indianapolis: Hackett.

  • Brown, P. (2000). Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catapano, G. (2005). “Tota sentit in singulis. Agostino e la fortuna di un tema plotiniano nella psicologia altomedievale.” In R. Chiaradonna (Ed.), Studi sull’anima in Plotino (pp. 353–400). Napoli: Bibliopolis.

  • Descartes, R. (2000). René Descartes: Philosophical Essays and Correspondence. Edited by Roger Ariew. Translated by Marjorie Grene and Roger Ariew. Indianapolis: Hackett.

  • Dillon, J., & Gerson, L. P. (2004). Neoplatonic Philosophy: Introductory Readings. Indianapolis: Hackett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Du Moulin, P. (1624). The Elements of Logic. Translated by Nathanael De-Lawne. James Dawson at the Royall Exchange.

  • Fitzgerald, A. D. (Ed.). (1999). Augustine Through the Ages: An Encyclopedia. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

  • Francis, S. (1907). “Bilocation.” In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

  • Griffin, C. W., & Paulsen, D. L. (2002). “Augustine and the Corporeality of God.” The Harvard Theological Review, 95(1), pp. 97–118.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hobbes, T. (1840). The English Works of Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury. Vol. 4. 11 vols. John Bohn.

  • Hume, D. (2000). A Treatise of Human Nature. Edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Inman, R. D. (2017). “Omnipresence and the Location of the Immaterial.” In J. L. Kvanvig (Ed.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion (pp. 168–206). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luther, M. (1961). Luther’s Works: Word and Sacrament III. Edited by Robert H. Fischer and Helmut T. Lehmann. Translated by Robert H. Fischer. Vol. 37. 55 vols. Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press.

  • MacDonald, S. (2001). The Divine Nature. In E. Stump & N. Kretzmann (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Augustine (pp. 71–90). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Madec, G. (1994). “Le spiritualisme augustinien à la lumière du De immortalitate animae.” In G. Madec (Ed.), Petites études augustiniennes (pp. 105–119). Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes.

    Google Scholar 

  • Menn, S. (1998). Descartes and Augustine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • More, H. (1925). Philosophical Writings of Henry More. Edited by Flora Isabel Mackinnon. New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Ockham, W. (1991). Quodlibetal Questions. Translated by Alfred J. Freddoso and Francis E. Kelley. Vol. 1. New Haven: Yale University Press.

  • O’Connell, R. J. (1963). “Ennead, IV, 4 and 5 in the Works of Saint Augustine.” Revue D’etudes Augustiniennes Et Patristiques, 9(1–2), pp. 1–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Connell, R. J. (1968). St. Augustine’s Early Theory of Man, A.D 386–391. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • O’Connell, R. J. (1990). “Where the Difference Still Lies.” Augustinian Studies, 21, pp. 139–152.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell, J. J. (1992). Augustine, Confessions: Commentary on Books 1–7. Vol. 2. 3 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Parsons, J. (2001). “Entension, or How it could happen that an object is wholly located in each of many places.” https://philpapers.org/archive/PAREO.pdf.

  • Pasnau, R. (2011). “On Existing All at Once.” In C. Tapp & E. Runggaldier (Eds.), God, Eternity, and Time (pp. 11–28). Farnham: Ashgate.

    Google Scholar 

  • Paulsen, D. L. (1990). “Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses.” The Harvard Theological Review, 83(2), pp. 105–116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paulsen, D. L. (1993). “Reply to Kim Paffenroth’s Comment.” The Harvard Theological Review, 86(2), pp. 235–239.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pèpin, J. (1964). “Une nouvelle source de saint Augustin: Le zetema de Porphyre Sur l’union de l’âme et du corps.” Revue Des Études Anciennes, 66, pp. 53–107.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pèpin, J. (2000). “Le tout et les parties dans la connaissance de la mens par elle-même (De Trin. X 3, 5–4, 6) (Nouveaux schèmes porphyriens chez saint Augustin, III).” In J. Brachtendorf (Ed.), Gott und sein Bild. Augustins De Trinitate im Spiegel gegenwärtiger Forschung (pp. 105–126). Paderborn: Schöningh.

  • Plotinus. (1952). The Six Enneads. Edited by Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer J. Adler. Translated by Stephen MacKenna & B. S. Page. Chicago: William Benton (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.).

  • Plotinus. (2015). Plotinus: Ennead VI.4 & VI.5: On the Presence of Being, One and the Same, Everywhere as a Whole. Translated by Eyjólfur K. Emilson and Steven K. Strange. Las Vegas: Parmenides Publishing.

  • Porphyry. (1823). Select Works of Porphyry. Translated by Thomas Taylor. London: Thomas Rodd.

  • Porphyry. (1988). Porphyry’s Launching-Points to the Realm of Mind: An Introduction to the Neoplatonic Philosophy of Plotinus. Translated by Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie. Grand Rapids: Phanes Press.

  • Reid, J. (2012). The Metaphysics of Henry More. New York: Springer.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Remes, P. (2014). Neoplatonism. New York: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Teske, R. J. (1984). “Spirituals and Spiritual Interpretation in Augustine.” Augustinian Studies, 15, pp. 65–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Teske, R. J. (2008a). “Spirituality: A Key Concept in Augustine’s Thought.” Revista Portuguesa De Filosofia, 64(1), pp. 53–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Teske, R. J. (2008b). To Know God and the Soul: Essays on the Thought of Saint Augustine. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tornau, C. (2019). Saint Augustine. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/

Download references

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers at another journal for their feedback on an earlier version of this paper and for pushing me to substantially improve it. I thank T. Parker Haratine, and especially Kevin Smith, for their feedback on this paper, as well as for the time they spent discussing it with me. I am grateful to Charles Duke for making me aware of important sources and references that improved the paper. I also thank Thomas Williams for his feedback, but especially for his encouragement to publish the paper and for fostering an environment of scholarly liberty. Finally, I thank my fiancé Molly Nyren for being an indefatigable source of perspective and corrective feedback, and who pointed out to me the specific manner in which the thesis of the incorporeality of God must be related to the thesis that evil is a privation.

Funding

The author declares none.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA

    Kyle S. Hodge

Authors
  1. Kyle S. Hodge
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kyle S. Hodge.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

The author declares none.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hodge, K.S. Not a Body: the Catalyst of St. Augustine’s Intellectual Conversion in the Books of the Platonists. Int J Philos Relig 93, 51–72 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09852-z

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11153-022-09852-z

Keywords

Search

Navigation