Abstract

This paper begins by addressing the following question: Given the importance of the Platonism of the school of Plotinus to Augustine’s development, why didn’t he adopt apophatic theology in his early writings? That question leads to a consideration of the role of apophasis in the theology of the Roman Platonist school and in its framing of pagan monotheism. Attention then turns to the Cassiciacum treatises and their representation of interior contemplation. There we find the record of Augustine’s discovery of transcendence within the interior self. But Augustine understands transcendence after his own fashion, incorporating it into his newly recovered Catholicism without entirely obscuring the outlines of Platonic transcendentalism. Thus in these early treatises the outlines of Augustine’s mature understanding of Christian contemplation can be seen already to emerge.