Classica et Christiana, 16/1, 2021 /47-66
La teología neoplatónica en De doctrina Christiana. Descubrir y comunicar a Dios en la exégesis [The neoplatonic theology in De doctrina christiana. Discover and communicate God in exegesis]
Claudio César CALABRESE, Ethel JUNCO
ABSTRACT
The neoplatonic theology in De doctrina christiana. Discover and communicate God in exegesis. In our paper we present the work De doctrina christiana as the theological culmination, in an exegetical key, of the Neoplatonic vision of the world, which Saint Augustine expresses in the dialogues of Cassiciaco. We explore how the tradition begun by Plato, which lays the foundations of the intellectual and linguistic conditions to base a discourse on God, although in the realm of immanent physis, now illuminates a transcendent and ineffable understanding of God. Saint Augustine took a fundamental step with respect to De dialectica and De magistro, since, starting from the semiotics of the first and the theory of knowledge of the second, he established a philosophy of language as a way of sustaining the scope of biblical exegesis. The Augustinian experience of reading Scripture, which offers praecepta to distinguish the literal sense from the figurative and tools to understand the second, seeks to discover and communicate God.
KEYWORDS
neoplatonism, St. Augustine, theology, Scripture, linguistic sign, exegesis, literal meaning, figurative meaning