THIAGO PAULINO JORDÃO

On the shoulders of Augustine of Hippo, several other giants have stood since the turn of the fourth to the fifth century of the Christian era. But what is peculiar there is not so much the abundance or robustness of the thinkers who developed based on his ideas, but the disparity between them. Historically antagonistic lines of thought find their roots converging in the works of the same man. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that there have been so many attempts to tear apart Augustine's thoughts, dividing them up like spoils between rivals who seek to appropriate what interests them and to detach everything else from the authority of the Bishop of Hippo. Among these, none has reached as great a magnitude as the dispute between human free will and divine grace. Therefore, it is of interest to the present research to focus on the hypothesis that, when Augustine is read from his own terms, free from historically vicious interpretations, there is no rupture, but a perceptible development in the course of the works of someone who said about himself: “I am the kind of man who writes because he has progressed, and progresses because he writes” (ep. 43).