1001Philosophers

Augustine of Hippo vs Thomas Aquinas

Augustine and Aquinas are the two most influential philosophers of the Latin Christian tradition. Augustine, writing in the early fifth century, formed the inheritance Aquinas received and transformed eight centuries later.

At a glance

Augustine of HippoThomas Aquinas
Dates354 – 4301225 – 1274
NationalityRomanItalian
EraMedievalMedieval
Movements Medieval Philosophy, Christian Philosophy, Platonism Medieval Philosophy, Scholasticism, Christian Philosophy
Profile Augustine of Hippo → Thomas Aquinas →

Where they agree

Both held that philosophy and Christian revelation can be integrated, that the human mind is capable of rational knowledge of God, and that human beings are constituted by both intellect and will. Both treated the love of God as the ordering principle of the moral life.

Where they disagree

Augustine's philosophy is fundamentally Platonic: the soul is essentially distinct from the body, true knowledge approaches the eternal Forms (now identified with the divine ideas), and the will is divided against itself by sin. Aquinas's philosophy is fundamentally Aristotelian: the soul is the form of the body, knowledge originates in sense experience, and the will tends naturally toward the good. Where Augustine emphasizes the brokenness of fallen reason, Aquinas emphasizes the continuity between reason and revelation.

Representative quotes

Augustine of Hippo

  • “Love, and do what you will.”

    Once for all, then, a short precept is given thee: Love , and do what thou wilt: whether thou hold thy peace , through love hold thy peace; whether thou cry out, through love cry out; whether thou correct, through love correct; whether thou spare, through love do thou spare: let the root of love be within, of this root can nothing spring but what is good .

  • “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks me, I do not know.”

    Quid est ergo tempus? Si nemo ex me quaerat, scio; si quaerenti explicare velim, nescio.

  • “Lord, give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”

    At ego adulescens miser ualde, miser in exordio ipsius adulescentiae, etiam petieram a te castitatem et dixeram, 'Da mihi castitatem et continentiam, sed noli modo.

Thomas Aquinas

  • “The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions.”

    Vita enim in hoc maxime manifestatur quod aliquid movet se ipsum; quod autem non potest moveri nisi ab alio, quasi mortuum esse videtur.

  • “Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do.”

    Tria sunt homini necessaria ad salutem: scilicit scientia credendorum, scientia desiderandorum, et scientia operandorum.

  • “Pange, lingua, gloriosi Corporis mysterium Sanguinisque pretiosi, Quem in mundi pretium Fructus ventris generosi Rex effudit gentium.”

    Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory, Of His Flesh the mystery sing; Of the Blood, all price exceeding, Shed by our immortal King. | Pange, Lingua (hymn for Vespers on the Feast of Corpus Christi), stanza 1

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