ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Augustine’s polemical agenda in his De consensu evangelistarum 1.35.53 and his De trinitate 4.18.24, passages for which Augustine relies on Cicero’s Latin translation of Plato’s Timaeus 29c3. Hoenig illustrates how, at Cons. ev. 1.35.53, the Timaean passage is used by Augustine for an argumentative strategy against Porphyry’s denial of Christ’s divinity, advanced in the Philosophy from Oracles. In the case of Trin. 4.18.24, on the other hand, it is shown that Augustine’s quotation of Tim. 29c3 appears in the context of a broader polemical programme that is designed to put his Homoian contemporaries on a par with the Neoplatonists by positioning both in opposition to Christian orthodoxy. In both cases, Augustine recruits Plato as a prophet who, at Tim. 29c3, predicted the Christian truth. Overall, it is to be found that Augustine carefully adjusts his use of Plato’s words to the type of criticism he is targeting.
