The paper compares chapter 6 of H. Arendt’s The Life of the Mind with H. Jonas’s first
book, concerning Augustine and the Pauline Problem of Freedom. Arendt follows Jonas’s
interpretation of st Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, ch. 7, but her judgment on st Augustine’s
relationship with Paul is quite different. According to Jonas, during the Pelagian controversy
Augustine lost the Pauline concept of the antinomical nature of the will; in Arendt’s
opinion, on the contrary, Augustine was the first one who stated Paul’s “discovery” of the
will in philosophical terms, and in the City of God he realized the principle of “natality”,
which is the real solution to the problem of freedom both in anthropology and politics.
