L’anelito di verità di Agostino nel pensiero di María Zambrano

« Man is a strange creature to whom it is not enough to be born only once », writes María Zambrano in her still topical La agonía de Europa. It is precisely in this continuous tension towards a unity never achieved but always desired, that lies the hope for a European man’s rebirth. Here, the desire to reach the fullness of one’s being will not be sought in an indefinite Hereafter, as indicated by Greek culture, but in this world and, even more radically, in one’s interiority, since, as Zambrano remembers mentioning Augustine, « in the inner man dwells the truth ». Following this path, we will try to show how the interiority of the Christian person reveals itself as inexhaustible precisely because of its capacity to transcend continuously. Therefore, it’s in the interiority of human nature that the truth – the source and, in the meantime, the inexhaustible desire of man – must be sought. It will be in the depths of a thought that never forgets its origin, in that humble wisdom that evokes the obscure land of Africa, Augustine’s birthplace, that we must draw on to show the generativity of the thought that the Christian philosopher presents to us, as María Zambrano indicates. The truth thus understood will itself be an inexhaustible source of life, capable of nourishing the interiority of the Christian man and inviting him to transcend himself continually to become fully a person.