| Summary: | This study aims to reconstitute a part of the influence exerted by Saint Augustine in Guzmán de Alfarache’s cluster of theological concepts. The major clue allowing the parallelism between the two authors is that Mateo Alemán uses the vital model appearing in the Bishop of Hippo’s works as well as in the theological writings about his dogma written during the 16th century. Alemán offers his protagonist an itinerary that leads him from original sin to final redemption. An initial heaviness dominates the long peregrination of the protagonist who misuses his free will. This regressive cycle ends with the protagonist being sentenced to the galleys and with the much commented episode of the conversion, which acquires, in the Guzmán’s apology, the value of a late justification. However, the end of the narration is far from being univocal. The use of the notion of “reformación” confirms the apparition of a new form of individual consciousness able to seek the common good. Seen from that point of view, Guzmán’s augustinism can define itself as a doctrine ad usum, which is followed by Mateo Alemán in order to convey a meaning that ends up free of the Augustinian dogma.
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