The starting point of the proposed study is the paradox of the Augustinian aesthetics of rhythm, which consists in the fact that, despite the presence of an extremely developed scientific form of rhythm in his early work "On Music" (387-391), the African bishop creates his lengthy poetic opus "Psalm against the party of Donatus" (393), based on other rhythmic principles than those that made up the certainty of his scholarly treatise. Examining the content of each of these ways of being Augustinian rhythm, the author shows that this "revolution" has as its basis the development of the spirit from its "dilapidated" form, i.e. the ancient world, to its new form - the world of Christianity.