Comment by foldr

>The truth is that Augustine was especially heavily influenced by Plato and Aquinas' entire philosophy was mostly an attempt to synthesize Aristotle with Christianity.

Pretty much every philosopher is influenced by the great philosophers who came before them. If you look at philosophical (or indeed scientific) work today, it is no less under the influence of previous work. Augustine and Aquinas were very original in many respects, but they quite rightly built on the best philosophical ideas that they knew of rather than starting from scratch just for the sake of it.