Summa.
Confessions
Chapter 1. He Praises God, the Author of Safety, and Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, Acknowledging His Own Wickedness.
O Lord, I am your servant. I am your servant and the son of your maidservant. You have broken my chains. I will sacrifice to you a sacrifice of praise. Let my heart and tongue praise you. Let all my bones say: Lord, who is like you? Let them speak, and answer me. Say to my soul: I am your salvation. Who am I, and what kind of person am I? What evil was not in my deeds? Or if not in my deeds, then in my words? Or if not in my words, then in my will? But you, Lord, are good and merciful. Your right hand looked into the depth of my death. From the bottom of my heart you drained out the abyss of corruption. This was everything: to stop willing what I wanted and to will what you wanted. But where had my free will been for so many years? From what deep and hidden place was it called forth in a moment? In that moment I submitted my neck to your gentle yoke and my shoulders to your light burden, Christ Jesus, my helper and my redeemer. How sweet it suddenly became for me to be without the sweetness of worthless things! What I had feared to lose now became joy to let go. You were casting them out from me, true and supreme sweetness. You cast them out and entered in their place. You were sweeter than every sweetness, but not to flesh and blood. You were brighter than every light, but more inward than every secret place. You were higher than every honor, but not to those who are high in themselves. Now my soul was free from the gnawing cares of ambition and getting and wallowing and scratching the itch of lusts. I was chattering to you, my brightness and my riches and my salvation, Lord my God.
Chapter 2. As His Lungs Were Affected, He Meditates Withdrawing Himself from Public Favour.
I decided not to abandon my teaching position abruptly in your sight. Instead I would quietly withdraw from my work of speaking in the marketplace of words. I would no longer sell weapons of fury from my mouth to young students. These students were not meditating on your law or your peace. They were buying lies and madness and courtroom battles. Only a few days remained before the harvest vacation. I decided to endure those days so I could leave with dignity. I had been redeemed by you and would not return to be sold again. Our plan was known to you. But it was not known to other people except our close friends. We had agreed among ourselves not to spread the news carelessly to just anyone. You had given us sharp arrows and destroying coals against the deceitful tongue. You did this as we climbed up from the valley of weeping and sang the song of ascents. The deceitful tongue pretends to give advice while contradicting. It pretends to love while consuming like food.
You had pierced our heart with your love. We carried your words fixed deep within us. The examples of your servants burned in our thoughts. You had made them bright from darkness and alive from death. These examples consumed our heavy sluggishness so we would not sink into the depths. They kindled us powerfully so that every breath of contradictory argument could inflame us more fiercely rather than extinguish us. But there was a problem. Our vow and purpose would certainly have supporters for the sake of your name, which you have made holy throughout the earth. Yet it seemed like boasting not to wait for the approaching vacation time. Instead we would leave before then from our public profession in everyone's sight. Then all who watched would turn their faces toward what I had done. They would say many things about how I wanted to get ahead of the harvest season so close at hand. They would claim I was trying to appear important. What good was it to me that people would think and argue about my motives? Why should our good be slandered?
My lungs had already begun to give way from too much literary work that very summer. I struggled to draw breath. Chest pains showed they were wounded. My voice refused to become clearer or stronger. This alarmed me at first. It nearly forced me to abandon the burden of teaching by necessity. Or if I could have been healed and recovered, I would certainly have had to take a break. But when the full desire arose and strengthened in me to have leisure and to see that you are Lord, you know this, my God. I even began to rejoice. Here was a genuine excuse that would soften people's offense. They never wanted me to be free because of their children. Full of such joy, I endured that interval of time until it passed. I don't know if it was even twenty days. But I bore it bravely. The craving that used to burden me with heavy business had departed. I would have remained crushed if patience had not come to help. Perhaps some of your servants, my brothers, might say I sinned in this. With a heart already full for your service, I still allowed myself to sit even one hour in the chair of lies. I will not argue the point. But you, most merciful Lord, did you not forgive and wash away even this sin along with all the others that were horrible and deadly in the holy water?
Chapter 3. He Retires to the Villa of His Friend Verecundus, Who Was Not Yet a Christian, and Refers to His Conversion and Death, as Well as that of Nebridius.
Verecundus was tormented with anxiety about this good thing of ours. He saw himself abandoned by our fellowship because of his own chains that held him so tenaciously. He was not yet a Christian with a believing wife. Yet by that very bond—tighter than all the others—he was held back from the journey we had undertaken. He said he wanted to be a Christian only in the way that he could not be. He graciously offered that as long as we remained there, we should stay at his estate. You will repay him, Lord, in the resurrection of the righteous, because you have already given him that very lot. For although we were absent when he was seized by bodily illness at Rome, he became a Christian and believer in that sickness and departed from this life. Thus you showed mercy not only to him but also to us. You spared us from being tortured with unbearable grief as we thought of our friend's outstanding kindness toward us while not counting him among your flock. Thanks be to you, our God. We are yours. Your encouragements and consolations make this clear. You are a faithful promise-keeper. You give back to Verecundus, in place of his country estate at Cassiciacum where we found rest in you from the heat of the world, the delight of your eternally green paradise. For you forgave his sins upon the earth in the rich mountain, your mountain, the fertile mountain.
So Augustine was troubled at that time. But Nebridius was rejoicing with us. He had not yet become a Christian. He had fallen into that most dangerous pit of error. He believed your Son's flesh was only a phantom. But he was emerging from that trap. He had not yet received any sacraments of your Church. Still he burned as a passionate seeker of truth. Not long after our conversion and rebirth through your baptism, you also made him a faithful Catholic. He served you in Africa among his own people with perfect chastity and self-control. Through him his entire household became Christian. Then you released him from the flesh. Now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever that bosom means, there Nebridius lives. He was my sweet friend. But Lord, he became your adopted son, raised from a freedman. There he lives. What other place could suit such a soul? There he lives, in that place from which he used to question me constantly when I was just an inexperienced little man. He no longer puts his ear to my mouth. Instead his spiritual mouth drinks from your fountain. He drinks wisdom as deeply as his thirst allows. His happiness never ends. I don't think he gets so drunk on wisdom that he forgets me. You are the one he drinks from, Lord. You remember us. So there we were. We comforted sad Verecundus while preserving our friendship despite our conversion. We urged him toward faith suitable to his station in married life. We waited for Nebridius to follow us, which he could do so easily. He was just about to do it. Then suddenly those days finally rolled by. They had seemed long and many because of our love for leisurely freedom to sing from our very hearts:"My heart said to you, I have sought your face. Your face, Lord, I will seek."
Chapter 4. In the Country He Gives His Attention to Literature, and Explains the Fourth Psalm in Connection with the Happy Conversion of Alypius. He is Troubled with Toothache.
The day finally came when I was actually released from my teaching position. I had already been freed from it in my thoughts. And so it happened. You rescued my tongue just as you had already rescued my heart. I blessed you with joy as I set out for the country villa with all my household. The books record what I accomplished there in my writing. These works now served you, though they still gasped for breath in pride's classroom during this pause. The books show my discussions with those present and my solitary conversations with myself before you. My letters with the absent Nebridius bear witness as well. When will I have enough time to recall all your great kindnesses to us during that period? I must hurry on to even greater things. Yet my memory calls me back. It becomes sweet to me, Lord, to confess to you what inner goads you used to tame me completely. You made me level by humbling the mountains and hills of my thoughts. You made straight my crooked ways and smoothed my rough places. I remember how you also conquered Alypius, the brother of my heart, to the name of your only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. At first he scorned having that name inserted into our writings. He preferred that they should smell of the cedars of the schools, which the Lord has now shattered, rather than the wholesome herbs of the church that drive away serpents.
What cries I gave to you, my God, when I read David's Psalms! Those songs of faith drove out every trace of pride from my spirit. I was still new to your true love. I was a catechumen staying in the countryside with my friend Alypius, who was also a catechumen. My mother stayed with us. She had a woman's dress but a man's faith. She had an old woman's peace but a mother's love. She had Christian devotion. What cries I gave you through those psalms! How they set me on fire for you! How I burned to recite them to the whole world against human arrogance! Yet they are sung throughout the whole world. No one can hide from your heat. How fierce and sharp was my anger against the Manicheans! Yet I pitied them too. They did not know those sacred mysteries or those healing medicines. They were mad against the very cure that could have made them well. I wished they could have been nearby then without my knowing they were there. I wished they could watch my face and hear my voice when I read the fourth psalm during that time of rest. I wished they could see what that psalm did to me."When I called out, the God of my righteousness heard me. In my trouble you gave me room to breathe. Have mercy on me, Lord, and hear my prayer."I wanted them to hear without me knowing they were listening. Then they would not think I was saying for their sake the things I said between those words. The truth is I would not have said those things at all if I had felt they were listening and watching me. Even if I had spoken, they would not have received my words the way I spoke them with you and to you from the intimate feeling of my heart.
I shuddered with fear. At that same moment I burned with hope and rejoiced in your mercy, Father. All of this poured out through my eyes and voice when your good Spirit turned to us and said:"Sons of men, how long will your hearts be heavy? Why do you love what is empty and seek what is false?"I had loved emptiness. I had sought falsehood. But you, Lord, had already glorified your Holy One by raising him from the dead. You had placed him at your right hand. From there he would send down his promise from on high—the Comforter, the Spirit of truth. He had already sent him, but I did not know it. He had sent him because he was already glorified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. Before this the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The prophet cries out:"How long will your hearts be heavy? Why do you love what is empty and seek what is false? Know that the Lord has glorified his Holy One."He cries out"How long?"He cries out"Know this!"Yet for so long I remained ignorant. I loved emptiness and sought falsehood. Therefore I heard and trembled, because these words were spoken to people like I remembered myself to be. The fantasies I had held as truth were emptiness and lies. I groaned many times, deeply and powerfully, in the pain of remembering. How I wish those who still love emptiness and seek falsehood had heard these groans. Perhaps they would have been shaken. Perhaps they would have vomited up their lies. Then you would hear them when they cried out to you. For he who intercedes for us with you truly died the death of the flesh for us.
I was reading:"Be angry, and do not sin."How this moved me, my God! I had already learned to be angry with myself about my past so that I would not sin in the future. I was right to be angry. It was not some other dark nature that was sinning through me, as those people claim who never get angry with themselves. They are"storing up wrath for themselves on the day of wrath when your righteous judgment is revealed."My good things were no longer external. They were not sought with fleshly eyes under this sun. Those who want to find joy in external things easily fade away. They pour themselves out on things that are seen and temporary. They lick the images of these things with starving thoughts. If only they would grow weary from this hunger and say:"Who will show us good things?"Let us answer them, and let them hear:"The light of your face is stamped upon us, Lord."We are not"the light that enlightens every person."Rather, we are enlightened by you. We"who were once darkness"have become"light in you."If only they could see the eternal interior reality! I had tasted it, and I gnashed my teeth because I could not show it to them. What if they brought me their heart through their eyes that look outward away from you? What if they said:"Who will show us good things?"There in my inner chamber, where I had been angry with myself, where I was pierced with remorse, where I had sacrificed by slaying my old self, where I had begun to meditate on my renewal while hoping in you—there you began to grow sweet to me."You gave gladness to my heart."I cried out as I read these words outwardly while recognizing them inwardly. I no longer wanted to multiply earthly goods, devouring time and being devoured by time. In eternal simplicity I possessed different"grain and wine and oil."
I cried out in the following verse with the loud voice of my heart:"O in peace! O in the same!"O what he said:"I will fall asleep and take my rest!"For who will resist us when the word that is written comes to pass:"Death is swallowed up in victory?"And you are truly"The Same"who does not change. In you there is rest that forgets all labors. No one else is with you. There is no need to seek many other things that are not what you are."You, Lord, have established me uniquely in hope."I was reading and burning with passion. I could find nothing to do for the deaf dead from whom I had come. I had been a plague, a bitter barker, and blind against the Letters that are sweet with heaven's honey and bright with your light. I was wasting away over the enemies of this Scripture.
When will I remember all the days of that blessed time? But I have not forgotten and I will not keep silent about the harshness of your scourging. Nor will I stay quiet about the wonderful swiftness of your mercy. You were torturing me then with tooth pain. The pain grew so severe that I could not speak. It came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray to you for me. You are the God of complete salvation. I wrote this request on a wax tablet. I gave it to them to read. As soon as we knelt down with pleading hearts, that pain fled. But what kind of pain was it? How did it flee? I was startled, I confess, my Lord and my God. I had never experienced anything like this from my earliest years. Your divine signs penetrated deep into my understanding. Rejoicing in faith, I praised your name. But that faith would not let me feel secure about my past sins. They had not yet been forgiven me through your baptism.
Chapter 5. At the Recommendation of Ambrose, He Reads the Prophecies of Isaiah, But Does Not Understand Them.
I resigned after the harvest season was finished. I told the people of Milan to find another seller of words for their students. I had chosen to serve you instead. Besides, I was no longer fit for that profession because of my breathing difficulties and chest pain. I wrote a letter to your holy man Ambrose, who was my bishop. I told him about my past errors. I told him about my present desire. I asked him to advise me which of your books I should read first. I wanted to become better prepared and more suited to receive such great grace. He instructed me to read the prophet Isaiah. I believe he chose this because Isaiah announces the Gospel and the calling of the Gentiles more clearly than the others. However, I did not understand my first reading of it. I thought the whole book was like that. I postponed reading it again until I became more practiced in the Lord's language.
Chapter 6. He is Baptized at Milan with Alypius and His Son Adeodatus. The Book De Magistro.
When the time came for me to give my name for baptism, we returned from the countryside to Milan. Alypius decided to be reborn in you alongside me. He was already clothed with the humility that befits your sacraments. He was such a strong master of his body that he dared to walk barefoot on the frozen ground of Italy with unusual boldness. We also brought with us the boy Adeodatus. He was born from me in the flesh through my sin. You had made him well. He was about fifteen years old. His intelligence surpassed many serious and learned men. I confess to you that these are your gifts, Lord my God, creator of all things and mighty to reshape our deformities. In that boy I had no part except the fault. That he was being raised by us in your discipline came from your inspiration and no other source. I confess to you that these are your gifts. There is a book of ours titled"On the Teacher."In it he speaks with me. You know that all the thoughts inserted there from the voice of my dialogue partner were his when he was sixteen years old. I experienced many other more wonderful things from him. That intelligence filled me with awe. Who but you is the maker of such miracles? You quickly took his life from the earth. I remember him with greater peace now. I fear nothing for his childhood or his youth or indeed for that man at all. We made him our companion in your grace to be educated in your discipline. We were baptized and our anxiety about the past life fled from us. In those days I could not get enough of the wonderful sweetness of contemplating the depth of your plan for the salvation of the human race. How much I wept during your hymns and songs! I was deeply stirred by the sweetly sounding voices of your Church. Those voices flowed into my ears. Truth melted into my heart. From there the feeling of devotion blazed up. Tears ran down my face. I was happy with them.
Chapter 7. Of the Church Hymns Instituted at Milan; Of the Ambrosian Persecution Raised by Justina; And of the Discovery of the Bodies of Two Martyrs.
The church in Milan had only recently begun this form of comfort and encouragement. The brothers sang with great enthusiasm. Their voices and hearts joined together. This happened about a year ago, perhaps a little more. Justina was the mother of the boy emperor Valentinian. She persecuted your servant Ambrose because of her heretical beliefs. The Arians had led her astray. The faithful people kept watch in the church. They were prepared to die with their bishop, your servant. My mother, your handmaid, was there. She took the lead in anxious watching and prayer. She lived on prayer alone. We were still cold, untouched by the warmth of your Spirit. Yet we were stirred by the city's shock and turmoil. Then hymns and psalms were introduced for singing. This followed the custom of the eastern regions. The goal was to prevent the people from wasting away through the weariness of grief. This practice has continued from that time until today. Many of your flocks now follow it, almost all of them. Other parts of the world imitate it too.
Then you revealed to your bishop through a vision where the bodies of the martyrs Protasius and Gervasius lay hidden. You had stored them incorrupt in the treasury of your secret place for so many years. From there you brought them forth at the right moment to restrain a woman's rage—though she was a queen. When their bodies were uncovered and dug up, they were transferred to the Ambrosian basilica with proper honor. Not only were those tormented by unclean spirits healed—with the demons themselves confessing this—but something more happened. A certain man who had been blind for many years lived there. He was a citizen well known to the city. When he asked about the cause of the people's tumultuous joy and heard the answer, he leaped up. He asked his guide to lead him there. When he was brought to the place, he obtained permission to enter. He wanted to touch the bier with a cloth—the precious death of your saints in your sight. As soon as he did this and brought the cloth to his eyes, they were opened immediately. From there the news spread. From there your praises blazed forth bright and burning. From there even that enemy woman's mind was changed. Though she was not brought to the health of belief, she was at least restrained from the fury of persecution. Thanks to you, my God. From where and to what point did you guide my memory so that I would confess even these things to you? I had forgotten them and passed over these great events. Yet even then, when the fragrance of your ointments was so strong, we did not run after you. That is why I wept more during the singing of your hymns. I had long sighed for you. At last I was breathing freely—as much as the breeze allows in a house of straw.
Chapter 8. Of the Conversion of Evodius, and the Death of His Mother When Returning with Him to Africa; And Whose Education He Tenderly Relates.
You make those who agree dwell together in one house. You brought us together with Evodius, a young man from our hometown. He was serving in military affairs when he turned to you before we did and was baptized. He left worldly service and girded himself for yours. We were together. We planned to live together in holy purpose. We searched for a place where we might serve you most usefully. We were returning to Africa together. When we reached Ostia on the Tiber, my mother died. I pass over many things because I am in great haste. Accept my confessions and thanksgiving, my God, for countless matters even left unspoken. But I will not pass over what my soul brings forth about that servant of yours who brought me forth. She bore me in the flesh for this temporal life. She bore me in heart for eternal light. I will speak not of her gifts in her but of yours. She had not made herself or raised herself. You created her. Neither father nor mother knew what kind of person would come from them. The rod of your Christ instructed her in fear of you. The guidance of your only Son shaped her in a faithful house as a good member of your Church. She praised not so much her mother's care for her training as that of a certain aged servant woman. This woman had carried her father as an infant, as little ones are usually carried on the backs of older girls. For this reason and because of her old age and excellent character, she was well honored by her masters in that Christian household. The care of her master's daughters was entrusted to her. She carried it out diligently. She was forceful with holy severity in restraining them when necessary. She showed sober wisdom in teaching them. Even outside those hours when they were fed most moderately at their parents' table, she would not let them drink water even if they burned with thirst. She prevented bad habits. She added sound words:"Now you drink water because wine is not in your power. But when you come to husbands and become mistresses of storerooms and cellars, water will seem disgusting. But the habit of drinking will remain."By this method of teaching and authority of commanding, she curbed the greed of tender age. She shaped the girls' very thirst into proper measure. They no longer desired what was not fitting.
Your servant told me, your son, how a drinking problem had crept up on her. Her parents would send her to draw wine from the jar as usual, since she was a sober girl. She would lower the cup through the opening at the top. Before pouring the pure wine into the flask, she would sip a tiny amount with the tip of her lips. She couldn't drink more because her taste rejected it. She wasn't doing this from any drunken craving. It was just youthful excess bubbling up in playful impulses. These impulses usually get crushed under adult authority in children's minds. She kept adding small daily amounts to that tiny sip. Scripture says that whoever despises small things will fall little by little. She had slipped into the habit of greedily draining cups almost full of pure wine. Where was the wise old woman then? Where was that strict prohibition? Could anything have helped against this hidden disease unless your healing power watched over us, Lord? Father and mother and nurses were absent. But you were present. You created us. You call us. You even work through human authorities to do some good for souls' salvation. What did you do then, my God? How did you heal her? How did you cure her? You brought forth a harsh and sharp insult from another soul. It was like surgical steel from your hidden provisions. You cut away that corruption with one stroke. The servant girl who usually went with her to the wine jar was quarreling with her young mistress alone. This happens. She hurled this accusation at her with the bitterest mockery, calling her a wine-guzzler. That sting made her look at her own ugliness. She immediately condemned it and threw it off. Friends who flatter lead us astray. Enemies who quarrel often correct us. You don't reward them for what you accomplish through them, but for what they intended. The angry servant wanted to torment her young mistress, not heal her. She spoke secretly either because that's how place and time found them for their fight, or because she might be in danger herself for revealing this so late. But you, Lord, ruler of heaven and earth, twist the deep current to your purposes. You make the flow of ages turbulent in an orderly way. You healed one soul through another's madness. No one who notices this should credit their own power when someone gets corrected by their words, if that person was meant to be corrected.
Chapter 9. He Describes the Praiseworthy Habits of His Mother; Her Kindness Towards Her Husband and Her Sons.
She was raised with modesty and sobriety. She was made obedient to you rather than having her parents made obedient to her. When she reached full maturity and became ready for marriage, she was given to a husband. She served him as if he were her master. She worked diligently to win him over to you. She spoke of you to him through her character, which you used to make her beautiful and respectfully lovable and admirable to her husband. She endured the wrongs of the marriage bed in such a way that she never had any quarrel with her husband about this matter. She waited for your mercy to come upon him so that by believing in you he might be purified. He was outstanding in kindness but also fierce in anger. She knew not to resist an angry husband, not only in action but not even in word. When she saw that he had cooled down and become quiet, she would give an account of her actions if perhaps he had been stirred up too hastily. Many married women whose husbands were gentler bore the marks of beatings that disfigured even their faces. During friendly conversations these women would criticize their husbands' behavior. She criticized their tongues instead, warning them seriously though as if in jest. She reminded them that from the moment they heard those documents called marriage contracts read aloud, they should have considered them as instruments by which they had become servants. Therefore, remembering their condition, they ought not to act proudly against their masters. These women marveled, knowing what a fierce husband she endured. It had never been heard or shown by any sign that Patricius had struck his wife or that they had disagreed with each other in domestic strife for even a single day. They asked her privately for the reason. She taught them her method, which I mentioned above. Those who followed it found joy through experience. Those who did not follow it continued to suffer under oppression.
Even his mother-in-law had been turned against him at first by the whispered lies of wicked servant girls. But he won her over through his respectful behavior and his patient, gentle endurance. She eventually told her son herself about the servants' malicious tongues that were disturbing the peace between her and her daughter-in-law. She demanded punishment for them. So her son obeyed his mother and took care of household discipline and protected family harmony. He had the guilty servants beaten according to his mother's wishes. Then she promised that anyone who spoke evil of her daughter-in-law to curry favor with her should expect the same reward. No one dared try it after that. The two women lived together with remarkable mutual affection and sweetness.
God had also given a great gift to that good servant of yours in whose womb you created me. My God, my mercy, you blessed her with this ability. Whenever she found herself among quarreling and disagreeing people, she made herself a peacemaker wherever she could. She would hear the most bitter things from both sides about each other. This is the usual result when swollen and undigested discord erupts in the presence of a friend speaking about an absent enemy. The rawness of hatred pours out through acidic conversations. Yet she would never reveal to one what the other had said, except what might help reconcile them. This good quality might seem small to me, except that I have sadly witnessed countless disturbances. Some horrible plague of sins spreads far and wide. People not only repeat the angry words that enemies have spoken against other angry enemies. They even add things that were never said at all. By contrast, it should be enough for any human being simply not to stir up or increase human enmities through evil speech. Beyond that, a person should strive to extinguish such conflicts through good speech. This is exactly what she was like. You taught her this, my inward master, in the school of the heart.
Finally, she even won her own husband for you in the last days of his earthly life. She no longer grieved in him as a believer what she had endured in him as an unbeliever. She was also a servant of your servants. Anyone who knew her praised and honored and loved you greatly through her. They sensed your presence in her heart, witnessed by the fruits of her holy conduct. She had been the wife of one man. She had fulfilled her duties to her parents in return. She had managed her household with devotion. She had a reputation for good works. She had nourished her children. She gave birth to them again in pain whenever she saw them stray from you. Finally, Lord, she cared for all of us who lived united in you before her death, having received the grace of your baptism by your gift. You permit us, your servants, to speak. She acted as if she had given birth to all of us. She served as if all of us had given birth to her.
Chapter 10. A Conversation He Had with His Mother Concerning the Kingdom of Heaven.
The day was approaching when she would leave this life. You knew which day it would be, but we did not know. It happened, I believe through your hidden arrangements, that she and I stood alone together. We leaned against a window that looked out on the garden inside the house where we were staying. This was at Ostia on the Tiber. There, away from the crowds, we were restoring ourselves for the sea voyage after the weariness of our long journey. We talked together alone, and it was very sweet. We forgot what lay behind us and strained toward what lay ahead. In the presence of Truth itself, which you are, we asked each other what the eternal life of the saints would be like. No eye has seen it. No ear has heard it. It has not entered into the heart of man. We opened the mouth of our heart toward the streams that flow from above, from your fountain. You are the fountain of life. We wanted to be sprinkled from that source according to our capacity. We wanted somehow to think about so great a reality.
As we continued this conversation, we reached the point where every pleasure of the physical senses seemed worthless compared to the joy of that eternal life. Even the brightest earthly light was not worthy of comparison or even mention alongside it. We lifted ourselves up with burning desire toward the One. We journeyed step by step through all physical things. We passed beyond the very heavens where the sun and moon and stars shine upon the earth. We continued ascending inwardly through thought and speech and wonder at your works. We came to our own minds. We transcended even these to reach that region of never-failing abundance. There you feed Israel forever with the food of truth. There life itself is wisdom. Through this wisdom all things are made—things that were, things that are, and things that will be. But wisdom itself is not made. It simply is as it was. It will be as it always has been. Rather,"was"and"will be"do not exist in wisdom. Only"is"exists because wisdom is eternal."Was"and"will be"are not eternal. While we spoke and yearned for this wisdom, we touched it briefly with our whole heart's thrust. We sighed. We left bound there the first fruits of our spirit. We returned to the noise of our own speech where words begin and end. What can compare to your Word, our Lord? Your Word remains in itself without growing old. Your Word renews all things.
We were saying this: Suppose someone could silence the tumult of the flesh. Suppose the fantasies of earth and water and air fell silent. Suppose the heavens themselves fell silent. Suppose even the soul silenced itself and passed beyond itself by not thinking of itself. Suppose dreams and imaginary revelations fell silent. Suppose every tongue and every sign fell silent. Suppose everything that comes to be by passing away fell completely silent for someone. If anyone could hear this silence, all these things would say:"We did not make ourselves. He made us who remains forever."Once they spoke these words, suppose they fell silent because they had directed their listener's ear toward him who made them. Suppose he alone spoke then. Not through these things but through himself. Then we would hear his word. Not through the tongue of flesh. Not through an angel's voice. Not through the sound of a cloud. Not through the riddle of a likeness. We would hear him himself whom we love in these things. We would hear him himself without these things. This is how we now stretch ourselves out. With swift thought we touch the eternal Wisdom that remains above all things. Suppose this continued. Suppose all other visions of a far different kind were taken away. Suppose this one vision seized its beholder and absorbed him and hid him away in interior joys. Then eternal life would be just like this moment of understanding for which we sighed. Would this not be"Enter into the joy of your Lord"? But when will this happen? Will it be when"we shall all rise again, but we shall not all be changed"?
I was speaking such things. Even if not in exactly this way and with these exact words, still Lord, you know that on that day when we were speaking of such matters, this world grew worthless to us as we talked. All its pleasures faded away. Then she said to me:"My son, as for myself, nothing in this life brings me joy anymore. I don't know what I'm still doing here. I don't know why I remain. My hope for this world is spent. There was one thing that made me want to stay a little longer in this life. I wanted to see you become a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has granted this to me more abundantly than I hoped. I see you now as his servant, having rejected earthly happiness. What am I doing here now?"
Chapter 11. His Mother, Attacked by Fever, Dies at Ostia.
I don't clearly remember what I replied to her about this. Meanwhile she fell ill with fevers for barely five days, or not much longer. While she was sick, one day she suffered a fainting spell. She was briefly taken away from our presence. We rushed to her side. She quickly returned to consciousness. She looked at those standing around her—me and my brother—and said to us like someone asking a question:"Where was I?"Then looking at us, stunned with grief, she said:"You are laying your mother to rest here."I remained silent. I held back my tears. But my brother spoke some words. He wished that she would die not in a foreign land but in her homeland, thinking this would be more fortunate. When she heard this, she looked back at him with an anxious expression in her eyes because he thought such things. Then she looked at me and said:"See what he says."And immediately to both of us she said:"Lay this body anywhere. Let no concern for it trouble you. I ask only this of you—that you remember me at the Lord's altar wherever you may be."When she had explained this thought in whatever words she could manage, she fell silent. The worsening illness began to torment her.
I was thinking about your gifts, invisible God, which you pour into the hearts of your faithful people. Wonderful fruits grow from these gifts. I was rejoicing and giving thanks to you as I remembered what I knew. I recalled how much care she had always burned with concerning the tomb she had provided and prepared for herself next to her husband's body. They had lived together in great harmony. She wanted this too, as the human mind struggles to grasp divine things. She wanted it added to that happiness and remembered by people that she had been granted this favor after her journey across the sea. The earth of both spouses would be covered by the same earth. I did not know when this emptiness had begun to disappear from her heart through the fullness of your goodness. I was rejoicing and marveling that she had revealed this to me so clearly. Yet even in our conversation at the window when she said"What am I still doing here?"she did not seem to desire to die in her homeland. I also heard later that while we were already at Ostia, she was speaking one day with some of my friends with motherly confidence about despising this life and the blessing of death. I was not present myself. They were amazed at the strength of the woman you had given her. They asked whether she was not afraid to leave her body so far from her own city. She said"Nothing is far from God. There is no need to fear that he will not recognize at the end of the age where to raise me up."Therefore on the ninth day of her illness, in the fifty-sixth year of her life and the thirty-third year of mine, that devout and holy soul was freed from the body.
Chapter 12. How He Mourned His Dead Mother.
I pressed her eyes closed. An immense sadness flowed into my heart and spilled over into tears. But then my eyes obeyed my mind's violent command and drew back their fountain until it ran dry. In such a struggle I suffered terribly. When she breathed her last breath, the boy Adeodatus cried out in grief. All of us restrained him and he fell silent. In the same way, something childlike in me that was sliding toward tears was restrained by the youthful voice of my heart and fell silent. We did not think it fitting to honor her funeral with tearful laments and groans. Such things usually bewail some misery of the dying, or their complete extinction. But she was not dying miserably, nor was she dying completely. We held this truth through the evidence of her character, through her genuine faith, and through certain proofs.
What was causing me such deep inner pain? It was nothing but a fresh wound from the sudden breaking of our sweetest and dearest life together. I found comfort in her testimony about me. During her final illness she would lovingly praise my care for her. She called me devoted. She remembered with great affection that she had never heard a harsh or insulting word come from my mouth toward her. But what was such honor that I showed her compared to the service she gave me, my God who made us? I was being abandoned. I was losing her great comfort. My soul was wounded. My life was being torn apart. Our two lives had become one.
The boy was held back from his weeping. Evodius seized the Psalter and began to sing a psalm. Our whole household responded:"I will sing of mercy and judgment to you, O Lord."When people heard what was happening, many brothers and devout women gathered. Those whose duty it was attended to the funeral arrangements as was customary. I stayed in a place where I could appropriately remain. I discussed matters fitting for the occasion with those who thought I should not be left alone. With this healing balm of truth I soothed the anguish that you knew. They remained unaware of my pain. They listened intently. They thought I felt no grief. But in your ears, where none of them could hear, I rebuked the weakness of my feelings. I held back the flood of sorrow. It yielded to me a little. Then it swept forward again with its own force. It did not break out into tears. It did not change my expression. But I knew what I was pressing down in my heart. I was deeply displeased that these human emotions had such power over me. These things must happen by the proper order and lot of our condition. So I grieved over my grief with another kind of pain. I was worn down by a double sadness.
Then look, the body was carried out. We go. We return without tears. For I did not weep during those prayers I poured out to you when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered for her. The corpse was already placed beside the grave before it was lowered, as is customary there. I did not weep during those prayers either. But all day long I was deeply sorrowful in secret. My mind was disturbed. I begged you as best I could to heal my grief. You did not do it. I believe you were impressing upon my memory with this one lesson the binding power of every habit. Even a mind that no longer feeds on deceiving words feels this power. I also thought I should go to bathe. I had heard that baths got their name from this: the Greeks called them"balaneion"because they drive anxiety from the soul. Look, I confess this too to your mercy, Father of orphans. I bathed. I was exactly the same as before I had bathed. The bitterness of sorrow did not sweat out from my heart. Then I slept and woke up. I found my grief lessened to no small degree. While I was alone in my bed, I remembered the truthful verses of your Ambrose:"You are God, creator of all things, ruler of the heavens. You clothe the day with beautiful light. You clothe the night with the grace of sleep. You give rest so that relaxed limbs may return to useful labor. You lift up weary minds. You release anxious sorrows."
And so gradually I brought back to my original feelings your servant and her godly way of life with you. I remembered how she was holy and gently devoted to us. I was suddenly deprived of all this. I wanted to weep before you about her and for her sake. I wanted to weep about myself and for my own sake. I let go of the tears I had been holding back. I let them flow as much as they wanted. I spread them beneath my heart. I found rest in them because your ears were there. No human ears were there to interpret my weeping with arrogance. And now, Lord, I confess this to you in writing. Let whoever wants to read this. Let them interpret it however they want. Someone might discover it was a sin that I wept for my mother for a small part of an hour. Someone might find fault that I wept for my mother who was dead to my eyes for the moment. She had wept for me for many years so that I might live in your sight. Let such a person not mock me. Instead, if he has great love, let him weep to you himself. Let him weep to you, Father of all the brothers of your Christ, for my sins.
Chapter 13. He Entreats God for Her Sins, and Admonishes His Readers to Remember Her Piously.
But I, now that my heart is healed from that wound where fleshly affection could be blamed, pour out to you a completely different kind of tears for your servant, our God. These tears flow from a shaken spirit as I consider the dangers facing every soul that dies in Adam. Even though she was made alive in Christ and lived in such a way that your name was praised through her faith and conduct, even before she was released from the flesh, I still do not dare to say that no word contrary to your commandment ever came from her mouth after you made her new through baptism. Your Son, who is Truth, has said that whoever calls his brother a fool will be liable to the fire of hell. Woe even to the praiseworthy life of men if you examine it without mercy. But because you do not search out sins severely, we hope confidently for some place with you. Whoever lists his true merits to you is only listing your gifts to him. Oh, if only people would recognize that they are human. Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.
Therefore, my praise and my life, God of my heart, I set aside for a moment the good deeds my mother performed. For these I joyfully give you thanks. But now I plead with you for her sins. Hear me through the Medicine of our wounds who hung upon the wood. He sits at your right hand and intercedes for us. I know she acted with mercy. From her heart she forgave her debtors. You also forgive her debts. Forgive whatever she may have contracted during all those years after the water of salvation. Forgive, Lord. I beg you to forgive. Do not enter into judgment with her. Let mercy triumph over judgment. Your words are true. You promised mercy to the merciful. You made them merciful. You will have mercy on whom you choose to have mercy. You will show compassion to whom you choose to be compassionate.
I believe you have already done what I ask of you. But approve the willing offerings of my mouth, O Lord. As her day of departure approached, she gave no thought to having her body lavishly covered. She did not want it treated with spices. She did not desire a choice monument or care about an ancestral tomb. She gave us no such instructions. She wanted only one thing: to be remembered at your altar. She had served at that altar without missing a single day. She knew that there the holy sacrifice is distributed. That sacrifice erased the record of debt that stood against us. By that sacrifice the enemy was defeated. He counts up our sins and seeks something to charge against us. But he finds nothing in the one through whom we conquer. Who will pay back his innocent blood to the enemy? Who will restore to him the price he paid to buy us so he might take us from God? Your servant bound her soul to the mystery of that price through the bond of faith. Let no one tear her away from your protection. Let neither the lion nor the dragon interfere with force or treachery. She will not answer that she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and seized by the cunning accuser. Instead she will answer that her debts have been forgiven by him. No one can repay what he paid for us, though he owed nothing himself.
So let her rest in peace with the man she married. Before him she married no one. After him she married no one. She served him and bore fruit for you with patience. In this way she won him for you too. Inspire my servants, Lord my God. Inspire my brothers who are your sons. Inspire my masters whom I serve with heart and voice and writing. Let all who read these words remember your servant Monica at your altar. Let them remember her with Patrick, who was once her husband. Through their flesh you brought me into this life, though I do not know how. Let them remember my parents with holy love in this passing light. Let them remember my brothers under you as father in our Catholic mother. Let them remember my fellow citizens in eternal Jerusalem. Your pilgrim people long for that city from their departure until their return. She asked one last thing of me. Now let this be granted to her more richly through the prayers of many who read my confessions than through my prayers alone.