Confessions, Book 9

"Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the son of your handmaid. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving." Let my heart and my tongue praise you, and let all my bones say, "Lord, who is like you?" Let them say so, and answer me and say to my soul, "I am your salvation." Who am I, and what is my nature? What evil is there not in me and my deeds; or if not in my deeds, my words; or if not in my words, my will? But you, Lord, are good and merciful, and your right hand reached into the depth of my death and emptied out the abyss of corruption from the bottom of my heart. And this was the result: now I did not will to do what I willed, and began to will to do what you willed. But where was my free will during all those years and from what deep and secret retreat was it called forth in a single moment, by which I gave my neck to your "easy yoke" and my shoulders to your "light burden," Christ Jesus, "my Strength and my Redeemer"? How sweet it suddenly became to me to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For you cast them away from me, true and highest Sweetness. You cast them away, and in their place you yourself entered—sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood; brighter than all light, but more veiled than all mystery; more exalted than all honor, though not to those who are exalted in their own eyes. Now my soul was free from the gnawing cares of seeking and getting, of wallowing in the mire and scratching the itch of lust. And I prattled like a child to you, Lord my God—my light, my riches, and my salvation.

And it seemed right to me, in your sight, not to snatch my tongue's service abruptly out of the speech market, but to withdraw quietly, so that the young men who were not concerned about your law or your peace, but with lying follies and legal battles, might no longer purchase from my mouth weapons for their frenzy. Fortunately, there were only a few days before the "vintage vacation"; and I determined to endure them, so that I might resign in due form and, now bought by you, return for sale no more. My plan was known to you, but, except for my own friends, it was not known to other men. For we had agreed that it should not be made public; although, in our ascent from the "valley of tears" and our singing of "the song of degrees," you had given us sharp arrows and hot burning coals to stop that deceitful tongue which opposes under the guise of good counsel, and devours what it loves as though it were food.
You had pierced our heart with your love, and we carried your words, as it were, thrust through our vitals. The examples of your servants whom you had changed from black to shining white, and from death to life, crowded into the bosom of our thoughts and burned and consumed our sluggishness, so that we would not topple back into the abyss. And they set us greatly on fire, so that every breath of the deceitful tongue of our detractors might fan the flame and not blow it out. Though this vow and purpose of ours would find people to praise it loudly—for the sake of your name, which you have sanctified throughout the earth—it would still have looked like boasting not to wait until the vacation time now so near. For if I had left such a public office ahead of time, and had made the break in the eye of the general public, all who took notice of this act of mine and observed how near the vintage time was, which I wished to anticipate would have talked about me a great deal, as if I were trying to appear a great person. And what purpose would it serve for people to consider and argue about my conversion so that my good would be spoken of as evil?
Furthermore, this same summer my lungs had begun to be weak from too much literary labor. Breathing was difficult; the pains in my chest showed that the lungs were affected and were soon fatigued by too loud or prolonged speaking. This had at first been a trial to me, for it would have compelled me almost of necessity to lay down that burden of teaching; or, if I was to be cured and become strong again, at least to take leave for a while. But as soon as the full desire to be still so that I might know that you are the Lord arose and was confirmed in me, you know, my God, that I began to rejoice that I had this excuse ready—and not a feigned one, either—which might somewhat temper the displeasure of those who, for the sake of their sons' freedom, wished me never to have any freedom of my own. Full of joy, then, I bore it until my time ran out—it was perhaps some twenty days—yet it was a strain to go through with it, for the greediness which helped to support the drudgery had gone, and I would have been overwhelmed if patience had not taken its place. Some of your servants, my brothers, may say that I sinned in this, since, having once enlisted in your service fully and from my heart, I permitted myself to sit a single hour in the chair of falsehood. I will not dispute it. But have you not, most merciful Lord, pardoned and forgiven this sin in the holy water also, along with all the others, horrible and deadly as they were?

Verecundus was severely disturbed by this new happiness of mine, since he was still firmly held by his bonds and saw that he would lose my companionship. For he was not yet a Christian, though his wife was; and, indeed, he was more firmly enchained by her than by anything else, and held back from that journey on which we had set out. Furthermore, he declared he did not wish to be a Christian on any terms except those that were impossible. However, he invited us most courteously to make use of his country house for as long as we stayed there. Lord, you will repay him for this "in the resurrection of the just," seeing that you have already given him "the lot of the righteous." For while we were absent at Rome, he was overtaken by bodily sickness, and during it he was made a Christian and left this life as one of the faithful. Thus you had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on us as well; for fear that, remembering the great kindness of our friend to us and not able to count him in your flock, we would be tortured with intolerable grief. Thanks be to you, our God; we are yours. Your exhortations, consolations, and faithful promises assure us that you will repay Verecundus for that country house at Cassiciacum—where we found rest in you from the fever of the world—with the perpetual freshness of your paradise in which you have forgiven him his earthly sins, in that mountain flowing with milk, that fruitful mountain—your own.
Thus Verecundus was full of grief; but Nebridius was joyous. For he was not yet a Christian, and had fallen into the pit of deadly error, believing that the flesh of your Son, the Truth, was a phantom. Yet he had come up out of that pit and now held the same belief that we did. And though he had not yet been initiated into any of the sacraments of your Church, he was a most earnest inquirer after truth. Not long after our conversion and regeneration by your baptism, he also became a faithful member of the Catholic Church, serving you in perfect chastity and continence among his own people in Africa, and bringing his whole household with him to Christianity. Then you released him from the flesh, and now he lives in Abraham's bosom. Whatever is signified by that term "bosom," there lives my Nebridius, my sweet friend, your son by adoption, Lord, and not a freedman any longer. There he lives; for what other place could there be for such a soul? There he lives in that abode about which he used to ask me so many questions—poor ignorant one that I was. Now he does not put his ear up to my mouth, but his spiritual mouth to your fountain, and drinks wisdom as he desires and as he is able—happy without end. But I do not believe that he is so inebriated by that drink as to forget me; since you, Lord, who are the drink, are mindful of us. Thus, then, we were comforting the unhappy Verecundus—our friendship untouched—reconciling him to our conversion and exhorting him to a faith fit for his condition (that is, to his being married). We waited for Nebridius to follow us, since he was so close, and this he was just about to do when at last the interim ended. The days had seemed long and many because of my eagerness for leisure and liberty in which I might sing to you from my inmost part, "My heart has said to you, I have sought your face; your face, Lord, I will seek."

Finally the day came on which I was actually to be relieved from the professorship of rhetoric, from which I had already been released in intention. And it was done. And you delivered my tongue as you had already delivered my heart; and I blessed you for it with great joy, and retired with my friends to the villa. My books testify to what I got done there in writing, which was now hopefully devoted to your service; though in this pause it was still as if I were panting from my exertions in the school of pride. These were the books in which I engaged in dialogue with my friends, and also those in soliloquy before you alone. And there are my letters to Nebridius, who was still absent. When would there be enough time to recount all your great blessings that you gave us at that time, especially as I am hastening on to still greater mercies? For my memory recalls them to me and it is pleasant to confess them to you, Lord: the inward goads by which you subdued me and how you brought me low, leveling the mountains and hills of my thoughts, straightening my crookedness, and smoothing my rough ways. And I remember by what means you also subdued Alypius, my heart's brother, to the name of your only Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—which he at first refused to have inserted in our writings. For at first he preferred them to smell of the cedars of the schools which the Lord has now broken down, rather than of the wholesome herbs of the Church, hostile to serpents.
My God, how I cried to you when I read the psalms of David, those hymns of faith, those paeans of devotion which leave no room for swelling pride! I was still a novice in your true love, a catechumen on holiday at the villa, with Alypius, a catechumen like myself. My mother was also with us—in a woman's clothing, but with a man's faith, with the peacefulness of age and the fullness of motherly love and Christian piety. What cries I used to send up to you in those songs, and how I was set on fire toward you by them! I burned to sing them if possible, throughout the whole world, against the pride of the human race. And yet, indeed, they are sung throughout the whole world, and no one can hide from your heat. With what strong and bitter regret I was indignant at the Manicheans! Yet I also pitied them; for they were ignorant of those sacraments, those medicines—and raved insanely against the cure that might have made them sane! I wished they could have been somewhere close by, and—without my knowledge—could have seen my face and heard my words when, in that time of leisure, I pored over the Fourth Psalm. And I wish they could have seen how that psalm affected me. "When I called upon you, God of my righteousness, you heard me; you enlarged me when I was in distress. Have mercy upon me and hear my prayer." I wish they might have heard what I said in comment on those words—without my knowing that they heard, so that they would not think I was saying it just on their account. For, indeed, I would not have said quite the same things, nor quite in the same way, if I had known that I was heard and seen by them. And if I had spoken that way, they would not have meant the same things to them as they did to me when I spoke by and for myself before you, out of the private affections of my soul.
By turns I trembled with fear and warmed with hope and rejoiced in your mercy, Father. And all these feelings showed in my eyes and voice when your good Spirit turned to us and said, "Sons of men, how long will you be slow of heart, how long will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood?" For I had loved vanity and sought after falsehood. And you, Lord, had already magnified your Holy One, raising him from the dead and setting him at your right hand, so that from there he would send forth from on high his promised "Paraclete, the Spirit of Truth." Already he had sent him, and I did not know it. He had sent him because he was now magnified, rising from the dead and ascending into heaven. For until then "the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." And the prophet cried out: "How long will you be slow of heart? How long will you love vanity, and seek after falsehood? Know this, that the Lord has magnified his Holy One." He cries, "How long?" He cries, "Know this," and I—so long "loving vanity, and seeking after falsehood"—heard and trembled, because these words were spoken to the kind of person I remembered I myself had been. For in those phantoms which I once took for truth there was vanity and falsehood. And I spoke many things loudly and earnestly—in the contrition of my memory—which I wish those who still "love vanity and seek after falsehood" had heard. Perhaps they would have been troubled, and vomited up their error, and you would have heard them when they cried to you; for He who now makes intercession for us with you died for us by a real death in the flesh.
I read on further, "Be angry, and do not sin." And how deeply I was touched, my God; for I had now learned to be angry with myself for past things, so that in the future I might not sin. Yes, to be angry with good cause, for it was not another nature out of the race of darkness that had sinned for me—as is claimed by those who are not angry with themselves, and who store up for themselves terrible anger against the day of anger and the revelation of your righteous judgment. Nor were the good things I saw now outside me, nor were they to be seen with the eyes of flesh in the light of the earthly sun. For those who find their joys outside themselves sink easily into emptiness and are spilled out on those things that are visible and temporal, and in their starving thoughts they lick their very shadows. If only they would grow weary with their hunger and would say, "Who will show us any good?" And we would answer, and they would hear, "Lord, the light of your face shines bright upon us." For we are not that Light that enlightens every man, but we are enlightened by you, so that we who were formerly in darkness may now be alight in you. If only they could behold the inner Light Eternal which, now that I had tasted it, I gnashed my teeth because I could not show it to them unless they brought me their heart in their eyes—their roving eyes—and said, "Who will show us any good?" But even there, in the inner chamber of my soul—where I was angry with myself; where I was inwardly pierced, where I had offered my sacrifice, killing my old self, and hoping in you with the new resolve of a new life with my trust laid in you—even there you had begun to grow sweet to me and to "put gladness in my heart." And thus as I read all this, I cried aloud and felt its inward meaning. Nor did I wish to be increased in worldly goods which are wasted by time, for now I possessed, in your eternal simplicity, other grain and wine and oil.
And with a loud cry from my heart, I read the following verse: "Oh, in peace! Oh, in the Selfsame!" See how he says it: "I will lie down and take my rest." For who will withstand us when the truth of this saying that is written is made manifest: "Death is swallowed up in victory"? For surely you, who do not change, are the Selfsame, and in you is rest and oblivion to all distress. There is no other besides you, nor are we to toil for those many things which are not you, for only you, Lord, make me dwell in hope." I read these things and was set on fire—but still I could not discover what to do with those deaf and dead Manicheans to whom I myself had belonged; for I had been a bitter and blind reviler against these writings, honeyed with the honey of heaven and luminous with your light. And I was deeply grieved at these enemies of this Scripture.
When will I call to mind all that happened during those holidays? I have not forgotten them; nor will I be silent about the severity of your scourge, and the amazing quickness of your mercy. During that time you tortured me with a toothache; and when it had become so acute that I was not able to speak, it came into my heart to urge all my friends who were present to pray for me to you, the God of all health. And I wrote it down on the tablet and gave it to them to read. At once, as we bowed our knees in supplication, the pain was gone. But what pain? How did it go? I confess that I was terrified, Lord my God, because from my earliest years I had never experienced such pain. And your purposes were profoundly impressed upon me; and rejoicing in faith, I praised your name. But that faith allowed me no rest regarding my past sins, which were not yet forgiven me through your baptism.

Now that the vintage vacation was ended, I gave notice to the citizens of Milan so that they could provide their students with another word-merchant. I gave as my reasons my determination to serve you and also my insufficiency for the task, because of the difficulty in breathing and the pain in my chest. And by letters I notified your bishop, the holy man Ambrose, of my former errors and my present resolution. And I asked his advice as to which of your books it was best for me to read so that I might be more ready and fit to receive so great a grace. He recommended Isaiah the prophet; and I believe it was because Isaiah foretells more clearly than others the gospel, and the calling of the Gentiles. But because I could not understand the first part and because I imagined the rest to be like it, I laid it aside with the intention of taking it up again later, when I was better practiced in our Lord's words.

When the time arrived for me to submit my name, we left the country and returned to Milan. Alypius also resolved to be born again in you at the same time. He was already clothed with the humility that befits your sacraments, and was so brave a tamer of his body that he would walk the frozen Italian soil with his naked feet, which called for unusual fortitude. We took with us the boy Adeodatus, my son according to the flesh, the offspring of my sin. You had made him a noble boy. He was barely fifteen years old, but his intelligence excelled that of many grave and learned men. I confess to you your gifts, Lord my God, creator of all, who have power to reform our deformities—for there was nothing of me in that boy but the sin. For it was you who inspired us to foster him in your discipline, and no one else—your gifts I confess to you. There is a book of mine, entitled De Magistro. It is a dialogue between Adeodatus and me, and you know that all things there put into the mouth of my interlocutor are his, though he was then only in his sixteenth year. I found in him many other gifts even more wonderful. His talent was a source of awe to me. And who but you could be the worker of such marvels? And you quickly removed his life from the earth, and even now I recall him to mind with a sense of security, because I fear nothing for his childhood or youth, nor for his whole career. We took him for our companion, as if he were the same age in grace as we were, to be trained with us in your discipline. And so we were baptized and the anxiety about our past life left us. Nor did I ever have enough in those days of the wonderful sweetness of meditating on the depth of your counsels concerning the salvation of the human race. How freely I wept in your hymns and canticles; how deeply I was moved by the voices of your sweet-speaking Church! The voices flowed into my ears; and the truth was poured forth into my heart, where the tide of my devotion overflowed, and my tears ran down, and I was happy in all these things.

The church of Milan had only recently begun to employ this form of consolation and exaltation with all the brothers singing together with great earnestness of voice and heart. For it was only about a year—not much more—since Justina, the mother of the boy-emperor Valentinian, had persecuted your servant Ambrose on behalf of her heresy, into which she had been seduced by the Arians. The devoted people kept guard in the church, prepared to die with their bishop, your servant. Among them my mother, your handmaid, taking a leading part in those anxieties and vigils, lived there in prayer. And even though we were still not wholly melted by the heat of your Spirit, we were nevertheless excited by the alarmed and disturbed city. This was when the custom began, following the practice of the Eastern Church, of singing hymns and psalms, so that the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation. This custom, retained from then until now, has been imitated by many, indeed, by almost all your congregations throughout the rest of the world.
Then by a vision you made known to your renowned bishop the resting place of the bodies of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, whom you had preserved uncorrupted for so many years in your secret storehouse, so that you might produce them at the right time to check a woman's fury—a woman indeed, but also a queen! When they were discovered and dug up and brought with due honor to the basilica of Ambrose, as they were carried along the road many who were troubled by unclean spirits—the devils confessing themselves—were healed. And there was also a certain man, a well-known citizen of the city, blind for many years, who, when he had asked and learned the reason for the people's tumultuous joy, rushed out and begged his guide to lead him to the place. When he arrived there, he begged to be permitted to touch with his handkerchief the bier of your saints, whose death is precious in your sight. When he had done this, and put it to his eyes, they were immediately opened. The news of all this spread far and wide; from this your glory shone more brightly. And also from this the mind of that angry woman, though not enlarged to the sanity of a full faith, was nevertheless restrained from the fury of persecution. Thanks to you, my God. From where and to where have you led my memory, so that I confess such things as these to you—for great as they were, I had forgetfully passed them over? And yet at that time, when the sweet savor of your ointment was so fragrant, I did not run after you. Therefore, I wept more bitterly as I listened to your hymns, having so long panted after you. And now at last I could breathe as much as the space allows in this straw house of ours.

You, Lord, who make men of one mind dwell in a single house, also brought Evodius to join our company. He was a young man of our city, who, while serving as a secret service agent, was converted to you and baptized before us. He had relinquished his secular service, and prepared himself for yours. We were together, and we were resolved to live together in our devout purpose. We looked around for some place where we might be most useful in our service to you, and had planned on going back together to Africa. And when we had gotten as far as Ostia on the Tiber, my mother died. I am passing over many things, for I must hasten. Receive, my God, my confessions and thanksgiving for the unnumbered things about which I am silent. But I will not omit anything my mind has brought back concerning your handmaid who gave birth to me—in her flesh, so that I might be born into this world's light, and in her heart, so that I might be born to life eternal. I will not speak of her gifts, but of your gift in her; for she neither made herself nor trained herself. You created her, and neither her father nor her mother knew what kind of being was to come forth from them. And it was the rod of your Christ, the discipline of your only Son, that trained her in your fear, in the house of one of your faithful ones who was a sound member of your Church. Yet my mother did not attribute this good training of hers as much to the diligence of her own mother as to that of a certain elderly maidservant who had nursed her father, carrying him around on her back, as big girls carried babies. Because of her long-time service and also because of her extreme age and excellent character, she was much respected by the heads of that Christian household. The care of her master's daughters was also committed to her, and she performed her task with diligence. She was quite earnest in restraining them with a holy severity when necessary and instructing them with sober good sense. Thus, except at mealtimes at their parents' table—when they were fed very temperately—she would not allow them to drink even water, however parched they were with thirst. In this way she took precautions against an evil custom and added the wholesome advice: "You drink water now only because you don't control the wine; but when you are married and mistresses of pantry and cellar, you may not care for water, but the habit of drinking will be fixed." By such a method of instruction, and her authority, she restrained the longing of their tender age, and regulated even the thirst of the girls to such a decorous control that they no longer wanted what they ought not to have.
And yet, as your handmaid told me, her son, a love of wine had crept up on her. For, in the ordinary course of things, when her parents sent her as a sober girl to draw wine from the cask, she would hold a cup under the tap; and then, before she poured the wine into the bottle, she would wet the tips of her lips with a little of it, for her taste refused more than this. She did not do this out of any craving for drink, but out of the overflowing buoyancy of her time of life, which bubbles up with playfulness and youthful spirits, but is usually weighed down by the gravity of the old folks. And so, adding daily a little to that little—for "he who despises small things will fall by a little here and a little there"—she⁠a slipped into such a habit that she would eagerly drink off her little cup nearly full of wine. Where now was that wise old woman and her strict prohibition? Could anything prevail against our secret disease if your medicine, Lord, did not watch over us? Though father and mother and nurturers are absent, you are present, who create, who call, and who also work some good for our salvation, through those who are set over us. What did you do at that time, my God? How did you heal her? How did you make her whole? Did you not bring forth from another woman's soul a hard and bitter insult, like a surgeon's knife from your secret store, and with one thrust drain off all that putrefaction? For the slave girl who used to accompany her to the cellar started quarreling with her little mistress, as it sometimes happened when she was alone with her, and threw this vice of hers in her face, along with a very bitter insult: calling her "a drunkard." Stung by this taunt, my mother saw her own vileness and immediately condemned and renounced it. As the flattery of friends corrupts, so the taunts of enemies often instruct. Yet you repay them, not for the good you work through them, but for the malice they intended. That angry slave girl wanted to infuriate her young mistress, not to cure her; and that is why she spoke up when they were alone. Or perhaps it was because their quarrel just happened to break out at that time and place; or perhaps she was afraid of punishment for having told of it so late. But you, Lord, ruler of heaven and earth, who change to your purposes the deepest floods and control the turbulent tide of the ages, you heal one soul by the unsoundness of another; so that no man, when he hears of such a happening, should attribute it to his own power if another person whom he wishes to reform is reformed through a word of his.

Thus modestly and soberly brought up, she was made subject to her parents by you, rather more than by her parents to you. She arrived at a marriageable age, and she was given to a husband whom she served as her lord. And she worked to win him for you, preaching you to him by her behavior, in which you made her beautiful, reverently lovable, and admirable to her husband. For she endured with patience his infidelity and never had any dissension with her husband on this account. For she waited for your mercy upon him until, by believing in you, he might become chaste. Moreover, even though he was earnest in friendship, he was also violent in anger; but she had learned that an angry husband should not be resisted, either in deed or in word. But as soon as he had grown calm and was tranquil, and she saw a fitting moment, she would give him a reason for her conduct, if he had been upset without reason. As a result, while many matrons whose husbands were more gentle than hers bore the marks of blows on their disfigured faces, and would blame their husbands' behavior in private conversation, she would blame their tongues, admonishing them seriously—though in a jesting manner—that from the hour they heard what are called the matrimonial tablets read to them, they should think of them as instruments by which they were made servants. So, always being mindful of their condition, they ought not to set themselves up in opposition to their lords. And, knowing what a furious, bad-tempered husband she endured, they marveled that it had never been rumored, nor was there any mark to show, that Patricius had ever beaten his wife, or that there had been any domestic strife between them, even for a day. And when they asked her confidentially the reason for this, she taught them the rule I have mentioned. Those who observed it confirmed the wisdom of it and rejoiced; those who did not observe it were bullied and harassed.
She won over even her mother-in-law, who was at first prejudiced against her by the whisperings of malicious servants, by submission, persevering in it with patience and meekness; with the result that the mother-in-law told her son of the tales of the meddling servants which had disturbed the domestic peace between herself and her daughter-in-law and begged him to punish them for it. In keeping with his mother's wish, and in the interest of family discipline to ensure the future harmony of its members, he had those servants beaten who were pointed out by the one who had discovered them; and she promised a similar reward to anyone else who, thinking to please her, said anything evil about her daughter-in-law. After this no one dared to do so, and they lived together with a wonderful sweetness of mutual good will.
You also gave this other great gift, my God, my Mercy, to that good handmaid of yours, in whose womb you created me. It was that whenever she could she acted as a peacemaker between any differing and discordant spirits, and when she heard very bitter things on either side of a controversy—the kind of bloated and undigested discord which often belches forth bitter words, when crude malice is breathed out by sharp tongues to a present friend against an absent enemy—she would disclose nothing about the one to the other except what might serve toward their reconciliation. This might seem a small good to me if I did not know to my sorrow countless persons who, through the horrid and far-spreading infection of sin, not only repeat to enemies mutually enraged things said in passion against each other, but also add some things that were never said at all. For a truly humane man it ought not to be enough merely not to incite or increase the enmities of men by malicious talk; he ought likewise to endeavor by kind words to extinguish them. That is the kind of woman she was—and you, her most intimate instructor, taught her in the school of her heart.
Finally, she won her own husband over to you, now toward the end of his earthly existence. From then on, she had no cause to complain of unfaithfulness in him, which she had endured before he became one of the faithful. She was also the servant of your servants. All those who knew her greatly praised, honored, and loved you in her because, through the witness of the fruits of a holy life, they recognized you present in her heart. For she had "been the wife of one man," had honored her parents, had guided her house in piety, was highly reputed for good works, and brought up her children, going through labor pains for them as often as she saw them swerving from you. Lastly, to all of us, Lord—since by your favor you allow your servants to speak—to all of us who lived together in that association before her death in you she devoted as much care as she might have if she had been the mother of us all; she served us as if she had been the daughter of us all.

As the day now approached on which she was to leave this life—a day which you knew, but which we did not—it happened (though I believe it was arranged by your secret ways) that she and I stood alone, leaning in a certain window from which the garden of the house we occupied at Ostia could be seen. Here in this place, removed from the crowd, we were resting in preparation for the voyage after the fatigues of a long journey. We were conversing alone very pleasantly and "forgetting those things which are past, and reaching forward toward those things which are future." We were in the present—and in the presence of Truth (which you are)—discussing together what the eternal life of the saints is like: which eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor has it entered into the heart of man. We opened wide the mouth of our heart, thirsting for those heavenly streams of your fountain, "the fountain of life" which is with you, so that we might be sprinkled with its waters according to our capacity and might in some measure weigh the truth of so profound a mystery.
And when our conversation had brought us to the point where the very highest of physical sense and the most intense illumination of physical light seemed, in comparison with the sweetness of that life to come, not worthy of comparison, nor even of mention, we lifted ourselves with a more ardent love toward the Selfsame, and we gradually passed through all the levels of bodily objects, and even through heaven itself, where the sun and moon and stars shine on the earth. Indeed, we soared higher yet by inward reflection, speaking and marveling at your works. And we came at last to our own minds and went beyond them, so that we might climb as high as that region of unfailing plenty where you feed Israel forever with the food of truth, where life is that Wisdom by whom all things are made, both those that have been and those that are to be. Wisdom is not made, but is as she has been and forever will be; for "to have been" and "to be hereafter" do not apply to her, but only "to be," because she is eternal and "to have been" and "to be hereafter" are not eternal. And while we were thus speaking and straining after her, we just barely touched her with the whole effort of our hearts. Then with a sigh, leaving the first fruits of the Spirit bound to that ecstasy, we returned to the sounds of our own tongue, where the spoken word had both beginning and end. But what is like your Word, our Lord, who remains in himself without becoming old, and "makes all things new"?⁠a
What we said went something like this: "If the tumult of the flesh were silenced for any man; and the phantoms of earth and waters and air were silenced; and the poles were silent as well; indeed, if the very soul grew silent to herself, and went beyond herself by not thinking of herself; if fancies and imaginary revelations were silenced; if every tongue and every sign and every transient thing—for actually if any man could hear them, all these would say, We did not create ourselves, but were created by Him who abides forever'—and if, having uttered this, they too fell silent, having stirred our ears to hear him who created them; and if then he alone spoke, not through them but by himself, so that we might hear his word, not in fleshly tongue or angelic voice, nor sound of thunder, nor the obscurity of a parable, but might hear him—him for whose sake we love these things—if we could hear him without these, as we two now strained ourselves to do, then with rapid thought we might touch on that Eternal Wisdom which abides over all. And if this could be sustained, and other visions of a far different kind were taken away, and this one so ravished and absorbed and enveloped its beholder in these inward joys that his life might be eternally like that one moment of knowledge which we now sighed after—would this not be the reality of the saying, Enter into the joy of your Lord'? But when will such a thing be? Will it not be when we all shall rise again,' and will it not be that all things will be changed'?"
I was expressing some such thought, and if not in this way and in these words, still, Lord, you know that on that day we were talking this way and that this world, with all its joys, seemed cheap to us even as we spoke. Then my mother said: "Son, for my part I no longer take pleasure in anything in this life. Now that my hopes in this world are satisfied, I do not know what more I want here or why I am here. There was indeed one thing for which I wished to stay a little longer in this life, and that was to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. My God has answered this more than abundantly, so that I see you now made his servant and spurning all earthly happiness. What more am I to do here?"

I do not remember well what reply I gave her about this. However, it was scarcely five days later—certainly not much more—that she was struck down by fever. While she was sick, she fainted one day and was for a short time quite unconscious. We hurried to her, and when she soon regained her senses, she looked at me and my brother as we stood by her, and asked, "Where was I?" Then looking intently at us, speechless with grief, she said, "Here in this place you shall bury your mother." I was silent and held back my tears; but my brother said something, wishing her the happier lot of dying in her own country and not abroad. When she heard this, she fixed him with her eye and an anxious expression, because his words smacked of such earthly concerns, and then gazing at me she said, "See how he speaks." Soon after, she said to us both: "Lay this body anywhere, and do not let the care of it be a trouble to you at all. I ask only this: that you remember me at the Lord's altar, wherever you are." And when she had expressed her wish in such words as she could, she fell silent, in heavy pain with her increasing sickness.
But as I thought about your gifts, invisible God, which you plant in the heart of your faithful ones, from which such marvelous fruits spring up, I rejoiced and gave thanks to you, remembering what I had known of how she had always been much concerned about her burial place, which she had provided and prepared for herself by the body of her husband. For as they had lived very peacefully together, her desire had always been—so little is the human mind capable of grasping things divine—that this last should be added to all that happiness, and commented on by others: that, after her pilgrimage beyond the sea, it would be granted her that the two of them, so united on earth, should lie in the same grave. When this vanity, through the bounty of your goodness, had begun to leave her heart, I do not know; but I joyfully marveled at what she had thus disclosed to me—though indeed in our conversation in the window, when she said, "What is there here for me to do any more?" she did not seem to want to die in her own country. I heard later on that, during our stay in Ostia, she had been talking in maternal confidence to some of my friends about her contempt for this life and the blessing of death. When they were amazed at the courage which was given her, a woman, and had asked her whether she did not dread having her body buried so far from her own city, she replied: "Nothing is far from God. I have no fear that, at the end of time, he will not know the place from which he is to resurrect me." And so on the ninth day of her sickness, in the fifty-sixth year of her life and the thirty-third of mine, that religious and devout soul was set loose from the body.

I closed her eyes; and a great sadness flowed into my heart and was turning into tears, when at the strong command of my mind my eyes sucked back the fountain dry, and sorrow was in me like a convulsion. As soon as she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus burst out wailing; but he was checked by us all, and became quiet. Likewise, my own childish feeling which was, through the youthful voice of my heart, seeking escape in tears, was held back and silenced. For we did not consider it fitting to celebrate that death with tearful wails and groans. This is the way those who die unhappy or are altogether dead are usually mourned. But she did not die unhappy, nor did she altogether die. For we were assured of this by the witness of her good life, her "sincere faith," and other clear evidence.
What was it, then, that hurt me so deeply in my heart except the fresh wound caused by the sudden breaking of the sweet and dear habit of living together with her? I was full of joy because of her testimony in her last illness, when she praised my dutiful attention and called me kind, and recalled with great affection that she had never heard any harsh or reproachful sound from my mouth against her. And yet, my God who made us, how can that honor I paid her be compared with her service to me? I was then left without the great comfort I had in her, and my soul was stricken; and that life, which had been made one out of hers and mine together, was torn apart, as it were.
When the boy was restrained from weeping, Evodius took up the Psalter and began to sing, with the whole household responding, the psalm, "I will sing of mercy and judgment to you, Lord." And when they heard what we were doing, many of the brothers and religious women came together. And while those whose duty it was to prepare for the funeral went about their task according to custom, I talked in another part of the house, with those who thought I should not be left alone, about what was appropriate to the occasion. By this balm of truth, I softened the anguish known to you. They were unaware of it and listened intently and thought me free of any sense of sorrow. But in your ears, where none of them heard, I reproached myself for the mildness of my feelings, and restrained the flow of my grief which bowed a little to my will. The paroxysm returned again, and I knew what I repressed in my heart, even though it did not make me burst into tears or even change my expression; and I was greatly annoyed that these human things had such power over me, which in the due order and destiny of our natural condition must of necessity happen. And so with a new sorrow I sorrowed for my sorrow and was worn away by a twofold sadness.
So, when the body was carried out, we both went and returned without tears. For not even in those prayers which we poured out to you, when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered up to you for her—with the body placed by the side of the grave as the custom is there, before it is lowered into it—not even in those prayers did I weep. But I was deeply sad in secret all day, and with a troubled mind begged you, as best I could, to heal my sorrow; but you did not. I now believe that you were fixing in my memory, by this one lesson, the power of the bonds of all habit, even on a mind which now no longer feeds upon deception. It then occurred to me that it would be a good thing to go and bathe, for I had heard that the word for bath [balneum] took its name from the Greek balaneion [balaneion], because it washes anxiety from the mind. Now see, I confess this too to your mercy, "Father of the fatherless": I bathed and felt the same as I had before. For the bitterness of my grief was not sweated from my heart. Then I slept, and when I awoke I found my grief considerably eased. And as I lay there on my bed, those true verses of Ambrose came to my mind, for you are truly, "Deus, creator omnium, Polique rector, vestiens Diem decoro lumine, Noctem sopora gratia; Artus solutos ut quies Reddat laboris usui Mentesque fessas allevet, Luctusque solvat anxios." "O God, Creator of us all, Guiding the orbs celestial, Clothing the day with lovely light, Appointing gracious sleep by night: Your grace our wearied limbs restore To strengthened labor, as before, And ease the grief of tired minds From that deep torment which it finds."
And then, little by little, my former memories of your handmaid came back to me: her devout life toward you, her holy tenderness and attentiveness toward us, which had suddenly been taken away from me—and it was a solace for me to weep in your sight, for her and for myself, about her and about myself. Thus I set free the tears I had held back before, so that they might flow freely, spreading them out as a pillow beneath my heart. And it rested on them, for your ears were near me—not those of a man, who would have made a scornful comment about my weeping. But now in writing I confess it to you, Lord! Let anyone read it who will, and comment as he will, and if he finds me to have sinned in weeping for my mother for part of an hour—that mother who was for a while dead to my eyes, who had for many years wept for me that I might live in your eyes—let him not laugh at me; but if he is a man of generous love, let him weep for my sins against you, the Father of all the brothers of your Christ.

Now that my heart is healed of that wound—so far as it can be charged against me as a carnal affection—I pour out to you, our God, on behalf of your handmaid, tears of a very different sort: those which flow from a spirit broken by the thoughts of the dangers of every soul that dies in Adam. And although she had been "made alive" in Christ even before she was freed from the flesh, and had lived in such a way as to praise your name both by her faith and by her life, I still would not dare say that from the time you regenerated her by baptism no word came out of her mouth against your precepts. But it has been declared by your Son, the Truth, that "whoever says to his brother, You fool, will be in danger of hell-fire." And there would be doom even for the life of a praiseworthy man if you judged it with your mercy set aside. But since you do not inquire so strictly into our sins, we hope with confidence to find some place in your presence. But whoever recounts his actual and true merits to you, what is he doing but recounting to you your own gifts? Oh, if only men would know themselves as men, then "he who glories" would "glory in the Lord"!
So now, my Praise and my Life, God of my heart, forgetting for a little while her good deeds for which I give joyful thanks to you, I now beg you for the sins of my mother. Listen to me, through that Medicine of our wounds, who hung on the tree and who sits at your right hand "making intercession for us." I know that she acted in mercy, and from the heart forgave her debtors their debts. I beg you also to forgive her debts, whatever she contracted during so many years since the water of salvation. Forgive her, Lord, forgive her, I beg you; "do not enter into judgment" with her. Let your mercy be exalted above your justice, for your words are true and you have promised mercy to the merciful, that the merciful will obtain mercy. This is your gift, who have mercy on whom you will and who have compassion on whom you have compassion.
Indeed, I believe you have already done what I ask of you, but "accept the freewill offerings of my mouth, Lord." For when the day of her dissolution was so close, she gave no thought to having her body sumptuously wrapped or embalmed with spices. Nor did she covet a handsome monument, or even care to be buried in her own country. About these things she gave no commands at all, but only desired to have her name remembered at your altar, where she had served without missing a single day, and where she knew that the holy sacrifice was dispensed by which that handwriting that was against us is blotted out; and that enemy defeated who, when he summed up our offenses and searched for something to bring against us, could find nothing in Him, in whom we conquer. Who will restore to him the innocent blood? Who will repay him the price with which he bought us, so as to take us from him? Thus your handmaid bound her soul to the sacrament of our redemption by the bond of faith. Let no one separate her from your protection. Do not let the "lion" and "dragon" bar her way by force or fraud. For she will not reply that she owes nothing, for fear of being convicted and tricked by that cunning deceiver. Rather, she will answer that her sins are forgiven by Him to whom no one is able to repay the price which he, who owed us nothing, laid down for us all.
Therefore, let her rest in peace with her husband, before and after whom she was married to no other man; whom she obeyed with patience, bringing fruit to you so that she might also win him for you. And inspire, my Lord my God, inspire your servants, my brothers; your sons, my masters, whom I serve with voice and heart and writings, so that as many of them as read these confessions may also at your altar remember Monica, your handmaid, together with Patricius, once her husband; by whose flesh you brought me into this life, in a way I do not know. May they with pious affection remember my parents in this transitory life, and remember my brothers under you our Father in our Catholic mother; and remember my fellow citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which your people sigh in their pilgrimage from birth until their return. So may what my mother desired of me be fulfilled—more richly in the prayers of so many gained for her through these confessions of mine than by my prayers alone.