What do I do here?' What I answered her to these things I do not sufficiently recall, when meanwhile within scarcely five days, or not much more, she took to her bed with fevers. And when she was ill, on a certain day she suffered a fainting of the soul and was for a little while withdrawn from those present. We ran together, but she was quickly restored to her senses, and looked upon us standing by, me and my brother, and said to us like one inquiring: 'Where was I?' Then, gazing upon us stunned with grief: 'Here you shall lay,' she said, 'your mother.' I kept silent and restrained my weeping. But my brother said something whereby he expressed his wish that she might die, as more happily, not in a foreign land but in her own country. On hearing this, she with anxious countenance, smiting him back with her eyes because he relished such things, and thence gazing upon me:
'See,' she said, 'what he says.' And soon to us both: 'Lay this body anywhere,' she said; 'let not the care of it trouble you at all; this only I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord, wherever you may be.' And when she had explained this sentiment in such words as she could, she fell silent, and with the worsening illness was sorely tried. But I, pondering your gifts, O invisible God, which you send into the hearts of your faithful, and from which spring wonderful fruits, was rejoicing and giving thanks to you, recalling what I had known—how greatly she had always been anxious about the sepulcher which she had provided and prepared for herself beside the body of her husband.
For because they had lived very harmoniously, she also wished this—as the human mind is less capable of divine things—that to that felicity might be added, and that it might be commemorated by men, that it had been granted her, after the journey across the sea, that the earth of both spouses joined together should be covered by the same earth. But when this emptiness, through the fullness of your goodness, had begun not to be in her heart, I knew not, and I rejoiced, marveling that she had thus appeared to me; although even in that conversation of ours at the window, when she said, 'Now what do I do here?' she appeared not to desire to die in her own country.
I also heard afterward that already, when we were at Ostia, she conversed one day with maternal confidence with certain friends of mine about the contempt of this life and the good of death, where I myself was not present; and when they were amazed at the virtue of the woman—since you had given it to her—and asked whether she did not dread to leave her body so far from her own city, she said: 'Nothing is far from God, nor is it to be feared lest he not recognize at the end of the world the place from which to raise me up.' And so on the ninth day of her illness, in the fifty-sixth year of her age, and the thirty-third of mine, that religious and pious soul was released from the body.
I pressed down her eyes, and a vast sorrow flowed together into my breast and overflowed into tears, and in that same place my eyes, by the violent command of my mind, drank back their fountain even to dryness; and in such a struggle it went very ill with me. But then indeed, when she breathed her last, the boy Adeodatus cried out in lamentation, and, restrained by all of us, fell silent. In this manner also a certain childish thing of mine, which was slipping into weeping, was, by a youthful voice, the voice of the heart, restrained and kept silent. For we did not think it fitting to celebrate that funeral with tearful complaints and groanings, since by these is wont to be bewailed a certain misery of the dying, or as it were their utter extinction. But she neither died miserably nor died at all.
This we held firmly, both by the evidences of her character and by faith unfeigned and by sure reasons. What then was it that grieved me heavily within, save the fresh wound from the suddenly rent sweetest and dearest habit of living together? I rejoiced indeed at her testimony, which in that very last illness, blending caresses with my dutiful services, she called me dutiful, and recalled with great affection of love that she had never heard from my mouth any harsh or contumelious sound hurled against her. But yet, my God, who made us, what comparison was there between the honor paid by me to her and her servitude to me?
Since therefore I was being bereaved of so great a comfort of hers, my soul was wounded, and that life as it were torn asunder, which had been made one out of mine and hers. So, when the boy had been restrained from his weeping, Evodius took up the psalter and began to chant a psalm; and the whole household answered him: 'Of mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord.' But when it was heard what was being done, many brethren and devout women gathered together; and while those whose office it was attended to the funeral in the customary manner, I, in a part of the house where I could fittingly do so, with those who thought I ought not to be left alone, discoursed upon what was suited to the occasion, and with that solace of truth I soothed the torment that was known to thee, though they knew it not, who listened intently and supposed me to be without any feeling of grief.
But I, in thine ears, where none of them could hear, rebuked the softness of my feeling and held back the flood of grief; and it yielded to me a little: yet again it was carried along by its own force, though not so far as to break out in tears nor to change my countenance; but I knew what I was pressing down in my heart. And because it greatly displeased me that these human things had such power over me—things which must needs befall us by the appointed order and lot of our condition—I grieved over my grief with another grief, and was worn down by a twofold sorrow. And lo, when the body was carried out, we went, we returned, without tears.
For neither in those prayers which we poured out to thee, when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered for her, the corpse being now placed beside the grave, before it was laid down, as the custom there is—not even in those prayers did I weep; but throughout the whole day I was heavily and secretly sorrowful, and with a troubled mind I besought thee, as I could, to heal my pain; and thou didst not, I believe purposing to impress upon my memory, by this one proof, the bond of every habit, even against a mind that no longer feeds on a deceiving word. It seemed good to me also to go and bathe, because I had heard that the bath got its name from this, since the Greeks said 'balaneion' because it drives anxiety from the mind.
Behold, this too I confess to thy mercy, O Father of orphans: I bathed, and was such as I had been before I bathed. For the bitterness of grief did not sweat out from my heart. Then I slept and awoke, and found my pain not a little assuaged; and as I lay alone upon my bed, I called to mind the truthful verses of thy Ambrose: 'For thou art God, the Maker of all, and the Ruler of the heavens, who clothest the day with comely light, the night with the grace of sleep, that rest may restore relaxed limbs to the use of labour, and relieve the weary minds, and loose the anxious from sorrow.'
And thence by degrees I brought back into its former mind the thought of thy handmaid, and her godly conversation toward thee, and her tender and compliant holiness toward us, of which I was suddenly bereft; and it pleased me to weep in thy sight concerning her and for her, concerning myself and for myself. And I let go the tears which I had been holding back, that they might flow as much as they would, spreading them beneath my heart; and it found rest in them, for there were thine ears, not those of any man proudly interpreting my weeping. And now, O Lord, I confess it to thee in writing.
Let him read it who will, and interpret it as he will; and if he find it a sin that I wept for my mother for a small part of an hour—a mother who for the time was dead to my eyes, who had wept over me for many years that I might live to thine eyes—let him not deride me, but rather, if he is of great charity, let him weep himself before thee for my sins, before thee the Father of all the brethren of thy Christ. But I, my heart now healed of that wound in which I might be reproved for carnal affection, pour out to thee, O our God, for that handmaid of thine a far other kind of tears, which flow from a spirit shaken by the consideration of the perils of every soul that dies in Adam.
Although she, made alive in Christ, even before being released from the flesh, so lived that thy name was praised in her faith and her conduct—yet I dare not say that, from the time thou didst regenerate her through baptism, no word went forth from her mouth against thy precept. And it has been said by the Truth, thy Son: 'Whosoever shall say to his brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of the fire of Gehenna.' And woe even to the praiseworthy life of men, if thou shouldst examine it with mercy set aside! But because thou dost not search out our offences too severely, we trustfully hope for some place with thee. Yet whoever recounts to thee his true merits, what does he recount to thee but thy gifts? O that men would know themselves to be men, and that he who glories might glory in the Lord!
I therefore, my praise and my life, O God of my heart, setting aside for a little while her good deeds, for which I joyfully give thee thanks, now entreat thee for my mother's sins. Hear me, through the medicine of our wounds, who hung upon the tree and, sitting at thy right hand, makes intercession for us. I know that she dealt mercifully, and from her heart forgave her debtors their debts: do thou also forgive her her debts, if she contracted any during so many years after the water of salvation. Forgive, O Lord, forgive, I beseech thee, enter not into judgment with her. Let mercy exult over judgment, for thy words are true, and thou hast promised mercy to the merciful.
And that they might be such, thou gavest it to them, who wilt have mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and wilt show mercy to whom thou wilt be merciful. And I believe thou hast already done what I ask of thee; yet approve, O Lord, the voluntary offerings of my mouth. For when that day of her dissolution was at hand, she took no thought to have her body sumptuously covered or embalmed with spices, nor did she desire a choice monument, nor did she care for a tomb in her native land:
these things she did not enjoin upon us, but desired only that a remembrance of her be made at thy altar, which she had served without omitting a single day, knowing that from it is dispensed that holy Victim by which was blotted out the handwriting that was against us; by which the enemy was triumphed over, who reckons up our sins and seeks what he may bring against us, and finds nothing in him in whom we conquer. Who shall restore to him his innocent blood? Who shall pay back to him the price by which he bought us, to take us away from the enemy? To the sacrament of this our price thy handmaid bound her soul with the bond of faith. Let no one tear her away from thy protection; let neither lion nor dragon thrust himself between, by force or by craft:
for she will not answer that she owes nothing, lest she be convicted and held fast by the crafty accuser; but she will answer that her debts have been remitted by him to whom no one can repay what he, owing nothing, repaid for us. So let her be at peace with the husband before whom and after whom she was wedded to none, whom she served, bringing forth fruit to thee with patience, that she might win him also to thee. And inspire, O my Lord, my God, inspire thy servants, my brethren, thy sons, my masters, whom I serve with heart and voice and pen, that as many as read these things may remember at thy altar Monica, thy handmaid, together with Patricius, once her spouse, through whose flesh thou broughtest me into this life, in what manner I know not.
Let them remember, with pious affection, my parents in this transitory light, and my brethren under thee our Father in our Catholic mother, and my fellow-citizens in the eternal Jerusalem, for which the pilgrimage of thy people sighs from its going forth even to its return; so that what she asked of me at the last may be more abundantly granted her through the prayers of many, by reason of my confessions, than through my prayers alone. Let me know thee, O thou who knowest me; let me know thee even as I also am known. O strength of my soul, enter into it, and fit it for thyself, that thou mayest have and possess it without spot or wrinkle. This is my hope; therefore do I speak, and in that hope I rejoice, when I rejoice soundly. But the other things of this life are the less to be wept over the more they are wept over, and the more to be wept over the less they are wept over in them.
For behold, thou hast loved the truth, since 'he that doeth it cometh to the light.' I will to do it in my heart before thee in confession, and in my writing before many witnesses. And to thee indeed, O Lord, to whose eyes the abyss of human conscience is naked, what could be hidden in me, even if I were unwilling to confess to thee? For I should be hiding thee from myself, not myself from thee. But now that my groaning is witness that I am displeasing to myself, thou shinest forth and art pleasing, and art loved and longed for, that I may be ashamed of myself and cast myself away and choose thee, and please neither thee nor myself except in thee. To thee, therefore, O Lord, I am manifest, whoever I may be. And with what fruit I confess to thee, I have told.
And I do this not with words of the flesh and with voices, but with words of the soul and with the cry of thought, which thine ear knows. For when I am wicked, to confess to thee is nothing other than to be displeasing to myself; but when I am godly, to confess to thee is nothing other than not to attribute this to myself, since thou, O Lord, dost bless the righteous, but first dost justify the ungodly. My confession therefore, O my God, is made in thy sight to thee silently, and not silently. For it is silent in noise, it cries out in affection. For I say nothing right to men that thou hast not first heard from me, nor dost thou hear any such thing from me that thou hast not first told me. What then have I to do with men, that they should hear my confessions, as though they were going to heal all my diseases?
A race curious to know another's life, slothful to amend its own. Why do they seek to hear from me what I am, who are unwilling to hear from thee what they are? And how do they know, when they hear from me about myself, whether I speak the truth, seeing that no man among men knows what is done in a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him? But if they hear from thee about themselves, they cannot say, 'The Lord lies.' For what is it to hear from thee about oneself but to know oneself? And who, moreover, knows and says, 'It is false,' unless he himself lies? But because charity believes all things, among those at least whom, knit together with itself, it makes one, I too, O Lord, do thus confess to thee, that men may hear, to whom I cannot prove whether I confess truly;
but they believe me, whose ears charity opens to me. Yet do thou, my inmost Physician, make clear to me with what fruit I do these things. For the confessions of my past evils, which thou hast remitted and covered, that thou mightest make me blessed in thee, changing my soul by faith and by thy sacrament—when these are read and heard, they stir up the heart, that it sleep not in despair and say, 'I cannot,' but awaken in love of thy mercy and the sweetness of thy grace, by which every weak one is made strong who through it becomes conscious of his own weakness. And it delights good men to hear of the past evils of those who now are free of them; nor does it delight them because they are evils, but because they were and are not.
With what fruit therefore, O my Lord, to whom my conscience daily confesses, made more secure by hope of thy mercy than by its own innocence—with what fruit, I ask, do I also confess to men in thy presence, by these writings, what I still am, not what I once was? For that fruit I have seen and recalled. But what I yet am, behold, at this very time of my confessions—and many desire to know this who have known me, and who have not known me, who have heard something from me or about me, but their ear is not at my heart, where I am whatever I am. They wish therefore to hear, as I confess, what I myself am within, where they can direct neither eye nor ear nor mind; yet, willing to believe, they wish—but will they perhaps come to know?
For charity, by which they are good, tells them that I do not lie in confessing about myself, and that very charity in them believes me. But with what fruit do they wish this? Do they desire to congratulate me when they hear how near to thee I draw by thy gift, and to pray for me when they hear how I am held back by my own weight? To such I will reveal myself. For it is no small fruit, O Lord my God, that by many thanks should be given to thee on our account, and by many thou shouldst be entreated for us. Let a brotherly mind love in me what thou teachest to be loved, and grieve in me at what thou teachest to be grieved over.
Let that mind do this which is brotherly, not the mind of a stranger, not of alien sons, 'whose mouth has spoken vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of iniquity'; but that brotherly mind which, when it approves me, rejoices over me, but when it disapproves me, is grieved for me, because whether it approve or disapprove me, it loves me. To such I will reveal myself: let them breathe again at my good things, let them sigh at my evil things. My good things are thy institutions and thy gifts; my evil things are my offences and thy judgments. Let them breathe again at the one and sigh at the other, and let hymn and weeping ascend into thy presence from brotherly hearts, thy censers.
But do thou, O Lord, delighted with the fragrance of thy holy temple, have mercy upon me according to thy great mercy for thy name's sake; and in no wise forsaking what thou hast begun, complete what is imperfect in me. This is the fruit of my confessions—not what I once was, but what I am—that I may confess this not only before thee with secret exultation mingled with trembling and with secret sorrow mingled with hope, but also in the ears of believing sons of men, the companions of my joy and the partakers of my mortality, my fellow-citizens and fellow-pilgrims, those who go before, those who follow after, and those who are companions of my way. These are thy servants, my brethren, whom thou hast willed to be thy sons, my masters, whom thou hast commanded me to serve, if I would live with thee from thee.
And this thy word would have been too little for me, had it commanded only by speaking, unless it also went before by doing. And I do this in deeds and words, I do this under thy wings, with too great peril, were it not that under thy wings my soul is subject to thee, and my weakness is known to thee. I am a little one, but my Father lives forever, and my Guardian is sufficient for me; for the same is he who begot me and watches over me, and thou thyself art all my good things, thou the Almighty, who art with me even before I am with thee. I will therefore reveal myself to such as thou commandest me to serve—not what I once was, but what I now am and what I still am; yet neither do I judge my own self. Thus then let me be heard.
For thou, O Lord, dost judge me; because although no man among men knows the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him, yet there is something of a man which not even the spirit of the man which is in him knows; but thou, O Lord, knowest all of him, who madest him. As for me, though in thy sight I despise myself and account myself earth and ashes, yet I know something of thee which I know not of myself. And certainly we now see through a glass darkly, not yet face to face; and therefore, as long as I am a pilgrim away from thee, I am more present to myself than to thee; and yet I know that thou canst in no way be violated; but as for myself, by what temptations I am able to resist and by which I am not able, I know not.
And there is hope, because thou art faithful, who dost not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to bear, but with the temptation dost also make a way of escape, that we may be able to sustain it. Let me therefore confess what I know of myself, and let me confess what I know not of myself; since both what I know of myself, I know by thy shining upon me, and what I know not of myself, I know not so long, until my darkness become as the noonday in thy countenance. Not with doubtful, but with sure conscience, O Lord, do I love thee. Thou hast smitten my heart with thy word, and I loved thee. But heaven also and earth, and all that is in them, behold, on every side they tell me to love thee, nor do they cease to say it to all, that they may be without excuse. But more deeply wilt thou have mercy on whom thou wilt have mercy, and wilt show mercy to whom thou wilt be merciful:
otherwise heaven and earth speak thy praises to deaf ears. But what do I love when I love thee? Not the beauty of a body, nor the comeliness of a season; not the brightness of light, lo, that friend of these my eyes; not the sweet melodies of songs of every kind; not the fragrance of flowers and ointments and spices; not manna and honey; not limbs welcome to the embraces of the flesh: these I love not when I love my God.
And yet I love a certain light, and a certain voice, and a certain fragrance, and a certain food, and a certain embrace, when I love my God—the light, voice, fragrance, food, embrace of my inner man, where there shines for my soul what no place contains, and where there sounds what no time snatches away, and where there breathes a fragrance that no breeze scatters, and where there is a taste that no eating diminishes, and where there clings what no satiety tears apart. This is what I love when I love my God. And what is this? I asked the earth, and it said, 'I am not he'; and whatever things are in it confessed the same. I asked the sea and the deeps and the creeping things with living souls, and they answered, 'We are not thy God; seek above us.'
I asked the wafting breezes, and the whole air with its inhabitants said, 'Anaximenes is mistaken; I am not God.' I asked the heaven, the sun, the moon, the stars: 'Neither are we the God whom thou seekest,' they say. And I said to all the things that stand about the doors of my flesh: 'Tell me of my God, since ye are not he; tell me something about him.' And they cried out with a great voice: 'He made us.' My questioning was my attention, and their answer was their beauty. And I directed myself to myself and said to myself, 'Who art thou?' And I answered, 'A man.' And behold, body and soul are present to me in myself, the one outward and the other inward.
Which of these is it, by which I ought to have sought my God, whom I had already sought through the body from earth even to heaven, as far as I could send messengers—the rays of my eyes? But better is that which is inward. For to it all the bodily messengers reported, as to one presiding and judging upon the answers of heaven and earth and all that is in them, who said, 'We are not God,' and, 'He made us.' The inner man knew these things through the ministry of the outer; I, the inner man, knew these things—I, I the mind, through the sense of my body. I asked the mass of the world about my God, and it answered me, 'I am not he, but he made me.' Does not this beauty appear to all whose sense is whole? Why then does it not speak the same to all?
Animals small and great see it, but they cannot question it; for in them reason is not set as a judge over the reporting senses. But men can question, so that 'the invisible things of God are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made'; yet by love they are made subject to them, and being subject they cannot judge. Nor do these things answer their questioners, save those who judge; nor do they change their voice, that is, their beauty, if one merely sees while another, seeing, questions, so that it should appear otherwise to the one and otherwise to the other; but appearing in the same manner to both, to the one it is mute, to the other it speaks—nay rather, it speaks to all, but they understand who compare the voice received from without with the truth within. For Truth says to me:
'Neither heaven nor earth nor any body is thy God.' This their nature says. They see: it is a mass, less in a part than in the whole. Now thou art better, I say to thee, O soul, since thou dost quicken the mass of thy body, supplying it with life, which no body furnishes to a body. But thy God is even unto thee the life of thy life. What then do I love, when I love my God? Who is he that is above the head of my soul? Through my very soul will I ascend to him. I will pass beyond that power of mine by which I cleave to the body and vitally fill out its frame. By that power I do not find my God; for the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, would also find him, and it is the same power by which their bodies too live.
There is another power, not only by which I give life, but also by which I give sense to my flesh, which the Lord fashioned for me, commanding the eye that it should not hear, and the ear that it should not see, but the one for me to see through, the other for me to hear through, and to the other senses severally their own seats and offices: which diverse things I, one mind, do through them. I will pass beyond this power of mine also; for the horse and the mule have this too: they too perceive through the body. I will therefore pass beyond this part of my nature also, ascending by degrees to him who made me, and I come into the fields and broad palaces of memory, where are the treasures of innumerable images brought in from things of every kind perceived by the senses.
There is stored away whatever we think, whether by enlarging or diminishing or in any way varying the things which the sense has touched, and whatever else has been committed and laid up there which oblivion has not yet swallowed and buried. When I am there, I demand that whatever I wish be brought forth, and some things come forth immediately, while some are sought longer and as it were dug out from certain more hidden recesses; and some rush forth in throngs, and while another thing is asked and sought, they leap into the midst as if saying, 'Are we perhaps the ones?' And I drive them away with the hand of my heart from the face of my recollection, until what I wish is uncovered and comes forth into view from its hiding-places.
Other things are supplied easily and in an undisturbed order, just as they are demanded, and the preceding give place to the following, and in giving place are stored away, again to come forth when I shall wish. All this happens when I narrate anything from memory. There all things are kept distinctly and according to their kinds, each of which was brought in by its own entrance: as light and all colours and forms of bodies through the eyes, but through the ears all kinds of sounds, and all odours through the entrance of the nostrils, all tastes through the entrance of the mouth; and from the sense of the whole body, what is hard, what soft, what hot or cold, smooth or rough, heavy or light, whether outside or inside the body.
All these the vast recess of memory, and I know not what secret and ineffable hollows of it, receive to be recalled when there is need and reconsidered: all of which enter into it, each by its own door, and are laid up in it. Nor yet do the things themselves enter, but the images of the things perceived are there present to the thought of him who recalls them. And how these were fashioned, who can say, although it is apparent by what senses they were caught and stored away within? For even while I dwell in darkness and in silence, I bring forth colours in my memory if I wish, and I distinguish between white and black and between whatever others I will; nor do sounds break in and disturb what I consider, drawn in through the eyes, although they too are there and lie as it were apart, stored away.