The Example Of A Woman Sexual Renunciation And Augustine's Conversion To Christianity In 386
...in 386
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For you converted me to you so that I neither sought a
wife nor any other worldly hope. I was now standing in
the rule of faith in the same way that you had revealed
me to her so many years before. And you transformed her
mourning into a joy more abundant than she had wished
and much dearer and more chaste than that of having
grandchildren of my flesh.
These are the words that conclude Bk. 8 of the
Confessions, where Augustine recounts the dramatic final
moments of his conversion to Christianity. In these
words he speaks about God converting him "in such a
way" that the varied desires and confusing interests
that gathered around him in Milan were shed like old
garments never to be taken up again. Augustine also
describes his mother's new joy, and relates for the
first time that in Monnica's attempts for her son's
marriage we must see not only her desire for his
conversion but even the domestic joys of seeing
Augustine's offspring.
This untoward domestic hope also reveals a
remarkable imperfection. Why does Monnica cherish such a
desire when there is already a grandson in the person of
Adeodatus? Is it simply a wish for more grandchildren?
Or, is it, as may well have been the case, a desire for
grandchildren whose status in Roman society would not be
so questionable? Monnica and Patricius had always been
conscious of their precarious place in the social world
of Tagaste, and this keen sense of their place in that
society had contributed to the kind of aspirations they
had entertained for...
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