Following the Example of a Woman: Augustine's Conversion to Christianity in 386

* The argument of this article was � rst presented as a paper to the Augustine Seminardirected by Professor James J. O’Donnell in the Classics Department at the Universityof Pennsylvania in February 1994 under the heading, “The Example of A Woman:Sexual Renunciation and Augustine’s Conversion to Christianity in 386.” The Paperhas since had its afterlife on Professor O’Donnell’s website. In a forthcoming work, ten-tatively titled, “The Allegory of Desire: Philosophy, Eros, and Asceticism in the YoungAugustine,” I develop my argument in more detail. A number of my recent articlesthat deal with some aspects of my argument have appeared as follows: Cicero’s Hortensius,Philosophia, and the Worldliness of the Young Augustine, translated by José Anoz as ElHortensius de Cicerón, la � losofía y la vida mundana del joven Augustín, Augustinus 45(2000) 5-25; Memory, Truth and Representation at Augustine’s Conversion Scene: AReview, Augustiniana 51 (2001) 77-104; and Paul and Augustine’s Retrospective Self: TheRelevance of Epistula XXII, Revue des Études Augustiniennes 47 (2001) 145-165.

1 Confessiones 8.12.30 (CCSL 27, 132): Conuertisti enim me ad te, ut nec uxorem quaereremnec aliquam spem saeculi huius stans in ea regula �dei, in qua me ante tot annos ei reuelaueras, etconuertisti luctum eius in gaudium multo uberius, quam uoluerat, ut multo carius atque castius, quamde nepotibus carnis meae requirebat.

FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE OF A WOMAN: AUGUSTINE’S CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY IN 386*

by

F. B. A. ASIEDU

I. Introduction: Conversion and Renunciation

“For you converted me to you so that I neither sought a wife nor anyother worldly hope. I was now standing in the rule of faith in the sameway that you had revealed me to her so many years before. And youtransformed her mourning into a joy more abundant than she had wishedand much dearer and more chaste than that of having grandchildren ofmy � esh.”1 These are the words that conclude Bk. 8 of the Confessions,where Augustine recounts the dramatic � nal moments of his conversion toChristianity. Augustine speaks about God converting him in such a waythat the varied desires and confusing interests that gathered around himin Milan were shed like old garments never to be taken up again. Augustinealso describes his mother’s new joy, and relates for the � rst time that inMonnica’s attempts for her son’s marriage we must see not only her desire

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following the example of a woman 277

2 A sampling of recent studies include the following: G. Bonner, Augustine’s ‘con-version’: historical fact or literary device? Augustinus 37 (1993) 103-119; L. Daly,Psychohistory and St. Augustine’s Conversion Process, Augustiniana 28 (1978) 231-254;Sandra Lee Dixon, Augustine: The Scattered and Gathered Self (St. Louis, Missouri: ChilicePress, 1999); P. Fredriksen, Paul and Augustine: Conversion Narratives, OrthodoxTraditions, and the Retrospective Self, Journal of Theological Studies N.S. 37 (1986) 3-34;Leo C. Ferrari, Paul at the Conversion of Augustine (Conf. VIII. 12, 29-30), AugustinianStudies 11 (1980) 5-20; idem, The Conversions of St. Augustine, The Saint Augustine Lecture

for his conversion but even the domestic joys of seeing Augustine’s oVspring. This untoward domestic hope also reveals a remarkable imperfection.

Why does Monnica cherish such a desire when there is already a grandsonin 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 whosestatus in Roman society would not be so questionable? Monnica andPatricius had always been conscious of their precarious place in the socialworld of Thagaste, and this keen sense of their place in that society hadcontributed to the kind of aspirations they had entertained for Augustine’scareer. The concern here for grandchildren falls into that general order ofearthly desires which comes in for criticism in the early part of the Confessions(especially Books 1 & 2). The conclusion of Bk. 8 recalls this other side of“pious” Monnica. In the moment of resolution for her son, Monnica tooundergoes a conversion: her mourning is turned into a joy that is purerand more chaste, a joy that is not tied to earthly cares and hopes. Theword used here to describe Monnica’s transformation is conuertisti, the sameword Augustine’s uses to describe his own experience.

For himself, Augustine believes he has received a double portion. Notonly is he converted to God, he is converted from the desire for a wifeand the honor of a respectable career. This tandem, of love for the worldand a woman’s embrace, emerge as the twin anxieties that overshadowAugustine’s last year in Milan before his conversion. Augustine’s words arethe invocations of a renunciate: turning his back on the world—his hopes,desires, and dreams. To have given up the hope of marriage meant thatAugustine was turning his back on the Milanese girl on whom he was inwaiting. But why this drastic change? And why so � nal an act of sexualrenunciation? What brought Augustine from the position of seeking a wife inorder to prepare himself for Christian baptism (hence conversion to Chris-tianity) to the point where conversion entailed an act of sexual renunciation?

Studies of Augustine’s conversion have been unusually silent on thispoint.2 Even when references have been made to a passage such as De

278 f. b. a. asiedu

bono coniugali 5.5, where Augustine describes a scenario that � ts all too per-fectly the circumstances under which his � rst concubine was separated fromhim, it has not led to reconsiderations of the events shortly precedingAugustine’s conversion. Even less has it engendered a reevaluation of therole of the mother of Adeodatus in Augustine’s conversion. Peter Brown,for example, sees the patent self-referentiality of Augustine’s words andmerely comments that in the circumstances Augustine failed.3 But the senseof failure is not seen as in any way constitutive of the equation of sexualrenunciation with conversion to Christianity. In his much earlier biogra-phy of Augustine, Brown went so far as to acknowledge the ascetic impli-cations of the vow of Augustine’s � rst concubine, but the matter was madeto rest there.4

An oversight of another kind appears in Frederick Van Fleteren’s essayon “Augustine’s Theory of Conversion.”5 He counts at least twelve con-version stories or retellings of conversions in the Confessions. But the expe-rience of the mother of Adeodatus is not included among them, eventhough there are clear indications that some kind of conversion may havetaken place. Since Augustine weaves his own story around the other con-version narratives, the absence of his concubine from the circle of thoseindividuals whose conversions may have aVected Augustine’s means thather possible in� uence is all but precluded.

In this study I will attempt three things. First I will try to show thatthe equation of sexual renunciation with Christian conversion is essentialfor a proper understanding of the nature of Augustine’s conversion. Second,

1982 (Villanova, PA.: Villanova University Press, 1984); idem, Saint Augustine on theRoad to Damascus, Augustinian Studies 13 (1982) 151-170; idem, An Analysis of Augustine’sConversional Reading (Conf. 8.12,29), Augustinian Studies 18 (1987) 30-51; idem, SaintAugustine’s Conversion Scene: The End of A Modern Debate? Studia Patristica 22 (1989)246-000; idem, Truth and Augustine’s Conversion Scene, Collectanea Augustiniana (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1990) 9-19; idem, Beyond Augustine’s Conversion Scene, in Augustine:From Rhetor to Theologian, ed. Joanne McWilliam (Waterloo, Ontario: Wilfrid LaurierUniversity Press, 1992) 97-107; Kim Power, Veiled Desire: Augustine on Women (New York:Continuum, 1995); and T. J. van Bavel, De la Raison à la Foi: La Conversion d’Augustin,Augustiniana 36 (1986) 5-27.

3 Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity(New York: Columbian University Press, 1988) 393.

4 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press,1967) 89.

5 Frederick Van Fleteren, Augustine’s Theory of Conversion, in Collectanea Augustiniana(New York: Peter Lang, 1990) 65-80. The reference is to 66.


that Augustine came to make the link between conversion and continencethrough a belated response to the vow of sexual renunciation made bythe mother of Adeodatus. And third, the nature of his concubine’s vowand Augustine’s description of it in the Confessions constitutes a muted con-version narrative—perhaps the most pivotal conversion story in the wholetext, because it established the terms in which Augustine came to under-stand his possible conversion to Christianity.

As I have already indicated, Augustine describes the � nal phase of hisconversion to Christianity in highly personal terms, relegating to the back-ground the way in which the scholarly debate over the past century hasbeen shaped. Since Alfaric6 much of the discussion about Augustine’s con-version has centered on whether he was converted to something less authen-tically Christian in 386. Alfaric put the matter bluntly by saying that theconversion in 386 was to Neo-Platonism and that the conversion to Chris-tianity actually came years later, in 396. Not the least of the reasons givenfor this understanding of Augustine’s conversions are the apparent diVer-ences between the Cassiciacum dialogues, written between his conversionand baptism, and the works coming out of the period during which hewrote the Confessions. However much others have sought over the years todefend the putatively Christian basis of Augustine’s conversion in 386 theliterary record tended to get in the way, or was perceived to get in the way.

The view that now holds the � eld is the carefully nuanced argument ofP. Courcelle7 who maintains that the Christianity vs. Neo-Platonism polar-ity is misleading when it comes to the Milanese background of Augustine’sconversion experience. Rather than seeing two distinct episodic conver-sions, one Neo-Platonic and the other Christian, Courcelle describes aMilanese environment that is at once Christian and Neo-Platonic. Conse-quently, Augustine encountered Neo-Platonism in Christian dress and vice-versa. From Ambrose, Simplicianus, Mallius Theodorus and others, hewould have breathed a Christian Neo-Platonism without any perceptualsense that this was a strange way of receiving one’s Christianity.

By removing the antithesis between Christianity and Neo-Platonism inthe Milan of the 380s Courcelle allows for the kind of simultaneous in� uencewhich seems to be evident in Augustine’s early writings. The emphasisthroughout Courcelle’s analysis is on the intellectual side of Augustine’s

6 Prosper Alfaric, L’évolution intellectuale de saint Augustin, I (Paris, 1918) 399.7 P. Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessiones de saint Augustin (Paris, 1950; 2nd ed. Paris,

1968) and P. Courcelle, Les Confessions de saint Augustin dans la tradition littéraire (Paris, 1963).

280 f. b. a. asiedu

experience over and against the moral aspects of his conversion.8 Courcelleall but overlooks the terms in which Augustine described and understoodhis conversion. Even if one is inclined to accept the much later theologi-cal re-interpretation of Augustine’s experience found in the Confessions withsome amount of skepticism, it must still be recognized that for Augustinethe conversion in 386 was something very intensely personal. He was ableto turn his back on the world in two very speci� c ways: he was preparedto give up his ambitions for a public career and was willing to resign him-self to a life of sexual renunciation.

II. Some Early Accounts of Augustine’s Conversion

Some of the earliest literary accounts of Augustine’s conversion deservemention at this point because they tend to support the intellectual side ofhis conversion to the possible exclusion of the dramatic moral crisis thathe appears to have gone through. The preface to De beata uita containsone such account. In the dedication to Mallius Theodorus, Augustine pre-sents De beata uita as a philosophical exercise that had long been overdue.He tells Theodorus that he had delayed his full embrace of philosophy forreasons that were less than estimable. In stating the reasons, there is nomention whatsoever of a traumatic experience preceding his conversion.Rather, Augustine refers � rst to the three classes of people who would be� t for philosophy. He places himself in the third class, those who, sinceyouth through wasting their lives in useless pursuit yearn for a standard,hankering for a homeland they remember only too vaguely. Some returndirectly or, delayed by some enticements, they wander until they � nallymake the sailing. Sometimes they even suVer great peril in their wander-ings, like star-gazing (a possible allusion to astrology?), when they ought tobe boarding the ship that would bring them home.

In any case, Augustine believes that all who endeavor to reach the goalmust encounter some obstacles. And he alludes to a huge mountain beforethe port of call, as be� tting the kind of obstacles that one might well con-front. Still the greatest obstacle, and Augustine gets a lot of mileage outof this one, is pride (De beata uita 1.3). This emphasis on pride as the great-est obstacle to the Truth and the blessed life anticipates his later critiqueof the Platonists as a band of philosophers too proud to submit themselvesto the humility of Christ. Augustine appeals to Theodorus for an assessment

8 J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 7.


of his advancement in philosophy. He expects some help too, as he sub-mits his exercise in Christian dialectic to the philosophical wit of his friend(De beata uita 1.4). Augustine then goes on to recount what had happenedsince his nineteenth birthday. He refers to how Cicero’s Hortensius � redhim with love for wisdom (tanto amore philosophiae succensus sum), his dalliancewith astrology, a nine-year tenure with the Manichees, and a later infat-uation with Academic skepticism. He mentions how the sermons of theBishop (Ambrose) and Theodorus’s words helped him to start thinkingabout God in spiritual terms rather than the crude corporeal image hehad imagined since his boyhood. Then he notes one main impediment tohis progress, namely, his desire for a wife and the love of honor. He makesthe interesting admission that after reading the Platonists and comparingthem with the scriptures he was all but ready to break his chains, exceptfor the esteem of certain people of repute (De beata uita 1.4). Finally, headds that he was rescued from his predicament by the onset of medicalproblems, chest pains ( pectoris dolor), which allowed him to take the desiredrest (optatae tranquillitati ).

Augustine refers to his circumstances at Cassiciacum as philosophicalleisure. He can chart his course from the time of reading Hortensius in hisnineteenth year through the many turns of his life right up to Cassiciacum.It is not exactly a straight course, but he believes he has arrived at a pointwhere he can devote himself to philosophy. It appears from Augustine’scomments here that he was ready to give up both marriage and honorswhen he encountered the Platonists and the scriptures, but held back onlybecause of the possible oVense he might cause to some well-placed indi-viduals in Milan (nisi me nonnullorum hominum existimatio commoueret). But whowere these people? And exactly what in� uence did they exert on the youngAugustine that he delayed his turn to a life of philosophical leisure? Besides,how is this in any way related to the dramatic experience recounted inBk. 8 of the Confessions?

The account in De beata uita does not mention the anxiety that led toAugustine’s visit to Simplicianus (Confessions 8.2.3). That part of Augustine’sexperience is elided, although in outline the account in De beata uita 1.4 isvirtually identical with what Augustine oVers in Confessions Bk. 7. The onlypossible allusion to his anxieties in De beata uita is the statement that hewas hampered in his desire for philosophical retreat because of the esteemof certain individuals. But even this is too veiled. An equally veiled out-line is to be found at Contra Academicos 2.2.5. Here too Augustine speaksof his longing for philosophical retirement (2.2.4). Augustine recalls howRomanianus had consoled him when Patricius, his father, died and how

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much that friendship had encouraged him towards the course that he wasnow pursuing at Cassiciacum. Augustine goes on to remind Romanianusthat during those diYcult days he had always insisted that the truly happylife was one devoted to philosophical leisure, though he could not see aban-doning his career because so many others depended on him. His longinghad never been assuaged, and was set ablaze when certain books cameinto his hands. He no longer had any interest in honor, fame or the mit-igation of this mortal existence. He sought better things. And the religionof his youth began to draw him back to his goal. The writings of Paul sethim in the direction he had always longed for (Contra Academicos 2.2.5).

The fascinating detail about Augustine’s description in Contra Academicosis that he conceives the entire process, from beginning to end, as a philo-sophical pilgrimage. It is after his encounter with Paul that philosophybeckons him home (tunc . . . mihi philosophiae facies aperuit).9 Augustine sets hisexperience in the framework established by Cicero’s Hortensius: CatholicChristianity is the way to philosophy, the love of wisdom. Again Augustineleaves out any mention of a dramatic conversion. In fact, the pilgrimagecould not be more straightforward. Here too the only intimation of diYcultiescomes in reference to the fact that when he got hold of certain books heno longer desired honor and fame. But that is not saying very much inthe way of drama. Like the narrative in De beata uita, the account in ContraAcademicos lacks the palpable regret one � nds in Soliloquia, another one ofthe Cassiciacum dialogues, where the subject of Augustine’s disavowal ofmarriage is more conspicuous.

“What about a wife?” Reason poses this question for Augustine. Theresponse is emphatic. “However much you wish to paint her and to pileup on her every attraction, it will be of no account to me. I intend verymuch to be continent.” Augustine goes on:

I think that nothing destroys the citadel of a man’s mind more than femi-nine charm and that contact with a woman’s body which is so essential tohaving a wife. Consequently, if, as part of his duty, a wise man—whom Ihave not yet discovered—takes heed to have children and has sexual rela-tions on account of this, as far as I am concerned, it is to be seen as anamazing thing, but no one should imitate him. For these dangers are able tobeguile more than any happiness they might give. For this reason it is suYcient,I believe, rightly and pro� tably, for the freedom of my soul that I have orderedmyself not to desire, not to seek, not to marry a wife.10

9 Contra Academicos 2.2.6 (CCSL 29, 21).10 Soliloquia 1.10.17 (CSEL 89, 27): Quantumlibet velis eam pingere atque cumulare bonis

omnibus, nihil mihi tam fugiendum quam concubitum esse decrevi. Nihil esse sentio, quod magis


Augustine’s reasoning is based on the requirements of the philosophicallife. Augustine sees living with a woman as a great threat. And he � ndsit amazing that a wise man would consider having children as part of hisduty and would then endure the great peril that is sleeping with a womanjust for the sake of ful� lling his obligation. However, reading between thelines the real problem seems to be one of self-control, the ability to guardhis soul. So even though the philosophical rationale predominates, it islargely secondary to the self-legislation that Augustine has imposed on him-self for the good of his soul (utiliter pro libertate animae meae).

Astonishingly, later in Soliloquia 1.13.22 Augustine also unabashedly refersto wisdom (sapientia) as a woman, a lover, a theme that alludes to the imageof wisdom as a woman in the Bible and in Plotinus (e.g. Proverbs 1:20-33; Enneads 6.5.10). And as Reason tries to � nd out what kind of loverAugustine is, a problem emerges. Despite Augustine’s con� dence he is notquite healthy enough for all this talk about embracing wisdom in such away that there is nothing that stands between them, as if in the nude (quasinudam). He is soon reminded by Reason that for all his aplomb his life ofcontinence is riddled with diYculties. In the previous days re� ections hehad sounded out con� dently that a woman’s embrace was too sordid aprospect to contemplate. And yet while he ruminated with himself duringthe night it all seemed so very diVerent. Augustine continued to be temptedby the bitter sweetness (amara suauitas) of what he had so easily dismissedduring the day (Soliloquia 1.14.25).

“Be silent, I pray, be silent,” Augustine pleads. “Why do you grieve me?Why do you dig and penetrate so deeply? I am already inured to tears.From now on I promise nothing, I presume nothing. Do not interrogateme about these things.”11 The dissonance between what he thinks he hasachieved and the troubles that still plague him here in the Soliloquies adum-brate similar concerns in Bk. 10 of the Confessions. His troubles were farfrom over as he lay in bed at Cassiciacum. Still, Augustine had chosen

ex arce deiciat animum virilem, quam blandimenta feminea corporumque ille contactus, sine quo uxorhaberi non potest. Itaque, si ad oYcium pertinet sapientis—quod nondum comperi—dare operam liberis,quisquis rei huius tantum gratia concumbit, mirandus mihi videri potest, at vero imitandus nullo modo.Nam temptare hoc periculosius est quam posse felicius. Quamobrem satis, credo, iuste atque utiliter prolibertate animae meae mihi imperavi non cupere, non quaerere, non ducere uxorem.

11 Soliloquia 1.14.26 (CSEL 89, 39): Tace, obsecro, tace. Quid crucias? Quid tantum fodisalteque descendis? Iam �ere non duro, iamiam nihil promitto, nihil praesumo, ne me de istis rebusinterroges.

284 f. b. a. asiedu

continence over marriage and he intended to keep to that choice. Thecontinuing distress about his life of continence demonstrates the peculiar-ity of Augustine’s equation of continence and conversion in the monthsleading up to the dramatic scene in the garden in Milan (Confessions 8.8.19-8.12.30). The highly textured fashion in which the Confessions portrayAugustine’s anxieties is essential to understanding this equation.

III. Continence and A Possible Conversion to Christianity

In the Confessions, Augustine’s conversion narrative proper begins in Bk.7. In a retrospective reminiscent of the account in De beata uita, Augustinerecounts the various turns he had taken since adolescence: First theManichees, then astrology, Academic skepticism, Neo-Platonism, and � nallyPaul and the Scriptures. Chronologically he goes over material that he hasalready described in Bks. 4-6. Bk. 7 gives a coherent and tidy account ofthe various errors from which he was converted, preparing the way forthe climactic scene. The intellectual odyssey in Bk. 7, however, seems tohave little bearing on the theme of sexual renunciation which concludesBk. 8. And yet in Bk. 7 Augustine speaks of the chains in which he wasshackled as he sought desperately to � nd an answer for the question aboutthe origin of evil. This was hardly an academic issue for him, he wassuVering many inner torments which no one else knew.12 Much of the lan-guage here tends to link his chains with pride, with the eVect that his intel-lectual diYculties remain at the forefront. However, by linking the languageof censure and self-deprecation with his desire to serve God and therebymaster his body,13 Augustine oVers a possible allusion that perhaps besidethe managed air of intellectual problems that befuddle him there is anothermore fundamental problem. When he tries to work his way to think ofGod in non-corporeal terms other images seem to shout back, accusinghim of being vile and unworthy (indigne et sordide).

12 Confessiones 7.7.11 (CCSL 27, 99-100): Iam itaque me, adiutor meus, illis uinculis solueras,et quaerebam, unde malum, et non erat exitus. . . . Et cum in silentio fortiter quaererem, magnae uoceserant ad misericordiam tuam, tacitae contritiones animi mei. Tu sciebas, quid patiebar, et nullushominum.

13 Confessiones 7.7.11 (CCSL 27, 100): Superior enim eram istis, te uero inferior et tu gaudiumuerum mihi subdito tibi et tu mihi subieceras quae infra me creasti. Et hoc erat rectum temperamen-tum et media regio salutis meae, ut manerem ad imaginem tuam et tibi seruiens dominarer corpori.


Augustine does not begin to unravel his existential crisis until the open-ing lines of Bk. 8, with intellectual certainties on one side and a vacillat-ing will on the other:

Of your eternal life I was certain, though I saw it ‘in an enigma and as ifin a mirror.’ All doubt had been taken from me that there is indestructiblesubstance from which comes all substance. My desire was not to be morecertain of you but to be more stable in you. But in my temporal life every-thing was in a state of uncertainty, and my heart needed to be puri� ed fromthe old leaven. I was attracted to the way, the Saviour himself, but was stillreluctant to go along its narrow paths. (Confessions 8.1.1)14

So many people throng to the Church, but Augustine still leads a sec-ular life (agebam in saeculo). The way seems too narrow, too constricting.Only now he has lost the desire for honor and attainment.15 So he is dou-bly miserable, displeased with himself, and his life a burden (oneri mihi ).He cannot quite keep away from the Church, but as yet he is hesitant.He still � nds himself chained to his desire for a woman’s embrace (sedadhuc tenaciter conligabar ex femina). He adds that the apostle (that is, Paul)does not forbid him marriage (nec me prohibebat apostolus coniugari ) but he� nds himself so self-indulgent that he cannot attain to the higher callingof continence. And then he notes that Truth (that is Jesus) teaches himsimilarly, quoting Matthew 19.12 about those who make themselves eunuchsfor the kingdom of God. All this is to show Augustine in a less than admir-able position: he languishes in his weakness (ego in�rmior). It is an almostunrecognizable image of the man who had so adamantly urged againstAlypius that for him marriage and a philosophical life went hand in hand,and moreover he could not envision a happy life without a woman’sembrace (Confessions 6.13-14). Here, we catch a glimpse of his depression:

But I being weaker chose a softer option, and because of this one factor Iwas inconstant in other respects and was wasting away with nagging anxi-eties. Moreover, there were other matters which were a tiresome distractionto me, but which I was compelled to put up with because they go along withthe married life; once tied by that, I was restricted. (Confessions 8.1.2)16

14 Saint Augustine: Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (Oxford: Oxford University Press,1991) 133.

15 Confessiones 8.1.2 (CCSL 27, 113): Mihi autem displicebat, quod agebam in saeculo, et onerimihi erat ualde non iam in�ammantibus cupiditatibus, ut solebant, spe honoris et pecuniae ad toleran-dam illam seruitutem tam grauem.

16 Saint Augustine: Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick 134.

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By this time Augustine had already been through the experience of see-ing his � rst concubine, the mother of Adeodatus, sent back to Africa, andunwilling to observe continence he had taken another concubine (Confessions6.15.25). In the meantime he waited to get married to someone of his ownsocial class and rank. Although marriage was all but certain, Augustineseemed to be wearying of the idea. As we read him here, he seems tothink that marriage is inconsistent with his conversion to Christianity. Heacknowledges that he is not obliged to reject the married state, but heseems to think that marriage for him would be an honorable self-indul-gence at best.

Augustine de� nes his problem in terms of the man in the parable inthe Gospels who � nds a pearl of great price and sells everything to acquireit. Augustine knows what he has to do, but he hesitates.17 So to Simplicianushe goes, desperate for help, desperate for resolution. He expects to behelped on the way because by dint of age and experience Simplicianuswould know what proper course someone in Augustine’s situation neededto take (unde mihi ut proferret uolebam conferenti secum aestus meos).18 Augustine’semphasis here is on his uncertainty and lack of resolve (aestus).

Sensing the opportunity to tell a conversion story that would appeal toAugustine’s own situation, Simplicianus speaks about the conversion of hisfriend Marius Victorinus. Victorinus had had something like a textbookphilosophical conversion of the sort that Augustine should have found con-genial to his temperament, that is, if the intellectual odyssey was all therehad been. But the much hoped for conversion does not happen. Uponhearing Victorinus’s story Augustine expresses a wish to imitate him (exarsiad imitandum).19 But no sooner has he expressed the wish than he is broughtto his senses to confront the reality that gnaws at him. We see Augustineagain going over the nature of his anxiety, with an added comment thathe found in himself the con� ict between the � esh and the spirit spoken ofby Paul (Gal 5; Rom 7-8). In his commentary on the events of that periodAugustine now sees quite unmistakably the problem of the divided will.20

17 Confessiones 8.1.2 (CCSL 27, 114): Et inueneram iam bonam margaritam, et uenditis omnibus,quae haberem, emenda erat, et dubitabam.

18 Confessiones 8.1.1 (CCSL 27, 113).19 Confessiones 8.5.10 (CCSL 27, 119).20 Confessiones 8.5.11 (CCSL 27, 120): Sic intellegebam me ipso experimento id quod legeram,

quomodo caro concupisceret aduersus spiritum et spiritus aduersus carnem, ego quidem in utroque, sedmagis ego in eo, quod in me approbabam, quam in eo, quod in me improbabam. Ibi enim magis iam


He had responded with ardor to the story of Victorinus’ conversion onlyto regress.

The ban imposed by the Emperor Julian that compelled Victorinus togive up teaching seemed propitious to Augustine, because it allowedVictorinus to retire into philosophical leisure. Perhaps this is what Augustinewould have liked; a pretext of some sort to help him do what he thoughtneeded doing. After all, if he lacked one thing it was resolve, and any-thing which could get him there was welcome. Augustine’s iron will heldfast.21 The desire to retire from his profession was in any event the lesserof his worries.

The enemy had a grip on my will and so made a chain for me to hold mea prisoner. The consequence of a distorted will is passion. By servitude topassion, habit is formed, and habit to which there is no resistance becomesnecessity. By these links, as it were, connected one to another (hence my terma chain), a harsh bondage held me under restraint. The new will, which wasbeginning to be within me a will to serve you freely and to enjoy you, God,the only sure source of pleasure, was not yet strong enough to conquer myolder will, which had the strength of old habit. So my two wills, one old, theother new, one carnal, the other spiritual, were in con� ict with one another,and their discord robbed my soul of all concentration. (Confessions 8.5.10)22

By turns censorious and apologetic Augustine describes himself in ConfessionsBk. 8 in terms of a con� ict between his two wills: one old, carnal andentrenched through years of habit and the other, new, spiritual and inchoate.Unable to follow the example set by a woman, he had the temerity to doeven worse: take another concubine. To say that Augustine acted deplorablymay seem overly harsh. Yet he seems to be passing that kind of judgmenton his own past, and in doing so invites his interpreters to wonder to whatextent the departure of his concubine may have been decisive for the termsin which he came to understand his possible conversion to Christianity.Exactly when and at what time he came to rethink what possible road hemight take to becoming a full member of the church is not clear. Whatis beyond doubt is that sometime between the departure of his concubineand his conversion in 386 Augustine came to link his possible conversion

non ego, quia ex magna parte id patiebar inuitus quam faciebam uolens. Sed tamen consuetudo aduer-sus me pugnacior ex me facta erat, quoniam uolens quo nollem perueneram.

21 Confessiones 8.5.10 (CCSL 27, 119): non mihi fortior quam felicior uisus est, quia inuenitoccasionem uacandi tibi. Cui rei ego suspirabam ligatus non ferro alieno, sed mea ferrea uoluntate.


288 f. b. a. asiedu

to Christianity with sexual renunciation. More speci� cally, by the time hedecides to pay a visit to Simplicianus (Confessions 8.1.1) Augustine has madethe equation between conversion and continence.

For all the anguish he must have endured Augustine was unusually delib-erate. The slow progression towards resolution may also have prolongedhis distress. He hesitated when he heard the story of Victorinus. Again hewould hesitate when he hears the story of Antony of Egypt from Ponticianus.The conversion of Victorinus seemed too sedate and too well managed achange, despite the fact that culturally, intellectually, and professionallyAugustine shared a good deal with Victorinus. There is scarcely a hintthat Victorinus underwent anything like the deep emotional and psycho-logical trauma of Augustine’s. The stories told by Ponticianus were especiallywell suited for Augustine: the decisiveness of those two courtiers at Trierwas what Augustine needed. They had renounced the world for somethingmore enduring. And they had done so just at the time in their careerswhen there were plying the very corridors of power and prestige in theEmpire (Confessions 8.6.15). The eVect on their own relations were almostimmediate: the women to whom they were engaged also renounced theworld, dedicating their virginity to God (dicauerunt etiam ipsae uirginitatem tibi ).

Since his days as a Manichee, Augustine had never lost his fascinationwith exemplary lives. But what he was hearing now belonged to a diVerentorder. Hence the questions he vaguely remembers posing for Alypius:

What is wrong with us? What is this that you have heard? Uneducated peo-ple are rising up and capturing heaven, and we with our high culture with-out any heart—see where we roll in the mud of � esh and blood. Is it becausethey are ahead of us that we are ashamed to follow? Do we feel no shameat making not even an attempt to follow? (Confessions 8.8.19)23

Renunciation, continence, imitation and the shame of the learned andweak-willed who cannot do what the simple (indocti ) dare to do: these arethe issues around which Augustine’s musings revolve.

The turning point began after Ponticianus left (Confessions 8.7.18). Augustineturned inward in a manner reminiscent of his Neo-Platonic contemplationsin Bk. 7. What stands out here is the high moral awareness that Augustinebrings to his introspection. This suggests that probably the most importantthing he learned from his encounter with the Neo-Platonists, apart fromhis newfound ability to think of non-material, spiritual entities, was a

23 Ibid., 146.


vocabulary of inwardness and a moral consciousness which compelled himto even deeper introspection.

Earlier, I made the point that the intellectual problems had been resolvedin favor of Christianity, and that Augustine had no diYculty at the begin-ning of Confessions Bk. 8 in recognizing his ultimate good in the church.However, in De beata uita he writes about delaying his philosophical retire-ment because of the esteem of some individuals in Milan, and he connectsthat delay also to his desire for a wife. Before going any further I shouldlike to suggest one possible way of construing this aspect of Augustine’sproblems in the context of the anxieties brought on by a possible mar-riage. Having arrived at the conviction that Christian conversion requiredof him a life of sexual renunciation, Augustine recognized the need toabrogate the marriage he had contracted. In this situation only the cour-tesies of the aristocratic circles in Milan prevented him from doing whathe thought necessary. It is highly doubtful that Augustine could have stayedin Milan after annulling the marriage, even if he had not dreamed of aphilosophical retirement. It is doubtful too that the Milanese Christian aris-tocracy could endure what would have been perceived as an aVront, aslight by the young rhetorician who had sought their patronage, and froma provincial from Roman Africa no less.

In a world so conscious of social rank and the probity of one’s actionstowards one’s patrons it would be reasonable for Augustine to worry abouthis reputation at this point. One even suspects that the apparently shrewd(though not altogether untruthful) way in which he resigned his chair mayhave been part of a general desire not to elicit any undue attention in hisdirection (Confessions 9.2.2-9.2.4). It would have been exciting to renouncerhetoric the way Victorinus had done, but for Augustine such a public dis-avowal of the old ways would have been somewhat ostentatious. He hadnot reached anywhere near the status and reputation of Victorinus (anotherAfrican) to go through so public a rejection of the old ways. Besides, turn-ing down a proper marriage would not commend Augustine to the verywell-connected families in Milan. A quiet retreat was reasonable and muchto be desired.

These considerations may have added to Augustine’s anxiety, but it stillleaves out why he made the inextricable link between Christian conver-sion and sexual renunciation in the � rst place. Getting married need nothave been so problematic unless Augustine had become convinced thatthere was something inherently wrong and unchristian about getting mar-ried in his current condition. Although De beata uita 1.4 implies that read-

290 f. b. a. asiedu

ing the Platonists had formed in him the conviction to disavow marriage,it does not account for the strength and force of that conviction. It is onething to be suddenly enamored of the idea of total sexual renunciationbecause of the in� uence of Neo-Platonic spirituality. It is quite anotherthing to be so convinced of this that it becomes a test of one’s integrity.Augustine, the onetime champion of a life of philosophy that included mar-riage, must have had something more fundamental on his mind in orderto even contemplate breaking an engagement to a daughter of the MilaneseChristian aristocracy. Whatever it was, it cut very close to his being, andso required a drastic and dramatic change.

IV. Continence and Augustine’s Inner Circle

The language of continence or chastity appears in one very telling refer-ence to Ambrose. The mood is distant and almost academic. From hisvantage point as a listener of Ambrose’s sermons Augustine evaluates theMilanese Bishop’s presence. Augustine does not seem to have found Ambrose’sexample relevant to his own life at the time, except perhaps in the nega-tive sense that he felt a strange sympathy for the man he admired but didnot know personally, whose only trouble, he thought, was having to endurea life of sexual continence (caelibatus tantum eius mihi laboriosus uidebatur).24 OfAmbrose’s celibacy he has only naive pity.

Even when Augustine talks about the danger that had engulfed him, adanger that Ambrose knew nothing of, Augustine appears to be talking ofsomething other than incontinence. What he has in mind when he � rstencounters the visage of Ambrose is the skepticism of the Academics(Confessions 6.3.3). Having arrived in Rome a disconsolate Manichaean audi-tor, he now found himself a wholly disaVected Manichee and a skeptic.Shortly thereafter the Manichees would lose their tenuous hold on him,but the Catholics had not yet won. It is in this state of great uncertaintythat Augustine sat in Ambrose’s church. No longer a Manichee but notyet a Catholic he was for the taking. While the Manichees had made hima materialist and something of a libertine in recognizing his responsibilityfor his own evils, the skepticism of the Academics went to the root. Theyremoved the very foundations of knowing. For the wise man there wereto be no certainties, a pragmatism of suspended judgment was all one

24 Confessiones 6.3.3 (CCSL 27, 75).


could hope for. Augustine would continue for the better part of his lifenegotiating the dialectic between reason and authority because of all this.This and other questions he would have liked to pose to Ambrose, whohad very little time for the young rhetorician.

All the same, Ambrose’s possible in� uence in the equation of conver-sion and sexual renunciation may have come in another way. It is morethan likely that while Augustine may have considered Ambrose’s celibacyan anomaly, that very anomaly may have been part of the complex ofimpressions that moved him to the position he came to hold eventually.25

As we catch Augustine pondering the kind of inner con� icts that mightwell confound a man of Ambrose’s reputation and stature we can sensealready that the Bishop’s personal life is beginning to be more than justa curiosity. And it is not surprising that when he came to found his ownmonastic community later on at Hippo Regius Augustine would invokeAmbrose on many occasions. Possidius oVers rare glimpses of how muchAugustine referred to Ambrose’s monastic example.26 All this is the stuV

of later years, no doubt. As far as Augustine’s pre-conversion experienceis concerned it is diYcult to pinpoint exactly in what way he appropriatedAmbrose’s example. Nor can we even be sure how Augustine would haveresponded to Ambrose’s sermons in those moments when he presented sex-ual renunciation as the ideal of the Christian experience.27

A lost work of Ambrose’s, De sacramento regenerationis siue de philosophia, acopy of which Augustine had been able to obtain for study at about thetime that he was writing the Confessions seems a most likely candidate tohave in� uenced Augustine’s position, if he had known it prior to his con-version.28 The argument of the work would have met Augustine’s problemhead on: “the way of the philosophers is not the true way, it is not enoughto know the truth, one must have in addition sacramental membership inthe Christian church.”29 It is an unusual argument. Moreover, Ambroseraised the stakes. He found it polemically necessary and useful to counterthe claims of the philosophers to have achieved a higher standard of moral

25 J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992) 343.26 Possidius, Uita Augustini 27, 1-2 (PL 32.56).27 Ambrose’s De Isaac uel anima (PL 14. 527-559) is one such work which presents

continence as the ideal for Christians.28 See J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992)

xxxviii n. 58.29 Ibid., xxxix.

292 f. b. a. asiedu

life by their chastity. ‘Continence is the pedestal on which right worshiprests’, says Ambrose.30

For someone in Augustine’s position Ambrose’s robust, “masculine”Christianity would probably have been congenial for being so rigorous inits aims: he who would take on true philosophy, he who would ventureon the road to Christian philosophy, ought to prove by his life of conti-nence the superiority of Christianity.31 Construed this way Ambrose’s Desacramento regenerationis siue philosophia would reach Augustine as another“� ring-me-up-for-philosophy” book, along the lines of Cicero’s Hortensius.Or, failing that, Augustine could have received it like the Platonicorum libros,which had precipitated one of his many conversions.

That Augustine does not mention Ambrose’s text in the Confessions israther unusual. Augustine has been at pains to indicate his philosophicaland theological debts, not only to Cicero, but to the Platonists, and evenother lesser � gures who had been instrumental in turning him away fromone error or another. What is more, he does not overlook Ambrose’sin� uence in helping him gain a better handle on the problem of interpretingthe Bible. In addition, he speaks about continence in reference to Ambroseand appears to have been naively unimpressed, so it would be very oddto have taken the decisive actions in response to Ambrose’s text withoutacknowledging it in any way. Had he been moved towards continence andbaptism by this lost work, it would have been a � tting denouement to hisearlier assessment of Ambrose’s celibacy. The absence of any reference tothis lost work in the Confessions is therefore something of a problem.

But there is something else. Augustine rarely, if ever, uses the superi-ority of Christian asceticism as an argument against the philosophers. Hereserves much of that ammunition for the Manichees, the � rst installmentof which comes in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae. As for the philosophers, andthe Platonists in particular, he continues to praise them even as late as thewriting of De ciuitate Dei. His main objection against them is their prideand lack of humility, not their unwillingness or inability to undertake rig-orous asceticism. When he does criticize the philosophers, as we � nd himdoing in De ciuitate Dei, Augustine chides them for having acquiesced tothe religious practices of Roman society despite the high claims of theirphilosophies. It would be an intriguing idea if indeed Augustine takes up

30 Ibid.31 J. J. O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 1 xxxvii-xxx-x and vol. 3 7-9.


a challenge put forth by Ambrose for those who would seek the happylife. The unfolding of the narrative in the Confessions seems to point in adirection away from Ambrose, however.

There had always been the personal example of Alypius. If there wasa model that Augustine had had before him for a good part of his life itwas Alypius. Part of the Alypius portrait in the Confessions prepares the wayfor the whole problem of marriage, sexual renunciation and the desire forphilosophical rest. In the midst of all their concerns about worldly honors(Confessions 6.6) Augustine and his friends sought a way of life, a true guidefor their troubled souls. They had hoped to � nd it in philosophical leisure.The plan faltered because they were sure the women would not agree tothe arrangement.

Augustine tells us that Alypius argued against Augustine marrying becausethey feared losing the intimacy of their friendship (Confessions 6.12.22). Butin his studied intransigence against Alypius Augustine continued to maintainthat the pursuit of wisdom did not rule out a woman’s love or even a wife.Alypius almost lost his ground when curiositas got the better of him, tryingto � gure out exactly what made Augustine’s desire for a woman such anecessity (Confessions 6.12.22). If Ambrose’s De philosophia helped in any wayit brought Augustine back to the views Alypius had always maintained.

It is a measure of Augustine’s stubborn will that he could keep on liv-ing the way he did with Alypius for a friend and Monnica for a mother.While Alypius was making no headway and faltering while trying to under-stand Augustine, Monnica’s arrival in Milan would prove more precipi-tous. When she arrived she saw Augustine nearer her Catholic faith thanever she had seen him, and so meant to help her son on the way. Marriageseemed a good idea to make Augustine’s passage less turbulent. Monnicaknew better than to suggest sexual renunciation as the way for Augustine.Augustine’s concubine would be the casualty of Monnica’s intervention.Augustine had lived with his concubine for about fourteen years in possi-ble de� ance of his mother. When Monnica took the lead in arranging fora proper marriage for him the period of Augustine’s de� ance appeared tohave come to an abrupt end. The language describing his attitude towardsMonnica’s intervention are much too passive, suggesting that Augustinemay not have reached this judgment on his own initiative, and would prob-ably not have taken decisive steps without the urging of his mother.

With the departure of his concubine a mist descends on Augustine’ssoul. In this state of uncertainty about a possible marriage Augustine askshis mother to pray to God for a vision about the future he was embarking

294 f. b. a. asiedu

on. What else explains Augustine’s anxiety about marriage than the desirefor dreams?32 His youthful fascination with astrology seems to have rearedits head as he sought desperately to know his future. Monnica apparentlydid have some dreams but they were of such a nature that she did notthink much of them. Augustine, in his usual sense of tact, does not saywhat they were; only that Monnica assured him that she could always tellwhich dreams were from God and which ones were simply the productsof her own anxieties, fears and imaginings. Perhaps one should not be sur-prised at Monnica here. What is surprising is that Augustine sought suchassurances. And it appears to be the � rst indication of trouble (Confessions6.13.23). Augustine’s depression continued. The helpless creature of habithad meant to weather the storm by taking another concubine, as he waitedto be married. But he found himself deeply troubled. By the time we meethim at Confessions 8.6.13 he is in the throes of his anxieties, distraught overthe prospect of having to consider a life of continence as an essential aspectto his possible conversion to Christianity.33 The issue now is whetherAugustine will make the choice for sexual renunciation.

V. Continence and the Portrait of a Unnamed Woman

In a curious transposition, much in keeping with his earlier depiction ofwisdom as a lover in the Soliloquies, Augustine portrays continence as awoman beckoning him to a life of renunciation. But, Continence is notalone in her enticements. Augustine’s former loves are just as solicitous,continually reminding him of his past, whispering in his ears, taunting himthat he just does not have what it takes to venture on a life of chastity.“Can you live without us?” they seem to ask (Confessions 8.11.26).

Augustine drags his feet, hesitates, ponders, then inches a bit closer tohis goal. Eventually Continence succeeds. Her inducements are more appeal-ing to Augustine. “For from the direction where I had set my face andtowards which I was afraid to move, there appeared the digni� ed and

32 W. H. C. Frend, The Rise of Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 667, assumesthat Augustine’s preoccupation with dreams in his early letters show his commitmentto Neoplatonism. But dreams had always featured in Christian experience both becausepeople wanted to understand their dreams and also because of the biblical tradition’sconcern with dreams and visionary experience. See J. LeGoV, Medieval Imagination, trans-lated by Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) 193-231.

33 Confessiones 8.6.13 (CCSL 27, 121): Et de uinculo quidem desiderii concubitus, quo artis-simo tenebar, et saecularium negotiorum seruitute quemadmodum me exemeris, narrabo et con�tebornomini tuo, domine, adiutor meus et redemptor meus.


chaste Lady Continence, serene and cheerful without coquetry, enticingme in an honourable manner to come and not hesitate. To receive andembrace me she stretched out pious hands, � lled with numerous goodexamples for me to follow” (Confessions 8.11.27).34 Augustine, then, goes onto point out the many examples that Lady Continence showed him: menand women, young and old, virgins and widows who had devoted them-selves to her. Yet it should not have been such a great number. After all,Augustine knew very little indeed of the various traditions of Christianasceticism prior to Ponticianus’s visit. He came to know about Antony ofEgypt from what Ponticianus had told him. Even Ambrose’s communityin Milan was very recent news. So the examples are at best second-hand,based on Ponticianus and perhaps Augustine’s recollections of certain indi-viduals he may have seen in and around Milan. The one example ofrenunciation closest to him that had any pretensions towards asceticismwas that of his � rst concubine, the mother of Adeodatus. If Lady Continenceis presenting herself as a woman and showing Augustine examples of thosewho have chosen her way, examples for Augustine to follow, what morelikely candidate for such fair than the woman who had made a vow ofsexual renunciation after years of living with Augustine? The same womanwhose example Augustine claims previously to have been incapable of fol-lowing (Confessions 6.15.25)? But note what happens at Confessions 8.7.18 and8.8.19, just when Augustine begins to consider the implications of what hehad heard from Ponticianus:

I was violently overcome by a fearful sense of shame during the time thatPonticianus was telling his story. When he had ended his talk and settled thematter for which he came, he went home and I was left to myself. Whataccusations against myself did I not bring? With what verbal rods did I notscourge my soul so that it would follow me in my attempt to go after you!But my soul hung back. It refused, and had no excuse to oVer. The argu-ments were exhausted, and all had been refuted. The only thing left to it wasa mute trembling, and as if it were facing death it was terri� ed of beingrestrained from the treadmill of habit by which it suVered ‘sickness unto death.’(Confessions 8.7.18)35

Augustine goes on to say that the struggle in his “inner house” hadbeen stirred up in the “intimate chamber of his heart.” The languageevokes the image of something like the inner chamber of a Roman house(cubiculo nostro, corde meo). Whether all this is intended to evoke the memory

34 Saint Augustine: Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick 151.35 Ibid., 145-146.

296 f. b. a. asiedu

of the mother of Adeodatus is hard to say. Yet one cannot overlook thelanguage in which Augustine describes his relations with the mother of hisson. Augustine’s words reveal a strangely disquieting dignity, especially becausethe concubine appears in contrast to Monnica. At no point in his accountabout Monnica’s life does Augustine’s mother look so unendearing.

If modern readers have shown remarkable sympathy for the mother ofAdeodatus and have tended to see Augustine (and his mother) as meanand heartless that is due largely to Augustine himself. It is his text, hisportrait of the unnamed woman, and his juxtaposition of those two womenthat engenders sympathy for the one and surprise at the other. On thescale of imperfection Monnica seems to be at the high end with Augustinesomewhere in the middle; confused, dejected and put upon. Augustine doesnot say “I broke oV my relationship with her.”36 That at least would implythat while he was in great anguish over the decision he did it himself.What we read is: “she was torn from me.” Passive, weak-willed and forlorn,all Augustine can say is that “my heart clung to her.” Augustine’s wordsare much too emotional, and may even be an embarrassment for someonewho should have known better.37 The description of the separation also bearsall the marks of Monnica’s handiwork. However one looks at it, Augustinepoints the � nger of blame at Monnica � rst, and at himself second.

What do we make of all this? An advancing rhetorician who is sad-dened at losing a concubine? For a late antique audience this would beoverly dramatic. Many a man had gotten rid of a concubine and no oneseemed (except the women of course) the worse for it. To his contempo-raries—if we understand the tragic world of late Roman marriage proto-col—Augustine should have felt nothing of the loss he describes. For himto decry that “she was separated from me because she was thought to bean obstacle to my marriage and my heart which clung to her was drip-ping blood” is too pathetic a picture of the young Augustine.38 There is

36 O’Donnell, Augustine: Confessions, vol. 2 385, warns against romanticizing this episodein Augustine’s life.

37 J. O’Meara, The Young Augustine (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1954) 129,has tried to defend Augustine but he seems to overlook the very pathos of Confessions6.15.25. Augustine’s anxiety needs more than the apology that he should have expectedit. This is too open to the charge that O’Meara is simply defending what, in any event,appears troubling, especially because he is fully cognizant of Augustine’s worldliness atthis point in his life (126V.).

38 Confessiones 6.15.25 (CCSL 27, 90): et auulsa a latere meo tamquam impedimento coniugiicum qua cubare solitus eram, cor, ubi adhaerebat, concisum et uulneratum mihi erat et trahebat sanguinem.


too much anguish here. And to his contemporaries and his modern read-ers Augustine is diYcult to comprehend. Whether or not we should fol-low some translators in saying that Augustine loved her39 is another matter.Augustine describes her simply as “the woman I was in the habit of sleep-ing with” (qua cubare solitus eram). At the same time, one suspects somethingmore in the language of Augustine’s “heart clinging to her” than one mightbe inclined to read in the slightly oV-putting description, “the woman Iwas in the habit of sleeping with.” The former suggests certain unstated“attachments,” while the latter seems purely physical.

Augustine gives no indication that on his own he had quite worked outin his mind that this was the cause he was going to take: marriage andthen baptism. Nor is it clear that he had considered how a possible Christianconversion would impose on his relationship with his concubine. Had heever thought he could take her into the Church? Would Ambrose condonesuch practice when he was holding up celibacy as the ideal?40 In an envi-ronment where married Christians felt like second-class citizens it is highlydoubtful that Augustine would have felt secure in thinking that he couldkeep his concubine. However, if he had no intention of receiving baptismand wanted to wait as long as it was possible then he could well remainon the fringes of the Christian community for a very long time indeed.

Ironically, the same Augustine who could not be constrained in his careerby an early marriage in his youth found himself in his early thirties con-sidering marriage as the only way into the life of the Church. In bothinstances Monnica’s wishes predominate. Earlier she had unwittingly acquie-sced to Augustine’s pro� igacy, now she took the decisive steps to get himmarried only to watch her son slip in his tenuous steps toward marriageand Christian baptism. The impending legal marriage, the departure ofthe � rst concubine, and the taking of another woman all made Augustine’ssituation unbearable. And Augustine was not helped by the vow of themother of Adeodatus that she would not give herself to another man. It

39 Saint Augustine: Confessions, trans. R. S. Pine-CoYn (Harmondsworth and New York:Penguin, 1961) 131. Cf. Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo 88.

40 Ambrose’s peculiar asceticism is a phenomenon in itself. This great champion ofchastity (celibacy) as the pinnacle of Christian devotion could at other times show hisaristocractic sensibilities by warning upper class Christians against marrying below theirsocial rank. See Peter Brown’s interesting portrait of Milanese snobbery and Ambrose’sascetic impulses in Augustine of Hippo 79-90, and in Body and Society 341-365, respectively.Cf. Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital (Berkeley:University of California Press, 1994) 60-68.

298 f. b. a. asiedu

would have been easier on a man of such introspection if she had notmade such a pledge. But she did, and it placed Augustine in a dubiousposition. She returned to Africa, but the unhappy, impatient, and weak-willed Augustine was in agony. “I, in my misery, could not follow theexample of a woman” (ego infelix nec feminae imitator). This statement, morethan any other, shines a peculiar light on the language of imitation foundthroughout the Confessions. For it shows how much Augustine’s inability tofollow this particular example created the most diYcult problem he facedon the threshold of his planned marriage and intended baptism. Impatientof delay (dilationis impatiens), he did worse.

I was to get the girl I had proposed to only at the end of two years. As Iwas not a lover of marriage but a slave of lust, I procured another woman,not of course as wife. By this liaison the disease of my soul would be sus-tained and kept active, either in full vigour or even increased, so that thehabit would be guarded and fostered until I came to the kingdom of mar-riage. But my wound, in� icted by the earlier parting, was not healed. Afterin� ammation and sharp pain, it festered. The pain made me as it were frigidbut desperate. (Confessions 6.15.25)41

And so Augustine began in search of a cure for the disease of his soul.Notice the contrast between Adeodatus’ mother’s vow of chastity (not togive herself to another man) and Augustine’s impatience and inability tofollow the woman’s example. Notice also, how Augustine speaks of thewound left by the earlier parting and the fact that procuring anotherwoman had not helped to heal it. Is this an indication of just how Augustine’sheart was attached to the mother of Adeodatus? Perhaps. But whether shehad intended to in� uence Augustine in this way we will never know. Atthe same time, there must have been a note of desperation in her vow.She had arrived in Milan probably just about the time when Augustinehad set up house and had to leave shortly after Monnica’s arrival. In manyways it would have been better not to have gone to Milan at all.

Although it would appear that Monnica had displaced the mother ofAdeodatus, the taking of another woman by Augustine raised questionsabout how far Monnica could determine the manner in which Augustineentered the Church. At this juncture control slips from both of them.Monnica had arranged a marriage, the � rst concubine had been sent pack-ing, but Augustine was still sleeping with a woman who was not his wife.Monnica’s worries may have intensi� ed here, but Augustine says nothing



about them. The willingness with which she accepts Augustine’s � nal actof conversion (Confessions 8.12.30) not only to God, but to sexual renunci-ation suggests that Monnica had been aware of the terms in which Augustineframed his possible conversion to Christianity. Augustine’s ongoing prodi-gality made his � delity in a monogamous relationship with the mother ofAdeodatus for those fourteen years or so look much more decent.42 Augustine’syouthful prayer “give me continence but not yet” (Confessions 8.7.17) seemedan apt description of his current condition, but in fact it belonged toanother kind of experience altogether. For at that time Augustine had nothad several years of living in � delity with a woman.

A number of interesting questions come up at this point. If an attempthad not been made to get him married properly, would Augustine havestumbled on the idea that he had a terrible wound for which he neededa cure? Would he have linked Christian conversion with sexual renuncia-tion had he been able to enter the fold of the Church with his concu-bine? And what would have been the shape of Augustine’s views on humansexuality? One can only speculate. In any event, this particular episodedetermined a few important aspects of Augustine’s later life. Augustinewrites speci� cally that the mother of Adeodatus had not only pledged her-self to a life of continence but that she had made the vow “to you that shewould not give herself to another man” (uouens tibi alium se uirum nescituram).She had made the vow to God, the same God the young rhetoricianwanted to be converted to. Augustine was left to deal with the implica-tions of his concubine’s vow. The implied bonds of their relationship wouldbecome an issue. When Augustine came to write his treatise De bono con-iugali in 401, soon after � nishing the Confessions, he had occasion to re� ecton a situation that in every way recalled his own circumstances with themother of his son. The language, sentiments, and allusions are almost cer-tainly self-referential:

A further question often raised is when a man and a woman, neither of themmarried to anyone, have sex with each other not to have children, but merelyto indulge in intercourse because they cannot control their lust. But they show� delity to each other in that the man does not have sex with another woman,nor the woman with another man. The question is whether this should becalled a marriage. Doubtless without absurdity it can indeed be labelled amarriage, provided that they agree to maintain the relationship until one ofthem dies; provided, too, that they do not avoid having children, even if they

42 Cf. Ragnar Holte, “Monica, ‘the Philosopher,’ ” Augustinus 39 (1994) 293-316, ref-erence is to 302-303.

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do not cohabit for this purpose, and provided that they do not ensure thatnone are born either through reluctance to have children born to them orthrough some evil means to frustrate such births. But if one or both of thesenecessary conditions are lacking, I do not see how we can call this a marriage.

Indeed, if a man takes on some woman for the moment, until he can � ndsome other worthy of his status or his wealth whom he can marry as hisequal, he is an adulterer at heart, not with the one whom he is keen to searchout, but with the one with whom he has sexual intercourse without the inten-tion of partnership in marriage. So too if the woman knows and approvesthe situation, she is clearly in an immoral relationship with the man withwhom she does not have the compact of a wife. However, should she main-tain sexual � delity with him, and after he takes a wife she gives no thoughtto marriage herself and steels herself to refrain utterly from such sexual inter-course, I should not perhaps readily presume to call her an adulterer. Butwould anyone claim that she does not sin when he knows that she is havingintercourse with one not her husband? (De bono coniugali 5.5)43

There are two slightly diVerent scenarios presented here. The � rst involvesan agreement made between a man and a woman to live together withno expectation that the relationship will be abrogated at some point in thefuture. The second presumes that the arrangement is contracted to last fora period of time, at which point the man marries someone suited to hisrank. Both circumstances � t Augustine’s situation. What is not clear iswhether the mother of Adeodatus had believed herself to be involved inthe former or the latter. It is instructive that in his assessment here Augustineexonerates the concubine who abstains from all sexual relations after shehas been let go by a man to whom she was not properly married. Hewould not dare to accuse her of adultery. And indeed Augustine did notdare to accuse the mother of Adeodatus, and spoke rather of the exam-ple she had set him (Confessions 6.15.25). If even an inkling of any of thisformed part of Augustine’s thinking between the time of his concubine’sdeparture and his conversion in 386 we would have the surest explana-tion of Augustine’s situation. A proper marriage to another woman who� t “his rank and fortune” would imply in Augustine’s mind that he wasliving in adultery. This would be suYcient to bring Augustine to the posi-tion where he came to believe that continence was a necessary corollaryto his conversion to Christianity.

The almost cursory reference to the example set by the concubine (egoinfelix nec feminae imitator) makes it all too easy to overlook this model of

43 P. G. Walsh (ed.), Augustine: De bono coniugali and De sancta uirginitate. Oxford EarlyChristian Texts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 11-13.


continence in Augustine’s inner circle. Augustine could see in her act theresolve he found terribly lacking in himself. They had lived together. On thequestion of habits they would bear the same burden. The woman’s decisionto be celibate for the rest of her life demonstrated what Augustine wasunable to do for himself or for another’s sake. Living with a new concu-bine and “sinning all the while” (interea mea peccata multiplicabantur),44 Augustineseems to have recognized the necessity of a decisive act of renunciation.The example of the two courtiers of Trier would not be lost on him.

There had always been Alypius, of course. But Alypius appeared toAugustine as something of a diVerent species, so that even when Alypiusfollows him in conversion Augustine can still say that Alypius is simply fol-lowing what is right in his character (congruentissimo suis moribus).45 Alypiusknew nothing of the chains formed by habit (consuetudo). For Augustinehabit had led directly to his chains. So we come full circle: the man whohad earlier looked at Ambrose with pity arrived at a point where he couldnow look on the Bishop of Milan as the more fortunate, because he wasnot bound by any chains.

Much of what I have tried to suggest here is that Augustine’s convic-tion cannot be properly accounted for without recognizing the role of his� rst concubine’s vow to continence. The language of adultery which occursin De bono coniugali 5.5 makes sense only if Augustine came to recognize,quite apart from the allowances that Roman society accorded men andtheir concubines, that the mother of Adeodatus had been in every sensehis wife. Consequently, to go through with the legal marriage to the Milanesegirl would be adding more sin to an already ignoble record.

There is also a pastoral issue worth noting. Augustine would not havehad the integrity, nor would he have had the audacity to chide the menin his congregation over and over again about their in� delities, about theiradulterous lives (because some insisted on keeping concubines), if Augustinehimself had shrugged oV his relationship with his concubine as somethingexcusable, and therefore incidental to his conversion to Christianity.46

Perhaps, if the concubine had not been dismissed on the pretext that shewas an impediment to Augustine’s conversion then Augustine could haveapproached his possible conversion to Christianity on slightly diVerent terms.

44 Confessiones 6.15.25 (CCSL 27, 90).45 Confessiones 8.12.30 (CCSL 27, 130).46 See T. J. Van Bavel, Augustine’s Views on Women, Augustiniana 39 (1989) 5-53;

note especially 33-53.

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But there is patent irony all over this story. Augustine could dissolve therelationship with the mother of Adeodatus on only two grounds. One, ifhe wanted to live a life of continence, or two, if he wished to marry some-one else be� tting his status. There were no other options. When the motherof Adeodatus chose continence, she had unwittingly committed Augustineto follow suit, that is, if Augustine wanted to be converted to Christianity.Under the circumstances his belated response was all but certain. If hewanted to be converted to Christianity he could not go through with themarriage because that would mean living in adultery. Augustine took theonly doorway into the Church left open for him.

VI. Uouens tibi and the Idea of Conversion in the Confessions

Thus far I have referred in various ways to conversion without de� ningexactly what I mean. In this I have been following Augustine’s usage. Ihave also assumed all along that the concubine’s vow and Augustine’sdescription of it should be recognized as a conversion story, one of themany conversion narratives that dot the landscape of the Confessions. NowI will attempt to make a case for it. It may be objected that the claim toconversion for his concubine rests on a simple vow, but such an objectionwould be presuming on what conversion is in the � rst place. The crucialquestion to ask is what Augustine means to convey by uouens tibi?

Augustine’s idea of his own conversion seems obvious enough becauseat Confessions 8.12.30 he says so explicitly (conuertisti enim me ad te). Thisnotion of conversion is the most common use of conuersio in the Confessions.It is God who is doing the converting. In a good many of these instancesAugustine is either quoting from scripture or commenting on the variousturns which God gave to his life, sometimes over and against his bestwishes at the time.47

Van Fleteren’s count of conversion narratives in the Confessions includessuch stories as Augustine’s encounter with Cicero’s Hortensius (Confessions3.4.7-8), Alypius’ conversion from the Carthaginian circus (Confessions 6.7.11-12), Augustine’s conversion from astrology (Confessions 7.6.8-10), and Monnica’sdecision not to drink wine (Confessions 9.8.19).48 We could even add to thecount Alypius’s change of mind about his Apollinarian Christology while

47 See E. Ann. Matter, Conversion(s) in the Confessions, in Collectanea Augustiniana (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1990) 22.

48 F. Van Fleteren, St. Augustine’s Theory of Conversion, in Collectanea Augustiniana (NewYork: Peter Lang, 1990) 65-80.


in Milan (Confessions 7.19.25), or more to the point, the much earlier nar-rative about Augustine’s boyhood friend who received baptism when hewas deathly ill, had a remission, and then died shortly thereafter whileAugustine was away (Confessions 4.4.8).

This last example, besides oVering a witness to the practice of baptismfor those who were thought to be near death, greatly aVected Augustinein another way. The change that seemed to have come over his friend,who could not endure Augustine’s mocking of the rite, oVers an interest-ing example of what may well have been a crisis conversion. That he dieda few days afterwards cut the story short. Augustine was greatly shatteredby the alienation that entered their friendship, an alienation that deepenedwith the death of his friend. There is the anguish of un� nished business—things that should have been said that were never said—which linger inAugustine’s grief over his friend (Confessions 4.4.9V.). Augustine the mocker stoodon the outside looking in on an experience in which he could not share.

Without knowing what had been done to him—this is the point Augustinehad tried to stress by belittling the rite—Augustine’s boyhood friend seemsto have changed his own attitude toward baptism when he regained con-sciousness (Confessions 4.4.8). In recounting this experience Augustine pitshis own foolishness against the sudden, unexpected, and newfound free-dom of his friend (mirabili et repentina libertate), who found the voice and theauthority to take Augustine to task. This was probably the surest indica-tion to the young Augustine that something had taken place.49 Somethingastonishing (mirabili ) had happened. To recognize a conversion in this ear-lier narrative about Augustine’s boyhood friend is to inch a little closer towhat one can expect in the story of his concubine. There are far too manysimilarities between the two stories.

What do I mean? First, there is the simple fact that the central char-acters in both stories (Confessions 4.4.8 and 6.15.25) are unnamed, but thisis the least interesting of the similarities. We never � nd out the name ofAugustine’s boyhood friend, nor are we told anywhere in Augustine’s cor-pus the name of his concubine. Second, each story deals with a crisis sit-uation for the protagonist and for Augustine too. Third, in each instance,the precipitating event leads to some un� nished business between Augustineand the persons involved. In the former, baptism creates a barrier betweenAugustine and his friend, in the latter, Augustine’s impending marriage

49 Confessiones 4.4.8 (CCSL 27, 44): At ille ita me exhorruit ut inimicum admonuitque mirabiliet repentina libertate, ut, si amicus esse uellem, talia sibi dicere desinerem.

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and the forced separation from the concubine is itself the barrier. In deathhis boyhood friend is lost to Augustine and we never � nd out whetherAugustine knew what happened to the mother of Adeodatus. Fourth, Godenters the respective stories at precisely the points where Augustine is alien-ated. His boyhood friend receives baptism and thereby enters the Church,the concubine makes a vow to God to live a life of continence. In bothcases the other person involved adopts a rite and a form of life thatAugustine mocks or is incapable of imitating. It is tempting to think thatAugustine does not get reconciled to either his boyhood friend or his con-cubine until the day of his conversion in 386 when, in a curious way, heembraces continence and prepares himself for baptism. Fifth, in each cir-cumstance we � nd Augustine inconsolable. When his friend died Augustinecould endure his native town no longer, and � ed to Carthage to overcomehis misery, plunging headlong into new friendships, but found no rest.Similarly, when his concubine departs he tries to soften the blow by seek-ing the embrace of another woman. Instead what he discovers is a mis-ery much deeper and more intolerable. The similarities between the twostories suggests, perhaps, that if there is a crisis conversion in the former,made explicit because Augustine’s boyhood friend received baptism andappears to have accepted the implications of the rite, there may also havebeen a crisis conversion of another kind in the vow of his concubine.Beyond this we may not press too far.

But there is another parallel worth remembering. When the two courtiersat Trier renounced the world in their conversion to Christianity they lefttheir respective � ancées in marital limbo. And what did the two womendo? As Augustine tells us, they followed suit, dedicating their chastity toGod (dicauerunt etiam ipsae uirginitatem tibi ). In this respect the dicauerunt . . .tibi of the two betrothed women covers the same semantic range as theuouens tibi of Augustine’s concubine. The helplessness of Augustine’s con-cubine—and she was helpless—does not in any way detract from the per-sonal conviction that may have been involved in the act. Exactly how shelived the rest of her life is not the issue. She may well have returned toa precarious existence. And the desire for continence may have been anattempt to give dignity to her hopelessness: covering her shame in a declaredact of renunciation that would lend to her life a “divine” or religious pur-pose.50 Whatever may have been her prospects, she obviously intended to

50 Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo 89, speculates that “In all probability she had beena good Catholic throughout her life with Augustine; and, by this vow, she intendedeither to become eligible for baptism, or to be re-admitted to the Eucharist.”


elect the terms in which she would endure that future. It is in this mini-mal sense of making a decided choice, albeit in a desperate situation, thatunderlines her act of renunciation.

Furthermore, the narrator (or rather, the praying voice) of the Confessions,on whose words we are dependent for the portrait of the unnamed woman,appears to have believed that she made the vow to the very God to whomhe was confessing. Since Augustine recognized his concubine’s vow to con-tinence as an example he was too weak and unhappy to follow at the time,his later acceptance of that way of life should be acknowledged as a witnessto the in� uence of his concubine on the choice he came to make. The Con-fessions, after all, makes an implicit claim as a meta-narrative of conversion.It is not only Augustine’s story but the stories of Victorinus, Ponticianus,the two courtiers at Trier, Antony of Egypt, Monnica, and, as I am inclinedto think, the mother of Adeodatus. There are as many kinds of conver-sion narratives in the Confessions as there are people who are converted.To aver that any one of these conversion stories is the most � tting repre-sentation of Christian conversion in the Confessions is simply misleading.

Simple vows of renunciation were turning people into ascetics. And manyof these were considered by Augustine and the Christian society of the latefourth and early � fth century as genuine manifestations of Christian con-version. If individuals were turning their backs on the world in simple vowsof renunciation, then a vow to the Christian God made by a helplesswoman on the verge of possible destitution ought to be seen as a con-version. By recounting this episode, Augustine oVers a veiled tribute to awoman whose decision to commit herself to a life of continence promptedAugustine’s journey down that road. By recognizing the mother of Adeoda-tus, the woman with whom he was in the habit of sleeping, as “� esh of his� esh” Augustine the catechumen came to see in sexual renunciation theonly credible embodiment of his possible conversion to Christianity.

The silences about Augustine’s dramatic conversion in his early writingscould well be due to just what I have been describing here, and perhapsDe beata uita 1.4 alludes to this. The guarded, tactful language of a philo-sophical pilgrimage that one � nds in the early writings allows Augustineto gloss over some aspects of his conversion. We should probably not betoo surprised that the dramatic conversion scarcely emerges in the earlyworks. Of the Cassiciacum dialogues the Soliloquia oVers the most inter-esting corroboration of the intensely emotional and traumatic experiencethat Augustine recounts in the Confessions. We can see Augustine enteringinto himself to dredge out his anxieties all over again. His inability toembrace Sapientia is linked to his remembrance of things past, a rememberance

of how much the bitter sweetness of a woman’s embrace still haunts him.Continentia and Sapientia emerge as Augustine’s new loves, although at timeshe appears to have a very tenuous hold on them. For all his attempts topresent his conversion as a straightfoward philosophical pilgrimage, theportrait of Augustine’s soul that we � nd in the Soliloquia undermines thatvery eVort. And to think that a helpless, unnamed woman had somethingto do with all this is remarkable in itself.

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Following the Example of a Woman: Augustine's Conversion to Christianity in 386

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