Rachael Phillips

St. Augustine: Early Church Father

                

            “If you go to Rome,” Monica said quietly, “I do not know if I shall ever see my grandson again.” Her brown eyes softened, their fire extinguished by her tears.

            Augustine shifted uncomfortably. “I have not yet decided which course I will pursue, Mother. There are advantages to both alternatives.”

            “What alternatives? Going to Rome or to Thagaste?”

            “No, Mother,” Augustine quietly insisted. “The alternatives consist of going to Rome or staying in Carthage. Thagaste is no place for a professor of rhetoric.” How could he make her understand? Augustine’s hometown was a small, isolated rural community [in North Africa]. If Augustine yielded to her pressure and returned to the place of his birth, he would give up any hope of advancing in his field.

            “If God should so will,” Monica said slowly, “I would not forbid your going to Italy. The good He wishes for you, I do, also.” Augustine felt himself quiver under her long look of yearning. His own eyes began to moisten.

            His mother clasped him without speaking, then cleared the dishes away briskly as she began to plan aloud. “I will accompany you, of course, if you go, even though traveling is difficult. My bones grow old and tired!” Monica paused. “But Adeodatus needs me; that woman is no proper mother for such a child. Neither is she good for you.”

            Hot blood surged into Augustine’s cheeks, throbbed in his temples. Ashamed, he occasionally admitted to himself that he should not keep a concubine. But Augustine had resented his mother’s repeated warnings about women since he was a child, and he took offense at her regular interference in his household. Twenty-nine years was long enough! How wonderful it would be to escape Monica’s eternal nagging.

            “I have not yet made a decision, Mother,” he said with dignity. “My friend Martius arrives at this inn within a day or so to prepare for his own voyage to Italy and to wait for favorable winds. I will then choose whether to accompany him or not.”

            “May he never come to tempt you to such folly!” An exasperated Monica swept from the room.

            Have no fear, Mother, he will not come here. Augustine watched her retreating back and could not suppress a wicked smile. Martius was, of course, the product of his own scheming imagination.

 


 

            Aboard at last!  Augustine inhaled the sea air, pleading with the placid early morning breezes. Blow, blow, oh wind. Carry me far away to Italy, to life.

            He straightened, stiffening. Did he spy a small, familiar figure on shore? Augustine stared, aghast, then shook himself. Why should his eyes have been drawn to this one person, when so many others stood along the cluttered seaside? The rising sun highlighted a splash of blue on the figure as it moved quickly toward the very edge of the water. He muttered a curse under his breath and tore unwilling eyes away from the shore. Moving to the other side of the vessel, Augustine peered at the smooth, empty horizon that beckoned to him. Come, Augustine, come to freedom, fame and fortune. Come to Italy.

            He did not look back.

 


           

            “Where is Augustine?” Monica demanded of the timid young woman who had waited on her son’s family. “Where is he? When did he leave? He and my grandson were to join me at Saint Cyprian’s for morning prayers.” The girl dropped to her knees and cowered before the older woman but remained silent. Augustine’s mother turned from her in disgust and loudly demanded answers to the same questions from every servant she met. After several minutes, the innkeeper appeared, pleading with her to remain calm.

            “Calm? Calm! My son Augustine and his family have disappeared. When did they leave? Were they all right? Did they speak with you?” Monica was known for her dignified behavior, but now she raged like a mother bear deprived of her cubs.

            The innkeeper recognized danger in her flashing eyes. “Yes, mistress, the young teacher and his family were in good health when they left during the night. I am not sure where they went,” he said smoothly, “but I thought I heard the child mention sailing on a ship.”

            “Which one? Which?”

            “I have no idea, mistress. They took all their belongings with them.” They also paid me well, he added silently, but I doubt if you will overtake them to discuss that fact.

            Without another word, Monica stormed out the front door of the inn. Anger and inconsolable grief fought within her as she wiped her streaming eyes and ran through the now-busy streets of Carthage toward the harbor. Panting, she questioned every harbor hand she encountered until she found the boatmen who had transported Augustine, his concubine, and Adeodatus.

            “Yes, mistress, we carried that family out to Captain Zama’s ship. No, mistress, the winds rose during the night, and the ship departed two, maybe three hours ago.”

            O Lord, could you not have stilled the winds as you did on the Sea of Galilee? Did You take my children away from me? Monica stumbled toward the beach and lay prostrate in the hot sun for many hours, digging her fingers in to the sand, weeping and praying. If only I could be sure Augustine will find his way back to you, O Lord. Rome is full of idols, heresies, evil. . . . And he, in his quest for wisdom, is like a child who plays under the hooves of a rearing horse. . . .

            Beyond the reach of Monica’s despair, Augustine was still drinking in the wildness and wonder of his first sea voyage to Italy. He had no idea his flight from North Africa would only serve to put him back on the road to his mother’s God:  “She loved to have me with her, and did not know what joy thou wast preparing for her through my going away.”1

 

 


reprinted by permission from Barbour Publishing

 

1 Augustine. Confessions & Enchiridion, ed. and trans. Albert C. Outler (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1955), bk. 5, VIII, 15, in Christian Classics Ethereal Library [online] (cited 12 August 2002);available from http://www.ccel.org/a/augustine/confessions/confessions_enchiridion.txt.