St. Augustine's Confessions - Mystical Vision at Ostia (Book IX)

Book IX of the Confessions reveals a side of Augustine that makes many Reformed Protestants like myself feel somewhat uncomfortable.  If anything, this book will help correct any misconceptions that we might have that Augustine is simply a carbon copy of John Calvin living at the turn of the fifth-century.  We must not forget that Augustine was a Roman Catholic Bishop and theologian, and in many ways both Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are indebted to St. Augustine's theological legacy in different ways.  Protestants tend to gravitate toward his soteriology which emphasized human depravity and our desperate need for divine grace.  Roman Catholics, by contrast tend to gravitate toward Augustine's ecclesiology and piety.  There are three aspects to this particular chapter that will raise some Protestant eyebrows (although certain brands of Charismatics might be pleasantly surprised).  First, Augustine reveals his very definite impulse toward monasticism (he was in fact the founder of a monastic order).  Second, he reveals his Neo-Platonic mysticism which remained an integral part of his experience as a Christian.  Third, Augustine reveals his approval of the cult of the martyrs (veneration of relics) which became a major aspect of medieval Roman Catholic piety.

Following his conversion in Milan narrated in Book VIII, Augustine quit his job as a professor of Rhetoric and retired with a group of friends to a country estate in Cassiciacum, where they remained from July 386 AD to his baptism the following Easter.  During this time, Augustine wrote a number of philosophical works which were based on dialogues he had with his friends.  Here we see the beginning of Augustine's attraction to the monastic life which was only interrupted by his call to become a Presbyter (much to his own dismay!) 

We glean some additional insight in this chapter into Augustine's personal life as he shares about Adeodatus, "my natural son begotten in sin." (IX.vi)  Adeodatus, who was born to Augustine out of wedlock by his concubine of fifteen years, was apparently an extremely intelligent boy:  "He was about fifteen years old, and his intelligence surpassed that of many serious and well-educated men...His intelligence left me awestruck." (IX.vi)  The apple didn't fall far from the tree!  Unfortunately Adeodatus did not survive adolescence, but died as a baptized believer.  The narration about Adeodatus here is very interesting - Augustine speaks of him almost as though he were a peer rather than his son.  Perhaps this is due to the fact that they were baptized together by Bishop Ambrose in Milan.

Shortly after his baptism, Augustine recounts a story in which Ambrose receives a divine vision telling him where two martyrs were buried.  The bodies were located, and transported to Ambrose's basillica where a number of miracles occurred when people came in contact with the bier in which the bones were being stored.  According to Augustine's testimony, a blind man was healed and several demon possesed people were exorcised.  Augustine's strong belief in the power of relics becomes even more apparent in the last book of the City of God, where he tells a number of miracles which supposedly occurred in Hippo at the shrine of St. Stephen. 

Much of the rest of this Book is taken up with events leading up to the death of Augustine's mother Monica which includes a powerful tribute in which Augustine praises his mother's virtue as the Christian wife of a non-believer who won both her pagan husband and her wayward son to Christ through persistent prayer and witness.  Shortly before her death, Augustine and Monica shared a mystical experience at Ostia which is recounted in detail in this book using language that is distictly influenced by the Enneads of Plotinus:  "Our minds were lifted up by an ardent affection towards eternal being itself.  Step by step we climbed beyond all corporeal objects and the heaven itself, where sun, moon, and stars shed light on the earth.  We ascended even further by internal reflection and dialogue and wonder at your works, and we entered into our own minds.  We moved up beyond them so as to attain to the region of inexhaustible abundance where you feed Israel eternally with truth for food." (IX.x)  What Augustine is describing here is direct, unmediated  communication with God.  Neo-Platonists held that such extatic union with ultimate Being could be attained by certain enlightened philosophers who were able to transcend the physical bodies and the constraints of the material world which was held to be evil.  Augustine himself claimed to have had one such experience as a Neo-Platonist prior to his conversion to Chrsitianity, which he describes in Book VII.  Prior to his conversion, Augustine held that his mystical experience with absolute Being left him morally unchanged in spite of its power.  He compared this earlier mystical experience to Moses looking to the promised land from a distance without actually getting to enter in:  "It is one thing from a wooded summit to catch a glimpse of the homeland of peace and not to find the way to it, but vainly to attempt the journey along an impracticable route surrounded by the ambushes and assaults of fugitive deserters with their chief." (VII.xxi)  By contrast, the mystical experience he shared with his mother at Ostia was powerful enough to free Monica from the remaining constraints she had to the corporeal world.  No longer was she concerned about where she would be buried or with whom.  Soon after this experience, Monica died and Augustine mourned her death.