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Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...

Nicene and Post-Nicene FathersPatristicsSt. Augustine

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This is a passage from Augustine's *Confessions* (Book IX, Chapter X), a foundational text of Christian autobiography and mystical theology written in the late 4th century. It recounts the "Vision at Ostia," a shared contemplative experience Augustine had with his dying mother Monica while resting at a window overlooking a garden in Ostia, days before her death. The two ascend mentally through all created things — physical matter, the heavens, their own minds — until they briefly and silently "touch" Eternal Wisdom itself, a moment Augustine describes as a foretaste of heaven sustained only for an instant before they return to ordinary speech. Augustine then articulates a hypothetical: if all created noise, sensation, and self-reflection could be permanently silenced and only God's direct voice remained, that sustained state would be what Christ meant by "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." The passage closes with Monica declaring she has nothing left to desire in this life, having seen her son not merely converted but contemptuous of worldly pleasure — her sole remaining wish fulfilled. What makes it distinctive is its fusion of Neoplatonic ascent philosophy with Christian eschatology, presenting mystical experience not as solitary but as shared, and framing Monica's imminent death as serene completion rather than loss.

Nicene and Post Nicene-Fathers, Vol. I: The Confessions: ...

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