Feminist Interpretations of Augustine

Poem: To Aurelius Augustine from the Mother of His Son

To Aurelius Augustine from the Mother of His Son Ann Conrad Lammers You took Adeodatus to your baptism (I almost wrote: your funeral). The boy came later and told me how it was. I hardly listened. I wanted only, then as now, to meet you once on level ground and hear from your mouth the sound of my name. You could drown my name in silence but not silence it in your mind. I am in the pages of your writing: Eve, Lilith, the daughters of men. I am the slave on account of sin, the flesh that weighs down wisdom, the image that deceives, the vessel that catches and holds captive. In me you beat down your unruly flesh. From a boy passionate with love and clarity I watched you change into a driven man who broke himself in two. Everything for you is now split halves: Charity is founded on rejection, sainthood on divorce. Other men choose the downward path away from the mother’s heaven, toward a holiness woven in the flesh. Those men grow up. They face their opposites and know themselves, and suffer what they cannot know. I wish I had confronted you when I could, as wives confront their husbands, but then 302 Feminist Interpretations of Augustine you never let me come so close. Philosophy protected you, then your rank, and finally your mother. Monica—the virgin mother and the heavenly city! You turned to gaze with her into eternal space. For you, holiness is Monica and her son, like the two natures of Christ, united without showing how. Since I am banished from that mystery I will go elsewhere. You cannot unmake me by theology. Aurelius, your mistress and the world are standing outside closed church-doors excommunicate. The story of our parting has two sides. I wonder if Aurelius is still alive. ...