Monica (332–87), widow. Born probably at Tagaste, North Africa. Monica was married to Patricius, described variously as a pagan or as a nominal Christian, but who was certainly dissolute and violent in temper. Her mother‐in‐law lived in the house with them and added to her difficulties. Monica, who had earlier overcome a tendency to heavy drinking, by her patient persistence won over both her mother‐in‐law and her husband, who although frequently unfaithful, never struck her or physically ill‐treated her. He was baptized in 370 and died the following year. Monica was the mother of three children: Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetus. As the mother of Augustine she is especially famous; in her patient treatment of him over many years of anxiety ended by his conversion, she is seen as the model of Christian mothers. Most of our information about her comes from Augustine's Confessions (Book IX). When he was young, she had enrolled him as a catechumen according to contemporary custom, but his irregular life caused her so much suffering that she once refused to allow him to live in her house. But she soon relented; realizing (through a priest) that the time for his conversion had not yet come, she gave up arguing with him (or asking others to do so) and turned instead to prayer, fasts, and vigils, hoping that they would succeed where argument had failed. Eventually Augustine went to Rome, deceiving her about the time of his departure in order to travel alone. He went on to Milan, but Monica followed him. She was highly esteemed by its bishop, Ambrose, who also helped Augustine towards a deep moral conversion besides acceptance of the Christian faith. This took place in 386. As a consequence Augustine renounced also his mother's plans for his marriage, deciding to remain celibate; with Monica and a few chosen friends he went away for a period of preparation for Baptism. The dialogues of this little group of friends were recorded by Augustine in his De Beata Vita and other opuscules. Augustine was baptized in 387; Monica and his friends set out on the journey to Africa with him, but she died on the way at Ostia. Just before her last illness she said to him: ‘Nothing in this world now gives me pleasure. I do not know what there is left for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world are now fulfilled. All I wished to live for was to see you a Catholic and a child of Heaven. God has granted me more than this in making you despise earthly happiness and consecrate yourself to his service.’ She died at the age of fifty‐five and was buried at Ostia. There seems to have been no early cult of her, but in 1162 her relics were translated to Arrouaise, where the Austin Canons kept her feast on 4 May, the day before the conversion of St. Augustine. From this house the cult spread to others of the same Order. In 1430 it received fresh impetus from the translation of other relics from Ostia to Rome, where they rest in the church of S. Agostino. In the reformed Roman calendar her feast is on 27 August.
Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.
- AA.SS. Maii I (1680), 473–91
- Augustine, Confessions, Book IX; modern Lives by E. H. Bougaud (1865, Eng. tr. 1894) E. Procter (1931) and L. Cristiani (1959). See also P. Henry, La Vision d'Ostie (1938), and, for a less favourable view of Monica, P. L. R. Brown, St. Augustine of Hippo (1965)
