Notes on Confessions Book IX

Confessions
St. Augustine

Book IX

Ch. 1

God loosed Augustine's bonds and he thanked God for it.

God removed the corruption from Augustine's heart. Now he did not will to do his own will anymore and began to will to do what God willed.

"How sweet did it suddenly become to me to be without the sweetness of trifles! And it was now a joy to put away what I formerly feared to lose. For thou didst cast them away from me"

Ch. 2

Augustine stays on teaching until the scheduled break before resigning his post. He explains a few reasons for not leaving immediately after conversion.

Ch. 3

Augustine's friends Verecundus and Nebridius eventually convert to Catholic Christianity from their various pagan and heretical standpoints. But, both die after conversion and Augustine thanks God for their salvation.

Ch. 4

God leveled the mountains and hills of Augustine's mind, straightened his crookedness and smoothed his rough ways.

Augustine read, "Be angry, and sin not". He was relieved that he could be angry with his past ways and not sin because of them.

In God there is, "rest and oblivion to all distress".

Ch. 5

Augustine resigns formally from his post in Milan and informs everyone, including St. Ambrose. Ambrose suggests that Augustine read Isaiah on account of it predicting the gospels the most but, unlearned in the ways of God, Augustine couldn't finish it initially because he didn't fully understand it.

Ch. 6

Augustine, Alypius and Adeodatus, Augustine's fifteen year old son by his mistress were baptized together into the faith and "The anxiety about our past life left us".

Ch. 7

This is how singing hymns came about throughout the Christian world: "This was the time that the custom began, after the manner of the Eastern Church, that hymns and psalms should be sung, so that the people would not be worn out with the tedium of lamentation. This custom, retained from then till now, has been imitated by many, indeed, by almost all thy congregations throughout the rest of the world." The translator notes, "This was apparently the first introduction into the West of antiphonal chanting, which was already widespread in the East. Ambrose brought it in; Gregory brought it to perfection."

Ch. 8

Augustine, having decided to leave Milan to return to Africa leaves with his family and friends. Along the way his mother, Monica, passes away.

Augustine tells a story about how her mother was shamed by a little servant girl taunting her as a child to break a bad habit. He notes that the flattery of friends often leads individuals astray but the stinging words of an enemy will humble a person to stop doing that sin. He also notes that this is God's work in using others to train his children.

Ch. 9

Augustine praises God for the attributes he worked into his mom. He praises his mother's patience and meekness, her ability as a teacher, her mercy, her peacemaking and her long-suffering. She even through prayer and patience won over Augustine's father, an unfaithful and angry man to the Lord and after his conversion, he was faithless no more.

Ch. 10

Augustine and Monica, in her last week alive, praised God and his creation, moving from the outer world to the inner before they contemplated on Wisdom itself. He claims that the Israelites were forever fed by the Wisdom of God (allegorical understanding of the OT) and that the Wisdom was God. "Wisdom is not made, but is as she has been and forever shall be"

After all their praise Monica stated that she had prayed to see Augustine's salvation and now that God had answered that prayer abundantly as not only was her son saved, but that he had devoted himself to God, she wasn't sure what was left for her here in this life.

Ch. 11

Monica died in Ostia, on the voyage home to Africa. When she was dying she stated she did not care where she was buried because it was just her body and that when the time came for the Resurrection God would know where she was lying.

Ch. 12

Augustine stopped himself from crying at Monica's death. "This is the way those who die unhappy or are altogether dead are usually mourned. But she neither died unhappy nor did she altogether die".

Augustine relates that he finally wept when he contemplated the life Monica led for God and he wept before God in solace.

Ch. 13

Augustine praises his mother's character, noting that all these praises are really praising God for the work He did in her. He also prays for her soul and the forgiveness of her sins. He notes also that he believes that God has long since done this but that this was a verbal offering.

It's an interesting take on Saints if you want to read into that.