The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Rod Dreher wrote “to order the world rightly as Christians requires regarding all things as pointing to Christ”
Christ is the One in Whom in all things consist and humanity is not the measure of all things. If a defining characteristic of the modern world is disorder then the most fundamental act of resistance is to discover and life according to the deep, divine order of the heavens and the earth.
In this series we want to look at the big model of the universe that the Bible and Christian history provides.
It is a mind and heart expanding vision of reality.
It is not confined to the limits of our bodily senses - but tries to embrace levels fo reality that are not normally accessible or tangible to our exiled life on earth.
We live on this side of the cosmic curtain - and therefore the highest and greatest dimensions of reality are hidden to us… yet these dimensions exist and are the most fundamental framework for the whole of the heavens and the earth.
Throughout this series we want to pick away at all the threads of reality to see how they all join together - how they all find common meaning and reason in the great divine logic - the One who is the Logos, the LORD Jesus Christ - the greatest that both heaven and earth has to offer.
Colossians 1:15-23
The Christ Centred Cosmic Civilisation
Episode 95 - Rediscovering Monica: Beyond Augustine's Shadow
Monica, Augustine's mother, has been historically eclipsed by her famous son, yet she stands as a theologian, philosopher, and the true founder of Augustinianism who shaped early Christian thought far beyond her role as Augustine's mother.
• Monica wasn't exclusively focused on Augustine but cared deeply for all her children, once exiling Augustine to protect her other children from his Manichaean ideas
• As a widow in early Christianity, Monica held an important leadership position that was almost like a church office, giving her spiritual authority and respect
• The rediscovery of Monica's relics in Italy sparked renewed interest in her legacy and highlighted her often overlooked African identity
• Monica should be recognized as the founder of Augustinian thought, with Augustine's famous "Rule" based on his sister Perpetua's abbey rule, which itself stemmed from Monica's guidance
• Despite lacking formal philosophical training, Monica possessed theological insights that Augustine himself acknowledged as superior to academic approaches
• Our narrow view of Monica comes from overreliance on Augustine's "Confessions" rather than his letters and other writings that reveal a more complete picture
To appreciate Monica fully, we must engage with the broader historical record beyond the Confessions and see her as the powerful theologian and founder of the Augustinian tradition she truly was.
The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore
Well, welcome to the next episode of the Christ-Centered Cosmic Civilization. As we continue to look at Augustine or really we're now looking at his family, beginning with his mum, his mother, monica. Now, the importance of this is that, monica, I didn't realize that Augustine had brothers and sisters because, um, my experience of monica was via art and kind of, uh, where it's really just monica and augustine and and the. The two are just depicted there and it's all part of this, um, like almost the cult of august, augustine, that everything he's like elevated. And this is a why we've been investigating him, to kind of get a better picture of augustine, to set him in it as he really was, uh, and and, and to see his strengths and his weaknesses and understand him and appreciate him, because he is the creator of this enormously powerful worldview that completely dominated Western Europe for a thousand years and still is in many ways a very dominant, powerful worldview. So it's important that we get a proper grip on him rather than just get absorbed by this sort of Augustinian cult. And this cult does have an effect in the perception of Monica, because I wasn't aware that there were any other members, any other children. She had any other children, because it's always just it was.
Speaker 1:My experience was stories that ever were told about her were always just told in relation to Augustine, and then she's just like a moon orbiting around this enormous gas giant that is Augustine no, I shouldn't call him a gas giant, but whatever. A big, solid planet, then whatever. So that Monica herself isn't appreciated properly because she's only given value insofar as she's orbiting around Augustine, and that isn't a true view of her, either in the wider literature or as she was understood at the time closer to that time. So what I want us to do for this episode is to kind of have a better look at Monica, what was great about her and why she gets eclipsed and why there has been this strange Like, for example I think this is true, isn't it PJ? That she's often depicted in art wearing a nun's habit of the Augustinian order, as if she is part of the order that is set up subsequently. Is that correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, so there's, and that has these two effects. So one of them is very much seeing her as dependent or like basically a student of Augustine, whereas it's obviously the other way around. But there's a more positive view that sees her as the founder of the Augustinian order and then that properly sees Augustine as the student of Monica.
Speaker 1:It's that way around, is that way around. So maybe then, as we look at this, it'd be good to think about what cause it causes this perception of Monica as a moon around the Augustinian planet, and to think of her in terms of a mother, a widow, a philosopher in her own right, and also then let's conclude, perhaps, with her as the, or whichever order you wish to. Maybe just let's think of her as the founder, then the founder of Augustinianism, which we can link to her being a philosopher and theologian in her own right. Why don't you begin with that? That it's not that she is a student of Augustine, but so no, first of all, I want to ask this Is the problem with the perception of Monica that the Augustinian industry basically only reads the confessions, that is a very key problem because, um, it's very stylized.
Speaker 2:The confessions, uh, people have described it as basically a guide for conversion, and so it describes in these kind of personal, individual terms what all christians are kind of meant to go through, as far as augustine thinks, you know. So she kind of acts like god the father in some way, like um, when he's still far off, she goes to meet him and that sort of thing, and then, or like jesus the good shepherd, who, you know, abandons the saved sheep to go and get the lost sheep. So he kind of phrases things as if that's what she's doing, because he's trying to use his own life as an example of what God actually does in the case of every believer.
Speaker 1:So, in a way, because I do notice that in this Western tradition, if you give a conversion story, it often does have this feeling of the way the confessions are where you're to have a period of restlessness. Then you find your rest, you know, and there's a searching period to be done and then you can eventually find rest and so on. And then this having you know and and so monica isn't depicted historically like strictly accurately, but rather she's given a role that is a part of this template of how a conversion is supposed to happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so, um, yeah, so that that's a key problem, because then one of the things that does is it obscures how much she cared about her other children because, um, she can seem almost neglectful, you know, if she would abandon the children to go and get augustine totally, whereas in fact there's this one time Augustine does come back and he wants to start discussing faith and everything, but he's too edgy, he's too manichaean and everything. So Monica gets rid of him, she won't talk to Augustine for years and then forbids him from talking to any of his nephews or siblings or cousins, anyone. He's totally exiled by Monica and she just focuses on Navigis and Perpetua and her grandkids and nephews for that time. So that's very opposite to this view we have of someone who's obsessed. There's one person who called monica like a bloodhound, always going after augustine, uh, but that's obviously not true when, uh, when, given augustine, she would get rid of him to focus on the spiritual well-being of the the other members of her family. So that, um, so yeah, she's really not like.
Speaker 2:So augustine does even mention that in her, in his confessions, but he kind of skims over a bit, it doesn't give it as much thought.
Speaker 2:As you know, he gets very um, rhetorical and everything when he talks about monica going after him, and so he doesn't think about that too much and then so it doesn't leave people with a strong impression, and so that's why people can read the confessions somehow read that section when monica abandons augustine, and still have this view that augustine's really, uh, her favorite child. They often say that like, oh, sometimes they've gone so far as to say she only ever really cared for Augustine, and that sort of thing. And this is often people's own projections, because you have that survey, isn't it, that found, if parents do have a favourite child, mums prefer the eldest son and dads prefer the youngest daughter, weirdly enough. So they often make Augustine the eldest son and dads prefer the youngest daughter. Uh, weirdly enough, um, so they often make augustine the eldest son, which is not true. They often say he's the eldest son and then they're projecting their own strange psychological stuff.
Speaker 1:Um, so that that's quite a problem when there's so much emotion tied up with these stories and I do find that doesated with this son but rather bans him from the family home with all his philosophical rubbish. And that's so important because Augustine is not at all infallible in the eyes of Monica and her role as a godly mother protecting the entire family supersedes her concern for this one particular wayward son, augustine. Now, while we're thinking about family things, the widow she's a widow. She becomes a widow after Patrick's gone and we've thought about Patrick, so we'll think of him as godly Patrick perhaps, rather than drunkard debauched Patrick. We've dealt with that.
Speaker 1:But this role of widow is kind of interesting because nowadays being a widow is has got no church significance whatsoever really not in most protestant churches anyway whereas historically it um, back then it's almost like a church office.
Speaker 1:And you get that in 1 Timothy 5, verses 2 to 16, this idea of what should, the role of? It's almost like there's an office or a role of widow in church and to be taken on in that role. And Paul sort of recommends that younger women should try to get remarried instead of stepping into this role of widow. Because the role of widow it's like a paid position and he talks about that being they, they must be paid for properly and you've also got the in 2 Corinthians 11, 2, the idea of the consecrated virgins and things. So this idea of roles in the church, that of widows, now, how does that relate to Monica and how does she? Because is it the case that at that time there was still um, that that role of widow was probably receding somewhat in church? But is it that Jerome still is aware of this role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, jerome is very appreciative of it.
Speaker 2:So he writes a lot of eulogies for widows who were these kinds of leaders and who often taught him stuff, often taught wider groups of people.
Speaker 2:So they were very involved with teaching men and women, because Jerome attests to that, himself being taught by widows, and there's a sense in which it makes sense of a lot of life to these ancient people. So even when it loses its formal position, there's often this feeling like um, so like uh, paul talks about young people that you know, maybe you don't seek marriage because you should be focusing. Well, he says, actually don't seek marriage, and then you know God will do whatever he'll do, but like you don't seek marriage, you just just focus in on church and then if you are married, then you focus in on that and then, but then that means your ministry isn't as focused. So widowhood is this sort of. So then there's loads of people who write this stuff in the ancient world where they're like when you get married, you've kind of given up, sort of thing, and they write these kind of uh quite scathing sometimes things uh against marriage, but then for widowhood, gregory of nissa on virginity.
Speaker 1:It tends to be quite strongly down that road, yeah yeah, and obviously it's worth mentioning.
Speaker 2:He's been harsher himself because he's widowed. And then he, he says so yeah. So for most people, widowhood is this chance, like god saying, all right, I can give you this chance to just be totally focused in on the church, as if you had never been married in the first place. Gregory loved his wife so much he says that isn't possible. He's saying, look, I'm even worse now because she could help me focus on the Lord. And now I'm always thinking about her and she's not there to help me focus. And he's just so. He's very sad.
Speaker 2:Actually, he did do loads of great things for the church, but he doesn't feel that he is doing enough. He's a very humble person. But Jerome, augustine, others, they have this other view where it's like with widowhood you can, it's like you're unmarried, it's like you were never married in the first place, sort of thing. A lot of people said Paul was a widow, widower, oh yeah, a widower. That's true, although Clement says him and his wife just decided to have different ministries in different areas, you know. So they just lived as if they were single, because that is technically what he says.
Speaker 1:I wish you were like me, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So yeah, anyway, it's an important thing, even when it fails to be a proper institution that's properly paid and everything it's still always considered important, so often comes back up where widows will have, will effectively have a consecrated position. So it can be a widow or a consecrated virgin would effectively fulfill the same sort of role, but widows often like leader in the ancient world. They were often seen as wiser and more stable.
Speaker 1:So is it the case with Monica. She is able to step into this role of widow because she's older and wiser and has this proven track record of, you know, discipling her family and things. So the perception of her in that role is strong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and the success of her. She may have had one or two daughters we don't exactly know, because Perpetua, in one letter, augustine says she's a virgin, but then there's also a reference to him having an abbess who's a sister, who was a widow. So some people think he's just using the word virgin metaphorically or something. Others think that, so then it will be referring to the same person. Some people think he's just using the word virgin, like metaphorically or something. Others think that, so then it will be referring to the same person. Some people think that he has two sisters, and if Monica had two daughters who both became abbesses, that would be incredible and really that probably is more likely. So that, yeah, so Perpetua, and then possibly another one who, yeah, ran these abbeys and then they've converted loads of people and they've done great work for the church through the decades before Patrick dies.
Speaker 1:So maybe then, following on from that, let's think about Monica as the founder of Augustinianism and how she's depicted in art and the way in which seeing her as a nun and she's almost like projected back as the later patterns of monasticism, or being a nun in artwork, and she is seen as the one who's the true founder of the Augustinian order and Augustine himself is a member of that order. What about that? How does that work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that really, when we think about Monica's advice to her children and everything and how she wanted them to be ascetic, and then seeing Augustine wasn't going ascetic, she was like at least try not to be too sinful. But she saw with her other kids they weren't going down that road and so she just gave them a fully ascetic ideal. And so one of you know, it seems like one of her children just decided to never get married and just be constantly in the ministry. Other ones later in life became part of the ministry and her grandkid, she, gets to be part of the ministry in different ways. So she gave all this advice that then became a pattern of monasticism which then augustine so he had his rule is based on the rule that his sister already had in her abbey and that seems to have been based on the advice of monica.
Speaker 2:Obviously Perpetua will have added her own stuff from her own personal experience in a way that Monica wouldn't have understood yet as she was married at that time. And still it seems like basically the core advice that's at the heart of the Augustinian rule for men and women and was Monica's advice, it's her wisdom and everything, and so it's basically her rule and it gets modified first by Perpetua, then by Augustine, but it begins with Monica. So she really does found the order in quite a literal way and that's often later seen as metaphorical, but it seems, following the letters and the lives of of augustine from close to his life, it seems it really is that way around that monica founded it all and is it that, after the finding of her relics, that that helps to elevate her historically?
Speaker 2:yeah, there's a real rediscovery of her and um, so that gives a boost, especially in italy and um, so it doesn't go too much beyond Italy. So in France we still see a lot of that hyper-focus on Augustine, but in Italy there is suddenly people start thinking all right, let's look again at Monica, because these are the relics we've been given, and was she buried in Italy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, yeah, yeah, at her own request, but she had earlier requested to be in Africa, so that's how they managed to find her. And then there is with the Islamic invasions of North Africa and everything. A lot of relics and stuff get lost. But then she's this great African saint whose relics remain in Italy.
Speaker 1:And the Africanness of Monica is important to understanding her, isn't it? And that sometimes that is also overlooked in the cult of Augustine, because he's, like, pulled into the orbit of Europe in the piety, the art, the culture. But she's very solidly African, isn't she?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely, and uh, yeah.
Speaker 2:So augustine's dad patrick, he's um a punic, so he's basically middle eastern or canaanite, uh, which does explain why augustine's so nervous about all the passages where they have to kill all the canaanites and he's always like well, it's really a metaphor for battling sin and stuff. He never likes the idea, whereas maybe Monica is more well. She does seem more heartened, more literal, with biblical stuff, and so one of the reasons she's more comfortable with that is there's fewer passages telling everyone to kill her, to kill all the Berbers or something.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, there's none Africans are always good in the Bible except Pharaoh, a couple of okay, he's an outlier yeah yeah, yeah, so she's.
Speaker 2:So that is something to her that, um augustine has a different view about some things because he's half punic and he's culturally roman, which is another thing that's complicated in the bible, um, where she's just african, and that becomes quite a simple way of reading the Bible and she can take joy in a lot of passages that Augustine is much more nervous about.
Speaker 1:Ok, and in that depiction of her as an African. I think that is something that perhaps people are more discovering now and she's being appreciated for who she really was. I think maybe one thing for us to just explore about her is also her as a theologian, as a philosopher and Augustine himself recognises that about her, that she is Because she's not formally academically trained in the way that he is, and why that's important to state. But so one Just recently I heard somebody say and they were trying to account for the failure of a particular church movement I can't exactly remember what it was, but it's a hysterical church movement in a country or something and they were saying the reason it failed is because the leaders of it were not academically trained. And the perception in this person's mind is obviously, if you're not academically trained, there's no theological depth or you're not going to know what you're talking about or something. And of course Jesus made that obvious mistake by selecting people who were not academically trained, which is why the Jesus movement died out completely in the first century. Oh no, it didn't did it. Oh, hang on. Oh yeah, maybe Jesus was right on that.
Speaker 1:But that same sort of tension arises, doesn't it? Because people go well, monica can't be taken seriously because she wasn't academically trained, whereas Augustine now there's someone you can take seriously because he's properly academically trained. Whereas Augustine now there's someone you can take seriously because he's properly academically trained but his academic training took him into manichaeism, so it had a catastrophically bad effect on him. But anyway, the point I want to get to is Augustine, even in his own works, is aware that Monica is a powerful philosophical and theological thinker In spite of, or maybe because of, her lack of academic training. Do you want to talk about that a little bit? I mean, I think he writes a book, doesn't? He called Against the Academics.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that one. And Monica calls academics a very rude word which I won't repeat, but she does not think very highly of the page in academics. Well, let's say she calls them idiots.
Speaker 1:That'll do for now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But why does she do that? What's going on in that conversation? Go on, tell us about that.
Speaker 2:I think there's so many times Augustine talks about these very kind of highfalutin ideas and it just seems to grate on her. So she's loving that Augustine's talking about Jesus more, because he had obviously talked about God in a vague sense. Yuck, he had obviously talked about God in a vague sense, yeah so. But yeah so, he totally believed in God as a pagan and a maniche. And there's an interesting letter from his old pagan tutor, in Madurush I think, where he was in school, and him basically. But it's weird how, if you're so used to that version of Christianity, they only talks about God. It seems as if this guy's a Christian because he's like I really hope that you can. You know that you reconcile with God, and I think you're in a time of wandering right now, Very caring about his old son Quite pious.
Speaker 2:It's quite pious about his God and hoping and seeing oh, augustine strayed away from God, god, but I'm hoping he'll come back, but it's a, it's a total pagan god he's talking about, yeah, so I think monica has seen augustine talk about god vaguely before, um, and so if he's just talking about god in vague sense, uh, she's not too impressed, uh, and so if that I think any time like that were great on her, and then at one time it may not have even been the worst thing, he said, but there's just maybe the straw that broke the camel's back and she said, oh, all these academics of yours they're all idiots.
Speaker 2:Let's just leave it at that, yeah um, yeah, and everyone just found it so funny. They were all laughing. They all had to end the discussion then and they couldn't start it that day. So, yeah, so she had that particular view and particularly when it comes to Augustine wants him to, Because when he was younger she was eager that he gets his education, but she's seen where it has gotten him and so she's definitely run out of patience for it. And obviously her Berberism is also helpful in that, because we think about Tertullian is not at all keen on the pagan academics and so, and with Berbers, we often see and this is something where, even though Augustine always tries to appreciate Monica's teaching for the longest time he struggles with the fact that she was an anthropomorphist. What was an anthropomorphist? What's an?
Speaker 2:anthropomorphist in this sense, so in this sense, it's the idea that God, the Father, in particular, has a humanoid form.
Speaker 1:She thinks that the Bible has an accurate description of the father. Basically.
Speaker 2:She trusts the scripture more than the academics, of whom she's not keen. Yeah, so yeah, and it's totally that. So Augustine, with loads of stuff, keeps trying to move towards it. So one of the reasons he felt he could convert to Christianity is when Ambrose said, oh, christians don't actually believe in the anthropomorphism thing.
Speaker 1:And then he was like right, so then he latches on to that and then doesn't he, as I recall, he, he finds the analogy of numbers better, like, does the number one exist? And he goes well, it does exist. Does it exist in any place? No, does it exist in no? Ah, so God is more like the existence of a numeral than a person, like a human or a person, and I remember reading that sort of I think that's the kind I'm summarizing slightly there, but I remember being appalled by that and just thinking, oh wow, like imagine thinking that the Father, son and Holy Spirit are more, are closer to the existence of numerals than to human beings who are literally described as in the image of God, and I thought, wow, what kind of a mind would find that an appealing choice, whereas, of course, monica would have been saying you know, augustine, what are you talking about? That's absolute rubbish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So that is something where, so loads of times he does want to trust in her philosophy. He only towards the end of his life like when it comes to his commentary when he's talking about moses seeing the father he does finally bring himself to say, yeah, he actually saw the father and he has to find some way of making sense of that, but it takes him ages. So there are things he has a big for. I find today, probably the equivalent with evolution. Loads of people have a real problem and there's loads of great christians who are evolution and everything, but loads of ones they can't read. Loads of people have a real problem and there's loads of great christians who are evolution and everything, but loads of ones they can't read loads of bits of scripture because they're like, oh, that that really seems like jesus is saying he actually made everything in in a week. So I'm just trying to ignore that bit. I can't.
Speaker 1:I find the same sort of stress augustine has about anthropomorphism a lot of people have in that way, um, just personally, and so yeah, and and so this tension with the academies and, as you say to tullian and I think what people often perceive to tullian as saying and I therefore imagine it happens to monica is they think, oh, because tullian goes well, what has jerusalem got to do with Athens, meaning, what has church thinking got to do with Greek philosophical thinking? And then, quite often, when I've shared that and tried to explain it, somebody often comes to me afterwards or writes to me later and says something like oh, hang on. I think it's really important for Christians to to think properly, think rigorously. There's no point in throwing your brain away. So for them, the only kind of thinking that is possible is greek thinking. Or the only people who think rigorously are pagans thinking from a, like a, a system outside of Christ.
Speaker 1:And of course, tertullian is an immensely powerful thinker and he doesn't mean let's not do any thinking, let's kind of just believe without engaging our brains. That is insanely not what Tertullian means. We think in a better way, a deeper way. We are thinking in. Our logic is harmonizing with the logic who is christ, jesus. So I always perceive monica is more like that, where she's not saying, oh, stop thinking, augustine. She's really saying to augustine. Why don't you think better, think more consistently, think more j Jesus-centeredly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And so there's this one time when she's quite humble, and so when Augustine first tries to get her involved in these debates she says what are you doing? I've never heard of a woman entering into one of these sorts of debates in any of your books. And then Augustine says I don't care about the judgment of the proud and the ignorant talking about the academics. So even then, before he's baptized, he does think the academics are proud and ignorant, even if it takes him a while to lose all of the stuff he took from the academics. But anyway he says that and there will be some, believe me, who will find my talking with you here far more pleasing than the platitudes of the highbrow stuff.
Speaker 2:There were plenty of philosopher women in ancient times and I rather like your philosophy. So he does kind of get this early on that that's the direction he should be moving in and he knows how we should appreciate Monica. But he's always honest about exactly how far he's come with that and what he believes and what he doesn't. But yeah, we do see with Monica that she has a very convincing idea about, or loads of ideas about, christianity and she loads of times disagrees with Augustine and she brings very good points and so the idea that evil. So at one point he thinks evil always existed. And then Monica tells him off for that and says no, evil didn't always exist. And so that becomes something Augustine totally believes later. But it's only because Monica picked him up on it that he believes that, and there's loads of stuff like that and yeah, Augustine's very famous for his conclusions about evil, but he's just ripping them off his mum.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, Okay, well, let's pull this to a conclusion, and just what we want to kind of leave with is this sense that the vision of a moniker that is caused by people only reading the Confessions of Augustine is a false view of moniker really, and Augustine himself didn't intend people to only think about moniker in terms of the Confessions. But it's a funny thing that quite often people who are zealously Augustinians kind of fix so much on the Confessions that they overlook other things, like particularly the letters of Augustine, because in the letters of Augustine you get that more full picture of him, particularly with his family relations and things. And that's what we would urge people to do then as we come to the end of this, is try and engage with the full picture of Monica and see her as this real person who is a powerful theologian and the real founder of the Augustinian order.