Sobre la santidad de Mónica, la madre de San Agustín

Abstract

The hagiographers of Saint Monica present her as a great saint; Biographers and other scholars of Saint Augustine offer a less edifying image of her. To whom does Saint Augustine agree, to whom we owe how much we know about it? This study examines the Confessions of the Saint - the most abundant source of information - from that perspective. The first part deals with books 1-8; the second, from book 9. The first shows how the son combines, from the moral-spiritual point of view, praise and criticism of the mother for the role she played while accompanying him on his double journey: towards a coherent Christian life within the Catholic Church and towards success in the society of the empire; the second shows how Agustín eliminates this dichotomy, offering a unified image of Monica, the one that prevailed among her faithful. In the midst of it there was a conversion of the mother, to some extent comparable to that of the son.