The Doubting Augustine: The Deletion of Monica from Fourteenth-Century Vitae Augustini in the Augustinian Order of Hermits

Abstract

This study examines the erasure of Monica in five hagiographies of Augustine written by the Order of Hermits of St Augustine in the fourteenth century. It investigates how the character of Monica functions as a foil to Augustine's religious doubt in his Confessions and why that emphasis was problematic for the Augustinian Hermits. The essay will demonstrate that the presence of Monica was incompatible with the hermits’ desire to showcase Augustine's eremitism as the cornerstone of his religious practice. In order to emphasize Augustine's devotion to the eremitical life, the hermits denied any substantial presence to Monica, who was a problematic reminder both of Augustine's doubt about monasticism and of the hermits’ doubts about the legitimacy of their parentage. This study explores the hermits’ doubt about the role of Monica in Augustine's religious formation, and how that doubt was indicative of their institutionalized way of looking at their faith.