it is therefore no coincidence that so many important figures, including both Monica and Patricius, die in this book. For Augustine understands this sacrament as the death of the self and a sacrifice to God: “Vnde ipse homo Dei nomine consecratus et Deo uotus, in quantum mundo moritur ut Deo uiuat, sacrificium est” (”Thus man himself, consecrated in the name of God, and vowed to God, is a sacrifice in so far as he dies to the world that he may live to God” [civ. 10.6]). In the largest sense, therefore, any non-Christian death can be seen as a negative figure of Christian baptism, or as a sacrifice to a false idol. In a Christian narrative of conversion, such deaths can be effectively dramatized by depicting the unfulfilled promise of baptism. The bathhouse episode presents an obvious example: its waters, figuratively interpreted, remind the reader that the path to God leads to baptism. The waters should indeed prompt a sacrifice–but one signaled by baptism, not by the celebration of libido.The figural relationship between the waters of the bathhouse and those of baptism is further suggested by the re-appearance of the baths when Augustine mourns Monica’s death. This episode begins at her funeral with the ritual re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice, the fulfillment of the binding of Isaac, which, as Vance has reminded us, “underscored transformations of the sacrificial act upon which Christian life, as well as its liturgy, was grounded.” This liturgy provides a backdrop for Augustine’s discussion of his struggle with tears: “Cum ecce corpus elatum est, imus, redimus sine lacrimis. nam neque in eis precibus quas tibi fudimus, cum offerretur pro ea sacrificium pretii nostri iam iuxta sepulchrum, posito cadavere priusquam deponeretur, sicut illic fieri solet, nec in eis ergo precibus flevi …” (”When her body was carried out, we went and returned without a tear. Even during those prayers which we pured out to you when the sacrifice of our redemption was offered for her, when her corpse was placed beside the tomb prior to burial, as was the custom there, not even at those prayers did I weep” [9.12.32]). As an adolescent, Augustine had been the victim of a sacrifice to libidinousness that had marked his distance from his mother’s faith; now, he has been united with both his mother and her faith. In baptism, he has died so that his spirit might live; in the so-called “vision at Ostia” he has achieved communion with Monica; and at her funeral he offers sacrificium pretii nostri. His family and faith are complete, as signified through the sacraments of baptism and eucharist, through which he can sacrifice himself to God.Augustine realizes that his sacrifice to libidinousness has been redeemed in his acceptance of the sacraments. Why, then, does he cry? He knows that Monica is in the city of God and that he will again see her there. His sadness and tears belie the joy that he should be feeling. These struggles lead him to the bathhouse: “visum etiam mihi est ut irem lavatum, quod audieram inde balneis nomen inditum quia graeci balanion dixerint, quod anxietatem pellat ex animo” (”I decided to go and take a bath, because I had heard that baths, for which the Greeks say balaneion, get their name from throwing anxiety out of the mind” [9.12.32]). In effect, Augustine is attempting a baptism of the body, a cure for his ailment through literal cleansing. But the efficacy of the baptismal sacrament renders this literal attempt moot. Moreover, this return to the bathhouse raises the textual ghost, at least, of Patricius and his carnal sacrifice, for it would be difficult for Augustine’s readers to forget the horror of the first bathhouse scene. It is therefore appropriate that his spiritual father’s words–which, we will remember, Augustine has already likened to a fontem salientis aquae–signal his recovery: “ut eram in lecto meo solus, recordatus sum veridicos versus Ambrosii tui” (”Alone upon my bed I remembered the very true verses of your Ambrose” [9.12.32]). Whereas Patricius displays a drunken idolotry that serves God’s creation, Ambrose’s recognition of the Creator can root out Augustine’s most recent sin: “deus, creator omnium / polique rector vestiens” (”Creator of all things. / You rule the heavens” [9.12.32]). With this assurance, Augustine can finally offer the sacrifice of spiritual tears for those who are not baptized: “Ego autem, iam sanato corde ab illo vulnere in quo poterat redargui carnalis affectus, fundo tibi, deus noster, pro illa famula tua longe aliud lacrimarum genus, quod manat de concusso spiritu consideratione periculorum omnis animae quae in Adam moritur” (”My heart is healed of that wound; I could be reproached for yielding to that emotion of physical kinship. But now, on behalf of your maidservant, I pour out to you, our God, another kind of tears. They flow from a spirit struck hard by considering the perils threatening every soul that dies in Adam” [9.13.34]). Augustine prays that his spiritual tears might effect the baptism of those souls outside the faith, and continues by offering petitions for his mother’s sins (9.13.35). Having conquered his habit of earthly tears, he has finally learned how to drink from the fountain of the Creator, to sacrifice his former carnal self to the will of God.The Confessions not only records, but also enacts spiritual sacrifice. Augustine opens books 4, 5, 8, and 9 with the idea of sacrifice. 25 In Book 4 he offers himself: “da mihi … immolare tibi hostiam iubilationis” (”Allow me … to sacrifice to you a victim of jubilation” [4.1.1]); in Book 5, his confessions themselves: “Accipe sacrificium confessionum mearum” (”Accept the sacrifice of my confessions” [5.1.1]). Finally, he recalls Psalm 115: 17 in the proems of both Books 8 and 9. Here is the opening to the book of baptisms: “O domine, ego servus tuus, ego servus tuus et filius ancillae tuae: dirupisti vincula mea, tibi sacrificabo hostiam laudis” (”O Lord, I am your servant, I am your servant and the son of your handmaid. You have snapped my chains. I will sacrifice to you the offering of praise” [9.1.1]).26 If Isaac can literally be a similitude, then by extension Augustine’s text can literally be a sacrifice, which indeed is one of the bishop’s fundamental understandings of the term “confession.” This, finally, explains why the Isaac story is so crucial to the idea of allegoresis: for a sacrifice is properly a sign that points to the charity of both the one sacrificing and God. Augustine writes: “Sacrificium ergo visibile invisibilis sacrificii sacramentum, id est sacrum signum est…. Proinde verum sacrificium est omne opus quo agitur ut sancta societate inhaereamus deo, relatum scilicet ad illum finem boni quo veraciter beati esse possimus” (”A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice….Thus a true sacrifice is every work which is done that we may be united to God in holy fellowship, and which has a reference to that supreme good and end in which alone we can be truly blessed” [civ. 10.5, 6]). Particular scenes like the ones concerning the bathhouse, as well as the structure of the narrative, achieve their fullest meanings when readers find signification beyond the story of a young man’s conversions. Augustine would hope that the understanding of Patricius’s joy in the bathhouse as both a sacrifice to libido and as a parodic inversion of the Isaac story constitutes participation in the sacrifices of praise and baptism. This is where the reader’s agency should become congruent with not only Augustine’s, but also even Isaac’s and Christ’s. The narrative of the Confessions depicts the protagonist’s willing sacrifice of himself to God, which rectifies his father’s earlier sacrifice to licentiousness. Equally important, however, is the author’s act of sacrifice in the creation of a work–a visible, sacred sign–so that his readers might unite in holy fellowship with God. This is perhaps the sacrifice Augustine most ardently sought after in composing the Confessions, for the act of making signs of praise constitutes a sacrifice that will, he hoped, remain for eternity, along with the blessed seed of Abraham.Notes1 Eugene Vance, “Grave Art: Early Christian Tombs and Figures of Mourning in Augustine’s Confessions,” presented to the Augustine Seminar at the University of Pennsylvania, James J. O’Donnell, Director, January 31, 1994. For two of Vance’s other articles on Augustine’s semiotics, see “Augustine’s Confessionsand the Poetics of the Law,” and “Saint Augustine: Language as Temporality,” in Mervelous Signals: Poetics and Sign Theory in the Middle Ages (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 1-33 and 34-50, respectively; further references are in the former essay, 3n. Back2 Jerome Baschet, “Medieval Abraham: Between Fleshly Patriarch and Divine Father,” MLN 108 (1993): 738. Back3 Baschet, 743. Back4 Erich Auerbach, “Odysseus’ Scar,” in Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (1946; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 12. Back5 Quotations are from de doctrina christiana, ed. Joseph Martin, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina (hereafter CCSL) 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1962), and will hereafter be cited in the text; translations are from On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson, Jr., The Library of Liberal Arts (Indianapolis: Bobbs- Merrill, 1958). Back6 Pierre Courcelle, Recherches sur les Confessions de saint Augustin (1950; 2nd ed. Paris: E. de Boccard, 1968), 124-132. Back7 Quotations are from Augustine, Confessions, ed. James J. O’Donnell, 3 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), and will be cited in the text; citations from O’Donnell’s critical apparatus will appear by volume and page number. English translations are from Henry Chadwick’s translation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); I have occasionally silently modified some of his punctuation. Back8 “ad eum autem ducebar abs te nesciens, ut per eum ad te sciens ducerer” (”I was led to him by you, unaware that through him, in full awareness, I might be led to you”); “sed longe est a peccatoribus salus, qualis ego tunc aderam, et tamen propinquabam sensim et nesciens” (”From sinners such as I was at that time, salvation is far distant. Nevertheless, gradually, though I did not realize it, I was drawing closer”) (5.13.23). In the next paragraph, Augustine again claims that the sermons’ Christian content was beginning to influence him: “et dum cor aperirem ad excipiendum quam diserte diceret, pariter intrabat et quam vere diceret, gradatim quidem” (”While I opened my heart in noting the eloquence with which he spoke, there also entered no less the truth which he affirmed, though only gradually” 5.14.24). Back9 See Augustine, de libero arbitrio, ed. W. M. Green, CCSL 29 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1970), esp. 1.3.8.20 and 1.4.9.22. Back10 Vance’s talk was accompanied by slides of such sarcophogi. Back11 In this text Augustine quotes Hebrews 11:17-19 and Romans 8:32. Quotations are from de civitate dei, ed. Bernard Dombart and Alphonse Kalb, CCSL 47-48 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1955), hereafter cited as civ. in my text. Translations are from The City of God, trans. Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1950). Back12At least one author has found an application of the story’s structure to sexual treachery: in Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston likens the proposed marriage of the protagonist Janie to the sacrifice of Isaac. When Janie asks, “Who Ah’m goin’ tuh marry off-hand lak dat?”, her grandmother Nanny responds: “De Lawd will provide” (1937; rpt. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978), 27. Back13 Except where noted, quotations of the Bible are from Augustine’s own citations, which often differ drastically from those of the Vulgate. I therefore cite both Biblical text and the text of Augustine’s in which it is found. On the problems of citing scriptural texts in Augustinian scholarship, see O’Donnell, I: lxix-lxxi. Back14 Augustine, sermon 51, ed. Migne, Patrologiae Latinae, vol. 38, col. 345. Part of this is also quoted in O’Donnell, III: 119, as a note to Augustine’s phrase “tabulas quae matrimoniales vocantur” (9.9.19). I adopt O’Donnell’s punctuation for those sentences he cites. Back15 For an anthropological survey of women’s role as gifts, see Gayle Rubin, “The Traffic in Women: Notes on the ‘Political Economy’ of Sex,” in Toward an Anthropology of Women, ed. Rayna R. Reiter (New York: Monthly Review, 1975), 157-210; esp. 171- 77. Back16 Augustine, Quaestionum in Heptateuchum, ed. I. Fraipont, CCSL 33 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1958); the translation is from the Douay version of the Bible. I am grateful to Carolyn Jacobson for suggesting the relevance of Lot to this topic. Back17 This is the Vulgate version and Douay translation. It is interesting to note that Augustine’s knowledge of this passage differs drastically from ours: the closest he comes to quoting it is in de catechizandis rudibus: “ut diligeremus deum, qui sic nos dilexit, ut unicum filium suum mitteret, qui humilitate nostrae mortalitatis indutus et a peccatoribus et pro peccatoribus moreretur” (cat. rud. 17.28), ed. I. B. Bauer, CCSL 46 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1959). Not only did Augustine know this passage in different wording, he also did not cite it nearly as frequently as one would expect from its contemporary reputation (according to various word searches on the CETEDOC Early Christian Latin Writings CD-ROM). Back18 On Augustine’s use of the prodigal son in the Confessions, see Georg Nicolaus Knauer, “Peregrination Animae,” Hermes 85 (1957): 216-48; Leo Charles Ferrari, “The Theme of the Prodigal Son in Augustine’s Confessions,” Recherches Augustiniennes 12 (1977): 105-18; and O’Donnell, II: 95-98. The program begins in earnest at 1.18.28. Back19 O’Donnell, II: 97. Back20 O’Donnell, II: 95- 96n. Back21 See Knauer, 219, who refers to Courcelle, 126ff, in pointing out that Ambrose does not refer to the Prodigal Son in De Isaac vel anima. Back22 Ferrari, 107. Augustine’s interpretation is in qu. ev. 2.33, quoted at length in O’Donnell, II: 97. Back23 R. Howard Bloch makes a similar point about the expulsion of woman from Augustine’s gendered theology: “In the sacramental theology elaborated by Augustine,… the relation of the signified to its sign is cast as a relation of the speaker to his word that is also given an explicitly familial cast in the relation of Father to Son, who occupies the position of the woman with respect to the man,” he notes, subsequently quoting De Trinitate (PL 8:936). “The goal of Augustine’s theology of the sign, and of history, is precisely a transcendence of the body by a journey through perception and cognition toward the male-defined intellectio that he associates with a union of parent and child. This union, which is indistinguishable from the sacrament itself, not only implies a return of the Son to the Father, but represents a convergence of the form of knowledge with its object, a recuperation of the names that are the ‘images of things.’ Thus, the paternalized relation between father and son, between the speaker and his word, implies an ontological priority of origin to effect, of engenderer to engendered, which, in philosophy, is expressed as a priority of the genre over its species” (Medieval Misogyny and the Invention of Western Romantic Love [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991], 34). Back24Augustine, de natura et origine animae, ed. Charles F. Urba and Joseph Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 60 (1913; rpt. New York: Johnson Reprints, 1962); my translation. This text is entitled de anima et eius origine in the Migne’s edition. In this and many other passages that discuss baptism as the fulfillment of circumcision, Augustine follows the example of St. Paul. Paul uses literal circumcision to represent the old law; those beholden to the new covenant have circumcised hearts (Rom. 2:29). Those with circumcised hearts, Paul’s following chapters imply, are those who have been baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection (Rom. 6:1-11). Back25 See O’Donnell, III: 73. Back26 O’Donnell notes that the indicative guture sacrificabo here is a change from the subjunctive sacrificem in Book 8 (III: 4, 73). Back