Laudator Temporis Acti

Robin Lane Fox, Augustine: Conversions to Confessions (New York: Basic Books, 2015), p. 315 with note on p. 631:

On the night of his 'conversion' Licentius left to go out to the lavatory, where he sat loudly chanting his favourite line from the Psalms, 'O God of hosts, convert us...', set to Ambrose's new music. Monnica hammered him for singing these words in such an improper place. He tried to answer back: if an enemy was detaining him in the lavatory, surely God would heed his words? Monnica was not impressed with his facetiousness. It took Augustine on the following morning to show him that his singing about 'conversion' had almost been prophetic.²⁷ Even the time and place, Augustine observed, had been apt, whatever Monnica said. The night was dark, the lavatory filthy, and the conversion of which Licentius sang was a conversion from the 'darkness' of error and the 'filth of the body and its stains'.

27. Aug. Ord. I, 8.22-3.

Licentius might have quoted sacred scripture in his defense, e.g. 1 Thessalonians 5.17 (Pray without ceasing) or Psalm 139.2, 7 (Thou knowest my downsitting....Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?).

Related post: Abodes of Demons.

Labels: noctes scatologicae