Nicholas Hatt - The last shall be first, and the first last: The pattern of conversion in Augustine’s Confessions and the vision at Ostia.

The pattern of conversion by which Augustine and his mother Monica come to experience the Vision at Ostia is characteristic of the whole structure of the Confessions, as a movement away from worldly experience and multiplicity to the inner unity and stability of all things. This itinerarium results in the pilgrim’s renewed relation to both the created order and the foundation of the pilgrim’s own self-knowledge. Augustine undertakes this pilgrimage through his intellectual and moral struggles, while Monica approaches it through her devotional life and ascetic upbringing. That the vision at Ostia is achieved by each of them through these very different modes indicates the universality of the itinerarium, accessible by all persons from a variety of beginnings. The narrative of the work not only demonstrates these principles, but enables the reader to experience this same pilgrimage as the work unfolds, effecting her or his own conversion.