Spirituality

Communitarian Dimension

What we have said up till now might lead the reader to think that Saint Augustine was someone who preferred lead a solitary life and that his spirituality was that of a hermit. This is absolutely false, for Augustine loved to be in the company of his friends. In his Confessions he narrates how as a child he was always looking forward to play with friends (Confessions 1,9,15); then as an adolescence he had an intimate friend with whom he shared common interests and who was exceedingly dear to him (Confessions 4,4,7), to such an extent as considering him as half his own soul: “I felt that my soul and his (that of my friend) had been but one soul in two bodies…” (Confessions 4,6,11); and finally, in his youth-hood, friendship ties consolidated. He loved:

… the charms of talking and laughing together and kindly giving way to each other’s wishes, reading elegantly written books together, sharing jokes and delighting to honour one another, disagreeing occasionally but without rancour, as a person might disagree with himself, and lending piquancy by that rare disagreement to our much more frequent accord. We would teach and learn from each other, sadly missing any who were absent and blithely welcoming them when they returned. Such signs of friendships sprang from the hearth of friends who loved and knew their love returned, signs to be read in smiles, words, glances and a thousand gracious gestures. So were sparks kindled and our minds were fused inseparably, out of many becoming one.
(Confessions 4,8,13)

We can say that Augustine was naturally inclined to live in company. So much so that as an adult he and some of his friends came up with the idea of living together, to form a community of men dedicated to studies and detached from worldly worries, in the line of other already existing philosophic communities.

Many of my friends and I were greatly exercised in mind as we talked together and shared our loathing of the annoying upheavals inseparable from human life; and we almost made up our minds to live a life of leisure far removed from the crowds. We would set up this place of leisurely retirement in such a way that any possessions we might have would be made available to the community and we would pool our resources in a single fund. The sincerity of our friendship should ensure that this thing should not belong to one person and that to another: there would be one single property formed out of many; the whole would belong to each of us, and all things would belong to all.
(Confessions 6,14,24)

But some of us were already married and others hoped to be, and as soon as we began to consider whether our womenfolk would consent to these arrangements the whole elaborate plan fell apart, came to pieces in our hands and had to be discarded.
(Confessions 6,14,24)

Eventually Augustine refined the idea and this project was carried out for some months “… at Cassiciacum, where we found rest in you (God) from the hurly-burly of the world.” (Confessions 9,3,5) When, later on, he returned to his hometown Thagaste, strong of the monastic communities that he had seen in Italy, he transformed this idea into his own monastic ideal whose aim was twofold: the search of God through community life.

Before all else, dear brothers, love God and then your neighbour, because these are the chief commandments given to us.
(Rule 1)

The main purpose for your having come together is to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.
(Rule 1,2)

Here we note that friendship (from now on called fraternal communion) is no longer an end in itself, as the young Augustine used to think. Now we see that friendship ties (fraternal ties) are envisaged with an end: the search for God, thus the concept of friendship is elevated to a spiritual dimension.

Furthermore for Saint Augustine, living in community is a practical way by means to live the fundamental human vocation, which as we said earlier is to realise that man is created in the image of God and eventually to become more like God. This is stated clearly at the end of the first chapter of the monastic rule where Augustine affirms that man has become the temple of God.

Let all of your then live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honouring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.
(Rule 1,8)

In this citation, the reference to ‘honouring God’ may lead us to think of the cult rendered to God in prayer, yet as Fr. VAN BAVEL notes for Augustine ‘honouring God’ refers first and foremost to human relations between the friars or sisters who together form the community. So much so that when Augustine comments about Psalm 132 he states that:

… those who live in concordance honour the Lord. For those who are in discordance do not honour the Lord.
(Exposition of Psalm 132,13)

For this reason an Augustinian friar or sister who intents to closely follow the teaching of Saint Augustine, in order to truly honour God, should first of all seek to establish good loving relations with the members of the community.

While the young Augustine was inclined towards friendship for its own sake, eventually as he grew older and came in touch with philosophy, he saw it wise that friends – close friends – should live together and together search for truth. Even though this plan never became a reality, in due course he combined this idea with the Christian monastic ideal and eventually he formed a group of close friends who lived together and together searched for the ultimate truth, God himself.