[In the following essay, Desprez examines how St. Augustine and St. Fulgentius influenced monasticism in Africa and surveys monasticism in Spain.]

A. ROMAN AND VANDAL AFRICA: ST. AUGUSTINE

African monasticism¹ owes the form it maintained until the Arab conquest principally to St. Augustine. The idea of consecrated virginity had found in Africa one of its proper homes, as Tertullian's On the veil of virgins and St. Cyprian's On the conduct of virgins eloquently witness. In 393, the Council of Hippo sought to bring solitary virgins together into communal groups or to place them under the care of respectable women.² As a priest of the diocese of Hippo, Augustine took part; perhaps the Council's rulings on this subject bear the mark of his work and thought.

We will consider, in order:

1) Augustine's own life and the evolution of his thought on the monastic life: a) his successive roles; b) the model he followed and the ideal he proposed; c) The Rule of St. Augustine, an epitome of this ideal written for the lay monastery he founded at Hippo. In fact, we will offer only a brief summary of this Rule, since it has quite recently been given an intensive commentary. We will seek merely to place it appropriately and to fill it out by reference to other writings by the Bishop of Hippo.

2) Augustine's interventions in situations outside Hippo and the particular questions he dealt with on these occasions: a) the work of monks; b) holy virginity; c) the etymology of the word “monk”; d) explications of issues in three areas; e) grace and free will.

3) The character of St. Fulgentius of Ruspe (468-532) will epitomize for us the monasticism of the Vandal period.

1. ST. AUGUSTINE, MONK AND MONASTIC LAWGIVER

A) HIS CONVERSION AND HIS FOUNDATIONS

Augustine³ converted at Milan in 386. His meeting with a certain Ponticianus had been a turning point in his spiritual development. This compatriot of his had told him and his friend Alypius of St. Anthony's way of life and had made him aware of the existence of a monastery in Milan under Ambrose's patronage. Further, two of Ponticianus' associates had chanced on a hut near Trier occupied by some “servants of God” and had found there a copy of The Life of Anthony. Moved by the contagious example of this holy hermit, they had renounced their worldly careers and their upcoming marriages. When their fiancées learned of this, these women also consecrated their lives to God.⁴ Like Abba Arsenius, Augustine felt himself stirred by the heroism of this unschooled ascetic.⁵ It was a lesson which was to ripen and bear fruit in the garden of Milan.

Augustine, then, returned to the faith of his childhood, renounced his mistress and all thought of marriage, and decided to seek God through asceticism and study. At Cassiciacum, with his mother and several friends he led for some time the quiet life he'd planned. (The treatise On order, to which we will revert,⁶ dates from this period.) On his return to Africa, Augustine continued, at Tagaste with Alypius and a few friends, the way of life he'd begun at Cassiciacum. But he was soon to be torn from his contemplative retreat by a decision of the people of Hippo: ordained a priest against his own inclination in 391, Augustine was shortly made coadjutor with Valerius and, in 395 or 396, he succeeded to the bishopric of Hippo. But he could not give up his monastic ideal. While he was a priest, he obtained from Valerius the use of a garden alongside the church and there he built a monastery where he led, insofar as he could, the life of a monk. Once Valerius' death had made him sole bishop of Hippo, he left this monastery so as not to disrupt its peace, but he founded another, with a more flexible regime, at the episcopal residence, and there he practiced, with his clergy, the common ownership of property and a regular schedule of spiritual exercises. In addition, while diocesan business filled his days, he worked into the night, poring over Scripture to clarify and resolve the numerous difficulties people from all over submitted to him.⁷

B) GENESIS OF AN IDEAL: PYTHAGORAS AND THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

After some ten years of study, Augustine's ideal took shape around the following text, closely paraphrased from The Acts of the Apostles:⁸ “They reached for God, with a single heart and a single soul; no one claimed anything as his own property, but they held all things in common. To each was given according to his need.” (Acts 4:32, 35b) In finding this passage and making it his own, Augustine does not appear to have been influenced by other monastic texts or experiences.⁹ He seems rather to have rediscovered the Pythagorean and Platonist model of communal life which had guided him even before his conversion, here transformed and given St. Luke's blessing.¹⁰

Book VI of The Confessions, in effect, makes the case for the failed attempt of a group of friends to retreat together from the turmoil of ordinary life: “What goods we had at our disposal would be held in common, all our inheritances dissolved into one. Thus, because of our loyal friendship, nothing would belong to one or another of us individually. All our fortunes would be as one, all belonging to each and the whole to all of us (universum singulorum esset et omnia omnium).” It seemed, therefore, that Romanianus' great wealth would shelter all the ten or so friends from need. This happy prospect, however, went up in smoke as soon as they asked themselves whether the wives involved would go along with it.¹¹

So, the problems of communal life had always preoccupied Augustine. In this he was heir to the Roman tradition of social ethics.¹² He put that same wisdom to good use in Church government and monastic organization, having transfigured it by his immersion in Scripture. The philosophical dialogue On order, written at Cassiciacum in 386, sketches out a program of life for two young men, Licentius and Trygentius. Among ascetic commonplaces, echoes most likely of those lives of Pythagoras to which Alypius refers at the end of the dialogue,¹³ one finds a few typically Augustinian maxims:

Let them give special attention to avoiding an excess of punishment, an insufficiency of pardon. Let them punish only to improve; let them avoid all indulgence toward evil. Let them regard all those over whom they have been given power as their very own. Let them be of service, as if it shames them to command; let them command as if it delights them to serve (ita seruiant ut eis dominari pudeat, ita dominentur ut eis seruire delectet). … Let them take the utmost care to avoid disputes, to bear them patiently, and to end them with dispatch (inimicitias uitent cautissime, ferent aequissime, finiant citissime).¹⁴

To this humanist groundwork, Augustine brought some familiarity with monastic life. He had been in monasteries at Milan and Rome;¹⁵ such texts as St. Jerome's Letter 22 had provided him with a glimpse of life in the Pachomian monasteries. Then, in the treatise On the customs of the Catholic Church, written at Tagaste in 388, he was to present a kind of apologia for the life led by monks and virgins. The isolation of hermits may be open to misunderstanding, but their prayerful spirit is a lesson and an example of “the life of those whom we are not permitted to see in the flesh.”¹⁶ More readily imitable is the life of those men who “spend their time together in prayer, reading and conference”: “They offer to God, the author of all their merits, a most acceptable sacrifice, a life of perfect concord and of a perfect reaching toward God (concordissimam uitam et intentissimam in Deum). Not one of them possesses anything of his own, not one is a burden on another. They devote themselves to such manual work as will provide for their bodies without turning their souls from God. …”¹⁷

These examples furnished Augustine with the framework for his life and the basic elements of his asceticism: reading, prayer, work, fasting and vigils. Pachomian operational and disciplinary principles have left fewer traces on his work. His most deeply personal thought on the monastic life, however, did not appear until after his ordination. First of all, the idea of ownership in common: “As soon as he had become a priest he founded a monastery on the church grounds and began to live there with some servants of God, following a regime [regulam] based on the holy Apostles' way of life. The foremost rule of this society was that nothing be privately owned, that everything be held in common and distributed to each according to his needs.”¹⁸

To this material communism was soon added unanimity of heart—a notion we've met with above¹⁹ but one which may also have been suggested to Augustine, shortly before he became a bishop, by a letter from Paulinus of Nola.²⁰ In any case, both these elements are present in the beginning of The Rule of St. Augustine, the Praeceptum (which was probably written around 397):

I:1. These are the things we prescribe for you who have joined a monastery: 2. First, since it is for this reason you have formed a community, live together in unanimity and have but one soul and one heart among you, reaching toward God.

(cf. Ps 67:7; Acts 4:32a)

3. And do not say: This belongs to me. Rather let everything be in common among you. Your cellarer should distribute sustenance and clothing to each of you, not equally to all (because you are not all in the same state of health), but rather to each according to his needs. This amounts to just what you read in The Acts of the Apostles: “… but everything was held in common … it was then distributed to any who stood in need.”²¹

Henceforth, this excerpt from Acts is embedded in Augustine's spirit and he will refer to it in several later writings²² as the characteristic focus of the monastic life. Thirty years later (426), the bishop will have the whole text of Acts 4:31-35 read aloud in his church, then read it out again himself, so much importance does he attach to it as the very rule he and his clergy follow in the episcopal monastery.²³

C) THE RULE OF ST. AUGUSTINE

This center of Augustine's ascetic doctrine—unanimity of heart, the holding of goods in common and the maintenance of each member by the community—is the heart of the matter, but it is not enough to serve as a complete guide to a religious life. Augustine must certainly have developed its implications in detail by spoken instruction. His departure from his lay monastery doubtless gave him the occasion to summarize these oral teachings in the text we call, in the strict sense of the phrase, The Rule of St. Augustine, and which his most recent editor terms the Praeceptum.²⁴

There was a precedent: the Ordo monasterii,²⁵ undoubtedly the oldest monastic rule originally composed in Latin, which this same editor attributes to Augustine's alter ego, Alypius. As Bishop of Tagaste, Alypius was closely associated with the monastery that had been built on some land of Augustine's family in that town. Around 393, he went to Palestine where he visited St. Jerome at Bethlehem. Alypius was a legalist; it may be that some acquaintance with rule-making texts of Pachomian or Basilian provenance inspired him to draft a rule for the monastery in his home town. The liturgical section of the Ordo monasterii (2) closely approximates the usage of the Bethlehem monastery where Cassian lived—naturally enough, if we assume that Alypius wrote it just after one of his trips to the East. In a very dense style, the author deals equally with work and reading—the warmer part of the day, the time between Sext and None and before the afternoon meal is set aside for reading (3.8-9). He orders renunciation of personal property and the holding of goods in common (4), obedience (6), mortification and silence (7, 9). He warns against grumbling (5) and indiscipline (10). Augustine took note of this practical and somewhat dry manual and, to judge by the style, gave it his stamp of approval (11) and added an introduction, in a more spiritual tone, on the love of God and one's neighbor (1).

Once he'd become coadjutor bishop, shortly after he left the lay monastery at Hippo, Augustine wrote the Praeceptum for the use of that monastery, as a memorandum or an examination of conscience on various points of the regulated life. This is the only book in which he discusses monastic life ex professo; his other treatises or digressions on the subject are products of circumstance. At Hippo, the Praeceptum appears to have been used by itself, then carried into Spain by monks fleeing the Vandals—perhaps by Donatus and his fellows, who brought a substantial library with them. At Tagaste, though, the Praeceptum was adjoined to the Ordo monasterii and, by the efforts of Alypius and of Paulinus of Nola, the two were disseminated together through Campania and southern Gaul (Arles, Tarnant), and later northern Gaul.²⁶

The Praeceptum²⁷ bases monastic life on unanimity of heart and the holding of goods in common (I). It goes on to deal with: prayer (II); fasting and, as a corollary, differences of health and the diets appropriate to various illnesses (III); the preservation of chastity, and mutual observation and correction of faults (IV); the administration of various goods and material things, particularly as this affects the sick (V). How are quarrels to be settled? How can one correct without doing harm (VI)? The prior ought to enforce the rule, but rather as a servant than a master, conscious always of his responsibilities. And awareness of these responsibilities ought to lead the brothers to obey him for God's sake (VII). But these concrete precepts, often of great psychological and spiritual acuity, are only the first step on the Augustinian path; observing them well ought to lead to the contemplation of “spiritual beauty” (VIII.1). The rule thus has a contemplative import which is not at first apparent: its praecepta uiuendi should lead to spiritualis pulchritudo, to the contemplation of Christ. On a final practical note, a weekly reading of the Rule itself will serve as a check on whether one is really living by it (VIII.2).

Brief as it is, Augustine's Rule strongly influenced St. Caesarius of Arles and The Rule of Tarnant, while its sense of charity and community counterbalanced, in The Rule of St. Benedict, the “verticalism” brought in from Egypt by The Rule of the Master. Included with other fifth and seventh century rules in the Carolingian Codices regularum, Augustine's spread far and wide during the Middle Ages, first as one monastic rule among many, then as the special rule of cathedral canons. The Ordo monasterii, on the other hand, was taken up by such “Augustinian” monastic offshoots as the Hermits of St. Augustine.

2. AUGUSTINE'S INTERVENTION IN OTHER MONASTERIES

The example of Augustine soon became contagious. Many monks and other clergy of Hippo were chosen as bishops: Profuturus and Fortunatus at Cirta (Constantine); Severus at Mileva; Possidius at Calama; Evodius at Uzala; perhaps Urbanus at Sicca Veneria and Boniface at Cataque. These bishops in turn founded monasteries of their own.²⁸ The formula “To the venerable Brother———and the brothers with him” suggests that the bishops Augustine so addressed were living with monks or other clergy, much as the Bishop of Hippo did.²⁹ Beneventus and Navatus, bishops whose seats are not known, fall into this category. Even in Hippo, the priests Eleusinus and Leporius founded two additional monasteries.³⁰

A) CARTHAGE: THE WORK OF MONKS

Although we cannot date their origin exactly, there were monasteries in Carthage as early as 394³¹ and Augustine was aware of them. Aurelian, who was bishop there, asked his colleague at Hippo to enlighten certain monks of his diocese who “wanted to live solely on the gifts of the faithful; they claimed … this better fulfilled the Gospel injunction: ‘Consider the birds of the air and the lilies of the field. …’ As a result, even among lay people with no vocation but much zeal, there have been arguments, differences of opinion, a turmoil that disrupts the Church.”³² Does this attitude derive from African indolence, or ought we to see here the influence of Messalianism?³³ Whichever, it remains that these monks claimed they wanted only to welcome such lay people as sought them out and to edify them with prayer and psalm-singing and by conversing with them; this, in their interpretation, was exactly what St. Paul had done.

In 400, Augustine responded to this invitation with the tract On the work of monks. He centers his argument on the example of Paul, who practiced and preached manual work, not just the spiritual work of teaching (III.4). He did, however, reserve to the other apostles their right to do no labor (VII.8-IX.10) and he specifically exempted any who, like Timothy, were in bad health (XV.16). Finally, he urged the giving of alms to communities of the faithful that were in need, like that of Jerusalem (XVI.17-19).

Having duly set out his examples, Augustine shows that practicing Scripture counts for more than endlessly reading it. Prayer can be quite easily reconciled with work; more, it can be enhanced:

I would like to know what those who refuse physical work do, how they occupy their time. At prayer, they answer, at chanting the psalms, at reading the word of God. A holy scheme of life, indeed, and one worthy of the sweetness of Christ. But if nothing should ever distract us from such exercises, then we will have to give up eating, too, or even preparing food for our daily meals. Now, if such mundane chores as these are forced on even the servants of God every day, because of our human nature, why would we not also set aside a few moments of the day to obey the apostolic precept? For a single prayer from an obedient man is sooner granted than ten thousand from a rebel.

Besides, even those who work with their hands can easily sing sacred songs, lightening their labors with a divine refrain. Haven't we all seen workers set their hearts and voices free from frivolous, and often vulgar, theatre-songs, without taking their hands from the task before them? What then prevents a servant of God from meditating on the Lord's law while he works with his hands or from singing the name of the Most High—provided he's devoted some time to learning what he must now call the mind (ita sane ut ad ea discenda, quae memoriter recolat, habeat seposita tempora)? There will still be an incentive for the faithful to supply by their good works some of the needs of the servants of God; the hours these men consecrate to forming the spirit, to the exclusion of any physical toil, need not reduce them to paupery. But as for those monks who give themselves over almost wholly to sacred reading, do they not find in that reading what the Apostle prescribes? A contradiction arises: they are unwilling to do as their reading suggests, yet they want to pursue, even to prolong, their reading about what it is right to do. Is there anyone who cannot see this? He profits that much the more from reading good things who is quick to put into practice what he has read.³⁴

Since not all are qualified to explain Scripture to the faithful, the brothers who can do so are assigned to take turns at this task (XVIII.21). Real physical infirmity dispenses one from heavy work (XIX.22). The brothers who come from the senatorial classes will benefit especially from this rule, because “their upbringing—though not, as they often think, the best—is gentler than others and they cannot bear the fatigues of physical labor” (XXI.25). “Now, the majority of those who consecrate themselves to the service of God are of one of two groups. Either they come from the slave class—longtime freedmen, or newly free or about to be released by their masters—or they come from the peasant class or the ranks of artisans and laborers. All such people have been more fortunate in their upbringing, in that it has been more vigorous.” Some of these men are truly called to the service of God, while others seem to have fled the harshness of their former lives in search of an easy existence. But laborers cannot claim a nonexistent physical weakness, no more can the rich gain advantage by all they have given to Christ, at the monastery or elsewhere—all must think only of the interests of Jesus Christ, in a community where all have one soul and one heart in God (XXV.32).

If the rich are physically weak, let them be assigned tasks that call for concentration and care, “lest they eat for nothing bread that is from now on, common property” (XXV.33). According to the Praeceptum,³⁵ the vast differences in the living conditions of various social classes under the Roman Empire explain the arrangements and accommodations Augustine concedes to the formerly wealthy. Each brother has some kind of work to do and all must work in mutual agreement.

In conclusion, and by way of defending himself against the charge of placing burdens on others he will not bear himself, the bishop makes an avowal we can well believe is sincere: “I call as witness to my feelings the Lord Jesus, in whose name I can safely swear this: given my choice, I would much prefer to do some manual work at set hours each day (as is the custom in well-run monasteries) and have other times free for reading, praying or studying a passage of Scripture, rather than be exposed to the tumultuous mess of squabbles among neighbors and the secular matters it is our duty to sit in judgment on or quiet by our intervention.” Every condition of life has its hardships, even a bishop's “whose troubles perhaps no one suspects but he who has experienced them.” Still hope in Christ and his example will make every burden light.³⁶

B) HOLY VIRGINITY: LETTER 211

There were female monasteries at Carthage (St. Stephen, Damous el Karit), Uzala and Tabraca, not to mention Hippo. In this last town, perhaps, Augustine's widowed sister directed the monastery to which Letter 211 is addressed.³⁷ Numerous funerary inscriptions attest the existence in several other towns of virgins, female servants of God, sanctimoniales.³⁸

In 401, Augustine wrote a treatise On the excellence of marriage. A little later, he complemented it with one On holy virginity. In the first part of this work he sets out the high dignity of consecrated virginity, with Christ and his mother as models; such virginity is fecund, since these virgins bring forth Christ again.³⁹ The second part places this sublime gift under the protection of humility. It is as if God has pardoned the virgins' sins they have not even committed; nor are they they any the less called to love him, than if he had been less forgiving.⁴⁰ Grace alone makes continence possible; charity inspires it, that charity which is of a piece with humility: “Only God, who has given it to us, guards this blessing of virginity, and God is charity (1 Jn 4:8). Thus, the guardian of virginity is charity. But the dwelling-place of this guardian is humility.”⁴¹ From an institutional point of view, Augustine looks on the renunciation of property and affiliation with a religious community as bearing a more exalted “fruit” than solitary virginal continence, though this must by no means be thought entirely fruitless.⁴² Later, in 426, the bishop will clearly affirm his preference that virgins live together monastically.⁴³

After the meeting at Carthage (411) that made peace with the Donatists, the community of virgins Augustine's sister had long directed was disturbed by the arrival of a new ecclesiastic superior (praepositus). One group of the sisters took his part against the superior (praeposita) who had succeeded Augustine's sister. It was to restore this monastery to peace that he wrote his Objurgatio⁴⁴ (in fact, the first part of Letter 211). The bishop upheld the female superior in her position, and did not even consider replacing her. The rebels had no choice but to submit.

It was undoubtedly at this monastery that the Praeceptum was, with some slight changes, recast in feminine terms and appended to the Objurgatio to form the full text of Letter 211.⁴⁵ This version of the Augustinian Rule was distributed throughout Spain (Seville, Bovadilla) and Italy. Indeed, until this was recently shown to be untrue,⁴⁶ many believed that the feminized portion of Letter 211 (5-16) was the original material and the Praeceptum a latter transcription.

C) THE MEANING OF THE WORD “MONK”

Augustine first approached the subject of the etymology of “monk” in the Enarratio on Psalm 132: “How good it is, how sweet for brothers to live together, in unum!” In effect, it is this sweet song that brought about the birth of monasteries. “It resounded through the whole universe, and those who had been scattered were united.” The brethren who came together at Jerusalem put their goods in common, so that “it was given to each according to his needs, and no one claimed to own anything of his own, but all things were common to them all” (Acts 4:32bc, 35). “And what does ‘in common’ mean? They had one soul and one heart, reaching toward God” (Acts 4:32a).⁴⁷

He then draws a contrast between the monastic titles used by Catholics and Donatists. “It is from those words of the psalm that monks received the name.” The parallel group among the Donatists are the Circumcellions, so called because they travel from one cell to another without taking up permanent residence anywhere. To be accurate, these people call themselves agonistici (from the Greek for “wrestler”). Be that as it may, “God would prefer them to wrestle against the Devil, not against Christ, whose Church they persecute.”⁴⁸

Why, then, would we not take the name “monks,” the Psalmist having said: “How good it is, how sweet for brothers to live in common (in unum)? Basically, the Greek word monos means “one” (unus), but not in just any sense. After all, there can be “one” even in a crowd. But, though we may speak of “one among many,” this is not the same thing as monos, for monos means “one alone” (unus solus). Those, then, who live communally, so as to form altogether a single person (ut unum hominem faciant) and give reality to the phrase of Scripture “one soul and one heart,”—many bodies, but not many souls; many bodies, but not many hearts—they are the ones who deserve the name monos or “one alone.”⁴⁹

At the well at Bethesda, “one alone” was healed (Jn 5:1-9). “That solitary man symbolized the unity of the Church. This statement is of the first importance for a good understanding of St. Augustine's concept of monasticism. For him, the fraternal unity of the monasteries was a realization of ecclesiastical unity. Monastic servants of God dwell together in unum within the ‘greater church,’ of which they are members just like the rest of the faithful, in order to live out with special intensity that spirit of unity which is, in principle, the spirit of the ‘greater Church’ as a whole.”⁵⁰

Further, according to his letter to the monk Laetus, “private” affections are unworthy of a member of the Church, except insofar as they arise from a generalized (publica) charity. Everyone ought to “hate” his own soul, “so as to love in it only that communion, that society of which it is said: ‘In God, they had but one soul and one heart’ (Acts 4:32a).” “Thus, your soul does not belong to you, but to all the brothers, as theirs likewise belong to you—or, rather, yours and theirs alike are not souls, but a single soul, the unique soul of Christ, the soul of Psalm asks to be saved from the clutches of the dog (Ps 22:21). Having been there, it is easy to despise death.”⁵¹

D) THREE EXPLICATIONS

Recruiting, probation, mutual support. Alas, the ideal of unity succumbs to the shock of the real. Just as there is evil in the world, so there is in the Church, and even in the well-sheltered “harbors” of the monasteries. The wind finds a way in and sends the lines of anchored ships crashing into one another. Only good men should be in the monastery, but how are the good to be recognized before they've been admitted? “Those who seek admission do not know themselves—how much less will you know them?” It is in the monastery itself that they must be tested. Some “were tried in the kiln, and they broke.”⁵² But there always remain a few “bad ones,” “who must be tolerated for a time, in the hope of their improving, and because one cannot easily dismiss them unless they have first been given a chance.” The eager candidate sums it up: “What have I found here? I believed I would find charity.” And he leaves without carrying out his vows, he abandons his commitment; moreover, he becomes an enemy of the monastery.⁵³ This picture is true to life in every age.

Leisure and activity. A monastery is no refuge for the lazy. True, it does foster otium, as opposed to negotium or the active (actuosa) life, but “in this leisure it is not idleness that is to be prized, but the search after truth and its discovery, making steps in that direction and sharing whatever progress one has made with others—the monk, like the man who's been given power in the state, cannot entirely renounce the pursuit of the truth.⁵⁴

The overworked bishop derives some comfort from the peaceful life of the monks of Capraria: “For, since we have but one body under one leader, you work along with our work, just as we take repose along with yours.” Is Augustine writing to prepare them for having one of their own raised to the bishopric? His view is that monastic observances must be followed with zeal and ardor,⁵⁵ but if the Church should demand any apostolic service from one of her monks, then he must neither seize upon it out of pride nor turn from it out of sloth.⁵⁶ The truly Christian life “neither breaks down from too much activity nor freezes up from too much leisure; it is neither violent nor passive, neither aggressive nor timid, neither flighty nor stagnant.”⁵⁷

Authentic renunciation. The two Sermons 355 and 356 represent a kind of “Operation Open Door,” making public exactly what was meant by the renunciation of property demanded of the clergy in the episcopal foundation. The priest Januarius, a member of that community who “lived by the support of the Church and professed the communal life,” had committed the serious outrage of writing, just before his death, a last will and testament. This flew in the face of the rule of the clergy of Hippo under which no one could hold private property.⁵⁸ Augustine was extremely upset by this business and ordered his priests to dispose of any property they had before the following Epiphany (426).⁵⁹ This was done, and the bishop made a public accounting to the people of Hippo of the implementation of this policy. First Acts 4:31-35 was read out, then reread by Augustine himself.⁶⁰ Next he announced that he was pleased to have found all of his brothers and priests such as he would wish them to be. Only two personal estates were still in the process of liquidation. For the future, he would strike from the clerical rolls any who reneged on this commitment.⁶¹ Augustine simply would not compromise on this, the fundamental principle of his communities.

E) GRACE AND FREE WILL

Yet another question compelled St. Augustine to write on the theology of the spiritual life.⁶²

In 426, some of the monks of the monastery of Hadrumetum were troubled by Augustine's Letter 194 to the Roman priest Xystus, against the Pelagian doctrine that “God grants His grace according to our merits.” Two of these “servants of God” came to visit the bishop at Hippo, where he gave them some personal instruction and composed for them the tract On grace and free will, which he sent back with them to their brothers along with some other official ecclesiastical papers.⁶³ This work was well received by Abbot Valentinus and the community of Hadrumetum. But one monk there maintained the view that, if the argument of Augustine's treatise were granted, “there would be no need to correct (or ‘to admonish,’ corripiendum) a man who disobeyed God's commandments, but only to pray for him that he begin to follow them.”⁶⁴ By overemphasizing grace, one risked devaluing man's power to choose and weakened the case for asceticism. Augustine had taken great care to avoid this extreme, but a superficial or ill-disposed reader might draw such a conclusion from the text. The bishop responded with the tract On correction and grace, in which he showed that “in spite of the dogma of saving grace, one can and must not only preach good conduct and encourage it, but also [the heart of the objection] reprove those who fail in it.”⁶⁵ This reassuring conclusion was, however, accompanied by some additional remarks that somewhat reduced its force.

The De correptione et gratia (427) apparently settled the disagreement at Hadrumetum, but it stirred up another controversy in the northern Mediterranean. The Augustinian doctrine of grace, as it was enunciated during the original controversy with the Pelagians, had already occasioned some disquiet among the monks of Marseille and Lérins, where Cassian was the reigning theologian. The De correptione et gratia, wherein Augustine affirms the omnipotence of a grace that is granted only to certain predestined ones, seemed to them to entail the following consequence: such a division by divine degree of the elect and the damned “deprives the fallen of all hope of salvation and gives the saved an excuse to become indifferent.”⁶⁶ The letters of the laymen Prosper of Aquitaine and Hilary provide an echo of the interminable disputes that arose between the disciples of the African master and the monks of Marseille. It is these controversies that led Cassian to write and publish his Conference XIII in 427.⁶⁷ Without knowing of Cassian's work, Augustine answered Prosper and Hilary's appeals with the two volumes De praedestinatione sanctorum (which might better have been called De dono fidei) and De dono perseverantiae, which are among his last writings (428-30). In them he argues that “it is a divine gift to begin to believe in the Lord and to persevere in the Lord to the end,”⁶⁸ but he also asserts two points that seem to him to follow from this: 1. The grace of faith is not given to all—proof of a gratuitous predestination to faith and salvation “determined by a mysterious divine decree”; 2. This is an essentially victorious grace (i.e., the “efficacious grace” of the Molinist and Jansenist controversies). Against the first of these assertions the monks of Marseille had cited 1 Tm 2:4: “God … whose will it is that all men should find salvation.” Ought we to praise the monks of Hadrumetum and Provence for sharpening by their objections the acute mind of the Doctor of Hippo? The affirmation of the absolute primacy of grace, his principal thesis, is undeniably a great step forward:⁶⁹ Cassian himself derived some benefit from it; the Council of Orange made it canonical in 529; St. Benedict and the sixth century monastic lawgivers of Provence agreed with it entirely. But the De correptione et gratia and the tract on predestination bore, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, bitter fruit, of which the consequences are not exhausted to this day.

To sum up, St. Augustine's monasticism—indirectly and in a general sense brought to life by Anthony, Jerome and the monasteries of Rome and Milana—flourished in a way all its own in the soil of Africa. The acknowledged pre-eminence of a communion of hearts and communal property, the use of classical ascetic methods, the place of the monastery at the heart of the Church, the body of Christ—these are the characteristic points of Augustine's monastic doctrine. This doctrine was by no means “Augustinian” from the start, although the author of The Confessions had always affirmed the primacy of grace.⁷⁰ His Rule, his sermons and such tracts as On the work of monks offer proof of his clearheaded realism in ascetic matters. It was the Pelagian controversy that hardened Augustine's thinking on grace and led him to propose the thesis that so alarmed some contemporary monks.

3. AFRICAN MONASTICISM AFTER ST. AUGUSTINE:⁷¹ ST. FULGENTIUS OF RUSPE

When Augustine died, on August 28, 430, Hippo was besieged by the Vandals whom Boniface, the son-in-law of their king Gaiseric, had summoned to his aid. The Vandals were irreconcilable Arians and they persecuted the Catholics, especially bishops, priests, monks and virgins. Churches and monasteries were burned, men and women were hunted down and tortured, sometimes put to death. There was some apostasy among the monastic population, but the majority remained true to their vows. Communities uprooted themselves to seek the lesser of two evils between Vandal and Moorish territory; there were periods of calm, when monasteries re-established themselves. The kings Gaiseric (d. 477) and Huneric (477-84) were the worst persecutors; Gunthamund (485-96) was more conciliatory. Trasamund (496-523), after unsuccessfully attempting to seduce the Catholics to his viewpoint, resorted to violence again and, in 502, he exiled a number of bishops to Sardinia. His successor, Hilderic, made peace with the Church. Belisarius' conquest of Africa for Justinian in 533-34 granted the African monasteries a new era of prosperity, which endured until the Arab conquest (647-709), in spite of difficulties caused by the Moors, the Donatists and various heresies. Greek monks who had been driven out of Palestine, Syria and Egypt by the Persians and the Arabs took refuge in Africa, especially around Carthage. St. Maximus the Confessor, for example, lived there from 628 to 646.

The outstanding figure in sixth century African monasticism is St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe⁷² (468-532). This well-educated man, who had learned Greek before learning Latin, had an unsettled monastic career. Originally from Byzacium (a province in what is now central Tunisia), he became a monk at the age of forty, after having been procurator for the region of Telepte. He changed monasteries a dozen times, now seeking the Egyptian life Cassian had praised, now fleeing out of humility from the cares of office, now expelled by Trasamund's persecutions. Ordained without warning as Bishop of Ruspe in Byzacium, he became the theologian and spokesman of the African bishops of his time. When Trasamund exiled him to Sardinia, he founded two monasteries at Cagliari, where he lived from 502 to 523. At the beginning of his career, he had shared the governance of a monastery with his childhood friend, Felix, but in later years he took care that the responsibility for decisions in his monastery should be his alone.⁷³

Chapter 24 of the Life written by the deacon Ferrandus of Carthage shows that his principles were Augustinian, but that he applied them in the style of a Pachomian apa or one of Cassian's “elders”:

In the first place, he made it obligatory that nothing be held as personal property and all goods be placed under common ownership, because—as he often remarked—one cannot and must not regard anyone who wants to possess things privately as a true monk. Should a monk wish to follow an especially fancy diet, his ill-health will sometimes permit this, but should he want to maintain any right of ownership in even the least article, this is certain proof of his overweening pride and insatiable cupidity. With the very greatest discretion (cum summa discretione), he himself distributed among the servants of God what was required for their maintenance, taking each one's strength or weakness into account. But of those who received more than the others he demanded the practice of perfect humility—because, he told them, whoever gets a greater share of common property becomes indebted to all the owners of that property, and only humility is becoming in a debtor. Thus he avoided giving scandal to those who saw that he was more generous to the weaker brethren.

He took the greatest care to forestall desire in all his monks; whatever it was necessary or obviously reasonable for them to have, he provided before they'd request it. But anyone who let himself ask for something he hadn't yet received met with an instant refusal, even if his request was justifiable—monks, he held, ought to be content with what they are given. Besides, those who ask for things as though they had some right to get them are still enslaved by the desire of the flesh. …

Fulgentius encouraged study and loved to resolve in his conferences questions raised by any of the brothers, even the least educated. He could be stern, but “in other circumstances, he was so full of sweetness toward everyone, so affable, so amiable that he would never publicly single out one of the brothers for rebuke, nor would he give orders to anyone, even the humblest, with that arrogance common to those with worldly power.”⁷⁴ Some elements of his cenobitic teachings foreshadow St. Benedict, who was his junior by some twenty years.

B. SPAIN

The beginnings of Spanish monasticism are quite obscure.⁷⁵ The existence of ascetics and virgins is attested as early as 300, when the Council of Elvira mentioned a pactum virginitatis. The word monachus was used for the first time at the Council of Saragossa (380), in reference to Priscillianism: ordinary clerics ought not to abandon their status for that of a monk, which was more highly regarded by those heretics.⁷⁶ Priscillianism (on which we have more data than on other movements of the period) seems, however, to have been largely a lay movement, even though it did encourage the practice of virginity. A few words must be said about it.

This fiercely austere man⁷⁷ professed, at least while speaking to his own circle of disciples, a kind of Encratic Gnosticism with a Manichaean flavor. One should spend the night reading Scripture and the apocryphal Acts, or even composing new work in these genres. Several Priscillianist tracts which have escaped destruction provide a faint echo of his doctrine:⁷⁸ the soul is a portion of divinity, put into flesh by an evil power. God is Christ, who is at once Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Priscillianists did not hesitate to lie or perjure themselves to preserve their secrets.⁷⁹ The esoteric and anti-ecclesiastic style of their practices (secret meetings, Sunday fasts, seclusion from December 17 till Epiphany and during Lent, celebration of the Eucharist outside of church) recall the analogous customs of the Eustathians and the Messalians, all of them perhaps no more than a clumsy imitation of the Egyptian separation of monks from the world.⁸⁰

Condemned in absentia by the Council of Saragossa, Priscillian, a layman, was ordained Bishop of Avila by his friends the bishops Instantius and Salvian, and set out for Rome with them to see Pope Damasus. The Pope and Ambrose of Milan both refused to receive them. After their return in 383, Bishop Ithacius of Ossonoba, Priscillian's most determined opponent, prejudiced the newly crowned Emperor Maximus against them. The emperor ordered the arrest of Priscillian, Instantius and several laymen. (Salvian had died at Rome.) The accused were judged by a council held at Bordeaux, where Instantius was deposed. Priscillian saw that his own case had been prejudged and he appealed to the emperor; this sealed his doom and that of his friends. Led on by Ithacius, the imperial court at Trier delivered a capital sentence. While Instantius and several others were deported to an island on the far side of Great Britain, Priscillian and four of his disciples were beheaded at Trier in 385. St. Martin and St. Ambrose had been unable to prevent the killings. The execution of Priscillian was one of the rare cases in antiquity of recourse to the secular arm to “settle” an ecclesiastical matter, and there it was the victim himself who chose that venue. Ithacius' role as the accuser came back to haunt him: the great majority of the other bishops condemned him and he was deposed along with his ally Hydacius.⁸¹

The repression was excessive, even to the extent of creating martyrs, and the heresy persisted up until the Council of Braga in 563. Everyone who appeared ascetic, who dressed poorly or read the Bible was suspect.⁸² Martin himself was disconcerted.

However, as early as 385 Pope Siricius demanded of Bishop Himerius of Tarragona that the monks enter the ranks of the clergy; the reconciliation began. At Minorca, in the fifth century, there lived a deodevota and a community of monks. Two ascetic Galicians have left writings: the congenial Egeria⁸³ (c. 417), and the monk Bachiarius (fourth-fifth century), an expatriate with possible Priscillianist roots, of whom we have certain letters and treatises.⁸⁴

It was only during the Visigothic period (sixth-seventh centuries) that peninsular monasticism freed itself of the ambiguities of Priscillianism, and organized itself, especially by the composition of cenobitic rules and by the assimilation of the great Eastern monastic authors.

Notes

1. See Dom J. M. Besse, Le monachisme africain (Paris-Poitiers: Oudin 1900) [=Besse]; J. J. Gavigan, De vita monastica in Africa Septentrionali inde a temporibus S. Augustini usque ad invasiones Arabum, Bibl. Aug. M. Aevi, ser 2.1 (Rome: Marietti 1962) [=Gavigan]; The principal works by and about Saint Augustine will be cited below in notes 3 and 8. Byzantine monasticism in Africa will be briefly mentioned toward the end of this article.

2. Canon 31 of Breviarium Hipponense, Concilia Africae, CC 149, p. 42; Mansi 3.923; Hefele-Leclercq, Histoire des conciles 2.1 (Paris 1908) p. 88, canon 35.

3. The bibliography on the monasticism of St. Augustine is extensive. A. Manrique, La vida monastica en S. Augustin (Escorial-Salamanca 1959) gives an enchiridion, a Latin compendium with brief commentary. A. Zumkeller, La vie monastique de saint Augustine, trans. E. Derrien according to the second German ed. (Wurzburg 1968): part one is historical; part two is more developed and systematizes the spiritual doctrine of Augustine. The bibliography on the Rule of Augustine will be given below in note 8. The works of Augustine will be cited according to the edition and translation of Vivès (Paris 1870 ff.) [=Vivès] and according to Les oeuvres de saint Augustin (Paris: Desclee de Brouwer 1939 ff.) [=BA, Bibliotheque augustinienne]. Here I am simply trying to mention the principal texts and put them in context; for their interpretation, I follow the studies of L. Verheijen mentioned below in note 8.

4. Confessions 8, 6, 14; ed. P. de Labriolle, 1.187-89.

5. Conf. 8.8,19; ibid., p. 191. Same reaction on the part of Evagrius-Arsenius: see the apophthegms Arsenius 5-6 and Euprepios 7, and A. Guillaumont, Introduction to Traité pratique of Evagrius (SC 170) p. 26.

6. See below, note 14.

7. Possidius, Vita sancti Augustini, 3-5; Vivès, 1.4-5; Augustine, Sermon 355.1; Vivès 19.230 ff.

8. Possidius, Vita Aug. 5, Ibid. See L. Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin (Paris 1967) [=Verheijen, La Règle] 2. 89-95; Nouvelle approche de la Règle de saint Augustin, Vie Monastique 8 (Bellefontaine 1980) [=Verheijen, Nouvelle approache] pp. 75-105.

9. D. Sanchis, “Pauvreté et charité fraternelle chez saint Augustin,” Studia Monastica 4 (1962) 24-33; Verheijen, La Règle 201; Nouvelle approache p. 242.

10. See J. Dupont, “Etudes sur les Actes des Apôtres,” Lectio divina 45 (Paris: Cerf 1967) 505-09. See also below, note 12.

11. Conf. 6.14,24, ed. Labriolle, p. 140.

12. Verheijen, “La règle de saint Augustin et l'éthique,” Nouvelle approche, pp. 243-47; id. “Saint Augustin, un moine devenu prêtre et evêque,” Nouvelle approche, pp. 252-99; J. M. Andre, L'otium dans la vie morale et intellectuelle romaine … (Paris 1946).

13. See Verheijen, “Vers la beaute spirituelle, Nouvelle approche, pp. 201-42, especially pp. 217 ff.

14. De Ordine 2.8 (25); Vivès, 2.544; BA 4.405, trans. R. Jolivet and reviewed by Verheijen in Nouvelle approche, p. 207.

15. De moribus Ecclesiae catholicae 33 (70); Vivès, 3.538 ff.; BA 1.237-39.

16. Ibid., 31 (66); Vivès, 3.535 ff.; BA, 231-33.

17. Ibid., 31 (67); Vivès, 3.536 ff.; BA, 233-35.

18. Possidius, Vita S. Augustini 5, PL 32.37; Vivès, 1.5.

19. See above, note 17.

20. Letter 30 in the correspondence of St. Augustine, Vivès, 4.333 ff.; Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 81-84.

21. Praeceptum 1.13, trans. in Règles monastiques d'Occident (see below, note 27) p. 73; another translation is Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, p. 18.

22. See Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 75-105. These passages are important: Contra Faustum 5.9; Vivès, 25.505 ff.; De opere monachorum, 16 (17); Vivès, 22.103; BA, 3.449; 21 (25), p. 111; BA, 469; 25 (32) p. 117, BA, 485; De sancta virginitate, 45 (46); Vivès, 21.549; BA 3.293; Enarr. in Ps. 83.4; Vivès, 13.521; in Ps. 99.11; Vivès, 14.164; in Ps. 131.5; Vivès, 15.174; in Ps. 132, 2 and 12-13; Vivès, 193 and 202 ff.; Cité de Dieu, 5.18.2; Vivès, 23.627; BA, 33.728 ff.; Letters 243.4; Vivès, 6.74. Most of these texts are analyzed here below; see notes 39-53.

23. Sermon 356.1; Vivès 19.237 ff.; see below, notes 58-61.

24. Concerning the parts which make up the “Rule of Augustine” in the large sense, see below, notes 25, 27 and 44-46. The question of these connections, which is almost as complex as that of the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Benedict, seems to have been “definitively” solved by L. Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin (2 vols, Paris: Etudes augustiniennes 1967).

25. PL 32.1449-52 and PL 66.995-98. For the critical edition of the Ordo monasterii, see L. Verheijen, La Règle 1.148-52; for the identification of location and author, see 2.125-74. French translation, Règles monastiques d'Occident (see below, note 27) pp. 69-72.

26. Verheijen, La Règle 2.216 ff.

27. PL 32.1377-84. Critical edition by Verheijen, La Règle 1.417-37. Translation in Règles monastique d'Occident, Vie Monastique 9 (Bellefontaine 1980) pp. 73-88; Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 18-27. This latter work offers very rich data for a commentary on the Rule of Augustine, both as to its overall structure, and also about details which have remained mysterious up to now. I have only given a sketchy analysis of the Praeceptum; it is important to read the entirety of this brief letter; the analysis of De opere monachorum (see below, notes 32-35) can aid in understanding Praec. 1.4-7 and 3.3-4.

28. Monasteries of men: see Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 296-99; Gavigan, pp. 116-44. Certain buildings with a series of cells and attached to churches have been interpreted by archaeologists as monasteries—in the absence of written documentation.

29. Besse, pp. 19-21. The pastor's former experience as a monk must have enabled him to know the monastic life: Contra Faustum 22.58; Vivès, 26.207.

30. Sermon 356.10-15; Vivès, 19.242, 246. At Tagaste, Melania and Pinianus founded two monasteries, one for men and the other for women, in ad 411. We lose track of them after 416 (see Vie de sainte Mélanie, 20, ed. D. Gorce, SC 90, pp. 172 ff.).

31. Paulinus of Nola, Letter to Alypius (Letter 24.6 of the correspondence of Augustine; Vivès, 4.302).

32. Retractiones, 2.21; Vivès, 2.78; BA, 12.486.

33. G. Folliet, “Des moines euchites à Carthage en 400,” Studia Patristica 2, TU 64 (Berlin 57) pp. 386-99, presents many arguments which tend to prove that the monasteries of Carthage were founded by monks from the Orient; there is nothing surprising in this, since this was a port city. These monks could have been Messalians expelled by the synods of Side (388) and Antioch (390). The agonistici, or Donatist Circumcellions, had a Greek name, but seem to have been quite autochthonous. They ought not to be confused with the Carthaginian monks, who were Catholic. The Messalians will be studied in this series in connection with Pseudo-Macarius and Diadochus; on this subject, see A. Guillaumont, “Messaliens,” Dict. Spir. (1980) 10.1074.

34. 17.20; Vivès, 22.107; BA, 3.459-461. See St. Jerome, Letters 46.12; Labourt, 2.112ff.; St. Basil, GR 37.2 (PG 31.1012); Pachomius, Praecepta, 3, 6, 13, 28, 36 ff., 59 ff. On the alternation of reading and recitation, see Règles monastiqe d'Occident, introduction, pp. 40 ff.

35. Praeceptum, 1.4-7; 3.3-4. Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, 18-21; Règles monastique d'Occ., pp. 74-78. St. Benedict wishes to prevent jealousies in RB 34, without worrying about social classes; likewise, Fulgentius: see note 74 below.

36. 29 (37); BA, 499-503; Vivès, 122 ff. St. Benedict seems to have remembered, at the beginning of RB 48, the passage previously quoted in small type (alternation of work and reading).

37. See below, note 45.

38. Gavigan, pp. 74-94.

39. De Sancta virginitate 6 (6) and 11 (11) BA, 3.207, 3213; Vivès, 21.516, 518.

40. Ibid., 40 (41), 41 (42) and 52 (53); BA, 281, 283 and 305; Vivès, 544-46, 554.

41. Ibid., 51 (52); BA, 303; Vivès, 553.

42. Ibid., 45 (46); BA, 293; Vivès, 549; see Letter 211.2; Vivès, 6.132.

43. Sermon 355.6; Vivès, 19.236.

44. Critical edition by L. Verheijen, La Règle 1.105-07. Letter 210 of Augustine may have been written in the same circumstances.

45. Letter 221 of the Maurists, PL 33.958-65; Vivès, 6.131-41. The Objurgatio includes sections 1-4 of this letter.

46. Verheijen, La Règle 2.201-05.

47. En. In Ps. 132.1-2; Vivès, 15.192 ff.

48. Ibid., 3.193 ff.; 6.197. See De opere monachorum 28 (36); Vivès, 23.121; BA, 3.496 ff.

49. En. in Ps. 132.6; Vivès 15.197 ff. To live “together” supposes, moreover, an effort; it is not simply a passive or grudging juxtaposition, 12-13.202 ff. This etymology, which is personal to Augustine should be added to the dossier of etymological explanations of the word monachos.

50. Vehiejen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 96 ff.

51. Letter 243.4; Vivès, 6.274; Verheijen, Nouvelle approche, pp. 100-02.

52. En. in Ps. 99.10 ff.; Vivès, 14.163-65.

53. Ibid., 12.166 ff.

54. Cité de Dieu 19.19; Vivès, 24.520; BA, 37.143-47; Letter 48.1; Vivès, 4.432.

55. Letter 48.3; Vivès, 4.433.

56. Ibid., 2.432 ff.

57. End of 3.434.

58. Sermon 355.3; Vivès, 19.232 ff.

59. Ibid., 6.235.

60. Sermon 356.1, pp. 237 ff.

61. Ibid., 14.245.

62. All the relevant documents are gathered into vol. 24 of the Oeuvres de saint Augustin, 3rd ser., Aux moines d'Adrumète et de Provence (1962); introduction and notes by J. Chéné.

63. Augustine, First Letter to Valentine 3; BA, 24.55 = Letter 214 of the Augustinian correspondence; Vivès, 6.147.

64. Retractiones 2.67 (94); BA, 24.210; Vivès, 2.102.

65. J. Chéné, in BA, 24.251.

66. Letter of Prosper to Augustine = Letter 225.3 of the Augustinian correspondence; Vivès, 6.196 ff.; BA, 24.251.

67. É. Griffe, L'Eglise des Gaules au Vth siecle (La Gaule chretienne a l'époque romaine 2) (Paris: Letouzey et Ané 166) pp. 240 ff.; O. Chadwick, John Cassian (Cambridge 150) pp. 188 ff. Other historians place the treatise of Augustine in AD 429-30 and thus later than Conference 13 of Cassian.

68. De dono perserverantiae 24 (66); Vivès, 31.683; BA, 24.759.

69. At least from this viewpoint, which is not the only one. We will return, in discussion Pseudo-Macarius and Cassian, to the problem of grace, comparing the ancient/Oriental concept on the one hand and the Augustinian/Latin on the other.

70. Notably in De sancta virginitate, since continence is, more than any other form of renouncement, a particular gift (see above, note 40 ff.). See also The Work of Monks 27 (35): one ought not tempt the Lord if one is in a condition to work, quia et hoc quod possumus, eius munere possumus (“for we do what we can with his help”); Vivès, 22.120; BA, 3.494 ff.

71. Besse, pp. 73-88; G. M. Colombas, El monacato primitivo (Madrid 1974) 1.286-90; Gavigan, pp. 145-229.

72. See his remarkable vita, written by Ferrandus of Carthage: PL 65.117-50; ed. G. G. Lapeyre (Paris: Lethielleux 1929); G. G. Lapeyre, Saint Fulgence de Ruspe. Un évêque catholique africain sous la domination vandale (Paris: Lethielleux 1929); art. “Ferrand,” et “Fulgence” in Dict. Spir.

73. Ferrandus, Vie de Fulgence 5; Lapeyre, pp. 30-33; VF 24; Lapeyre, pp. 114 ff.

74. Ibid., 24; Lapeyre, pp. 112-15.

75. The present study will be very succinct. One may consult: C. Baraut, art. “Espagne,” Dict. Spir. 4/2.1095-99; J. Perez de Urbel, “Le monachisme en Espagne au temps de saint Martin,” in Saint Martin et son temps, Studia Anselmiana 46 (Rome 1961) 45-65; Colombas, El monacato primitivo, pp. 290-95.

76. Council of Elvira, Canon 13; Mansi 2.8; Council of Saragossa, Canon 6; Mansi 3.635. Hosius of Cordova, who was present at the Council of Elvira, presided at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and was a friend of St. Athanasius; perhaps he imported monastic practices from Egypt. St. Isidore attributes to him a letter entitled De Laude virginitatis, which is no longer extant.

77. On Priscillian, see especially A. D'Ales, Priscillien et L'Espagne chrétienne a la fin du IV Siècle (Paris: Beauchesne 1936); H. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila: The occult and the charismatic in the Early Church (Oxford: Clarendon 1976).

78. The treatises are edited by G. Schepss in CSEL 18 (Vienna 1889) and reedited in PLS 2.1391-1413.

79. Jura, perjura, secretum prodere noli, Augustine's Letter 237.3-4; Vivès 6.244; PL 33.1035 ff.

80. On the Oriental influences in Hispanic monasticism, see (above, note 76) Perez de Urbel, n. 75, pp. 57 ff.

81. See the account by Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.46-51; CSEL 1 (Vienna 1866) pp. 99-105. Sulpicius had no use for Priscillian, but the bon vivant Ithacius was even less fond of him. The worldly character of him and his partisans explains in part the violence of their reaction against the austere Priscillianists.

82. Collectio canonum Hispana, PL 84.635; Severus of Minorca, Epistola de Judaeis, PL 20.734D, 738AB.

83. Ed. H. Pétré, SC 21 (Paris 1948); H. Pétré, “Éthérie,” Dict. Spir. 4/2.1448-53.

84. See these articles in Dict. Spir. 1.1187; 4.1098.