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History
History
Augustine was born on November 13, 354, at Thagaste
(Souk-Ahras, Algeria) in Numidia, a province of North-Africa. In
386, at the age of 32, he renounced his intellectual and political
ambitions, and was converted to the orthodox Christianity. He was
baptized in Milan by bishop Ambrose. He returned to North-Africa,
withdrew from public life, and started living at Thagaste with a
group of relatives and friends, thus realising a kind of monastic
project. He did not choose the solitary life of the hermit Anthony,
but he wanted to live in a community.
Three years later, however, he had to give up his contemplative
dream, for he was claimed by the faithful of Hippo (Annaba,
Algeria) to become their priest (391) and their bishop (395/396).
Nevertheless, he stuck to his monastic ideal, because he lived not
only as a monk-bishop, but proclaimed also in his writings the
unity between action and contemplation. Therefore, Augustinian
religious life is rightly called the mixed way
(via
mixta).
After Augustine's death on August 28, 430, in the besieged city of
Hippo, the African bishops and religious emigrated to the European
continent, where Augustinian monasticism could take root as well.
The Rule of Augustine played an important role in this process. The
brief text of the Rule described the essence of religious life as
love of God and of the neighbour, as the union of hearts through
the sharing of goods, allowing enough freedom for specific customs
or constitutions.
Although the Order is usually called the Order of Saint Augustine
(Ordo Sancti
Augustini, OSA), Augustine himself
is not its founder, but pope Alexander IV is. This does not mean
that there is no vital, spiritual relationship between Augustine
and the OSA. It underlines only that it is impossible to prove a
historical continuity between Augustine and the OSA. After the
conquest of North-Africa by the Islam in the seventh century,
Augustinian monasticism has developed in Europe. The hermitical
movements of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, which
constituted a reaction against the decline of the monastic ideal in
the abbeys, were asked by the popes for apostolate in the growing
cities. Thus the popes assigned also the Augustinian hermits to the
task of apostolic care. In view of this task, pope Alexander IV
proclaimed on April 9, 1256, in the bull
Licet Ecclesiae
Catholicaethe union of the hermits
of Toscana, the Janbonites (Zambonini), the Brictinenses
(Brictini), the Wilhelmites and some hermits of Saint Augustine.
This union is known as the Great Union
(magna
unio).
The new order got the privileges of the mendicant orders and
spread out fast all over Europe. In the late Middle Ages there were
about 2.000 monasteries with 30.000 members. The activity of the
new order consisted particularly in study and preaching.
Contemplative and active life were combined, individual perfection
was strived for through prayer and the practice of the vows.
Sanctification of the neighbour was aimed at through an intensive
wide range of apostolic activity. Local stability
(stabilitas
loci) remained characteristic for
abbeys, whereas mobility is typical for mendicant orders. At the
moment, the Augustinian Order is represented all over the
world.
The development of the website of the
Bibliographie Historique de l'Ordre de
Saint-Augustinhas been financed by
the Federation of North-West-Europe which is made of the provinces
of Germany, of the Netherlands, of Belgium, and the Vicariate of
Vienna. For further information on the Order of Saint Augustine,
take a look at the homepage of the General
Curiaof the Augustinians in
Rome.