¹ The early lives of Pachomius, in Greek, Coptic, and (later) Arabic, record acute conflict between Pachomius’ second successor Horsiesi, supported by Apollonius the abbot of Monchosis, and Theodore, before whose protest against the subordination of religion to commerce Horsiesi retired from the parent house at Pbau, leaving Theodore to succeed as ‘general’ of the Pachomian houses.

The earliest Greek Life is edited by F. Halkin (1932); the Coptic translated into French by Lefort, L.T. (1943); the Arabic into French by Amélineau, E. (1889). I attempt a survey in ‘Pachomios and the idea of sanctity’, in The Byzantine Saint, ed Hackel, S. (1981)Google Scholar, reprinted in the Variorum volume, History and Thought of the Early Church (1982).

² Aug. Ep. 151, 8.

³ Aug. Conf. iv, 3, 5.

⁴ Lohse, B., Mönchtum und Reformation: Luthers Auseinandersetzung mit dem Mönchsideal des Mittelalters, Forsch, z. Kirchen-, u. Dogmengeschichte 12 (Göttingen 1963)Google Scholar. In the 17th century the Anglican Archbishop John Bramhall remarked ‘I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed devotion’: Works, p. 65, from A Just Vindication (ed Dublin 1677). In modern German Lutheranism the Berneuchen group has played an important part in restoring ascetic life lived under rule in community. The 19th-century Anglican revival has been chronicled by A.M. Allchin, The Silent Rebellion.

⁵ Alex., Clem. Stromateis vii, 70 Google Scholar. Clement’s place in the history of ascetical theology is the subject of a fat monograph by W. Völker, Der wahre Gnostiker nach Clemens Alexandrinus, TU 57 (1952).

⁶ For an early monastic sit in see Cyril of Scythopolis, Vita Sabae 56, p. 151 Schwartz. It was effective.

⁷ Sermo 46, 10.

⁸ Ep. 10, 2–3.

⁹ Tr. in ev. Joh. 122, 7.

¹⁰ En. in Ps. 54, 13 ‘Plerumque dicunt homines: Nemo remaneret paganus si ille (sc. nobilis) esset christianus. Plerumque dicunt homines: Et ille si fieret christianus, quis remaneret paganus?’ (The text continues that the ark is going round Jericho’s walls which will soon fall.) Conf. viii, 4, 9 ‘plus autem superbos (hostis) tenet nomine nobilitatis et de his plures nomine auctoritatis.’ En. in Ps. 30, II, iii, 7: ‘Tarn pauci non christiani remanserunt ut eis magis obiciatur quia christiani non sunt quam ipsi audeant aliquibus obicere quia christiani sunt.’

¹¹ Ep. 93, 17. Augustine feared the government pressure on the Donatists to end the schism would produce hypocritical Catholics, which after 411 was in part the case (Gesta cum Emerito 2 – some reconciled, some doubting, others remain at heart Donatist but conform outwardly – written in 418; cf. c.Gaudentium i, 24, 27 written in 420 of the situation ten years previously). De Baptismo iv, 10, 14 offers the timeless comment that converts to Catholicism from Donatism were more zealous for unity than members of old Catholic families. This text, of 400–401, belongs to the years before government pressure became strong.

¹² Ep. 136, 3 (412) from Marcellinus to Augustine, mentions that the principal landowner round Hippo had ironically praised Augustine and declared himself quite unconvinced of the truth of Christianity. On the hatred of silently resentful pagans see De Civ. Dei vi praef. Christian processions at high festivals were a special cause of irritation (En. in Ps. 32, II, ii, 9). Pagans had ceased to go to the temples but paganism remained dominant in their hearts: En. in Ps. 98, 2 ‘Magis remanserunt idola in cordibus paganorum quam in locis templorum.’ S. Denis 18, 7 p. 97, 26 ed Morin (Misc. Agost. I) ‘Quod destitit in templis ipsorum remansit in ore ipsorum.’ Sermo 62, preached at Carthage in 399 after the edicts closing temples, show that pagan senators were putting social pressure on Christian clients. En. in Ps. 62, 20 ‘Nemo audet modo publice loqui contra Christum: iam omnes timent Christum.’ Ibid 119, 4 ‘Tanta auctoritas Christi est ut reprehendere iam Christum nee paganus audeat.’

¹³ En. in Ps. 103, iv, 4 ‘Multi pusilli saeculi nondum crediderunt, multi primates saeculi nondum crediderunt. … Oderunt ecclesiam, premuntur Christi nomine; non saeviunt quia non permittuntur.’ (Their anger is at the closure of the temples and prohibition of sacrifices.)

¹⁴ Optatus iii, 3 p. 74, 3 Ziwsa (CSEL 26): ‘non enim respublica est in ecclesia sed ecclesia in republica, id est in imperio Romano, quod Libanum appellat Christus in canticis canticorum.’ (Cant. 4, 8). ‘Veni de Libano, id est de imperio Romano, ubi et sacerdotia sancta sunt et pudicitia et virginitas quae in barbaris gentibus non sunt.’ For the emperor Theodosius II in 431 Christianity is ‘religio Romana’ (Acta Cone. Oecum. I i, 1, p. 112, 31).

¹⁵ Sermo 105, 12, preached at Carthage 410–11. Among many studies of Augustine’s view of Rome and the empire see especially F.G. Maier, Augustin und das antike Rom, Tübinger Beitrage zur Altertumswissenschaft 39 (1955).

¹⁶ Sermo 80, 8 sadly concedes that ‘perhaps we cannot convert the mass of men to live good lives’. Sermo 7, 9 explains the Greek hypocrisis means simulatio: used of those who ‘nomine Christiano malunt hominibus placere quam Deo.’

¹⁷ e.g. Cat. Rud. 9.

¹⁸ Ep. 98 to Boniface bishop of Cataquas in Numidia; ep. 140, 29 to Honoratus ‘on the grace of the New Testament’, of 411. Honoratus may be the Manichee friend to whom in 391 Augustine dedicated De utilitate credendi; but the name was common and one cannot be sure. See Mandouze, A., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-empire I (Paris 1982) p. 564 Google Scholar s.v. Honoratus 4.

¹⁹ Chadwick, H., The Role of the Christian Bishop in Ancient Society, Colloquy 35 of the Center for Hermeneutical Studies, Berkeley, 25 February 1979 (1980)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Cat. Rud. 11; Tr. in ev. Joh. 6, 17 etc. (such references are numerous in Augustine).

²¹ Sermo 9, 4–5 and 11; esp. Sermo 224, 3; S. Guelf. 18, 2 p. 500, 13 (ed Morin).

²² Ep. 21; sermo 46 and 137, 13–14.

²³ Conf. ii, 3, 8.

²⁴ Ibid xiii, 34, 49.

²⁵ Ibid xiii, 19, 24–25.

²⁶ Ibid ix, 9, 15; En. in Ps. 46, 1.

²⁷ Ibid 99, 12: ‘(in monasterio) magni viri, sancti, quotidie in hymnis, in orationibus, in laudibus Dei, inde vivunt, cum lectione illis res est; laborant manibus suis, inde se transigunt; non avare aliquid petunt; quidquid eis infertur a piis fratribus cum sufficientia et cum caritate utuntur; nemo sibi usurpat aliquid quod alter non habeat; omnes se diligunt, omnes invicem se sustinent.’ (The text continues that some monks do not rise to these heights.)

For the classic studies of Augustine’s monastic ideals and organisation, a general reference must suffice: L. Verheijen, La Règle de saint Augustin (Paris 1967); A. Zumkeller, Das Mönchtum des heiligen Augustinus, (2 rev ed Würzburg 1968) = Cassiciacum 11. See also Verheijen, Nouvelle approche de la règle de Saint Augustin, = Spiritualité orientale et vie monastique 5 (Abbaye de Bellefontaine 1980), and his lecture, St Augustine’s monasticism in the light of Acts 4, 32–35 (Villanova University Press 1979). There is good matter in articles by Lorenz, R., ZKG 77 (1966), 1–61 Google Scholar; Wucheren-Huldenfeld, A., Zeits. f. kath. Theol. 82 (1960), 182–211 Google Scholar.

A modern English translation of the Rule in both masculine and feminine versions is done by Raymond Canning with introduction and commentary by Bavel, T.J. van (London 1984)Google Scholar.

²⁸ De opere monachorum 37.

²⁹ En. in Ps. 99, 12, above n 27.

³⁰ De opere monachorum 20.

³¹ De doctrina Christiana ii, 9, 14.

³² Ep. 64, 3.

³³ De opere mon. 22, 25.

³⁴ Sermo 159, 5. Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations I, viii, 41) remarked that the cost to the master of slave labour is greater than that of employing free labour on the basis of a day-wage. It seems clear that in North Africa only a minority of the labour force consisted of slaves. But wealthy traders raided African villages to supply Italy, kidnapping the children of Roman citizens or buying those of destitute parents. Ep. 10* Divjak (CSEL 88) reveals the difficulties when a sufficiently paid colonus working on a Hippo church estate sold his wife per meram avaritiam.

³⁵ De moribus i, 33, 72; Possidius, Vita Augustini 22, written soon after Augustine’s death, gives an eye-witness account of meals at Augustine’s table. The portrait of Augustine as a man given by Possidius is perhaps the more impressive and vivid because Augustine’s theology passed entirely over the head of his biographer.

³⁶ De opere mon. 25 and 33.

³⁷ Ep. 211. Augustine (De civ. Dei v, 6) mentions that the twin sister of a Count was a consecrated virgin. The acceptance of the ascetic ideal by aristocratic Roman ladies is well attested in the correspondence of Jerome.

³⁸ De bono viduitatis 26 (written in 413).

³⁹ En. in Ps. 90, ii, 9 ‘… corrupta corde quid servat in corpore? Adeo mulier catholica praecedit virginem haereticam.’ (The Donatists had their sanctimoniales: En. in Ps. 44, 31; c. ep. Parmen. ii, 9, 19). Cf. En. in Ps. 99, 13 ‘Invenis sanctimoniales indisciplinatas … Multae non stant in domibus suis, circumeunt domos alienas, curiose agentes, loquentes quae non oportet, superbae, linguatae, ebriosae; etsi virgines sunt, quid prodest integra caro, mente corrupta? Melius est humile coniugium quam superba virginitas.’

⁴⁰ En. in Ps. 75, 16 ‘Quid si enim sit corpore integra et mente corrupta? … Quid si nullus tetigerit corpus, sed si forte ebriosa sit, superba sit, litigiosa sit, linguosa sit?’. De bono conjugali 29–30.

⁴¹ En. in Ps. 132, 3. The title Circumcelliones was given to these ascetics by the Catholics, because they specially venerated the shrines (cellae) of their martyrs. They called themselves Agonistici, the militant tendency.

⁴² Ep. 185, 12; Sermo 62, 17; c.Gaudentium i, 28, 32; 38, 51.

⁴³ De opere monachorum 36.

⁴⁴ Ibid 39 and 41.

⁴⁵ Tr. in ev. Joh. 122, 3.

⁴⁶ Ep. 9* Divjak (CSEL 88, 43, 15). Cf. Sermo 355. Augustine sometimes uses propositum in this sense.

⁴⁷ Sermo 161, 12.

⁴⁸ De saneta virginitate 4.

⁴⁹ De bono viduitatis 14.

⁵⁰ S. Denis 20, 12, p. 123 (ed Morin).

⁵¹ Sermo 148, 2: God is angered when a professed virgin marries. Ep. 3* Divjak (CSEL 88, 21–25), undated, tells of a widow who vowed the virginity of her daughter when she was sick. Now recovered, she wishes her daughter to be released from the obligation and asks if, instead, she may substitute a vow of her own widowhood. Augustine’s verdict is that the girl’s reward in heaven will surely be greater if the vow is kept, and that the mother’s duty is to encourage her to keep it.

⁵² En. in Ps. 75, 12.

⁵³ De bono conjugali 32 (CSEL 41, 228, 6). A good survey of ancient texts is given by Frank, K.S. in RAC x (1976)Google Scholar s.v. Gehorsam.

⁵⁴ En. in Ps. 99, 11–13.

⁵⁵ Ep. 40, 7.

⁵⁶ Ep. 133, 2. Christ’s example in cleansing the temple justified this limit of discipline. See Waldstein’s, W. article s.v. Geisselung in RAC ix (1974)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ CSEL 88, 96, 24.

⁵⁸ c.Jul. vi, 46 f.

⁵⁹ De doctrina Christiana i, 24.

⁶⁰ The anti-Priscillianist council of Saragossa (380) deplores the custom ‘nudis pedibus incedere’. Filastrius of Brescia (81) followed by Aug. Haer. 68, opposes a heresy which held walking barefoot to be a Christian duty after the examples of Moses at the burning bush and the prophet Isaiah. John Cassian (Inst, i, 9) records that Egyptian monks removed their shoes for eucharistic communion. Chadwick, H., Priscillian of Avila (Oxford 1976) pp. 17–18 Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Conf. ix, 6, 14: Alypius went barefoot in N. Italy during the winter of 386–7 as a mortification in preparation for baptism. The pagan Eunapius records that the sophist Prohaeresius when in Gaul walked unshod in winter and wore a threadbare cloak: Vitae Sophistarum x, 7 p. 492 Boissonade. Ambrosiaster (commentary on 1 Cor. 12, 23) praises barefoot Christians in humble clothing. Jerome, ep. 22, 19, 6 (Moses, Joshua, and Jesus’ disciples went barefoot, and the soldiers who cast lots for Jesus’ clothing had no shoes ‘for the Lord did not possess what he forbade to his servants.’).

⁶² Sermo 101, 7. Similarly Gaudentius of Brescia, sermo 5 (CSEL 68, 43–48).

⁶³ Ep 36, 25.

⁶⁴ De civ. Dei xiv, 6 defines apatheia as not the absence of all feeling which would be worse than all vices, but a freedom from all irrational disorder in the mind; and that state will be realised in the next life, not in this. Heaven has room for love and joy, not for sorrow and pain.

⁶⁵ De s. virg. 12 and 54. Cf. Frank, K.S., Angelikos Bios (Münster 1964)Google Scholar.

⁶⁶ De civ. Dei xix, 27 ‘Ipsa quoque nostra iustitia, quamvis vera sit propter verum boni finem ad quem refertur, tamen tanta est in hac vita ut potius remissione peccatorum constet quam perfectione virtutum.’

⁶⁷ De opere mon. 36; ep. 48, 4; cf. sauellum: En. in Ps. 13, 26.

⁶⁸ En in Ps. 147, 8.

⁶⁹ Ep. 36, 8.

⁷⁰ Augustine washed his face daily and judged an unwashed state to be self-advertisement: De sermone Domini in monte ii, 12, 41.

⁷¹ En. in Ps. 133, 2.

⁷² De vera religione 5; De doctrina Christiana i, 39, 43; c. Faustum v, 8.

⁷³ De doctrina Christiana i praef. 4.

⁷⁴ See the careful demonstration of Augustine’s debt by Coyle, J.K., in his commentary on De moribus ecclesiae catholicae (Fribourg, Switzerland 1978)Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ De moribus i, 31, 65 ff., where Jerome’s information is being drawn upon.

⁷⁶ c. Faustum xxii, 53–54.

⁷⁷ De ordine ii, 14, 39–43; De consensu evangelistarum i, 5, 8; iv, 10, 20; De civitate Dei viii, 4; De Trinitate xiii, 20, 26; Tr. in ev. Joh. 101, 5; 124, 5.

⁷⁸ See Jourjon, Maurice, ‘Sarcina: un mot cher a l’évêque d’Hippone’, in Recherches de science religieuse 43 (1955) pp. 258–62.Google Scholar Characteristic texts are Ep. 85, 2; 149, 34; 242, 1. Augustine’s problem arose from the social duties accidental to his spiritual office, and especially arbitrations between quarrelling members of his flock. ‘No one without experience of the job would ever guess what duties fall on us bishops’ (De opere monachorum 37).

⁷⁹ Ep. 71, 2. Profuturus’ career in Mandouze, Prosopographie s.v. On Petilian’s forced ordination: c.litt. Petiliani ii, 104, 239.

⁸⁰ De civ. Dei xix, 19; S. Frangip. ii, 4 p. 193 (ed Morin).

⁸¹ Ep. 10, 2.

⁸² Qu. Heptat. iv, 54 ‘None has the right to refuse the sacraments of ordination.’ De vera religione 51 (a law of providence that none is helped by higher powers to grasp grace unless he is willing to help inferiors); cf. Conf. x, 4, 6: ‘hi sunt servi tui, fratres mei, quos filios tuos esse voluisti dominos meos, quibus iussisti ut serviam si volo tecum de te vivere.’

⁸³ c.Cresconiutn ii, 11, 13. The text is clearly intended to defend the honour of a Catholic bishop, such as Maximianus of Bagai who, having suffered fearful violence from the Donatist majority at his town, left Bagai. Augustine himself threatened to resign over the Fussala affair if the Pope reinstated the delinquent Antoninus; ep. 209, 10.

⁸⁴ See the Breviary, Hippo, 37 Concilia Africae ed Munier, p. 43, 212 Google Scholar; Council of Carthage, 16 June 401, p. 194, 421.

⁸⁵ c.litt. Petiliani iii, 32, 36.

⁸⁶ Sermo 355, 2; Possidius, Vita Aug. 4. Cf. ep. 173, 2, and De adult, conjug. ii, 22 (CSEL 41, 409, 15) ‘violentia populorum’. Above n. 79 on Petilian among the Donatists.

⁸⁷ De fide et operibus 32; sermo 339, 4. Cf. Tr. in ev. Joh. 57, 2 (the scarcity of preachers is because Christian love is now so cold, and leisured students shrink from toil).

⁸⁸ Ep. 48 to the monastery at Capraria.

⁸⁹ Sermo 355. A good study by M. Zacherl, ‘Die vita communis als Lebensform des Klerus in der Zeit zwischen Augustinus und Karl dem Grossen’, Zeit. f. kath. Theol. 92 (1970) pp. 385–424.

⁹⁰ Sermo 96, 10 opposes the rejection of this acknowledgement. In Retract, ii, 22 Augustine claims that De bono conjugali (401), the argument of which is that marriage is good but celibacy better, was directed against the heresy of Jovinian (against whom Jerome had written two books before 395). Jovinian regarded it as Manichee to assert the moral superiority of celibacy as such. Though not mentioned in De bono conjugali, Jovinian appears elsewhere in Augustine: esp. De haeres. 82; De Nuptiis et Concup. ii, 5, 16; 23, 38; c.duas epp. Pelag. i, 2, 4, classifies Julian of Eclanum with Jovinian because of his contention that Augustine’s estimate of sexuality is Manichee. The real target was Jerome.

⁹¹ Sermo 51, 25.

⁹² De bono conjugali 46. Augustine regards this exegesis as possible, not necessarily the only possible.

⁹³ Contra Faustum v, 9 speaks of married Christians in the world as mercenary auxiliaries in Christ’s army. Cf. Origen, Hom, in Num. 26, 10.

⁹⁴ De moribus i, 31, 66; ep. 130, 20.

⁹⁵ It is no doubt to be seen as an aspect and expression of Augustine’s ascetic ideal that he is hostile to mendacity, above all in the cause of religion.

⁹⁶ Conf. ix, 4, 7 ‘ibi quid egerim in litteris iam quidem servientibus tibi, sed adhuc superbiae scholam tamquam in pausatione anhelantibus testantur libri disputati cum praesentibus et cum ipso me solo coram te’.

⁹⁷ En. in Ps. 36, 3, 6; 138, 20 (ossum vulgarly used for os).

⁹⁸ Tr. in ev. Joh. 6, 25; ep. 93, 20.

⁹⁹ Ibid 153, 26; esp. Sermo 50, 14; De Trin. xii, 9, 14.

¹⁰⁰ De civ. Dei xix, 6.

¹⁰¹ The principal texts which presuppose that celibacy is the duty of bishops and presbyters as well as of monks are Conf. vi, 3, 3; x, 30, 41; Adult. Conj. ii, 20, 22 (CSEL 41, 409, 12); S. Guelf. 32, 1, p. 569 (ed Morin).

¹⁰² The treatise De spiritu et littera of 412 denies the sufficiency of the human will for doing the will of God, but concedes that the assent of the will is necessary.

¹⁰³ De peccatorum meritis, i, 18.

¹⁰⁴ Conf. xiii, 19, 25; De s. virg. 14; De Bono conjug. 30; De Adult. Conjug. i, 14, 15.

¹⁰⁵ Ep. 157, 33.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid 157, 39.

¹⁰⁷ En. in Ps. 147, 12; sermo 206, 2.

¹⁰⁸ De spiritu et littera 48, and elsewhere.

¹⁰⁹ c.Faust. 22, 46; De Nupt. et Concup. i, 14, 16 f.