[DRAFT VERSION]

Regula

The Regula of St Augustine is an imprecise term referring to at

least three and as many as nine legislative texts on the

monastic life commonly attributed to Augustine. The names

associated with these texts have varied over time, and efforts

in the twentieth century to impose a standard nomenclature

have met with only limited success, in part due to the lasting

influence of conventional systems of classification introduced

in over centuries of transmission.

The first of the three principal works in Augustine's

monastic corpus is the Ordo monasterii, a title that first

appears in the ninth-century MS Laon 328. The text describes

in brief various regulations of the monastery, including

liturgical observances, the schedule of work, systems of

discipline and correction, and restrictions on diet and

travel.

The second work is the Regula ad servos Dei, a title well

attested in the manuscript tradition but replaced in modern

times by the more descriptive Praeceptum. This legislation is

approximately five times as long as the Ordo, and is sometimes

regarded as a commentary on, or supplement to, the latter

text. Unlike the Ordo, which contains practical prescriptions

on the daily routine of the monastery, the Praeceptum elaborates

at length on the interior life of monks, including lengthy

passages on fraternal love, charity, obedience, and humility.

The third text included among the monastic legislation of

Augustine is Epistula 211, a letter in which the author

admonishes the nuns of a monastery in which his sister had

been prioress and which had subsequently become divided over

the election of a new superior.

The remaining rules ascribed to Augustine are

combinations of the above three texts or masculine and

feminine versions. The Praeceptum longius brings together the

complete texts of the Ordo and the Praeceptum. The Regula recepta

contains the entire Praeceptum preceded by the first sentence of

the Ordo (ante omnia, fraters charissimi, diligatur Deus, deinde proximus, quia

ista praecepta sunt principaliter nobis data). The Ordo monasterii feminis datus,

also known as the Regula puellarum, is a feminine version of the

Ordo, with slight variations in content and the omission of

the concluding words in article 11. Epistula 211 is sometimes

divided into two parts: the Objurgatio contra sanctimonialium

dissensionem consists of the first four lines of the letter in

which the nuns are chastened for their dissension; the Regularis

informatio, also known as the Regula sororum, commences at the

fifth line of the letter and continues to the end, a lengthy

section outlining various additional regulations for the

community. The Regularis informatio preserves a text that is very

close in style and content to that of the Praeceptum. The

Epistula longior, or Longer Letter, is a combination of the

Objurgatio and the Regularis informatio, whereas the Epistula longissima,

the Longest Letter, combines sections of both of these texts

with the entire Ordo monasterii feminis datus.

1. Authorship of the Rule

The circumstances surrounding the composition of the

three principal Augustinian monastic rules (Ordo, Praeceptum,

Epistula) are supported by scant historical evidence, making it

difficult to establish the identity of their respective

authors with certainty. No rule is included among the works

recorded in Augustine's Retractiones, nor is any monastic

legislation listed in Possidius' continuation of this text.

Inconsistencies in style and content among the three texts

have also raised the possibility of multiple authors.

Modern scholars generally agree that there is

insufficient philological evidence to associate Augustine with

the Ordo, observing that the author of this work makes use of

terminology, phrasing, and textual allusions that are not

found in Augustine's undisputed works (Verheijen, De Bruyne,

Vega, Sage). Other scholars reason that Augustine may not

have composed the text, but that similarities in its

instruction and general bearing make it likely that he either

knew of its existence and approved it for use in his

communities (Manrique), or that it was composed in an

Augustinian milieu (Gavigan, Hackett, Ladner). Those who

maintain that Augustine wrote the Ordo argue that the text was

composed in the same fundamental spirit as his other works,

and that the lack of historical and philological evidence is

not a sufficient reason to dismiss him as author (Cilleruelo,

Humpfner, Bardy, Mandonnet).

The Ordo could not have been composed long after the time

of Augustine. Recently, George Lawless has shown that

Caesarius of Arles borrowed extensively from the Praeceptum

longius – an amalgamated rule consisting of the Ordo and the

Praeceptum – to compose his rules for nuns, and that the liturgy

of Cassiodorus' community at Vivarium relied on this text as

well. In addition to the influence of these texts on

Augustine's near contemporaries, Lawless notes that the

earliest known witness to the Rule of Augustine, or any

monastic code for that matter, Paris BN lat 12634, situates

the Ordo immediately before the Praeceptum, and names Augustine

as author. While this alone does not make a case for

Augustine's authorship of the Ordo, it does attest to the

antiquity of the text and associates it from the earliest

known point of transmission with the Praeceptum, long accepted

as genuine work of Augustine.

Three dates are usually associated with the composition

of the Praeceptum. The year 397 is offered as an approximate

date by those who believe the rule was composed for the

community at Hippo in the period before Augustine's ordination

as bishop. Other scholars suggest that the year 400 is more

likely, connecting the rule with the audience of his De opera

monachorum, a monastic community residing in the outskirts of

Carthage. The last proposed date of composition, 426-27,

places the rule at Hadrumetum in response to the conduct of

certain monks who, in their pride, continued to challenge

Augustine's doctrine on grace and freedom.

Although scholars are not in agreement about the date of

composition of the Praeceptum, there is little doubt that

Augustine is the original author. Not only does this rule

reflect the thought and teachings of Augustine, but it reveals

a similar use of biblical texts, contains explicit parallels

to a number of his other works – most importantly his De vita et

moribus clericorum suorum – and preserves a neologism (emendatorius)

that appears for the first time in Augustine's writing.

There is also now little doubt that Augustine composed

the Objurgatio contra sanctimonialium dissensionem (Epistula 211, ln 1-4),

although its stylistic unity with Augustine's other works has

previously been questioned. Notwithstanding this objection,

the content of this text appears to be in direct response to

concerns raised in Augustine's Epistula 210, the authorship of

which has never been in doubt. On the basis of this earlier

letter we can also conclude with reasonable certainty that

Augustine directed the Objurgatio to the nuns at the convent of

Hippo around the year 423.

The circumstances surrounding the composition of the

Regularis informatio (Epistula 211, ln 5-16) have been more difficult

to pin down, owing to the correspondence between this text and

the Praeceptum. By the early twentieth century scholars had yet

to arrive at a consensus about which of the two was the

original text, although the prevalent view was that feminine

regulations were the source of the masculine text. The

possibility that the Rule of St Augustine originally existed

in a feminine form was first proposed in the mid-twelfth

century, though no evidence was brought forward to corroborate

this claim. The question was raised, however, and would inform

scholarly debate from this point on. Luc Verheigen effectively

settled this question in 1967, when he argued on the basis of

internal evidence that the Praeceptum morphologically and

chronologically preceded the Regularis informatio, and demonstrated

on the basis of considerable textual evidence that the

feminine version appeared for the first time in sixth-century

Spain, when it became attached to the Objurgatio.

II. Early and Medieval Reception

Augustine's influence on the development of Western

monasticism can be seen in the immediate and widespread

reception of his monastic legislation. Eugippius (ca. 530),

abbot of Lucullanum near Sorrento, Italy, was the first to

attribute the Ordo monasterii and the Praeceptum to Augustine,

incorporating both texts into his compilation of monastic

rules. Eugippius regarded the Ordo and the Praeceptum as

constituting a whole, and he concluded the legislation with

the words: Explicit regula Augustini episcopi.

A study of the early medieval manuscript tradition

reveals that the Rule of Augustine was transmitted in this

amalgamated version (Praeceptum longius) up until the twelfth

century. Fulgentius, the exiled bishop of Ruspe (467-533),

drew upon this text to organize two religious communities in

Sardinia. Founders of the monastic community at Lerins in

southern Gaul incorporated Augustine’s monastic programme into

many of their legislative texts, principally the second rule

of the Fathers. Through this intermediary source, elements of

Augustine can be found in the sixth-century Rule of Marciarius

and the Regula Orientalis. The author of the Regula Tarnatensis, a

rule composed in the last quarter of the sixth century for an

unknown community of monks in the Rhone valley, also

transmitted Augustine by way of the second rule of the

Fathers, but included with these excerpts a complete text of

letter 211 that had been previously adapted for a male

audience.

Augustine's influence at Lerins can also be traced

through the writings of one of its most famous students,

Caesarius of Arles (470-542), who composed a rule for nuns (Ad

virgines) that included a substantial portion of letter 211.

This rule was followed shortly after by a separate rule for

monks (Ad monachos), the author often drawing verbatim from the

Praeceptum longius. Augustine's program of monasticism thus came to

feature prominently in communities in Gaul which adopted

Caesarius' rules, most notably St Croix of Potiers,

Juxamontier of Besancon, and Chemalieres near Claremont.

In Spain, bishop Leander of Seville (c. 540-600) drew

upon a feminine form of the Praeceptum longius to produce his De

institutione virginum et contemptu mundi, a text dedicated to his

sister in praise of virginity and the institutions of the

regular life. His younger brother and episcopal successor,

Isidore (c. 560-636), author of the Etymologiae, incorporated

this same source in the composition of his rule for monks.

The rule of Augustine was one of the central influences

on the development of Benedictine monasticism and continued to

circulate in the Middle Ages in support of this tradition.

Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-547) draws upon several sources of

Augustine in the composition of his rule. He is first indebted

to the Rule of the Master, a work of unknown authorship that was

likely composed in the region of Subiaco sometime in the first

quarter of the sixth century. While few regulations in this

text can be directly tied to principles outlined in the

Praeceptum longius, the Master adapts for monks several passages

from Epistula 211 on the singing of psalms and the observance of

silence. These excerpts also appear in the Benedictine Rule,

though in developing his more sophisticated and complex

program of monasticism the author places his source in a

decidedly spiritual context. Benedict also shares with

Augustine a profound concern with fraternal relationships, an

emphasis not found in the Rule of the Master.

The rule of Benedict came to be promoted as the central

text governing monastic life in the eighth and ninth

centuries, but even as reformers sought to unify monastic

practice they encouraged monks to read the rule of Augustine

for its correspondence with the Benedictine way of life.

Benedict of Aniane (751-821) incorporated the Praeceptum longius

and Epistula 211 into his vast repositories of monastic

tradition, the Codex regularum and Concordia regularum, two works of

compilation that were intended to inform the practice of

Carolingian monks and return them to the vigour of their

profession. The affinity between Benedictine and Augustinian

monasticism is also attested in the two earliest commentaries

on the Rule St Benedict, composed in the ninth century by

Abbot Smaragdus of St Mihiel (fl. 809–26) and the monk

Hildemar of Civate (fl. 833) respectively. Both authors

incorporate excerpts from the rule of Augustine to clarify the

observance of Benedictine monasticism in their day.

While Augustine's monastic legislation found a place in

the formation of monks in the eighth and ninth centuries, it

was not associated in any way with the institution of canons

regular in Carolingian Europe. Augustine is conspicuously

absent from Chrodegang of Metz's (c. 712–766) Regula canonicorum,

and reformers at the council of Aachen in 816 looked only to

Augustine's De vita et moribus clericorum when drawing up new

institutes on the canonical life. It was not until the

eleventh and twelfth centuries that Augustine's rule was first

used as the normative basis of a reform movement to counter-

act abuses in the observance of canons regular.

Reformers at the Lateran council in 1059 – and at the

subsequent council of Rome in 1063 – called upon the secular

clergy to overcome the desire for personal wealth by adhering

to the strict ideals of the vita apostolica. In response, the

order of canons regular reformed under the organizational

principles outlined in Augustine's sermons on the communal

life, and later adopted Epistula 211 and the Praeceptum longius in an

effort to identify with and establish more the definitively

the observance of the canonical profession.

Augustinian monastic legislation went through a period of

revision in the early twelfth century, as canons attempted to

bring the precepts of the rule into effective contact with the

present. In a letter written to the canons of Springiersbach

in 1118, Gelasius II acknowledged that provisions in the rule

regulating diet, work, and liturgical observance did not align

with the current practice of the community, and recommended

that canons observe moderation in work and diet, and the

celebrate the office of the Church in Rome. This directive

effectively sealed the fate of the Ordo monasterii, the portion

of the Praeceptum longius that set down practical prescriptions of

the canonical life. The canons at Springiersbach came to

follow a revised rule known as the Regula recepta, a text that

retains only the first sentence of the Ordo by way of

introduction to the more theoretical discussion in the

Praeceptum . Evidence suggests that other communities of canons

followed suit, defending their adoption of similar legislation

on the authoritative word of Gelasius. The Victorines, founded

by William of Champeaux in 1113, were initially governed by

constitutions drafted under their first abbot, Guilduin, but

came to regard the Regula recepta as an equally important source

of spiritual guidance. An anonymous commentary on the Rule of

St Augustine popularly attributed to Hugh of St Victor (c.

1078 – 1141) makes no mention of the regulations detailed in

the Ordo, but instead precedes its extensive discussion of the

Praeceptum with a homily on charity.

By the end of the twelfth century the Regula recepta was

generally held up as the authoritative text governing

canonical life, its general provisions able to accommodate the

diverse needs of new religious orders, including the

Trinitarians and Gilbertines. One notable exception was found

in the practice of Norbertines, or Premonstratensians, a

community of Augustinian canons founded by St Norbert at

Prémontré in 1120 who initially disregarded the general

provisions of the Praeceptum in favour of the stricter

discipline prescribed in the Ordo.

The Rule of Augustine gained new-found popularity with

the rise of mendicant and eremetical orders in the thirteenth

century. Reformers at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had

viewed with apprehension the increase of diversity within the

practice of clerical orders in previous decades, and attempted

to curb religious experimentation by decreeing that all newly

founded communities had to organize themselves according to

the precepts of an approved rule. It was for this very reason

that Dominic de Guzman's (c. 1170-1221) initial petition for

the approbation of his new order of preachers had been refused

by an ecumenical council in Rome in 1215. The Dominicans

received official sanction the next year, but only after

Dominic had placed his followers under the authority of the

Rule of Augustine, a text which he had observed as a regular

canon of the cathedral church of Osma, and which, by this

time, had been made general enough to be adapted to most uses.

Dominic supplemented the rule with new constitutions in order

to impose on his followers a unity of daily practice, to

emphasize the Dominican priority of study and prayer, and to

institute a governmental structure organized around general

and provincial chapters. These constitutions were revised over

the next several decades by Raymond of Peňafort (c. 1175 -

1275) and Humbert of Romans (c. 1194-1277), Masters Generals

of the Order under whom the supplemental customs became

organizational documents on level with the rule itself. The

success of this legislation led Alexander IV in 1255 to

commission Hugh of St. Cher (c. 1200-1263) to produce a

'Dominican' rule from the Rule of Augustine and the

constitutions. While this endeavour ultimately failed, the

Rule of St Augustine continued to serve as the inspirational

model for community life in the Dominican order.

The Augustinian Hermits or Friars were established as a

new mendicant order in 1256, out of a grand union of several

eremetical communities that had flourished – principally in

Italy – since the twelfth century, including the Williamites,

the Bonites, and the Britinians. Many of these communities had

previously renounced private property and lived communally

under the precepts outlined in the Rule of St Augustine, but

came to be confused with other orders on account of certain

peculiarities in local practice and dress. To put a rest to

quarrels developing between communities and possibly to check

the growing influence of the Dominicans and Fransciscans,

Alexander IV officially constituted the separate houses under

the Rule of Augustine and devoted this new order to the

interests of the Papal see. As with the Dominicans, the

Augustinian Friars followed the spiritual principals set down

in the Rule of Augustine, but were subject to constitutions

that regulated daily practice and institutional governance.

Hundreds of other religious orders adopted the Rule of St

Augustine from the thirteenth century onward, including the

Servites, Hieronymites, Assumptionists, and Mercedarians,

Bridgettines, Ursulines, and Visitation nuns. The widespread

distribution of the Rule of St Augustine made it the single

most pervasive rule in Western Europe by the early modern

period.

Early Modern and Modern Editions

The earliest edition of Augustine’s monastic legislation

was published by John Amerbach at Basel in 1506. Amerbach

attributed to Augustine three principal texts: the Ordo

monasterii, the Praeceptum, and the Regula consensoria, a rule of

possibly seventh-century Spanish origin that was associated

with Augustine in the early Middle Ages. Amerbach also

introduced a numerical priority to Augustine’s texts that

sometimes continues in modern use. The Regula consensoria was

published under the title Regula prima, whereas the Ordo and

Praeceptum were reproduced as the Regula secunda and tertia

respectively. It is notable that the inclusion of the Regula

consensoria among Augustine’s monastic works was called into

question only a few years later, when Erasmus excluded this

text from his edition of Augustine’s works published by

Froeben in 1528. Erasmus also argued that Augustine originally

composed the Ordo monasterii for women as a supplement to Epistula

211, and that he later transcribed this text for communities

of monks.

The next significant edition of the rule was produced by

the Maurists between 1679-1700 and later reprinted by Migne in

volume 32 of the Patrologia Latina. The rule (identified as the

Regula ad servos Dei) exhibits the revisions introduced in the

twelfth century, the text beginning with the first sentence of

the Ordo, followed by the complete text of the Praeceptum. The

Ordo is published separately under the title Regula secunda, and

concludes with the first sentence of the Praeceptum. A

transcription of the Praeceptum was also appended to the text of

Epistula 211, published among his correspondence.

Textual criticism of the rule was taken up in 1747 by

Eusebius Amort, who based his findings on a 12th century

manuscript at Ranshofen and other copies of the rule found in

Bavaria and Austria. His edition included the entire corpus of

Augustinian monastic legislation – with the exception of the

Ordo monasterii feminis datus – as well as extensive historical and

textual apparatus. This edition was generally overlooked by

twentieth-century scholars, though Pierre Mandonnet notes that

Amort attributed both the Ordo and the Praeceptum to Augustine,

the first believed to have been composed for his community of

monks at Hippo and the second produced at a later date as a

commentary. Amort also conjectured that both texts were

adapted in Augustine's lifetime for other monks and nuns, and

possibly united as a single, continuous text.

In 1896 the Dominican Order published an edition of

Humbert’s original volume of legislated texts in the Analecta

Ordinis Praedicatorum, a collection which contained the

thirteenth-century text of the Regula recepta.

The letters of Augustine, including Epistula 211, received

their first critical analysis in the edition produced by A.

Goldbacher in the Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (1911).

The Ordo and Praeceptum were re-edited by P. Schroeder in

the 1926 volume of Archiv für Urkundenforschung. This study was

critiqued a year later by Dom B. Capelle, who reconsidered the

text of the rule and Epistula 211 in an article published in the

Analecta Praemonstratensia (1927). Dom De Bruyne’s extensive work

on Augustine’s monastic legislation culminated in 1930 with

the production of an improved edition of the three principal

texts, published in Review Benedictine 42. Three years later, A. C.

Vega produced a separate edition of the Rule of St Augustine

based on a previously ignored manuscript preserved at the

monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial. Vega introduced new

naming conventions in his text, designating the apocryphal

Consensoria as the Regula prima, the Ordo as Regula secunda, the

Praeceptum as Regula tertia, and the Ordo monasterii feminis datus as the

Regula quarta.

To date, the most comprehensive critical examination of

the Rule of Augustine has been the work undertaken by Luc

Verheijen, who examined the contents of 274 manuscripts

containing 317 texts of Augustinian monastic legislation in

order to produce his two-volume La règle de saint Augustin (Paris:

Études Augustiniennes, 1967). In this monumental study of the

textual history of the Rule of Augustine, Verheijen addresses

the problems associated with the nine legislative texts

attributed to Augustine, and makes considerable strides in

determining the order, form, and context of their respective

composition. He concludes that the original text of the Rule

was the Praeceptum, a text produced for a community of monks

and later adapted for women in the form of the Regularis

informatio. He also argues that the Objurgatio was most probably an

authentic letter written by Augustine, but that the Ordo could

not have come from Augustine's pen owing to conceptual and

stylistic differences. Most recently, George Lawless has

confirmed the conclusions of Verheijen on the authenticity and

content of Augustine’s monastic legislation, through he

introduces evidence that leaves the question of the authorship

of the Ordo open to further investigation.

Matthew D. Ponesse

Bibliography:

Editions and translations:

Analecta sacri ordinis fratrum praedicatorum 2. Rome, 1896. The Regula

recepta is published among the legislation collected by

Humbert of Roman, pp. 616-19.

Amort, E. Vetus disciplina canonicorum regularium et saecularium. Vol. I.

Venice, 1747.

Bardy, G. Saint Augustin: texte de l'édition bénédictine, introduction, traduction

et notes. Paris, 1950.

Bonner, G. And Sr. A. Mary, SPB. Saint Augustine. The Monastic Rules.

New York, 2004.

Goldbacher, A. S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis episcopi Epistulae. 5 vols.

Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 34, 44, 57,

58. Prague, 1895-1923. Letter 211 is published in CSEL 57

(1911), pp. 356-71.

Lawless, George P. Augustine of Hippo and his Monastic Rule. Oxford,

1987.

Schroeder, P. “Die Augustinerchorherrn-Regel. Entstehung

Kritischer Text und Einführung der Regel.” Archiv für

Urkundenforschung (1926), pp. 271-306.

Vega, A.C. La regla de san Agustín. Edición crítica precedida de un estudio sobre

la misma y los códices de El Escorial. El Escorial, 1933.

_________, “Epistula Longissima.” In Miscellenea Giovanni Mercati 2, 47-

56. Rome, 1946.

Verheijen, Luc. La Règle de saint Augustin. 2 vols. Études augustiniennes.

Paris, 1967.

Van Bavel, T. The Rule of St Augustine. Masculine and Feminine Versions.

Translated by R. Canning. London, 1983.

Secondary literature:

Bardy, G. Saint Augustin: l'homme et l'oeuvre. Paris, 1946.

Cilleruelo, L. Comentario a la regla de San Agustín. Valladolid, 1994.

Dom B. Capelle. “L'épitre 211e et la régle de saint Augustin,"

Analecta Praemonstratensia 3 (1927): 369-78.

De Bruyne. "La Regula consensoria. Une régle des moines

priscillianistes," Revue bénédictine 25 (1908): 82-8.

Gavigan, G. “History of the Order of St. Augustine.”

Villanova, Pa., 1979.

Hackett, M.B. “The Rule of Augustine and Recent Criticism.” The

Tagastan 20 (1958): 43-50.

Hertling, L. “Kanoniker, Augustinusregel und Augustinerorden.”

Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie 54 (1930): 335-59.

Ladner, G. The Idea of Reform. Cambridge, Mass., 1959.

Lawless, George P. “Ordo Monasterii: Structure, Style and

Rhetoric,” Augustinianum 59 (1982): 469-91.

Lowe, E.A., “A List of the Oldest Extant Manuscripts of Saint

Augustine with a Note on the Codex Bambergensis,” in

Miscellanea Agostiniana , edited by A. Casamassa, 235-51.

Rome, 1931.

Mandonnet, Pierre. St. Dominic and his work. Translated by Sr Mary

Benedicta Larkin. London, 1945.

Mellinghoff-Bourgerie, V. “Erasme éditeur et interprète de

Saint Augustin.” In Augustinus in der Neuzeit, edited by D. de

Courcelles and K. Flasch, 53-81. Turnhout, 1998.

Sage, A. “La Règle de saint-Augustin.” Revue des études

augustiniennes 14 (1968): 123-32.

Verheijen, Luc. Nouvelle approche de la Régle de Saint Augustin. Bégrolles

en Mauges, 1980.

________. “Remarques sur le style de la ‘Regula Secunda’ de

Saint Augustin,” in Augustinus Magister, I: 255-63. Paris,

1954.

Zumkeller, A. Augustine's Rule : a commentary. Translated by M. J.

O'Connel.Villanova, PA, 1987.

 __________“Die Augustinerschule des Mitteralters:Vertreter und

Philosophisch-Theologische Lehre.” Analecta Augustiana 27

(1964): 167-262.

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