Augustine of Hippo: Selected Writings (continued)
INTRODUCTION
said of the Confessions: "I saw myself described there," admitted to being nourished on this spirituality. This spirituality has been more precisely influential through the many religious orders that follow the Rule of St. Augustine or an adaptation of it. The Rule is reproduced in this volume.
Although monasticism is popularly associated with Cassian in Egypt and the Desert Fathers, the African monks inspired by St. Augustine's Rule became foundation stones of Western monasticism long before the time of St. Benedict. The Augustinian Rule was accepted in the twelfth century by the Canons Regular, the Premonstratensians, and later by the Dominicans, who followed the same ascetical ideals of Augustine, whereas the Canons of St. Victor, notably Hugh, Richard, and Adam, carried on his humanism and mysticism. The Order of the Hermits of St. Augustine (now called the Order of St. Augustine) was founded in 1256 by Alexander IV to federate the small groups of hermits, chiefly Tuscan, who were the survivors of the original Augustinian impetus to asceticism. Through Cardinal Berulle there was founded in
1613 the Oratory of France, a society of apostolic and studious priests whom the cardinal wished to animate with the spirit of St. Augustine.
The nineteenth century saw a rebirth of religious life through the foundation of many religious orders inspired by Augustine's spirituality or given his Rule to follow. In the middle of the century the Augustinians of the Assumption were brought by Father d'Alzon under the Rule of St. Augustine.
The encyclicals of Pius XI in 1930 and of Pius XII in 1954 announced to the twentieth century what Pope Celestine had solemnly said in A.D. 431:
The life and merits of Augustine, of sainted memory, always preserved him in our communion, so that he was never tainted with any suspicion of evil. We remember him as a man of such great wisdom that he was always counted by my predecessors as one of the greatest teacherse
95. Celestine, Letter 21.