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trinity, Evangelical divinity school, Princeton Theological Seminary, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Chicago. He has served several churches during his distinguished ministry. For the last eight years. He has faithfully shepherded

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the congregation of Presbyterians who worship at first presbyterian Church in downtown san Diego. Additionally, reverend doctor Andrews has faithfully served in the formation of students for ministry at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary. All of

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this is undeniably commendable. However, what has most often been said to me about reverend doctor Andrews and what I commend to you is this in the midst of the deep disagreements that have caused friction and even

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even schism in the Presbyterian church, usa dr Andrews has remained true to his ordination vow. He has remained a friend among his colleagues in ministry, working with them subject to the ordering of God's word and

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spirit for this robert F jones lecture. He has chosen the topic, to whom and to what is the pastor call as a former jones lecturer, a member of this faculty of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and

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one of his colleagues in ministry. I invite you to welcome the 2017 robert F jones lecturer, the reverend dr jerry andrews. Thank you for that. Um, when I hear these descriptions every once in

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a while I have a couple of reactions. Um most of you who know me know, I don't even try to fake being humble anymore. What's the point? And frankly, where did that ever get

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anybody? But this was aspirational. I hope to be this person and I am working on it. I want to express gratitude for President Ted Wardlaw, my friend, the trustees of the Austin Presbyterian Theological

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Seminary, the faculty and staff for this invitation, alumni and students and guests for being here, especially for the women of the Church of First Presbyterian Church in Fort Worth texas who in order to honor a

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beloved pastor robert F jones has provided funding for these lectures. I hope also to honor that pastor, its current pastor Carl Travis, and all the pastors who are here gathered and those who support and love

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and pray for pastors for these lectures are for pastors and all those who call in our callings are in christ callings that can be lonely and isolating. Yes . And therefore sometimes to be honest about it,

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therefore chosen by people like me who prefer to be left alone. Yeah, those who like me, I'm being honest may even define freedom as freedom from others rather than freedom to be with others. I

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have to go against my nature. God has grace Pastors who struggle to make members of make our members our closest friends. That doesn't always work out well , but who always struggle as much to find pastor

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friends who have the time and the will for deep friendships. Pastors who we must admit prefer the apartness to the accountability of living life together, but who nonetheless yearn for the grace of friends. Let me

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offer this. This first lecture is about Augusta in the second about Gregory. We go at it differently . Augustine will straightforwardly about friendship, But both are Latin authors. I want to tell you that all

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the translations from Latin are my own. And by saying that I've made two announcements, one I know Latin and for all the wrong reasons I want you to know that uh huh And I believe this permits

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me to manipulate the original texts to say whatever I want them to say and that I think they should have said right. The past is so convenient. Augustine was never alone, though he is beloved by

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many for his very personal and severely introspective autobiography, the confessions, and though this project was addressed to God alone, and though this classic introduces a new literary form, usually called something like individual psychological self

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examination, and though the thoughts throughout are profoundly idiosyncratic , it reflects a life lived in constant chosen community . Augustine was never alone, the confessions bless us with an intimate account of the journey on which a

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boy began, on which, according to him, God led him, and on which, but only lately as a man now he committed to consciously walk . Every step along the way was taken with others

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. Many of these others were there at the beginning , throughout all of his meanderings, and at the end more were collected along the way, very few left to see Augustine's travel is to see a shared

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pilgrimage. The nature of that North African desert caravan changed. At first it was family dominated by his ever present mother Monica, and a gang of boys in which Augustine was not the leading member then it

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was a fellow students who took their study seriously and together sought the best in life here, Augustine begins to distinguish himself not from, but within his circle of friends. Whatever they would decide, they would

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decide upon it and live it out together, they do not ever seem to have imagined separate paths. The conversions to the christian faith. They are recorded as the work of God within an individual were from

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the first of them to the last of them all , within a very short space of time, some of their baptismal dates were shared. Their calls to ordained ministry occurred one right after the other, with

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Augustine leading the way at this point and it's not an overstatement, but barely that nearly everyone who went to kindergarten with Augustine like Augustine became a bishop with him. And finally, what had begun in one

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of the most desolate places for gas to a small village on the edge of the Sahara and had ended in the bishopric of the major cities of North Africa was for the last part of the trail characterized by

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intentional communal living and constant travel between the communities. In the violent days of the end of roman rule days, which coincided with their own deaths, they traveled dangerous roads to be with one another. At

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the journey's end, at the very end, the night before the barbarians entered the gates of his final home, the deathbed of the aged bishop, Augustine was surrounded by leaders of the church of North Africa

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, many of whom had been his school day friends . Augustine was never alone. The confessions are remembered vaguely by many for the telling of a story in painstaking detail, the theft of a pair in his

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childhood. A gang of boys out late at night as was their custom plotted and executed a theft of pears from a neighboring orchard. Augustine among them. They stolen immense load, took a bite of just

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a few and through the majority into a nearby hog pit. The boys were neither hungry nor poor. He says we did it just for the hell of it. I don't even like pears. He confesses

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the crime was the attraction in its commission. Our pleasure was purely that it was forbidden. I did it for the love of evil alone and I truly loved it. A custom considers where the company of

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that night influenced his deeds. Did my desire to be with them and please them move me to do what I otherwise would not have done? He answers no. And yes, I remained certain that I

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did it for the love of theft alone. That was what was in me all along. And that is what came from within me that night. But he says, with equal candor, placing no blame

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on his companions. I know for certain that I would not have done this if I was alone by rubbing against my late night friends. The itch of my desires was inflamed. And yes, that's the

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imagery friends. My accomplices did not put the distorted desire in me. They increased it and drew it out. We laughed and laughed. He reports, for having played a trick on the owners who knew

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nothing of it at the time, and who in time we imagined would become furious. And he observes . People seldom laugh alone. I would not have done this alone. Quite definitely. I would not

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have done this alone. This, oh God! He continues in his prayer is the still vivid memory of my heart. I would not have stolen alone . My pleasure was not in that in what I

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stole, but that I stole. Yet I would not have enjoyed it. Have done alone. I owe unfriendly friendship. You inscrutable seducer of the soul , you avid appetite to do damage to the other

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. Out of sheer sport and silliness without gain or glory. You with merely the word, Hey, let's do it, make us ashamed not to be shameful. And with I cannot bear to think of

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this any longer. Augustine quits the story. But the sober, sustained consideration of friendship will be seen in many passages. To come, Augustine will attempt to penetrate the inscrutable nature of friendship, so that

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he and his friends, all now adult, may receive friendship as a gift given to them by God . Another story from his early years will help us see the wounds that Augustine bore. When he reconsidered

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the friendships that God intended for blessing. His first teaching poised post was in his hometown. So too , was that of an old playmate In school pal . They were the same age and their intellectual interests

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were like. Their friendship became dear, very dear . Their common studies further united them upon reunion. They spent their days together within a year. This renewed friendship became sweeter to Augusta than the sweetness of

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all the other things in life. He says they were both young and impressionable, but the friend clearly was influenced more by Augustine than Augustine by the friend . All. For the worst he remembers. I

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persuaded him to believe the same fairy tales I believed then those superstitions, because of which my christian mother wept for me. He we wandered. An error together, and the togetherness was the dearest part of

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my life, until august in praise without complaint. You, Oh, God! Who are at the same time both Lord of Revenge and Fount of mercy took him from me all this within a year's time

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. While the friend lay sick on his bed sweating in delirium and fevers, christians came, and without the sick friends consent, or even knowledge baptized him , Augustine paid little attention to this, knowing that

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when his friend sanity was restored, they would both have a good laugh at it. But when the friend partially recovered and the custom told him what had happened and began to mock the event, the friend

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did not join in Instead with a severe look, he warned Augustine if he valued the friendship, he would cease the mockery. I'll wait until he fully recovers. Augustine reports thinking the friend did not recover

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. The fever returned, and within a few days he died. I was not there, Augustine says , with grief. My heart was black with grief . Everything I saw look like death. My hometown

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was a prison, and my home became an unfamiliar unhappiness. The things we had done together now became torture. My eyes searched for him. But he was not there. I loathe the spaces we had

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been because of his absence. In those spaces could not promise any longer. He will come again soon as they once can do. Once could have done whenever he had been absent before, tears took the

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place in the love of my heart that he had held. I have no doubt I would have died . I have given the opportunity to be with him . I was weary of life and afraid of death

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. He was the half of my soul. I thought of my soul, and his as one soul in two bodies. And my life became a horror to me because I was unwilling to live life halved

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. I raged aside, I wept. I was in torment, unable to rest, unable to think . I bore my soul broken and bloodied, and which I hated to carry because I could not find

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a place to set it down. I hated all things. So I left the gas t and came to Carthage. There are the narrative ends, but from their Augustine's reflections on friendship now really begin.

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He never repents of this haunting, though at the in troubled friendship. Nor will he speak of another friend or friendship with such sustained passion, or mourn a loss with such inconsolable grief. But he will

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learn to think and speak of it in different terms than the ones in which he experienced it. God , he will say now, after much reflection and his own baptism spared the friendship by allowing the friend

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to die in the joy of his baptism, rather than in a shared scorn, so that this friendship is now waiting for renewal when I joined him in death. What Augustine only wondered about in the fables

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of the pagans, Pilates and arrestees who would have had gladly died to be together? He is certain Now, because of the promises of God, grief is considerable. The friend can be found again in

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new and eternal places. A boyhood pranks submitted to such rigorous self examination and considered so thoroughly in terms of friendship, was unknown in the ancient world. Sin is discovery in the heart, and the confession

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of it publicly would be a distinctly christian contribution to the literature of late antiquity. But grief expressed at the untimely death of a friend had been written before . The Augustine's rhetoric here was high and fruit.

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If you had risen to such heights and it's telling it was not unheard of. Death is universal, grief is common. The literature had previously attempted to describe that gift grief even in such powerful and personal

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terms. Friendship to, of course, were known by the ancients and recorded in letters and journals and speeches in both greek and latin. And a few writers had written essays on the subject. Cicero chief

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among them. His treatment of friendship, Augustine had very early on found persuasive, and he made reference to Cicero several times in his own essay on the subject. And in passing in his letters, Cicero's

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well known work on friendship states friendship is nothing other than the agreement on things divine and human along with goodwill and affection, Augustine will quote this definition in essays and letters with uniform approval. Sometimes adding the

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Cicero had defined friendship quite rightly and piously, until that is He writes the confessions in his mid 40s . When revisiting the friendships of his youth, those just named He reconsiders the nature and then the definition

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of those friendships. Cicero will never again be cited on the subject of friendship without addition or correction. He will repent of the definition in one of the first letters sent immediately after the writing of the confessions

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, Augustine speaks at length of friendship to his oldest friend, Marciano's, who has now come back to North Africa as the imperial Leggett. He is the governor, if you will of the place, and

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Augustine soon will be the bishop of the place. What can only be described as a sharp break with his earlier understandings, He declares that the two of them have only now just now become friends. I

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really did not have you as a friend until we were bound in christ. This letter was occasioned by the recent conversion of Marciano's. It allows him Augustine to clarify his new thinking about friendship and at the

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same time with the same words, celebrate a friendship that in God's providence had begun poorly in late night frank frank's, but which just now had begun again in the bright light of God's salvation. This Augustine

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says, is the reason for the joy I have because of you. You who have for so long been a friend of mine in some kind of way , and are now a friend of mine in a

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true way. You who formally shared this passing life with me in the most charming kindness, he writes , have now begun to be with me in the hope of life eternal. We are now agreed on

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all things human and divine, and with that Augustine returns to Cicero's definition and restates it. We are now in that agreement about things divine and human with kindness and affection in christ, jesus, our Lord

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, who is our truest piece. The last paragraph of the letter, Augustine quotes, terrance and virgil back and forth with Marciano's announcing that christ is the culmination of all their hopes and prophecies, urges him

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to become baptized as soon as possible, and now offers a benediction to him. May the Lord God , in whom you now trust, both in this world and in the world to come, keep you

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you my rightly honored Lord and brother in christ, most loved and most longed for. Several new themes on friendship are now being sounded. It's a symphony that comes at us. It can be heard in

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the writings of his and the soliloquies in the letters and City of God primarily, and in other places as well. If a title is to be given to the score, it is best named The Grace

00:19:00.020 - 00:19:15.560

of Theological Friendships. We have seen his redefinition of friendships as that, which is in christ jesus with that small phrase attached to Cicero's definition, Augustine has transferred human friendships from the created order to the redemptive

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. He will not write again about general human friendships , except only in passing is what he had left behind. Occasionally, he will contrast redeemed relationships with those of the pagans. Augustine, who will become

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known throughout the centuries as the church is Doctor of Grace, has now placed friendship within the realm of Grace. He is the first to do so. The christian writers who come later will all follow his

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lead, because there is no one complete treatment of friendship in Augusta is not possible to lecture systematically of the characteristics of friendship in a prioritized way. Yet some themes are heard so frequently, we can safely

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assume assume they were central to the motif as a whole, honesty. That has to be first, the attribute Augustine found so necessary for the writing of such a revealing autobiography. This must always be present

00:20:07.940 - 00:20:18.220

, and this honesty is well, it's humility, it's humility about honesty. He has to be humble and honest enough. He thinks to say that he still does not know himself and that the friend he

00:20:18.220 - 00:20:36.270

knows best, delirious, does not know himself and the two are unknown to each other. What he expects in the absence of full self knowledge is frankness and openness, a willingness to speak the truth as

00:20:36.270 - 00:20:49.190

best we know it and to live our lives in full view of one another. Trust follows quickly. It emerges, but only over time. He knows that how confused it all is. He admits,

00:20:49.190 - 00:21:00.560

the one who first appears an enemy is revealed as a friend and the one who is thought to be a friend later is known as our worst enemy. Nonetheless, he counsels jump in take the chance.

00:21:00.240 - 00:21:15.590

Friendship is too important to miss out of fear in isolation. It's a vice and it leads to all other vices. Do not be too cautious. It weakens a friendship in its inception. So be willing

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to be a friend with anyone. You cannot know friend from foe until you engage. We are known only by our friendships. Equality follows. It's a theme that gets less playing time and seems to be

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assumed. Mutuality is mandated. Reciprocity recommended though in all friendships, different needs and gifts at different times are inherited. The friendships needs and gifts that may suggest temporary comparative strengths and weaknesses. one may need

00:21:45.400 - 00:21:55.840

to correct the other be corrected. one may need to speak recklessly, the other listened intently. one may need to be brave for the other. one may need to suggest caution to the other. There

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is no indication that these roles are not reversible and to be found in the friends alternately equally. The eyes of friends look at each other, not up or down on each other. Love. It's the

00:22:11.470 - 00:22:22.520

one strain that when sounded unites all the themes. The love of God. Yes is the only one right and true love from this. All other good and love comes Love A friend is a love of

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God for the sake of the friend and the love of God is the love of the friend for the sake of God. Yes, that's what the latin says, work on it, the greatest commandment and

00:22:30.800 - 00:22:42.380

the second is like it. They meet here. This love of God is an upward gravity. Augustine will argue. In many places. Our love is made only possible by this upward gravity. He seems

00:22:42.380 - 00:22:56.420

to be imagining a triangle in which to otherwise separated . People are drawn closer by being drawn toward the apex. God Friends spur each other on to love God more and in doing so, make possible probable

00:22:56.430 - 00:23:10.280

even their greater love for each other. Changing locations . In the metaphor, friends love each other most truly when they see more closely God in each other and when they don't see it to encourage it and

00:23:10.280 - 00:23:22.040

they are to correct any waning of that love or error in that love. This is the hard part . Friends do not fault the temptations and inclinations of the other. These things are to be revealed to

00:23:22.040 - 00:23:37.870

each other in mutual tolerance and understanding. Thus, these friends are now better positioned to help each other to avoid sin and correct each other when sin enters in, this is the most important duty. Friends

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. Oh, this is hard work. For the temptations to sin are fewer. Yes, this is that Augusta saying this, for the temptations to sin are fewer than the temptations to avoid correcting the friend

00:23:52.740 - 00:24:08.140

who sends friends are tempted to avoid loving each other in this way and to receive this love from a friend because of shame or fear or danger. Spiritual safety, flattery or simple selfishness. Augusta knows the

00:24:08.140 - 00:24:21.200

heart. I think he knows the human mind as well. We are not to be silent with a friend. Out of bland kindness, the friend is more important than the friendship. Do not risk the

00:24:21.200 - 00:24:33.050

first for the sake of the ladder, we have a preference. He announces that our friends should die rather than fall from faith and virtue. We are to resist in others. What we resist in ourselves

00:24:33.540 - 00:24:42.160

. This work of correction is to be done and done in such a way so as to protect the good name of the friend and to restore the friend . Only in this way does the friendship itself fulfil

00:24:42.160 - 00:24:55.270

its purpose and thrive. And yes, these friendships are christ centered. Now it's the most, most distinct from all the other things that Augustine had said before. His conversion, pagan predecessors had noted many

00:24:55.270 - 00:25:07.020

things, but of course they had not noted this thing. The friendships are to be rooted in christ the mediator who unites the friends, purifies the whole person, cleanses both friends and the friendship enables the

00:25:07.020 - 00:25:22.560

friends to cleave to each other with a pure and Holy love and who send the Holy Spirit who accompanies the friends and their elevation and transformation as fellow pilgrims , christ gives the grace a friendship. These friendships

00:25:22.240 - 00:25:33.460

, this friendship is perfected in the presence of christ in heaven, but not as Augustine was painfully aware . Here there are slights and suspicions, quarrels and wars, unknown hearts, fickle friends, secret treachery

00:25:33.940 - 00:25:47.860

, Augustine will warn of these things, but he will report almost none of it in his letters. What he will report repeatedly is his correspondence is his own anxiety for the well being of his friends,

00:25:48.340 - 00:26:00.280

friends who are at a distance from each other and who were exposed to the trials and temptations of life and death. Fear for friends multiplies with the numbers of friends. It's a burden. He'll say this

00:26:00.280 - 00:26:11.030

more than once, but it's a burden to be chosen and gladly as he ages. His fears are heard more and more often his friends are in more trouble. When they are older, Augustine will speak

00:26:11.030 - 00:26:26.540

of disaster and disease, captivity and slavery. His letters will reveal his torments torments of a friend whose friends are suffering greatly. But Augustine will also say that the Joy of Saints is the death of a

00:26:26.540 - 00:26:41.490

friend, a friend no longer in danger of being broken or corrupted. This is triumph, not defeat . Here. In this musical phrase, I've been describing how much the unconverted young man has moved,

00:26:41.540 - 00:26:55.310

He's now converted. No longer young. He has witnessed much suffering and lost many friends along the way , note how he has changed since the long lamented death of his early beloved companion. The Joy of

00:26:55.310 - 00:27:07.370

Saints is the death of a friend. This change all for the better. Is grace. He affirms the grace of friends along the way. It should be noted that when he wants to give an image

00:27:07.370 - 00:27:18.090

of this friendship, surprisingly, he does not talk about two people in a room or on a walk , but about a herd of deer who in forging a stream. One takes the lead and takes the

00:27:18.090 - 00:27:29.800

brunt of the force of the water for the sake of the whole herd. And then when tiring, retires to the back of the group and another takes the lead and they continue to do this until all

00:27:29.800 - 00:27:45.600

are successfully across. When Augustine speaks of friendships, think in terms of a cohort, not just to facing each other. From these themes emerged not only a fuller sound, but a vision now of how

00:27:45.600 - 00:27:56.840

Augustine lived in the grace of friendships. The vision is made more vivid by the scenes we glimpse in his own portraits of the life lived with his friends and the scenes painted by his first biographer. The

00:27:56.840 - 00:28:12.230

scenes are robust and tender, daily and lifelong, and both deeply emotive and highly spiritual. Though the various philosophies and heresies, the cohort journey together, Augustine will talk of being converted to Cicero. His

00:28:12.230 - 00:28:22.930

biographers will speak of him as being converted to manny . These conversions could be led by one and then joined later by others, but often in a short space of time, they would agree together that they

00:28:22.930 - 00:28:34.440

were closer to finding the truth of matters divine, inhuman and then just as quickly agree that they were not and thus continue their journey in another direction. The young Augustine, we think followed as much as

00:28:34.440 - 00:28:47.870

lead. His mother was so convinced of this that her prayers for his conversion to the faith were accompanied by her appeals that he separate from his friends. There were parties along the way. Friendship was based

00:28:47.870 - 00:29:00.040

on agreement and to agree no longer on which direction the search we travel was to no longer travel together In their youth into their 30s. The ship sailed constantly metaphorically, and literally. It may stop at

00:29:00.040 - 00:29:08.940

a port for a brief stay, but failure to board in the morning was to break company. Often . It appears some would drop out for a while only to catch up later, but it also appears

00:29:08.940 - 00:29:23.340

they were willing to part company. For the search was serious. Truth was the highest value leaving travel companions to search for. It was dreaded but possible . And these journeys were intellectual, as much as

00:29:23.340 - 00:29:36.120

they were practical or practical, as much as they were intellectual. They were seeking a way to live . One would arrive at the final destination by thinking it through fully, never being fully satisfied with anything

00:29:36.120 - 00:29:51.820

other than being fully satisfied and though they truly prized the companionship along the way, they were determined to seek until they found they expected to arrive and seem not to have celebrated the journey for the journey in

00:29:51.820 - 00:30:07.710

sake. However enjoyable the sailing together has been the prayers of these young pagans and heretics was to arrive together. They did. The conversion of Augustine was accompanied by those of his friends here he seems to

00:30:07.710 - 00:30:19.500

have led, but close readings of the confessions suggest that some of his friends were waiting for him. Augustine signaled his readiness to be baptized soon after his conversion. His baptismal date was shared. The journeys

00:30:19.500 - 00:30:32.040

of North African friends had been literal as well, from the remote villages to the neighboring towns to the big city of Carthage. They had moved together, they arrived at a particular place and a particular philosophy

00:30:32.040 - 00:30:45.340

together, they stayed in schools of thought and spaces with each other. Later the journey had taken them to Italy and the highest and most robust academic culture of the empire. Augustine was appointed as chair,

00:30:45.350 - 00:30:59.480

the emperor's chair of rhetoric at the imperial city of Milan. He travelled and lived there with his friends . Ambrose was bishop. There, no living person , pagan heretic or of the faith would ever impress

00:30:59.490 - 00:31:12.780

him more. His descriptions and declarations and admiration for Ambrose in the confessions are highly personal, but they were experiences for the most part shared with friends. They attended his sermons together in the morning and debated

00:31:12.780 - 00:31:27.530

them together later in the day and they moved together following the path of Ambrose who had been brought to Milan, also by the emperor a generation earlier as a magistrate and then had later very publicly and dramatically

00:31:27.530 - 00:31:45.520

resigned the post in order to become the Bishop of Milan, august um resigned the emperor's appointment and that academic position upon conversion. This time, the move was back toward where they had begun. Imperial Milan

00:31:45.520 - 00:31:56.110

was as far away from remote, the gusty as any other two places within the roman empire. In a profound sense when Augustine traveled to Milan, he was never further from home and when he came to

00:31:56.110 - 00:32:12.060

christ there by the administrations of the bishop of Milan , he was never closer to where he had begun his journeys. All that remained was to go home and home. He went home. They went,

00:32:12.840 - 00:32:24.630

he buried his mother in Italy who, having completed her life's work, the prayers that were answered with the conversion of her son died soon after his baptism . There is irony in this timing in place as

00:32:24.630 - 00:32:37.720

well as resolution years before to avoid either saying goodbye to her or taking her with him, Augustine had fled to Italy. Having lied to his mother about his intentions, he stole away across the Mediterranean on

00:32:37.720 - 00:32:52.170

a sailing ship late in the night. His friends had boarded with him. Now they will all return home together, leaving Monica's body in an italian churchyard before leaving Italy accustomed took a tour of a monastery

00:32:52.940 - 00:33:05.960

, better said, he asked to visit a place that in the centuries to come, historians would recognize as an intentional christian community that would be a precursor to the monasteries of the later ages. He and

00:33:05.960 - 00:33:15.800

his friends were impressed with what they saw. The memory did not leave them and it is easy to imagine that plans were formed and reformed until they had the chance to do something about it. Soon they

00:33:15.800 - 00:33:30.290

did accustomed was in short time pressed into being an ordained priest back home, and then again, shortly after a bishop pressed is a good word, summoning . The images of civilians kidnapped into sailing vessels for

00:33:30.290 - 00:33:43.910

commercial or military purposes. It was a near form of slavery. Devout christians avoided the press of ordination . Let me say that again. Devout christians avoided the press of ordination in order that they could attend

00:33:43.910 - 00:33:58.820

to matters of the faith and actually be found faithful ordination. Would they reasoned, stunt the faithfulness. A bishopric had prestige, but the bishop was slave to the demands of public life and what was worse

00:33:59.640 - 00:34:15.970

, the public. It was inescapable and largely undesirable . Augustus. Friends invented a solution the home of the bishop as priest, not knowing he would become a bishop elsewhere. Augustine writes of carefully planning itineraries

00:34:15.970 - 00:34:29.250

that do not go through diocese which lacked a bishop . He and his friends set up housekeeping. The bishop gave him permission. The committed sustained conversations continued . Perhaps seeking was no longer the best word to

00:34:29.250 - 00:34:38.910

describe these discussions, but resting would not be a better one. The whole field of thinking through the faith and faithful living were now open before them and just as important, the rigorous amendments within and between

00:34:38.910 - 00:34:51.090

them that were necessitated by this new christian life. They newly committed to it. There was trial and error, there was progress, but there was not yet enough freedom. Augustine was under a bishop and

00:34:51.090 - 00:35:01.510

had the duties of a worker directed by another. When Augustine was pressed into being a bishop, he knew what they wanted to do and they did it . Blessed Is is a friend and companion of Augustine

00:35:01.520 - 00:35:14.080

. From before this time until his end, He expressed his gratitude for having known Augustine for almost 40 years. He was Augustine's appointed trustee of his library , Larry Corpus and his first biographer. His account

00:35:14.080 - 00:35:25.760

of this season and the theologians, life picks up where the confessions leave off. It is a report of a household. They gave up possessions and lands for fasting prayers and good works. Meditating day and

00:35:25.760 - 00:35:36.050

night in the law of the Lord, Augustine had sold all. He had to buy a large home with a garden. It was the bishop's residence and it was home to the parish priest with him.

00:35:36.540 - 00:35:46.990

More and more of these priests were his friends. The home would have many additions through the years to accommodate the growing number of these friends and to provide hospitality for the many pilgrims who came to consult the

00:35:46.990 - 00:36:00.580

great bishop. It was a seminary of sorts. Lay people became priests, priests became bishops. The towns and cities of North Africa were asked in Augustine for priests and bishops like himself. He was now

00:36:00.580 - 00:36:15.790

providing the North African Church with its clergy, who in turn used their residences as places of theological training and pastoral duty. Eventually, more than 10 of his friends became bishops, childhood friends. The roll

00:36:15.790 - 00:36:28.520

call of the bishops and theologians in the North African , ecclesiastical debates on don autism and palladian is um , and other subjects were on the one side of the debating team, similar to the roll call a

00:36:28.520 - 00:36:42.940

generation earlier of Augustine and his mates in elementary school , Augustine travels in this last season of his life were for only two reasons. The first theological consultations to and from which he traveled with his friends,

00:36:43.070 - 00:36:55.260

sometimes collecting them along the way. The second is travel simply to visit the friends, matters of faith and the friends of faith were all that mattered. In the end, the intentional christian community, Augusta

00:36:55.260 - 00:37:05.980

and his cohorts set up in hippo was declared to be modeled after that of the apostles, as described in acts. Fastidious reports that their intention was to live with the servants of God, according to the

00:37:05.980 - 00:37:19.850

manner and rule instituted by the Holy apostles. The garden house is best described as being moderately aesthetic. The priests all wore simple but well made black robes together, ate their meals. There wasn't enough,

00:37:20.230 - 00:37:31.420

and at the same table, all their meals held possessions in common, having given all previous possessions to the community. The church fund for the clergy was the same fund for the poor. When the congregation

00:37:31.420 - 00:37:45.420

murmured about this, Augustine offered to let them be the trustees of the fund if they would live as he did. They declined. No Augustine appears to have administered this fund so as to not put anyone

00:37:45.420 - 00:37:59.150

else in the inevitable, inevitable position of deciding on medical care for a companion versus the daily bread for the poor. But this managerial role seems to be an exceptional one for him. He did not play

00:37:59.150 - 00:38:07.980

these roles largely in the community, though he was the bishop, he never had the key to the property or wore the bishop's ring. His biographer tells us everything. Even his own expenses was paid by

00:38:07.980 - 00:38:22.920

voucher and open for all in the home to inspect possessions united them, and once nearly divided them, Augustine's handling of this matters as much about his community and his leadership within a all the priests who served

00:38:22.920 - 00:38:36.250

with Augustine gave all their possessions to the common community and lived in that community. Yet. One priest , january's, who had some measure of wealth, gave much to the community. Upon ordination and entrance

00:38:36.620 - 00:38:50.950

at his death, his will revealed he has not given all. He bequeathed the large sum to his daughter, excluding his son, and bequeath a still sizable remainder to the community. Augustine declined the gift

00:38:51.720 - 00:39:04.830

. If january, this was alive, he argues , I would persuade him to reconcile with his son . The revelation of withheld funds produced much ill will in the community. A priest had entered the community

00:39:05.520 - 00:39:17.890

, but had not given all to be held in common. This was deception and at the heart of it, this was most unfriendly to avoid this moment . Again, Augustine reluctantly changed the terms of entrance

00:39:17.900 - 00:39:30.860

into the community. There would be no more an absolute condition of poverty for the priests under his care , but and here's the sting. Neither could that priest live with Augustine and the others in the bishop's

00:39:30.870 - 00:39:43.670

residence. Another story, this one told by Placid Ius, shows another side of his community and leadership . It was at the table where they spent the most of their time and win together. It's there

00:39:43.670 - 00:39:54.520

that Augustine welcomed others, loved conversation and read and thought and wrote with others. He loved this more than the eating and drinking that took place. There were told Augustine had inscribed on the table this poem

00:39:54.520 - 00:40:13.120

in Latin, who injures the name of an absent friend may not at this table as guests attend. I am remarkably proud of that. In this he warned against gossip. Course, speech about others and

00:40:13.120 - 00:40:25.670

bearing false witness against thy neighbor. Once with fellow bishops mostly in attendance, Augustine became so exasperated with her conversation that had violated this morning. He rebuked them in the midst of the meal by asking which

00:40:25.670 - 00:40:45.090

now is to be done Shall we remove the inscription or shall I remove myself? Both I and the other is at the table. Prestigious reports. Experience this. This community had some rules. There were

00:40:45.090 - 00:40:54.470

few and far between and contrary to claims that began in the Middle Ages, No written record of them remains. Perhaps they were never written. How many friends, How many rules do friends need? The

00:40:54.470 - 00:41:06.730

closest we can come to reading an Augustinian rule is from a letter Augustine wrote to the leader of the women's community under his care. The women's residents had been established by Augustine's widowed sister and apparently was of

00:41:06.730 - 00:41:19.450

some size and some distance from the bishop's residence. His sister died highly beloved by the sisters of the community. She was replaced by her chosen successor. Less beloved. The sisters complained to Augusta, noting

00:41:19.450 - 00:41:32.110

how wonderful was his sister and how much less so was her assistant now successor. They asked him to come and replace her. Augustine declines to come, stating he will delay to come until they restore their

00:41:32.120 - 00:41:45.890

own harmony and he supports the new leader, asking them to honor the memory of his sister by honoring her beloved successor. Apparently, more than personalities were an issue for Augustine takes the occasion to write out

00:41:45.890 - 00:41:57.320

some ground rules for the community. Remember these are highly specific and who knows what the what the complaints were and how it is that he's writing directly to them. But unity is first shared goods. Next

00:41:57.330 - 00:42:07.670

all is to be given up upon entrance. The sister who leads alone can redistribute the goods. Pride in giving is to be avoided. In this, he acknowledges that some fathers and families who place young

00:42:07.670 - 00:42:20.930

daughters in the community may give large amounts of monies and also that sometimes some women came with nothing needing someone to care for them. There is to be prayer that's to be central prayers were defined to psalms

00:42:20.930 - 00:42:32.740

and hymns fasting, and when one is eating, to do so in silence, and then to engage in conversations, differences and accommodations were to be tolerated among the sisters and that may be prompted by age

00:42:32.740 - 00:42:45.020

or health or maybe the family gift given at the entrance, that's okay. A tire was to be simple and the hair covered minds and appearances chased discipline defined his obedience to the lead sister was to be

00:42:45.020 - 00:42:57.630

observed and cross looks were to be confronted on one on one and then two or three if unheeded and then expulsion of no repentance. The clothing you get back from the laundering may not be what was sent

00:42:57.940 - 00:43:16.470

where it anyway. Don't wash clothes too often, bathe once a month. That's a test of friendship . When you go to the baths, going groups of three serving storeroom, wardrobe, library without grumbling

00:43:16.470 - 00:43:29.360

, get whatever clothing and shoes you need. Check books out of the library only during stated hours. Really don't quarrel make up quickly, forgive without reserve . I love this part. Better to be quick

00:43:29.360 - 00:43:45.390

to anger and quick to ask forgiveness than slow. It both obey read and then read some more in this letter, though it was occasioned and may reflect more a response to specific complaints than a general rule

00:43:45.640 - 00:43:59.080

. It must give us some insight to the men's residence as well compared to what was happening in the Egyptian desert east of Hippo. This was a very mild asceticism. What happened at table with central relationships

00:43:59.090 - 00:44:12.410

are core and libraries and reading are an unquestioned part of the home. The community built by Augusta and those built by friends contemporary to him, including his sister, and those built an imitation of his community

00:44:12.410 - 00:44:27.690

soon after were communities of theological friends in there and with each other. The leadership of the church lived and loved, talked and thought, served and sheltered others in this community of theological friends. The matters

00:44:27.690 - 00:44:40.280

of the formation and the reformation of the soul and the church were discussed, deliberated, debated and determined . From there came the ideas and practices that would shape not only the community and those within, but

00:44:40.280 - 00:44:58.080

the whole church and from there a millennium later, in such a place, an Augustinian monk would start the great reformation. The final sounds and sights of Augustine's living and dying are heard and seen in the

00:44:58.080 - 00:45:09.950

biography composed by paul Sidious, this friend of Augustine and bishop of Calama had returned to the garden residents of the great bishop and would be present during his dying. So to our other bishops and priests,

00:45:10.100 - 00:45:22.600

all friends, some had come because their hometowns have been burned down by the Vandals who were now sweeping across North Africa, who were setting up rule in Carthage and imposing Aryan alternatives and the parishes and bishopric

00:45:22.890 - 00:45:37.850

of the cities and soon the desert. The last letter pass ideas carries for Augustine, a message delivered after Augustine's death encourages the remaining bishops to stay at their posts until all is lost. Calama already had

00:45:37.850 - 00:45:52.420

been lost and the old friend had come home to the residents of the bishop of Hippo, His own residence when he first became a priest nearly 40 years ago. Many had come because Augustine was dying,

00:45:52.090 - 00:46:07.600

a fever had come, strength was waning the memories of the table. The intimate and theological conversations hosted there drew them back one more time and these things , they continue to speak. Do you remember when

00:46:07.980 - 00:46:22.090

it would be their last, the Vandals would soon burn down much of hippo in all of the bishops beloved residents now they gathered at his bed. The report is that they spoke together as before, agreeing

00:46:22.090 - 00:46:36.560

on things human and divine, with kindness and love . In christ, jesus, Augustine had told them all earlier that he had been taught how to die by another friend and bishop, whom he regularly had

00:46:36.560 - 00:46:47.150

traveled to visit during a prolonged illness. Augustine had begged him to live longer because of his great benefit to the church and because of their friendship, the friend fastidious notice was from a very small town and

00:46:47.160 - 00:47:01.210

he was barely literate. But he had taught the great bishop this last race. If we are never to die, he said to Augustine, then it would be good that you would ask me not to

00:47:02.580 - 00:47:19.980

, but if I am to die. Why not ? No. That now had come for Augustine and fastidious notes. We were all present. This friend , a bishop and his biographer writes as I By

00:47:19.980 - 00:47:35.890

the Grace of God, I have lived with this man who now is dead on terms of intimate and delightful friendship, with no bitter disagreement for almost 40 years. I also continue to emulate him in this

00:47:35.890 - 00:47:52.100

world and may I enjoy with him the promises of God Almighty in the world to come. Amen. Augustine died as he had lived in the grace of theological friends. August um, was never alone.