The Rule of St. Augustine

Dominic joined the cathedral chapter of canons in Osma when he was twenty-four years old, in 1197.  There he had his first experience of living according to the Rule of St. Augustine.  “Cathedral canons lived in community, shared property in common, took a vow of stability, and often followed a rule, and thus lived a semi-monastic or ‘regular life’ (meaning that they followed a rule or regula).”*  In 1216, Dominic’s community of preachers in Toulouse relocated to Prouihle faced with the decision of which Rule would guide their life as an Order. The fourth Lateran Council of 1215 prohibited the establishment of new monastic rules of life, so the brothers needed to choose from among those which were already approved.  The Rule of St. Augustine (written in about 400CE) was, perhaps, the self-evident choice.  Dominic had lived by it in Osma and it "permitted active ministry, as it was designed for priests, but a life of ministry grounded in the contemplative life.  The basis of the Rule of St. Augustine is the evangelical principle found in the Acts of the Apostles (4:32): ‘Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.**
 
* Donald J. Goergen, OP. St. Dominic: The Story of a Preaching Friar, 15.
** Goergen, 16.

Read the Rule of St. Augustine here.