It can give the impression that synodality is something modern, a reality that has become fashionable nowadays, like a novelty that has never existed in the Church before, as if it were a contemporary ecclesiological fashion. This is not so. St. Augustine and the Church of his time are for us an example of synodality. The Church of North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries was truly an example of a Church that had become aware of the importance of synodality.
St. Augustine, as St. Posidius reminds us in the Vita Augustinialways participated actively in the meetings of the African episcopate, in a fraternal and ecclesial spirit (Vita Augustini 21, 1).
The local councils of North Africa
In these synodal meetings, St. Augustine participated with the desire to discern and discover the will of God for the Church of North Africa, but also for the universal Church. In fact, these episcopal meetings, commonly called “councils” of the Church of North Africa, are the best showcase for the life, problems and concerns of the Church at the time of St. Augustine. These acts are a spoken portrait of the reality of the Church in which St. Augustine lived.
Synodality ad intra y ad extraThe condemnation of the Pelagians
These local councils of North Africa not only present us with the image of a synodal Church that lives closed in on itself and concerned only with matters that happen in its particular Church. The bishops of North Africa would be the ones to alert Pope Innocent I to the danger of Pelagianism. The pope would respond by condemning Pelagianism. And although later the Pelagians were absolved by Pope Zosimo, their rehabilitation would be ephemeral, because again reason prevailed and the same Pope Zosimo, moved by the episcopate of North Africa, would condemn them with the Epistle Tractoria in the year 418.
Synodality and co-responsibility
Synodality and co-responsibility Synodality also means co-responsibility, and St. Augustine lived it at different levels.
Lay experts
St. Augustine involved in the responsibilities of the Church a group of lay experts in law to form a tribunal to help him judge and deliberate on the case of the controversial inheritance of the presbyter Jenarius, which had already caused much scandal in the diocese of Hippo, as we can see in sermon 355.
The laity and catechesis
A second case of co-responsibility of the laity can be found in the work of catechesis, specifically in the admission and accompaniment of candidates. St. Augustine knew that the laity were in the world and that their secular characteristic gave them a knowledge and a “worldly astuteness” that the pastor of souls sometimes lacked. For this reason, he asked those who presented themselves for baptism to be accompanied by some baptized lay person who knew them (cat. rud. 5, 9). These exercised a function that today we could qualify as “godparents”, since not only were they responsible for ensuring that the intentions of those they had presented for baptism were correct, but they were also entrusted with a great responsibility: to prepare these catechumens for baptism, clarifying any possible doubts they might have, especially in relation to something as secret and delicate in the early Church as the Creed of the Church ( Symbolum fidei).
The laity in accompaniment
Likewise, we see the co-responsibility of the laity in accompanying those who had been converted. There is an interesting case: a baptized person who apostatized from the faith and became an astrologer. Later, he repented and wanted to return to the Church. St. Augustine then entrusts the laity to accompany him, to introduce him to other lay Christians and to encourage him in his daily life (in Ps. 61, 23).
The co-responsibility of nuns
We can also observe the co-responsibility in the tasks entrusted to the nuns of Hippo, who were in charge of going out in the mornings or afternoons to the roads near Hippo to look for abandoned children. They were responsible for welcoming them, feeding them, educating them and bringing them to the Church to be baptized (ep. 98, 6).
The co-responsibility of monks
We know that the monks, both of the monastery of clerics and of brother monks, were involved in the pastoral work of the diocese of Hippo. The co-responsibility of the clerical monks is somewhat evident, but not so much the co-responsible work of the non-clerical monks or brothers. They had several important obligations within the life of the diocese, particularly with regard to the life of prayer and the liturgy. Thus, we know from a very illuminating text how the non-clerical monks were responsible for animating liturgical prayer within Hippo. Letter 29, although it has another main argument, is the best testimony of such liturgical apostolate (ep. 29, 11).
Listening and dialogue
Listen to the poor of Hippo
Synodality also implies the verbs listen and dialogue. St. Augustine is an example, first of all, of listening, since he was attentive to the needs of his own people. He listened to the people who approached him, as in the case of the poor whom he met in the street on his way to the Basilica Pacis. By listening to them, he became a spokesman for their needs and he called himself the mendicus mendicorum (s. 66, 5).
Dialogue with Licinius the Jew
On the other hand, St. Augustine listened to and dialogued with the people around him. This is seen in the case of the Jew Licinius, who came to him and was listened to by Augustine, who took matters into his own hands and defended him against the unjust claims of a Catholic bishop named Victor (ep. 8*, 1).
Synodality is not something new for the Church
Synodality is not a new issue, but has always been present within the Catholic Church. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the Church in which St. Augustine lived in North Africa was a Church that lived synodality and was enriched by it. Of this we have abundant testimonies in the acts that we have preserved of the local councils of the Church of North Africa.
St. Augustine, for his part, is an excellent example of synodality in action, since he was a man who knew how to delegate the responsibilities of the pastoral care of the diocese, counting on the laity, as well as on the other strata of the people of God, such as the religious men and women.
Synodality was in the time of St. Augustine an ecclesial style of walking together and discovering what God was asking of the Church in its own historical moment, and how to face the challenges that the world posed to it at that time. It was a historical moment as complicated as ours, and synodality was an extremely useful way of understanding the Church, as it can be today to face the challenges that the contemporary world poses to us.
Enrique Eguiarte, OAR