Dialogue: Pursuit of Truth in Community.

Devotion to study assumes a different color within the Community. Quite recently, John Paul II underlined the value of learning within the context of a community of friends. He writes:

It must not be forgotten that reason too needs to be sustained in all its searching by trusting dialogue and sincere friendship. A climate of suspicion and distrust, which can beset speculative research, ignores the teaching of the ancient philosophers who proposed friendship as one of the most appropriate context for sound philosophical enquiry (Fides et ratio, 33).

It is known that while still at Cassiciacum, Augustine lived with his friends in an atmosphere of philosophical discussions and reflection. The Dialogues of this period bear witness to the fruitfulness of this period of Augustine’s life. Brian Stock, through a close analysis of the texts of the Dialogues, reconstructs for us a Cassiciacum-day with Augustine and his friends:

The dialogues were read aloud to the assembled friends before they were published. They were recorded with care; references to secretaries abound... The timing, duration, and organization of the conversations was likewise determined by Augustine’s insistence that they be recorded. Debates were broken off at nightfall and begun at daybreak so that scribes could continue their work; they were stopped temporarily when the space on the wax tablets ran out. Arguments that were taken down as notes, subsequently edited, and then made available to the group were described as ‘books.’ Sessions were postponed for the task of correspondence. The "ingenious invention" of the pen trapped evanescent words and prevented Augustine’s students’ labours from being dispersed by the wind...

Doing philosophy did not entail reasoning from positions arrived at by the debaters but discussing texts by authors long dead. The exchange of ideas required extensive reading of pagan writers, scripture, and, as the days passed, the transcriptions of the previous conversations. In the upward progress of the soul inspired by the liberal arts, Socratic ‘reminiscence’ was thus replaced by the memory of what had previously been said. De Beata Vita can be described as a Platonic banquet, but it is one that takes place in a library, or, as Augustine later described it, a museum of pre-Christian beliefs. Contra Academicos and De Ordine had recesses for meals and for wearied speakers to return to the books that they were reading for their enjoyment. Augustine’s arrangements sometimes sound less like those of a philosopher than those of a seminar instructor²⁶.

The Augustinian community is also a place where the search for truth takes place in a climate of love and friendship. It is in community where one can experience that truth "is not yours nor mine, so that it can belong to both of us."