RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Augrustino Aurifaber
devoted to papal interests. Innocent IV by a bull issued Dec. 16, 1243, united certain small hermit societies with Augustinian rule, especially the Williamites, the John-Bonites, and the Brictinans (qq.v.). Alexander IV (admonished, it was said, by an appearance of St. Augustine) called a general assembly of the members of the new order under the presidency of Cardinal Richard of St. Angeli at the monastery of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome in Mar., 1256, when the head of the John- Bonites, Lanfranc Septala, of Milan, was chosen general prior of the united orders. Alexander's bull Licet ecclesice catholicce of Apr. 13, 1256, confirmed this choice. The same pope afterward allowed the Williamites, who were dissatisfied with the new arrangement, to withdraw, and they adopted the Benedictine rule. The new order was thus finally constituted. Several general chapters in the thirteenth century (1287 and 1290) and toward the end of the sixteenth (1575 and 1580), after the severe crisis occasioned by Luther's reformation, developed the statutes to their present form (text in Holstenius-Brockie, ut sup., iv, 227- 357; cf. Kolde, 17-38), which was confirmed by Gregory XIII. A bull of Pius V in 1567 had already assigned to the Hermits of St. Augustine the place next to the last (between Carmelites and Servites) among the five chief mendicant orders. In its most flourishing state the order had fortytwo provinces (besides the two vicariates of India and Moravia) with 2,000 monasteries and about 30,000 members. The German branch, which until 1299 was counted as one province, was divided in that year into four provinces: a Rheno-Swabian, Bavarian, Cologne-Flemish, and Thuringo-Saxon. To the last belonged the most famous German Augustinian theologians before Luther: Andreas Proles (d. 1503), the founder of the Union or Congregation of the Observant Augustinian Hermits, organized after strict principles; Johann von Paltz, the famous Erfurt professor and pulpitorator (d. 1511); Johann Staupitz, Luther's monastic superior and Wittenberg colleague (d. 1524). Reforms were also introduced into the extra- German branches of the order, but a long time after Proles's reform and in connection with the Counterreformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The most important of these later observant congregations are the Spanish Augustinian tertiary nuns, founded in 1545 by Archbishop Thomas of Villanova at Valencia; the " reformed " Augustinian nuns who originated under the influence of St. Theresa after the end of the sixteenth century at Madrid, Alcoy, and in Portugal; and the barefooted Augustinians (Augustinian Recollects; in France Augustins dechausses) founded about 1560 by Thomas a Jesu (d. 1582). O. ZocKLERt.
Bibliography: Helyot, Ordres monastiques, iii, 1-72; T. Kolde, Die deutsche Augustinerkongregation und Johann von Staupitz, Gotha, 1879; Heimbucher, Orden und Kon- Qregationen, ii, 388, 443 sqq.; Currier, Religious Orders, pp. 310-315, 669-772.
AURELIAN: Roman emperor 270-275. He was of humble origin but through his talents as a soldier rose to a high position under the emperors Valerian and Claudius and by the latter was nominated
Caesar at the wish of the army. Upon the death of Claudius (270), Aurelian succeeded to the principate at a time when the integrity of the empire was threatened by the barbarians and the appearance of numerous pretenders within its bounds. His talent and energy in restoring order and repelling invasion won him the title of Restorer of the Commonwealth. He was victorious on the Danube and in Italy, but is best known in connection with the overthrow of the Syrian kingdom of Palmyra and its celebrated queen Zenobia. He was assassinated in Thrace by one of his own officers while preparing to set out on an expedition against the Persians.
Aurelian, according to an old tradition in the Church, originated the ninth of the ten great persecutions of the Christians spoken of by the early writers; but this tradition seems to rest on a misunderstanding of the texts. Orosius (vii, 23) speaks of Aurelian as a persecutor of the Christians, but attributes to him only the inception of a plan of persecution without stating that it was put into effect. The author of the De mortibus persecutorum (vi) is authority for the statement that an edict hostile to the Christians was promulgated, but that before it could reach the border provinces the death of the emperor intervened. Eusebius (Hist, eccl., vii, 30), to whom all other accounts may be referred as the source, says that toward the end of his reign Aurelian experienced a change of view with regard to the Christians and for the worse, but that before he could proceed to the execution of his hostile designs he was overtaken by the divine vengeance. Eusebius speaks neither of the actual issue of an edict nor of its execution, and this accords with the known character of the emperor and the conditions prevailing in the empire. Aurelian was first of all a soldier and was occupied almost entirely with military affairs during his reign. It is highly improbable that in a time of foreign danger and internal unrest he would risk further disturbances by organizing a general persecution of the Christians; and, though he was devoted to the pagan faith and even to its superstitions, he would recognize that Christianity had held, since the time of Gallienus, a publicly guaranteed position in the State. (August Klostermann.)
Bibliography: Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap, xi; T. Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, i, 180, 268-269; ii, 117-120, New York, 1887; V. Duruy, History of Rome, vii, 283-323, Boston, 1890; and other histories of the period.
AURICULAR CONFESSION (From Lat. auricula, " the external ear "): Confession into the ear of a priest in private, enjoined by Leo the Great (440- 461) as a substitute for public confession. The twenty-first canon of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), under Innocent III, makes it obligatory every year upon all Catholics, on pain of excommunication, and consequently the loss of Christian burial. See Confession of Sins.
AURIFABER, au-ri-fa'ber (GOLDSCHMID), AN- DREAS: German physician and theologian, best known in connection with the Osiandrian controversy in Prussia; b. at Breslau 1514; d. at Konigsberg Dec. 12, 1559. He began his studies at
Aurifaber Austin