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Donatus ‘paene totam Africam decepit’. How?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

W. H. C. Frend
W. H. C. Frend
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge CB2 1TA
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Extract

Jerome was writing De viris illustribus in c. 393, and his verdict on Donatus of Carthage conceded that he had indeed ‘deceived nearly the whole of Africa’, an aim echoed by Augustine in his satirical anti-Donatist poem composed the same year. In fact, the year 393 had not been a good one for the Donatists. The high-handed acts of the new bishop of Carthage, Primian (391–412+), had provoked a schism among moderate and traditional members of the Church in proconsular Africa and Zeugitana (modern Tunisia). About one hundred bishops from these provinces had rallied to the cause of Maximian, a deacon in the Church at Carthage who was also a descendant of Donatus himself. In the meantime, the Catholic Church, condemned to minority status since the reign of Julian (361–3), had begun to reassert itself through Aurelius, its new bishop of Carthage (392–430). In 393 it held an important council at Hippo where Augustine, even though only a presbyter, had been the preacher.

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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 48 , Issue 4 , October 1997 , pp. 611 - 627
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 De viris inlustribus, ed. Richardson, E. C. (Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des altchristichen Literatur xiv, 1896)Google Scholar, c. 93; Augustine, , Psalmus contra partem Donati, CSEL li. 7Google Scholar, line 3: ‘Nam Donatus tunc volebat Africam totam obtinere.’ That they nearly did in the 390s see Possidius, Vita Augustini, ed. Pellegrino, M. (Verba seniorum iv, 1955), 60Google Scholar: ‘rebaptizante Donati parte maiorem multitudinem Afrorum’.

2 The sentence of the Maximianist council of Cebarsussa can be pieced together from fragments quoted by Augustine in Enarrationes in Psalmos, CCL xxxviii-xl, i. 361–6Google Scholar. See de Veer, A. C., ‘L'exploitation du schisme maximianiste par Saint Augustin dans la lutte contre le Donatisme’, Recherches augustiniennes iii (1965), 219–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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4 See Augustine, , Contra Cresconium, CSEL lii, iv. 58Google Scholar. 69: ‘Numidae et Mauri quam plurimi, paucis Byzacenis et provincialibus’ were present.

5 Rogatus of Assuras was the only prominent Maximianist known to have gone over to the Catholics. SeeAugustine, , De gestis cum Emerito, CSEL liii. 192Google Scholar. Four former Maximianists appear on the Donatist side at the Conference of Carthage in 411.

6 Actes de la conférence de Carthage en 411, ed. Lancel, Serge, SC cxciv, cxcv, ccxxiv, Paris 1972–1975, i. 155Google Scholar, 161: ‘supériorite massive des schismatiques‘.

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9 Ibid. 205–19 and map facing p. 38.

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12 Berthier, , Vestiges, planches vii. 11Google Scholar; xix. 37. For a caution both on Berthier's dating of the chapels and the cult of relics see Actes de Carthage, i. 156 n. 2.

13 Illustrated by Berthier, , Vestiges, planche xiiGoogle Scholar.

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16 Augustine, ep. xxiii, relating to services held by the Donatist Bishop Maximin of Sinitum in the territory of Hippo.

17 See Vars, C., ‘Morsott’ in Receuil de Constantine (1899), 401Google Scholar, and Leclercq, H., ‘Agapes’, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, i/1, Paris 1907, 830Google Scholar.

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19 Monceaux, P., Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne, iv, Paris 1912, 455–6Google Scholar, points to the change from ‘gloriamini’ to ‘gloriemur’ on the inscription, so as to refer to the congregation.

20 The reproach made by Optatus, of Mileum, , De schismate Donatistarum, CSEL xxvi, iv. 5 (p. 107)Google Scholar: ‘lectiones dominicas incipitis, et tractatus vestros ad nostras iniurias explicatis’. See now also Optat de Milève, Traité contre les Donatistes, ed. Labrousse, Mireille, SC ccccxii–xiii, Paris 1995Google Scholar.

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23 ‘Iusti’ and ‘sancti’. See Monceaux, Histoire, 455.

24 For ‘sinners’ see an inscription from Cedias (southern Numidia): ‘Cedienses peckatores’, Corpus inscriptionum latinarum, Berlin 1881, viii. 10727Google Scholar. Cedias was a Donatist bishopric on the site of which Donatist inscriptions have been found: Monceaux, , Histoire, 454Google Scholar.

25 Augustine, , Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 92Google Scholar. 202, CSEL liii. 126: ‘Ita nos quoque iustos et pauperes.’ Perhaps a reminiscence of the ebionim (poor) of Jewish Christianity.

26 Ibid. ii. 23. 53: ‘Cuius [Optati] natalicia in tanta celebratione frequentabatis’; also Contra epistulam Parmeniani iii. 6. 29. See Frend, W. H. C., The Donatist Church, Oxford 1952, ch. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

27 See Christern, J., Das frühchristliche Heiligtum von Tebessa, Wiesbaden 1976, 301–3, 363–4Google Scholar. For the Donatist Council at Theveste in 362 see Optatus, De schismate ii. 18, where reprisals against the Catholics were justified.

28 Petilian in Augustine, Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 85. 188.

29 Ibid. ii. 92. 202 (p. 123): ‘Vos [i.e. the Catholics] autem huius saeculi imperatores quia Christiani esse desiderant…non permittitis esse Christianos…bona mente credentes [i.e. the emperors].‘

30 The Acta Maximiliani are reproduced in The Acts of the Christian martyrs, ed. Musurillo, H., Oxford 1972, 244–9Google Scholar. For a detailed discussion see Brock, Peter, ‘Maximilian and the Roman army’, this Journal xlv (1994), 195–209Google Scholar.

31 Acta Scillitanorum [Acta of the Christian martyrs, 86–9): ‘Speratus said, I do not recognise the empire of this world’ (p. 87).

32 Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 83. 183; 85. 188.

33 Ibid. 86. 190.

34 Ibid. 88. 192.

35 Optatus, , De schismate iii. 3 (p. 73)Google Scholar: ‘quid est imperatori cum ecclesia?’; cf. i. 22 for similar sentiments.

36 Tertullian, , Apologeticum, CCL i. 38Google Scholar. 3.

37 Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 92. 202: a long, and unparalleled, requisitory in post-Constantinian times against rulers and their hostility towards true religion from the Creation to Petilian's day.

38 Ibid. ii. 89. 196; cf. Tertullian, , Apologeticum 50. 15–16Google Scholar.

39 Optatus, , De schismate iii. 4 (p. 82Google Scholar): ‘dicuntur huiusmodi homines in ecclesia corrigi non posse’. There is a vast literature on the Circumcellions: Frend, Donatist Church, 171–5, and ‘Circumcellions and monks’, 542–9i1; Brisson, J. P., Autonomisme et christianisme dans l'Afrique romaine, Paris 1958Google Scholar, Deuxieme partie, ‘Martyrs et Circoncellions’; Diesner, H. J., ‘Die Circumcellionen von Hippo Regius’, Theologische Literaturzeitung lxxxv (1960), 497–508Google Scholar.

40 Augustine, , Contra Gaudenlium 1. 28. 32Google Scholar, CSEL liii. 231, ‘et victus sui causa cellas circumiens rusticanas’, and seeFrend, , Donatist Church, 172–3Google Scholar, on the meaning of cellae as ‘chapels’.

41 Augustine, ep. lxxxviii. 8, CSEL xxxiv. 2. 414; Contra Cresconium iv. 65. 77, ep. cviii. 5–4

42 Recorded in Theodoret, Haereticarum fabularum compendium v. 6, P G lxxxiii. 423.

43 Augustine, Contra Gaudentium 1. 28. 32, and see, for possible evidence of Circumcellion suicides, L. Leschi, ‘A propos des épitaphes chrétiennes du Djebel Nif en-Nisr’, Revue Africaine lxxxiii (1940), 31–6.

44 Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Psalm cxxxii. 6, CCL xl. 1390.

45 Optat i. 4–7.

46 Ibid. i. 24, and De schismate ii. 2–9, in which he claims that the Catholics and not the Donatists possessed the ‘endowments’ of Christ's Church.

47 Optatus, De schismate i.

48 Optat i. 33–56, for a defence of the authenticity of parts of this book.

49 Optatus, , De schismate vii. 1Google Scholar. 2.

50 Ibid. vii. 1. 38–40.

51 Ibid. vii. 1ff. Troditores acted under restraint, and should be pardoned. After all, the Council of Cirta (305) forgave Numidian traditores (1. 35).

52 Canon 37 of the Breviarium Hipponense, repeated in the Council of Carthage of 397. See Conciliae Africae A.345–525, ed. Munier, C., CCL clix. 43Google Scholar. Possidius, Compare, Vita Augustini 7 (p. 60)Google Scholar: ‘Ecclesia catholica…praecipueque rebaptizante Donati parte maiorem multitudinem Afrorum seducta et pressa et oppressa iacebat’; the situation in 395.

53 Augustine, , Contra Cresconium iv. 51Google Scholar. 61. Optatus of Thamugadi led the mobs that expelled these prominent Maximianist bishops (ibid. iv. 25. 32; 50. 60):‘Optatus hoc [the expulsion of the Maximianist bishops] voluit. Optatus hoc fecit.’

54 For instance, by Tyconius; see Frend, , Donatist Church, 172–3Google Scholar.

55 Augustine, , Tractatus in evangelium Ioannis XIII. 15Google Scholar, CCL xxxvi. 139: ‘Diserti sunt multi inter illos [the Donatists] magnae linguae, flumina linguarum.‘

56 As early as 397 when he wrote to Aurelius of Carthage asking him what he thought of Tyconius' Liber regularum which had clearly impressed him: ep. xli. 2.

57 Gennadius, , Liber de viris inlustribus, ed. Richardson, E. C. (Texte und Untersuchungen xiv. 1, 1896Google Scholar), cap. v: ‘valde necessariae doctrinae et praecipue ad custodiendum castitatem aptissimis valde sententiis communitum’.

58 Ibid. cap. iv.

59 Ibid. concerning a second book, Adversus gentes, which Gennadius concedes ‘ad regulam ecclesiasticam pertinentia multa disseruit’, even though he called the Catholics ‘traditores’.

60 Ibid. cap. xviii.

61 Augustine, , Contra Cresconium iii. 56. 62Google Scholar. ‘Elsewhere Cresconius denied that Donatus ‘founded a church‘; he simply restored the Church founded by Christ: ibid. iv. 6. 7.

62 Ibid. ‘in eius nomen et cultum mundi paene totius observantia nutrita coaluit’.

63 Ibid. iv. 61. 75.

64 Ibid. iii. 34. 38.

65 De pseudo-prophetis is the title of a sermon (homilia xviii, PL Suppl. iv. 707–10) attacking the ‘traditores’ as persecutors, and impossible to remain with (‘Christianos vero cum traditoribus morari non licuit’), found in the Escorial Collection, a collection assembled under the title Chrysostomus Latinus, and published in PL Suppl. iv. 669–740. One other sermon, homilia xxviii on martyrdom, suggests a Donatist connection, but others would not at first sight be recognised as such. In Proconsular Africa direct attacks on the Catholics were perhaps reserved for special occasions. These homilies call for a detailed examination. (I owe this reference to Professor F. J. Leroy SJ, of Lubumbashi University, Zaire.)

66 , Anon., Sermo in Nalale SS. Innocentium, PL Suppl. i. 288–96Google Scholar. True Christians would always be separated from the world, a feature of world history extending back to Abel's murder by Cain. The same point is made by Tyconius: see n. 92 below.

67 Tyconius, , Liber regularum (The rules of Tyconius, ed. Burkitt, F. C., Cambridge 1894), Reg. iv (p. 31)Google Scholar: ‘De specie et genere loquimur, non secundum artem humanae sapientiae…sed loquimur secundum mysteria coelestis sapientiae magisterio Spiritus Sancti.’ (All references to the Liber regularum in this paper are to the Burkitt edition.)

68 Ibid.

69 Augustine, , Contra Cresconium iii. 78. 89Google Scholar: ‘Neptunium telum propter tridentem dicis episcopum non decere.’

70 Ibid.

71 The best studies of Tyconius are still Burkitt's edition, and the essay by Monceaux in Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne, v. See also Hahn, T., Tyconius-Studien, Leipzig 1900Google Scholar; Bright, Pamela, The Book of Rules of Tyconius: its purpose and inner logic, Notre Dame 1988Google Scholar.

72 Rules of Tyconius, pp. xx–xxii. John Cassian and Prosper of Aquitaine were among Gallic writers to use the Liber regularum.

73 Isidore, , Liber sententiarum i, 19Google Scholar. 1, PL lxxxiii. 581. Isidore refers to the Rules as set down by ‘quidam sapientes’. He describes them with approval, but does not mention Tyconius by name as an author.

74 Tyconius, , Liber regularum, Reg. iv (p. 38)Google Scholar: ‘Manifestum est figuram fuisse Ecclesiae bipertitae Salomonem.’

75 This is clear from Augustine, Contra epistulam Parmeniani 1. 1. 1, CSEL li. 19–20, and De doctrina Christiana, CCL xxxii, iii. 30–42.

76 Gennadius, , De viris inlustribus, cap. xviiiGoogle Scholar.

77 Monceaux, Thus, Histoire littéraire, v. 210Google Scholar.

78 I have used Burkitt's text (p. 1), ‘Clausa quaeque patefient [Regulae] et obscura dilucidabuntur, ut quis prophetiae inmensam silvam perambulans his regulis quodam modo lucis tramitibus deductus ab errore defendatur’, but see also PL xviii. 18–65.

79 Liber regularum, proemium (p. 1).

80 Ibid. Reg. i (p. 1): ‘Scriptura loquatur, sola ratio discernit.’

81 Reg. ii (p. 10): ‘Iterum bipertitum ostenditur Christi corpus.’ Lucifer was at once morning star and type for the king of Babylon (Reg. vii, pp. 71–2).

82 Reg. ii (p. 10).

83 Reg. vii (p. 71).

84 Reg. iii (p..3).

85 Cited from Hahn, , Tyconius-Studien, p. 70n.Google Scholar, citing Beatus of Liebana (ed. Florez, H., Madrid 1772), 184, lines 2ffGoogle Scholar.

86 Ibid. 507, lines 15–33, cited by Hahn, , Tyconius-Studien, 29nGoogle Scholar.

87 This theme is worked out with skill by Bright, , Book of rules, 49Google Scholar. Tyconius selects texts that ‘are focused upon the Scriptures that evoke eschatological themes of the coming separation of the good from the evil’.

88 Reg. vii (p. 85); Reg. i (p. 8). The prophecy was of the ‘future division’ of the righteous (Donatists) from their schismatic opponents. See Bright, , Rules of Tyconius, 50Google Scholar, for the throne of AntiChrist.

89 Cyprian, ep. lxvii. 3–4, CSEL iii. 2, pp. 737–8.

90 Reg. vi (p. 67): ‘Quod autem Danihel dixit [cited by Matthew] in Africa geritur, neque in eodem tempore finis.’

91 Codex Theodosianus xvi. 5. 4.

92 Reg. vii (p. 81).

93 Augustine, , Contra epistulam Parmeniani 1. 1Google Scholar. 1.

94 See Monceaux, , Histoire liltéraire, v. 219Google Scholar.

95 Augustine, , Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 83. 183Google Scholar.

96 Ibid. ii. 84. 185.

97 Idem, Contra Cresconium iv. 53. 63, a view that had to await the Enlightenment before acceptance in matters of religion.

98 Reg. vii (p. 73): ‘Duae sunt partes in Ecclesia, Austri et Aquilonis id est meridiana et septentrionalis. In parte meridiana Dominus manet, sicut scriptum est, Ubi manes in meridiano.’ For its use by Tyconius’ colleagues see Augustine, , Epistula ad Catholicos de secta Donatistarum xvi. 40Google Scholar, CSEL lii. 283–5.

99 Examples cited by Monceaux, , Histoire littéraire, iv. 454–5Google Scholar.

100 Reg. iv (p. 36), where he discusses the two resurrections: ‘Numquid cum perspicue surrexerimus tunc sciemus Dominum, et non nunc cum per baptisma resurgimus?’

101 Augustine, ep. xciii. 13. 51.

102 Idem, Contra Cresconium ii. 31. 39.

103 Idem, De baptismo 1. 1. 1, CSEL li.

104 Idem, Contra Cresconium ii. 32. 40.

105 See Frend, W. H. C., ‘The Donatist Church and St Paul’, in Ries, J. and others (eds), Le Epistole Paoline nei manichei, i donatisti el il primo Agostino, Rome 1989, 85–123Google Scholar.

106 Thus Vincentius of Thibar, , Sententiae episcoporum no. 37Google Scholar, CSEL iii. 2. 450, and used by Petilian in Augustine, , Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 33. 77Google Scholar.

107 Maureen A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian north Africa: the Donatist world (forthcoming); I am grateful for the information in ch. ii (Cyprian).

108 Cyprian to Magnus, ep. lxix. 2, CSEL iii. 2. 751.

109 Cited in Optatus, , De schismate i. 10Google Scholar; ii. 1; ii. 18. Optatus claims that these texts should apply to the Catholics and not the Donatists. For the Donatist memorandum see Gesta Collationis Carthaginiensis iii. 258, lines 50–5 in Actes de Carthage, iii. 1199.

110 Augustine, , Contra litteras Petiliani ii. 7. 14Google Scholar.

111 Cyprian, , De unitate 14, CSEL iii. 1. 222–3Google Scholar.

112 Augustine, , De baptismo vi. 1. 2Google Scholar; the argument is repeated throughout the treatise.

113 Codex Theodosianus xvi. 5. 37–39.

114 The view of Duval, Yvette, Loca sanctorum Africae, Rome 1982, 446Google Scholar; cf. Février, Paul-Albert, ‘Toujours le Donatisme: à quand l'Afrique?’, Rivista di storiae letteratura religiosa ii (1966), 228–40Google Scholar.

115 The division was not absolute. Cresconius, for instance, was a devoted follower of Petilian of Constantine and wrote his treatise against Augustine on his behalf. On the other hand the Maximianist schism was symptomatic of a lack of sympathy between the Donatists of Proconsular Africa and the Numidians.

116 See Frend, W. H. C., ‘The revival of Berber art’, Antiquity xiv (1942), 342–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.