Donatist Schism Research Articles

A Pastoral Theology of Desire. Reading Augustine’s Theology of Desire in A Broader Corpus

The Enarrationes in Psalmos are an important source for understanding the Augustinian theology of desire, linking it to his systematic theology and his pastoral practice. In this paper I illustrate by overviewing the expositions on Psalms 11 (12), 12 (13), 23 (24), and 26 (27). These Psalms teach us to love, trust, and seek God only, a failure to do which marks the Donatist schism. Augustine mingles ideas from pagan philosophy’s quest for eudaimonia or beata vita—the good, happy, and blessed life—with biblical ideas. We want a stable happiness, and we must pursue wisdom; we can find stability in the rock that is Christ, to follow whom is to pursue wisdom rightly. Our desires must be converted to God, the only complete and perfect good and the source of eternal happiness, whom we must single-mindedly pursue with prayer and faith. While we must desire the eschaton and look to no earthly satisfaction, earthly goods may be received as gifts from God. One thing we can learn from studying the Enarrationes is how closely connected are the ideas of right love, the right church, and the right end; all three go together in Augustine’s theology.

Charity and Almsgiving in Donatist Sermons and Cyprian of Carthage’s Legacy

Still under-investigated collection of Donatist sermons from Vienna provides us with a possibility to see the life of North African Donatist communities in a new light. While almost all our sources are polemical in nature, those texts were used in the Donatist catechesis. The paper deals with the treatment of charity and almsgiving, its understanding and justification, in the Donatist preaching. Furthermore, the subject is considered in relation to the legacy of Cyprian of Carthage, due to his great influence on both the history of the Donatist schism and the development of the concept of charity in the Western Christianity.

“CLAMATIS VOS SOLOS SANCTOS”: THE CHURCH AS A CORPUS PERMIXTUM IN AUGUSTINE’S PSALMUS CONTRA PARTEM DONATI

When Augustine started his priestly ministry at Hippo in 391, the Church in Africa was already divided for about eight decades by the Donatist schism. 1 Before him both Catholics and Donatists made efforts to plead their cause and reach a popular audience by various means. On the Catholic part, Augustine contributed to the struggle by composing his Psalumus contra partem Donati when he was still a priest, toward the end of 393. 2 This work contains some of the ideas that Augustine, as a bishop, later developed and expanded in his ecclesiology. One of those ideas is that of the Church as mixed body.

John Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine: Encountering Change, Looking for Continuity by Stephen Morgan

Reviewed by: John Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine: Encountering Change, Looking for Continuity by Stephen Morgan Guy Nicholls C.O. Stephen Morgan John Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine: Encountering Change, Looking for Continuity Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2021 xvi + 315. Hardback. $75.00. John Henry Newman is undoubtedly one of the greatest Christian thinkers of any age, who made significant and highly original contributions to many areas of philosophy and theology. This beautifully written and closely argued book justifies the author's claim that Newman made no single contribution to theology more important than his long exploration of these questions: how can doctrine actually change and develop, whilst simultaneously remaining faithful to the original revelation? How can we know this to be so? In researching and pursuing this matter in ever greater depth and detail, Newman, according to Morgan, "addressed a question that had posed for him a serious existential difficulty for a very considerable period of time" (263), viz. how, in encountering change, can we find continuity? In pursuing this quest Newman has also bequeathed to the Church of our own time a vitally urgent hermeneutic tool to tackle questions concerning [End Page 206] the nature and extent of ecclesiastical authority to make definitive pronouncements on matters of doctrinal development. Morgan draws a striking picture of the intricacy of Newman's mind in framing the question and in devising various theories to provide its solution. In many ways it is most helpful to begin from the latest stage of Newman's research, which was the publication of the book that effectively divided his life into two halves: the first Anglican, the second Catholic. The 1845 Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine was described by Newman as "an hypothesis to account for a difficulty." First of all, the genesis of this "difficult" question of development of doctrine is to be located in the historical and revealed nature of the Christian religion. Christianity is an historical religion based not only on the facts of the life and teaching of Christ, but on the transmission, or "tradition," of these facts down the generations which form his Church. In short, the central fact of the Christian religion is the person of Christ, who, as the incarnate Son of God, is the subject of divine revelation. This fact can also be described as an "idea" which exists in human minds and is therefore subject to the multiform processes of human thought and reflection. Morgan has skillfully traced the unfolding of Newman's thought processes and of the interaction between him and his contemporaries, both Anglican and Catholic, in arriving at a fully articulated theory of development of doctrine. In so doing, he has also constructed a robust defense of Newman against those who have called into question Newman's own claim to honesty or who have impugned the accuracy of his memory when, more than twenty years after the climax of this period had passed, he was obliged to defend himself in the Apologia Pro Vita Sua against Charles Kingsley's charge of untruthfulness in his dealings with his fellow Anglicans before his conversion. Morgan conducts a painstaking forensic examination of New-man's letters and other writings in which he tested his own intricate theories to account for the "difficulty" of the phenomenon of doctrinal development. But as Morgan shows, Newman's successive attempts to locate development within Anglican fidelity [End Page 207] to patristic antiquity and within the via media of the Anglican church between the "extremes" of Roman excess and Protestant error, were utterly "pulverised" by the Catholic Nicholas Wiseman's 1839 article on the fourth century Donatist schism. Wiseman quoted the judgement of St. Augustine, "securus iudicat orbis terrarum," which Newman immediately sensed was precisely applicable to his own contemporary view of the Anglican and Catholic churches. Newman took this to show that the Anglican church was not as he had claimed, a true branch of the Catholic Church, but rather a schismatical body. The Anglicans were in a parallel position to the Donatists of North Africa, and out of communion not only with St. Augustine but also with the papacy...

Bandits, Militants, and Martyrs: Sub‐state Violence as Claim to Authority in Late Antique North Africa

AbstractFourth Century North Africa was a site of intense religious and political conflict. Emerging from a period of persecution and newly legitimized by the Roman state, the Christian Church immediately fractured into two competing camps. Now known as the Donatist schism, this fracture was the result of competing claims to religious authority between two camps of bishops, but the doctrinal debate at its core precipitated a specific form of violence: attacks on clergy and property perpetrated by roving groups of militant bandits. Known as circumcellions, these bands acquired a perverse reputation for religious zeal, a desire for martyrdom, and what their opponents described as the ‘madness’ and ‘insanity’ of their violence. Here I analyze sources produced by both Donatists and Catholics to trace patterns of circumcellion violence. I draw on borderland theory and research on non‐state violence to argue that such acts were not mad, but rather the result of strategic efforts to consolidate religious and political power. In this, Donatism and the sectarian violence that accompanied it provide important insights into how banditry and peasant rebellions can serve as alternate sources of social and political power, avenues through which heterodox movements challenge the power state and religious hierarchies alike.

Being Christian in Vandal Africa: The Politics of Orthodoxy in the Post-Imperial West by Robin Whelan

Reviewed by: Being Christian in Vandal Africa: The Politics of Orthodoxy in the Post-Imperial West by Robin Whelan Roland Steinacher Robin Whelan Being Christian in Vandal Africa: The Politics of Orthodoxy in the Post-Imperial West Transformation of the Classical Heritage Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2018 Pp. 301. $95.00. This book stems from a 2014 dissertational thesis at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. Whelan provides an exhaustive and convincing analysis of doctrinal conflicts under Vandal rule in Roman Africa, contributing greatly to our understanding of the post-Roman West. The book is divided into two larger sections, “Contesting Orthodoxy” and “Orthodoxy and Society” (which are themselves apportioned into seven chapters), an introduction, an epilogue, and six appendices. Finally, a timeline, a map, figures and tables, a comprehensive bibliography, and an index are part of this study. Whelan pictures the two competing churches in his first chapter. Leading Nicene bishops like Quodvultdeus and Fulgentius of Ruspe had to struggle for followers, properties, and dispensations while their Homoian counterparts were privileged by the Vandal kings. Even though Victor of Vita painted blatant dissimilarities between the two institutions, they originated from a very similar background. Whelan convincingly argues that linguistic (Gothic as a liturgical language) and ethnic differences have been overemphasized in modern research. Some studies completely misunderstood Homoian Christology as a “Germanic” deployment and traces of this approach persist inside and outside scholarly studies. Homoian clerics were, however, part of a common Christian and Roman tradition. The Vandal military had attracted Arian clergymen from all over the Roman Empire. These Homoian theologians tried to build up a new African church, a heretical one in the eyes of their Nicene competitors. The second chapter focuses on how churchmen debated with one another and shows a vibrant culture of polemical Christian disputation. One of the strongest points of this book is Whelan’s discussion of a number of rarely treated or nearly ignored texts. Sermons, letters, doctrinal tractates, biblical testimonia collections, conciliar acts, psalms, poems, histories, saints’ lives, and theological treatises used in the Nicene-Homoian controversy, florilegia, and dialogues are regarded side-by-side with well-known sources like Victor of Vita’s Historia. These texts [End Page 445] have received comparably little attention in modern scholarship, partly because of their sometimes-surreal narrative structures. For example, dialogues of long-dead church fathers with famous heretics were central in debates over religious authority, doctrine, and practice in late antique Africa. Interestingly enough, Nicene as well as Homoian writers used similar literary forms. Whelan scrutinizes the available material, sometimes managing to revivify Homoian voices hidden behind the curtain of Nicene polemics. The third chapter reconstructs the self-presentation of a Homoian Christian community. Homoian writers defined themselves as members of the one true Christian church and consequently managed to put known church fathers like Athanasius and Augustine in the position of heretics. King Huneric tried to invoke the theological adjudications of the councils of Ariminum (Rimini) and Seleucia from the year 359 in the provinces under his rule. Doing this, the Homoian church appeared as the only holy, apostolic, and catholic (in the original sense of being universal) church with full legitimation. Like Emperor Constantius II’s attempt to change the results of Nicaea, the Vandal king Huneric tried this for the African provinces and in some respects also for the rest of the empire. He acted like a Roman emperor and the edicts cited by Victor of Vita use a juridical terminology known from late antique imperial chancelleries. The fourth and final chapter of the first section examines the role of historical theological controversies for the dispute in Vandal Africa. Both sides referred to the past and especially to the Donatist schism in fourth-century Africa. The goal of Homoian as well as Nicene writers was to bolster claims to orthodoxy. Nicene clerics sought to link their Homoian opponents with the Arians and other heretics of the past. Homoian writers and jurisprudents in royal service prepared a severe strike against the Nicene church. Laws that had been created by several Roman emperors to protect the Nicene church were imposed by King Huneric against the African Catholics. The second section...

On the Reasons of the Long-Term Viability of the Donatist Schism

On the Reasons of the Long-Term Viability of the Donatist Schism

Константин и донатистский раскол: первые шаги императора (313–314 гг.)

Константин и донатистский раскол: первые шаги императора (313–314 гг.)

Unfriendly and polemical elements in Augustine’s correspondence with other clerics

Abstract: Nearly half of the letters written by Augustine were directed to other clerics. The paper analyses how polemical intentions could be hidden behind friendly formulas. Particular consideration is given to the correspondence between Augustine and Donatist clerics, whom he treated as his peers and brothers.<fnote> The research was funded by the Polish National Science Centre grants: “The Presbyters in the Late Antique West” (2013/10/E/HS3/00202) and “The History of the Donatist Schism” (2015/19/D/HS3/00626).</fnote>

The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts, ed. Richard Miles

The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts, ed. Richard Miles

Review: The Donatist Schism. Controversy and Contexts, edited by Richard Miles

Richard Miles, ed. The Donatist Schism. Controversy and Contexts . Translated Texts for Historians, Contexts 2. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2016. 394 pp. xi. ISBN: 9781781382813. $120.00. For half a century after its publication, in 1952, William Frend's The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa remained the standard narrative on the late antique North African Christian controversy. Among the explosion of recent scholarship on late antique North Africa and the Donatist Schism in particular, Brent Shaw's monumental and magisterial Sacred Violence. African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (2011) has had the most significant impact on revising Frend's traditional narrative. The book currently under review, itself revisionist, challenges several fundamental assumptions about the Donatist conflict, and its impressive roster of scholars systematically engages with Sacred Violence throughout, challenging its argument in numerous instances. This outstanding and important collection of studies is therefore an appropriate tribute to Brent Shaw, to whom it is suitably dedicated. Based on a 2014 conference held in Sydney, the volume includes fifteen chapters, three of them introductory, followed by twelve studies on a specific topic or theme of relevance to the Donatist Schism; there is also an excellent Bibliography and a useful Index. Following a general introduction by the volume's editor, Richard Miles (“The Donatist Controversy: Parallel Histories, Multiple Narratives”), John Whitehouse presents an overview of events (“The Course of the Donatist Schism in Late Roman North Africa”) as well as of its main scholarly interpretations (“The Scholarship of the Donatist Controversy”) which concludes with a list of “Key Themes for Future Research” (49–53). Both of Whitehouse's chapters are useful introductions to the topic, particularly for students and readers unfamiliar with the details of this religious controversy, and especially considering that the following chapters mainly address readers familiar with the topic. In addition to outlining the key historical moments of this controversy and its scholarship, Whitehouse introduces key vocabulary and concepts, surveys the main sources, and …

Esau and Jacob (Sermon 4)

Augustine’s Sermon 4 on Esau and Jacob is long (860 lines) and consists of a complex division in 37 chapters. This division makes it difficult to identify quickly and easily the rhetorical arrangement which must have been an important factor in making this sermon a success in the context of Augustine’s struggle against Donatism. This same division has been handed down through the centuries. Once the existing, complex division into 37 chapters is relinquished, it is possible, on the basis of linguistic and Scriptural indications, to establish the existence of a new, simple division into 3 parts. A frame exists in these three parts that runs from creation (Gen. 1) to judgement (Mt. 25), in which Augustine discusses the stories of (the blessings of) Esau and Jacob (Gen. 25 and 27) in the context of the absence or presence of love (for which he employs 1 Cor. 13). Seen from this perspective, Esau represents the bad people who consciously permit themselves to be separated from the Church through the absence of love (a reference to the Donatist schism), while Jacob stands for the good people, who highlight the unity of the Church by availing themselves of love: by not acting on their own authority and expelling sinners, but by leaving judgement to God and by accepting them lovingly. The new division clearly reveals this message.

Wokół soboru nicejskiego (325): na kanwie monografii autorstwa Henryka Pietrasa SJ

The Council convened by emperor Constantine the Great to Nicea in the year 325 still arouses keen interest of researchers around the world. Against the back­ground of international scholarship, the achievements of Polish academics look quite modest. That is why one should especially appreciate the publication of a book (written in Polish) on the subject by Henryk Pietras, an acclaimed Polish patrologist. The monograph is noteworthy for a number of reasons and compels the reader to a thorough reflection on a cornucopia of facts that have been already discussed by numerous academics and subject to manifold interpretations. Its spe­cial merit lies first and foremost in an erudite analysis of sources conducted by the Author, which is competent enough to exhort all the interested to (at least) re-think their views. It is necessary to admit that the Academic is right, when he argues that the Council (firstly convened to Ancyra, and subsequently to Nicea) was not organized for the reason of discussing the Arian controversy. In reality, it seems that the primary reason for the meeting was the Donatist schism, which the Patrologist underestimated, and additionally the problem of reaching an agree­ment on a date of the Passover celebration. Certainly, the Council was not of an anti-Arian nature, but Arius was condemned by the ecclesiastic meeting as the one who rejected a laboriously reached compromise as for the form of the credo and renounced the term homoousios.

Christianity in the later Roman Empire: a sourcebook

Introduction Acknowledgements Chronological Table 1. Christianity and Rome 2. The Great Persecution 3. The Conversion of Constantine 4. Constantine and the Imperial Church 5. The Donatist Schism 6. The Doctrine of the Trinity 7. Scripture and Liturgy 8. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 9. Emperor and Bishop 10. Asceticism and Monasticism 11. Christianization 12. Paideia: Christianity and Classical Culture 13. Christians, Jews and Manichees 14. Gender and Society 15. Holy Men and Holy Women 16. Pilgrimage and Relics 17. Missionaries and Kings 18. The City of God 19. The Christological Controversies 20. Christianity and the Barbarian Invasions Epilogue: The Dawn of Medieval Christendom General Bibliography Index of authors and texts Index of Scriptural citations General Index

African Controversy: The Inheritance of the Donatist Schism in Vandal Africa

A sense of an ending dominates accounts of African Christianity after the Vandal conquest of the 430s, not least as a result of the apparent disappearance of the Donatists in an Africa now ruled by Homoian Christians. In fact, the transfer from Donatist schism to new ‘Arian controversy’ more closely resembles the broader picture of Vandal Africa which has emerged from recent scholarship: significant continuity amid dynamic transformation. The cultural and rhetorical legacies of the Donatist schism were used by both parties (Catholic and Homoian) in Africa's new church conflict to present themselves as the true African Church.

From a Martyrological ‘Tabernacula Pastorum’ towards a Geographical ‘In Meridie’. Augustine’s Representation and Refutation of the Donatist Exegesis of Sg. 1,6-7

This article first presents Augustine’s exegesis of Sg. 1, 6-7 in the Donatist controversy. This overview is based on his anti-Donatist sermo 46, which is devoted to this passage. Augustine states that the Donatists do not seem to be able to read ‘in meridie’ of Sg. 1, 6-7 correctly, erring by (i) understanding it geographically as applying it to Donatist Africa, (ii) seeing it as confirming the uniqueness of the Donatist Church, and at the same time not realizing that it actually condemns the Donatist schism. The second section of this article presents a possible reconstruction of a Donatist reading of the two verses of the Song of Songs, different from the Donatist exegesis Augustine presented in his works, depicting the Donatists as incapable of reading correctly the punctuation of a biblical passage or of understanding its content. The expression ‘tabernacula pastorum’ functioned as our key to reconstruct what we believe could be a more plausible Donatist exegesis of Sg. 1, 6-7. This reading would give the issue of martyrdom a central place, and ultimately, this topic was the real cornerstone of the Donatist movement.

The Abitinian Martyrs and the Outbreak of the Donatist Schism

It is often claimed that the story of the Abitinian martyrs provides evidence relevant to the outbreak of the Donatist schism. However, this interpretation of the text rests upon a number of false assumptions regarding its manuscript tradition and the celebrity of the martyrs it commemorates. Rather than being written in the early fourth century, the text in its extant form was probably written after the Council of Carthage in 411, and perhaps in response to it. It thus does not cast light upon the outbreak of the schism, but rather on the way in which the events of the early fourth century were polemically reinterpreted at a much later date.

Some Notes on the Donatist Schism

AbstractRecent work on the highly significant Donatist religious schism in late Roman Africa is reviewed, supported by an Appendix tabulating a draft chronology of Donatism. Particular attention is paid to the controversy surrounding the date and origins of the schism. The ‘revolutionary fringe’ of the Donatist movement, the Circumcellions, is also discussed, with specific reference to arguments concerning the social status of this group. A third section outlines the participation of Tripolitanian bishops of both Catholic and Donatist persuasion at the great Conference of Carthage in AD 411. The social historical importance of the extensive documentation is illustrated at several points by reference to illuminating insights into life in late Roman Africa.

Religious Toleration in St. Augustine

The extended delay of Vatican Council II to approve the schema on religious liberty was illustrative of the ambivalence that has characterized Catholic thought on this delicate question for centuries. Since few Christian thinkers have influenced church state attitudes of later generations in a manner comparable to that of St. Augustine, and since his thinking on religious liberty is characterized by a striking volte-face, it may be opportune to ponder his thoughts at a time when so many distinguished Catholic leaders can be found supporting sharply divergent views. Augustine, weighing both sides of the question of harshness towards dissenters, presents a microcosm of the problem as it appeared at the recent Vatican Council II. A word of explanation is necessary at the outset to instil a further study of a question that has already been fully treated in many articles and monographs. Unfortunately, these pages do not disclose any new Augustinian text which would solve once and for all the problem of just why Augustine changed his views on tolerance to so marked a degree. What originality this study enjoys lies in an interpretation of well-known facts. This in terpretation is twofold: (1) Augustine's change from a policy of tolerance to one of intolerance was not based on a change of fundamental principles, but rather upon a change in the applica tion of a principle that remained consistent throughout his polemic with the Donatists. (2) An explanation of why re ligious tolerance, which certainly is a question of principle for us, was not a question of principle for him. The explanation lies in Augustine's failure to develop a theory of human rights and in his attitude on the nature of the state. To make the interpretation suggested in these pages more intelligible a review of the factual situation confronting Augustine is in order. Since nearly all that Augustine had to say on reli gious tolerance was said in connection with the Donatist schism,1

Reflections on Religious Dissent in North Africa in the Byzantine Period

There are good reasons for historians’ preferring to write history proceeding from the earlier in time to the later. Why, after all, should they ignore time’s one-way arrow? On occasion, however, it is useful to reverse the normal procedure.The history of North African Christianity, and especially the history of the tradition of dissent in it, is a case in point. The literature of the Donatist schism of the fourth and fifth centuries is comparatively rich. It is tempting, having crystallized an image of Donatism on the strength of it, to find the same image displayed again during the Vandal or the Byzantine period, periods for which our information is very much more fragmentary. The assumption that there is such a continuity may work in either or both of two ways. It may distort the real bearings of scanty material by the concern to fit it into the pattern; also, or alternatively, it may prevent the historian from noticing affinities with movements which seem at first sight to lack the features singled out as a qualification for entry into the pattern.