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Dilatory Donatists or Procrastinating Catholics: The Trial at the Conference of Carthage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Maureen A. Tilley
Maureen A. Tilley
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of religion in the Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida.
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Extract

In the year 411 the bishops of Christian North Africa, Augustine among them, assembled in Carthage to debate whether Catholics or Donatists should be recognized as the true Christian church in North Africa. Although most biographies of Augustine and histories of Christianity in North Africa mention this conference, they spend little time on the substance of the discussion which took place between the two parties. Accusations by fourthcentury Catholics, especially Augustine, and remarks by modern commentators often charge the Donatists with delaying the debate on the real issues of the Conference by interventions and procedural motions which served no useful purpose. Even W. H. C. Frend in The Donatist Church, and Peter Brown in his biography of Augustine take Catholic propaganda on this issue at face value.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 60 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 7 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1991

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References

1. Frend, W. H. C., The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa (Oxford, 1952), p. 279;Google ScholarBrown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley, 1969), p. 334.Google Scholar See also Créspin, Remi, Ministére et sainteté: Pastorale du clergé et solution de la crise donatiste dans la view et la doctrine de Saint Augustine (Paris, 1965), p. 91;Google Scholar and Monceaux, Paul, Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne depuis les orgines jusqu'a l'invasion arabe, 7 vols., (Paris, 1901–1922; reprint Brussels, 1963), 6:71.Google Scholar

2. The Gesta are printed in Lancel, Serge, Actes de la Conférence de Carthage en 411, 3 vols. (Sources chrétiennes 194, 195, and 224) (Paris, 1972 and 1975),Google Scholar in Gesta Conlationis Carthaginensis Anno 411, volume 149A of Corpus Christianorum Series Latina, also edited by Lancel (Turnhout, Belgium, 1974); Migne, J.-P, Patrologia, Series Latina 11.1257–1418 (Paris, 1844—)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as PL); and in Mansi, J. D., Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio 4.19–246 (Florence, 1739–1798; reprint and continuation: Paris, 1901–1927).Google Scholar This paper uses Lancel's Sources chrétiennes edition of the Latin and the author's own English translation.

3. Tengström, Emin, Die Protokollierung der Collatio Carthaginensis: Beitrage zur Kenntnis der römischen Kurzschrzft nebst einem Exkurs über das Wirt sceda (schedula) (Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia) (Göteburg, 1962), pp. 20–34,Google Scholar raises the possibility of the emendation of the Gesta of the Conference in the process of stenographic transcription citing specific allowances for such in Hermogenianus Digest 42.1.46 and Codex Theodosianus I 1.6.1 (hereafter cited as Cod. Theod.). Such suspicions might cast some doubt on the accuracy of the record as it currently exists. Yet in the Gesta themselves there are indications of the correction of the record by the speakers themselves (such as in 1 55). One should also note that each party at the conference was allowed to have representatives to check the record. In addition, since not all the bishops could read shorthand, or read at all (Gesta I 133, II 43), there was a delay between the second and third sessions for the production of a regular record which could be checked by conference participants (Gesta II 43–48). All of these militate against suspicions such as Tengström's.

4. See the Passio ss. Dativi, Saturnini Presb. et aliorum, Migne, PL 8.689–703.

5. Gesta I 4.

6. Optatus, S. Optati Milevitani Libri VII, edited by Ziwsa, Carolus, volume 26 of Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Prague, 1893), pp. 204–206 and 208–210;Google ScholarCod.Theod. 16.5.37–39 and 16.6.3–5, all from the year 405; 16.5.401 (407); Constitutiones Sirmondianae (hereafter cited as CS) 12 (407); Cod. Theod. 16.5.44–45 (408); CS 14 (409); Cod. Theod. 16.5.51 (410).

7. Brown, p. 331, quoting Augustine, Ep. 88.5 and 10; and Créspin, p.78.

8. Gesta I 4; See Créspin, p. 75.

9. Gesta I 4, where the following are used against the Donatists: errore suo, scaeva donatistarum, and superstitionibus. See especially Gesta II 15–30 for the prejudicial assessment of the Donatist bishops.

10. See Gesta I 10 and 14. On the timing of Marcellinus's edict and the arrival of the Donatists in Carthage, see Lancel 1:38, 338.

11. Cum hoc nec mos publicus habeat nec iudicium consuetudo (Gesta I 14).

12. Gesta I 16.

13. “Christianity and Local Culture in Late Roman North Africa” in Religion and Society in the Age of Augustine (London, 1972) which is equivalent to the Journal of Roman Studies 53 (1968): 85–95.Google Scholar

14. Créspin, pp. 116–120, citing the illiteracy of one bishop (see n. 3 of this paper) thinks most of the bishops were not especially learned and that their flocks were unappreciative of the finer points of rhetoric. Yet, the illiteracy of the population of the Roman Empire, including North Africa, is still a matter of great debate. In addition, in a society which is primarily oral, there is little material on which to base a direct correlation between literacy and the appreciation of either the greater or smaller points of oral communication. See also Monceaux, 6:4, for an assessment of the education of Primianus, the Carthaginian primate.

15. See Gesta II 3–5 wherein Marcellinus, the presiding officer respectfully refuses to sit in the presence of standing bishops. The Donatist bishops had refused to take their seats in the presence of the Catholics on the ground that they could not sit with the wicked (Psalm 1:1). See p. 12 of this article.

16. Codex lustinianus 2. 57.1.

17. Cod. Theod. 2.6.1.

18. Thomas, J. A. C., Textbook of Roman Law (Amsterdam, 1976), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

19. For a history of the cognitio extraordinaria and its relationship with the formulary system, see Jolowicz, H. F., Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law (Cambridge, 1932), especially p. 405;Google Scholar Thomas, pp. 120–122 and Guarino, A.Storia del Dritto Romano, 4th edition (Naples, 1969), pp. 592–594.Google Scholar

20. Gesta I 5; III 41, 46, 49, 74, 106, 119–124, 141, 200–202, and 215–220. The dispute appears to extend back as far as the year 313. See Créspin, pp. 78–89, and Monceaux, 6:164–165, for an analysis of the documentary history leading up to the Conference.

21. Gesta III 126; see III 51. Marcellinus could have decided the question, called a iudicium duplex, by lot as Ulpian, Disputationes II recommended. See Digest 5.1.14.

22. Gesta III 200;, Cod. Theod. 11.39 and following.

23. Gesta III 22, 25–27, 30; compare with III 258.

24. Gesta I 145.

25. Gesta II 3–5 (Psalms 1:1 and 25:4–5).

26. For instance, Gesta I 188–189, 191–192.

27. Gesta I 7 and 9.

28. Gesta III 22, 30–35 and 91–95.

29. Gesta III 91–97 and 258.

30. Nam uti mandato, his formulis praesumere non est ecclesiasticae consuetudinis sed forensis ludi atque certamine … is a lege discesserit, episcopum Se non demonstret; si uero legem tenuerit, tunc et ut illi qui christianus esse desiderat debeam respondere (Gesta I 53). Compare with Gesta I 44–46.

31. Et nunc etiam atque etiam flagito ut promant quid eligant, utrum forensi actione mecum agant, an legla [diuino] concertatione disceptent (Gesta III 149). Note here and in the selections which follow that Donatist speakers consistently use “law” for scripture. For them civil law is law only in a derivative sense.

32. Igitur, uir nobilis [Marcellinus], si tenor se ita habet causae sicut ab initio uidetur esse formatus, aut iacturam cartulatarum istarum publicarum faciant et ad legalem disceptationem ueniant, aut, si his rebus ut desiderant faciant legis diuinae iacturam (Gesta III 153).

33. Gesta III 187 and 201. Seep. 10 of this article.

34. Gesta III 156.

35. See the Donatist exegete Tyconius, Liber Regularum, passim.

36. Gesta I 65, 114, 116, 126, 176, 181, 184–185. To avert problems for the Catholic party, Marcellinus worked out a compromise whereby the total number of signatures accepted would be based on the total number of Catholic bishops present even though some of the signatures represented persons who were absent or deceased and some of the Catholic bishops who were present had not signed the mandate.

37. Gesta I 133, 181–182, 208. Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria V.5.2, on impugning the evidentiary quality of documents by alleging that the signatories had been absent or dead.

38. For the theory see [Cicero], Ad C. Herrenium 11.6.9 and 111.6.10 and Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria V.7.3, 26–30 and 34; for the practice, the orations of Cicero.

39. Gesta III 221–247. Petilian to Augustine: “Tu quid es? Filius es Caeciliani, an non? Tenet te crimen Caeciliani an non.”

40. Gesta III 258.

41. See Créspin, pp. 86–90.

42. Gesta I 18.

43. Et praedicari in nomine eius paentientiam et remissionem peccatorum per omnes genies incipientibus ab Hierusalem (Luke 24:27 in Gesta 118). See also Gesta I 48, III 7 and 228.

44. Matthew 3:12 and Luke 3:17; Gesta III 261.

45. Gesta III 258. Alexander, James S., “A Note on the Interpretation of the Parable of the Threshing Floor at the Conference of Carthage of A.D. 411,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 24 (1973): 512–519, 513,CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 1, reviews the debates between the two parties and the North African precedents for the Catholic position.

46. See the argument advanced by Eno, Robert B. for “Some Nuances in the Ecciesiology of the Donatists,” Revue des études augustinennes 18 (1972): 46–50.Google Scholar

47. Gesta III 99.

48. De occultis reis dixit Euangelista, non de euidentibus quos tu [Augustine] uis tecum esse permixtos (Gesta III 263). See Eno, pp. 49–50.

49. Ipse dominus lesu Christus, exemplum singulare patientiae, traditorem suum utique pessimum, non solum cognitum in discipulorum numero pertulit, uerum etiam praecognitum in ducipulorum numerum adsumpsit (Gesta I 55).

50. “Vadant ergo cum suo Iudo patrono inimici, dominicae ueritatis” (Gesta III 258).

51. Gesta III 258.

52. For instance in Brown, p. 332.

53. Gesta III 201, 214, and especially 222.