Preacher of Grace. A Critical Reappraisal of Augustine's Doctrine of Grace in hisSermones AD Populumon Liturgical Feasts and during the Donatist Controversy. By Anthony Dupont. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Pp. ix + 235. Cloth $162.00.

The Donatist party began around 312 ce when Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, died and was replaced by Caecilian. Caecilian’s accusers claimed that he had been ordained by a traditor, someone who had “handed over” the scriptures to Roman officials during the Diocletian persecution. This ordination by a traditor allegedly contaminated Caecilian and all who continued in his communion with the contagion of idolatry, and therefore his ordination was seen as invalidated. In his place the opposing party appointed Majorinus as the rightful bishop of Carthage, and when he died, he was succeeded by Donatus, for whom the party eventually was named. Caecilian and his supporters continued to claim his innocence from such contagion, and so the Donatists appealed to Constantine. A council was summoned to Rome which ruled on Caecilian’s behalf. The Donatists again appealed, and so a larger council met in Arles in 314 and ruled again for Caecilian. When the Donatists still refused to recognize Caecilian, and since they broke fellowship with all in communion with him, Constantine pressured the Donatists with legal and even violent means. This schism continued through the 4th century with sporadic violence between the parties: Caecilian’s party could invoke government officials to enforce their legitimacy, while the Donatists were accused of utilizing the Circumcellions, a group which functioned as a violent mob. In the late 4th century, writers such as Optatus of Milevis and Augustine articulated a defense of their own “Catholic” party through various pamphlets and treatises; they claimed that their party was never guilty of such contagion, and that the Donatists were so concerned with the purity of the church that they had forsaken its catholicity. In short, the Donatists allegedly believed that their party in North Africa was the only remaining true church. In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, the government, advised by Augustine’s party, developed stricter attempts to coerce the Donatists. In 411 a conference met in Carthage at which the Donatists were found to be “heretics,” which finalized the Roman policy against them by requiring the enforcement of heresy laws against this party. While there is ongoing evidence for Donatists long after Augustine’s time, when the Vandals invaded and conquered North Africa beginning in 429, the Donatist controversy largely disappeared in the surviving literary sources.

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Preacher of Grace: A Critical Reappraisal of Augustine’s Doctrine of Grace in hisSermones ad Populumon Liturgical Feasts and during the Donatist Controversy. By Anthony Dupont.

The Journal of Theological Studies ◽

10.1093/jts/flv049 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. flv049

Author(s):

Josef Lössl

Keyword(s):

Donatist Controversy

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Book Review: Saint Augustine and the Donatist Controversy

Theology ◽

10.1177/0040571x5105436912 ◽

1951 ◽

Vol 54 (369) ◽

pp. 109-111

Author(s):

John H. S. Burleigh

Keyword(s):

Saint Augustine ◽

Donatist Controversy

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The Development of Augustine's Ideas on Society Before The Donatist Controversy

Harvard Theological Review ◽

10.1017/s0017816000024986 ◽

1954 ◽

Vol 47 (4) ◽

pp. 255-316 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

F. Edward Cranz

Keyword(s):

Present Essay ◽

New Period ◽

Donatist Controversy

In the Preface to the Retractationes, Augustine suggests: “Perhaps whoever will read my works in the order in which they were written will discover how I made progress while writing them.” The present essay is an attempt to carry out this suggestion of Augustine, with particular attention to his ideas on society, from the earliest Dialogues of 386 up to the time, shortly after 400 A.D., when the Donatist controversy introduces a new period in Augustine's thought.

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