Against the Donatists

Notes

1. in Donatum. Was this Donatus the Great, or another Donatus, Bishop of Black Huts (de Casis Nigris) in Numidia? It is impossible to answer this question with absolute certainty. On the one hand it was assumed by Optatus, Augustine and Catholic Apologists generally until the Conference in 411 that the Donatus condemned by Pope Miltiades was Donatus the Great, the successor of Majorinus as schismatic bishop of Carthage. The authority of St. Optatus----so at least it seems to me----should go far to settle the controversy, since it is difficult to understand how he could well have confused two distinct Bishops of the same name one with another. Optatus lived, one would think, too near the events which he was chronicling to have made a mistake of this character. On the other hand when the Donatists protested at the Conference of Carthage that the Donatus condemned at Rome was not their protagonist, ‘he who was and still is their chief’ (Gesta Coll. Carthag. diei iii, xxxii), but another Donatus (‘alium Casae,’ Gesta Coll. Carthag. dxxxix, dxl), the Catholics at once admitted that Donatus of Casa was clearly designated in the Acts of Miltiades. St. Augustine bears witness to this fact, stating that the Catholics granted (concedebant) the Donatist contention that ‘it was not Donatus the Great but Donatus of Casa who pleaded in the Court of Melchiades against Caecilian’ (Brev. coll. diei iii, xx). Moreover Augustine writes as follows (Retract. xxi):’In saying that the Donatus whose letter I was answering had asked the Emperor to appoint judges from across the seas between him and Caecilian I was mistaken, for it was not he but another Donatus (who however belonged to the same schism) that will be found more probably to have done this. He was not the Donatist Bishop of Carthage, but of Black Huts, and was the first to make the wicked schism at Carthage.’ Until recently this view reigned practically undisputed. Only Albaspinaeus was found to challenge the authority of St. Augustine by conjecturing that Majorinus, of whom we never hear in connection with the Lateran Synod, was dead at the time (this is held to be certain by Dom John Chapman) and that Donatus of Black Huts had been elected Bishop in his place. But the very existence of a Donatus who was ever Bishop of Black Huts has been lately called in question, in the first place by Fr. Chapman, and subsequently by others. Thus Mr. Sparrow Simpson writes (St. Augustine and African Church Divisions, p. 31), referring to Monceaux (Revue de l’Histoire de Religion): ‘it has been recently pointed out that the former personage [Donatus of Black Huts] is a highly problematical figure. He appears at the Lateran Synod. While he is called Bishop of Black Huts in Numidia, he is never heard of as residing in his own diocese, but at Carthage. After the Lateran Synod he disappears and is replaced by a Donatus who holds precisely the same position over the party.’ The theory of Albaspinaeus, if adopted, would remove these difficulties, but it involves the supposition that there were two Bishops of Carthage, immediately following one another and each named Donatus. For this supposition there is not a scrap of evidence. Moreover such a translation from one See to another as is here supposed would have been directly opposed to the Canons in force at the time, and if it had been effected would certainly have been one of the staple charges against the Donatists. But of this there is not a trace in history. Fr. Chapman solves the whole difficulty with the simplicity of genius by a reasoned argument (La Revue Bénédictine, Janvier 1909) directed to show that Casae Nigrae was not the See, but the birthplace, of the Great Donatus. In the same article he suggests a most interesting explanation of the surprising readiness with which the Catholics at the Conference of Carthage admitted the Donatist contention that their eponymous champion had not been condemned at Rome. However after all has been said, the whole of this matter will remain at least for some minds hidden in obscurity, and it is difficult to see from what quarter we may look for further light. Meanwhile we must all agree with Fr. Chapman that ‘the importation of a Bishop of Casae Nigrae only brings confusion into [what would otherwise be] a plain tale.’ I myself think that, were Professor Ziwsa still alive, he would gladly bow to Fr. Chapman’s authority and arguments and remove the name of Donatus Casensis (at least as a person distinct from Donatus Carthaginis) from the index to any subsequent edition of his Optatus.
2. quod ab Ecclesia alienum est.
3. etiam Miltiadis sententia, qua iudicium clausum est his verbis. These words of St. Optatus remind us of St. Augustine’s famous statement (Serm. cxxxi, 10): ‘Already two councils have been sent to the Apostolic See concerning this matter [Pelagianism], and thence have come rescripts. The case is concluded (caussa finita est). Would that the error might soon cease also.’ St. Augustine’s account of the matter with which St. Optatus is concerned in the text is well worth reading, since he (like St. Optatus) had documents which have not come down to us: ‘Will you urge that Melchiades, Bishop of the Roman Church, with his colleagues across the seas was not right in arrogating for his own judgement (non debuit . . . sibi usurpare iudicium) a case which had been concluded by seventy African Bishops under the presidency of the primate of Tigisis? But what if it was not he who arrogated it? It was, in fact, because he had been requested, that the Emperor sent Bishops to sit with him, and to decide what they considered to be just with regard to the whole case. This we prove both by the petition of the Donatists and by the Emperor’s own words; for you will remember that both these documents were read to you, and you have now permission to inspect them and copy them out’ (Ep. xliii, 5, 14). (See Appendix for the Emperor’s letters.) … The argument is strictly ad hominem. The Donatists could not complain that Melchiades had no right to reverse the judgement of seventy Numidian Bishops, since they had themselves appealed to the Emperor to appoint Bishops to judge the matter anew. They admitted, therefore, that the Numidian judgement was not irreformable. Further on in the same letter St. Augustine continues: ‘And yet what a final sentence that was which the blessed Melchiades himself pronounced, how innocent, how honest, how far-sighted and peace-loving, in that he did not venture to remove from their position in the episcopal fellowship those colleagues against whom nothing had been proved, whilst he laid the chief blame upon Donatus alone (whom he had discovered to be the author of all the evil), but gave the free option of recovering communion to the rest, since he was ready to issue letters of communion even to those who were known to have been ordained by Majorinus, in such wise that, wherever, on account of the dissension between the two parties, there were two rival Bishops, the one who had been first ordained should be confirmed in his see, and the other should be provided with another diocese. O admirable man, O son of Christian peace, and father of the Christian people’ (Ep. xiii, 5. 16). We may observe that from this time forward the Popes issued their decretal letters from a small council of Bishops.
4. Ziwsa remarks that it is not known from what source St. Optatus derived this summary of the judgement of Pope Melchiades.