Augustine of Hippo, in his treatise Against the Letter of Parmenianus, states that the Donatists celebrate the feasts of the members of their sect who were either punished by secular authorities or killed themselves by jumping off cliffs. Written in Latin in Hippo Regius (Numidia, central North Africa), c. 400.
E01030
Literary - Other
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine, Against the Letter of Parmenianus 3.6.29
Quales turbas isti auertentes a Christi unitate et ad suum nomen conuertere cupientes interim temporalia supplicia schismatis sui conferre audent passionibus martyrum, ut eis poenarum suarum natalicia celebrentur magno conuentu hominum furiosorum, quorum e numero illi sunt, qui etiam nullo persequente se ipsos ultro per montium abrupta praecipitant, ut malam uitam peiore morte consumant.
'Since they [the Donatists] tear such crowds from the unity of Christ and want to convert them to their own name, they dare to compare the secular punishments (temporalia supplicia) inflicted on their schism with the passions of martyrs, and the feasts (natalitia) which commemorate these punishments are celebrated with great gatherings of insane men. To their number belong also those who, when nobody was persecuting them, by their own will threw themselves down from the cliffs and so completed a bad life with an even worse death.'
Text: Petschenig 1908.
Translation: Robert Wiśniewski.
Saint’s feast
Rejection, Condemnation, SceptisismAcceptance/rejection of saints from other religious groupings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesCrowds
Heretics
Source
Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 in the north African city of Thagaste. He received an education in rhetoric at Carthage, and after a period teaching there moved to Rome, and then in 384 to a public professorship of rhetoric in Milan. In these early years of adulthood Augustine was a Manichaean, but then got disillusioned with this religion, and in Milan in 386, largely under the influence of Ambrose, bishop of the city, he converted to Christianity, and was baptised by Ambrose in 387. Returning to Africa in 388, he was ordained a priest in 391 at Hippo Regius (in the province of Numidia), and rapidly acquired a reputation as a preacher. In 395 he became bishop of Hippo, which he remained until his death in 430. Details of his early life were recorded by Augustine himself in his Confessions, and shortly after his death a pupil and long-time friend, Possidius, wrote his Life, focused on Augustine as an effective Christian writer, polemicist and bishop (E00073).Amongst his many writings, the most informative on the cult of saints are his numerous Sermons, the City of God, and a treatise On the Care of the Dead. The Sermons tell us which saints (primarily African, but with some from abroad) received attention in Hippo, Carthage and elsewhere, and provide occasional details of miracles and cult practices. The City of God records the distribution, and subsequent miracles, of the relics of saint Stephen, after they arrived in Africa from Palestine in around 420. On the Care of the Dead, discusses the possible advantages of burial ad sanctos (in other words, close to a saint), and theorises on the link between the saints who dwell in heaven and their corporeal remains buried in their graves. In these works, and others, Augustine reveals his own particular beliefs about the saints, their relics and their miracles.
Against the Letter of Parmenianus (Contra epistulam Parmeniani) is one of Augustine's anti-Donatist treatises. It was written c. 400.
Discussion
This is not the only passage in which Augustine claims that some Donatists who desired to become martyrs committed suicide, and that subsequently both they and those who were sentenced to death by secular (Christian) authorities were venerated by their community. Augustine often emphasises that it is suffering for the true religion, not the punishment of death as such, which makes a martyr.Bibliography
Edition:Petschenig, M., Ad Catholicos de secta Donatistarum (Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 51; Vienna: Tempsky, 1908), 19-141.
For the Donatist suicides see:
Shaw, B.D., Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 758-770.
Donatist martyrological literature can be found in:
Tilley, M.A., Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa (Translated Texts for Historians 24; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996).
Robert Wiśniewski
29/12/2015
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00060 | Martyrs, unnamed or name lost | Certain |
|---|
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