Article. Barnes. The beginnings of donatism. 1975.
T. D. Barnes – THE BEGINNINGS OF DONATISM
The Journal of Theological Studies, NEW SERIES, Vol. 26, No. 1 (APRIL 1975), pp. 13-22
Four apparently minor questions of fact are crucial to understanding or interpreting Donatism as a historical phenomenon. Were the Numidian bishops who denounced Felix as a traditor themselves self-confessed traditores ? Was the Donatus who gave his name to the dissident party a Numidian? What was the date and precise historical context of the eruption of schism ? What was the precise purport of the Donatist appeal to Constantine ? On these questions a wide uniformity of opinion seems to prevail. The Numidian bishops (it is held) were traditores and there fore insincere; Donatus was either a Numidian by birth or bishop of a Numidian see; the dispute began no earlier than 311 or 312; the appeal marks ‘one of the decisive moments in the history of the early Church’, when ‘appeal had been made to the State’ and ‘for the first time schism or unorthodoxy could become an offence punishable by law’. In all four cases, the present enquiry seeks to disprove, or at least to challenge, these interpretations of the available evidence.
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