The Donatist Church in an Apocalyptic Age

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The Donatist Church in an Apocalyptic Age examines an apocalypse that never happened, seen through the eyes of a dissident church that no longer exists. Jesse A. Hoover considers Donatists, members of an ecclesiastical communion that for a brief moment formed the majority church in Roman North Africa―modern Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya―before fading away sometime between the fifth and seventh centuries. Hoover studies how Donatists perceived the end of the world to offer a glimpse into the inner life of the dissident communion: what it valued, whom it feared, and how it defined its place in history while on the cusp of history's end. By recovering these appeals to apocalyptic themes in surviving Donatist writings, this study uncovers a significant element within the dissident movement's self-perception that has so far gone unexamined. In contrast to previous assessments, it argues that such eschatological expectations are not out of sync with the wider world of Latin Christianity in late antiquity, and that they functioned as an effective polemical strategy designed to counter their opponents' claim to be the true church in North Africa. Cover The Donatist Church in an Apocalyptic Age Copyright Preface Contents List of Abbreviations Introduction A NEGLECTED TOPIC AN APOCALYPTIC AGE THE PRESENT STUDY Scope Organization DEFINING THE APOCALYPSE THE PROBLEM WITH NAMES 1: The Apocalypse that Never Was: External Impressions of Donatist Eschatology THE CAECILIANIST APPROACH: DONATISTS AS “MADMEN” A War of Words The Tyconian Legacy THE “ARCHAIC” APPROACH: DONATISM AS AN ANACHRONISTIC PHENOMENON THE SOCIOECONOMIC APPROACH: APOCALYPTICISM AS SOCIAL MANIFESTO Background An Apocalyptic Angle Later Assessments THE REVISIONIST APPROACH: IMMANENT APOCALYPSE Pamela Bright Paula Fredriksen Maureen Tilley CONCLUSION 2: “The World has Grown Old”: The Roots of Donatist Eschatology A NEW SYNTHESIS: TERTULLIAN THE MEMORY OF MARTYRS: PERPETUA “THE STORMS OF THIS RESTLESS AGE”: CYPRIAN NEW TRAJECTORIES: LACTANTIUS CONCLUSION 3: “Woe to You, World, for You are Perishing!”: Early Donatists at the End of the Age PRE-MACARIAN APOCALYPTICISM: THE SERMO DE PASSIONE SANCTORUM DONATI ET ADVOCATI THE APOCALYPSE IN DONATIST MARTYROLOGIES AND SERMONS OF THE MACARIAN ERA Passio benedicti martyris Marculi Passio SS. martyrum Isaac et Maximiani Sermo in natali sanctorum innocentium CONTINUITY WITH THE WIDER WORLD CONCLUSION 4: “God Will Come from the Afric”: Mainstream Donatism and Remnant Theology DONATISM AND THE WORLDWIDE CHURCH OBJECTIONS Tyconius Parmenian Fortunius Cresconius Other Donatist Voices REMNANT ECCLESIOLOGY AND THE APOCALYPSE A Universal Proclamation Falling Away MAINSTREAM DONATISM AND THE REMNANT Using Augustine as a Source Whither the Remnant? Calling Forth the Elect The Importance of the South CONCLUSION 5: “As We Have Already Seen in Africa”: The Tyconian Alternative TYCONIUS AND HIS WRITINGS IS TYCONIUS APOCALYPTIC? THE TYCONIAN APOCALYPSE AN APOCALYPTIC PREQUEL OBSERVATIONS CONCLUSION 6: “His Name Means ‘Ever-Increasing’”: Donatist Eschatology after 411 BEWARE OF FALSE PROPHETS GAUDENTIUS FULGENTIUS DONATIST CHRONOLOGIES A Donatist Compendium Liber genealogus (Florentini) CONCLUSION Conclusion APPENDIX A: Was Commodian a Donatist? APPENDIX B: Were the Circumcellions a Millenarian Movement? Bibliography Primary Sources Donatist Caecilianist Other Ancient Sources Secondary Sources General Index