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.
Author(s): Jesse A. Hoover
Series: Oxford Early Christian Studies
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 272
City: Oxford
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
