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 DONATISTS

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DONATISTS

Nonantula, De honore ecclesiae, cc. Ivii, xci, cli; Dis- putatio vel defensio Paschalis papie; Honorius Augus- todunensis, De summa, gloriiE, c. xvii; cf. Mon. Germ. Hist., Libelli de lite, II, 456, 591, 614, 6.35; III, 71). St. Peter Damian also relied on it in his writings against the antipope Cadalous of Parma (Disceptatio synodalis, in Libelli de lite, I, SS). Gregory VII him- self never quoted this docmnent in his long warfare for ecclesiastical liberty against the secular power. But Urban II made use of it in 1091 to support his claims on the island of Corsica. Later popes (Imiocent III, Gregory IX, Irmocent IV) took its authenticity for granted (Innocent III, Sermo de sancto Silvestro, in P. L., CCXVII, 481 sqq.; Raynaldus, Annales, ad an. 1236, n. 24; Potthast, Regesta, no. 11,848), and eccle- siastical writers often adduced its evidence in favour of the papacy. The medieval adversaries of the popes, on the other hand, never denied the validity of this appeal to the pretended donation of Constantine, but endeavoured to show that the legal deductions drawn from it were founded on false interpretations. The authenticity of the document, as already stated, was doubted by no one before the fifteenth century. It was known to the Greeks in the second half of the twelfth century, when it appears in the collection of Theodore Balsaraon (1169 sqq.); later on another Greek canonist, Matthaeus Blastares (about 1335), ad- mitted it into his collection. It appears also in other Greek works. Moreover, it was highly esteemed in the Greek East. The Greeks claimed, it is well known, for the Bishop of New Rome (Constantinople) the same honorary rights as those enjoyed by the Bishop of Old Rome. But now, by virtue of this document, they claimed for the Byzantine clergj- also the privileges and prerogatives granted to the pope and the Roman ecclesiastics. In the West, long after its authenticity was disputed in the fifteenth century, its validity was still upheld by the majority of canonists and jurists who continued throughout the sixteenth centiiry to quote it as authentic. And though Baronius and later historians acknowledged it to be a forgery, they en- deavoured to marshal other authorities in defence of its content, especially as regards the imperial dona- tions. In later times even this was abandoned, so that now the whole "Constitutum", both in form and con- tent, is rightly considered in all senses a forgery. See False Dechet.\ls; Sylvester I; States of the Church ; Temporal Power.

The text of the Donatio has often been printed, e. g in Labbe, Condi., I, 1530; Mansi, Condi, col., II, 603; finally by Gradert (see below) and Zedmer in Festgabe fiir Rudolf von Gneist (Berlin, 1888). 39 sqq. See Haixer, Die Qutllen znr Geschichte der Entstehung des Kirchenstaals (Leipzig and Berlin, 1907), 241— 250; Cenni, MonumerUa dominationi^ Pontifidce (Rome, 1760). I, 306 sqq.; cf. Origine d^jlla Donazione di Costantino in Civiltii Catlolica, ser. V, X, 1864, 303 sqq. The following are non- Catholic: ZiNKEisEN, The Donation of Constantine as applied by the Roman Church in Eng. Hist. Review (1894), IX, 625-32; ScHAFF, Hist, of the Chri.'it. Church (New York, 1905), IV, 270- 72; HODGKIV, Italy and Her Invaders (Oxford, 1899), VII, 135 sqq. See also Colombier, La Donation de Constontin in Etudes Religieuses (1877), XI, 800 sqq.; Bonneau, La Donation de Constantin (Lisieux, 1891); Bayet, La fau.^se Donation de Con- stanlin in Annuaire de la Facidte des lettres de Lyon (Paris, 1884), II, 12 sq.; Dollinger, Papstfabeln des Mittelalters (Munich, 1863, Stuttgart, 1890), 72 sqq.; Hergenrother. Katholische Kirche und christlicher Stoat (Freiburg im Br., 1872). I, 360 sqq.; Genelin, Da/i Schmkungsversprechen und die Schenkung Pippins (Leipzig, 1880), 36 sqq.; Martens, Die rdmische Frage unlet Pippin und Karl dcm Grossen (Stuttgart, 1881), 327 sqq.; Idem, Die falsche Generalkonzcssion Konstantins des Grossen (Munich, 1889); Idem, Belcuchtung der neuesten Kontroversen Uber die rdmische Frage unter Pippin und Karl dern Grossen (Munich, 1898), 151 sqq.; Grauert, Die konstanlinische Schenkung in Historuiches Jahrbuch (1882), 3 sqq. (1883), 45 sqq., 674 sqq. (1884), 117 sqq.; Langen, Entstehung und Tendenz der konstan- tiniachcn Schenkungsurkunde in Historische Zeitschrift fiir Kir- chenrecht (1889), 137 sqq.. 185 sqq.; Bronner, Das Constitu- tum Constantini in Festgabe far R. von Gneist (Beriin, 1888), 3 sqq.; Friedrich, Die konstanlinische Schenkung (Nordlingen, 1889); SrHF.FFER-BoiCHORST, Neuere Forschungen iiber die konstanlinische Schenkung in Milteilungcn des Instituts fiir dsterr. Geschichtsforsch. (1889), 302 sqq. (1890). 128 sqq,; Lam- PRECHT, Die rttmi.iche Frage von Kimig Pippin bis auf Kaiser Ludwig den Frommen (Leipzig, 1889). 117 sqq.; Loening. Die Entstehung der konstantinischen Schenkungsurkunde in Histor.

Zeitschrift (1890), 193 sqq.; Buhmer, Konitantinische Schen- kung in Rcalencyklopadie fur prot. Theol. (Leipzig, 1902), XI, 1 sqq.

J. P. KiRSCH.

Donatists. — The Donatist schism in Africa began in 311 and flourished just one hundred years, imtil the conference at Carthage in 411, after which its impor- tance waned.

Causes of the Schism. — In order to trace the ori- gin of the division we have to go back to the persecu- tion imder Diocletian. The first edict of that em- peror against Christians (24 Feb., 303) commanded their churches to be destroyed, their Sacred Books to be delivered up and burnt, while they themselves were outlawed. Severer measures followed in 304, when the fourth edict ordered all to offer incense to the idols tmder pain of death. After the abdication of Maxi- mian in 305, the persecution .seems to have abated in Africa. Until then it was terrible. In Numidia the governor, Florus, was infamous for his cruelty, and, though many officials may have been, like the procon- sul Anulinus, unwilling to go further than they were obliged, yet St. Optatus is able to say of the Christians of the whole coimtry that some were confessors, some were martjTS, some fell, only those who were hidden escaped. The exaggerations of the highly strung African character showed themselves. A hundred years earlier Tertullian had taught that flight from persecution was not permissible. Some now went beyond this, and voluntarily gave themselves up to martyrdom as Christians. Their motives were, how- ever, not always above suspicion. Mensurius, the Bishop of Carthage, in a letter to Secundus. Bishop of Tigisi, then the senior bishop (primate) of Xumidia, declares that he had forbidden any to be honoured as martyrs who had given themselves up of their own accord, or who had boasted that they possessed copies of the Scriptures which they would not relinquish; some of these, he says, were criminals and debtors to the State, who thought they might by this means rid them.selves of a burdensome life, or else wipe away the remembrance of their misdeeds, or at least gain money and enjoy in prison the luxuries supplied by the kind- ness of Christians. The later excesses of the Circum- cellions show that Mensurius had some ground for the severe line he took. He explains that he had himself taken the Sacred Books of the Church to his own hou.se, and had substituted a number of heretical writings, which the persecutors had seized without asking for more; the proconsul, when informed of the deception, refused to search the bishop's private house. Secundus, in his reply, without blaming Men- surius, somewhat pointedly praised the martyrs who in his own province had been tortured and put to death for refusing to deliver up the Scriptures; he himself had replied to the officials who came to search : " I am a Christian and a bishop, not a traditor." This word traditor became a technical expression to desig- nate those who had given up the Sacred Books, and also those who had committed the worse crimes of de- livering up the sacred vessels and even their own brethren.

It is certain that relations were strained between the confessors in prison at Carthage and their bishop. If we may credit the Donatist Acts of the forty-nine martyrs of Abitene, they broke off communion with Mensurius. We are informed in these .\cts that Men- surius was a traditor by his own confession, and that his deacon, Caecilian, raged more furiously against the mart\TS than did the persecutors themselves; he set armetl men with whips before the door of the prison to prevent their receiving any succour; the food brought by the piety of Christians was thrown to the dogs Ijy these ruffians, and the drink provitled was spilled in the street, so that the martyrs, whose condemnation the mild proconsul had deferred, died in prison of hunger and thirst. This story is recognized by Du-