A Critical Examination of the Church’s Reception of Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan of AD 313

Since its enactment in AD 313, the Edict of Milan (sometimes referred to as ‘the Edict of Toleration’), an edict that freed Christianity from empire-wide persecution, Constantine’s declaration has received a significant amount of attention within Christendom. Most of the discussion has centered on Constantine’s conversion, the precursor to the actual edict (whether the conversion was real or insincere, as some have suggested), with many suggesting that Constantine was acting more as a politician than a Christian. While this line of inquiry is legitimate, perhaps a better approach to the question may be more helpful to present-day Christians. That is, while it is logical to deduce that every prudent politician will ignore the largest religious movement in his/her time at his/her own peril, Christians of every age will be better served if they critically evaluate their reception of each and every major policy that is clearly aimed at their benefit. With this background, this paper will attempt to critically examine the reception of Constantine’s edict by the Church in the years immediately following its enactment. Two early exhibits will be brought to bear here: the Donatist controversy and the Arian controversy. In so doing, the thesis that while Christians had every reason to celebrate the enactment of the edict, down the road, an uncritical adoption of the emperor’s policies and favors towards the church opened a door for an unhealthy marriage between earthly powers and the church that proved detrimental in the ensuing years, will be defended. As such, the Church’s reception of the Edict of Milan continues to be a lesson to Christians of every age in their relationship with the political leadership of their time.

The Apocryphal Paul as Divided Martyr: The Rhetoric of Schism and Legitimacy in Early Christian North Africa

Neither the epistles of Paul (authentic or disputed) nor the Acts of the Apostles address the death of the apostle, but this is a focus in the later apocryphal acts. This article examines the importance of this image of Paul as a martyr for the development of early Christianity in North Africa. Evidence from Tertullian, from texts describing the death of Cyprian of Carthage, and from the writings of Augustine, demonstrates that Paul was the model martyr for the African church. Paul’s status as such became a major point of contention in the competing claims to authority and legitimacy during the Donatist Controversy. The article analyses rhetorical claims to the Pauline legacy from the Caecilianist side (the writings of Optatus of Milev and Augustine) and the Donatist side (a mosaic from Uppenna and the Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs). Each side claimed that their martyrs were the true successors of Paul, and therefore they were the true Christians in Africa.

A Church ‘without stain or wrinkle’: The Reception and Application of Donatist Arguments in Debates Over Priestly Purity

This article examines the reception and application of arguments developed during the Donatist controversy in later debates over clerical celibacy, marriage and continence in the medieval and early modern church. It explores the collision of inspiration and institution in this context, arguing that the debates over sacerdotal celibacy in the medieval Latin church and Reformation controversy over clerical marriage and continence both appropriated and polemicized the history of Donatism. The way in which the spectre and lexicon of Donatism permeated the law and practice of the medieval and early modern church, particularly when it came to the discipline of clerical celibacy, is a prime example of the process of imbrication by which the history of heresy and the history of the church were constructed. As such, it exemplifies the ways in which forms of religious inspiration that manifested as dissent, such as Donatism, became embedded in the histories and self-fashioning of the institutional church.

El diácono y su espiritualidad en los escritos de Agustín de Hipona

In this article, the figure of the Deacon in the Church of the IV and V Century is presented, starting mainly from the Augustinian sources to reveal fundamentally four elements. In the first place, the fact that the Deacon exercised different functions subordinate to the Bishop. Secondly, the conditions for being accepted in the group of Deacons in the time of Saint Augustine are revealed. Thirdly, the theological and liturgical background of Deacons in Late Antiquity is pointed out. Later, the figure of the Deacon in the Donatist controversy is addressed, and the article ends with some observations on the liturgical clothing of the Deacons.

Donatus and Donatism

The Donatist party began around 312 ce when Mensurius, bishop of Carthage, died and was replaced by Caecilian. Caecilian’s accusers claimed that he had been ordained by a traditor, someone who had “handed over” the scriptures to Roman officials during the Diocletian persecution. This ordination by a traditor allegedly contaminated Caecilian and all who continued in his communion with the contagion of idolatry, and therefore his ordination was seen as invalidated. In his place the opposing party appointed Majorinus as the rightful bishop of Carthage, and when he died, he was succeeded by Donatus, for whom the party eventually was named. Caecilian and his supporters continued to claim his innocence from such contagion, and so the Donatists appealed to Constantine. A council was summoned to Rome which ruled on Caecilian’s behalf. The Donatists again appealed, and so a larger council met in Arles in 314 and ruled again for Caecilian. When the Donatists still refused to recognize Caecilian, and since they broke fellowship with all in communion with him, Constantine pressured the Donatists with legal and even violent means. This schism continued through the 4th century with sporadic violence between the parties: Caecilian’s party could invoke government officials to enforce their legitimacy, while the Donatists were accused of utilizing the Circumcellions, a group which functioned as a violent mob. In the late 4th century, writers such as Optatus of Milevis and Augustine articulated a defense of their own “Catholic” party through various pamphlets and treatises; they claimed that their party was never guilty of such contagion, and that the Donatists were so concerned with the purity of the church that they had forsaken its catholicity. In short, the Donatists allegedly believed that their party in North Africa was the only remaining true church. In the late 4th and early 5th centuries, the government, advised by Augustine’s party, developed stricter attempts to coerce the Donatists. In 411 a conference met in Carthage at which the Donatists were found to be “heretics,” which finalized the Roman policy against them by requiring the enforcement of heresy laws against this party. While there is ongoing evidence for Donatists long after Augustine’s time, when the Vandals invaded and conquered North Africa beginning in 429, the Donatist controversy largely disappeared in the surviving literary sources.