Summary of the Collation with the Donatists

Contents

Translation in progress.

Reading pages: 1.1–3.4 · 3.5–3.19 · 3.20–3.32 · 3.33–3.43

1. 1.1The first day of the Conference of Carthage opens with the reading of the emperor’s rescript ordering the conference.
2. 1.2The commissioner’s edict summoning the bishops, restoring basilicas to the Donatists, and offering them a co-judge is read.
3. 1.3A second edict of the commissioner, setting the place and procedure of the conference, is read.
4. 1.4The Donatist notice is read, objecting to the limit of eighteen delegates per side and asking that all their bishops be present to show their number.
5. 1.5The Catholic bishops’ letter is read, offering to share or resign their sees if the Donatists are shown to be the true church, and citing the case of the Maximianists.
6. 1.6The commissioner’s edict publishing both parties’ replies is read.
7. 1.7The Catholic reply to the Donatist notice is read: it agrees that all Donatists may attend and sets out the whole Catholic case on the universal church, Caecilian, and the Maximianists.
8. 1.8The Donatists raise procedural objections, claiming the four-month deadline has passed and asking for judgment against the Catholics; the commissioner rejects this.
9. 1.9The Donatists demand that the case be argued only from Scripture; the Catholics ask for their council’s mandate to be read, and the commissioner orders it.
10. 1.10The Catholic council’s mandate is read: it distinguishes the case of the worldwide church from the case of Caecilian and argues that bad members do not defile the good.
11. 1.11The Donatists demand that every Catholic signatory appear in person, suspecting fewer had come than had signed; the Catholics yield.
12. 1.12The Catholic bishops are identified one by one; the case of Felician of Mustis, a condemned Maximianist received back by the Donatists, is raised.
13. 1.13The Donatists decline the commissioner’s offer of seats, praising him while avoiding the hearing of the case before him.
14. 1.14The Donatist roll call exposes signatures made for absent and even dead bishops; the counts are 279 Donatist and 286 Catholic bishops present.
15. 1.15The first session is adjourned to the day after next.
16. 2.1On the second day the Donatists again refuse to sit with the Catholics, citing Scripture, and the commissioner stands with them.
17. 2.2The Donatist request for a copy of the Catholic mandate, and its grant, are read.
18. 2.3The Donatists stall over signing their statements and over the written minutes, and finally obtain a six-day adjournment.
19. 3.1On the third day it is confirmed that both parties received the written minutes in time.
20. 3.2The Donatists insist on settling who the plaintiff is and on seeing the Catholic petition to the emperor, while the Catholics press for the case itself.
21. 3.3The parties dispute who rightly bears the name Catholic; the Donatists say it means fullness of sacraments, not universality, and again evade the main case.
22. 3.4The Catholics refuse the role of plaintiffs, saying they defend against Donatist charges, and cite Primian’s refusal to meet with “the offspring of betrayers.”
23. 3.5The Catholics offer the prefect’s minutes showing that the Donatists also asked for a conference; the Donatists obstruct their reading.
24. 3.6The Donatists produce older minutes to make the Catholics plaintiffs, but resist the reading of the still earlier records showing that their forebears first accused Caecilian before Constantine.
25. 3.7The commissioner overrides the Donatist objections and orders the Catholic documents read, so that the real case finally begins.
26. 3.8Anullinus’s report showing that the Donatists first accused Caecilian is read; the Donatists ask whether Caecilian is the Catholics’ “father,” and the Catholics answer from Matt 23:9.
27. 3.9Asked who ordained him, Augustine names Megalius, primate of Numidia, and challenges the Donatists to produce their charges; they turn back to Caecilian.
28. 3.10The Donatist council’s letter is read; Augustine notes that it ignores the Scripture proofs of a worldwide church and misreads the parables of the nets, the weeds, the threshing floor, and the sheep and goats.
29. 3.11The Donatist letter is silent on Cyprian’s tolerance of bad colleagues and on the Maximianists, whose baptism the Donatists accepted.
30. 3.12The Donatists evade the Catholic argument that truth (baptism) can be held in unrighteousness and should be recognized while the error is corrected.
31. 3.13The Donatist complaints of persecution ignore that they first appealed to the emperor and that their sufferings punish the crimes of the circumcellions.
32. 3.14The Donatist letter says nothing about the acquittal of Caecilian and Felix, and its own principle that unknown sins do not defile undermines its case against the worldwide church.
33. 3.15The Catholics begin their reply on the parables of the threshing floor and the weeds; the Donatists interrupt, disputing whether “world” can mean the church.
34. 3.16The Catholics answer that the church is mixed now but will be pure in the age to come, illustrated by the two catches of fish and by Noah’s ark.
35. 3.17The Catholics answer that the prophets and the righteous of Israel stayed in one temple with sinners and were not stained by them, as Ezekiel’s marking of the mourners shows.
36. 3.18Separation from the wicked is of the heart and life, not bodily; the Donatists’ refusal to sit with the Catholics is answered from Ps 26:4–5.
37. 3.19The Donatists return to the parable of the weeds and accuse the Catholics of teaching two churches.
38. 3.20The Catholics deny teaching two churches: the one church is mixed and mortal now and will be pure and immortal at the resurrection.
39. 3.21The commissioner turns to the origin of the schism; the Donatists object that only Christ should judge, and the Catholics reply that they themselves first appealed to Constantine.
40. 3.22The Catholics recall Donatist attacks blinding people with lime and vinegar, worse than the devil’s treatment of Job; the Donatists evade the case of Felician.
41. 3.23After charges about the violence at Bagai, the commissioner closes the debate on the church and turns to the case of Caecilian.
42. 3.24Anullinus’s reports, Constantine’s letter, and the Roman council under Miltiades that cleared Caecilian are read, until the Donatists force an interruption.
43. 3.25The Donatists read Mensurius’s letter to Secundus of Tigisi about hiding the Scriptures in persecution and Secundus’s reply, to charge Mensurius with betrayal.
44. 3.26The Donatists read the council of seventy bishops at Carthage that condemned Caecilian in absence; the Catholics note that it bears no date.
45. 3.27The Catholics read the council of Cirta, where Secundus pardoned confessed betrayers, and Purpurius’s charge that Secundus himself was a betrayer.
46. 3.28The Catholics argue that the council condemning the absent Caecilian no more binds than the Maximianist council that condemned Primian; the Donatists concede that one person’s case does not prejudice another’s.
47. 3.29The Donatists argue from the custom that the primate of Numidia ordains the bishop of Carthage, and from Caecilian’s reported words in Optatus.
48. 3.30The Catholics answer that whatever the date of the Carthaginian council, the Donatists themselves sent the case to the emperor, whose verdict decides; the commissioner orders the deferred documents read.
49. 3.31The Donatists attack the council of Cirta as forged because it is dated and because no council could meet in persecution; the minutes of Miltiades’ council clearing Caecilian are read in full.
50. 3.32A dispute over dating the council of Cirta: the staff miscalculate, and the Catholics argue that a few bishops could meet in a house during persecution, as congregations did.
51. 3.33After long dispute over whether bishops could meet during persecution, the commissioner compels the Donatists to answer the judgment of Miltiades.
52. 3.34The Donatists try to charge Miltiades with betrayal through a deacon Strato named in old minutes, but the documents never mention Miltiades.
53. 3.35The Catholics answer that two men could share the name Strato and that Miltiades would not be guilty even if his deacon had sinned unknown to him.
54. 3.36Augustine answers a later Donatist slander about a deacon Cassian: shared names prove nothing, as the Donatists themselves distinguish two men named Donatus.
55. 3.37Constantine’s letter to Eumalius, declaring that he judged Caecilian innocent after the council of Arles, is read; the Donatists can only object that it lacks a date.
56. 3.38The Donatists read Optatus to prove Caecilian was condemned, but the same page declares him innocent, to general laughter.
57. 3.39The Donatists read their forebears’ petition to Constantine, which calls Caecilian “his prelate” and so shows the emperor had sided with him.
58. 3.40The Donatists read Constantine’s letter to Verinus recalling them from exile, which condemns them sharply and again proves Caecilian was not condemned.
59. 3.41Constantine’s letter to Probianus, read by the Donatists, confirms that Felix of Abthugni was cleared by the proconsul Aelianus.
60. 3.42The proconsular acts acquitting Felix are read; the commissioner rules that they stand unless later records are produced against them.
61. 3.43With the Donatists producing nothing further, the commissioner has the parties withdraw, writes his sentence, and declares the Donatists refuted.