Abstract
In 418 Augustine encountered Emeritus, one of his Donatist adversaries, in Caesarea Mauretaniae (modern Cherchell) in Mauretania Caesariensis. In the resultant work, Gesta cum Emerito, Augustine relived some of the arguments that had earlier been employed against the Donatist in 411, particularly by having Alypius read out passages of Aurelius’ 411 letter to Marcellinus, the imperial commissioner (Epistula 128). Not only does Augustine shape our understanding of the 418 encounter but continues to take control of how the 411 confrontation was to be remembered. This paper will examine how Gesta cum Emerito saw the Donatist weakness in 411 being based upon their inconsistencies in dealing with schismatics, especially their treatment of Maximianists at the 394 synod in Bagaï, where Emeritus himself had condemned Maximian as “the toxic offspring of the viper’s seed.” The encounter gave Augustine an opportunity to highlight the Maximianists to an extent greater than the records of 411 indicate had been the case then.
Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Patristic, Medieval and Renaissance Conference at Villanova University in October 2019 while I was the 2019 Thomas F. Martin St Augustine Fellow there. I am grateful to the Augustinian Institute of Villanova University and to the participants at the conference for their helpful questions and comments. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments led to a restructuring of the argument. This project is funded by the Polish Minister of Science and Higher Education within the program under the name “Regional Initiative of Excellence” in 2019–2022, project number: 028/RID/2018/19, the amount of funding: 11 742 500 PLN.
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