The Abitinian Martyrs and the Outbreak

of the Donatist Schism

by ALAN DEARN
It is often claimed that the story of the Abitinian martyrs provides evidence relevant to the outbreak of the
Donatist schism. However, this interpretation of the text rests upon a number of false assumptions
regarding its manuscript tradition and the celebrity of the martyrs it commemorates. Rather than being
written in the early fourth century, the text in its extant form was probably written after the Council of
Carthage in 411, and perhaps in response to it. It thus does not cast light upon the outbreak of the schism,
but rather on the way in which the events of the early fourth century were polemically reinterpreted at
a much later date.
T
he Donatist schism broke out in the aftermath of the Diocletianic
persecution; its catalyst was the disputed election of Caecilian as
bishop of Carthage.
1
Elected as the successor of Mensurius, and
consecrated by Felix of Abthungi, Caecilian proved to be an unacceptable
choice to a number of his new colleagues. Meeting at Carthage, a group of
bishops declared Felix to have been a traditor, guilty of surrendering Scripture
to the imperial authorities. They therefore considered his consecration of
Caecilian to be rendered invalid, and elected Maiorinus in his stead. Taking
schism in its most neutral and descriptive sense as a division entrenched in
parallel ecclesiastical organisations, this was the moment at which the
Donatist schism began.
2
SC=Sources Chretiennes ; VC=Vigiliae Christianae
I would like to thank Averil Cameron and Mark Edwards for their comments on this paper.
1
Although not important to this paper, it should be noted that the dating of Caecilians
consecration remains controversial. I prefer the early chronology of 307/8 to the more
traditional date of early 312, although both remain arguable. See, in particular, T. D. Barnes,
The beginnings of Donatism, JTS n.s. xxvi (1975), 1322 (repr. in Early Christianity and the
Roman empire, London 1984), arguing for the early dating. For Frends response see W. H. C.
Frend and K. Clancy, When did the Donatist schism begin?, JTS n.s. xxviii (1977), 1049.
For a summary of the pertinent issues in support of Barness view see A. R. Birley, Some
notes on the Donatist schism, Libyan Studies xviii (1987), 2941.
2
See H. Chadwick, Orthodoxy and heresy from the death of Constantine to the eve of the
First Council of Ephesus , in A. Cameron and P. Garnsey (eds), The Cambridge ancient history,
XIII: The late empire, AD 337425, Cambridge 1998, 562, who denes schism as the separation
Jnl of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 55, No. 1, January 2004. f 2004 Cambridge University Press 1
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046903008923 Printed in the United Kingdom
However, a disputed ecclesiastical appointment is not the most evocative
motif with which to engage the reader. A far more exciting introduction is
oered by the Passio Saturnini, which describes the fate of a group of
Christians arrested at Abitina during the Diocletianic persecution.
3
According
to this text, the Abitinians were taken to Carthage to appear before the
proconsul Anullinus. While they were awaiting their fate in prison, some of
the faithful Christians of Carthage attempted to supply them with food and
drink. However, they were prevented from reaching the prison. Armed men
beat them back, their gifts were trampled into the dust. The confessores, fresh
from their struggle against the devil and his agent, the proconsul Anullinus,
were left unsupported. But the greatest outrage was that the armed men who
prevented the Christians approach were not the servants of the imperial
authorities, but were led by the deacon Caecilian, acting under the orders of
Mensurius, the bishop of Carthage. The leaders of the Church at Carthage,
already tarnished by their apostasy during the persecution, were now in
league with the devil. The confessores themselves passed judgement upon
them, holding a sort of council in their prison. Their verdict was that true
Christians would henceforth have to choose between the Church of traditores
and persecutors, or the unsullied Church of the martyrs.
This paper examines the ways in which the Passio Saturnini has been used
by scholars to cast light upon the origins and causes of the Donatist schism.
Discussions of the text are dominated by an orthodoxy that the Abitinian
martyrs were venerated by both Catholics and Donatists, and that their
hagiography provides evidence for the outbreak of the schism. In contrast, I
seek to argue that the Passio Saturnini was written long after the events it
describes, and that it is an inherently Donatist work, with a clear polemical
purpose. There is little evidence that the Abitinian martyrs were venerated
throughout Africa by Christians on both sides of the schism, and certainly no
evidence to justify the assumption of their widespread popularity. The text
survives only in a Donatist version, and does not provide evidence for the
causes of the schism. Rather, it should more properly be understood as
illuminating the manner in which the outbreak of the schism was polemically
reconstructed at a later date, probably after the Council of Carthage in 411,
and perhaps in response to it. The Passio Saturnini asserts what we may refer to
as an imagined world, in which a stark antithesis is created between the
confessores and traditores. This antithesis is projected back into an account set in
304, a time before the outbreak of the schism, but reects the polemical needs
and suspension of ecclesiastical communion and eucharistic sharing without this entailing
deviation from accepted central armations of the community or from the forms of ministry
through which continuity was preserved.
3
The account of the Abitinian martyrs, the Passio sanctorum Datiui et Saturnini presbyteri et
aliorum, is abbreviated here as the Passio Saturnini. The Abitinians take their name from Abitina,
the site of their arrest. Abitina was probably in proconsular Africa, close to Membressa: J.-L.
Maier, Le Dossier du Donatisme, Berlin 1987, i. 62 n. 22.
2 ALAN DEARN
of the time in which it was written, perhaps more than a century later, after
411. Modern scholars who approach the story of the Abitinian martyrs as a
source of authentic evidence for the outbreak of the schism are therefore
misled by not understanding the text in its proper context. And this is
precisely what its author intended.
The Passio Saturnini in scholarship
With its dramatically evocative language and sharply drawn antitheses, the
account of the Abitinian martyrs seems well suited to introduce the story of
the Donatist Church, and it comes as no surprise to nd it employed for this
purpose. For example, Tilleys recent study of Donatist identity begins in
precisely this manner,
4
as does her introduction to the schism in her
translation of Donatist martyr stories.
5
However, in addition to being
employed for stylistic purposes, the events described in the Passio Saturnini are
also seen as casting light upon the reasons for the outbreak of the schism in
the aftermath of the Great Persecution. The catalyst for the schism was the
disputed election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage, but the use of force by
the bishop of Carthage against a group of faithful Christians, who were
acting in support of heroic confessores, would seem to pregure the nature of
the dispute. For example, Frend calls the account of the Abitinians trial
before Anullinus one of the most moving testimonies of the Great
Persecution, and considers the events described in the passio to mark the
beginning of the Donatist schism.
6
Tilley places even greater emphasis on the
account. Indeed, it becomes for her the seminal event which moulded the
Donatists image of themselves. The consecration of Caecilian would not
only be disputed because of its being performed at the hand of a traditor.
Rather, the disputed election is described by Tilley as the symptom of an
earlier cleavage, resulting from Caecilians own acquiescence in the de-
struction of the men and women who embodied the words of the Bible in
their lives, the Abitinian martyrs .
7
The events of the passio therefore become
crucial to her central thesis of Donatist hermeneutics. Indeed, she believes
the treatment of the Abitinian martyrs dened the form their hermeneutics
would take.
8
Collections of documents illustrating the Donatist schism also reect the
perceived importance of this text as evidence for the outbreak of the schism.
For example, Maier places the Passio Saturnini in the rst section of his Dossier
du Donatisme, where it takes its place along with other evidence relating to the
4
M. A. Tilley, The Bible in Christian north Africa: the Donatist world, Minneapolis 1997, 9.
5
Idem, Donatist martyr stories : the Church in conict in Roman north Africa, Liverpool 1996, p. xi.
6
W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church, Oxford 1952, 8. See also his article on Donatism in
G. W. Bowersock, P. Brown and O. Grabar (eds), Late antiquity: a guide to the postclassical world,
Cambridge, MA 1999, 417.
7
Tilley, Bible, 10.
8
Ibid. 1516.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 3
period of the Great Persecution.
9
Indeed, Maier echoes Frend in nding the
text to be un des documents les plus precieux de lepoque de la grande per-
secution,
10
a judgement which appears to have been derived from the earlier
opinion of Delehaye.
11
The implication of this chronological ordering is that
the text casts light onto the period immediately preceding Caecilians
contested election. As we have seen in the case of Frend and Tilley, this is the
use that is often made of it.
However, this approach to the text is problematic, and its methodological
assumptions are open to question. Tilley and Frend evoke the picture of the
Abitinian martyrs suering in prison in order to lay the foundations for their
interpretations of the causes of the schism and the way the protagonists went
on to see themselves and their opponents. But they make the mistake of treat-
ing the evidence of the Passio Saturnini as a source for events and attitudes at
the time in which the story is set. The reader is misled by evoking a picture of
faithful Christians beaten back by a bishops thugs. An image more faithful to
a proper understanding of the text is that of a polemicist writing a record of
the past to enlist that past against his opponents.
Polemical texts such as the Passio Saturnini primarily furnish evidence for
the context in which they were written, amended or used, rather than for
the context to which they refer. It is particularly pertinent to assert this in
the case of hagiographical texts, which are often notoriously dicult to date,
and thus lend themselves to erroneous interpretation. Martyr stories may
comprise or include a contemporary account, perhaps even the record of the
martyrs trial before a magistrate. However, hagiography aims at presenting
the martyr or ascetic in such a way as to provide an example for an audience.
The way their lives and deaths are interpreted is therefore primarily evidence
for the context in which the process of representation takes place, and not
necessarily for the context in which the story is set. In the disputes between
Catholics and Donatists, hagiography oered a way through which the past
was reassessed in order to assert the legitimacy of ones own position, and
the illegitimacy of ones opponents. Therefore, care needs to be exercised
to avoid using hagiography anachronistically, and such care is often
lacking. For example, the Passio Sancti Typasii Veterani has been used as a
source for the ideology of martyrdom in north Africa at the time of
the Great Persecution, despite the likelihood that it was written or revised
a century later.
12
The story of the Abitinian martyrs presents a similar
problem.
9
Maier, Dossier, i, no. 4, pp. 5792.
10
Ibid. i. 57.
11
H. Delehaye, Contributions recentes a lhagiographie de Rome et dAfrique, Analecta
Bollandiana liv (1936), 293, described the text as un des monuments les plus precieux de
lhistoire des persecutions romaines .
12
Tilley, Bible, 4950. For the dating of this text see D. Woods, A historical source of the
Passio Typasii , VC xlvii (1993), 7884; A. Dearn, The Passio S. Typasii Veterani as a Catholic
construction of the past , VC lv (2001), 8698.
4 ALAN DEARN
Before proceeding, it is important to clarify the dierent views held con-
cerning the dating of the Passio Saturnini. Tilley asserts that the text, in the
form in which it has come down to us, was written between 304 and 311/12,
and therefore casts light on the origins of the schism.
13
She bases her
dating on the fact that Caecilian is only referred to as a deacon in the
text, suggesting that had the text been written following his consecration
in 311/12, it would have suited the polemical purposes of the author to
point this out.
14
However, even accepting for a moment that the date of
311/12 for Caecilians consecration is secure, Tilleys argument is not con-
vincing. In particular, the author of the Passio Saturnini describes Mensurius as
Carthaginis quondam episcopus (formerly the bishop of Carthage).
15
The
text therefore must have been written after his death, and following
Caecilians election. Given that the legitimacy of Caecilians consecration
was the subject of dispute, it is unsurprising that the author did not go out of
his way to point out that Caecilian was later made bishop, especially as the
text simply describes the alleged events surrounding the treatment of the
Abitinians in 304.
Tilleys view that the Passio Saturnini in its extant form was written shortly
after the events it describes is not shared by other scholars who have studied
the text. As we shall see, the more usual view is that the text we know as the
Passio Saturnini was the work of a Donatist polemicist writing in the fth cen-
tury, but that he made use of an earlier passio based on the authentic acta of
the Abitinians trial before Anullinus. Unfortunately, this belief in a hypo-
thetical earlier passio has led to confusion in the interpretation of the text
which we actually have. This appears to be the case with Frends use of the
text. Although he does not discuss the issue of the dating of the text directly,
he arms the view that the extant text reects later editing, with
propagandistic intent. However, he is still prepared to accept the testimony
of the polemical appendix to the text as though it were an accurate record of
events in 304.
16
In what follows, I will attempt to unravel the misunderstandings and
assumptions which have led to confusion over what this important text is,
and is not, able to tell us.
Overview of the text
The Passio Saturnini may be divided into ve sections. The rst (ss 12) consists
of a polemical preface, in which the narrator introduces the account of the
Abitinian martyrs, making it clear that it has been derived from public
records, and is being told in order to distinguish the true ecclesia catholica of
13
Tilley, Bible, 58.
14
Ibid. 194 n. 11.
15
Passio Saturnini 20.
16
Frend, Donatist Church, 10.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 5
the martyrs from that of the traditores. The story of the martyrs themselves
then begins with a second introduction (ss 24), giving an account of their
arrest at Abitina, and their dispatch to the proconsul Africae Anullinus at
Carthage.
17
The main body of the Passio (ss 518) is taken up with a long
account of the Abitinians undergoing interrogation and torture before
Anullinus. One by one they face their persecutor, undergo hideous torments,
yet emerge victorious as mighty warriors of Christ.
18
Their imperial per-
secutor is confounded. The account of their victory however ends with
Mensurius and Caecilian preventing the faithful Christians of Carthage from
helping them, and with the council the confessores hold in the prison in
response (ss 1923). In the polemical climax of the text, the confessores assert
the radical incompatibility between the Church of the martyrs and the false
Church of the traditores.
19
Baluzes 1761 edition of the text ends with a brief
account of the death of the confessores in prison from hunger, which he derived
from a manuscript no longer extant (s. 23). Since this does not appear in the
extant manuscripts, and since it contradicts the statement at the beginning
of the Passio that the Abitinians diuersis locis temporibusque discretis
beatissimum sanguinem profuderunt ,
20
this would seem to have been a later
addition.
21
Was the Passio Saturnini an exclusively Donatist text ?
The rst point to make is that the Passio Saturnini has survived in only one
form. The six main extant manuscripts of the text all contain the editorial
comment implicating Mensurius and Caecilian in the interdiction of supplies
for the Abitinian martyrs, and identifying Caecilian only as a deacon. They
may thus be described as Donatist, in that they have a clearly polemical
agenda reecting the point of view of one side in the dispute.
22
However, this
fact has been obscured by the texts publication history, leading to confusion
which has bedeviled interpretation. Prior to the Studi e Testi edition compiled
by deCavalieri in 1935, the most accessible editions of the text were those
17
For Anullinus see A. Mandouze, Prosopographie chre tienne du bas-empire, I: Afrique ( 303533),
Paris 1982, s.v. Anulinus 1; A. H. M. Jones, J. R. Martindale and J. Morris, The prosopography of
the later Roman empire, I: AD 260395, Cambridge 1971, s.v. C. Annius Anullinus 3.
18
Hic certaminis magni pugna percitur, hic diabolus superatur et uincitur, hic martyres
Christi de passionis futurae gloria aeterna cum gratulatione laetantur : Passio Saturnini 18.
19
Si quis traditoribus communicauerit, nobiscum partem in regnis caelestibus non
habebit : ibid. 21.
20
Ibid. 1.
21
See P. F. deCavalieri, Note agiograche, Studi e Testi lxv (1935), 71; Maier, Dossier, i. 92
n. 92.
22
The best modern edition of the text is that of deCavalieri, Agiograche, 171, which
forms the basis of that of Maier, Dossier, i, no. 4, pp. 5792. For a description of the
manuscripts see deCavalieri, Agiograche, 456; Maier, Dossier, i. 58.
6 ALAN DEARN
found in Migne. This included two versions of the Passio, one edited by Baluze
in 1761,
23
the other by Ruinart in 1689.
24
Baluze provided the complete text
of the manuscripts he was working from. Ruinart, however, exercised his
editorial judgement in order to rid his text of what he saw as its Donatist
accretions.
25
That is, he removed from his edition the rst introduction and
the appendix (ss 12, 1923) which contained the material explicitly critical of
Mensurius and Caecilian. By doing so, he sought to detach the original acta
of the Abitinian martyrs from its later polemical additions, assumptions
which I will discuss further below. Unfortunately, the juxtaposition in Migne
of Baluzes edition with that of Ruinart gave the impression that there were
distinct Catholic and Donatist versions of the Passio Saturnini. This
impression appears to have survived despite deCavalieris edition, which
showed it to be groundless. In particular, Tilley continues to refer to Catholic
and Donatist recensions of the text, citing the two versions in Migne as
support.
26
However, the only Catholic version of the text is that created by
Ruinart.
The Passio Saturnini is therefore known to us only as a Donatist text. Part
of the confusion over this text, as we have seen, results from the partial
edition of Ruinart included in Migne. However, confusion over whether the
text should be seen as Donatist also stems from the same presuppositions
which prompted Ruinart to invent his Catholic version of the text in the
rst place. Ruinart believed that by removing the introduction and appendix
from the text he had recovered an earlier passio (ss 218) containing the
original and thus Catholic acta (ss 518) from their Donatist frame.
27
Because of the apparent use of the Passio Saturnini at the Council of
Carthage in 411 (see below), he assumed that there was an original version of
the text, unsullied by Donatist polemic.
Monceaux in particular sought to legitimise Ruinarts approach by
identifying three stages of composition in the text : an authentic acta (ss 518),
an early passio (ss 218), recovered by Ruinart, and the nal Donatist passio in
the form edited by Baluze (ss 123).
28
Of these, Monceaux believed that both
the second and third stages of composition were the work of Donatists, the
early passio from the pen of a moderate, the later introduction and appendix
from that of a fanatic (le nergume `ne).
29
However, this view of successive
Donatist accretions to an authentic core has been shown to be unlikely by
23
Stephani Baluzii miscellaneorum, Paris 1761, ii. 5676, PL viii. 689B703B.
24
Th. Ruinart, Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta, Paris 1689, 40919, PL viii.
703C715B.
25
P. Monceaux, Histoire litte raire de lAfrique chre tienne depuis les origines jusqua linvasion arabe,
Paris 1905, iii. 143; E. Buonaiuti, Il cristianesimo nell Africa romana, Bari 1928, 295 n. 4. For a
description of Ruinarts methodology see H. Delehaye, Les Le gendes hagiographiques, 4th edn,
Brussels 1955, trans. D. Attwater as The legends of the saints, Portland, OR 1998, 923.
26
Tilley, Martyr stories, 267, and Bible, 59, 194 n. 13.
27
Ruinart, Acta sincera, 407.
28
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, iii. 1437.
29
Ibid. iii. 147.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 7
deCavalieri, who pointed to the verbal similarities between both the
introductions (ss 14) and the appendix (ss 1923).
30
He therefore argues that
the text of the Passio Saturnini as we have it is the work of a single Donatist
author, writing at some time around the beginning of the fth century, who
framed an authentic acta of the Abitinians with an introduction and
appendix,
31
and embedded polemical interpretations into the account con
stretto vincolo al corpo della narrazione.
32
This view that the Passio Saturnini contains elements of an early fourth-
century account remains widespread.
33
DeCavalieri and Monceaux
considered the passio to be the work of a Donatist polemicist writing in the
early fth century, yet both assumed that it was based on an authentic
account. Indeed, the very value of the text for deCavalieri lay in its preser-
vation of parts of a lost original.
34
But what is the evidence for this assump-
tion? Partly, the argument rests on the evidence of the text itself. However,
more important is the apparent evidence gleaned from the records of the
Council of Carthage in 411 and epigraphic sources that the cult of the
Abitinians was widely recognised and venerated in north Africa by both
Catholics and Donatists.
35
If so, then the assumption that the Donatist author
of the Passio was drawing on earlier material would seem reasonable. So then,
having established that the Passio Saturnini as we have it is an exclusively
Donatist text, what of the assumption that an original version of their hagi-
ography existed? Let us examine the evidence for this pervasive idea.
Was there an original Passio Saturnini ?
There are several features of the Passio Saturnini which appear to support the
idea that the Donatist author of the fth century was working from earlier
material. To begin with, this is what he himself claims, beginning his account
with the statement that the events it describes were found in archiuo
memoriae and are derived ex actis publicis.
36
Is it then plausible to imagine that the Passio, in the form which has come
down to us, contains elements of the ocial acta describing the trial of the
30
DeCavalieri, Agiograche, 46.
31
Ibid. 6. Note his reference to la malignosa appendice.
32
Ibid. 5.
33
For example see the recent survey of north African hagiography by V. Saxer, Afrique
latine, in G. Philippart (ed.), Hagiographies, Turnhout 1994, 61, which assumes that the Passio
Saturnini in its extant form is a result of Donatist interference with an earlier text.
34
DeCavalieri, Agiograche, 4.
35
For the unlikely possibility that the Abitinians appear in two of Augustines sermons see
V. Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques en Afrique chre tienne aux premiers sie `cles, Paris 1980, 220.
36
acta martyrum legat quae necessario in archiuo memoriae conscripta sunt ne, saeculis
transeuntibus, obsolesceret et gloria martyrum et damnatio traditorum! aggredior,
inquam, ex actis publicis scribere : Passio Saturnini 1.
8 ALAN DEARN
Abitinians, and contemporary with the events it describes? Or that it was
perhaps based on an earlier passio which made use of these acta? The manner
in which the extant Passio is structured makes this at least possible. From
sections four to eighteen of the extant text, the martyrs are pitted against
Anullinus as the representative of the devil. They arrive before him in a body,
as though ready for battle, and their interrogations and tortures are described
in military and athletic terms as a series of single combats.
37
They wear their
torturers out, Anullinus is unable to endure, and the Abitinians emerge vic-
torious, ready to have their triumphs conrmed by martyrdom.
38
However,
in the framing introduction and appendix to the Passio Saturnini, the imperial
persecutors hardly rate a mention. The enemies the author dwells upon
are instead the traditores, and Caecilian and Mensurius in particular.
39
These
are the opponents against whom the Abitinians dene themselves whilst in
prison awaiting their fate, and the main preoccupation of the author of the
Passio.
40
The Donatist author of the Passio Saturnini may therefore have based his
work on an earlier account of the Abitinian martyrs which did not have the
same explicit aim of enlisting their support against their Catholic opponents.
Some measure of external support for this view may be gleaned from the gesta
of the Council of Carthage in 411, which has often been invoked in support of
the view that the Abitinians were widely venerated throughout Africa.
During the third session of the council, the Donatists attempted to cast doubt
upon the authenticity of the minutes of the so-called Council of Cirta,
41
claiming that no such assembly of bishops would have been able to take
place during the persecution.
42
In response, the Catholics cited the evi-
dence of at least two gesta martyrum, which were read out at the conference,
that collecta of Christians had been able to meet despite the persecution.
43
37
Quique cum ad ocium Anullini tunc proconsulis peruenire starentque in acie
constanter ac fortiter, saeuientis impetus diaboli dominica constantia retundebant. Sed cum
non contra omnes simul milites Christi diabolica rabies praeualeret, singulos in certamina
postulauit : ibid. 4.
38
Hic certaminis magni pugna percitur, hic diabolus superatur et uincitur, hic martyres
Christi de passionis futurae gloria aeterna cum gratulatione laetantur : ibid. 18.
39
Anullinus and the representatives of the imperial government have become almost
irrelevant : Erat etus horribilis et acerba omnium qui aderant lamentatio, prohiberi a
complexu martyrum pios et diuelli a pietatis ocio christianos, Caeciliano saeuiente tyranno
et crudeli carnice : ibid. 20.
40
Quam ob rem fugienda bonis et uitanda semper est religiosis conspiratio traditorum,
hypocritarum domus pharisaeorumque sententia : ibid. 22.
41
Maier, Dossier, i, no. 7, pp. 11218.
42
Gesta conlationis carthaginiensis anno 411, capitula iii. 407, 442, ed. S. Lancel, in Actes de la
confe rence de Carthage en 411, SC cxcv, ccxxiv, ccclxxiii, 197291; Augustine, Breuiculus conlationis
cum Donatistis iii. 17.32, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL liii, 1910, 3992; Augustine, Contra partem
Donati post gesta 14.18, ed. M. Petschenig, CSEL liii, 1910, 97162. See also Lancel, SC cxciv.
947.
43
Gesta conlationis Carthaginiensis iii. 42950.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 9
Unfortunately, these references can only be gleaned from the terse capitula of
the conference. The sections of the conference minutes to which they refer
have not survived, and thus do not identify which gesta martyrum were used as
evidence. However, Augustines references to this section of the conference in
his polemical works have provided a rationale for those who wish to see in
them an account of the Abitinians.
According to Augustines tendentious summaries of the council, the
Donatists attempted to support their claim that the Council of Cirta could
not have taken place during the Persecution by producing a gesta martyrum.
Their aim in doing so seems to have been to use the dates mentioned in the
gesta to prove that persecution was occurring at the time when the Council of
Cirta was said to have been held, which by their argument would prove the
account of the council to be false. However, according to Augustine, this
attempt backred upon the Donatists, as the Catholics were able to point out
that the very text which the Donatists produced as evidence for the date of
the persecution contained a description of Christians meeting together in a
private home. This then prompted the Catholics to produce at least two
other gesta martyrum, one of which even described Christians being baptised in
prison. With this evidence of organisation under persecution, said the
Catholics, the meeting at Cirta was perfectly plausible.
44
None of the gesta used at Carthage are named, either in the capitula or in
Augustines works. However, two factors have led to an orthodoxy that one
of the texts was the Passio Saturnini, although not in its extant Donatist form.
First, the fact that the gesta were produced at Carthage to prove that meetings
of Christians could take place during the persecution resonates with the
description in our extant text of the Abitinians being arrested at a private
house.
45
The second reason for associating the text with the Abitinians is
more compelling. Augustine mentions the date of the gesta martyrum, in order
to argue that the time interval between the gesta and the Council of Cirta had
been tallied incorrectly at Carthage. The date Augustine gives, pridie Idus
Februarias (12 February) is the same as that recorded in the Passio Saturnini ;
this has led to the gesta martyrum produced at Carthage being equated with the
Passio Saturnini.
46
It therefore may be that some version of an account of the Abitinians was
produced at Carthage. However, it must be emphasised that Augustines
44
Ex his martyrum gestis, quae ipsi proferebant, admoniti sumus et in alia gesta martyrum
intendere, et inuenimus et diximus feruente tempore persecutionis et priuatam domum, quod
illi eri potuisse negauerant, congregationi christianorum fuisse concessam et in carcere fuisse
martyres baptizatos : Augustine, Contra partem Donati 14.18.
45
Passio Saturnini 2, 11. See also Lancel, SC cxciv. 95 n. 6.
46
Nam gesta martyrum, quibus ostendebatur tempus persecutionis, consulibus facta sunt
Diocletiano nouies et Maximiano octies pridie Idus Februarias : Augustine, Breuiculus
conlationis iii. 17.32; Passio Saturnini, praefatio; Maier, Dossier, i. 57 n. 2.
10 ALAN DEARN
reference to the date of the gesta is the only evidence that this was the case,
and practically the only evidence for the popularity of the Abitinians amongst
Catholics and Donatists during the fourth and early fth centuries.
The mirage of the Abitinians popularity
The epigraphic evidence for the popularity of the Abitinians in Africa before
411 is also not as unequivocal as sometimes claimed. According to the Passio
Saturnini, a group of forty-nine Christians, all of whom are named, were
arrested at Abitina and taken to Carthage to appear before Anullinus.
47
Some of their names appear on inscriptions set up in north Africa in
honour of martyrs.
48
This led Monceaux in particular to see epigraphic
evidence for the memorialisation of the Abitinians throughout north Africa.
49
However, the evidence supporting this conclusion is problematic. No in-
scription refers to the Abitinians as a group, or lists a series of names corre-
sponding to those in the Passio. Rather, the Abitinian names which appear
on inscriptions occur by themselves, or in the company of other martyrs
whose names are not found in the Passio. Since groups of martyrs are seldom
listed on fourth-century inscriptions, this is not in itself surprising. But given
that many of the names found in the Passio Saturnini and in epigraphic sources
were amongst the most common in north Africa, it is often dicult to identify
to whom a particular inscription refers with certainty. For example, an
inscription found at Bir A da in Numidia honours a martyr named Ianuaria
and her unnamed companions (comites).
50
Although two women by that name
appear in the Passio Saturnini, the name also appears twice on an inscription
honouring another group of Diocletianic victims found at Ha dra.
51
Ianuaria
was also the name of one of the Scillitan martyrs, executed in AD 180.
52
However, the Ianuaria commemorated at Bir A da was probably none of
these, but rather a locally venerated martyr otherwise unknown to the histori-
cal record.
53
Similar problems surround the identication of the martyr
Emeritus, the subject of two closely associated dedicatory inscriptions from
A n Ghorab and Henchir Taghfaght, also in Numidia.
54
As Duval points out,
the identication of the Emeritus honoured on these inscriptions with the
Abitinian martyr of the same name is far from certain, the evidence pointing
47
Passio Saturnini 2.
48
The most comprehensive and accessible survey of north African epigraphic sources
concerned with martyrs is Y. Duval, Loca sanctorum Africae : le culte des martyrs en Afrique du IVe
au VIIe sie `cle, Rome 1982, iii. See the inscriptions which mention Datiuus (no. 182), Emeritus
(nos 70, 77), Victoria (nos 97, 157) and Vincentius (nos 87, 150).
49
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, iii. 1779.
50
Duval, Loca, ii. 690, no. 114.
51
Ibid. nos 512.
52
Passio sanctorum scillitanorum 16, ed. H. Musurillo, in The acts of the Christian martyrs, Oxford
1972, 869.
53
Duval, Loca, i. 242.
54
Ibid. nos 70, 77.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 11
to the popularity of a local martyr cult, rather than to the wider popularity of
the Abitinians.
55
Indeed, there is no north African inscription which can be
denitely associated with them.
56
We must therefore be wary of forcing coherence upon our fragmentary
evidence by identifying individuals known from inscriptions from the lists of
martyrs found in literary sources.
57
The same is also true of individual
martyrs known from liturgical texts such as the Calendar of Carthage.
58
It
may also be possible to look at the evidence in a dierent way. Instead of
seeing the scattered Abitinian names which occur in epigraphic and liturgi-
cal sources as indications of the cult of individuals drawn from the Passio
Saturnini, we may instead see this literary text as a compendium of local and
previously unconnected cults. Certainly this is suggested by the authors
vagueness concerning the eventual fate of the Abitinians, when he notes only
that they died in dierent places and at dierent times.
59
The successive
encounters between the individual Abitinians and Anullinus may thus reect
the traditions of separate cults, associated with each other and given cohesion
by a Donatist author, who enlisted the support of the dead against his
Catholic rivals. It may be that the collective presentation of the Abitinian
martyrs is itself evidence for the late composition of the Passio Saturnini.
The willingness of historians to believe that the Passio Saturnini was
produced at Carthage in 411 has therefore been prompted by the circular
reasoning that the text was well known in Africa, and already featured in
Donatist polemic against their opponents. For example, Lancel describes the
account of the Abitinians being used as a machine de guerre contre leurs
adversaires before 411.
60
As we have seen however, it is unclear how Lancel
arrives at this conclusion, as there is in fact very little evidence for a cult of the
Abitinians, or its polemical use, at any point during the fourth century.
In particular, the silence of Catholic polemicists is striking. In his polemical
account of the schism, written in or shortly after 384,
61
Optatus makes no
mention whatsoever of the Abitinians, or of Caecilian or Mensurius denial of
supplies to confessores during the persecution. Given his readiness to defend
the Catholics from involvement in the deaths of Marculus and Donatus,
62
it is
unlikely that he would have kept silent about the Abitinians if they had been
a source of Donatist polemic when he was writing. To the silence of Optatus
we may also add the absence of any reference to the Abitinians in Augustines
55
Ibid. ii. 6867.
56
Ibid. ii. 68491.
57
Ibid. ii. 690.
58
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, iii. 142. The names which appear on the Calendar of
Carthage (Ruinart, Acta sincera, 61819) are Rogatus (24 June), Felix, Eva and Regiola (30
Aug.), Ampelius (12 Sept.), Ianuarius (19 Sept.) and Victoria (24 Oct.). See also Saxer, Morts,
2257.
59
Passio Saturnini, praefatio.
60
Lancel, SC cxciv. 95 n. 6.
61
For the date of Optatus work see M. Edwards, Optatus : Against the Donatists, Liverpool
1997, pp. xvixviii.
62
Optatus, Contra Donatistas iii. 68, ed. M. Labrousse, SC cdxiicdxiii, 19956.
12 ALAN DEARN
works. At no point does he nd it necessary to respond to the accusations
found in the Passio Saturnini, or even to use the Abitinians as exemplars in his
polemical works or surviving sermons. If the Abitinians were a focus of
Donatist polemic in the fourth or early fth centuries, the two greatest
Catholic polemicists appear to have been unaware of it.
More striking still is the lack of reference at the Council of Carthage to the
accusations raised in the Passio Saturnini against Caecilian and Mensurius. It
may be that some account of the Abitinians was produced at Carthage, but
the text obviously had little in common with the one known to us. Otherwise,
it is dicult to account for the complete absence of any reference, from
Catholics or Donatists at the conference, to the polemical stance which is
integral to the extant text. This may mean that there was a neutral, or even a
Catholic version of the text. However, this need not imply that such a text
was the original nor that it formed the basis of the Donatist text which we
possess.
63
Nor does it follow that the original version of the text used at
Carthage can be recovered from the Passio Saturnini as we know it. Above all,
there is absolutely no reason to suppose that the text preserves accurately the
events of 304, or even that the accusations it contains formed part of Donatist
polemic at the time of the council.
The basilica of Uppenna
Although the Abitinians have no denite attestation in the epigraphic record,
the most plausible and signicant possible reference to them is found in the
basilica of Uppenna in Byzacena, which is worth considering in detail.
64
The
basilica, excavated poorly in 1905,
65
contained two interesting mosaic
inscriptions of dierent dates. The earliest, associated with the small eastern
apse of the basilica, is incomplete, but apparently commemorates a group of
martyrs who suered [di]e IIII non(as) aug[ustas] , that is on 2 August, and
which included two men named Saturninus.
66
At a later date, the basilica was
greatly expanded. The area of the eastern apse, with its mosaic, was covered
by a square martyrium, associated with two depositions of reliquaries.
67
Over
these, a mosaic pavement was laid, measuring 2.45 m. by 2.7 m.
68
This de-
picted a large jewelled cross, framed by a oral border, and anked by two
sheep. Below the arms of the cross appears a list of thirteen martyrs. These
correspond with those listed on the earlier inscription, although a copyists
63
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, iii. 144; Maier, Dossier, i. 57.
64
Duval, Loca, nos 279; D. Raynal, Culte des martyrs et propagande donatiste a`
Uppenna, Les Cahiers de Tunisie xxi (1973), 3372.
65
Raynal, Uppenna, 34.
66
Duval, Loca, no. 27.
67
Ibid. i. 68 (and see p. 60 for a plan of the successive stages of the basilica).
68
Ibid. no. 29.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 13
error appears to have been made on the later inscription, where the date of
the martyrdom appears simply as die nonas agustas [sic]. However, of much
greater interest is the inscription which appears above the cross: Hec sunt
nomina martirum Petrus, Paulus, Saturninus presbiter. It is this which
prompted Raynal in his 1973 study of the inscription to see it as Donatist
propaganda.
69
Raynals main argument is persuasive. According to his reconstruction,
the original apse inscription listed a group of otherwise unknown local
martyrs of Uppenna, who appear in full on the later mosaic.
70
However, as
he points out, the earlier mosaic cannot have had the space to include the
opening dedication of the latter, to Petrus, Paulus and Saturninus. He
therefore considers that these three names were added to the list of thirteen
names on the earlier inscription, and that the cult of the new martyrs was
associated with the old,
71
a process of holy ination similar to that which may
have produced the Passio Saturnini. This then raises the problems of when the
second mosaic was made, and who the new martyrs were.
The date of the later inscription is uncertain. Given the poor execution of
the original excavations, the only clues as to the date of the mosaic are those
it reveals itself, in its iconography and orthography. Examining these criteria
has usually resulted in the dating of the mosaic to the Byzantine reconquest,
72
although Raynal argues for a date during the Vandal occupation.
73
By any
reckoning therefore, the mosaic was laid down at some time after the Council
of Carthage in 411. As for the identity of the martyrs added to this later
inscription, Petrus and Paulus are certainly the Apostles.
74
The appearance of
Saturninus with the title of presbyter makes it most likely that he is to be
identied with the leader of the Abitinians in the Passio Saturnini,
75
although it
is also possible that the reference is to a presbyter of the Uppenna church
itself.
76
69
Raynal, Uppenna, 3372.
70
Note that the only potential connection between the Abitinians and the Uppenna
inscriptions is the reference to Saturninus presbiter on the later mosaic. The list of martyrs below
the cross, who appear to have been the subject of the earlier mosaic, do not correspond with
the list of names found in Passio Saturnini 2. The mosaics therefore do not primarily
commemorate the Abitinians, despite the recent comments to this eect in W. H. C. Frend,
North African and Byzantine saints in Byzantine north Africa, in Romanite et cite chre tienne :
permanences et mutations, inte gration et exclusion du Ier au Vie sie `cle (Me langes en lhonneur dYvette Duval),
Paris 2000, 321.
71
Raynal, Uppenna, 379, 64. The likelihood that the addition of new names to the list of
martyrs also involved their ritual remembrance is further suggested by the apparent deposition
of a new reliquary at the time of the second mosaics construction: Duval, Loca, i. 64.
72
Duval, Loca, i. 64.
73
Raynal, Uppenna, 6772.
74
For the cult of the Apostles in north Africa, and their appearance in epigraphic sources,
see W. H. C. Frend, The memoriae apostolorum in Roman north Africa, Journal of Roman Studies
xxx (1940), 3249.
75
Passio Saturnini 2; Raynal, Uppenna, 40.
76
Duval, Loca, i. 66.
14 ALAN DEARN
These conclusions prompted Raynal to see in the inscription an expression
of Donatist self image, inuenced by the Passio Saturnini in the form that has
come down to us.
77
Although he perhaps over-interprets aspects of the
mosaic,
78
his general conclusions seem likely. In Raynals view, the inscription
gives legitimacy to a group of local martyrs (those listed under the arms of the
cross) by conjoining them with the Apostles and the leader of the Abitinians,
perhaps symbolising the group as a whole. The mosaic may thus be under-
stood almost as a symbolic representation of the Donatist conception of the
Church of the martyrs, both those of the apostolic age and those who may be
seen as continuing their example.
79
Saturninus the presbyter does not appear
on the earlier, probably fourth-century mosaic. Rather, the association of his
name with a local martyr cult in the Vandal or Byzantine period suggests the
later importance of the Abitinians for Donatist identity and polemic.
From this examination of the use of the Passio Saturnini in north Africa,
several conclusions may be drawn. First, only one version of the text has come
down to us, a version which may be described as Donatist, reecting as it
does a polemical posture towards Caecilian and his Church. This text may
have been based on earlier hagiography relating to a group of Abitinian
martyrs, or perhaps on a number of unconnected cults, but the text which
survives is a specic work owing its existence to a polemical context. Second,
the willingness of scholars to believe that there was an earlier version of the
passio, produced at Carthage in 411, has been supported by the supposed
popularity of the cult of the Abitinians in north Africa during the fourth and
fth centuries. There is little evidence to support this assumption.
Third, confusion in the use of the Passio Saturnini raises the methodological
problem of the search for the Ur-text in the study of hagiography. Monceaux
and deCavalieri both saw that the extant text owed its composition to a late
context, perhaps in the fth century.
80
However, their interest was not so
much in the text as it has survived, but in the more authentic text which
they believed it to be based upon. This approach has dominated the study of
hagiography, reected in particular in Delehayes typology of hagiogra-
phical texts based upon the degree of authenticity and historical accuracy
they possess.
81
It is however equally valid to treat such texts as evidence
for the way in which traditions of the past were made relevant to the par-
ticular contexts in which they were written. They may be approached as
giving accurate evidence illustrating the imagined worlds of identity and
polemic.
77
Raynal, Uppenna, 42.
78
This is especially true of his attempts to connect the cross on the mosaic with the military
imagery of the Passio: Raynal, Uppenna, 52.
79
Ibid. 4954.
80
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, iii. 147; deCavalieri, Agiograche, 45; Maier, Dossier, i. 58.
81
Delehaye, Legends, 89.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 15
The interpretations built upon the assumption that the Passio Saturnini is
an accurate record of events in 304 are therefore problematic at best. In
particular, Frend assumes that the account of the council held by the
Abitinians in prison records actual events.
82
He is therefore able to use it as
an example of what he sees as the long-standing tension between the
authority of the confessor and the cleric in north African Christianity. The
incident is thus grist to his mill in explaining the Donatist schism through
a meta-narrative of pre-existing tensions within north African Christianity
and society.
83
Similarly, as I have already mentioned, Tilley sees the Passio
Saturnini as evidence for Christian identity in north Africa prior to the schism,
and believes that the story was popular among Donatists because of what it
recorded about Mensurius actions.
84
She is thus able to treat the Passio as a
kind of Donatist foundation-text, which provides the key for understanding
the form that Donatist identity would take.
Unfortunately, once it is established that the Passio Saturnini had no long
pedigree in the north African Church, these interpretations dissolve. The text
is not a reliable source for nascent Catholic or Donatist attitudes at the time
of Caecilians consecration or before, but for the way in which later attitudes
were projected back into the past for polemical purposes. Appreciating this
moves the seductive power of Christian polemic to centre stage. Rather than
furnishing evidence for the early fourth century, the Passio Saturnini is evidence
for what I have referred to as an imagined world ; a picture of a groups
identity partly asserted and maintained through a polemical reconstruction
of the past.
The most plausible context in which this imagined world took shape is not
the early fourth century, but some time after the Council of Carthage in 411.
Since the accusations made in the Passio Saturnini against Caecilian and
Mensurius do not appear to have been part of Donatist polemic before or
during the council, we may reasonably consider the council to be the terminus
post quem for composition of the Passio Saturnini in its extant form. More
precise dating is problematic, particularly as we know so little about the fate
of the Donatists after the Vandal conquest and the death of Augustine, our
main source of evidence, in 430.
82
Passio Saturnini 21.
83
This thesis is summarised clearly in W. H. C. Frend, The Donatist Church: forty years
on, in C. Landman and D. P. Whitelaw (eds), Windows on origins : essays on the early Church in
honour of Jan Stoop on his sixtieth birthday, Pretoria 1985, 7081, repr. in his Archaeology and history in
the study of early Christianity, London 1988, no. xv: Donatism had been a movement of social
and economic as much as religious protest, centred in a well-dened area of eastern and
central Algeria I tried to show the reasons for the outbreak in terms of a Berber and rural
identity for Numidia in contrast to the more Romanized province of proconsular Africa where
the African Catholics formed the majority (p. 73).
84
Tilley, Martyr stories, 256; Bible, 10.
16 ALAN DEARN
Nevertheless, several features of the text suggest a response to the Donatist
defeat at Carthage, and so may indicate a date of composition shortly after
the council. The outcome of the council of 411 was decided before it had
begun. It did not seek dialogue or consensus, but the symbolic defeat of the
recalcitrant Donatists, at the hand of the imperial administration and the
Catholic Church which it supported.
85
In this context the Donatist depiction
of an assembly of heroic martyrs asserting their antipathy to the Church of
the traditores subverts the power exercised against them. The Donatists were
defeated by their opponents at the council, but as a result were aorded the
opportunity of emulating their heroic forebears under pagan persecution.
86
Time is thus collapsed, the struggle of the Donatists given meaning through its
connection with that of the Abitinians. Furthermore, the imperial persecutors
of the Abitinians are conated with the Church of Caecilian, presenting a
monolithic Other against which the Donatists could dene themselves. This
impression is heightened by the authors use of the term bellum to describe
both the imperial persecution and the antithesis between martyres and tradi-
tores.
87
The text therefore may be seen as a Donatist foundation-text, but it is
one looking backwards from the fth century, not forwards from the early
fourth. Similarly, Frend may be right to evoke the perennial African tension
between bishop and confessor in his interpretation of the text, but not in
reference to the context of the early fourth century. Rather, the authority
asserted by the Abitinians in their prison council subverts the episcopal
authority of the Council of Carthage.
88
Perhaps the best indication of this is the authors own statement of his aim.
Introducing the story of the Abitinians, the author of the Passio Saturnini
makes it clear that the events which he will describe are the most signicant
cause of the bellum between Catholics and Donatists.
89
That is, responsibility
for the conict is assigned to the betrayal of the Abitinians by Mensurius and
Caecilian, not to the accusations of their traditio. Since it seems that their
involvement in the fate of the Abitinians was only invented, or perhaps
highlighted, after the Council of Carthage, then we may see in the Passio an
85
See, for example, the discussion of B. D. Shaw, African Christianity: disputes,
denitions, and Donatists , in M. R. Greenshields and T. A. Robinson (eds), Orthodoxy and
heresy in religious movements : discipline and dissent, Lewiston 1992, 1520. For the ritualised nature of
late antique public disputation see R. Lim, Public disputation, power, and social order in late antiquity,
Berkeley 1995, 99106.
86
consulto quidem hoc faciens duplici scilicet modo, ut et imitatoribus eorum ad
martyrium animos praeparemus et, quos uiuere in perpetuum atque cum domino Christo
regnare condimus, etiam confessiones ipsorum, pugnas atque uictorias, cum in litteras
digerimus, aeternae memoriae conferamus : Passio Saturnini 1.
87
Ibid. 12.
88
On the theme of the Donatist attempts to subvert their powerless position during the
Council of Carthage see the pertinent analysis of Shaw, African Christianity, 2333.
89
Placet igitur in principio causam ipsius belli tractare totiusque mundi discrimen
necessario breuiter omni celeritate discurrere ut, agnita ueritate, et praemia martyrum et
poenas quis nouerit traditorum : Passio Saturnini 1.
THE ABI TI NI AN MARTYRS 17
attempt to maintain the imagined world of Donatist identity. Unable to
establish their case in the judicial context of the council, the legitimacy of the
Donatists position is portrayed as resting upon the legacy of the martyrs.
Indeed, the account of the council of Abitinians also subverts the very use
made of the gesta martyrum at Carthage. The Catholics had enlisted their
support to demonstrate that Christians had been able to congregate during
the Persecution. Perhaps in response to this, the Donatist author of the Passio
Saturnini concedes the point. Christians are depicted meeting together, but in
prison and in condemnation of Caecilian and his Church. The text of the
Passio, as well as the epigraphic evidence of Uppenna, suggests that the
Abitinians enjoyed popularity through their polemical use by Donatists after
the Council of Carthage.
However, it is important not to overstate the case. The Abitinian martyrs
may have been used to assert Donatist legitimacy and identity after 411, but
the paucity of evidence makes it impossible to establish the extent to which a
Donatist Church survived both imperial suppression and Vandal invasion,
and what importance the Passio Saturnini may have held for it. The evidence
which does survive does not necessarily support the view that all Donatists
viewed the text as equally important. This is suggested by the chronicle
generally known as the Liber genealogus.
90
This text expresses a Donatist
point of view, accusing Caecilian and Mensurius of traditio, and referring to
Honorius anti-Donatist legislation of 405 as a persecution of Christians.
91
Although the Donatist version of the chronicle seems to have been written
between 405 and 411,
92
dierent manuscripts attest to at least four subsequent
recensions, in 427, 438, 455 and 463.
93
However, despite mentioning the
names of prominent victims of the various persecutions, the Abitinians are
completely absent from any version of the text.
94
On the one hand, this is
further evidence for the fact that they did not form part of anti-Catholic
polemic prior to 411. On the other hand, however, it is notable that they were
not added to any subsequent revision of the text, perhaps implying that they
were less important to fth-century Donatists than they have often appeared
to modern scholars.
The martyrs of the Passio Saturnini may have been venerated as part of a
past held in common by all north African Christians prior to 411, but there is
no evidence that they enjoyed any special prestige. Rather, it seems that their
hagiography gained in popularity in the years after the council to reinforce
the group identity of at least some Donatists. Regardless of whether they ever
really suered under Anullinus, the Abitinians as we know them are a
Donatist invention.
90
Liber genealogus, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH ix. 1891, 15496; Monceaux, Histoire litte raire,
vi. 24958.
91
Liber genealogus, lines 6267.
92
Monceaux, Histoire litte raire, vi. 251.
93
Mommsen, MGH ix. 154.
94
Note that Tilley, Bible, 144, implies that they are included in the text.
18 ALAN DEARN