The Donatist Compendium of 427 and Related Texts

This volume contains the first translation into English of a number of documents associated with the Donatist movement in North Africa, a dissident church which flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries before the Vandal invasion obscures our view of it. Donatists are often remembered for their fanatical opposition to traditores-those who had "handed over" the sacred scriptures during the Diocletianic Persecution-and their belief that those baptized by such people were not part of the true church. The writings contained in this volume add critical nuance to this portrait. At its centerpiece is the Donatist Compendium of 427, a collection of eleven exegetical texts compiled c. 427 CE by an unknown Donatist editor; other translated writings include a chronograph revised on the eve of the Vandal conquest of Carthage known as the Genealogy Book, a set of section-headings for the Major Prophets and the book of Acts, and a Donatist homily on the Epiphany, one of the few sermons by a Donatist preacher that still survives. All of these texts were produced within a Donatist milieu, and taken together, they offer us a unique window into the inner life of the dissident communion as well as valuable insight into the exegetical tools that late antique bishops had at their disposal as they sought to illuminate the biblical text for their congregations.