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Reviews / Vigiliae Christianae 67 (2013) 203-219

Brent D. Shaw, Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in

the Age of Augustine, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2011, xix (inch
maps) + 910 pp., ISBN 978-0-521-12725-7, 40.00 / US$ 65 (pb).
Through the prism of the Donatist crisis in 4th-5th c. North Africa, Brent D.
Shaw studies different spheres of religious violence, i.e. personal actions,
state intervention, and ecclesiastical politics. On the basis of this case study,
the author attempts to understand how religious exclusivism results in
mutual hatred and can degenerate into violence, both verbal and physical.
In particular he looks at the development of the notion of'heresy' in this
controversy and the aim to put 'heretics' under physical pressure. The book
offers a meticulous analysis of the use of mass communication at the time,
especially by the sermons delivered during church service. This analysis is
placed within the institutional frameworks of those days, sc. the Roman
state and the church hierarchy.
This is not a book about Augustine, but on a controversy in which he
played an important part and of which he still is one of the most important
historical sources. The author examines the various positions within the
controversy and the intensification of mutual aversion between Donatists
and Catholics. Both parties embraced the position 'who is not with us is
against us'. The Donatists were convinced that the Catholic Church issued
from the traditores (Christians who had denied their faith during the persecutions), while they themselves pretended to stem from the martyrs, a martyrdom they were also pursuing actively. The Catholics compared the
Donatists with the Jews, and both groups rejected according to the Catholics the true Church, so Christ. The polemical use of 'heretic' rhetoric
increased exponentially: one 'camp' compared the other with animals,
both camps composed militant songs and poems to underline the errors of
the opponents, and invented slogans to consolidate its own consistency.
The role of the circumcellionesa violent group affiliated with the Donatists
in the religious conflictis carefully explained.
Discussions on history/historiography also played a role in this controversy, such as about what exactly happened around the disputed episcopal
succession of Mensurius (f 306) in Carthage, when the ordination of
Caecilianus was rejected by rigoristic opponents who choose Majorinus as
their bishop (who was succeeded by Donatus), thus the very moment when
the 'Donatist party' arose. The position of the episcopate according to
Donatists and Catholicsthe demand for church leadership, the economic
role of bishops, and the impact of their sermonsare thoroughly examined.
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215

Within this controversy the bishops do in politics: they lobby the local and
the imperial authorities, who all have their own agenda within the Donatist
controversy, namely the maintenance of political peace and socioeconomic stabilityeven by making use of violence. Within this perspective Shaw reads the 'Carthaginian Conference' of 411, which gathered under
the auspices of the Emperor and ended the controversy in favour of the
Catholics.
The volume is completed by maps, instructive appendices (events, persons, sermons, and documents), an extensive bibliography, and an index.
This impressive historical and theological analysis ofthe complex religious
identity question, the various dimensions of religious exclusivism, the various spheres of religious violence, and the complex relationship between
State, religion and sectarian violence within the Donatist crisis can greatly
contribute to the understanding of many forms of religious violence today.
The fact that this voluminous (over 900 pages!) monograph was quoted
regularly during a recent international conference on Donatism (Leuven,
17-18 May 2012) is already an indication that it will become a reference
work for the study of the Donatist controversy and of Late Antique religious violence.
KathoUeke Universiteit Leuven
anthony.dupont@theo.kuleuven.be

Anthony Dupont

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