Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Primianus, Donatist bp. of Carthage

Primianus, Donatist bp. of Carthage, successor to Parmenian, a.d. 392. Among many things charged against him by the Maximianists, they alleged that he admitted the Claudianists to communion and, when some of the seniors remonstrated with him, encouraged, if he did not even originate, a riotous attack upon them in a church in which some lost their lives. Further, that he was guilty of various acts of an arbitrary and violent kind, superseding bishops, excommunicating and condemning clergymen without sufficient cause, closing his church doors against the people and the imperial officers, and taking possession of buildings to which he had no right. (Aug. En. in Ps. 36, 20; c. Cresc. iv. 6, 7, and 7, 9, also 48, 58, and 50, 60; Mon. Vet. Don. xxxv. ed Oberthür.) At the proceedings before the civil magistrate, arising out of the decision of the council of Bagaia, Primian is said to have taunted his opponents with relying on imperial edicts, while his own party brought with them the Gospels only (Aug. Post Coll. xxxi. § 53). When the conference was proposed, he resisted it, remarking with scornful arrogance that "it was not fit that the sons of martyrs should confer with the brood of traditors" (Carth. Coll. iii. 116; Aug. Brevic. Coll. iii. 4, 4). As one of the seven managers at the conference, a.d. 411, on the Donatist side, he helped to delay the opening of the proceedings and to obstruct them during their progress, but showed no facility in debate (Brevic. Coll. ii. 30; Carth. Coll. i. 104). He passed a just sentence of condemnation on Cyprian, Donatist bp. of Tubursica, for an act of scandalous immorality (Aug. c. Petil. iii. 34, 40). See Dr. Sparrow Simpson, St. Aug. and Afr. Ch. Divisions (1910), p 52.

[H.W.P.]