DONATUS
129
DONDERS
hundred. A further law was published in 428. The
good Marcellinus, who had become the friend of St.
Augustine, fell a victim (it is supposed) to the rancour
of the Donatists; for he was put to death in 41.3, as
though an accomplice in the revolt of Heraclius, Count
of Africa, in spite of the orders of the emperor, who did
not believe him guilty. Donatism was now discred-
ited by the conference and proscribed by the persecut-
ing laws of Honorius. The Circumcellions made some
dying efforts, and a priest was killed by them at Hippo.
It does not seem that the decrees were rigidly carried
out, for Donatist clergy were still found in Africa.
The ingenious Emeritus was at Caesarea in 418, and at
the wish of Pope Zosimus St. Augustine had a confer-
ence with him, without result. But on the whole
Donatism was dead. Even before the conference the
Catholic bishops in Africa were considerably more
numerous than the Donatists, except in Numidia.
From the time of the invasion of the Vandals in 430
little is heard of them until the days of St. Gregory the
Great, when they seem to have revived somewhat, for
that pope complained to the Emperor Maurice that
the laws were not strictly enforced. They finally dis-
appeared with the irruptions of the Saracens.
Do.VATi.ST Wkiter.s. — There seems to have been no lack of literary activity among the Donatists of the fourth century, though little remains to us. The works of Donatus the Great were known to St. Jerome, but have not been preserved. His book on the Holy Spirit is said by that Father to have been Arian in doc- trine. It is possible that the Pseudo-Cyprianic " De singularitat« clericorum" is by Macrobius; and the ■' -Ad versus aleatores" is by an antipope, either Dona- tist or Novatianist. The arguments of Parmenianus and Cresconius are known to us, though their works are lost; but Monceaux has been able to restore from St. Augustine's citations short works by Petilianus of Constantine and Gaudentius of Thamugadi, and also a libellus by a certain Fulgentius, from the citations in the Pseudo-Augustinian "Contra Fulgentium Dona- tistam". Of Tichonius, or Tyconius, we still possess the treatise " De Septem regulis" (P. L., XVIII; new ed. by Professor Burkitt, in Cambridge "Texts and Studies", III, 1, 1894) on the interpretation of Holy Scripture. His commentary on the Apocalypse is lost; it was used by Jerome, Primasius, and Beatus in their commentaries on the same book. Tichonius is chiefly celebrated for his views on the Church, which were quite inconsistent with Donatism, and which Parmenianus tried to refute. In the famous words of St. Augustine (who often refers to his illogical position and to the force with which he argued against the car- dinal tenets of his own sect): "Tichonius, assailed on all sides by the voices of the holy pages, awoke and saw the Church of God diffused throughout the world, as had been foreseen and foretold of her so long before by the hearts and mouths of the saints. And seeing this, he undertook to demonstrate and assert against his own party that no sin of man, however villainous and monstrous, can interfere with the promi-ses of God, mr can any impiety of any persons within the Church cause the word of God to ])e made void as to the exist- ence and diffusion of the Church to the ends of the earth, which was promised to the Fathers and now is manifest" (Contra Ep. Parmen., I, i).
AmoiiK the great geiier;il liistnries. Tillemont's full account in his Mcmoin'.^, vol. VI. il(^ser\es special mention, as it has not yet been superseded, -\niinii; tnodem book-s: Rright, The Age of the Fathers (London, 190.3). II; Fuller in Did. Christ. Biog., s. V. Donatism: and the brilliant slietch in Duchesne, Histoire Ancienne de V Eglise (Paris. 1907). II. Among monographs on Africa: Schelstrate, Ecderia Africana (Paris, 1679, and Ant- werp. 1780): Leydecker, Ilisforia Ecclesioe Africanw (Utrecht, 1690), II; Morcelli, Africa Christiana (3 vols., Brescia, 1816- 17); Pallu de Lessert. Vicaires et Comtes d'Afrique (Paris, 1892); Idem. Fasten dr^ provinces africaines (Paris, 1901); Leclercq. L\Afr„i<i. l'l,r,l,,u,ir (2 Vols., Paris. 1904); Mon- ceaux, Ilialnirr I, /I. run; .1, r Mruiue Chretienne (Paris. 1901—). I-III: the fourth I'-liim.- uiU deal with Donatism. The following monoiir.ii'iis ;irc nf less importance: Ellies du Pin, Historia Dnnntistarani, prcHxed to his ed. of St. Opta- v.— 9
tus (Paris, 1700). reprinted in P. L.. XI; Ribbeck. Donatus
iind .\ugitstinus (Elberfeld, 1858); Deutsch, Drei Actenstucke
zttr Geschichte des Donatismus (Berlin, 1875); Volter, Der
Ursprung des Donatismus (Freiburg and Tubingen, 1883);
Thummel, Zur Beurlheilung des Donatismus (Halle, 1893). On
Donatist inscriptions, Leclercq, op. cit., I. The genuineness
of some of the documents appended by St. Optatus to his work
and used by St. Augustine was questioned by Volter, op. cit.,
and that of all of them by Seeck in Zeitschr. der Savigny-
Stiftung fur Rechtsgeschichte (1889), X, 1-44 and 177-251, and
in Quellen und Urkunden iiber die Anfdnge des Donatismus in
Zeitschr. far Kirchengesch. (188S-9), X, 505-68; Duchesne
replied to the former in the Bulletin Critique (1886), VII. 123,
and in answer to the latter completely vindicated the documents
in an admirable study, Le Dossier du Donatis-me in Melanges de
I'Ecole fran^aise de Rome (Paris and Rome, 1890), X, fasc. 4-5,
589-650. On the remains of Donatist writings, see Monceaux,
Les Ouvrages de Petilianus in Revue de Philologie. XXX (1906),
218. 286, and XXXI (1907), 28; Idem, Le dossier de Gaudentius
de Thamugadi, ibid., Ill; Idem, Un ouvrage du Donatiste Ful-
gentius, ibid., 241. Among articles must be mentioned the
famous article on St. Augustine and the Donatists by Wiseman
in Dublin Review (August, 1839), which had so remarkable an
effect on Newman; Sharpe, Tichonius and St. .Augustine in
Dublin Review, CXXXII (Jan., 1903); O'DowD, Donatism and
Anglicanism in Irish Eccles. Record, 4th series, XVIII (.\ugust,
1905); Martroye, Une tentative de revolution sociale en Afrique,
Donatistes et Circoncellions in Revue des Questions Historiques
(1904), I; Chapman, Donatus the Great and Donatus of CascB
Nigra in Revue: Bcned., Jan., 1909.
John Chapman. Donatus o£ Bagai. See Don.-i^tists. Donatus of Casae Nigrae. See Donatists.
Donatus of Fiesole, Irish teacher and poet, Bishop of Fiesole about 829-876. In an ancient col- lection of the "VitiE Patrum", of which an eleventh- century copy exists in the Laurentian library of Flor- ence, there is an account of the life of Donatus, from which we glean the following facts. Donatus was born in Ireland, of a noble family. About 816 he visited the tombs of the Apostles in Rome. On his journey northwards he was led by Divine Providence to the city of Fiesole, which he entered at the moment when the people were grouped around their altars praying for a bishop to deliver them from the evils, temporal and spiritual, which afflicted them. Raised by popular acclaim to the See of Fiesole, Donatus in- stituted a revival of piety and learning in the Church over which he was placed. He himself did not disdain to teach "the art of metrical composition". The "Life" is interspersed with short poems written by the saintly bishop. The best known of these is the twelve-line poem in which he describes the beauty and fertility of his native land, and the prowess and piety of its inhabitants. Donatus also composed an epitaph in which he alludes to his birth in Ireland, his years in the service of the princes of Italy (Lothair and Louis), his episcopate at Fiesole, and his activity as a teacher of grammar and poetry.
Traube. Poetw /Eui Carol. (Beriin, 1896). Ill, 691; Ware- Harris, Writers of Ireland (Dublin, 1764), 57; Ozanam, Docu- ments inedits (Pans, 1897), 48 sqq.: Bossue in Acta SS., Oct., IX, 648-54.
William Turner.
Donatus the Great. See Donatists.
Donders, Peter, missionary among the lepers, b. at Tilburg in Holland, 27 Oct., 1807; d. 14 Jan., 1887 He desired from his early childhood to be a priest, but he had to begin life as a worker in a factory. He afterwards became a servant in a college where he learned a little and made great progress in virtue. Later a benefactor enabled him to pursue his theolog- ical studies in the College of Ilerlaar. A chance read- ing of the ".\nnals of the Propagation of the Faith" determined his vocation for foreign missions. He was accepted in 1839 for Dutch Guiana as a mission- ary, ordained priest the following year, and in 1842 arrived at Paramaribo to begin his long apostolic career. He laboured with success among the blacks in the plantations, and by 1850 had instructed and baptized 1200. In the epidemic of 1851 his labours were superhuman, till, like his fellow-priests, he too became a victim. Before he was convalescent he not
