This excellent book situates Donatist beliefs about the coming apocalypse within their literary and historical contexts. Some Donatists thought it imminent, that is, an event in the very near future, or immanent, meaning that apocalyptic texts should be used by the church and its members as reminders to reflect and repent. Either way, Hoover's point is that Donatist apocalyptic interpretation had its origins in sources broad and diverse, from before there was such a thing as a Donatist church, and from authors both African and non-African. From its earliest beginnings into the age of Vandal occupation of Africa, Donatist apocalyptic writing was composed in dialogue with authors who came from places geographically broad and exegetically conventional.
Those who criticized the Donatists (Optatus and Augustine in particular) portrayed them as idiosyncratic, geographically marginalized, and willfully separated from “mainstream” social and theological norms. Others before Hoover exposed the falseness of this portrait, and he articulates well the layers of previous scholarship that succeeded in peeling off Caecilianist rhetoric to reveal a more accurate picture. The work of Maureen Tilley serves as a prominent guide to Hoover's own exploration of the sources (especially The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World [Fortress Press, 1997]). It seems to me, however, that Hoover's book excels Tilley's in two significant ways. The first is philological. There is much more attention paid to the history and use of specific words and phrases as well as a more stringent analysis of exegetical methods practiced by late antique authors. We get close to the texts, and as the comparisons and conclusions made are grounded in philology, they are compelling and persuasive.
One of those specific conclusions arrived at as a result of Hoover's philological sleuthing constitutes the second way this book advances beyond Tilley. Rather than being isolated from other Roman Christianities, the Donatist church shared a number of assumptions and beliefs with extra-African churches, and, more generally, with Mediterranean culture. One example: Donatist apocalyptic thought (like all apocalyptic thought) can be alien to modern sensibilities, and lest the Donatists come off as a fringe enclave shouting on street corners about end times, recent scholars have at times downplayed their apocalyptic speculations, and Hoover thinks these represent kind-hearted but perhaps over-invested effort, implies Hoover, to bolster their credibility. But many writers from across the Mediterranean pondered what the end could look like (when and how to calculate the time of its arrival, what would happen when it did come, and how the events of the day offered clues to its proximity). It was an apocalyptic age for Christianity in general, not just for the Donatists, hence the title of Hoover's book. Hoover's point is that Donatists were more aligned with transmarine churches than often credited them.
Donatist writings about the end and final judgment evolved over time and reflected historical events, that we know, but Hoover's fine-grained analysis of texts detects differences even among Donatist writers, with Tyconius offering an older, more traditional view of a faithful remnant of Christians living across Roman territories in the end time. Others, such as Parmenian, leader of the Donatist church in the second half of the fourth century, Fortunius, and Cresconius concluded that repeated support of Caecilianist interests by other western and eastern churches meant that the true church had suffered betrayal. The faithful remnant at end times, therefore, was not scattered across the Mediterranean but survived only in Africa. How to gauge the strength of this particular current in Donatist thought may find its answer in the fact that the Donatist bishops at the 411 conference expressly stated their willingness to communicate with these very churches. This book is very good at articulating nuance, evolution, and shifts in Donatist speculations at moments and through time. Careful writing illuminates the areas of tension well. This is no mean feat considering we are often dealing with fragmentary texts often preserved in hostile sources.
Hoover's reminders that the Donatist church, however much it adapted and evolved according to its particular situation, was not isolated from Mediterranean norms offer fruitful and generative ways to think about the African churches as part of a cultural continuum. Comparative chronologies and the use of calendars as a way of understanding one's place in the world were an obsession of Roman republican elites. What we see here in later Donatist mapping of time as a way to contextualize and define identity continues a tradition much older than Eusebius's chronology. The same goes for Donatist ideas about purity and pollution. Augustine argued that religious impurity was not at heart a physical condition and therefore not transferable from person to person. This was the essence of his attack on Donatist beliefs regarding the consequences of betraying the church in times of persecution and the need for rebaptism. Augustine said it is not about the human engaged in a religious act, but the Spirit working through that human agent that guarantees efficacy of sacraments. Ritual purity had a critic in the gospels of Jesus too, of course, but when you place these dissenting voices against the backdrop the larger classical world, we are again recalled to the fact that Donatist beliefs about pollution were much more pervasive.
Hector told his mother Hecuba that he could not pour libations to Zeus as he had just come from the battlefield with bloodied hands. Hands such as these had no means to persuade the gods (Il. 6.263–6.268). Hector would understand the Donatists far more than he would have Augustine. I had not experienced the full force of that recognition until I read this compelling book.
