Like that of many other groups who lost out to imperially sanctioned orthodoxy, the history of the Donatists in late antique North Africa remains elusive and opaque. There may be a relative abundance of surviving textual material, including much of the stenographic transcript of the Conference of Carthage in 411, but, as many authors in this engaging volume make clear, these writings present interpretive difficulties that are common to the literature of religious conflict: most derive from the victorious side, incorporating heresiological discourse and tendentious interpretations of events, actions and doctrines, together with vehement responses to their opponents’ texts, many of which are no longer extant. We therefore glimpse the Donatists cast in a limited set of roles, assigned to them by hostile pens: accused and assailed through the polemic of Optatus; classified and condemned in the fulminating pronouncements of emperors; debated and defeated in the sermons, letters and tracts of the prolific Augustine of Hippo. The contributors to this volume seek both to look beyond these constructions, including by utilising material evidence and less studied texts, and also to study the constructions themselves, not merely as partisan records of conflicts but also as powerful weapons in their own right. In doing so, they build upon a number of significant advances in scholarship from recent decades, most notably the work of Maureen Tilley and Brent Shaw, with the impact of the latter's 2011 tome Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine being felt throughout.

Despite not being formally presented as a Companion to or Handbook of Donatism, this collection fulfils something of this role, with many chapters providing clear accounts of the material, issues and debates for individual aspects of the topic. After Richard Miles’ introduction, John Whitehouse's two chapters — on the histories of Donatism and of scholarship — function as useful prolegomena (chs 2–3). While the first provides relatively little space to examine contrasting reconstructions, the second explores a number of different avenues of interpretation and possible directions for further research. Although Whitehouse provides only brief remarks on Donatism after the Vandal conquest, this later history is covered admirably in Jonathan Conant's concluding chapter (ch. 15), which examines the group's almost complete disappearance from religious polemic and the extent to which its followers may have been absorbed into Nicene or Homoian communities. In the main body of the volume, Noel Lenski's systematic survey of official imperial involvement in the schism (ch. 9) presents a lucid narrative divided into four distinct periods, as well as concluding with an appendix that lists and classifies all communications to and from Roman emperors concerning the dispute. Taken together, these constitute an excellent introduction and resource for any student of this issue. Mark Edwards’ account of the theological issues involved in the conflict (ch. 6), together with Augustine's caricaturing of Donatist beliefs and the later development of his thought in opposition to Pelagianism, is probably less accessible to the student reader, but nonetheless makes a strong case for the centrality of theology to this ‘schism’. Richard Miles (ch. 11) succeeds in skilfully combining information about different forms of literary material, including Donatist sermons, hymns and martyr acts, with an illuminating discussion of the creation and dismantling of identities. His nuanced exploration of Donatist attempts to create a textual community, including through the use of biblical material and exempla, is followed by an analysis of Augustine's demolition of this concept and redefinition of Donatists as ‘dissidents in need of correction within a broad Christian church’ (282). In doing so, Miles sheds light on many of the bishop's tactics, especially his use of stenographers, the careful presentation and framing of documents such as the acts of the Conference of Carthage and also the construction of semi-fictionalised debates by writing responses to Donatist texts. Jennifer Ebbeler (ch. 12) then provides a concise case study of one example — the Contra epistulam Parmeniani — in which Augustine explores the concept of ‘charitable correction’ by adding his own voice to an old exchange of letters between the Donatist bishop Parmenian and the layman Tychonius, both of whom were now safely dead. Éric Rebillard similarly focuses on Augustine (ch. 13), examining his anti-Donatist texts from before 411 and arguing convincingly that the bishop was already aware of Donatism prior to his ordination, even if he did not start systematically responding to Donatist writings until after 400, when he took on a role as ‘the official writer of the African church’ (316).

The exemplary chapters by Candida Moss and Alan Dearn (chs 4–5) combine to provide an impressive exploration of persecution and martyrdom, often regarded as central to Donatist identity. Moss argues that practices of martyr veneration in North Africa were distinctive compared to the rest of the empire, but that Catholic and Donatist behaviour in the region displayed many similarities. This excellent chapter also highlights fascinating examples of each side's employment of the discourse of martyrdom, including some distinctive Donatist approaches. Dearn then provides a critical analysis of the extant evidence, arguing against the modern identification of some martyr literature as ‘Donatist’ and challenging the Catholic claim that their opponents were overly keen on ‘voluntary martyrdom’, while also highlighting how the commemoration of persecution created a sense of community. Both Moss and Dearn also employ epigraphic and material evidence, which then takes centre stage in Anna Leone's clear chapter on the archaeology of Donatism (ch. 14), arguing convincingly against regarding it as a primarily rural phenomenon. This piece provides a very helpful introduction to methodological issues, particularly regarding difficulties in identifying sectarian allegiances from the surviving material. The contributions by Cam Grey and Bruno Pottier (chs 7–8) also dovetail neatly, with the former looking at rural life in North Africa, including challenging earlier theories regarding the origins of Donatism. This chapter considers changing patterns of land use and ownership, as well as the varying relationships between peasants, bishops and the state, and seeks to return some element of agency to the peasantry. Pottier then examines ‘communal violence’ and the vexed conundrum of the so-called circumcelliones, opposing Brent Shaw's identification of them as wage labourers and arguing instead that they were wandering ascetics.

Neil McLynn's close reading of the transcript of the Conference of Carthage in 411 (ch. 10) is an outstanding piece, both in terms of its incisive analysis and its questioning of the degree of Catholic dominance of proceedings. While Whitehouse dismisses this event as a ‘kangaroo court’ (31), McLynn proposes seeing the Catholic side as less united and organised than is usually assumed, as well as arguing convincingly that the presiding official Marcellinus was not significantly partisan, despite later accusations against him. As well as affecting reconstructions of the Conference, this argument could also lead to a re-examination of narratives that stress the control exerted in this period by Augustine and his Carthaginian counterpart Aurelius, the traditional Big Men in histories of the demise of Donatism. For example, Aurelius’ treatment of the emperor Honorius and his court is described by Noel Lenski as ‘manipulating them like marionettes on a string’ (182), which also perpetuates a long-standing view of imperial weakness in the early fifth century. More generally, it would have been useful to see greater cross-fertilisation between chapters, especially other authors responding to the hypotheses of McLynn and Pottier. Nonetheless, this is an excellent collection of papers, testifying to the recent upsurge of research on Donatism. It surely deserves to become the first port of call for any Anglophone student or scholar interested in the subject.