Primian (Primianus) was an early Christian Bishop of Carthage, and leader of the Donatist movement in Roman North Africa. Seen as a moderate by some in his faction, he was a controversial figure in a time of fragmentation of the Donatists, a reactionary branch of Christianity.
Biography
editHe was the Bishop of Carthage, and hence the leader of the Donatist movement in Roman North Africa.[1][2][3]
He had succeeded Parmenian as bishop in about 391,[4] winning a tightly fought election for the role.[5] His rival, Maximian, a relative of the founder of their movement, saw him as a lax and conformist appeaser.
The rivalry did not end with the election. In 393 a council was called by Maximian where forty of the sixty-five Donatist bishops sided with Maximianus over Primian,[6] causing a split in the Donatist ranks. He was accused of readmitting the Claudianist faction back to the Donatist movement.[7] Three years of proceedings in the Roman civil courts saw Primian retake Maximianist-held basilicas in Musti, Assuras and Membressa.[8] A number of the bishops split with Primian to follow Maximianus, forming their own short-lived schism.
Primian attended the Council of Bagai, at which he is said to have taunted his opponents.[9] He also attended the Council of Carthage (411),[10] where he made comment condemning the actions of Cyprian, the Donatist bishop of Tubursica, for immorality.[11][12]
References
edit- ^ Primianus, Donatist bp. of Carthage Archived 2017-10-25 at the Wayback Machine at Christian Classic Library.
- ^ Peter Linehan, Janet L Nelson, The Medieval World (Routledge, 2013) p565.
- ^ Caroline Humfress, Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (OUP Oxford, 2007) p188.
- ^ Mesnage, Joseph; Toulotte, Anatole (1912). L'Afrique chrétienne : évêchés et ruines antiques. Description de l'Afrique du Nord. Musées et collections archéologiques de l'Algérie et de la Tunisie (in French). 17. Paris: E. Leroux. pp. 1–19. OCLC 609155089.
- ^ Henry Chadwick, The Church in Ancient Society: From Galilee to Gregory the Great (Oxford University Press, 2001) p388.
- ^ Shira L. Lander, Ritual Sites and Religious Rivalries in Late Roman North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2016) p148.
- ^ Alban Butler, The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints (1821), p480.
- ^ Shira L. Lander, Ritual Sites and Religious Rivalries in Late Roman North Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2016) p148.
- ^ Primianus, Donatist bp. of Carthage Archived 2017-10-25 at the Wayback Machine at Christian Classics Library].
- ^ Alban Butler, The lives of the fathers, martyrs, and other principal saints (1821), p484.
- ^ Augustine. contra. Petil. iii. 34, 40.
- ^ See also Dr. Sparrow Simpson, St. Augustine, and African Church Divisions (1910), p 52.