1. For Augustine, why are Donatists such a problem?
2. How does Augustine propose to solve the problem?
3. What is the justification for his solution?
4. Does his role as bishop affect his concerns?
Summarizing/Paraphrasing:
Question 1:
Donatists' strength was mostly located in Africa. Their belief was the sacrament could not be given by clergy that avoided persecution by denouncing their faith prior to the time of Constantine. This type of defiance hindered unity among Christians. Augustine was the bishop of Hippo in Africa. After Augustine had found his calling and became bishop, he knew he would have to force the Donatists to conform to the ways of the church, and not let them continue as a dissenting sect.
Question 2:
Augustine's solution was to force them to conform through land seizures, kidnapping, imprisonment, punishment, persuasion, and suffering. His notion was to force the good out of people and disprove the notion of the Pelagians, which was to allow salvation through free will. (Tierney, 51) Augustine denounced this path of righteousness by quoting scripture and interpreting God's word to enforce his solution.
Question 3:
Augustine justifies the actions of the church against the Donatists by quoting scripture and using the history of the church and religion as precedent. He feels that forcing people to do good deeds is the only way to save someone and stop them from doing evil deeds. He spends a lot of time in the letter to Donatus quoting scripture and justifying the actions taken against Donatus. He views himself and the church as a protectorate of animals that do not know better. They have to be shown how to live correctly in the eyes of God.
Question 4:
Augustine feels that his power as bishop of Hippo forces him to keep the church unified. It seems he wants the church to continue to move forward and grow in strength. This is especially true because he is the bishop. This gives him incentive to denounce any disunity in the church; especially in Africa where the Donatists have their most strength.
Supporting evidence:
Question 1:
Tierney, Brian. Western Europe in the Middle Ages: 300-1475. New York:
McGraw-Hill College, 1999.
Tierney, Page 51: "They were a sect of Christians who maintained that the sacraments of the church could not be administered by priests who had fallen into mortal sin. At the time of Diocletian's persecution, many bishops and priests had fallen away from the faith rather than undergo martyrdom. The Donatists were descended from Christians who refused to accept the ministrations of such men after their return to the church."
Tierney, Page 51: "Finally the emperor Honorius (395-423) confiscated the property of the churches held by the Donatists and made the practice of their religion illegal. Augustine vigorously supported this act of imperial coercion."
Question 2:
Tierney, Page 51: "…Augustine wrote against the Pelagians, who taught that man could achieve salvation through unaided exercise of his own free will."
Augustine Letter 173 (416 A.D.)
1st paragraph: "…they are seized against their will, subjected to importunate persuasion, shut up and detained in custody, and made to suffer so many things which they dislike, until a willingness to undertake the good work is found in them."
3rd paragraph (rhetorical question): "For if a bad will ought to be always left to its own freedom, why were the disobedient and murmuring Israelites restrained from evil by such severe chastisements, and compelled to come into the land of promise?"
3rd paragraph: "For which reason Solomon also says: "Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell."
10th paragraph: "Mark, now, how it was said in regard to those who came first, "bring them in;" it was not said, "compel them to come in,"…"
(Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New
Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc. Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.)
Luke 14: 16-24 "Jesus replied with this illustration: "A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When all was ready, he sent his servant around to notify the guests that it was time for them to come. But they all began making excuses. One said he had just bought a field and wanted to inspect it, so he asked to be excused. Another said he had just bought five pair of oxen and wanted to try them out. Another had just been married, so he said he couldn't come.
The servant returned and told his master what they had said. His master was angry and said, 'Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the city and invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.' After the servant had done this, he reported, 'There is still more room for more.' So his master said, 'Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full. For none of those I invited first will get even the smallest taste of what I had prepared for them.'" (NLT)
Question 3:
Augustine Letter 173
1st paragraph: "How much more, then, is it fitting that you should be drawn forcibly away from a pernicious error, in which you are enemies to your own souls, and brought to acquaint yourselves with the truth, or to choose it when known, not only in order to your holding in a safe and advantageous way the honour belonging to your office, but also in order to preserve you from perishing miserably!"
Question 4:
Tierney, 39: "Every substantial city had its little Christian community presided over by a bishop who was helped by priests and deacons. The bishops, who were regarded as successors of the first apostles, were chosen by the community and consecrated to their office by fellow bishops. When disputes about Christian doctrine began to arise, they were settled by local councils of bishops."
Augustine Letter 173
2nd paragraph: "Mark, therefore, the words of the apostle: "If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work," and yet, in order to make the office of a bishop be accepted by many men, they are seized against their will…"
Note from Kenneth Kirschnick:
Dear Professor Gullo,
Although this was a great reading, I am regarding this assignment as my reference for discussion, therefore the citations are out of order and there is not a bibliography. I am going to state that I have on record in the History dept. NEIU a 20 page research paper consisting of 13 sources; 3 primary sources and 10 secondary sources. I feel that the reasons you have given for these Tuesday assignments should only suffice if this was a 100 level class. I will use your own words to better explain myself.
I felt offended in your e-mail explaining these assignments. You wrote, "There are two reasons for the separation. Every student needs to learn how to paraphrase and summarize, thus the small paragraph explanation. Second, it is essential to keep in mind that evidence needs to be always used to support and (sic) argument." Let me state for the record that I am enrolled in a 300 level Medieval Europe class with you. Now, at the 300 level, every student should have already learned how to paraphrase, summarize, and cite! This is taught in the first and second years of college. I am a graduating senior this December. I have worked very hard to keep my G.P.A. at 3.8. I am also a double major. This is an accomplishment I am proud of, and I do know a few of the students in our class that also strive to be scholars. I also know that there should not be a student in a 300 level class that does not know how to summarize, paraphrase, cite, use supporting evidence, and unable to think critically on the subject matter.
I am not saying this to offend you, but I would appreciate a survey of the class on Tuesday to find out who is capable of doing these assignments without the notion that we should be treated as freshman. There are History dept. tutors, English tutors, and writing tutors available in the campus library for those students that have slipped through the system. I feel that more learning can and will take place if you remove the idea that we cannot work productively as individuals without guidance i.e. an assignment based solely on our abilities to retain the information.
I am very capable of completing all the questions you posted in section I, II, and III for Tuesday's class. I could read all the assignments, be prepared with supporting evidence, and even write essays with proper bibliographies in less time than it took me to write this assignment out. I spent more time summarizing, and then writing the second "supporting evidence" section than I would have just writing a 10 page essay with 10 sources on the issues concerning the Catholic Church and its response to the various dissenting sects of the church and even those outside religious sects that were able to co-exist, i.e. the Jewish faith. I am only going to send this part of my assignment as an email for your feedback. I will remove this section before sending it on Blackboard. You can ask Dr. Raley when you speak with him about my abilities. He can attest I am a firecracker, but I will not provoke my fellow students into a mass upheaval. I am just hoping my opinions give you some foresight into my thought process in class.
Also, I believe that you should have made us read the entire Letter 173 due to the fact that Donatus' attempted suicides give more substance to Augustine's responses. The missing paragraphs 4-9 are very interesting to me. At first, I was hesitant to believe or take Augustine's response at face value, but after finding and reading the entire Letter 173, I was more empathetic to his cause. I still don't agree with the methods used, but from his standpoint it seemed to be a good course of action.
Thanks for your time Prof. Gullo.
Sincerely,
Kenneth Kirschnick
(Professional Dissenter)
Then there was the response from the professor (his first term as a professor at NEIU). This response I received about 4 days later and realized he was just a dick trying to make a name for himself. So I had to drop the class. It was only the second class I dropped in all 4 1/2 years of college! That is saying a lot!
Here is his reply!...Dear Kenneth,
Thank you for you comments. I am sorry for the delay as I just returned because of the holiday weekend. I would like to address a few of your concerns in detail. You should know that a highly significant portion of this class has students that have not had either 111A or medieval history. There are several reasons for this. The most important being that the department is short at least three, if not four, full-time faculty members due to budget constraints. There are simply not enough classes, nor are there 200 level classes, that would avoid the situation of mixing 300 and 100 level students. This is a matter of simple economics and the degradation of university instruction across the country. Trust me when I say that the faculty are well aware of this problem.
You should know that there is a pre-requisite for the course. However, the system lets anybody take the class from my understanding. I was advised by the department to do two things in this situation. I was to teach to both levels, that is to say, to teach the class between lower and upper divisions. This causes several problems for instruction. It creates a two-headed class where assignments are difficult to assign. Moreover, even if these students were not allowed to enroll, I still could not offer a true 300 level medieval class as reading knowledge in Latin or another medieval language would be required. As you can see, I cannot require this in such a situation. Everybody is disadvanted in this way, including the instructor.
The course assignments that upset you were taken from Prof. Raley's syllabus as I tried to blend my style with those used at NEIU, which is very different from those I have used at a different institution. I have not tried this method of instruction before. There are simply failures and successes in teaching, especially when an instructor is confronted with a new course and university while trying to hold onto the traditions of the faculty member who is on leave.
There are other mitigating reasons for these assignments that you are not familiar with as a student. I very much suggest you speak to Dr. Miller about my position as a replacement instructor with other major responsibilities that are not normal. It would not be proper to do so over email, but he does have frequent office hours. You should know that these result from my late coming to the university and my obligations at the University of Chicago. I was strongly advised by both Dr. Raley and Dr. Miller to form my syllabi, including my assignments, around these considerations. Finally, every professor has their syllabus reviewed by the chair and other faculty. If he felt my course was too rudimentary, it would have been changed.
I was advised by the chair to give more difficult work to those who wish to do so. I am very happy to provide you with the type of work that you wish to have. Given the content of your letter, I believe it is fair to assume that you can read Latin well as any advanced undergraduate student in medieval studies, who has properly prepared themselves to do by their junior or senior year. I can also assign studies in other European languages if you have instead concentrated on vernacular speakers within medieval society, whether it be Old Spanish, Old French, Anglo-Saxon, Middle English, Tuscan or the such like, My German is poor, but I could probably work around that. We can select a topic of your choice, and I will help provide you with a critical edition of the work. I can also provide you with an original manuscript, whether from digital images or micro-film, if you want to practice and learn paleography. If you work on Old-Spanish I can possibly place one in the university's department of special collections. I can even suggest material located at the Newberry Library or Loyola University if you are prepared to, or would like to, work with original manuscripts. I have strong familiarity with all of these collections, and can assist you in this matter.
I will obviously take this into consideration given the difference in the difficulty when compared to the other assignments completed by the other students when it comes to grading. I do believe in rewarding initiative to those students who have properly prepared themselves for advanced undergraduate work. In this, I am sorry you feel insulted by the assignments, but this will allow you a means to take on a course more suitable to your qualifications as I understand them to be from your letter. I do wish you to know that I am very willing to provide you with this opportunity. Professor Raley did not inform me that I would have a student prepared for advanced studies in the Middle Ages, I would be very happy to provide a normal level of 300 instruction for you as an advanced student. I wish I had known, as I would have prepared an independent course of study within the regular course. We have time to do this if you come to office hours. If so, please send me your paper so I can have more background as to your skills in doing research on original sources to make the proper judgment after reviewing your language, reading, and writing abilities. I found myself in the same situation during my undergraduate degree, and needed to take independent studies courses that allowed me to work on Latin and Old Spanish primary sources outside of the normal classes. In this, I very much sympathize with your situation. I also remember the generosity of my faculty, and you should have this also in your last year at NEIU.
I hope these answer your concerns. If you have further concerns, or would like to arrange for a major paper rather than the other assignments, we should do so as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Daniel
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