Editing Augustine of Hippo (section)

==== Coercion ====
Augustine of Hippo had to deal with issues of violence and coercion throughout his entire career due largely to the Donatist-Catholic conflict. He is one of the very few authors in Antiquity who ever truly theoretically examined the ideas of religious freedom and coercion.<ref name="Brown1964" />{{rp|107}} Augustine handled the infliction of punishment and the exercise of power over law-breakers by analyzing these issues in ways similar to modern debates on penal reform.{{sfn|Brown|1964|p=115}}

His teaching on coercion has "embarrassed his modern defenders and vexed his modern detractors,"<ref name="Markus">R. A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St.Augustine (Cambridge, 1970), pp. 149–153</ref>{{rp|116}} because it is seen as making him appear "to generations of religious liberals as ''le prince et patriarche de persecuteurs.''"<ref name="Brown1964" />{{rp|107}} Yet Brown asserts that, at the same time, Augustine becomes "an eloquent advocate of the ideal of corrective punishment" and reformation of the wrongdoer.{{sfn|Brown|1964|p=116}} Russell says Augustine's theory of coercion "was not crafted from dogma, but in response to a unique historical situation" and is, therefore, context-dependent, while others see it as inconsistent with his other teachings.<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|125}}

===== The context =====
During the [[Diocletianic persecution|Great Persecution]], "When Roman soldiers came calling, some of the [Catholic] officials handed over the sacred books, vessels, and other church goods rather than risk legal penalties" over a few objects.<ref name="Tilley1996">{{Cite book |last1=Tilley |first1=Maureen A. |title=Donatist Martyr Stories The Church in Conflict in Roman North Africa |date=1996 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-0-85323-931-4}}</ref>{{rp|ix}} Maureen Tilley says this was a problem by 305, that became a schism by 311, because many of the North African Christians had a long established tradition of a "physicalist approach to religion."<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|xv}} The sacred scriptures were not simply books to them, but were the Word of God in physical form, therefore they saw handing over the Bible, and handing over a person to be martyred, as "two sides of the same coin."<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|ix}} Those who cooperated with the authorities became known as ''traditores.'' The term originally meant ''one who hands over a physical object'', but it came to mean "traitor".<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|ix}}

According to Tilley, after the persecution ended, those who had apostatized wanted to return to their positions in the church.<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|xiv}} The North African Christians, (the rigorists who became known as Donatists), refused to accept them.<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|ix, x}} Catholics were more tolerant and wanted to wipe the slate clean.<ref name="Cameron1993">{{Cite book |last1=Cameron |first1=Alan |title=The Later Roman Empire, 284–430 |date=1993 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-51194-1 |edition=illustrated}}</ref>{{rp|xiv, 69}} For the next 75 years, both parties existed, often directly alongside each other, with a double line of bishops for the same cities.<ref name="Tilley1996" />{{rp|xv}} Competition for the loyalty of the people included multiple new churches and violence.{{efn|French archaeology has shown the north African landscape of this time period became "covered with a white robe of churches" with Catholics and Donatists building multiple churches with granaries to feed the poor as they competed for the loyalty of the people.<ref name="Brown1964">{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first= P.|year=1964|title=St. Augustine's Attitude to Religious Coercion|journal=Journal of Roman Studies|volume= 54|issue=1–2| pages=107–116|doi=10.2307/298656|jstor= 298656|s2cid= 162757247}}</ref>}}{{rp|334}} No one is exactly sure when the [[Circumcellions]] and the Donatists allied, but for decades, they fomented protests and street violence, accosted travellers and attacked random Catholics without warning, often doing serious and unprovoked bodily harm such as beating people with clubs, cutting off their hands and feet, and gouging out eyes.<ref name="Frend1">{{Cite book|last=Frend|first=W. H. C.|title=The Donatist Church|date=2020|publisher=Wipf and Stock|isbn=978-1-5326-9755-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QNbaDwAAQBAJ}}</ref>{{rp|172, 173, 222, 242, 254}}

Augustine became [[coadjutor Bishop]] of Hippo in 395, and since he believed that conversion must be voluntary, his appeals to the Donatists were verbal. For several years, he used popular propaganda, debate, personal appeal, General Councils, appeals to the emperor and political pressure to bring the Donatists back into union with the Catholics, but all attempts failed.<ref name="Frend1" />{{rp|242, 254}} The harsh realities Augustine faced can be found in his Letter 28 written to bishop Novatus around 416. Donatists had attacked, cut out the tongue and cut off the hands of a Bishop Rogatus who had recently converted to Catholicism. An unnamed count of Africa had sent his agent with Rogatus, and he too had been attacked; the count was "inclined to pursue the matter."<ref name="Markus" />{{rp|120}} Russell says Augustine demonstrates a "hands-on" involvement with the details of his bishopric, but at one point in the letter, he confesses he does not know what to do. "All the issues that plague him are there: stubborn Donatists, Circumcellion violence, the vacillating role of secular officials, the imperative to persuade, and his own trepidations."<ref name="Markus" />{{rp|120, 121}} The empire responded to the civil unrest with the law and its enforcement, and thereafter, Augustine changed his mind about using verbal arguments alone. Instead, he came to support the state's use of coercion.<ref name="Brown1964" />{{rp|107–116}} Augustine did not believe the empire's enforcement would "make the Donatists more virtuous" but he did believe it would make them "less vicious."<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|128}}

===== The theology =====
The primary 'proof-text' of what Augustine thought concerning coercion is from Letter 93, written in 408, as a reply to bishop Vincentius, of Cartenna (Mauretania, North Africa). This letter shows that both practical and biblical reasons led Augustine to defend the legitimacy of coercion. He confesses that he changed his mind because of "the ineffectiveness of dialogue and the proven efficacy of laws."<ref name="Marcos">Marcos, Mar. "The Debate on Religious Coercion in Ancient Christianity." Chaos e Kosmos 14 (2013): 1–16.</ref>{{rp|3}} He had been worried about false conversions if force was used, but "now," he says, "it seems imperial persecution is working." Many Donatists had converted.<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|116}} "Fear had made them reflect, and made them docile."<ref name="Marcos" />{{rp|3}} Augustine continued to assert that coercion could not directly convert someone, but concluded it could make a person ready to be reasoned with.<ref name="Park">{{Cite journal |last=Park |first=Jae-Eun|title=Lacking love or conveying love?: The fundamental roots of the Donatists and Augustine's nuanced treatment of them|journal=The Reformed Theological Review |volume=72 |issue=2|date=August 2013 |pages=103–121 |url=https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=646939318099580;res=IELHSS |access-date=22 April 2020}}</ref>{{rp|103–121}}

According to Mar Marcos, Augustine made use of several biblical examples to legitimize coercion, but the primary analogy in Letter 93 and in Letter 185, is the parable of the Great Feast in Luke 14.15–24 and its statement ''compel them to come in.''<ref name="Marcos" />{{rp|1}} Russell says, Augustine uses the Latin term ''cogo'', instead of the ''compello'' of the Vulgate, since to Augustine, ''cogo'' meant to "gather together" or "collect" and was not simply "compel by physical force."<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|121}}

In 1970, Robert Markus<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Liebeschuetz |first1=Wolf |title=Robert Markus: Medieval historian noted for his writings on the early Church |date=25 February 2011 |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/robert-markus-medieval-historian-noted-for-his-writings-on-the-early-church-2224995.html |publisher=Independent}}</ref> argued that, for Augustine, a degree of external pressure being brought for the purpose of reform was compatible with the exercise of free will.<ref name="Markus" /> Russell asserts that ''Confessions 13'' is crucial to understanding Augustine's thought on coercion; using Peter Brown's explanation of Augustine's view of salvation, he explains that Augustine's past, his own sufferings and "conversion through God's pressures," along with his biblical hermeneutics, is what led him to see the value in suffering for discerning truth.<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|116–117}} According to Russell, Augustine saw coercion as one among many conversion strategies for forming "a pathway to the inner person."<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|119}}

In Augustine's view, there is such a thing as just and unjust persecution. Augustine explains that when the purpose of persecution is to lovingly correct and instruct, then it becomes discipline and is just.<ref name="Marcos" />{{rp|2}} He said the church would discipline its people out of a loving desire to heal them, and that, "once compelled to come in, heretics would gradually give their voluntary assent to the truth of Christian orthodoxy."<ref name="Russell2">{{Cite book |last1=Russell |first1=Frederick H. |title=The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A. Markus. |date=1999 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=0-472-10997-9 |chapter=Persuading the Donatists: Augustine's Coercion by Words}}</ref>{{rp|115}} Frederick H. Russell<ref name="Russell">{{Cite web |title=Frederick Russell |url=https://sasn.rutgers.edu/academics-admissions/academic-departments/federated-department-history/faculty-emeriti/frederick-russell |website=School of Arts & Sciences-Newark Faculty Emeriti |publisher=Rutgers University Newark |quote=Ph.D., Johns Hopkins}}</ref> describes this as "a pastoral strategy in which the church did the persecuting with the dutiful assistance of Roman authorities,"<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|115}} adding that it is "a precariously balanced blend of external discipline and inward nurturance."<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|125}}

Augustine placed limits on the use of coercion, recommending fines, imprisonment, banishment, and moderate floggings, preferring beatings with rods which was a common practice in the ecclesial courts.<ref name="Hughes">{{Cite book |editor1-last=Hughes |editor1-first=Kevin L. |editor2-last=Paffenroth |editor2-first=Kim |title=Augustine and Liberal Education |date=2008 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-2383-6}}</ref>{{rp|164}} He opposed severity, maiming, and the execution of heretics.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |title=Toleration, History of |encyclopedia=The Catholic Encyclopedia An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church|year=1912 |publisher=University of Michigan |editor-last=Herbermann|editor-first=Charles George|pages=761–772 [768]}}</ref> While these limits were mostly ignored by Roman authorities, Michael Lamb says that in doing this, "Augustine appropriates republican principles from his Roman predecessors..." and maintains his commitment to liberty, legitimate authority, and the rule of law as a constraint on arbitrary power. He continues to advocate holding authority accountable to prevent domination but affirms the state's right to act.<ref>Lamb, Michael. "Augustine and Republican Liberty: Contextualizing Coercion." Augustinian Studies (2017).</ref>

[[Herbert A. Deane]],<ref>{{Cite news |title=Herbert L. Deane, 69, Ex-Columbia Official |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/16/obituaries/herbert-l-deane-69-ex-columbia-official.html |newspaper=The New York Times |date=16 February 1991 |access-date=26 August 2020 |quote=professor emeritus of political philosophy and a former vice provost at Columbia University}}</ref> on the other hand, says there is a fundamental inconsistency between Augustine's political thought and "his final position of approval of the use of political and legal weapons to punish religious dissidence" and others have seconded this view.{{efn|See: C. Kirwan, ''Augustine'' (London, 1989), pp. 209–218; and J. M. Rist. ''Augustine: Ancient Thought Baptized'' (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 239–245.|<ref>H. A. Deane, ''The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine'' (New York, 1963), pp. 216–219.</ref>}} Brown asserts that Augustine's thinking on coercion is more of an attitude than a doctrine since it is "not in a state of rest," but is instead marked by "a painful and protracted attempt to embrace and resolve tensions."<ref name="Brown1964" />{{rp|107}}

According to Russell, it is possible to see how Augustine himself had evolved from his earlier ''Confessions'' to this teaching on coercion and the latter's strong patriarchal nature: "Intellectually, the burden has shifted imperceptibly from discovering the truth to disseminating the truth."<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|129}} The bishops had become the church's elite with their own rationale for acting as "stewards of the truth." Russell points out that Augustine's views are limited to time and place and his own community, but later, others took what he said and applied it outside those parameters in ways Augustine never imagined or intended.<ref name="Russell2" />{{rp|129}}