Carles BUENACASA PEREZ: AUGUSTINE AND THE VITUPERATION OF DONATISTS: THE STRATEGY OF ANIMALIZING THE OPPONENT

Donatism was nothing but a schism, and its theology was not so different from Catholicism. The Catholic Church had to demonstrate to the emperors that Donatism was an heresy. Augustine played a significant role in this process, and the arguments he used were multiple.The purpose of this paper is to explain how Augustine played a very decisive role in the process of "animalization" of the Donatist faithful. And so, besides historical, theological and ecclesiological concepts, Augustine gave great importance to the denunciation of the "crimes" of the Donatists (the rupture of unity, the Jacqueries Circoncellions ...). In this way, the vituperation of the Donatists made easy to convert them into animals, and this strategy made easier to ask the emperor the conversion of the schism Donatist into heresy. That’s why, around 400, he begin to use a specific vocabulary chosen to show the criminal (and animal) character of adherence to Donatism: haeresis, error, sacrilegium, crimen,furor, vesania ...Before 405 (Edict of Union), Augustine gave more importance to the debate on theology than to the discuss about the violence of the Donatist faithful. Between 400 and 405, the Donatists violences caused a great change in the Augustinian ideology, and he began to use words as « furor » more usually.