
Contents
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Augustine the Apologist Augustine the Apologist
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Epistulae ad Inimicos Epistulae ad Inimicos
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Salutations Salutations
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Some Advantages of the Colloquium Litterarum Some Advantages of the Colloquium Litterarum
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Silence Silence
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Intercepted Letters Intercepted Letters
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Letters and the Law Letters and the Law
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Coercive Correction Coercive Correction
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The Aftermath The Aftermath
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4 The Donatists and the Limits of the Corrective Correspondence
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Published:September 2012
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Abstract
This chapter analyzes Augustine's epistolary tactics in his letters to Donatist clergy, laity, and even the Donatist bishop of Hippo. Despite his strong efforts, his addressees never reciprocated his letters. Eventually, Augustine resorted to intercepting old letters from the Donatist bishops Petilianus and Parmenianus to their own congregations and writing back to them as if he were the named addressee. Augustine also began to compose letters, not in an effort to conduct a corrective conversation but to avoid the spectacle of a public debate and to create a textual record of the conversation that could later be used as evidence against the Donatists. He also used letters to produce transcripts of meetings, particularly in cases where the Donatists refused to permit stenographers to record the discussion. Increasingly, he treated letters as quasi-legal documents rather than as a tool for facilitating a corrective colloquium in absentia. Augustine's letters could testify to his own diligent efforts to save his heretical brothers but also preserved a written record of Donatist error and atrocity that could be called as witnesses in any subsequent legal proceedings against the Donatists.
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