Praedicatio Patrum. Studies on Preaching in late Antique North Africa, edited by Gert Partoens, Anthony Dupont, Shari Boodts, Mathijs Lamberigts, Turnhout, 2017 (Instrumenta Patristica et Mediaeualia, 75), p. 397-414 © 10.1484/M.IPM-EB.5.114060 Dissident Preaching in Africa: Inherently Violent? Alden Lee Bass (St. Louis) Late ancient Roman North Africa was rife with preachers. Augus- tine is best known, since hundreds of his sermons were preserved and preached in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. Yet Augus- tine was only one bishop out of around 700 who delivered a hom- ily each Sunday (and often through the week) in Africa at the beginning of the fifth century. 1 The myriad of preachers did not speak with one voice, however. The African church of the fourth and fifth century was famously divided in its allegiance to the Emperor. Half or more of the sermons preached each year in North Africa during this period were delivered by dissident bish- ops. In the mid-fourth century, Donatists constituted a majority of the Christians in Africa; they remained a powerful faction even after they were officially condemned at the Council of Carthage in 411. Yet of the thousands of homilies given by dissident bish- ops in the century and a half of their dominance, a mere handful survive. As Alexandre Olivar lamented in his magisterial work on patristic preaching: “It is a shame that there are not more wit- nesses to Donatist preaching, which must have been abundant.” 2 1 J. Leclerq, “Prédication et rhétorique au temps de saint Augustin”, Revue Bénédictine, 57 (1947), pp. 117–31 (esp. p. 117). B. Shaw provides some estimates for the number of bishops at the turn of the fifth century, based on the roles of the councils. He also provides a list of non-Augustinian African sermons. See Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Age of Augustine, Cambridge, 2011, p. 809 and pp. 843–49. Compounding the figures, priests also preached in certain circumstances. See L. Dossey, Peas- ant and Empire in Christian North Africa, Berkeley, 2010, p. 160. 2 A. Olivar, La predicación cristiana antigua, Barcelona, 1991, p. 404. IPM-75_13-Bass 397 / 414 CULTURA • WETTEREN 19/06/2017 11:52:10