Freedom by Coercion: Augustine’s Limitation of Coercion by the State ^†

Abstract

Despite the tendency of some modern scholars to mark Augustine as the father of religious coercion, the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) cites him as a principal source for freedom of conscience. This essay presents evidence from Augustine’s letters and anti-Donatist writings to show that he both upheld freedom of conscience and maintained a vital role for state force. The essay shows that far from simply providing a Christian justification for the use of state force against non-Catholics, Augustine most notably imposed the limits of Christian charity on a long history of state-sponsored religious persecution. Only by the charitable and paternal application of discipline by the state would many Donatists be truly free to follow their conscience. In this way, those persecuted for being in schism could attain freedom by coercion.

1. Introduction

Augustine of Hippo has been called many things: “an unparalleled rhetorical genius” (Lenski 2016, p. 180), the Doctor of Grace, and “a philosophical and theological genius of the first order” (Schaff 1884, p. 997). His comprehensive view of reality allowed him to present a coherent system of thought not limited to the realm of theology, but extending to politics, education, logic and rhetoric, ethics, psychology, and anthropology. This Augustinian system continues to be of fundamental importance in the many denominations of Western Christianity and beyond—despite its great variety of developments and interpretations. Nevertheless, one aspect of his thought in particular has earned him some less savoury titles. What Robert Markus (1970) termed “his notorious defence of religious coercion” (Markus 1970, p. 134) gained for Augustine the endearing titles, “first theorist of the Inquisition” (Markus 1970, p. 134) and “le prince et patriarche des persécuteurs” (Brown 1972, p. 260).

Unfortunately, Augustine seems to be all too often remembered as the man who provided justification for a joint state–church persecution of non-Catholics, a man who in spite of his incomparable intellect could not see the incompatibility between his doctrine on free will and his support for religious coercion. In fact, Augustine’s arguments in defence of state force against the Donatists have been employed in defence of religious persecution by later Christians as well.1 Yet, in contrast, the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious liberty (1965) cites Augustine as one of those Church Fathers who constantly proclaimed that “no one must be forced to embrace the faith against her or his will”.2 How, then, are we to reconcile these two apparently conflicting views of Augustine? We propose that Augustine was quite aware of the tension between religious coercion and freedom of conscience and, in fact, already held them in balance early on in his thought. Indeed, we would further propose that Augustine should not be seen as the one who provided justification for religious coercion, but as the one who imposed on religious coercion the limits of Christian charity and, by doing so, presented the possibility of freedom by coercion. In order to show this, we will briefly present a history of Donatism followed by the use of religious coercion in the Roman Empire prior to Augustine, before digging into his letters and anti-Donatist writings.

2. A Brief History of Donatism in Africa

To begin, it is necessary to present a brief sketch of the North African situation in Augustine’s day. The Donatist schism had erupted around the year 311 when seventy Numidian bishops refused to recognise the ordination of Caecilian as the bishop of Carthage, claiming that he—or at least the bishop who consecrated him—was guilty of traditio, that is, of handing over the Scriptures to be burnt during Diocletian’s persecution. Instead, they ordained Majorinus, who promptly died and was succeeded by Donatus, from whom Donatism has its name.3 Following Constantine’s declaration that the Christian churches were to have their former possessions restored and imperial funding provided in recompense for Diocletian’s persecution, the Donatists appealed to the emperor for recognition as the true Church in North Africa. Following two ecclesiastical trials (Rome in 313 and Arles in 314) and a final confirmation by the emperor himself (316), Caecilian was recognised as the authentic bishop of Carthage and his church as the recipient of imperial restitution. In 317, Constantine issued an edict of union seeking to suppress Donatism by seizing their churches and exiling their bishops (Lenski 2016, p. 173). The violent resistance offered by some of the Donatists required further military intervention on behalf of the Catholics.4 On account of a notable lack of success, Constantine’s attempt at ending the schism itself came to an end with the Edict of Toleration on 5 May 321.5

From 346 to 348, imperial military campaigns once more sought to suppress the Donatists. Most notably, in the spring of 347, the imperial legates Paul and Macarius entered the Catholic cathedral of Carthage and declared unity between Catholics and Donatists under the Catholic bishop Gratus.6 Many Donatists again refused to submit to the imperial decree, provoking instead the rise of the Circumcellions, a group of Donatist radicals who carried out violent attacks on Catholics, their churches, and their property.7 The Circumcellions formed an armed resistance against the imperial decision—a resistance which was forcibly suppressed, resulting in many deaths among the Donatists and subsequently many tales of martyrdom.8 Donatus and the other bishops who refused communion with Gratus were exiled and their churches handed over to the Catholics. Nevertheless, the Donatists were strengthened by the favour of Julian the Apostate (r. 361–63), who permitted the return of all the Donatist bishops who had been exiled under Constans and ordered the return of their property.9

Firmus, the rex maurorum, led a military rebellion against Rome from 372 to 375, during which the Rogatists—a pacifist group that broke from the main Donatist church—were forcibly suppressed. With Firmus’ defeat, there was a brief renewal of imperial force against the Donatists.10 Nevertheless, from the reign of Justinian through the governorship of Gildo (386–98), Donatism in Africa was able to flourish such that by the time Augustine was ordained a priest in 391, the Donatists were the majority church in North Africa, though they still received no imperial or ecclesiastical recognition as the true Christian Church. Their ability to flourish was mainly due to the strong leadership of their bishops, Parmenian of Carthage (r. c. 363–91) and later Optatus of Thamugadi (r. 388–98). Optatus leveraged the judicial apparatus to allow him to legally use force against the Maximianists—another group that broke from the main Donatist church—to depose their bishops and seize their property (See Shaw 2011, pp. 131–39). When war broke out between Gildo and Rome in 397, Optatus and the Circumcellions seized the opportunity to increase violence against the Catholics as well. When Gildo’s rebellion failed the next year, he and Optatus were both killed and the death penalty was ordered for those who had sacked Catholic churches.11 From then onward, the Catholic bishops of Africa pursued a strict application of imperial laws against the Donatists.

In 393, the Catholic bishops, gathered at a Council in Hippo Regius, called for a strengthened response to the Donatists, a call which sparked Augustine’s first writings against them. At this time, the Catholic bishops focused on appealing to the Donatists through the use of reason, but with the increased Circumcellion violence under the leadership of Optatus in 397–98, the Catholics found it necessary to appeal to the emperor for protection. Dialogue with the Donatists and appeals to the state for physical protection from the violence of the Circumcellions remained the general position of the Catholic bishops until 405, at which point the emperor Honorius issued a third Edict of Unity, once more imposing significant penalties on the Donatists in reaction to the atrocities carried out against Bishop Maximian of Bagai.12 This began the long decline of Donatism as many Donatists became Catholic to avoid exorbitant fines, confiscation of property, and severe flogging. The Catholic bishops generally accepted this development, and some even called for more. Active efforts by the emperors to suppress Donatism remained in place until Africa fell to the Vandals in the 430s.

3. Religious Coercion in the Roman Empire

When discussing the use of force against non-Catholics by Catholic Roman Emperors, it is important to remember that religious persecution by the state was nothing new in the Roman Empire. Immediately before Constantine came to the throne, the Empire experienced the throes of the Great Persecution under Diocletian, wherein countless Christians were imprisoned, tortured, or executed if they refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods. Other Emperors and local magistrates had periodically carried out the systematic persecution of Christians ever since Nero had introduced the idea in the mid-first century.13 Prior to the persecution of Christians, the Romans had also persecuted the Jews and suppressed various pagan religions.14 Each of these cases included the penalties of fines, imprisonment, confiscation and destruction of property, torture, and in some cases execution.15 The standard defence for these forms of persecution was that the party being suppressed was a danger to Roman society since they displeased the gods.

One must also remember that the emperor, like any king in the ancient world, held both a political and religious office. With no conceptual separation between church and state, the ruler responsible for maintaining civil order and the common good was necessarily also responsible for maintaining the goodwill of the gods. Augustus had made this connection explicit when he adopted the title of pontifex maximus, a properly priestly title.16 Though a Christian, Constantine maintained the title and its responsibilities, as did his son Constantius II (Beard et al. 1998, pp. 372–73). Peter Brown (2013) points out that

Emperors had always been expected to have a firm religious policy in order to be sure of the support of the gods. From 250 onwards, and especially during the Great Persecution initiated by Diocletian, the authorities had shown no hesitation in fostering the traditional religiones of the empire by ‘taking out’ the Christian Church—by forbidding its meetings and destroying its property and sacred books. Constantine and his Christian successors did the same in reverse.

(Brown 2013, p. 74)

Christian emperors seem to have maintained the title of pontifex maximus and its associated—though increasingly limited—patronage of the Roman cults until Gratian resigned the title in the 370s.17 No longer holding the title associated with the traditional Roman cults, Theodosius was able to make Christianity the official religion of Rome and accordingly saw it as his responsibility to codify as law the canons of the Council of Constantinople (381). For pagan and Christian emperors alike, religious unity was a necessary part of maintaining the unity of the empire.

Already during the reign of Constantine, Christian orators added another layer to the religious significance of the king. Whereas pagan kingdoms had been seen as a certain reflection of the divine realm, a Christian empire was considered by some as uniquely reflective of the monarchically constituted cosmos, even to the point of being an icon of the Kingdom of God (See Drake 2007, p. 404). This sacramental view of the Christian king would develop into the mediaeval view of his being neither priest nor lay, but a “duplex persona, saecularis et ecclesiastica” (Cameron 2007, p. 363). In his orations in praise of Constantine, Eusebius presents the ideal Christian king as one who “subdues and chastizes the visible opponents of truth by the law of combat”, thereby placing military or state force used against pagans and heretics alongside the proclamation of “the laws of genuine piety” and a summons to “the whole human race to knowledge of the Highest Power”.18 For Eusebius, the ideal Christian empire includes the natural and necessary acceptance of religious coercion in favour of the Church. By the time Augustine appeared on the scene, such a position was quite ubiquitous, especially in the wake of Theodosius’ reign (See Markus 1983, p. 12). In Africa at the end of the fourth century, “coercion was one of the facts of life, and a provincial bishop was deeply involved in its exercise” (Markus 1970, p. 140; see also Brown 1972, p. 261). This was mainly due to the fact that bishops had been taking on greater roles in public administration—such as by serving as judges—as the senatorial class progressively moved out of those positions into the clergy (Van Dam 2007, pp. 346–48, 358). Prior to Augustine, the permissibility of Christian rulers to use force against the enemies of the Church was simply taken for granted; far from introducing the idea, Augustine was merely the first to express why such use was permissible.

4. Augustine on Freedom and Coercion

As for Augustine himself, one opinion among scholars is that he was firmly opposed to religious coercion early on and advocated freedom of conscience until he experienced something of a “conversion” around 407, at which point he became the greatest advocate of religious coercion upon seeing its wondrous effects. Michael Gaddis (2005), for example, describes Augustine’s change of opinion as “a fundamentally utilitarian argument: coercion was acceptable because it worked”.19 Such a utilitarian view lacks not only important nuance, as Peter Brown (1972, pp. 263–64) points out, but also insight into Augustine’s fundamental principles, such as that of charity. Because Augustine is the first Christian to present any serious argument in favour of state intervention in religious matters, his “conversion to coercion” in 407 is seen by Gaddis and others as a crucial moment in church history.20 Yet, despite holding such a flawed understanding of Augustine’s thought, Gaddis correctly points out that “for Augustine, free will and compulsion were not necessarily incompatible” (Gaddis 2005, p. 132). This is precisely because Augustine saw some uses of force as necessary in bringing about greater freedom, as is shown below.

In contrast to Gaddis, Robert Markus (1970) argues that Augustine had long supported the use of force against pagans, mainly because he had subscribed to the Theodosian Christian imperial complex—a concept Markus neatly summarises as the tempora christiana. This becomes a problem for Markus, however, when he notes that Augustine extended this support to apply against the Donatists as well after 405, at a time when he had all but abandoned the tempora christiana model (Markus 1970, p. 139). He admits that Augustine’s use of force against the Donatists was part of his pastoral strategy—a strategy that already allowed for severitas while he was yet a priest, though in moderation—because the Donatists were themselves members of his flock who had strayed.21 Nevertheless, for Markus, Augustine’s use of state force against the Donatists “is not well at home in the repudiation of the Theodosian ‘Christian times,’ nor in the setting of his scepticism about a Christian Roman Empire and about legal and institutional means of christianisation” (Markus 1970, p. 146). He requires Augustine to adopt a proto-liberal individualism by speaking of “persons rather than of institutions, … of emperors rather than of empire, of kings and magistrates rather than of state or government” (Markus 1970, p. 149). Markus fails to recognise the social aspect at work in Augustine’s political thought, such that the persons in question are called on to act on behalf of the Church precisely because they are members of the ecclesial community.22 For Augustine, the state is the only lawful authority that can wield the sword, even on behalf of the Church.23

When presenting Augustine’s own thought and its development, it is important to acknowledge that he did, in fact, have an early emphasis on freedom of conscience, though the assumption that state force is justifiable was never absent from his thought. Peter Brown (1972) identifies the early sermons 24 (preached in 401) and 62 (probably preached in 399) as “nothing less than a dress-rehearsal of his justification of the coercion of the Donatists after 405”.24 Much the same could be said for the Contra Epistolam Parmeniani, written perhaps as early as 400.25 Nevertheless, Vatican II (1965) was not wrong to identify Augustine as a proponent of the necessity of freedom to receive faith. In Letter 23, written while still a priest (391–95), Augustine tells the Donatist bishop Maximinus “it is not part of my purpose that people be forced against their will into communion with anyone, but that the truth may become known to those who seek it most peacefully”.26 Such a peaceful pursuit of truth would require that both “terror from temporal authorities” on the Catholic side and “terror from bands of Circumcellions” against the Catholics cease.27 It is important to recognise here that Augustine fully admits that the Donatists regularly suffered “terror from temporal authorities” on behalf of the Catholic Church even before he had provided any argument or justification for it.

Shortly after being made a bishop in 396 or 397, Augustine wrote two letters to Eusebius, a Catholic Roman official in Hippo, seeking his intervention in a dispute. It seems that the Donatists had admitted into their ranks an abusive young man who was threatening to kill his own mother, while the Donatist bishop Proculeian refused to cooperate with Augustine in investigating whether this was true.28 Another went over to the Donatists after being “removed from the rank of clerics” on account of inappropriate behaviour with some nuns; he was now enjoying drunken orgies among the Circumcellions, surrounded by unmarried and undisciplined women.29 In addition, some of Proculeian’s priests were threatening and abusing Catholics.30 Augustine is disturbed by the sacrileges carried out by the Donatists and asks Eusebius to intervene by enquiring of Proculeian whether he knew and approved of those actions and by having him restrain his clergy. At the same time, Augustine points out that he desires only unity, lamenting that Proculeian refuses to meet with him to discuss their divisions and peacefully resolve the schism in Hippo. Augustine states,

God knows that this attitude of my mind is directed toward peace and that I am not trying to force anyone involuntarily into the Catholic communion, but to reveal the plain truth to all who are in error. Then, once our ministry has made it evident with God’s help, the very truth may be enough to persuade them to embrace and follow her.31

As evidence of this mindset, Augustine points out that he refused to receive a woman back into unity despite the petitions of her Catholic father, “unless she were willing and desired by free choice what is better”.32 Thus, state intervention could be employed to suppress the violence of the Donatists, but no force could be used to make one accept the faith.

Augustine expressed this position very clearly in book two of Contra litteras Petiliani. Written in 401, the passage in question incorporated the use of state force into Augustine’s emphasis on free will. Because the passage was cited by both Gratian in support of executing heretics and Vatican II’s Declaration on Religious Liberty in support of freedom of conscience,33 it is beneficial to quote the passage at length. Augustine states:

Indeed, no one ought to be forced against his will to faith, but unfaithfulness is usually—through God’s severity, or rather through his mercy—chastened by the scourges of tribulation. Because the best morals are chosen by freedom of will, is it therefore the case that the worst morals are not punished by the fullness of the law? But discipline, the avenger of an evil life, is entirely inappropriate except when previous training in a good life is scorned. If, then, there are laws that have been enacted against you, you are not being forced by them to do what is good, but you are being prevented by them from acting badly. For no one can do what is good unless he chooses and unless in his free will he loves [what is good]. On the other hand, fear of punishment, although not possessing the pleasure of a good conscience, at least sequesters evil desire within the confines of thought. Yet those who enacted the laws against you by which your recklessness is held in check—are they not the ones of whom the Apostle says that they do not bear the sword without cause, for they are God’s ministers, punishers in anger towards him who acts wickedly?34

It is important to recognise in this passage the balance between freely choosing the good and being forcibly prevented from doing evil. The coercive laws do not force good in opposition to a free will, since an act that is not chosen freely cannot be a morally good act; for an act to be morally good, it must both have a good object and be freely chosen. Rather, the coercive laws serve as discipline for those who do not love the good and instead choose to do evil. Thus, for Augustine, “resistance, like force or coercion or violence, is neutral” (Hannan 2021, p. 74). The purpose and intention behind the use of force determines whether its use is good or evil. As Augustine himself notes, “Since the good and the evil do the same things and suffer the same things, they must be distinguished, not by their actions and punishments, but by their motives”.35 It is one thing to use force in making someone Catholic, but another thing entirely to use force in suppressing the sins of Donatists. It is the difference between forcing truth and preventing error, between forcing good and preventing evil.

Yet, Petilian argues that “the Lord Christ says, No one comes to me unless the Father draws him (Jn 6:44). Why don’t you allow each person to follow his free choice [liberum arbitrium], since the Lord God himself gave free choice [liberum arbitrium] to men, while showing the path of righteousness, lest perhaps anyone perish unwittingly?”36 Augustine’s response is, perhaps, clever rhetoric, but it expresses the synthesis and the tension of what he stated previously:

If I were to ask you how God the Father draws to his Son men whom he has left with free choice [libero arbitrio], you would perhaps answer with great difficulty. For how does he draw a person if he leaves him in such a way that he may choose what he wishes? And yet both things are true, but few are able to fathom this intellectually.37

Augustine explains that legal restraint does not eliminate liberum arbitrium, but suffering provokes the subject to consider why she suffers and, if she finds that she suffers for the sake of righteousness, she may better endure it or, if she finds that she suffers on account of her wickedness, she may use her liberum arbitrium to choose what is better.38 In a letter to the tribune Dulcitius in 418, Augustine puts it more practically:

We have also taught that human beings were given free choice [liberum arbitrium] in such a way that it is still entirely correct that penalties are established by divine and human laws for serious sins, that it is the task of the religious rulers of the earth to restrain by due severity not only adulteries, murders, and other such crimes or outrages but also sacrileges.39

Sacrilege—which includes heresy and schism—is certainly a worse crime than adultery; so, it must also be punishable by law.

It is significant, then, that Augustine regularly speaks of legal force as “discipline” (disciplina) or as “correction” (correctio) rather than as “coercion” (cohercitio). This is because he sees the state’s use of force against the Donatists as an instrument in God’s hand as He disciplines His unruly children, thereby forming or re-forming their wills toward the good. Ultimately, this discipline frees them from slavery to sin and error, making the will truly free to choose good. Thus, Augustine could affirm several years later, “Let necessity be experienced outwardly, and hence free willingness [voluntas] be born inwardly”.40 This view of state force as discipline is present also in the fifth tractate on John, preached in January 407. Speaking of the Donatists, Augustine affirms that “they did indeed suffer bodily—as if they were persecuted—but these were clearly the scourges to which the Lord subjected them to discipline for a time, so as not to have to condemn them for eternity”.41 It is clear to Augustine that this discipline is conducted out of love, for the correction of those in error and for their good, though they may not know it.

“Correction in love” is the key to understanding Augustine’s use of force.42 While in earlier works he focused on correcting errors by clearly presenting the truth through preaching, letters, or dialogue with the Donatists, in his later works Augustine began to recognise the futility of these attempts and turned his focus instead to the disciplinary or healing function of state force. At some time between the Edict of Unity (405) and the conference with the Donatists (411), Augustine wrote to Festus, another Roman official in Africa, using the image of a physician restraining the manic and stirring the lethargic. He asks,

What, then, does the medicine of the Church do here, as she seeks the salvation of all out of her motherly love, caught up as it were among those who are manic and those who are lethargic? Ought she or can she scorn them or leave them? She is necessarily bothersome to both, because she is an enemy to neither. For the manic cases do not want to be restrained, and the lethargic do not want to be stirred up. But loving concern continues to chastise the manic and stimulate the lethargic, but to love them both. Both are offended, but both are loved; both are bothered. As long as they are ill, they are angry, but once healed, both are grateful.43

In the case of the manic, external restraint is not an infringement on the liberum arbitrium of the patient, but a necessary act of love meant to preserve the patient and protect those around him, though he may not recognise it in the moment. The same can be said for a rebellious child whose father disciplines her, lest she grow up to care only for herself and the gratification of her passions.44 In the same way does the state wield the sword on behalf of God the Father as a disciplinary force toward His unruly children, while also serving to protect the innocent from being harmed at their hands.

It is clear that Augustine’s motivation is the same after the Edict of Unity as it was before, namely charity. As a good pastor, Augustine was concerned for the good of Christ’s flock and the salvation of those under his care—not only those visibly within the fold, but also those who had gone astray. In Letter 93, where he admits his “conversion to coercion”, Augustine states clearly,

Not everyone who is merciful is a friend, nor is everyone who scourges an enemy. Better are the wounds from a friend than the spontaneous kisses of an enemy (Prv 27:6). It is better to love with severity than to deceive with leniency. It is more beneficial to take bread away from a hungry man if, when sure of food, he would neglect his salvation, than to break bread with a hungry man in order that he might be led astray and consent to injustice. And someone who ties down a crazy person and who rouses a lazy person loves them both, though he is a bother to both.45

Augustine’s motivation is ultimately for the salvation of souls, both those of Catholics and those of the Donatists, an end that justifies the right use of force. Thus, force must be applied for correction and not out of vengeance; it must be employed with moderation and in love. Augustine therefore makes clear further along in the same letter that any who use force against the Donatists out of opportunism, hatred, or greed do not have his approval.46

Further, as mother, the Church desires mercy; she desires leniency. For this reason, Augustine actively advocated for suspension of the death penalty or the shedding of blood on her behalf. The following year, in 408, Augustine wrote to Donatus, the proconsul, declaring,

we desire that, by making use of judges and laws that cause fear, they be corrected, not killed, so that they do not fall into the punishments of eternal condemnation. We do not want discipline to be neglected in their regard or the punishment they deserve to be applied. Repress their sins, therefore, in such a way that those who repent having sinned may still exist.47

This was true even in the case of a party guilty of murdering one cleric and mutilating another, wherein Augustine applied all his authority to ensure that those guilty were not executed but allowed time for repentance.48 This was particularly the case since the crime was an ecclesial offence and not merely a civil offence. Augustine points out to the proconsul Apringius that “a matter of interest for a province is not the same thing as a matter of interest for the Church. The governance of the former should be carried out with severity; the forbearance of the latter should be shown with mercy”.49 Instead, correction requires that they be instructed in the truth, “for to force human beings without teaching them, even though one does this in order that they may give up a great evil and embrace a great good, is a task more burdensome than beneficial”.50 By harkening back to his early emphasis on leniency and proclaiming the truth, Augustine makes clear that the purpose of using state force is “that the error itself may be destroyed, not the human beings in whom it is found, that human beings not be punished, but corrected”.51 Thus, even after admitting his “conversion to coercion”, Augustine continued to require the freedom of Donatists to choose truth and return to unity.

From all of this, it is evident that Augustine balanced freedom of conscience with state force early on and continued to do so after the Edict of Unity proved effective in attaining conversions. But, if Augustine’s “conversion” in 407 was not a movement from freedom of conscience toward coercion, what was it? In Letter 93, Augustine admits that his earlier concern regarding the use of force was that there would be an influx of ficti, or false conversions, and that the Church would be filled with “Catholics in name only” (See Brown 1972, pp. 268–69; also Brown 2000, pp. 230–31). On this, he admits he was wrong, and the first example against him was his own city of Thagaste, which was entirely Donatist but returned to “Catholic unity out of fear of the imperial laws” and came to firmly detest the schism.52 Some ten years later, Augustine explains in his letter to Boniface that,

by the mercy of Christ these laws, which seem to be against them, are rather in their favor since many Donatists have been corrected by them and are being corrected each day, and they give thanks that they have been corrected and set free from that mad destruction. And those who hated the laws now love them, and the more they hated the laws in their insanity, the more they are thankful, once they have recovered their health, that the laws so very conducive to their salvation were harsh toward them. And they are aroused by a similar love along with us for the others with whom they had been perishing. Hence, they strive equally with us in order that the others may not perish.53

This reality assuaged Augustine’s fear that the conversion of Donatists would be insincere, thereby freeing him to entrust the sincerity of individual conversions to God. Even those who returned to unity out of pretence were gradually corrected through “the preaching of the truth”.54

5. Conclusions

The evidence of countless sincere conversions in response to the Edict of Unity made it clear to Augustine that aside from the pernicious (or manic) Donatists there were two other kinds: those who were already convinced of the truth but postponed reunion out of fear of Circumcellion vengeance, and those who thought the true Church was Donatist only “because security made them uninterested, reluctant, and lazy to gain knowledge of the Catholic truth”.55 The Edict of Unity served to free those living in fear of the Circumcellions and to stir the comfortable from their lethargy into seeking the truth, such that both groups became free to choose Catholic unity. All the while, those who chose to remain in schism were restrained from committing their violent crimes. The realisation that there were both lethargic and timid souls requiring freedom from the violence in order to return to unity gave Augustine greater peace of mind in applying state force against the Donatists.

The shift in Augustine’s thought, then, was not a conversion from freedom of conscience to the good of coercion, but from an emphasis on freedom to an explanation of the proper Christian use of force. In his early period, Augustine was free to focus on dialogue and the reduction of violence, but when the African bishops accepted the Edict of Unity and its accompanying punishments for the Donatists, Augustine tried to mitigate the losses. His focus shifted toward preventing violence and the shedding of blood on behalf of the Church by instead emphasising discipline or correction over punishment. By preventing execution, Donatists were granted extra time to be presented with the truth, repent of their sins, and return to unity. The Edict of Unity had affirmed Augustine’s prior beliefs about the effects of external force on the formation of the will, but it also dispelled his fears about the sincerity of conversions from Donatism. By reducing Donatist violence, those living in fear were free to return to unity, while the punishments shook the lethargic out of their stupor and prompted them to seek the truth. In this way, both the timid and the lethargic had in one way or another found freedom by coercion.