The Donatist Schism and its Representation in Augustine's Anti-Donatist Letters

• Applicants: Dr. Thomas Burch; Professor Dr. Volker Henning Drecoll; Professor Dr. Christian Tornau
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology ; Greek and Latin Philology
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 541535834

The aim of the project is to throw new light on the Donatist schism by means of a systematic commentary of Augustine’s anti-Donatist letters. The letters will be interpreted both as a source of the controversy and as a means through which it was conducted. Special attention will be paid to the agency of the Donatist party as far as it can be reconstructed from the letters. The corpus of letters will be analysed by using a commentary “grid”, a list of categories that helps to scrutinize the letters systematically for information on historical events and theological issues as well as on the literary and communicative (or non-communicative) strategies employed by both sides. The results will be made accessible both in a book or e-book and as an open access online commentary designed with the virtual research tool FuD. The methodical tools developed in this project will be, in principle, also applicable to other corpora of ancient letters and texts.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants