What’s Disgust Got To Do With It? Augustine and the Donatist Controversy

 Sid D. Sudiacal. “Disgust and the Donatist Controversy: Examining the Role of Disgust in Augustine’s Letters.” PhD diss., McMaster Divinity College, 2021. 

Thomas Kazen notes that “religion has never been a matter for the head only; it is not primarily an intellectual exercise.”[1] Much of Western thinking on morality is based on cognition, privileging rationality as the primary way for perceiving others and making moral judgments. The primacy of rationality for determining proper conduct has made it difficult to perceive the ways emotions shape our perceptions. Emotions, then, are not simply an appeal to our base nature, but what informs how one should think and act.

While theological and ecclesial controversies have been examined through social and political lenses, the role of emotions has been studied less often. My dissertation explores the role of disgust in Augustine’s treatment of his opponents during the Donatist Controversy. I focus on Augustine’s epistolary corpus to unearth instances where disgust informs Augustine’s reaction to his Donatist foes. I draw on the concept of Disgust Psychology to shed light on how Augustine’s account of the schism that embroiled the North African Church. Disgust is a “powerful, visceral emotion” which, in many ways, cannot be controlled.[2] According to theorists of disgust such as Charles Darwin, Paul Rozin and William Ian Miller, it is a universal, natural reaction. One of the key concepts behind the psychological treatment of disgust is that it is irrational. Disgust Psychology, by its very nature, resists the modern person’s sensibilities that emphasize the importance of reason over emotions. Primal instincts continue to bypass higher cognitive functions. Disgust can serve as an ethnic or out-group marker in intergroup settings.[3] My dissertation highlights the pervasive nature by which disgust can influence interactions with those who are deemed as foreign or an out-group. It also helps explain why social discrimination and ostracism takes place within the society.

During Augustine’s early years in ministry, he promoted the idea of using the pen rather than the sword to convert those who were not Christians. However, during the Donatist Controversy, Augustine advocated the use of violence to convince the Donatists to return to the Catholic fold.[4] My dissertation argues that disgust played a crucial role in Augustine’s change of heart from eschewing violence to embracing force. Studies on disgust discuss its role in interpersonal conflict and in religious violence. The dehumanizing language present in Augustine’s letters when he describes the Donatists helps create an atmosphere where his disgust at the intransigence of his Donatist opponents is palpable. Over the years, the disgust felt by Augustine led to a shift in his attitude, leading him to sanction the use of violence against the Donatists. Initially, the role of disgust was to prevent humans from encountering harmful pathogens.[5] As a result, humans developed a strong revulsion against harmful substances to protect themselves from harm. While disgust has this physical component, it also has a sociomoral aspect when it manifests itself as a reaction to a disgusting stimulus. Within this schema, anything that one deems as a moral transgression, especially as it involves the question of purity, is considered a stimulus to be avoided and rejected vehemently. My dissertation concludes with a contemporary application of disgust in modern theological controversies, especially as it relates to the LGBTQIA+ community and the role of women in leadership. Disgust’s ability to elicit such a strong and violent response in humans is a reminder of the strength of emotions to govern our actions.

My dissertation is divided into three parts: i) the history that led to the Donatist Controversy, ii) the Donatist Controversy and Augustine’s interactions with the Donatists, and iii) the future implications of exploring the role of disgust in modern theological controversies around issues of sexuality and gender.

Chapter 1 provides the introduction to the North African context in which the Donatist Controversy was born. I examine the theological legacy of Tertullian and Cyprian in the North African Church, highlighting how the language and imagery of martyrdom played a critical role in defining the North African Church’s identity. This chapter also lays the groundwork for examining the role of emotions as a crucial part of an individual’s decision-making process. Here I provide a working definition of Disgust Psychology. Disgust is an emotion that in many ways, cannot be controlled. Disgust Psychology is a system marked by four key features: i) it is irrational, ii) there is an aggressive reaction of expulsion or avoidance of the disgusting stimulus, iii) it is a boundary marker, and iv) magical thinking. Oftentimes, there is a pervasive question concerning individuals who hold Christian beliefs and who often act in non-Christian ways. Disgust Psychology is a means by which we can explore how non-inclusive theological beliefs are often rooted in disgust. It is methodologically beneficial to use such an approach as it relates to theological controversies such as the Donatist Controversy. This chapter ends by exploring the problem of disgust in theology. The second chapter, “Cyprian and the Question of Purity,” explores the debates surrounding rebaptism between Rome and Carthage, as embodied in the person of Cyprian. I deal with issues of martyrdom as the final baptism. Baptism, or in this case, re-baptism, played a major role in the disagreement between Augustine and the Donatists. Since baptism was held in such high regard between both groups, the idea that martyrdom was considered the final baptism gave the Donatists the theological trump card they needed to exert their theological superiority against the Catholics. Cyprian held that re-baptism was acceptable while Augustine argued against re-baptism.

Having established the importance of martyrdom for North African writers, I turn to the schism that embroiled the region for centuries. Beginning with the fateful reign of Diocletian, I attend to resources in Augustine’s epistolary corpus for understanding the subsequent controversy.[6] After a summary and survey of the historical context for Augustine’s letters concerning the Donatists, I trace how these writings deploy the complicated language and rhetoric of disgust that enabled Augustine to advocate for the use of state violence against the Donatists. For example, in Letter 93, written in 407 or 408 CE, Augustine wrote to the Rogatist bishop of Cartenna in Mauretania Caesariensis, Victor. In it, he made known his positive assessment of the state’s use of its own power so that the Donatists “be held in check and corrected by the authorities established by God.”[7] He argued that because of the correction provided by the state, some circumcellions returned to the Catholic fold. According to Augustine, “they condemn their former life and wretched error, because of which they thought that they did for the church of God whatever they did in their restless rashness!”[8] He conceded that these types of corrective measures did not work on everyone. However, it should not be completely discounted because there are those who were not affected by it. Augustine pointed to Proverbs 27:6 to remind Victor that “not everyone who is merciful is a friend, nor is everyone who scourges an enemy.”[9] After all, as Augustine continues:

….it is better to love with severity than to deceive with leniency. It is more beneficial to take bread away from 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. Who can love us more than God? And he, nonetheless, does not cease only to teach us with gentleness, but also to frighten us for our salvation.[10]

This type of mentality allowed Augustine to view the state’s use of force as a chastising rod used by God to correct and chasten the Donatists. This type of mentality is also prevalent in theological discussions regarding the use of violence against individuals or groups that it considers heretics. Violence is warranted, tolerated, and even applauded, because of its “positive” results. In these cases, a positive result means an individual’s decision to obey the dominant political and/or ecclesial authority.

The chapter ends with a discussion of the implications of this emotion for understanding the intricate relationship between disgust and religious violence. In many of Augustine’s letters, he tried to reason, woo, and cajole the Donatists back to the Catholic fold. Yet, when the Donatists did not listen to his pleas, he took a harsher approach. He scolded them, denigrated them, and in the end, approved the use of violent force against them to compel them back to the Catholic church. It is imperative to note that disgust is a complicated emotion, especially as it relates to moral judgments and the attitudes it elicits. Added to the complexity of disgust, one must also factor in Christianity’s ability to be both disgust-eliciting and disgust-subverting. It can be disgust-eliciting in that ideas of impurity can seep into one’s theology to the extent that it transforms into an attitude that sees the person as unclean, and as a result must be someone who is to be avoided at all costs; yet, Christianity can also elicit disgust-subverting tendencies in that Jesus provided a tangible example of dealing with impure people and in the process, did not become contaminated by their uncleanness but made the one who was once deemed unclean into someone clean.

Turning from the late antique world to the present day, I close with a constructive investigation of how Disgust Psychology informs modern theological controversies. Specifically, I examine how various Christian communities have discussed the inclusion (or exclusion) of people identifying as LGBTQIA+. As more churches and denominations have raised members of the LGBTQIA+ community to positions of leadership and authority, there has been a parallel re-entrenchment within other ecclesial communities against such change. Applying insights from my historical investigation, I draw connections from earlier instances of schism to show how disgust continues to play a key role in theological and ecclesiological debates, particularly over human sexuality and gender.

This dissertation began with a question: how do we other the “Other” when those who are deemed “Other” are not truly other? As the history of late antique Christianity shows, it takes but the smallest, slightest deviance from either methodology or ideology to start the process of othering the Other. The historian can understand the past through various lenses. My goal is not to eliminate previous ways of understanding historical events; if anything, my goal is to uncover another facet of a critical moment in the history of Christianity. The goal of this dissertation is to provide an example of what insights can be gained when emotions—in particular, disgust—are examined in an archive traditionally mined for theological and historical insights.

Sid D. Sudiacal (he/him/siya) is a Filipino Canadian scholar living in Ottawa, ON. His dissertation examines the role of disgust in the Donatist Controversy. His research interests include Roman North African Christianity, religious violence, Beyoncé, pop culture, and the intersection between history, theology, and psychology.

[1] Thomas Kazen, Emotions in Biblical Law: A Cognitive Science Approach (Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2011), 3.

[2] Aurel Kolnai, On Disgust (Chicago: Open Court, 2004), 1.

[3] G. Hodson and K. Costello, "Interpersonal Disgust, Ideological Orientations, and Dehumanization as Predictors of Intergroup Attitudes," Psychological Science 18, no.8 (2007): 691.

[4] Charles J. Scalise, "Exegetical Warrants for Religious Persecution: Augustine Vs. the Donatists." Review & Expositor 93, no. 4 (1996): 497-506. For this theme, see especially Augustine’s Letters 93 and 141.

[5] Some of the studies I draw from include Charles Darwin, The Expressions of Emotions in Men and Animals. 1st ed. (New York: Philosophical Library, 1872); Daniel Kelly, Yuck!: The Nature and Moral Significance of Disgust (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011); Martha C. Nussbaum, Hiding from humanity: Disgust, shame, and the law (Princeton University Press, 2009).

[6] I focus on letters 23, 34, 35, 43, 44, 49, 51, 52, 66, 76, 87, 93, 105, 106, 108, 133, 141, 173, and Letters to the Catholics. The Latin text for Augustine’s letters may be found in Alois Goldbacher, ed., S. Aureli Augustini Hipponiensis Episcopi Epistulae. CSEL 34, 44, 57-58 (Vindobonae: F. Tempsky, 1895-1923). For an English translation of the letters, see Augustine, Letters 1–99, trans. Roland Teske, S.J. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1990) and Augustine, Letters 100–155, trans. Roland Teske, S.J. The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (Brooklyn: New City Press, 1990).

[7] Epistle 93.1.1; Augustine, Letters 1–99, 377.

[8] Epistle 93.1.2; Augustine, Letters 1–99, 378.

[9] Epistle 93.2.4; Augustine, Letters 1–99, 379.

[10] Epistle 93.2.4; Augustine, Letters 1–99, 379.