Could the "Vienna Collection" Be a Donatist Catechesis? A Critical Analysis of the State of Research
(2026) Journal of Early Christian Studies — Vol. 34, n° 2, p. 255-286 (2026)
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- The "Vienna Collection" (AN h Esc) is a collection of sixty Latin sermons discovered by François-Joseph Leroy in the manuscript Österreichische Nationalbibliothek 4147, dated 1435, where they are transmitted under the name of John [Chrysostom]. Leroy considered these sixty sermons to be a pre-Baptismal catechesis delivered by a Donatist, probably a bishop, because, first, he attributed AN h Esc 39 to a Donatist and, second, he supposed the homogeneity of the collection, due to similar style and content of these 60 sermons. At first, this attractive hypothesis was widely accepted, to the extent that researchers claimed to derive data on Donatism from this collection. However, this hypothesis is now being widely questioned, mainly because of its philological weaknesses. This article critically analyzes the complex state of research on the Vienna Sermons, in four areas: the philological history of these texts (manuscript dissemination and editions); the location and the date of the sermons; the authorship and the compilation; and their highly problematic link to Donatism. It outlines the many avenues that remain to be explored and concludes by urging caution: given the current state of research, it is impossible to draw any information about the Donatists from the Vienna sermons.
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Pauliat, M. (2026). Could the “Vienna Collection” Be a Donatist Catechesis? A Critical Analysis of the State of Research. Journal of Early Christian Studies, 34(2), 255-286. https://doi.org/10.1353/earl.2026.a989233 (Original work published 2026)