The Collatio cum Donatistis was a three-day meeting held in Carthage between the Caecilianist and Donatist factions of the African church, attended by over 500 bishops, ostensibly to determine which was the “true catholic church.”

A verbatim transcript of most of the conference, offering a detailed snapshot of the African episcopate in the early 5th century CE, survives in a single manuscript (Paris BN lat. 1546) derived from an edition made by a certain Marcellus, who added a set of capitula epitomizing…