Parmenian

Parmenian (Latin: Parmenianus; died ca. 392) was a North African Donatist bishop, the successor of Donatus in the Donatist bishopric of Carthage. He wrote several works defending the rigorist views of the Donatists and is recognized as "the most famous Donatist writer of his day", but none of his writings have survived.

Life Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians (Edward Armitage, 1875). Julian's decree of 362 allowed Parmenian to return to Carthage.

Optatus of Milevis, the anti-Donatist polemicist and contemporary of Parmenian, calls him peregrinus, meaning that he was probably not a native of Africa. He may have come from Spain or Gaul.

James Alexander considers this imagery a development of the theologies of Tertullian and Cyprian, of which Parmenian "emerges as the conserver... [and] Optatus, by contrast, as the innovator."

Evaluation W. H. C. Frend argues that Parmenian was a capable and formidable bishop of his see, even if his influence and reputation eventually ceased to be recognized with the end of the Donatist schism. Frend writes that Parmenian's authority was "never seriously challenged" during his long term as bishop. According to George M. Ella, the resulting lack of unity in the North African Christian community was a contributing factor to the ease with which the Islamic conquest of the area succeeded in the late 600s: "the blood of the Donatists had become the seed of Islam."

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