MONCEAUX, PAUL. — French historian and archaeologist, born in Auxerre on 29 May 1859, died at Sceaux on 7 February 1941.
Professor of the history of Latin literature at the Collège de France in Paris, where in 1907 he succeeded Boissier, he devoted himself to the study of the literature of Christian Africa and published, in 7 volumes, from 1901 to 1923, a Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne from Tertullian to St Augustine. The importance of this work lies in the fact that the greater part of it (the last 4 volumes) is devoted to an examination of Donatism. The final volume, VII, deals more particularly with the struggle waged by St Augustine against this heresy. Every anti-Donatist writing of the bishop of Hippo is minutely analyzed by M., and for each one the exact date of composition and the circumstances that led to its writing are provided. A professor at the Ecole des Hautes-Etudes, he made notable contributions to the Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles lettres, and collaborated with the Bulletin de la Société
à Théveiste (1903); Enquête sur l'épigraphie chrétienne d'Afrique (1903); Un ouvrage du donatiste Fulgentius (1907); L'inscription des martyrs de Douggo et les banquets des Martyrs en Afrique, in Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 1908, pp. 87-104; Un couvent de femmes à Hippone au temps de st Augustin, in Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles lettres, 1913, pp. 570-595; Cuicul chrétien, in Memorie della Pont. Accad. Rom. di Archeol., 3e serie, parte I (1923), pp. 89-112; Le manichéen Faustus de Milev (1924); S. Martin (1926); St-Agustin et st-Antoine, in Miscellanea Augustiniana, II, Roma 1931, p. 61 sgg.; St Jérôme. Sa jeunesse, l'étudiant, l'ermite (1932).