Purpurius was a Donatist

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

from 305 to 320 AD, who was instrumental in establishing the Donatist movement of

Roman North Africa Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, ...

. He is known from several correspondences. It was Purpurius who first introduced the likening of the Donatist community as a new expression of the

Israelite The Israelites (; , , ) were a group of Semitic-speaking tribes in the ancient Near East who, during the Iron Age, inhabited a part of Canaan. The earliest recorded evidence of a people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele o ...

s following

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...

in the Desert "In the Desert" is the name given to a poem written by Stephen Crane (1871–1900), published in 1895 as a part of his collection, '' The Black Riders and Other Lines''. "In the Desert" is the third of fifty-six short poems published in th ...

He was an attendee at the Synod of Cirta, the beginning of the Donatist movement. Optatus tells he had a dispute with Secundus of Tigisis, who charged him as a murderer, a charge he admitted. The accusation was he had murdered his nephews at Milevus, though we are not told what the circumstance of the act were.

Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman pr ...

describes him as a violent man. Optatus also claims he was

brigand Brigandage is the life and practice of highway robbery and plunder. It is practiced by a brigand, a person who usually lives in a gang and lives by pillage and robbery.Oxford English Dictionary second edition, 1989. "Brigand.2" first recorded usa ...

and had stolen

vinegar Vinegar is an aqueous solution of acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains 5–8% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting simple sugars to et ...

from the imperial stores. All this, however, was not enough to exclude him from the meeting though, as Tilley puts it

...since Purpurius had not been a
traditor Traditor, plural: ''traditores'' (Latin), is a term meaning "the one(s) who had handed over" and defined by Merriam-Webster as "one of the Christians giving up to the officers of the law the Scriptures, the sacred vessels, or the names of their br ...
... he was still a member – albeit a sinful member – of the true church. His private affairs, even murder, were no bar to his participation in the ritual of
consecration Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service. The word ''consecration'' literally means "association with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different grou ...
.Maureen A. Tilley, ''The Bible in Christian North Africa: The Donatist World'' (Fortress Press, 199
p102

References

{{reflist 4th-century bishops in Roman North Africa Donatists Year of birth unknown