Augustine was in the forefront against Donatism.
Augustine challenged the Donatist heresy, which during the late fourth and early fifth
century posed Roman Catholic Christians against more zealous Christians in North Africa. He
was a theological champion of the church who already was on site when the Donatist
controversy was coming to a forceful conclusion at the end of his life. It threatened both his
life and the very existence of his diocese of Hippo. While the battle of Augustine with the
Pelagians was mainly a theological one fought with the intellect, the battle with the
Donatists was more direct. In comparison, if his contest with the Pelagians was a debate,
then his contest with the Donatists had some of the disturbing aspects of a riot as well.
Bishop Augustine in procession
When Augustine came to Hippo, the Donatist schism had existed for about a century.
Donatism had been around since the persecutions under Diocletian, when Christians were
ordered to turn over their Scriptures to Roman authorities. Some had obeyed this order.
Others had absolutely refused, and had suffered torture or death as a result. Many did
something in between, such as hiding or fleeing. After the persecution ended, the church
had to decide how to treat people - especially bishops - who had handed in their books and
holy objects for destruction (i.e., they became what was called a traditor - a Latin word for
one who "hands something over") or had fled so as to avoid persecution.
If a bishop had complied with the order or had fled, could he again serve as a bishop once
the danger was over? Or if he had lost his credibility with his people for being a traditor,
should he be removed from office? Should he be retained in office, were his subsequent
sacramental acts valid? If he had ordained a priest or helped consecrate another bishop,
were their orders valid? The church was split over these matters, especially in North Africa.
The Donatist schism had sprung out of the persecution of the Christian church by Diocletian
in the beginning of the fourth century. In about the year 412, forty years before Augustine
was born, some members of the Church in Carthage were fired with fanatical zeal on behalf
of those who had distinguished themselves by resistance to the imperial mandates and
courted martyrdom. These members now resented deeply the appointment of a bishop of
moderate opinions. They claimed that the consecration of this church leader been
performed by one who was a traditor, i.e., one who had not defended the Faith strongly
enough.
They held that those who denied the Faith could never be forgiven subsequently. Behind
their objection lay the false belief that only those living a perfect life belonged in the church,
and, further, that the validity of any sacrament depended upon the personal virtue of the
priest or bishop who administered it. They set up, in consequence, a bishop of their own, of
the name of Majorinus. He was succeeded in 315 by Donatus, after whom Donatism received
its name.
The party made great pretensions to purity of discipline, and rapidly rose in popular favour
notwithstanding a decision given against them both by the Pope in Rome and by the
Emperor Constantine, to whom they personally appealed. The Donatists thus in the year 312
selected their own rival Bishop of Carthage in the person of Donatus.
Their practice of rebaptising "converts" from the Roman Christian church was particularly
abhorrent to the Roman and North African church. The Donatists were condemned by the
Synod of Arles in the year 314. and also by Constantine I, who was the Roman emperor.
When they refused to submit, Constantine ordered the army to force them into submission.
This was possibly the first official use of military force carried out in favour of the Christian
religion.
The Donatists suffered death with the same zeal as the early Christian saints had done. They
were perfectly willing to die at the hands of a Christian emperor, but this use of the secular
power seemed no more successful than that of the Emperor Diocletian had been in the years
303 to 305. The action by the Emperor against the Donatists was an indication of the way
they had prospered and become a dominant element in Africa. For example, when
Constantine built a basilica for the Catholics in the town of Cirta, the Donatists took it over.
Constantine was forced to build the Catholics another one.
The Donatists left the official Catholic Church in the year 316 (i.e., forty years before the birth
of Augustine), and set up their own network of Donatist bishops and dioceses. By 321 the
Emperor Constantine had ordered an end to state action against the Donatists. He justified
himself on the grounds that punishment was to be left to God. By the year 330 the Donatists
had 270 bishops in North Africa. Keep in mind, however, that because of the difficulty of
travel in those days, and because preaching was done only by bishops (but not by priests,
except for Augustine), even in the Roman Catholic Church there a diocese was more like the
size of what would be called a parish today.
By the year 350 the Donatists outnumbered the orthodox Christians in Africa. Each city
(including the diocese of Hippo) had its opposing orthodox and Donatist bishops, and in
Hippo Donatists were numerically greater and more influential locally than were the
Christians faithful to Rome. The response and behaviour of Augustine to Donatism was
coloured by this disturbing (for him) reality.
The effect of Donatism upon Augustine
The fight against Donatism took up much of the time of Augustine. His combat against it
definitely influenced his theology. After his consecration as Bishop of Hippo in 395-396,
Augustine had devoted continual attention for more than ten years to the challenge of
Donatism.
St Augustine
He had done this in numerous sermons, letters, and other treatises having to do with the
nature of the church and the sacraments. In doing this, he had articulated, much more fully
than had ever been done before, the doctrine of the church. And, although the Donatist
controversy brought out some of what is regretful in the legacy of Augustine, it also
prompted his greatest theological achievements. It was partly responsible for prompting
scholarly exposition, his major book, the City of God. Augustine is criticised for his handling
of the Donatist controversy. He used the political and legal power of the Roman Empire to
suppress the Donatist church. From his point of view, however, this was his attempt to
compel the Donatists to come back to the Catholic Church.
It is important to note that he never called for the Donatists to be tortured or executed as
heretics. The Donatist movement had essentially gone from North Africa by the time of the
death of Augustine in the year 430. Paradoxically, this triumph of the Roman church in North
Africa proved to be brief, for it in turn faded in North Africa with the arrival of the Vandals.
They were barbarians who were militant Arian heretical Christians, and fanatically anti-
Catholic.
Whereas in the year 411 North Africa had 286 Catholic bishops and 279 Donatist bishops,
after the Vandal - Arian persecutions in 525 AD the number of Catholic bishops was only 60.
In the year 533 the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine) invaded the area, and the Islamic
Arabs took over from them in the seventh century. By the end of the seventh century the
area was largely Muslim. This situation is still essentially the case today, over 1,300 years
later.
Augustine was strongly moved by the lawlessness of the Donatists. He produced a series of
writings against them, the most important of which survive, though some are lost. Amongst
these are Seven Books on Baptism, and a lengthened answer, in three books, to Petilian,
bishop of Cirta, who was the most eminent theologian amongst them. The first official
connection of Augustine with Donatism was his attendance at the Council of Carthage in
393. He was then aged forty years. He had been a priest for two years, and baptised for only
six years.
Augustine: artistic impression
After the Donatist bishop Maximin rebaptised a Catholic deacon, Augustine tried to resolve
this conflict by mediation. He sought a resolution without the Catholics appealing to the
imperial power of Rome or the Donatists using the rebellious Circumcellions (a group that
resorted to physical violence against people and property). Augustine made contact with
the Donatists to arrange a conference. All agreed not to bring up the excesses of the bad
men on either side, but the large conference Augustine proposed was never held.
As mentioned above, the Donatists held that sacraments received at the hands of unworthy
ministers were not valid sacraments at all. Or at least it seems that they held this. Augustine
had a long correspondence and controversy with them, and at one point they apparently
replied that they did not hold this. To this Augustine replied, "In that case, will you kindly tell
me what the controversy is all about, and what you and I have been debating for the last
eighteen months, and why your bishops and ours have been against each other for the last
one hundred years?"
The controversy dragged on. Part of the dispute was historical (whether Bishop so-and-so,
now seventy years dead, had really done what he was accused of doing), and part of it was
theological. Against them, Augustine constantly maintained that the holiness of the Church
is not derived from the average level of virtue of its individual members, but is derived from
the holy nature of its Head, Jesus Christ. Professor James O'Donnell succinctly describes
what happened, "Augustine began his anti-Donatist campaign with tact and caution. His first
letters to Donatist prelates are polite, and emphasise his faith in their good will. He assumed
that reasonable men could settle this controversy peacefully. But he quickly discovered that
reason and good manners would get him nowhere. In the late 390s, then, Augustine
resigned himself to a course of action others in the church had long been urging: the
invocation of government intervention to repress the Donatists."
Augustine was dismayed at the use of military coercion in matters of religion, but consented
to the new policy when he became convinced that no other method appeared effective.
Even so, 2217 under the leadership of Gildo the Donatist church grew. In the year 397, his
stopping the departure of grain ships to Italy forced a confrontation with Rome. When the
Emperor feared the ruin of government in his North African territories, his Roman navy
attacked the Donatists. They killed Gildo and many Donatist partisans, including their bishop
Optatus of Timgad. In the following years, continuing imperial edicts repressed the Donatist
sect. The Donatists had been the first to appeal to the Emperor in this struggle to the secular
authorities. They then became the first also to declare their entire independence from the
imperial power. Augustine himself was in physical danger from Donatists and the
Circumcellions. An attempted kidnapping of him failed because his guide took a wrong road.
Once returning home from Calama, he was attacked and some of those travelling with him
were wounded.
A painting of Augustine
To counter Donatist ideas Augustine wrote his work, On Baptism, in the year 401. With
regard to the Donatist idea of the holiness of the church, Augustine drew a fundamental
distinction between the present church and the future church, not as two churches but
rather as two moments in one and the same church. He said that the pure church was the
future church "without spot or wrinkle," and that the present was not the future church.
Here on earth the church is holy, but not all its members are holy; it is the Body of Christ, but
a mixed body that is composed of both good people and wicked people. It is a field in which
the wheat and the weeds grow together until the harvest, visibly united but spiritually
distinct. It is a field in which the wicked must be tolerated for the sake of the good. By the
year 404, in the letters of Augustine can be seen the development of the struggle. There can
be seen the constant stream of converts from Donatism, and the severe measures tempered
always by the prayer of Augustine that death be never the punishment of heresy alone.
More than once Augustine sought a more gentle treatment for the Donatists. In the year
405 Emperor Honorius applied against the Donatists laws combating heresy. Their property
was confiscated, and their clergy were exiled.
There were public floggings, and the invalidation of wills and contracts made by Donatists.
The Donatist bishop Petilian complained to Augustine that Catholics carried on a war against
them. He also said that the only victories for Donatists was to be killed or to escape. He
asked how Augustine could justify this killing because Jesus never killed anyone. Augustine
replied by suggesting that Christian love meant ecclesiastical unity. He also advocated the
use of force against the Donatists, asking "Why . . . should not the Church use force in
compelling her lost sons to return, if the lost sons compelled others to their destruction?"
("The Correction of the Donatists.") Petilian angrily charged that love does not punish
people nor inflame emperors to take away the lives or to plunder the possessions of
individual citizens. Augustine said that Christ was punishing people when he expelled the
merchants from the temple with a whip.
Vincentius was an old friend of Augustine from Carthage who became a Donatist. He was
shocked that Augustine supported the use of state power to force Donatists back into the
Catholic Church. Augustine quoted the parable of the wedding banquet in Luke 14:16-23
when later guests were compelled to come. Today, this use of Luke 14:16-23 by Augustine
would not be considered correct, yet it shows the heat that the Donatist situation caused.
The Donatists had used the Circumcellions, who were bands of violent thieves, and the
Catholic side had used the force of government, army and navy. Luke 14:16-23 is Jesus' story
in which the rich man, whose friends would not attend a marriage feast, instructs his
servants to search the roads for strangers, and "compel them to come in". It is clear from
the context that the "compulsion" approved by Jesus here would be no more than that
required to overcome the natural hesitation of a tramp unexpectedly invited to go
immediately to feast with his social superiors.
Saints Augustine and Monica
Mainly in the letter to Donatus, Augustine applied this to a justification of the use of state
coercion to suppress the Donatist movement in North Africa. Augustine expressed support
for the repression as long as it was accompanied by instruction. He favoured uprooting the
Donatist heresy with arguments, but opposed hunting for heretics with spies and agent
provocateurs. For over a decade some Donatists in North Africa terrorised the countryside
and plundered isolated villages and rich farms. They forced non-Donatist Christian
landowners to trade places with their slaves, and enjoyed the sight of the humiliation of the
landowners. In 411 AD Augustine was instrumental in having the Roman Emperor Honorius
send Marcellinus as an imperial commissioner to North Africa.
He attempted to solve the Donatist problem by demanding a conference at Carthage that
was attended by 286 Catholic bishops and 284 Donatist bishops. Marcellinus was a devout
man who later became a friend of Augustine. After a week of debate by the opposing
bishops Marcellinus officially decided in favour of the Catholics. Soon an imperial edict
authorised the confiscation of all Donatist property and the fining of their clergy. Any who
persisted as Donatists lost their civil rights, and some were deported. Marcellinus
complained to Augustine that Christian teaching contradicted the duties of Roman citizens.
He said it especially contradicted the call of Jesus not to resist evil with evil when the empire
was being invaded by barbarians. Augustine would eventually answer Marcellinus in his
massive and most original book, City of God. In return, Augustine appealed to Marcellinus
not to use capital punishment on the Donatists so they would not be considered martyrs by
their followers. Augustine here used a political argument rather than a theological one.
Soon after the year 420, the Donatist movement died out. Augustine had triumphed, but at a
high cost. He had helped to open the way to the use of civil power to enforce theological
orthodoxy. This was a path subsequently revisited by the Inquisition in medieval Europe and
by other forces of the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The expediency of
bolstering theological argument with governmental muscle has never proved satisfactory.
Dates
311-411
Founder
Donatus of Carthage (d. 355)
Background to Controversy
Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). This grim
edict is a fitting epitaph for the short-lived but intense heresy of Donatism. Its hundred-year
life-span–a rather brief one, as heresies go–was marked from beginning to end with violence
and death.
North Africa was roiling in political, social, ethnic, and religious controversies when, in 311,
Donatus, schismatic bishop of Carthage, replaced Majorinus, rival of the validly elected
bishop Caecilianus. Donatus was a shrewd leader with impressive intellectual and rhetorical
abilities. He had a skill for exploiting to his own advantage the ethnic unrest that simmered
among the Berbers and Punics. These rustic people chafed under the rule of the Latin-
speaking Roman Empire, and Donatus skillfully harnessed their discontent as the engine of
growth for his heresy.
The schism had gotten under way before Donatus came to power, but it became identified
with him thereafter. His predecessor, Majorinus, was elected as a rival bishop in Carthage
because the bishops who had elected Caecilianus had dealt leniently with the traditores,
men and women whose faith was compromised during Diocletian’s brief but bloody
persecution, initiated in February, 303. The Catholic Church was outlawed, and professing
the Catholic faith was a crime punishable by death. Those who refused to offer incense to
Roman idols were executed. Churches were razed, relics and sacred vessels were seized,
and any copy of Scripture that could be found was burned.
The traditores were those who renounced Christ to avoid martyrdom or who, when their
churches and houses were searched by the Roman authorities, handed over sacred artifacts
rather than face death. In light of the many who endured martyrdom rather than renounce
Christ, those who survived the persecution (which ended in 305) were outraged that priests
and deacons who were traditores were allowed to resume their ministry after being
reconciled to the Church through confession. This perceived injustice provoked a popular
backlash with grave theological implications.
Principal Errors
Majorinus and other leaders of this faction asserted that the sacraments were invalid, even
wicked in the eyes of God, if dispensed by a traditor bishop, priest, or deacon. This view
expanded to include clergy who were in a state of mortal sin of whatever sort.
By denying the intrinsic efficacy of the sacraments the Donatists claimed the sacraments
could be celebrated validly only by those in the state of grace. They required the re-baptism
of any Catholic who came over to their sect.
Donatists had the outward forms of Catholicism, including bishops, priests, and deacons,
Mass, and the veneration of the relics of martyrs. The heresy of Donatism lay not primarily in
the denial of particular Catholic doctrines but in the assertion that only “sinless” men could
administer the sacraments validly. The schism was effected by the rejection of the lawful
authority of validly-elected Catholic bishops and culminated in illicit but valid ordinations of
schismatic bishops, priests, and deacons.
Growth of the Heresy
Donatus advanced his theology with vigor, drawing over many of the common folk who
were fed up with Roman imperial rule and who began to equate Catholicism with foreign
domination. His organizational skills and charismatic personality attracted huge numbers to
his cause. He ordained hundreds, who fanned out across Numidia to establish schismatic
churches.
Church historian Frederick van der Meer describes Donatism’s proliferation:
“It was the strangest mixture of African and Numidian particularism, early Christian idealism,
and personal resentment, but the Church which it created rose up in every town and locality
as a rival to the Church Catholic, altar set against altar in every neighborhood where a
Catholic church was to be found. Everywhere at the edges of the ancient towns two great
basilicas towered over the houses, one Catholic, one non-Catholic. . . . Donatism was from its
inception a popular movement, poor in original ideas, but nevertheless full of people who
were easily inflamed and drawing from these its principal strength. Indeed, once the leaders
had got the Punic-speaking masses on to their side, no power on earth could heal the
schism” (Augustine the Bishop [London: Sheed and Ward, 1961], 80-81).
Donatists adopted “Deo laudes” (“God be praised”) as a their slogan to counter the ancient
Catholic “Deo gratias” (“Thanks be to God”). This was the rallying cry with which they
harangued Catholics. One distinctive characteristic of the Donatists was their desire for
martyrdom. Donatus taught that death for the “cause,” even death by suicide, was holy and
merited a martyr’s crown and eternal life. They did their best to incite Catholics and pagans
to kill them. When their provocations failed, they sometimes took their own lives, a favored
method being to leap from high cliffs with the cry “Deo laudes!”
A humorous if bizarre incident is recounted by Augustine. He tells of a Catholic man who was
accosted by a group of zealous Donatists. They threatened to kill him if he refused to
“martyr” them. Thinking quickly, he agreed to kill them, but only if they first allowed him to
bind them with rope to make his work easier. They consented, and when he had them
secured he took a large stick, beat them soundly, and walked away.
In keeping with their penchant for violence there arose among the Donatists a vile faction
known as the Circumcellions. These ruffians’ main goal was to harass, despoil, and even kill
Catholics. They preyed on the cellae (farms, rural chapels, and country estates). Although
Donatus himself was not a Circumcellion, he gave tacit approval to the depredations of
these gangs and wielded influence through them to force Catholics to convert to his
religion. Those who refused were relieved of their property or their lives.
In a letter to Victorinius, a Spanish priest, Augustine lamented, “We too have nothing but
misery here, for instead of the barbarians we have the Circumcellions, and it is an open
question which is the worse of the two. They murder and burn everywhere, throw lime and
vinegar into the eyes of our priests; only yesterday I heard of forty-eight helpless persons
who were compelled to submit to [Donatist] rebaptism in this place” (Letter 111:1-2).
While killing Catholics was a favored pastime, the principal aim of the Circumcellions was the
destruction of Catholic churches, Bible manuscripts, and sacred objects. This aroused the ire
of the government, which enacted anti-Donatist laws which confiscated their property and
forced their re-entry into the Catholic Church. The North African Catholic bishops welcomed
the first intervention, but not the second.
Orthodox Response
Originally Augustine opposed the eradication of heresy by force (cf. Letter 23), preferring
argumentation to physical coercion. He believed that heresy must never be tolerated, but
that heretics themselves must never be forced to join the Church. As time wore on,
Augustine’s view changed as he warmed to the idea of the state having a role in the
suppression of heresy after the theological persuasions failed. He is regarded by some
historians as being the “Father of the Inquisition” since he became a supporter of the state’s
right to suppress heresy (cf. Letter 185).
Although Optatus of Milevis was the first notable bishop to write against the Donatists
in The Schism of the Donatists, it was the indefatigable Augustine who, in numerous works
almost single-handedly demolished the Donatist challenge. He gave a biblical and theological
explanation of the sacraments (especially baptism, the Eucharist, and holy orders), of the
unity of the Church, and of the evils of schism.
This energetic bishop was not content to rely solely on the pen. He engaged Donatist
apologists in public debates, knowing that public disputations would draw crowds of
Catholics and Donatists; the Catholics would be strengthened and the Donatists converted.
Augustine was as forceful and brilliant an orator (he had received excellent training in
rhetoric during his youth) as he was an author, and even the most skilled Donatist
spokesmen were no match for him.
He even composed apologetics songs designed to inculcate Catholic doctrine and refute
Donatism, notes van der Meer. “Augustine did not neglect to protect his people from the
insidious effect of Donatist catchwords, and sometimes to the detriment of good artistic
taste. It was probably as early as 393 that he composed an alphabetical psalm against the
the Donatist party for the more unlettered among his followers. This tells in very simple
verses the story of the origin and development of the schism, its malice, and the only
possible cure for it. . . . He wanted the nature of the Donatist issue brought to the
knowledge of the simplest person and thus to stamp it into the memory of even the most
uneducated” (van der Meer, 104-105).
This hymn was long (293 verses) and employed a melody and poetic meter that was popular
among the common people who were accustomed to singing similar songs (with profane
lyrics, of course) in taverns and theaters. Catholics learned the hymn enthusiastically and
sang it in public as a rebuke to the Donatists. Under Augustine’s aggressive leadership the
Catholic Church in North Africa gradually overpowered the Donatists by force of argument.
In time entire Donatist congregations and even dioceses came back to the Catholic Church.
By 411 the Donatists were still quite numerous in Numidia and the rest Northern Africa, but,
with their theological errors so thoroughly refuted by Augustine, Optatus, and other
Catholic apologists, their vigor waned quickly, though it would take two centuries more
before they finally disappeared. In keeping with its violent past, the last vestiges of
Donatism vanished in the seventh century as its adherents were mowed down by the sword
of Islam, the cry of “Deo laudes” being replaced by “Alahu Akbar,” which heralded the
Muslim subjugation of North Africa.
Modern Parallels
In its retention of the all of the liturgical externals of Catholicism and most of its doctrines
while rejecting a single doctrine or practice, Donatism is mirrored by groups that might be
characterized as rigorist. Among similar groups have been the Jansenists of Port Royal
(seventeenth through nineteenth centuries) and certain “Traditionalist Catholic” factions of
our own time.
The Donatist heresy of rebaptism is alive in the Baptistic churches of Protestantism,
although Baptists do not regard baptism as a means of grace and regeneration as the
Donatists did. The Donatist tactic of forcing Catholics to “convert” to their heresy was
adopted by the Calvinists (especially under John Calvin in Geneva) and most notoriously by
the Anglicans (under King Henry VIII, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, and Queen Elizabeth I).
