Donatism

Background

When the Roman emperor Diocletian launched his persecution in 303, the authorities demanded that churches surrender their Scriptures and sacred vessels. Clergy who handed over the Scriptures were called traditores (singular traditor), a Latin term meaning "those who handed over." After the persecution ended, the North African church was divided over whether such men should be readmitted and whether the baptisms and ordinations they had performed were valid. The region had a tradition, dating back to Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in the third century, of refusing to recognize baptism received outside the church, and this tradition became the foundation of the Donatist position.

Development

Around 311, Caecilian was ordained bishop of Carthage. Charges soon arose, however, that Felix of Aptunga, one of the bishops who had ordained him, had been a traditor. The bishops of Numidia declared the ordination invalid and consecrated Majorinus as a rival bishop. Donatus, who succeeded Majorinus, went on to lead the movement, which came to bear his name.

• The Council of Rome in 313 and the Council of Arles in 314 ruled in favor of Caecilian, and Emperor Constantine upheld their decisions.
• Repression followed from about 317, but in 321 the emperor reverted to a policy of toleration.
• In 347, under Emperor Constans, a forced reunification was attempted, and Donatus died in exile.
• After Emperor Julian came to the throne in 361, exiles were permitted to return. The Donatists regained strength and are reported at one point to have surpassed the Catholic Church in strength in North Africa. In some areas, bands known as the Circumcellions engaged in violent activity.
• In 405, Emperor Honorius issued an edict of unity. At the Conference of Carthage in 411, the imperial official Marcellinus declared the Catholic side victorious, and Donatism was thereafter outlawed.

Issues in Dispute

The Donatists held that the church must be a community of the holy. Accordingly, they maintained that sacraments administered by clergy guilty of grave sin were without effect, and they rebaptized those who came over to them after having been baptized in the Catholic Church.

Augustine, bishop of Hippo, countered that the efficacy of the sacraments derives not from the holiness of the minister but from Christ. Citing the parable of the tares (Matthew 13:24–30), he argued that the church on earth is a mixed community of wheat and tares, and that the final separation of the two belongs to God at the Last Judgment. The Donatists are reported to have replied that the "field" in the parable refers not to the church but to the world (Matthew 13:38). Augustine at first advocated persuasion, but he later came to support coercion through the power of the state, appealing to Luke 14:23: "compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

Outcome and Influence

Donatism declined after 411, yet it survived through the period of Vandal rule and was still mentioned in the sources as late as the end of the sixth century.

Augustine's distinction between the worthiness of the minister and the efficacy of the sacrament became the standard teaching of the Western church, and this understanding continued into the Reformation era. Article 8 of the Augsburg Confession condemns the Donatists by name, and chapter 27, section 3 of the Westminster Confession of Faith states that the efficacy of a sacrament does not depend on the piety or intention of the one who administers it. In criticizing the Anabaptists, the Reformers at times likened them to the Donatists. The Anabaptists, for their part, held that the issue for them was not the qualifications of the minister but whether infant baptism without a profession of faith was legitimate.

In Korean churches, it is generally held that baptisms performed by a pastor remain valid even if he is later deposed for misconduct. The term "Donatistic" is sometimes used to criticize attitudes that link the moral character of clergy directly to the efficacy of the sacraments. When denominations that hold to believer's baptism, such as the Baptists, baptize those who received infant baptism, they do so because of a different understanding of baptism itself; this is distinct from the Donatist case, which turned on the qualifications of the minister.

Assessment

The Catholic tradition and most Protestant traditions regard Donatism as a separatist movement that broke the unity of the church. Others, by contrast, view it as an effort by a persecuted church to preserve the purity of the faith and the holiness of the church. The twentieth-century historian W. H. C. Frend argued that social and regional resistance by native North Africans to Roman rule was intertwined with the movement, though others contend that this interpretation goes too far. Augustine's justification of coercion has been criticized for having served later churches as a rationale for religious compulsion.