Donatism

DONATISM. - An African schism that takes its name from the bishop Donatus (v.). This schism, which for 350 years, from the end of the Diocletianic persecution to the Muslim conquest, but with particular intensity between 313 and the Vandal invasion, afflicted the Church of Africa, originated from disagreements concerning the conduct of the clergy during the persecution; and recent investigations tend to restore due importance to the religious element and to doctrinal motives, without however disregarding the causes of an economic-social and also ethnic-political order, which modern writers, from Thümmel and Martroye (v. bibl.) onward (and still F. Oertel, in Cambridge Ancient History, XII, Cambridge 1939, p. 280) have brought to light. In the course of this crisis, in fact, the African Church was led to abandon certain of its particular positions and views, in order to accept the doctrine and practice of Rome; and points of far from slight importance (such as, for example, the efficacy in itself, ex opere operato, of the Sacraments, the very conception of the Church, the distinction between heresy and schism, the relations between the Church and temporal authority and the juridical position of non-orthodox persons in the Christian State [v. CARATTERE SACRAMENTALE; CHIESA; ERESIA; SACRAMENTO; SCISMA]), even if they did not present themselves for the first time nor only then, were discussed, examined in depth and clarified by theologians such as St. Optatus or the great Augustine, in the dispute with the dissidents, who also had controversialists of some worth: one of whom, Ticonius, set out toward admissions and reflections that did not remain without influence on St. Augustine himself.

During the persecution, between the culpable weakness of some and the almost fanatical zeal of others, the bishop of Carthage and primate of Africa, Mensurius, had, with others, given an example of skilful, perhaps too skilful, prudence, by handing over heretical books instead of the Scriptures. Once the persecution had ceased through the action of Maxentius, Mensurius, who condemned excesses of zeal, was in turn criticized by the rigorists and especially by the Numidian bishops, at whose head was Secundus of Tigisis. Meanwhile, having refused to hand over to the authorities the deacon Felix, who had offended Maxentius, Mensurius was summoned to Rome, and before departing he entrusted gold and silver to certain of the faithful. On the return journey, he died (311). At Carthage it was decided not to wait for the Numidian bishops for the consecration of the newly elected bishop. But, against the expectations of the two aspirants Botrus and Caelestius, Caecilian succeeded, and he was consecrated by Felix of Abthugni. Then the two disappointed men, a domineering and ambitious widow, Lucilla, already irritated with Caecilian, and the depositaries of the treasures, joined together: they summoned the Numidians, who, seventy in number, under Secundus of Tigisis, considered the consecration of Caecilian null (though he had declared himself willing to accept a valid one, should the nullity of the first prove certain) inasmuch as it was performed by Felix, a traditor; and they accused of traditio ("handing over of books and sacred objects to the persecutors") also Mensurius and Caecilian himself, his deacon. Then they elected the candidate pleasing to Lucilla, Majorinus (312).

Accordingly, after his victory over Maxentius, Constantine, eager to win over the Christians also in Africa, found himself faced with the schism. The date is uncertain of a letter of his (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X, 6, 1-3) in which, addressing Caecilian, he charges him with distributing the subsidies granted to the Churches of Africa and assures him of the support of the authorities with regard to the dissidents. For their part these turned to the proconsul Anulinus (313), beseeching through him the emperor to settle the controversy, by appointing as judges men from Gaul, a country that had not known the persecution. Constantine designated the bishops Maternus of Cologne, Reticius of Autun and Marinus of Arles, so that, in union with Pope Miltiades, they might hear the two parties; the Pope convoked fifteen other Italian bishops and the Council, assembled on 2 October 313 in the house of Fausta at the Lateran, decided in favour of Caecilian. Donatus (on the question of the person, v. DONATO), now the bold and enterprising head of the schismatic party, objected that the judgment had been hasty: the conduct of Felix of Abthugni had not been investigated. There followed therefore within a short space of time (the precise succession of events is uncertain, given the state of the sources) the inquiry concerning Felix, absolved of every calumnious accusation, and the Synod of Arles of 1 August 314, which confirmed the sentence favourable to Caecilian and established, among other things, that: traditors, proven such by public acts, were to be deposed; but the ordinations performed by them, for blameless subjects, were valid; nor was Baptism administered in the name of the Trinity to be repeated, even if by heretics. Even then the Donatists did not yield; wherefore Constantine, having detained in Italy Caecilian (at Brescia) and Donatus, thought of having a new bishop of Carthage elected, considering the two contenders deposed. He therefore sent there two bishops, Eulalius and Eunomius, who instead recognized the conciliar sentences as valid. Donatus returned to Africa; and so did Caecilian. But the Donatists again turned to the Emperor, that he might judge in person: which Constantine did, writing to the vicar of Africa Eumalius, on 10 November 316.

Four years later, the quarrel between the deacon Nundinarius of Cirta (Constantine) and his Donatist bishop, Silvanus, led to a new inquiry, from which it emerged that Silvanus himself, as subdeacon, had been a traditor together with his bishop Paul. Among the documents circulated by Nundinarius was also the record of a meeting of bishops, held at Cirta on 13 March 305, under the presidency of Secundus of Tigisis: from which they all appeared as traditors. The scandal thus struck the accusers of Caecilian, and the whole party, which from then on sought to call into doubt the authenticity of that text, moreover, in the form in which it has come down to us, somewhat suspect even in the judgment of moderns (Tillemont, Buonaiuti and others), which the Catholics, in the long polemic, continually cast in the teeth of the Donatists.

Thus the motives of dissent and the rancour grew. By now neither repression could avail, nor the tolerance that Constantine granted in 321, on the eve of the clash with Licinius, for evident political reasons. Since they were reproached with not being in communion with the Church of Rome, the Donatists found, in all probability among the numerous African colony, a group of followers: the so-called montenses, who had a bishop, Victor. In Africa, they intensified their propaganda, built new churches, increased the number of their followers, undoubtedly taking advantage of the discontent due to social, economic and political causes. In fact, the Donatists (although for some years no grave measures were taken against them, except perhaps those, unknown to us, which drew upon the prefect Gregory the insults of Donatus) had by now become most tenacious opponents of any intervention of political power in religious matters and, consequently, hostile to the civil authorities themselves. The questions, which they polemically addressed to the Catholics: "what have Christians to do with kings? and bishops with the court?" echoed that raised by Donatus to the two commissioners, Paul and Macarius, sent in 347 by the emperor Constans, most solicitous for religious unity in his territories, in order to reach a pacification. But, amid acts of violence, this attempt too failed.

Constans may also have been induced to do this by the fact that, while the Catholic bishop of Carthage, Gratus, was sitting with the orthodox at the Council of Serdica, the Arian bishops of the conventicle of Philippopolis, in their effort to seek adherents in the West, had also turned to Donatus, who probably was not entirely insensitive to the invitation. In any case, the mission of Paul and Macarius provoked very serious incidents. The Donatist bishop of Bagai, also named Donatus, turned to the Circumcellions; riots broke out, the troops under the command of the comes Silvester indulged in excesses, and the repression claimed further victims, among them Donatus himself, along with the other Donatist bishop Marculus and others, venerated by the schismatics as martyrs; Donatus was sent into exile. In 349 the bishop Gratus convened a Council at Carthage, in which he thanked God for having put an end to the schism. The Council adopted his condemnation of double Baptism, and declared it unlawful to venerate as martyrs those who had fallen, not for the faith, but out of sheer suicidal madness or in resistance to authority. But the Donatists felt confirmed in their idea that the true Church was the one opposed by political power, the "Church of the martyrs." And this idea was repeated in the "passions" of their "martyrs": the Passio Donati, the Passio Marculi, the Passio Maximiani et Isaac (the work of Macrobius); it inspired a lost writing by the African Vitellius (cf. Gennadius, De vir. illustr., 4) with the significant title De eo quod odio sint mundo Dei servi, and a sermon (according to A. Pincherle, not the work of St. Optatus of Milevis, but of a Donatist, perhaps Optatus, schismatic bishop of Thamugadi) which is still found in Gaudentius (cf. Augustine, C. Gaud., I, 5, 6; 20, 22; 26, 29 ff.).

Under Constantius, things did not change, and the African episcopate continued to enjoy imperial protection, while Restitutus of Carthage presided over the Council of Rimini and signed that profession of faith for which he was later deplored by the Roman Council of 378. But with Julian, who permitted all exiled bishops to return to their sees, the Donatists too asked and obtained permission to return to theirs: among them Parmenian, the successor of Donatus at Carthage and author of a work in 5 books, later refuted by St. Optatus of Milevis. Thus began the literary controversy. Parmenian did not reply to St. Optatus. But he had to react, first with a refutation (around 373), then by having him condemned by a Council, against one of his own, Tyconius, who on various points implicitly conceded that the Catholics were right.

But that of Tyconius was not the only dissent within Donatism. Despite the condemnations of Valentinian (373) and Gratian (377), the schism continued to spread; but groups of dissidents were also forming, such as that of the rogatists or rogatenesians, from Rogatus bishop of Cartenna, in Caesarian Mauretania, around 370, who reproached his colleagues for their excesses and violence, and the lesser ones of the urbanenses in Numidia, and of the claudianenses or claudianists in Carthage itself, brought back to unity by Parmenian's successor, Primian, against whom nevertheless the new schism of the Maximianists, of the deacon Maximian, broke out. The latter, excommunicated by Primian, succeeded in having him condemned by a council of 43 bishops at Carthage and then deposed by one of nearly 100, at Cebarsussi in Byzacena; but he was condemned in turn by a council of 310 bishops at Bagai in 394, almost renewing the history of the origins of Donatism itself.

Meanwhile, after a period of almost inactivity, the struggle against the schism had been energetically resumed by the Catholics, under the leadership of Aurelius of Carthage, at the Council of Hippo of 393. There St. Augustine delivered a sermon, De fide et Symbolo, and from this moment on he was never to abandon the struggle. To the propaganda of the Donatists, who repeated their accusations in popular songs and hymns, he opposed a composition of the same kind, the Psalmus abecedarius contra partem Donati; and at the same time, convinced that the best method to follow was that of persuasion, through exchanges of letters, public discussions, polemical treatises (against the letter in which Parmenian refuted Tyconius, against other letters of the Donatist bishop of Cirta or Constantina, Petilian, etc.) and at the Carthaginian Councils of the years 397, 401 and 403, he attempted in every way to persuade the dissidents to return to Catholic unity. But in those years, with scant result; and instead violence multiplied, and at Calama it struck the bishop Possidius himself, the friend and biographer of Augustine. So recourse to the civil authority proved indispensable. The Council of 404 asked Honorius that the laws against heretics be applied to the Donatists. The legates of the Council, Theasius and Evodius, having arrived at Ravenna, found there other African bishops who had come to ask for justice and protection; whereupon on 12 February 405 the Emperor issued a veritable edict of union: the Donatists, by the mere fact of rebaptizing, were considered heretics like the Manichaeans, and had to restore the churches taken from the Catholics. The Carthaginian Council of 405 thanked the Emperor. In the same year, replying to the grammarian Crescentius who had taken up the defense of Petilian, St. Augustine, considering Donatism a true heresy, affirmed the duty, for Christian kings, to serve God "if in their kingdom they prohibit evil, with regard not only to human society, but also to the divine religion" (C. Cresc., II, 1, 9; III, 51, 56).

The Donatists begged the Emperor to withdraw the edict. After the death of Stilicho, they spread the rumor that the persecution was his work and that the decree had been abrogated, and they took heart again. For its part, the Carthaginian Council of 408 sent legates to the court. St. Augustine also wrote to the new powerful minister Olympius, and Honorius reaffirmed the previous laws, even threatening the death penalty, against which St. Augustine protested. But at the beginning of 410 the Emperor again granted toleration, which was however withdrawn in August, after an intervention by the new Carthaginian Council. Nevertheless the difficult political situation also discouraged Honorius from violence, and so it was possible to realize the project, long cherished by Augustine, of a plenary assembly of the episcopates of the two parties, in which it would be possible to discuss with the dissidents and, by persuasion, bring them back to unity: at least those of good faith.

Thus took place that Carthaginian "Conference" (Collatio) of June 411, at which 279 Donatist bishops and 286 Catholic bishops took part, and 7 speakers spoke for each side. When, after long discussions on points of procedure or preliminaries, they came to treat the substance, Augustine, who raised at the opportune moment the question of the Maximianists, had the satisfaction of hearing Primian repeat the Catholic theses. On 26 June, the comes Marcellinus pronounced his sentence, favorable to the Catholics. Honorius confirmed it on 30 January 412, punishing the Donatists with fines, confiscation of property, and exile. St. Augustine, with renewed vigor, sought to convince them, publishing documents, the acts of the conference, new appeals; to which was joined that of a council of the Numidian bishops. After the beheading of Marcellinus, the Donatists revived somewhat, but soon realized that nothing had changed with regard to them. Subjected to ever more severe penalties (in 414 they were struck with perpetual infamy, which deprived them of civil rights; in 428 Valentinian III and Theodosius II prohibited all their assemblies under penalty of death), while also the Augustinian doctrine concerning the conduct to be observed toward them was becoming ever more clearly formulated, with the application of the compelle intrare (Lk. 14, 23), several returned to the Catholic Church, others took refuge in clandestinity; but examples were not lacking either of fanaticism or of violence.

Thus the priest Donatus of Mutugenna, having been arrested, threw himself into a well and, once rescued, wanted to die at any cost. A Catholic priest, Restitutus, was killed; another, Innocentius, had an eye gouged out and a finger cut off; the bishop Rogatus, a Donatist later converted, had his tongue torn out. Emeritus, one of the Donatist spokesmen at the Conference of 411, was encountered at Caesarea by Augustine, who led him to the church and invited him to a discussion, during which the Donatist kept obstinately silent; and Gaudentius, the bishop of Thamugadi, who had fled from his see but later returned to it, wanted to burn the church; to him Augustine addressed the last of his great treatises against the Donatists, in 420.

When North Africa fell into the power of the Vandals, these, being Arians, persecuted Catholics and Donatists alike. Justinian, having reconquered Africa, took care to eliminate Arianism, but did not forget the Donatists, who had nevertheless passed into second place, and even more so during the controversy of the Three Chapters. But they are still mentioned more than once in the epistolary of St. Gregory the Great, who also addressed the emperor Maurice. They thus survived until the Muslim conquest.

The reason for this persistence of the schism is probably to be sought not only in the religious and politico-social conditions mentioned above, but also in the fact that it apparently had the greatest number of adherents, or at least the most convinced and tenacious ones, in the countryside. The high number of Donatist episcopal sees conforms to the traditions of the African Church and is in proportion to that of the Catholic bishoprics; but, while there were many places where two bishops stood side by side (and the Donatist, as has been said, had managed to build himself a church), at the Conference of 411 there are Catholic bishops in residence who do not have a Donatist counterpart, and vice versa; and where they had few followers, the schismatics instead organized parishes, both rural and urban.

Neither as regards the hierarchy nor as regards the buildings of worship is it possible to find differences between Donatists and Catholics; Donatist churches are difficult to identify (certainly such is the one discovered at Béman, Ala miliaria, near the cemetery area with the tomb of the "martyr" at Roffa, sister of Honoratus bishop of Aquae Sirenes and of two other bishops and three priests, as well as the complex of buildings, among them the residence of bishop Optatus, recently discovered at Timgad, ancient Thamugadi, in the so-called "western fortress"). Also in epigraphy, the Donatist character, more evident where there are allusions to the claim of constituting the church of the "saints" and of the "martyrs," does not always appear clear nor can it be inferred without hesitation from formulae, quite frequent, such as Deo laudes and bonis bene.

In the liturgy, however, there was at least one difference, due precisely to the strictly conservative character of the schism: the Donatists, as appears from St. Augustine and from a disputed sermon that has been mentioned, did not accept the Epiphany.

Alberto Fincherle