DONATISM. — An African schism that takes Donatus (v.). This schism, which for 350 years, from the end of the Diocletian persecution to the Muslim conquest, but with particular intensity between 313 and the Vandal invasion, afflicted the Church of Africa, originated in disagreements concerning the conduct maintained by the clergy during the persecution; and recent investigations tend to restore due importance to the religious element and to doctrinal motives, without denying the causes of a socioeconomic and also ethnopolitical order that modern writers, from Thümmel and Martroye (v. BIBLICA) onward (and also 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 minor importance (such as, for example, the intrinsic efficacy, 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 the unorthodox in the Christian State [V. CARATTERE SACRAMENTALE; CHIESA; ERESIA; SACRAMENTO; SCISMA]), even though they did not arise for the first time or only then, were discussed, deepened, and clarified by theologians such as St. Optatus or the great Augustine in their dispute with the dissidents, who also had controversialists of some importance: one of them was Tyconius, who was led to admissions and reflections that did not remain without influence on St. Augustine himself.
During the persecution, amid the culpable weakness of some and the almost fanatical zeal of others, the bishop of Carthage and primate of Africa, Mensurius, had, together with others, set an example of skilful, perhaps overly skilful, prudence by handing over heretical books instead of the Scriptures. After 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 stood 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 entrusted gold and silver to certain faithful. On the return journey, he died (311). At Carthage it was decided not to await the Numidian bishops for the consecration of the new elect. But, contrary to the expectations of the two aspirants, Botrus and Caelestius, Caecilian succeeded, and he was consecrated by Felix of Abthungi. Then the two disappointed men, a domineering and ambitious widow, Lucilla, already irritated with Caecilian, and the custodians of the treasures joined together: they summoned the Numidians, who, numbering 70 and led by Secundus of Tigisis, declared Caecilian’s consecration null (although he had stated that he was willing to accept a valid one should the nullity of the first be established), since it had been performed by Felix, a traditor; and they also accused Mensurius and Caecilian himself, his deacon, of having been traditores (“the handing over of books and sacred objects to the persecutors”). They therefore elected the candidate favored by Lucilla, Majorinus (312).
Accordingly, after his victory over Maxentius, Constantine, desirous of winning over the Christians in Africa as well, found himself confronted by the schism. The date of one of his letters is uncertain (in Eusebius, Hist. eccl., X, 6, 1-3), in which, addressing Caecilian, he entrusts 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 appealed to the proconsul Anulinus (313), asking him to request the emperor to settle the controversy by appointing judges from Gaul, a country that had not experienced the persecution. Constantine designated the bishops Maternus of Cologne, Reticius of Autun, and Marinus of Arles so that, together with Pope Miltiades, they might hear both parties; the Pope summoned another 15 Italian bishops, and the Council, which met on 2 October 313 in the house of Fausta at the Lateran, decided in favor of Caecilian. Donatus (on the question of the person, V. DONATO), now the bold and enterprising leader of the schismatic party, objected that the judgment had been hasty: Felix of Abthungi’s conduct had not been investigated. Thus, within a short time (the precise succession of events is uncertain because of the state of the sources), there took place the inquiry into Felix, who was acquitted of every false accusation, and the Synod of Arles of 1 August 314, which confirmed the sentence favorable to Caecilian and established, among other things, that traditores, if proved to be such by public acts, were to be deposed; but ordinations performed by them for irreproachable subjects were valid; nor was Baptism administered in the name of the Trinity to be repeated, even when administered by heretics. Not even then did the Donatists yield; whereupon Constantine, having detained Caecilian in Italy (at Brescia) and Donatus, considered having the two contenders deposed and electing a new bishop of Carthage. He therefore sent there two bishops, Eulalius and Eunomius, who instead recognized the conciliar decisions as valid. Donatus returned to Africa, and so did Caecilian. But the Donatists again appealed to the Emperor, asking him to judge in person; Constantine did so, writing to the vicar of Africa, Eumalius, on 10 November 316.
Four years later, the disagreement between the deacon Nundinarius of Cirta (Constantina) and his Donatist bishop, Silvanus, led to a new inquiry, from which it emerged that Silvanus himself, while a subdeacon, had been a traditor together with his bishop Paulus. 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 it all appeared to be traditores. The scandal thus struck the accusers of Caecilian and the entire party, which from then on sought to cast doubt on the authenticity of that text, which, in the form in which it has come down to us, was in any case somewhat suspect even in the judgment of modern scholars (Tillemont, Buonaiuti, and others), and which the Catholics, throughout the long polemic, continually reproached the Donatists with.
Thus the motives for dissent and the hostility increased. By now neither repression nor the toleration Constantine granted in 321, on the eve of the confrontation with Licinius, for evident political reasons, could be of help. Since they were reproached for not being in communion with the Church of Rome, the Donatists, probably among the numerous African colony, found a group of followers: the so-called montenses, who had a bishop, Victor. In Africa they intensified their propaganda, built new churches, and increased the number of their followers, undoubtedly taking advantage of the discontent caused by social, economic, and political factors. Indeed, the Donatists (although for several years no serious measures were taken against them, except perhaps those unknown to us that provoked Donatus’s insults against the prefect Gregory) had by then become the most tenacious opponents of every intervention by political power in religious matters and, consequently, hostile to the civil authorities themselves. The questions they polemically addressed to the Catholics—“what have Christians to do with kings? and bishops with the court?”—echoed the one Donatus had put to the two commissioners, Paulus and Macarius, sent in 347 by the emperor Constans, who was most eager to ensure religious unity in his territories, in order to bring about pacification. But amid acts of violence, this attempt too failed.
Constans may also have been prompted to do so by the fact that, while the Catholic bishop of Carthage, Gratus, was sitting with the orthodox members of the Council of Serdica, the Arian bishops of the conciliabulum of Philippopolis, in their effort to seek adherents in the West, had also approached Donatus, who probably did not remain entirely insensitive to the invitation. In any event, the mission of Paulus and Macarius provoked very serious incidents. The Donatist bishop of Bagai, also named Donatus, appealed to the circumcellions; riots broke out, the troops under the command of the comes Silvester gave themselves over to excesses, and the repression claimed further victims, among them Donatus himself, together with the other Donatist bishop Marculus and others, venerated by the schismatics as martyrs; Donatus was sent into exile. In 349 Bishop Gratus convoked a Council at Carthage, at which he thanked God for having brought the schism to an end. The Council endorsed his condemnation of the double Baptism and declared it unlawful to venerate as martyrs those who had fallen, not for the faith, but through genuine suicidal mania or resistance to authority. The Donatists, however, felt confirmed in their conviction that the true Church was the one opposed by political power, the “Church of the martyrs.” This was the idea repeated in the “passions” of their “martyrs”: the Passio Donati, the Passio Marculi, and the Passio Maximiani et Isaac (the work of Macrobius); it inspired a lost writing by the African Vitellius (cf. Gennadius, De vir. illustr., 4), significantly entitled De eo quod odio sint mundo Dei servi, and a sermon (according to A. Pincherle, the work not 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, matters 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 censured by the Roman Council of 378. But under Julian, who permitted all exiled bishops to return to their own sees, the Donatists too requested and obtained permission to return to theirs. Among them was Parmenian, Donatus’s successor at Carthage and the author of a work in 5 books, later refuted by St. Optatus of Milevis. Thus the literary controversy began. Parmenian did not reply to St. Optatus. But he had to react, first with a refutation (around 373), and then by having one of his own, Tichonius, condemned by a Council, since on various points he implicitly acknowledged the Catholic position.
Tichonius’s dissent, however, was not the only one within the schism. Despite the condemnations of Valentinian (373) and Gratian (377), the schism continued to spread; but groups of dissenters were also taking shape, such as the rogatistae or rogatenses, named after Rogatus, bishop of Cartenna in Caesarean Mauretania, around 370. He reproached his colleagues for their excesses and violence. There were also the smaller groups of the urbanenses in Numidia and the claudianenses or claudianistae in Carthage itself, brought back into unity by Parmenian’s successor, Primian. Against Primian, however, the new schism of the Maximianists, led by the deacon Maximian, broke out. Excommunicated by Primian, Maximian 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 in turn condemned by a council of 310 bishops at Bagai in 394, almost repeating the history of the schism’s own origins.
Meanwhile, after a period of almost complete inactivity, the Catholics had resumed the struggle against the schism with energy, under the leadership of Aurelius of Carthage, at the Council of Hippo in 393. At it St. Augustine delivered a sermon, De fide et Symbolo, and from that moment onward he was never again 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. At the same time, convinced that the best method was persuasion, through exchanges of letters, public debates, and polemical treatises—against the letter in which Parmenian refuted Tichonius, against other letters by the Donatist bishop of Cirta, or Constantina, Petilianus, and so forth—and at the Carthaginian Councils of 397, 401, and 403, he tried by every means to persuade the dissenters to return to Catholic unity. In those years, however, he achieved little; instead, acts of violence multiplied, and at Calama even Bishop Possidius, Augustine’s friend and biographer, was attacked. Thus recourse to civil authority proved indispensable. The Council of 404 asked Honorius that the laws directed against heretics be applied to the Donatists. The legates of the Council, Thasius and Evodius, arriving at Ravenna, found there other African bishops who had gone to seek justice and protection; consequently, on 12 February 405, the Emperor issued a genuine edict of union: the Donatists, simply because they rebaptized, were regarded as heretics like the Manichaeans, and were required to return the churches taken from the Catholics. The Carthaginian Council of 405 thanked the Emperor. In the same year, replying to the grammarian Cresconius, who had defended Petilianus, St. Augustine, regarding the schism as a true heresy, affirmed the duty of Christian kings to serve God “if in their kingdom they prohibit evil, with regard not only to human society but also to divine religion” (C. Cresc., II, 1, 9; III, 51, 56).
The Donatists begged the Emperor to withdraw the edict. After Stilicho’s death, they spread the report that the persecution had been his work and that the decree had been abrogated, and they took heart again. For his part, the Carthaginian Council of 408 sent legates to the court. St. Augustine too wrote to the new powerful minister Olympius, and Honorius renewed the earlier laws, also threatening the death penalty, against which St. Augustine protested. At the beginning of 410, however, the Emperor once again granted toleration, though it was withdrawn in August after the intervention of the new Carthaginian Council. Nevertheless, the difficult political situation also counseled Honorius against the use of violence, and it thus became possible to realize the project that Augustine had long cherished: a plenary meeting of the episcopates of the two parties, at which the dissenters could debate and, through persuasion, be brought back to unity—at least those who were acting in good faith.
Thus took place the Carthaginian “Conference” (Collatio) of June 411, attended by 279 Donatist bishops and 286 Catholics, with seven speakers for each side. When, after lengthy discussions of procedural and preliminary matters, the substance of the case was addressed, Augustine, who raised the question of the Maximianists at the appropriate moment, had the satisfaction of hearing Primian repeat the Catholic theses. On 26 June, the comes Marcellinus delivered his judgment in favor of the Catholics. Honorius confirmed it on 30 January 412, punishing the Donatists with fines, confiscation of property, and exile. With renewed vigor, St. Augustine sought to convince them, publishing documents, the proceedings of the conference, and new appeals; these were joined by an appeal from a council of the Numidian bishops. After Marcellinus was beheaded, the Donatists recovered somewhat, but they soon realized that nothing had changed in their regard. Subjected to increasingly 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 gatherings under pain of death—while Augustine’s doctrine concerning the conduct to be adopted toward them was also taking increasingly definite shape, with the application of compelle intrare (Lc. 14, 23), many returned to the Catholic Church, while others took refuge in clandestinity; but there was no shortage of examples either of fanaticism or of violence.
Così, il prete Donato di Mutugenna, arrestato, si gettò in un pozzo e, salvato, voleva morire ad ogni costo. Un prete cattolico, Restituto, fu ucciso; ad un altro, Innocenzo, venne cavato un occhio e mozzato un dito; il vescovo Rogato, donatista poi convertito, ebbe strappata la lingua. Emerito, uno degli oratori donatisti nella Conferenza del 411, fu incontrato a Cesarea da Agostino, che lo condusse alla chiesa e lo invitò a una discussione, durante la quale il donatista si mantenne pertinacemente silenzioso; e Gaudenzi, il vescovo di Thamugadi, fuggito dalla sua sede, ma ritornatovi poi, voleva bruciare la chiesa; a lui Agostino diresse l'ultimo dei suoi grandi trattati contro i donatisti, nel 420.
Caduta l'Africa settentrionale in potere dei Vandali, questi, ariani, perseguitarono allo stesso modo cattolici e donatisti. Giustiniano, riconquistata l'Africa, si preoccupò di eliminare l'arianesimo, ma non dimenticò i donatisti, passati tuttavia in seconda linea, e ancor più durante la controversia dei Tre Capitoli. Ma essi sono menzionati ancora più d'una volta nell'epistolario di s. Gregorio Magno, che si rivolse anche all'imperatore Maurizio. Sopravvissero dunque fino alla conquista musulmana.
Probabilmente la ragione di questa persistenza dello scisma va cercata non solo nelle regioni di carattere religioso e politico-sociale accennate, bensì anche nel fatto ch'esso, a quanto pare, aveva il maggior numero di aderenti, o, per lo meno, i più convinti e tenaci, nelle campagne. L'elevato numero delle sedi episcopali donatiste è conforme alle tradizioni della Chiesa africana e in proporzione con quello dei vescovati cattolici; ma, se furono molti i luoghi ove stavano l'uno accanto all'altro due vescovi (e il donatista, come s'è detto, era riuscito a costruirsi una chiesa), nella Conferenza del 411 vi sono vescovi cattolici in residenza che non hanno il donatista, e viceversa; e là dove avevano pochi seguaci, gli scismatici organizzarono invece parrocchie, così rurali come urbane.
Né quanto alla gerarchia né quanto agli edifici di culto è dato riscontrare differenze tra donatisti e cattolici; chiese donatiste sono difficilmente identificabili (è certamente tale quella scoperta a Béman, Ala miliaria, presso l'area cemeteriale con il sepolcro della «martire» a Roffa, sorella di Onorato vescovo di Aquae Sirenes e di altri due vescovi e tre sacerdoti, nonché il complesso di edifici, tra cui la dimora del vescovo Optato, scoperto di recente a Timgad, l'antica Thamugadi, nel cosiddetto «castello occidentale»). Anche nell'epigrafia, il carattere donatista, più evidente là dove vi sono accenni alla pretesa di costituire la chiesa dei «santi» e dei «martiri», non appare sempre chiaro né da potersi desumere senz'altro da fornole, assai frequenti, quali Deo laudes e bonis bene.
Nella liturgia, vi fu invece almeno una differenza, dovuta appunto al carattere strettamente conservatore dello scisma: i donatisti, come appare da s. Agostino e da un discusso sermone cui s'è accennato, non accolsero l'Epifania.
sgg. e 77 (1905), p. 3 sgg.; F. Martroye e H. Leclercq, s. V. in DACL, IV, coll. 1457-87; F. Martroye, Circoncellions, ibid., III, coll. 1692-1710; P. Monceaux, Histoire littéraire de l'Afrique chrétienne, IV-VII, Parigi 1912-23; G. Barville, s. V. in DThC, IV, coll. 1701-28 (cf. id., Donat. ibid., II, coll. 1687-1692); O. Vannies, Les circoncellions, in Revue africaine, 1926, pp. 13-28; E. Buonaudi, Il cristianesimo nell'Africa romana, Bari 1928, pp. 292-311, 322-40, 381-85; A. Fincherle, Un sermone donatista attribuito a s. Ottato, in Bilychmi, 12 (1923), p. 134; id., L'arianesimo e la chiesa africana nel IV sec., ibid., 14 (1925); id., L'ecclesiologia nella controversia donatista, in Ricerche religiose, 1 (1925), pp. 35-55; id., Noterelle ottomanie, ibid., 3 (1927), pp. 440-45; id., Due postille sul d., ibid., 23 (1927), pp. 160-64; vari capitoli di J.-R. Palanque, J. Zeiller e P. De Labriolle, in Fliche-Martin-Fruta, II, p. 461; III, pp. 43-57, 209-20; IV, pp. 67-77. - Per la liturgia, anche: B. Botte, Les origines de la Noël et de l'Epiphanie (Textes et études liturgiques), 1), Lovanio 1932; J. Leclercq, Aux origines du cycle de Noël, in Ephémères liturgiques, 9 (1946), p. 22; per l'archeologia, anche: E. Albertini, in Comptes rendus Acad. Inscript., 1939, p. 100; L. Leschi, ibid., 1947. Alberto Fincherle