PETILIANO. - Donatist bishop of Cirta (Constantina); he was a Catholic catechumen; but it is perhaps excessive to interpret the abreptum (from the Church) of s. Agostino (C. litt. Pet., II, 104, 239) as meaning “baptized (as a Donatist) against his will.”
He was one of the sect’s speakers at the Conference of Carthage in 411; he had addressed to his presbyters a polemical letter against the Catholic Church, of which s. Agostino first composed a brief refutation, about 400, then, having obtained the full text, wrote a second, reproducing P.’s text and rebutting his observations point by point; finally, when P. replied, he composed (about 402) the third of the books Contra listeras Petiliani.
P. rejects the accusation of “rebaptizing,” since, he claims, that of the Catholics is not true Baptism; they do not possess valid Sacraments, even their prayers are vain; indeed, they do not even have the right to call themselves Christians, because they persecute the Donatists. To these reproaches, and to the other motives by then traditional in the sect, which he takes up again with great virulence, P. adds personal accusations and insinuations against s. Agostino, who also replied with the short treatise De unico baptismo, about 410, to another writing on Baptism by P., in whose defence the grammarian Cresconio had meanwhile intervened.