PETILIANUS. — Donatist bishop of Cirta (Constantina); he had been a Catholic catechumen; but it may be excessive to interpret the abreptum (from the Church) of St Augustine (C. Litt. Pet., II, 104, 239) as meaning that he was “baptised” (as a Donatist) against his will.
He was one of the orators of the sect at the conference of Carthage in 411; he had addressed a polemical letter to his priests against the Catholic Church, of which St Augustine first wrote a brief refutation in 400 A.D., then, when he obtained the full text, wrote a second, reproducing Petilianus’s text and rebutting his arguments point by point; finally, when Petilianus replied, he composed (c. 402) the third book of the Contra litteras Petiliani.
Petilianus rejects the charge of “baptising” on the grounds that, he asserts, the Catholics’ baptism is not true baptism; they have no valid sacraments, indeed their prayers are in vain, and they are not even entitled to call themselves Christians, since they persecute the Donatists. To these reproaches, and to the other motives now traditional in the sect, which he takes up with great vehemence, Petilianus adds personal accusations and insinuations against St Augustine, who replied also with the treatise De unico baptismo c. 410 to another work on baptism by Petilianus, in defence of which the grammarian Cresconius had meanwhile intervened.