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And then, too, it was a question of the unity of the Church which involved, as we cannot too often repeat, the interest of the Empire and civilization. Against so persuasive a power the Donatists opposed a conspiracy of silence. Their bishops forbade the people to read what Augustin wrote. They did more they concealed their own libels so that it was impossible to reply to them.
Augustine seems, at least at first sight, virtually to urge it against us in his controversy with the Donatists, whom he represents as condemned, simply because separate from the "orbis terrarum," and styles the point in question "quæstio facillima," and calls on individual Donatists to decide it by their private judgment.
What finally decided him that the Ultramontane version of religion was the true one, was the famous Securus judicat orbis terrarum of Augustine. The verdict of the world is against you, he had urged against the Donatists, and what was conclusive against them appeared to be conclusive against Anglicans, who could only appeal for support to their own kith and kindred.
Proscribed by the civil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire, the Donatists still maintained in some provinces, particularly in Numidia, their superior numbers; and four hundred bishops acknowledged the jurisdiction of their primate. But the invincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed on its own vitals: and the bosom of their schismatical church was torn by intestine divisions.
I read it, and did not see much in it. The Donatist controversy was known to me for some years, as I have instanced above. The case was not parallel to that of the Anglican Church. St. Augustine in Africa wrote against the Donatists in Africa. They were a furious party who made a schism within the African Church, and not beyond its limits.
A strong party might dispute the sentence, or even get up rival councils to reverse it. The African Donatists had given Constantine trouble enough of this sort some years before; and now that the Arians were following their example, it was evident that every local quarrel would have an excellent chance of becoming a general controversy.
At the request of the Donatists themselves, he had an argument with one of their priests, a certain Fortunatus, in the baths of Sossius at Hippo. He reduced this man to silence and to flight. Not in the least discouraged were the Manichees: they sent another priest. If the enemies of the Church shewed themselves stubborn, Augustin's own congregation were singularly turbulent, hard to manage.
Continually, through the commentaries on the Psalms, like comparisons rise to the surface parables suited to stir the imagination of Africans. A thousand details borrowed from local habits and daily life enliven the exegesis of the Bishop of Hippo. The mules and horses that buck when one is trying to cure them, are his symbol for the recalcitrant Donatists.
With whatever troubles of mind, he strove to be a loyal and faithful Anglican long after that. He spoke as an Anglican. He fought for Anglicanism. The theory, as he says, may have gone by the board, in the intellectual storms raised by the histories of the Monophysites and Donatists.
It was as impossible to convert the Barbarians as it had been to convert the Donatists. Force was the only resource against force. Then in despair the man of God turned once more to Caesar. The monk appealed to the soldier. He charged Boniface, Count of Africa, to save Rome and the Church.
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