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Updated: June 16, 2025
The Donatists, who maintained the apostolic succession of Donatus, primate of Carthage, as opposed to Cæcilian, were suppressed in Africa, and a general synod attempted to regulate the faith of the Church. The subject of the nature of the divine Trinity had early given rise to discussion. Of the three main heretical views, that of Arius and his disciples was the most prevalent.
The Donatists pitted again fairly against the orthodox, to cut each other's throats in peace.... no more of Cyril's spying and tale-bearing to Constantinople.... Not such a baddish of fare.... But then-it would take so much trouble! With which words, Orestes went into his third warm bath for that day.
Augustine in controversy with the Donatists to the same effect; viz. that, as being separated from the body of the Church, they were ipso facto cut off from the heritage of Christ. And he quotes St. Cyril's argument drawn from the very title Catholic, which no body or communion of men has ever dared or been able to appropriate, besides one.
He acquired the habit of seeing big, and began to cast off race prejudices and all the petty narrowness of a local spirit. When he became a Christian he did not close himself up, like the Donatists, within the African Church. His dream was that Christ's Empire upon earth should equal the Empire of the Caesars. Still, it is desirable not to fall into error upon this Roman unity.
But the settlement was far from being complete and final. As a consequence of the edict, the whole region of the Aures had been in revolution. The Bishop of Bagai, fortified in his episcopal city and basilica, had stood an actual siege from the Roman troops. Almost everywhere the struggle between Donatists and Catholics still went on below the surface.
A few years ago he had himself been convened before the two Western councils of the Lateran and of Arles, and had there been acquitted of the charges brought against him by the Donatists. If any of the distant orientals had hoped to catch a sight of the bishop of the "Imperial City," they were doomed to disappointment.
Agitators had worked among the crowd to such an extent that a riot was feared. Nevertheless, Augustin, preceded by his bishop, entered the basilica at the hour of service. At the same moment the Donatists were banqueting in their church, which was quite near. Through the walls of their own church the Catholics heard the noise of this carouse.
A furious mob smashed the altar and began to strike the victim with the fragments, and left him for dead on the flags. The Catholics lifted up his body, but the Donatists plucked him out of their hands and flung him from the top of a tower, and he fell on a dunghill which broke the fall. The unhappy man still breathed, and by a miracle he recovered.
Augustin must have still met Arians there, although at this period Arianism was dying out in Africa. What is certain is that orthodox Catholicism was in a very critical state. The Donatists captured its congregations and churches; they were unquestionably in the majority. They raised altar against altar. If Genethlius was the Catholic bishop, the Donatist bishop was Parmenianus.
As much from prudence as from Christian charity, Augustin did not answer. He even prevented those with him from falling upon the insulter. Incidents of this kind happened almost every day. About the same time, the Donatists of Hippo made a great noise over the rebaptizing of another apostate from the Catholic community.
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