low th^ oonvictknis in fidth ftnd w«fsli]|^it1 time exhorting the Catholics to patieooe ed don. This somewhat subdued, bat did ■! alj strife.
Under the successor of Constantliie, Cwii^ib^i (kred worse again. We read of a bitftle «f in which the Donatists were deftotad, aad «f dItaKL years of tumult and bloodshed. In subjected to severe measures.
When Julian the Apostate came intopovcTH* perOT, the Donatists were mudb. pleased thst QM^ ity should, under a pagan rulers oeaae to fae^te inant reli^n of the state. Thus, in 361, ther ed once more their full freedoHi in rel^giflei i and rose to the highest degree of emiaeaee t^a^ time was attained by them. Tbey took of their own churches again wxtii joj; RfHotBg^ edifices, and generally cleansing the waDs aaiilm Towards the close of the 4th centoiy Africa ni m- ered with theur churches, and had taai haattiUm tist bishops.
To be thus placed on a level merely wifli religions and all sects was, however, after all, «if t negative comfort. It by no means a4|uited & fift* culties of the Donatists with the dmreh, aad succeeding emperors their case again becsoe vea Maxlmus, a deacon, and Primianns, a bisbop ^Ca- thage, coming into conflict with ea<^ od^ croki parties, out of which grew sects takii^ tbeff aa the Maxmianuis and the Primianists. Other £^ and difficulties followed, and there grew up mboc^^ more thoughtful and reflecting of the Attiaa bttLfi a desire to have the breach healed. Season aad. ok disputation also now more and more tocdi tbe ^aet d violence. A powerftil influence toward recamS^ began to be exerted about 396 by Angnstioe, iRtfre- byter, and afterwards bishop oif Hippo, in KiBi&. He wrote, preached, and labored privaitdy aatf p^&- ly with varied, but still generally increasing mamv
From this time forward the canae of the Daitio began gradually to decline. After a three-dijv'tf^ tration at Carthage in 411, attended by 286 OMx and 279 Donatist bishops, where the old isns f« rediscussed, the Donatists again stood defeatei Strs- gent civil laws were also again paased agiiast tbea and in 415 they were forbidden, on pain d it"^ ^ hold religious assemblies. Even Augustine, wiohai depended on calm and earnest dlscnssioD beloR, i^ advocated force, appealing to Luke xiv, 28— "ccopd them to come in" — and exhorted the haitadagoSee of the law to proceed in the infliction of the appoictr^ penalties, saying that it was ^'rnuch better that nse should perish by their own fires than tbit the wbA body should bum in the everlasting flames of Gekt- na, through the desert of their impious disKoaoi' (Waddington, Bialory of the C^trtk, p IM). i »^ flame of violent desperation broke out A bobtf. Gaudentius, even vindicated suicide, rsfeningiS/^ tiflcation to 2 Mace xiv ; and threatened "thttiTia attempt were made to deprive him of his dmch^ force, he would bum himself, with his canfffff^f^ ^ it" In 428, when Africa was conquered hyibiAm Vandals, the Donatists sullbred no penecatioB &« them except as adherents to the NieeiK Creed; aa^ the great and long controversiy was now TirtstDr«e^ ed by the general destraction of the Qinzch is A&b through that invasion. Tet the Donatists contiB»^ to survive as a distinct par^ down to the axA ^ tury.
As may be seen firom our sketch, the DooBti^ ^^ not heretical in any essential articles of luth, narrm they immoral in life, except as their fioiiiclaB^ many into excesses, yet these were always disapi'^ by tJto better class. Many of the chargtf otaBf^ rality made against them are regarded as imibini^ or at least as Idghly exaggerated. The schism bega in differences of view in regard to discipline, ud^
DONATISTS
863
DOM^TE
naed and widened continnally more and more by and severe action on the part of the Church and , and growing fiinaticism, separatistic pride, and on on the part of the Donatists. A rich lesson le ChuTcli tbroogh all ages lies in the history of remarkable schism and the subsequent oontro-
* the above account of the Donatists, written by ate lamented Dr. Harbaugh, we append a few no- of viewB held with regard to them by writers who fy their position, more or less fully, from the non- fctical point of view.
henkel, in 'H.^ttm^b Beal-Encjfelopddie (art, Kirche^ 568), speaks of Donatism as an attempt (similar tat of the Novatians) to break the hard diell of ez- al ecclesiasticism, and to bring out again, from dead mass of simply baptized Christians, the pure irch of the regenerate; to substitute, in a word. Christian communion for an ecclesiastical corpo- on. ^' An^pistine, in opposing the Donatists, went lar (^Epist. clxi, 5) as to call separation from the scopal Church a crime, and to say that no separ»> could be saved." The question turned (Schenkel ceeds), in Ikct, upon that of Church and State. i Donatists saw that the unity and freedom of the urch were imperilled by its union with the State, I they declared against the State-Church doctrine, n (under Constantino and his successors) a new ng. Angostine not only adopted the State-Church )ory, but poshed it to its legitimate consequence, it the State is bound to put down separatists by ce. See Auocstike. It is, perhaps, not too much say that the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical system tts on Augustine's doctrine of the Church as set th in his writings against the Donatists. The Donatist doctrine was that the true Church is mposed only of pure Christians ; Augustine, on the ber hand, held that the *^ Church consists of the sum tal of all the baptized, and that the ideal sanctity of e Church is not impaired by impure elements exter- My connected with it He nevertheless advocated a ^rous exercise of Church discipline" (Hagenbach, istory of Doctrines, § 185). Keander maintains that >th the Donatists and their opponents confounded the tsible with the invisible Church, and placed the pred- ates of purity and holiness in the former. The Kmatists made catholicity to depend upon purity; ngustine made purity depend upon catholicity. The k>natists said, ** Whoever is a true Christian is to us