DONATISTS, a sect in the 3d century, and till the Vandal invasion a formidable opponent of the Roman Church in the Mediter ranean provinces of Africa. The sect was not heretical, but was the first to separate from the Church on the ground of discipline. The sect arose out of dissensions at Carthage over the question of the readmission to church fellow ship of those persons who in Diocletian's perse cution had denied the faith either explicitly or implicitly by giving up to the persecutors the Christian sacred books. On that point they were extreme rigorists, as also in that a priest or deacon could not validly administer baptism if he were himself in a state of sin. When Mansurius was consecrated bishop of Carthage the faction headed by one Donatus repudiated him as a traditor — one who had given up the sacred books; and when after his death (311) Cmcilian became bishop of Carthage Nu midian bishops refused to have communion with him, as one that was consecrated by a traditor. They set up a rival bishop, Majorinus, and the schism grew steadily wider, being specially favored by the peasants. The schismatics were condemned by Melchiades, the reigning Pope, with three bishops of Gaul, in 313. This judg ment was confirmed the next year by the Council of Arles, and in 316 by the Council of Milan, convoked under the protection of the Emperor Constantine. But the Donatists paid no heed
and in 330 a council was held by 270 Donatist bishops, who denounced their opponents as here tics. The peace not only of the Church but of the civil state was seriously compromised by uprisings of the fanatical multitude against the Roman Catholics throughout northern Africa, to repress which the severe laws enacted by the emperors were ineffective. Saint Augustine, i bishop of Hippo from 400 to his death in 430, labored zealously to restore peace to the Church. In 411 a conference with 279 of their bishops was held at Carthage at which Saint Augustine took a leading part, judgment being awarded by the imperial representative in favor of the Roman position. The sect early began to split up into independent smaller sects, they were de prived of civil rights in 414 and rigorously per secuted; they are little heard of after the Vandal invasion in 429, disappearing finally two cen turies later before the Saracenic invasion of North Africa. Consult the works of Saint Au gustine; Bright, The Age of the Fathers' (London 1903) ; Harnack, 'Der Ursprung des Donatismus' (Freiburg 1883) ; of Dogma' (English trans., Boston 1894-1900); Sparrow Simpson, (St. Augustine and African Church Divisions' (New York 1910).