Donatism (311-411)

Where the hatred of the traditores came from

To understand Donatism, one must go back to the persecution of Diocletian. The first edict, posted on 24 February 303, orders churches to be destroyed and the Holy Books to be handed over to be burned; the fourth edict, in 304, requires everyone to sacrifice to the idols on pain of death.^[4] Those who handed over the Scriptures received a name that would poison Africa for a century: traditores, "those who handed over" — the word soon also designated those who handed over the sacred vessels, and even their fellow Christians.^[5]

In Africa, the persecution was terrible until the abdication of Maximian in 305: in Numidia, the governor Florus made himself infamous by his cruelty, and Saint Optatus would later sum up that, of all the Christians in the land, "some were confessors, others martyrs, others fell, and only those who hid themselves escaped."^[6] But heroism rubbed shoulders with exaltation: a century after Tertullian — who had taught that fleeing persecution is not permitted —, some went so far as to hand themselves over to the magistrates to die as martyrs, with motives that were not always pure.^[7] The bishop of Carthage, Mensurius, took the line of prudence: he forbade honouring as martyrs those who had denounced themselves or who boasted of possessing Scriptures they would not hand over — "criminals and debtors to the state," he writes, who sought by this means to rid themselves of a burdensome life, to wipe out the memory of their faults, or at least to enjoy in prison the comforts that Christian charity brought there.^[8] He himself hid his church's Holy Books in his own house and substituted heretical writings, which the agents seized without asking for more; informed of the trick, the proconsul refused to have the bishop's house searched.^[9]

His colleague Secundus of Tigisis, primate of Numidia, answered him without blaming him, but praising with pointed insistence the martyrs of his province who had been tortured and put to death for refusing to hand over the Scriptures.

"I am a Christian and a bishop, not a traditor." — Secundus of Tigisis, reply to the agents who came to search^[10]

The tension was already there, between Carthaginian prudence and Numidian strictness — and it was about to explode at the first vacancy of the see of Carthage.

The Cirta inquiry: consecrators themselves compromised

We know in detail how the searches were carried out, because the official record of an inquiry conducted at Cirta — the future Constantine, in Numidia — has been preserved. On 19 May 303, the curator Munatius Felix, perpetual flamen, presents himself with his officers at the bishop's house: the clerics declare that the Scriptures are not there but in the hands of the readers, and the book cupboard proves empty; they refuse to give the names — "known to the notaries" — but hand over the inventory of all the church's furnishings: two gold chalices, six of silver, six silver cruets, a silver dish, seven silver lamps, two candlesticks, eleven bronze lamps with chains, eighty-two women's tunics, twenty-eight veils, and even thirteen pairs of men's boots.^[11] Then the readers' houses are visited one by one: Eugenius hands over four volumes, Felix the mosaic-worker five, Victorinus eight, the grammarian Victor two codices — all bound codices, the historian notes, and not scrolls, which had gone out of fashion a century earlier.^[12]

In 305, the persecution eases and fourteen bishops or more are able to gather at Cirta to give a successor to the late bishop Paul. Secundus presides as primate and, in his zeal, undertakes to examine his colleagues' conduct before the ordination. The scene, whose record has come down to us through Saint Augustine, is staggering: to Donatus of Mascula — "they say you were a traditor" —, then to Marinus, to Donatus of Calama ("I handed over books of medicine"), to Victor of Rusicade ("it was the curator Valentinus who forced me to throw the four Gospels into the fire; forgive me this fault"), Secundus each time motions to stand aside.^[13] Then comes Purpurius of Limata, accused of having killed his sister's two sons at Milevis: "Do you think you can frighten me like the others? he bursts out. And you, what did you do when the curator wanted to make you hand over the Scriptures? How did you get away unharmed, unless you gave something? They surely did not let you go for nothing! As for me, I killed and I kill those who are against me."^[14] A nephew of Secundus then intervenes: "Do you hear what they say about you? He is ready to withdraw and make schism, and all those you accuse along with him; they are capable of driving you out and condemning you, and you alone will then be the heretic." Secundus, with no reply to the accusation, turns to the two or three bishops left without reproach: "What do you think? — They have God to whom to render account." And all answer: Deo gratias.^[15]

Later Donatists would cry forgery, but Saint Optatus could still appeal to the age of the parchment on which these acts were written, and the depositions of 320 before the consular Zenophilus would confirm them; Duchesne as well as Seeck hold their authenticity to be assured.^[16] Yet the irony is cruel: the assembled bishops proceed to the ordination and choose Silvanus — the subdeacon who had assisted in the search —, whom the people of Cirta greet with cries of "traditor," demanding a certain Donatus; it will take peasants and gladiators to hoist Silvanus onto the episcopal throne, carried on the back of a man named Mutus.^[17] The future accusers of the traditores were themselves traditores — and this would be proved to them publicly nine years later.

Caecilian against Majorinus: Lucilla's 400 folles

Meanwhile, at Carthage, Bishop Mensurius dies on his way back from Rome, where the usurper Maxentius had summoned him: a deacon, Felix, stood accused of a libel against the tyrant, and Mensurius, who had hidden him in his house, had been acquitted but did not survive the journey.^[18] Before leaving, he had entrusted the church's silver to elders, with the inventory given to an old woman, for the next bishop.^[19] Maxentius restoring freedom to the Christians, an election can be held: Caecilian, Mensurius's deacon — the very man whom the Donatist Acts of the martyrs of Abitinae would accuse of having had the prison guarded by men armed with whips and thrown the confessors' food to the dogs, an account Duchesne rightly judges exaggerated to the point of incredibility^[20] — is chosen by the whole people, placed on Mensurius's chair, and consecrated by Felix, bishop of Aptonga (Aptungi), assisted by a few neighbouring bishops.^[21]

The discontented immediately join forces: the elders holding the treasure, ordered to hand it back, refuse to recognize the new bishop, along with two ambitious priests passed over in the election, Botrus and Caelestius — who had manoeuvred so that only a few bishops would attend the consecration. They are backed by a wealthy lady, Lucilla, who bears Caecilian a grudge: when he was a deacon, he had rebuked her habit of kissing the bone of an unrecognized martyr (non vindicatus) just before receiving communion.^[22] Secundus, the nearest primate, hastens over with his suffragans: a council of seventy bishops declares Caecilian's ordination invalid, as conferred by a traditor, and consecrates a rival bishop, Majorinus, who had been a reader in Caecilian's diaconia and belonged to Lucilla's household. The lady provides 400 folles — nominally for the poor, but everything goes into the bishops' pockets, including a quarter seized in passing by Purpurius of Limata.^[23]

Caecilian, master of the basilica and of Cyprian's cathedra, supported by the people, refuses to appear: "If I am not properly consecrated, let me be treated as a deacon, let hands be laid on me anew — and not on another." At this reported reply, Purpurius cries out: "Let him come here, and instead of laying hands on him, we will break his head by way of penance!"^[24] The council nevertheless writes to all Africa: henceforth, many towns will have two bishops, one in communion with Caecilian, the other with Majorinus.^[25] But at Carthage they know that Caecilian is the people's choice, they do not believe that Felix of Aptonga handed over the Books — and Rome and Italy have already given him their communion.^[26] The position of the Church of the moderate Mensurius is simple: consecration by a traditor is neither invalid nor even illicit, if he still legitimately occupies his see. That of Secundus's council is the reverse: a traditor can no longer act as bishop, and whoever is in communion with traditores is cut off from the Church. The schismatics call themselves the Church of the martyrs: all who are in communion with public sinners such as Caecilian and Felix are necessarily excommunicated.^[27]

What the Donatists really believed

Donatist doctrine must be taken seriously: it was not a mere quarrel of persons. Three convictions structured it, and each touched the heart of the faith.^[28]

The first: the Church is the assembly of the saints, not the communion of reconciled sinners. Where Roman Novatianism, half a century earlier, denied the Church the right to forgive idolatry, African Donatism denies the validity of sacraments administered by the unworthy: a baptism conferred outside the Church of the Pure is no baptism, and every Catholic who joins them must be rebaptized.^[29] If they seize a basilica, they wash with salt the pavement trodden by a Catholic, throw away the Eucharist, break or scrape the altar, melt down the chalices.^[30]

The second: the holiness of the minister conditions the reality of the sacrament. Their bishops and ministers, they claimed, are without fault — otherwise their acts would be invalid. This is the exact opposite of what the Church would define: that the effect of the sacrament does not depend on the dignity of the one who confers it.^[31]

The third: their communion alone is the universal Church. They taught that, in all the rest of the world, the Catholic Church had perished for having been in communion with the traditor Caecilian; their sect alone was the true Church, reduced to one corner of Africa.^[32] The reversal is stark: it is catholicity itself — universality — that becomes the criterion of true and false.

An African Church already accustomed to strictness

This rigorism did not fall from the African sky. A century earlier, Tertullian had already taught that fleeing persecution is not permitted; Montanism, with which the Novatians of Phrygia would end up merging, had imbued Africa with an ideal of uncompromising purity; and Saint Cyprian himself, the martyred bishop of Carthage whom both sides claimed, had held with extreme rigour on the penance of the lapsi — while maintaining that unity comes before all: "There can be no God for Father who has not the Church for Mother."^[33] The Donatists wanted to be Cyprian's heirs against Cyprian's successors: they kept his severity and threw away his unity.^[34]

There was also a social and geographical dimension, brought to light by the historian W. H. C. Frend in The Donatist Church (Oxford, 1952): the schism was strongest in the Numidian interior, Berber and Punic-speaking, against the romanized Proconsular province of Carthage; the circumcellions, who knew no Latin and spoke only Punic, are the extreme illustration of this.^[35] Without reducing the quarrel to a social revolt — the Donatists counted bishops, scholars, and rich men —, the historian cannot ignore that the map of the schism overlaps that of an Africa that felt despised by the coastal cities.^[36]

Miltiades at Rome: nineteen bishops against seventy (October 313)

Constantine, victor over Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge on 28 October 312, immediately acted as a Christian: he wrote to the proconsul Anulinus to restore the churches to the Catholics and to exempt from civil burdens the clergy of "the Catholic Church over which Caecilian presides," and he sent to Caecilian himself an order of 3,000 folles to be distributed in Africa, Numidia and Mauretania — with a promise of more if needed.^[37] These letters are preserved by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, X, 5–7): the emperor already knows that there are "turbulent men seeking to corrupt the Church," and he orders the proconsul and the vicar of the prefects to repress them — Caecilian will only have to appeal to them.^[38]

The opposing party did not delay: a few days after these letters were published, its delegates brought to Anulinus, with an excited mob, two bundles of documents against Caecilian, to be forwarded to the emperor. St Optatus has preserved a few words of them: Constantine is begged to grant judges from Gaul, where, under the reign of his father, there had been no persecution — hence no traditores.^[39] Constantine, who knows the constitution of the Church too well to have the primates of Africa judged by Gallic bishops, refers the matter to the pope: he orders three of the leading bishops of Gaul — Reticius of Autun, Maternus of Cologne, Marinus of Arles — to come to Rome, and Caecilian to come with ten bishops of his accusers and ten of his communion.^[40]

Pope St Miltiades summons fifteen Italian bishops to sit with him. The ten Donatist bishops are led by a certain Donatus, bishop of Casae Nigrae: Optatus, Augustine and all the Catholic controversialists saw in him "Donatus the Great," the successor of Majorinus as the schismatic bishop of Carthage — the Donatists of Augustine's time obstinately denied it, unwilling to admit that their hero had been condemned, and the Catholics conceded to them in 411 the existence of a Donatus of Casae Nigrae violently hostile to Caecilian; modern historians follow this concession, while noting its implausibility: if Majorinus were still alive, why was he not summoned to come to Rome? Most likely Majorinus had just died and Donatus the Great had succeeded him just before the trial — which explains why Majorinus is never heard of again.^[41]

The anonymous and unproven accusations against Caecilian are set aside; the witnesses come from Africa admit they have nothing against him. Donatus, by contrast, is convicted by his own admission of having rebaptized and of having imposed hands in penance upon bishops — which ecclesiastical law forbids. On the third day, the unanimous sentence of Miltiades falls: Caecilian is maintained in ecclesiastical communion; where two rival bishops coexist, if Donatist bishops return to the Church, the younger shall withdraw and receive another see.^[42] Furious, the Donatists oppose their seventy bishops of Carthage to the nineteen of Rome and demand a new judgment. A century later, their successors would claim that Miltiades was himself a traditor — a grievance of which no trace is found at the time.^[43]

Arles: the First Council of the West (1 August 314)

Constantine is irritated, but he sees the party is powerful in Africa: he summons to Arles, for 1 August 314, a council of the whole West — that is, of all his dominions at the time. Miltiades is dead; his successor St Sylvester judges it unfitting to leave Rome — an example he will repeat for Nicaea and which his successors will follow for Sardica, Rimini and the Eastern ecumenical councils. Forty to fifty sees are represented, by their bishops or by proxies — including London, York and Lincoln; Sylvester sends legates.^[44] The council condemns the Donatists, draws up canons and reports to the pope in a letter that survives: the Fathers greet Sylvester for having done well not to leave the place "where the Apostles sit daily in judgment" — had he been present, he might perhaps have treated the heretics more severely.^[45]

"You did well not to leave the place where the Apostles sit daily in judgment; had you been present among us, you might perhaps have treated the heretics with greater severity." — The Fathers of Arles to Pope St Sylvester, synodal letter of 314^[46]

Among the canons, two settle doctrine for centuries: canon 8 condemns rebaptism — still practised in Africa: one who comes from heresy to the Church is questioned on the creed, and if he appears baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, only the laying on of hands is imposed upon him^[47]; canon 13 settles the case of the traditores: they are excluded from communion, but only when their fault is proved by official public acts — and those whom they ordained keep their rank.^[48] In other words: the personal fault of the minister, even when established, does not annul the ordinations he conferred. Donatism is refuted in advance, in law, eleven years before Nicaea.

The effect is felt in Africa, but the bulk of the party remains unmoved: the Donatists appeal from the council to the emperor.

"O mad insolence! They appeal from heaven to earth, from Jesus Christ to a man." — Constantine, on hearing of the Donatists' appeal^[49]

The Inquiry into Felix of Aptonga and the Hearing at Milan (315–316)

The emperor detains the Donatist envoys in Gaul, considers bringing Caecilian over, then orders a full inquiry in Africa. The case of Felix of Aptonga is examined at Carthage on his orders, in February 315 — St Augustine probably gives 314 in error. The record, mutilated, has come down to us: appended by St Optatus to his documentary dossier and constantly cited by St Augustine, it establishes that the letter produced by the Donatists as proof of Felix's crime had been interpolated by a certain Ingentius — by his own admission, confirmed by Alfius, the writer of the letter — and that Felix was absent from Aptonga on the day of the search.^[50] The mother-accusation of the schism collapses on the evidence.

Constantine finally summons Caecilian and his adversaries to Rome; Caecilian, for some unknown reason, does not appear. Caecilian and Donatus the Great — by now certainly bishop — are called to Milan, where Constantine hears both parties with great care: he declares Caecilian innocent and an excellent bishop — as St Augustine reports (Against Cresconius, III, 71).^[51] Yet he keeps both men in Italy and sends to Africa two bishops, Eunomius and Olympius, with the idea of setting Donatus and Caecilian aside and having a new bishop accepted by all. But the violence of the sectaries makes the plan unworkable: at Carthage, Eunomius and Olympius declare that the Catholic Church is the one spread throughout the whole world and that the sentence against the Donatists cannot be annulled; they communicate with Caecilian's clergy and return to Italy.^[52] Donatus returns to Carthage; Caecilian, seeing him gone, feels free to do the same. Constantine then orders the churches seized by the Donatists to be restored to the Catholics, confiscates their other meeting places; those convicted — of calumny — lose their property; the expulsions are carried out by troops. An old sermon on the passion of the Donatist "martyrs" Donatus and Advocatus describes these scenes, one of which was a true massacre, with a bishop among the slain — if this curious document can be believed.^[53] The Donatists prided themselves on this "persecution by Caecilian" suffered by the Pure at the hands of the "Church of the traditores": Count Leontius and Duke Ursacius were the particular objects of their indignation.^[54]

A Leader Equal to His Cause

In 320, damaging revelations surface for the Pure. Nundinarius, deacon of Cirta, quarrelling with his bishop Silvanus — who had had him stoned, he says in his complaint to the Numidian bishops, coupled with threats to reveal everything if they did not intervene — brings the matter before Zenophilus, consular of Numidia. The record, fragmentary, appears in the appendix of Optatus under the title of Gesta apud Zenophilum: Nundinarius produces letters from Purpurius and other bishops; the record of the search at Cirta is read again; witnesses establish its accuracy, including two of the gravediggers present at the time and the lector Victor the grammarian.^[55] It is shown not only that Silvanus is a traditor, but that with Purpurius, two priests and a deacon, he stole from the treasury casks of vinegar stored in the temple of Serapis; that he ordained a priest for 20 folles; and that none of Lucilla's money reached the poor for whom it was nominally intended.^[56] The consular exiles Silvanus for theft from the treasury, fraud and violent accession to the episcopate. The Donatists preferred to say that he was banished for refusing to communicate with the "Caecilianists," and Cresconius would even speak of a "persecution by Zenophilus." But it should have been clear to all that the consecrators of Majorinus had called their adversaries traditores to cover their own misdeeds.^[57]

The Donatist party owes its success in large part to the skill of its leader, Donatus, successor of Majorinus. He seems truly to have deserved the title of "the Great" by his eloquence and strength of character — his writings are lost. His ascendancy over his own was extraordinary: St Augustine never ceased to denounce his arrogance and the impiety of a cult that bordered on adoration; in his lifetime, Donatus savoured adulation, and after his death he was counted as a martyr, with miracles to support it.^[58]

In 321, Constantine relaxes his measures of severity, which have not produced the hoped-for peace, and weakly begs the Catholics to bear the Donatists with patience. It was not easy: at Cirta, with Silvanus returned, the schismatics seize the basilica the emperor had built for the Catholics and refuse to give it back — Constantine finds nothing better than to build another one.^[59] Throughout Africa, and especially in Numidia, they are numerous. They teach that the Catholic Church has perished throughout the whole world for having communicated with the traditor Caecilian; if a Catholic enters their churches, he is driven out and the pavement where he stood is washed with salt; every Catholic who joins them is rebaptized by force; their bishops and ministers, they claim, are without fault — but they are in fact convicted of drunkenness and other sins.^[60] St Augustine reports, on the authority of the Donatist Tyconius himself, that the Donatists held a council of 270 bishops which discussed for seventy-five days the question of rebaptism — to decide in the end that, when traditores refused to be rebaptized, communion would be maintained with them all the same; and the Donatist bishops of Mauretania did not rebaptize traditores until the time of Macarius.^[61] The advertised purity already accommodated exceptions.

Outside Africa, the Donatists have a bishop on the estate of an adherent in Spain, and from the very beginnings of the schism they provide themselves with a bishop for their little congregation at Rome — which met, it seems, on a hill outside the city, whence their name of Montenses. This anti-papal succession "with a beginning" was often mocked by Catholic writers: the series includes Felix, Boniface, Encolpius, Macrobius (c. 370), Lucian, Claudian (c. 378), then Felix again in 411.^[62] Meanwhile, Caecilian sits at the Council of Nicaea in 325, and his successor Gratus at that of Sardica in 342 — where the conciliabulum of the Easterners writes to Donatus as the true bishop of Carthage; but the Arians do not gain the support of the Donatists, who hold the whole East to be cut off from the Church, surviving in Africa alone.^[63]

Who Were the "Soldiers of Christ"?

The date of the first appearance of the Circumcellions is uncertain, but they probably begin before the death of Constantine. They were for the most part rustic enthusiasts, who knew no Latin and spoke only Punic — it has been suggested that they may have been of Berber blood. They joined the ranks of the Donatists, who called them agonistici, "fighters," and "soldiers of Christ" — but they were in fact brigands.^[64] Bands of them were met throughout Africa, without regular occupation, running about armed like madmen. They did not use swords — on the ground that St Peter had been ordered to put his sword back into its sheath — but continually committed violence with clubs, which they called "Israelites": they beat their victims without killing them, and left them for dead.^[65] In St Augustine's time, they took up swords and weapons of all kinds; they roamed accompanied by unmarried women, gambling and drinking. Their war cry was Deo laudes — where the Catholics answered Deo gratias — and there were no brigands more fearsome to meet.^[66]

Martyrdom Sought Like a Feast

They frequently sought death, counting suicide as martyrdom. They were particularly fond of throwing themselves from the tops of precipices; more rarely they threw themselves into water or fire. Even women caught the contagion, and those who had sinned hurled themselves from cliffs to expiate their fault.^[67] Sometimes the Circumcellions sought death by the hands of others: either by paying men to kill them, or by threatening to kill a passer-by if he refused to kill them, or by provoking by their violence the magistrates to have them executed. As long as paganism still flourished, they flocked in immense crowds to every great sacrifice — not to destroy the idols, but to have themselves martyred there.^[68] Theodoret relates that a Circumcellion would announce long in advance his intention to become a martyr, so as to be well treated and fed like a beast for slaughter — and he takes up the amusing story told by St Augustine: these fanatics, fattened like pheasants, offering a young man a drawn sword to strike them down, threatening to murder him if he refuses: the young man pretends to fear that, after a few deaths, the others might change their minds and avenge their companions, and demands that they all be bound; once defenceless, he gives each of them a beating and goes on his way.^[69]

In controversy with the Catholics, the Donatist bishops were not proud of these auxiliaries: they declared that hurling themselves from the tops of cliffs had been forbidden in their councils. Yet the bodies of these suicides were sacrilegiously honoured, and crowds celebrated their anniversaries; their bishops could only conform — and they were often quite glad of the Circumcellions' strong arms.^[70] Theodoret, shortly after the death of Saint Augustine, knew of no Donatists other than the Circumcellions: they were the typical Donatists in the eyes of everyone outside Africa.^[71] They were especially dangerous to the Catholic clergy, whose houses they attacked and plundered: they beat them, wounded them, put lime and vinegar on their eyes, and even forced them to be rebaptized.^[72] Under Axidus and Fasir, "the leaders of the Saints" in Numidia, neither property nor roads were safe: debtors were protected, slaves installed in their masters' carriages, forced to run before them.^[73] The Donatist bishops eventually invited a general named Taurinus to repress these extravagances: he met resistance at a place called Octava, and the altars and tablets still to be seen there in the time of Saint Optatus bore witness to the veneration paid to the slain Circumcellions — whom their bishops, for their part, refused to honour as martyrs.^[74]

"What has the emperor to do with the Church?"

Constantine, having become master of the East by his victory over Licinius in 323, was prevented by the rise of Arianism from sending, as he had hoped, Eastern bishops to Africa to settle the dispute. His son Constans burned with the same desire for peace: in 347, he sent to Africa two commissioners, Paulus and Macarius, with large sums to distribute. Donatus naturally saw in this an attempt to buy over his adherents: he received the envoys insolently — "What has the emperor to do with the Church?" — and forbade his followers to accept the least largesse from Constans.^[75] In most places, however, the mission of concord seems to have been received without too much disfavour. But at Bagai, in Numidia, Bishop Donatus gathered the Circumcellions of the neighbourhood, already stirred up by their bishops: Macarius had to call for the protection of the troops; the Circumcellions attacked and killed two or three soldiers; the troops, running out of control, massacred some of the Donatists.^[76]

This unfortunate incident was henceforth constantly thrown in the Catholics' faces, derisively nicknamed the Macarians: the Donatists claimed that Donatus of Bagai had been hurled from a rock and another bishop, Marculus, thrown into a well. The Acts of two other Donatist martyrs of 347 survive, Maximianus and Isaac — apparently of Carthage, attributed by Harnack to the antipope Macrobius.^[77] After the violence began, the envoys ordered the Donatists to unite with the Church, willingly or by force: many bishops fled with their partisans, a few joined the Catholics, the rest were banished. Donatus the Great died in exile, around 355; a Donatist named Vitellius composed a book to show that the servants of God are hated by the world.^[78] A solemn Mass was celebrated in each place where union was accomplished — and the Donatists spread the rumour that images, obviously of the emperor, were about to be placed on the altar to be adored: nothing of the sort being done, and the envoys confining themselves to a speech in favour of unity, the reunion seems to have been effected with less violence than might have been feared.^[79] The following year, Gratus, the Catholic bishop of Carthage, held a council where the repetition of baptism was forbidden — while, to please the rallied Donatists, the traditores were condemned anew, and honouring suicides as martyrs was prohibited.^[80]

Julian reopens the basilicas: the return of fury

Peace was a blessing for Africa, and the forcible means by which it was obtained were justified by the violence of the sectaries. But the accession of Julian the Apostate, in 361, changed the face of things: delighted to throw Christianity into confusion, Julian allowed the Catholic bishops exiled by Constantius to regain the sees occupied by the Arians — and the Donatists banished by Constans likewise regained Africa, at their own request, and recovered their basilicas.^[81] The decree seemed so disgraceful that Emperor Honorius would have it posted throughout Africa in 405, to their shame.^[82] "Your fury," writes Saint Optatus, "returned to Africa at the very moment when the devil was let loose" — for the same emperor was at once restoring supremacy to paganism and Africa to the Donatists.^[83]

Saint Optatus gives the vehement catalogue of the excesses committed by the Donatists on their return: they invaded the basilicas in arms, committed so many murders that a report was sent to the emperor. On the order of two bishops, an armed band attacked the basilica of Lemellef: the roof was torn off, the deacons ranged around the altar were stoned with tiles, two of them killed.^[84] In Mauretania, riots marked the return; in Numidia, two bishops took advantage of the complaisance of the magistrates to throw a peaceful population into turmoil, expelling the faithful, wounding men, sparing neither women nor children.^[85] Not recognising the validity of the sacraments administered by traditores, they seized the churches and threw the holy Eucharist to the dogs — but the dogs, seized with fury, attacked their own masters; a flask of chrism thrown from a window was found intact on the rocks.^[86] Two bishops made themselves guilty of rape; one of them seized the old Catholic bishop and condemned him to public penance. All the Catholics they could force to join them were subjected to penance — clerics of every rank and even children, contrary to the law of the Church —, for a year, a month, sometimes a day.^[87] To take possession of a basilica, they destroyed the altar, removed it or at least scraped its surface; sometimes they broke the chalices and sold the metal; they washed pavements, walls and columns. Not content with recovering their churches, they employed pagan officials to have sacred vessels, furniture, altar linens and above all the books delivered to them — how did they purify the book? asks Saint Optatus —, sometimes leaving the Catholic congregation without a single book. The cemeteries were closed to Catholic dead.^[88]

The revolt of Firmus, the Moorish chief who defied Roman power to the point of taking the title of emperor (366-372), was no doubt supported by many Donatists.^[89] The imperial laws against them were strengthened by Valentinian in 373, then by Gratian, who wrote in 377 to Flavian, the vicar of the prefects — himself a Donatist — ordering that all the basilicas of the schismatics be handed over to the Catholics — including, as Saint Augustine shows, those the Donatists had built themselves.^[90] The same emperor summoned Claudian, the Donatist bishop of Rome, to return to Africa; on his refusal, a Roman council had him driven a hundred miles from the city.^[91] It is likely that the Catholic bishop of Carthage, Genethlius, had these laws applied gently in Africa.^[92]

Six books against Parmenian, then a seventh

The Catholic champion was Saint Optatus, bishop of Milevis — venerated by Saint Augustine, then by Saint Fulgentius. He published his great work, the De schismate Donatistarum, in reply to that of the Donatist bishop of Carthage, Parmenian — Donatus's successor —, under Valentinian and Valens, between 364 and 375 according to Saint Jerome; Optatus himself tells us that he writes after Julian's death (363) and more than sixty years after the beginning of the schism — counting from the persecution of 303.^[93] The form we possess is a second edition, updated by the author after the accession of Pope Siricius (December 384), with a seventh book added to the first six.^[94]

The plan is a war machine: in book I, the origin and growth of the schism; in book II, the marks of the true Church; in book III, the defence of the Catholics against the charge of persecuting — with the Macarius dossier; in book IV, the refutation of the scriptural proofs by which Parmenian claims that a sinner's sacrifice is defiled; in book V, the validity of baptism even when conferred by sinners — for it is conferred by Christ, the minister being only the instrument: this is the first great exposition of the doctrine that the grace of the sacraments flows from Christ's work independently of the minister's worthiness^[95]; in book VI, the violence of the Donatists and their sacrileges against Catholic altars; in book VII, unity, reunion — and a return to Macarius.^[96]

To his work, Optatus appended a documentary dossier containing the evidence for the history he tells: compiled well before the peace of 347 — the most recent document is dated February 330, the others go no further than 321 —, it has come down to us only in a single mutilated manuscript, whose archetype was already incomplete. But this dossier was freely used at the conference of 411 and Saint Augustine quotes it at length, preserving many pieces which without him would be unknown to us.^[97]

"You cannot deny that the episcopal chair was entrusted first to Peter, in the city of Rome"

Against schismatics who believed themselves to be the whole Church, Optatus brandished catholicity — universality — and the Roman succession. The most famous passage of book II summons Parmenian to look to the chair of Peter:

"You cannot deny knowing that the episcopal chair was entrusted first to Peter, in the city of Rome, where Peter sat, the chief of all the apostles — whence he was also called Cephas." — Saint Optatus of Milevis, Against the Donatists, II, 2^[98]

The reason, taken from Saint Cyprian, follows at once: it is in this unique chair that unity must be kept by all, lest the other apostles each defend his own — and lest whoever should set up a second chair against the one chair be schismatic and a sinner.^[99]

A surprising detail: Optatus calls Parmenian "brother" and wishes to treat the Donatists as brothers, for they are not heretics — in his eyes, only pagans and heretics go to hell; schismatics and Catholics will all be saved, after a necessary purgatory. All the more curious since, before him as after him in Africa, Cyprian and Augustine teach that schism is as bad as heresy, if not worse.^[100] Optatus writes vehemently, at times violently despite his protestations of friendship, carried away by indignation; but his style is strong, effective, often concise and epigrammatic — and Saint Augustine would feed on it for twenty years.^[101]

Primianus against Maximian: the mirror held up to the Pure

Before Augustine took up Optatus's torch with a double portion of his spirit, the Catholics received unexpected reinforcements from the divisions of the Donatists among themselves — for this schism, like so many others, engendered schisms within its own bosom. In Mauretania and Numidia, these separate sects are so numerous that the Donatists themselves cannot name them all: Urbanists, Claudianists — reconciled to the main body by Primianus of Carthage —, Rogatists, a Mauretanian sect of gentle character because no Circumcellion belonged to it.^[102] The Rogatists are severely punished whenever the Donatists can persuade the magistrates to do so, and persecuted by Optatus of Thamugadi. But the most famous are the Maximianists: the story of their separation reproduces with strange exactness that of the withdrawal of the Donatists themselves from the communion of the Church — and the conduct of the Donatists towards them, so contrary to their professed principles, would become in Augustine's expert hands the most effective of his weapons.^[103]

Primianus, the Donatist bishop of Carthage, excommunicated the deacon Maximian — supported, like Majorinus in his time, by a lady. Maximian assembled a council of forty-three bishops which summoned Primianus to appear; the primate refused, insulted their envoys, tried to prevent them from celebrating the holy mysteries, had stones thrown at them in the street.^[104] The council cited him before a larger council: one hundred bishops assembled at Cabarsussi in June 393 deposed Primianus; all clerics had to leave his communion within eight days — after Christmas, they would no longer be admitted to return to the Church even after penance; the laity, until the following Easter, under the same penalty. A new bishop of Carthage was designated in the person of Maximian himself, consecrated by twelve bishops; Primianus's partisans were rebaptized, if they had been baptized after the permitted delay.^[105]

Primianus held firm and asked to be judged by a Numidian council: three hundred and ten bishops met at Bagai in April 394; the primate did not take the place of an accused man there, but presided himself. Acquitted, of course, he had the Maximianists condemned without hearing them: all, except the twelve consecrators and their abettors of the Carthaginian clergy, had until Christmas to return — after that term, obligatory penance. This decree, drafted in an eloquent style by Emeritus of Caesarea and adopted by acclamation, now made the Donatists ridiculous: they had readmitted schismatics without penance.^[106] Maximian's church was razed, and the period of grace having expired, the Donatists persecuted the unfortunate Maximianists — presenting themselves as Catholics and asking the magistrates to apply to the new sect the very laws the Catholic emperors had enacted against Donatism. Their influence allowed them to do so, for they were still far more numerous than the Catholics, and the magistrates were often of their party.^[107]

The admission by deeds: schismatics readmitted without rebaptism

In receiving those who returned from Maximian's party, the Donatists were still more fatally inconsistent. The rule was theoretically maintained — all those baptized in the schism had to be rebaptized —, but if a bishop returned, he and his whole flock were admitted without rebaptism. This was even granted to two of Maximian's consecrators, Praetextatus of Assuras and Felicianus of Musti, after the proconsul had vainly tried to expel them from their sees — even though a Donatist bishop, Rogatus, had already been appointed to Assuras.^[108] In another case, Primianus's party showed itself more consistent: Salvius, the Maximianist bishop of Membresa, another consecrator, was twice ordered by the proconsul to withdraw in favour of the Primianist Restitutus; greatly respected by the people of Membresa, a crowd had to be brought from the neighbouring town of Abitina to expel him — the old bishop was beaten and forced to dance with dead dogs around his neck. But his people built him a new church, and three bishops coexisted in that small town: a Maximianist, a Primianist and a Catholic.^[109]

The leader of the Donatists at that time was Optatus, bishop of Thamugadi (Timgad), nicknamed Gildonianus for his friendship with Gildo, Count of Africa (386–397). For ten years, backed by Gildo, Optatus was the tyrant of Africa: he persecuted Rogatists and Maximianists, and used troops against the Catholics. Saint Augustine calls his vices and cruelties indescribable — with at least this effect of dishonouring the Donatist cause: for although he was hated throughout Africa for his wickedness, the faction of the Pure always remained in full communion with this bishop who was a thief, kidnapper, oppressor, traitor and monster of cruelty.^[110] At Gildo's fall in 397, Optatus was thrown into a prison where he died. The proof stood complete without Augustine having to force the point: the Church of the Pure was in communion with a brigand — what, then, was its vaunted purity worth?^[111]

The Alphabet psalm, then the great treatises

Saint Augustine began his victorious campaign immediately after his priestly ordination, in 391. His popular psalm against the Donatists — the "Abecedarian", in which each stanza follows alphabetical order — was meant to teach the common people the arguments of Optatus, in the same spirit of conciliation: the sect had been founded by traditores, condemned by the pope and the council, separated from the whole world, a cause of division, violence and bloodshed; the true Church is the one Vine whose branches cover the whole earth.^[112] Having become bishop in 395, he obtained conferences with some Donatist leaders — but not with his rival at Hippo. In 400, he wrote three books against the letter of Parmenian, refuting his calumnies and his scriptural arguments; more important still, his seven books on baptism, in which, after developing the principle laid down by Optatus — the effect of the sacrament is independent of the holiness of the minister — he shows in great detail that the authority of Saint Cyprian is more of an embarrassment than a help to the Donatists: Cyprian demanded the rebaptism of heretics, Rome never accepted it, and Arles settled the matter.^[113]

The great Donatist polemicist of the moment was Petilian, bishop of Constantine — the Cirta of old — and successor of the traditor Silvanus in that see. Augustine wrote two books in reply to his letter against the Church, then a third against a second letter in which Petilian attacked him personally; between the two, around 403, he published his On the Unity of the Church. To these must be added sermons and letters that are true treatises — including Letter 93 to Vincentius (408), in which he justifies recourse to the secular arm by the Master's word: compelle intrare, "compel them to come in" (Luke 14:23).^[114] But Augustinian coercion was not putting to death: when the Donatist priest Crispinus had Possidius, Augustine's biographer, assaulted, and his namesake bishop was condemned to ten pounds of gold as a fine as a heretic — the first known case in which a Donatist received this title, henceforth common — it was Possidius himself who had the fine remitted; and Augustine interceded with the imperial commissioner Marcellinus that the culprits be corrected rather than executed (Letters 133–134).^[115]

The three families of arguments

Augustine's arguments fall under three heads. First the historical proofs: the regularity of Caecilian's consecration, the innocence of Felix of Aptonga, the guilt of the founders of the Church of the Pure, the judgments of the pope, the council and the emperor, the true story of Macarius, the barbarity of the Donatists under Julian, the violence of the Circumcellions — the whole documentary dossier of Optatus, verified piece by piece.^[116] Next the doctrinal arguments: the proofs drawn from the Old and New Testaments that the Church is catholic — spread throughout the whole world — necessarily one and united; the appeal to the See of Rome, where the succession of bishops is unbroken since Saint Peter himself — Augustine borrows his list of popes from Optatus — crystallised in the psalm in the famous formula: it is the rock against which the proud gates of hell shall not prevail; the appeal to the Church of the East, and above all to the apostolic Churches to which Peter, Paul and John addressed epistles — they were not in communion with the Donatists; the validity of baptism conferred by heretics, the impiety of rebaptism.^[117] All this was already found in Optatus. But Augustine must also defend Saint Cyprian, and the third family is entirely his own.

It is the ad hominem argument drawn from the inconsistency of the Donatists themselves: Secundus had pardoned the traditores of Cirta; full communion was granted to villains such as Optatus the Gildonian and to the Circumcellions; Tyconius had turned against his own party; Maximian had separated from Primianus as Majorinus from Caecilian; and the Maximianists had been readmitted without rebaptism.^[118] This last point proved of great practical value, and conversions multiplied — largely because of the false position in which the Donatists had placed themselves. The Catholic council of Carthage of September 401 had driven the point home by ordering information to be gathered from the magistrates on the treatment of the Maximianists; the same synod restored the old rule, long abolished, that Donatist bishops and clerics would keep their rank on returning to the Church — and Pope Anastasius I wrote to the council to stress the importance of the Donatist question.^[119] Another council, in 403, organised public disputations with the Donatists. This energetic action unleashed fresh violence: Augustine's life was threatened, and the cruel treatment of the Catholic Maximianus, bishop of Bagai, is recounted by him in detail.^[120]

The emperor Honorius, petitioned by the Catholics, renewed at the beginning of 405 the old laws against the Donatists — the edict of unity: some good effects, but the Circumcellions of Hippo worked themselves up to fresh violence. Petilian's letter was defended by a grammarian named Cresconius, against whom Augustine published a reply in four books — of which the third and fourth are the most important: in them he argues from the Donatists' treatment of the Maximianists, cites the Acts of the council of Cirta held by Secundus and other major documents.^[121] The saint also replied to a short work by Petilian, the De unico baptismate.

Among the Donatists themselves, one man stands apart and deserves better than oblivion: Tyconius, an exegete of genius, author of the Book of the Seven Rules for understanding Scripture — the first Latin manual of biblical hermeneutics, which Saint Augustine would admire and use in the De doctrina christiana. Tyconius maintained that the Church is a twofold body (corpus bipertitum) — mingling good and wicked until the end — which destroyed the Donatist thesis of the Church of the Pure: his own party excommunicated him around 380, while keeping his books.^[122] The Catholic Church, for her part, kept the exegete and rejected the schism.

"The whole world judges in safety"

There remains the formula that sums up the whole debate, and which Newman would ponder fifteen centuries later on his road to the Catholic Church. Against adversaries who claimed to be alone faithful in an apostate world, Augustine turns the criterion around: it is not the little band that judges the world, it is the united world that judges the little band.

"That is why the whole world judges in safety that those are not good who separate themselves from the whole world, in whatever part of the world it may be." — Saint Augustine, Against the Letter of Parmenian, III^[123]

The formula — securus judicat orbis terrarum, "the whole world judges in safety" — has become one of the most quoted principles of Catholic ecclesiology. Not that the majority makes right by its number, but that universality is a mark of the true Church: a sect entrenched in a corner of Africa cannot claim to be on its own the heir of the Apostles against the communion of the whole world.^[124]

In other words: who really baptizes, when a priest baptizes?

Before entering into the doctrine, a simple image. When a postman hands you a registered letter, the letter counts by virtue of its sender and its contents — not by the private virtue of the postman, whether he be exemplary or unworthy, provided he is truly a postman and truly delivers the letter. Likewise, says the Church: it is Christ who baptizes; the priest is only the instrument — provided he performs the instituted rite with the intention of doing what the Church does. Donatism claimed the opposite: that a defiled minister transmits only his defilement. The whole Catholic answer lies in the reversal: the sacrament comes from above, not from below.^[125]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the dogmatic definition, inherited from Trent (DS 1608) and prepared by Optatus and then Augustine:

"This sacrament is said to act 'ex opere operato' (literally: 'by the very fact of the action's being performed'), i.e., by virtue of the saving work of Christ, accomplished once for all. It follows that 'the sacrament is not wrought by the righteousness of either the celebrant or the recipient, but by the power of God.' From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1128^[126]

The table fixes the distinctions that Donatism had blurred — and which every Catholic must keep clear, for the puritan temptation returns in every century in new dress:

This table reads as follows: each row opposes a demand for visible purity to trust in the invisible work of Christ. The Church does not deny that the unworthy minister sins — Judas himself had received and exercised the ministry — she denies that he can confiscate grace: God does not let Himself be taken hostage by His servants.^[127] For the full doctrinal exposition, see the validity of the sacraments.

The net, the threshing floor and the weeds: the mixed Church until the end

Against the Church of the Pure, Scripture sets the mixed Church. The Lord had foretold it in three parables which the Fathers never ceased to cite against the Donatists: the net that hauls in good and bad fish until the sorting on the shore (Matthew 13:47–50), the threshing floor where grain and chaff await the winnowing of judgment, and above all the wheat and the weeds which must grow together until the harvest, lest in uprooting the weeds the wheat be torn up as well (Matthew 13:24–30).^[128] To want a visibly pure Church before the end is to want to do the angels' sorting before its hour — and to tear up the wheat with the weeds. The holiness of the Church, defined by the council as one of her marks along with unity, catholicity and apostolicity, comes not from the impeccability of her members, but from her Spouse: the Church is holy without being composed only of saints.^[129]

There remains the question every reader asks: was the Church right to call upon the emperor? Augustine thought so — compelle intrare — and history gives him massive extenuating circumstances: the Circumcellions were killing, basilicas were burning, clerics were being blinded with lime. But the Church has never made coercion an ordinary means of conversion: the laws of Honorius protected first of all the life, property, liberty and safety of Catholics — it was not necessarily a persecution for religious opinions. Excesses — and there were some, from Macarius to uncontrollable soldiers — remain the faults of men, not the doctrine of the Church.^[130] The reader tempted to judge hastily will remember that the Donatists themselves, persecutors of the Maximianists, asked the magistrates to apply against their dissidents the imperial laws passed against themselves: the Pure too knew how to wield the secular arm, when it served their purity.^[131]

286 against 279, under the arbitration of Marcellinus

Augustine had once hoped to reconcile the Donatists by reason alone. But the violence of the Circumcellions, the cruelties of Optatus of Thamugadi, and the recent attacks on Catholic bishops had proved that repression by the secular arm was absolutely unavoidable — not as persecution of opinions, but as protection of lives and property. The laws of Honorius were promulgated again in 408 and 410.^[132] In 411, the method of disputation was organised on a grand scale, by order of the emperor himself, at the request of the Catholic bishops: their dossier was now complete and unanswerable — but it had to be brought to the knowledge of the people of Africa, and public opinion forced to acknowledge the facts by a public exposure of the weakness of the separatist position.^[133]

The emperor sent to preside as cognitor a high official named Marcellinus, an excellent Christian, who proclaimed that he would exercise absolute impartiality in conducting the debates as in the final judgment. The Donatist bishops who came to the conference would provisionally recover the basilicas taken from them. The number of those who arrived at Carthage was very great — a little fewer than the 279 whose signatures appear at the foot of a letter to the president; the Catholic bishops numbered 286.^[134] Marcellinus decided that each party would elect seven disputants, alone authorised to speak, seven advisers and four secretaries to keep the acts: thirty-six bishops in all. The Donatists claimed this was a device to conceal their great number — but the Catholics did not object to all attending, provided there was no disturbance.^[135]

The first Catholic speaker, besides the kindly and venerable bishop of Carthage Aurelius, is of course Augustine, whose fame has already spread throughout the Church; his friend Alypius of Thagaste and his disciple and biographer Possidius are also among the seven. The leading Donatist speakers are Emeritus of Caesarea in Mauretania (Cherchel) and Petilian of Constantine — who speaks or interrupts some one hundred and fifty times, until he grows hoarse on the third day to the point of having to stop.^[136] The Catholics make a generous proposal: every Donatist bishop who rejoins the Church will preside in turn with the Catholic bishop on the episcopal chair — unless the people object, in which case both will resign and a new election will take place.^[137]

Three days that puncture a century of certainties

The conference takes place on 1, 3 and 8 June. The Donatist tactic consists in raising procedural objections, dragging things out, and by every means preventing the Catholic disputants from presenting their case. The Catholic case is nevertheless clearly stated from the very first day, in letters read out in session — addressed by the Catholic bishops to Marcellinus and to their deputies to instruct them on the procedure. It is only on the third day, amid numerous interruptions, that a discussion of the important points is reached: it then becomes clear that the Donatists' reluctance to engage in a real discussion comes from their inability to answer the arguments and documents produced by the Catholics. The insincerity, inconsistency and clumsiness of the sectaries greatly damage them: the main doctrinal points and the historical proofs of the Catholics are brought fully into the light.^[138] The cognitor rules in favour of the Catholic bishops: the churches provisionally restored to the Donatists are to be handed back; their assemblies are forbidden under severe penalties; the lands of those who tolerate circumcellions on their properties will be confiscated.^[139]

The record of this great conference is submitted to all the speakers for approval, and the report of each intervention — often a single sentence — is signed by the speaker as a guarantee of accuracy. We possess these acts in full up to the middle of the third day; for the rest, only the summaries of each brief intervention, composed on Marcellinus's orders to make reference easier.^[140] Given the heaviness and extent of the full report, Saint Augustine composes a popular summary of it, the Breviculus Collationis, and develops a few points further in a final short work, To the Donatists After the Conference.^[141]

The fines of Honorius and the death of Marcellinus

On 30 January 412, Honorius promulgates the final law against the Donatists: renewing the earlier legislation, it adds a scale of fines for the Donatist clergy, the laity and their wives — fifty pounds of gold for the illustres, forty for the spectabiles, thirty for senators and sacerdotales, twenty for the clarissimi and principales, five for decurions, merchants and plebeians; the circumcellions will pay ten pounds of silver; slaves will be corrected by their masters, tenant farmers constrained by repeated beatings; all bishops and clerics are exiled from Africa.^[142] In 414, the fines are increased for the high ranks — two hundred pounds of gold for a proconsul, a vicar or a count, one hundred for a senator —, and a new law appears in 428.^[143]

The good Marcellinus, who had become Saint Augustine's friend, falls victim — it is believed — to the rancour of the Donatists: he is put to death in 413, as an accomplice in the revolt of Heraclian, Count of Africa, despite the emperor's orders, who did not believe him guilty. The Church honours him as a martyr — Saint Marcellinus, celebrated on 6 April with his brother Apringius, put to death with him in September 413.^[144] Donatism is now discredited by the conference and proscribed by the persecuting laws of Honorius. The circumcellions make a few last efforts — a priest is killed by them at Hippo —, but the decrees do not seem to have been applied rigorously, since Donatist clergy are still found in Africa.^[145] The clever Emeritus is at Caesarea in 418, and at Pope Zosimus's wish, Saint Augustine holds a conference with him — without result. But on the whole, Donatism is dead: even before the conference, the Catholic bishops of Africa were already considerably more numerous than the Donatists, except in Numidia.^[146]

From the Vandals to the Saracens: the end of a world

From the Vandal invasion of 429–430 onward, almost nothing more is heard of them — the Arian Vandals persecuting Catholics and Donatists alike without distinction. They seem to have revived somewhat in the time of Saint Gregory the Great, who complains to the Emperor Maurice that the laws are not strictly enforced.^[147] They disappear definitively with the Arab conquests of the 7th century: the Church of Africa, already battered by the Vandal invasion, then gradually fades from history.^[148] A hundred years of schism, kindled by a disputed election at Carthage, die out in a world that no longer exists.

What remains? First a doctrine, fixed for ever: the Church is one, holy, catholic and apostolic — holy through her Spouse, catholic through her extension, one through her communion, apostolic through her succession. Then a method: faced with the puritans of every age, the Church answers with facts — the exhibits in the file, the signatures at the foot of the acts — and with universality: securus judicat orbis terrarum. Finally a lesson of history, dear to Frend: schisms are never born of theology alone — a botched election, an offended lady, four hundred diverted folles, bishops covering up their thefts by crying traditor, all weigh as much as theses on baptism.^[149] Donatism was a Church of the Pure which held communion with a bandit, readmitted without baptism those it claimed to rebaptize, and asked the emperor for judges after declaring it had nothing to do with the emperor: it is by their deeds, even more than by the books of Optatus and Augustine, that the Pure refuted themselves.

• The heresies of the early centuries
• Novatianism
• Montanism
• The validity of the sacraments
• Saint Augustine of Hippo
• Saint Cyprian of Carthage
• Saint Optatus of Milevis
• Constantine and the freedom of the Church