A doctrinal dispute between Roman North African churches began what would become the great Donatist heresy. The first of the heresies to demand that an imperial authority uphold one Christian view over another, the Donatists were highly opposed to the ordination of priests as they felt to consecrate any human being was blasphemous.
Donatists and the Priesthood
Many medieval reformers who were often heretics in their own right shared the Donatist view that the clergy should be held to a profoundly strict moral standard. In their belief system, a priest who was openly or privately sinful could not practice or perform valid sacraments like baptism, marriage or eucharist.
In the years 302 – 305, there were groups of priests who had been persecuted. Those who gave into the torture and handed over their bibles to imperial authority were known as traditors. Donatists believed that traditors could not be restored to the priesthood.
It was a group of dissident bishops, approximately seventy, who ended up forming the faction later to be referred to as Donatists.
In 312 A.D., Constantine rose to power and persecuted the Donatists. His successor continued this tradition. Donatus was finally exiled in 347 A.D. Despite all this, the Donatists eventually had a majority of North African Nations and slowly seemed to be moving into creating their own independent Church.
They actually moved to join with another revolutionary group called the Circumcellions.
It was St. Augustine, in the fifth century, who took the Donatists on very openly in his writings. But it was an imperial decree in 412 A.D. that finally ended the majority of the conflict.
Heresy According to the Early Church Fathers
St. Augustine of Hippo was well-known for his run ins with the Donatists, but he was not the only one of the Early Church Fathers to speak out again them.
“Alienated from the truth, they deservedly wallow in all error, tossed to and fro by it. They think differently in regard to the same things at the different times. And they never attain to a well-grounded knowledge . . . They always have the excuse of searching after truth (for they are blind), but they never succeed in finding it.” according to (Irenaeus) A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers.
Other fascinating heretical sects include Docetism and the Ebionites.
Sources:
- Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics, by Charles S. Clifton.
- A Catholic Dictionary, by William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, M.A.
- Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Dr. Ludwig Ott.
- A Short History of Christian Doctrine: From the First Century to the Present, by Bernhard Lohse.
- The Church in Crisis: A History of the General Councils, 325 - 1870, by Philip Hughes.
- A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs: A Reference Guide to More than 700 Topics Discussed by the Early Church Fathers, edited by David W. Bercot.
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