(Donatists, Donatism)

David Ames

(Donatists, Donatism)  
There is a related thread that I have read:
http://community.logos.com/forums/p/29178/216001.aspx#216001 

Where I found the statement “Donatist where the differences on baptism were the result of broader issues”

Am trying to look into the “broader issues”

Got 778 articles in 142 resources

[so far] the best two seem to be:

AFRICA (401). Held on the 13th September 401, to consult upon the best method of acting towards the Donatists.
^[1] Edward H. Landon, vol. 1, A Manual of Councils of the Holy Catholic Church, 5 (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1909).

^[1] William E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, A Catholic Dictionary, Sixth Edition, With Additions, 279-80 (New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 1887).

The key person in turning down the arguments of the Donatists was Augustin:
And have found :
SEVEN BOOKS OF AUGUSTIN, bishop of hippo ON BAPTISM, AGAINST THE DONATISTS.
^[1] Augustine of Hippo, "On Baptism, Against the Donatists", trans. J. R. King, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, Volume IV: St. Augustin: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists, ed. Philip Schaff, 411 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887).

Have just started: are there better resources that I have missed / skipped? 

Dave Moser

You might want to study the Diocletian persecution because that's what sparked the Donatist controversy.

Mark Barnes

David Ames said:

Have just started: are there better resources that I have missed / skipped? 

The broader issues were essentially the authority of bishops. Following persecution, some Christians (including some Bishops) handed in their Bibles, which was considered by some to be unchristian. The question then arose as to whether the sacraments performed by these bishops was valid, indeed were the sacraments performed by those consecrated by these bishops valid. Augustine argued that the validity of the sacrament was dependent on the authority of Christ, not on the authority of the bishop who performed the sacrament, and therefore regardless of whether a bishop was appropriately appointed, the sacrament remained valid.

There are all in Logos:

Primary Sources

Creeds, Councils, and Controversies: Documents Illustrative of the History of the Church A.D. 337-461. Edited by James Stevenson and B. J. Kidd. New York: Seabury Press, 1966 - has a chapter: 'Donatism: The Mission of Paul and Macarius to Africa, 347, and the Behaviour of Donatus: Optatus', and several extracts from early church documents written about the controversy.

Augustine's material is in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series, Volume IV: St. Augustin: The Writings Against the Manichaeans and Against the Donatists. Edited by Philip Schaff. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887.

Stevenson, James. A New Eusebius: Documents Illustrating the History of the Church to AD 337. London: SPCK, 1987.

Secondary Sources

Cross, F. L., and Elizabeth A. Livingstone. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. 3rd ed. rev. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 — is brief, but points out the broader issues succinctly.

Ferguson, Everett. Church History, Volume 1: From Christ to Pre-Reformation. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005 - has a chapter on the 'Donatist Schism'.

Schaff, Philip, and David Schley Schaff. History of the Christian Church. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1910 (has references to the Donatists scattered throughout, which therefore gives a sense of the broader issues, and chapters 69-71 deal explicitly with the donatists: 'The Donatist Schism. External History', '. Augustine and the Donatists. Their Persecution and Extinction' and 'Internal History of the Donatist Schism. Dogma of the Church').

Wright, David F. Infant Baptism in Historical Perspective. Great Britain: Paternoster, 2007 (one chapter on 'Donatist Theologoumena in Augustine? Baptism, Reviviscence of Sins, and Unworthy Ministers', and another on 'The Donatists in the Sixteenth Century')

 

David Ames

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/407373#Comment_407373

Let’s see if I have a first level understanding of this: [which is why I started looking into the subject]
In The Divine Comedy of Dante there are many church leaders in the inferno.  But even if that is where they are all official sacraments that they performed are seen as valid because it is the office and not the officer that makes them valid?  Even though they did not get to heaven.

Thanks for the list of books in Logos – I have some of them and will need to get the Early Church History Collection [someday, most likely in my 2016 budget]

George Somsel

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/407412#Comment_407412

There is also a section in von Harnack, History of Dogma <logosres:histdogma05;ref=Page.p_140;off=1081>

Mark Barnes

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/407412#Comment_407412

David Ames said:

In The Divine Comedy of Dante there are many church leaders in the inferno.  But even if that is where they are all official sacraments that they performed are seen as valid because it is the office and not the officer that makes them valid?  Even though they did not get to heaven.

Yes. Here's a few extracts from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church:

Donatists: The Donatists were a schismatic body in the African Church who became divided from the Catholics through their refusal to accept *Caecilian, Bp. of Carthage (consecrated most prob. in 311), on the ground that his consecrater, Felix of Aptunga, had been a *traditor during the *Diocletianic *persecution. The Numidian bishops, supporting the objectors, consecrated Majorinus as a rival to Caecilian, and he was soon afterwards succeeded by Donatus, from whom the schism is named.

A commission under *Miltiades, Bp. of Rome, investigated the dispute in 313. It decided against the Donatists, who thereupon appealed unsuccessfully, first to the Synod of *Arles (314) and then to the Emperor (316). But the schism prospered, for theologically (with doubtful justification) it claimed St *Cyprian's authority, while politically it drew upon African regional feeling, since the Catholics were supported by Rome. It also relied upon Numidian jealousy of Carthage and on economic unrest. The Emperor began coercion in 316, but abandoned it in 321. When, later, the Donatist leaders associated themselves with violent bands of marauders, called *circumcelliones, state repression began again (347) under Constans, but was relaxed under *Julian (361-3).

…Theologically the Donatists were rigorists, holding that the Church of the saints must remain 'holy' (cf. *Novatianism), and that sacraments conferred by traditores were invalid. Apart from their denial that Felix of Aptunga was in fact a traditor, the Church maintained that the unworthiness of the minister did not affect the *validity of sacraments, since, as Augustine insisted, their true minister was Christ. The Donatists, on the other hand, went so far as to assert that all those who communicated with traditores were infected, and that, since the Church is one and holy, the Donatists alone formed the Church. Converts to Donatism were rebaptized, a proceeding repeatedly condemned by orthodox synods.

 

traditors. The name given in Africa in early times to Christians who surrendered the Scriptures when their possession was forbidden in the persecution of *Diocletian. The controversy between Catholics and *Donatists which followed the persecution was centred chiefly in the refusal of the Donatists to recognize *Caecilian, Bp. of Carthage, on the ground that he had been consecrated by traditors.