Augustine had a great many disputes with heretics and others who
separated from the Church, or tried to corrupt its doctrine. But only
two of his controversies need be mentioned here. One of these was with
the Donatists, and the other was with the Pelagians.
The sect of the Donatists had arisen soon after the end of the last
heathen persecution, and was now nearly a hundred years old. We have
seen that St. Cyprian had a great deal of trouble with people who
fancied that, if a man were put to death, or underwent any other
considerable suffering, for the name of Christ, he deserved to be held
in great honour, and his wishes were to be attended to by other
Christians, whatever his character and motives might have been.[32] The
same spirit which led to this mistake continued in Africa after St.
Cyprian's time; and thus, when the persecution began there under
Diocletian and Maximian[33] (A.D. 303), great numbers rushed into
danger, in the hope of being put to death, and of so obtaining at once
the blessedness and the glory of martyrdom. Many of these people were
weary of their lives, or in some other respect were not of such
characters that they could be reckoned as true Christian martyrs. The
wise fathers of the Church always disapproved of such foolhardy doings,
and would not allow people, who acted in a way so unlike our Lord and
His apostle St. Paul, to be considered as martyrs; and Mensurius, who
was the bishop of Carthage, stedfastly set his face against all such
things.
[32] See page 27.
[33] See Chapter IX.
One of the ways by which the persecutors hoped to put down the Gospel,
was to get hold of all the copies of the Scriptures, and to burn them;
and they required the clergy to deliver them up. But most of the
officers who had to execute the orders of the emperors did not know a
Bible from any other book; and it is said that, when some of them came
to Mensurius, and asked him to deliver up his books, he gave them a
quantity of books written by heretics, which he had collected (perhaps
with the intention of burning them himself), and that all the while he
had put the Scriptures safely out of the way, until the tyranny of the
heathens should be overpast. When the persecution was at an end, some of
the party whom he had offended by setting himself against their wrong
notions as to martyrdom, brought up this matter against the bishop. They
said that his account of it was false; that the books which he had
given up were not what he said, but that he had really given up the
Scriptures; and that, even if his story were true, he had done wrong in
using such deceit. They gave the name of _traditors_,[34] (or, as we
should say, _traitors_,) to those who confessed that they had been
frightened into giving up the Scriptures; and they were for showing no
mercy to any traditor, however much he might repent of his weakness.
[34] This means persons who _give up_ or _betray_.
This severe party, then, tried to get up an opposition to Mensurius.
They found, however, that they could make nothing of it. But when he
died, and when Caecilian, who had been his archdeacon and his righthand
man, was chosen bishop in his stead, these people made a great outcry,
and set up another bishop of their own against him. All sorts of people
who had taken offence at Caecilian or Mensurius thought this a fine
opportunity for having their revenge; and thus a strong party was
formed. It was greatly helped by the wealth of a lady named Lucilla,
whom Caecilian had reproved for the superstitious habit of kissing a
bone, which she supposed to have belonged to some martyr, before
communicating at the Lord's table. The first bishop of the party was one
Majorinus, who had been a servant of some sort to Lucilla; and, when
Majorinus was dead, they set up a second bishop, named Donatus, after
whom they were called Donatists. This Donatus was a clever and a learned
man, and lived very strictly; but he was exceedingly proud and
ill-tempered, and used very violent language against all who differed
from him; and his sect copied his pride and bitterness. Many of them,
however, while they professed to be extremely strict, neglected the
plainer and humbler duties of Christian life.
The Donatists said that every member of their sect must be a saint:
whereas our Lord himself had declared that evil members would always be
mixed with the good in His Church on earth, like tares growing in a
field of wheat, or bad fishes mixed with good ones in a net; and that
the separation of the good from the bad would not take place until the
end of the world (_St. Matt._ xiii. 24-30, 36-43, 47-50). And they said
that their own sect was the only true Church of Christ, although they
had no congregations out of Africa, except one which was set up to
please a rich lady in Spain, and another at Rome. Whenever they made a
convert from the Church, they baptized him afresh, as if his former
baptism were good for nothing. They pretended to work miracles, and to
see visions; and they made a very great deal of Donatus himself, so as
even to pay him honours which ought not to have been given to any child
of man; for they sang hymns to him, and swore by his gray hairs.
Shortly after Constantine got possession of Africa by his victory over
Maxentius, and declared liberty of religion to the Christians (A.D.
312-313),[35] the Donatists applied to him against the Catholics;[36]
and it was curious that they should have been the first to call in the
emperor as judge in such a matter, because they were afterwards very
violent against the notion of an earthly sovereign's having any right to
concern himself with the management of religious affairs. Constantine
tried to settle the question by desiring some bishops to judge between
the parties; and these bishops gave judgment in favour of the Catholics.
The Donatists were dissatisfied, and asked for a new trial; whereupon
Constantine gathered a council for the purpose at Arles, in France (A.D.
314). This was the greatest council that had at that time been seen:
there were about two hundred bishops at it, and among them were some
from Britain. Here again the decision was against the Donatists, and
they thereupon begged the emperor himself to examine their case; which
he did, and once more condemned them (A.D. 316). Some severe laws were
then made against them; their churches were taken away; many of them
were banished, and were deprived of all that they had; and they were
even threatened with death, although none of them suffered it during
Constantine's reign.
[35] Page 37.
[36] Page 44.
The emperor, after a while, saw that they were growing wilder and
wilder, that punishment had no effect on them, except to make them more
unmanageable, and that they were not to be treated as reasonable people.
He then did away with the laws against them, and tried to keep them
quiet by kindness; and in the last years of his reign his hands were so
full of the Arian quarrels nearer home that he had little leisure to
attend to the affairs of the Donatists.