the history of heresies, and their refutation - Catholic Apologetics ...

(5)0rsi, t. 4, 1. 11, n. 61 & 52.
4. These two heretical opinions fall to the ground at once, by proving the falsity of the first proposition,
that the Church consists of the good alone. St. Augustine proves clearly that these texts of St. Paul and St.
John, refer to the triumphant and not to the militant Church, for our Redeemer, speaking of the militant
Church, says, in many places, it contains both good and bad; in one place he likens it to a threshing floor,
which contains both straw and grain : " He will thoroughly cleanse his floor, and gather his wheat into
the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire" (Matt, iii, 12). In another place he compares it
to a field sown with good seed, and cockle growing amongst it : " Let both grow" he says, " till the time of
the harvest, and then I will say to the reapers, Gather up first the cockle and bind it into bundles to burn,
but gather the wheat into my barn" (Matt, xiii, 3) (6).
5. The Donatists were not content with the crime of heresy, but committed a thousand others, if possible
of a deeper dye. They destroyed the altars of the Catholics, broke the chalices, spilled the holy Chrism on
the ground, and threw the holy Eucharist to the dogs. But St. Optatus Milevitanus (7) informs us that God
did not suffer the indignity to his sacred body and blood to go unpunished, for the dogs getting mad
turned on their own masters, and tore them, as if in revenge for the insult offered to the body of Jesus
Christ. Not satisfied with tormenting the living, they outraged the dead, whom they dragged out of their
graves, and exposed to the most unheard-of indignities. About this time, also, the Circumcellionists
sprung from the Donatists. Their chiefs were Faber and Maxidus, and they were called Circumcellionists
from running about from town to town and house to house. They were called by Donatus the chiefs of
the saints; they boasted that they were the redressors of all wrong and injustice through the world,
though nothing could be more unjust than their own proceedings. They gave liberty to slaves, and
commanded debtors not to pay their debts, telling them they were freed from all obligation. Their cruelty
equalled their fanaticism, for they went about in armed bands, and put to death those who did not
become proselytes to their doctrine; but what was more astonishing than all was to see this fury turned
against themselves, for many of them committed suicide by throwing themselves over precipices, some
cast themselves into the fire, others drowned themselves, or cut their throats, and endeavoured to induce
others to follow their example, telling them that all who died so were martyrs; even women followed the
example of their husbands in this madness, and St. Augustine tells us that even some, in a state of
pregnancy, threw themselves down precipices.
(6) Nat. Alex. t. 9, diss. 31. (7) St. Opt. I. 2, de Donatis.
It is true that even the Donatist bishops endeavoured by every means to put a stop to such frightful
fanaticism, and even called in the authority of the secular power to aid them, but they could not deny that
they were their own disciples, and that they became the victims of such perverse doctrines from
following their own example (8).
6. The Emperors Constantine and Constans, sons of Constantine the Great and Valentinian, issued several
edicts against the Donatists, but all was of little avail. In the reign of Honorious an edict was published,
giving liberty to all sects to profess publicly their doctrines, but about the year 410 the Donatists, taking
advantage of this, broke out into several acts of violence, which so exasperated Honorious that, at the
suggestion of the Catholic bishops of Africa, he revoked the edict. He then published that law (L. 51,
Codex Theodosianus), which punishes with confiscation of property the practice of any religion except
the Catholic, and even with pain of death if the professors of any heretical doctrines should publicly
assemble in their conventicles. In order, however, entirely to extinguish the heresy of Donatus, he sent the
Imperial Tribune, Marcellinus, a man of the greatest learning and prudence, into Africa, with orders to
assemble all the African bishops, both Catholics and Donatists, in Carthage, to proceed to a conference to
see who was right and who was wrong, that peace should be established between them. The Donatists at
first refused to come, but the edicts of Honorius were too strict to be avoided, and they consented, and
the conference was held in the Baths of Gazilian. Two hundred and eighty-six Catholics and two hundred
and seventy-nine Donatists assembled, but Marcellinus, to avoid confusion, would allow only thirty-six,
eighteen on each side, to hold the conference, these eighteen to be chosen from among all the rest. The
schismatics refused to obey the regulations of Marcellinus, and used every stratagem to avoid coming to
the point; especially they endeavoured to cushion the question concerning the true Church, but, with all
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