When the dust of the Diocletianic persecution had barely settled, another storm broke over the congregations of North Africa. This time the danger did not come directly from pagan emperors or governors but from within the professing church itself. The issue was not whether Christians should sacrifice to idols—that question had been answered by the blood of the martyrs—but what to do about those who had yielded under pressure, especially leaders who had surrendered Scriptures or cooperated with imperial demands.

In a region already shaped by earlier debates over the lapsed under Decius and Valerian, the new crisis in the early fourth century was sharp. Many believers, still grieving the destruction of meeting places and the loss of elders, overseers, and servants, now faced painful questions: Could a leader who had compromised continue to minister? If his own hands were stained by betrayal, were baptisms and ordinations carried out by him valid? Could the congregation be truly holy if such men stood at its head?

From these concerns emerged the Donatist movement, named after Donatus of Casae Nigrae, which insisted that the church must be visibly pure and that any ministry exercised by compromised leaders was null. Their opponents—those who supported Caecilian of Carthage and the wider African and “catholic” (universal) church—affirmed the seriousness of sin but argued that the validity of ministry rests in Christ and His Word, not in the flawless record of human instruments.

The struggle that followed was not a minor regional quarrel. It raised fundamental questions about the nature of the church, the meaning of holiness, the extent of forgiveness, and the relationship between congregations and imperial power.

---

The Issue of Leaders Who Compromised Under Threat

North Africa After the Great Persecution

The Diocletianic campaign had hit North Africa with particular force. Church buildings were destroyed, Scriptures were demanded and often burned, and leaders were arrested. Some elders and overseers refused to hand over the sacred books and were imprisoned or killed. Others, under fear of torture, exile, or confiscation of property, surrendered codices or cooperated with officials. These became known as traditores—“handers over”—those who had delivered holy writings or fellow believers to the persecutors.

When imperial policy shifted and relative peace returned, the congregations began to rebuild. In Carthage, a crucial city for the African churches, the overseer Mensurius died around this time. The election of a new overseer immediately exposed deep fractures left by the persecution.

Mensurius himself had taken a cautious approach. He claimed to have hidden the genuine Scriptures while handing over heretical writings to satisfy officials. Many saw this as wise protection of the Word. Others suspected deceit or excessive compromise. His deacon, Caecilian, who had supported his policies, therefore inherited both his administrative experience and his critics.

When Mensurius died, Caecilian was chosen and quickly consecrated as overseer of Carthage by local bishops. To his supporters, this looked like a smooth transition in time of need. To others, especially rigorous believers who had suffered much, it appeared as the elevation of a man associated with leniency toward the lapsed.

Memories of Earlier Controversies

Behind North Africa’s sensitivity lay older wounds. During the Decian persecution in the mid-third century, many had lapsed and then sought restoration. In Carthage, Cyprian had argued for careful but genuine restoration of the repentant, while the Novatianists in Rome insisted that grave sins after baptism could not be forgiven by the congregation at all.

The Donatist controversy revived similar questions but sharpened them by focusing on church leaders. If an ordinary believer surrendered under threat and later repented, could he be received back? Many said yes, after discipline and examination. But what of a bishop or elder whose duty was to shepherd the flock and guard the Scriptures? Did his betrayal make him permanently unfit for office? And did his previous ministry—baptisms performed, elders ordained—count as valid?

North Africans, with their strong heritage of martyrdom and moral rigor, were especially troubled. They revered those who had stood firm and were wary of what they saw as compromise. This passion for holiness, though commendable in its desire to honor Jehovah, could easily slide into unforgiving legalism when not balanced by the full biblical teaching on repentance and grace.

---

Questions of Purity and the Validity of Ministry

Can a Tainted Minister Administer Pure Ordinances?

At the center of the brewing conflict lay a crucial theological question: Does the moral character of the minister determine the validity of the ordinances he performs?

The North African churches practiced baptism by immersion upon confession of faith, and they celebrated the Lord’s Supper as a memorial of Christ’s atoning death. These acts were not empty rituals; they were grounded in Christ’s commands and the apostolic pattern. But what if the overseer who immersed a believer or presided at the Lord’s table had himself betrayed Christ during persecution?

For many rigorists, the answer seemed obvious. If a minister had acted as a traditor, he had forfeited all spiritual authority. His ministry, they argued, became a polluted channel; any baptisms or ordinations he performed were invalid. Those who had received baptism from such a man were, in effect, unbaptized and needed to be immersed again by a pure minister. Similarly, elders ordained by a compromised overseer stood on shaky ground.

Others, however, argued from Scripture and apostolic precedent that Christ Himself is the true minister in the ordinances. The human servant is an instrument; the promise of God, not the perfection of the administrator, makes the act effectual. The New Testament gives no hint that a believer’s baptism becomes null if the immerser later falls into sin. The gospel, they said, does not tie the believer’s status to the hidden spiritual condition of the one who presided, but to the believer’s own repentance and faith in Christ and to Jehovah’s faithfulness to His Word.

Purity of the Church: Absolute or Relative?

Linked to this issue of ministry was the broader question of the church’s purity. The Donatist side insisted that the congregation must be a fellowship of the visibly righteous. To admit leaders who had lapsed, or even to maintain fellowship with congregations led by such men, was to contaminate the body of Christ.

Their opponents agreed that the church must discipline unrepentant sin and that overseers must meet the moral qualifications laid down in the Pastoral Epistles. Yet they pointed to Christ’s parable of the wheat and the weeds and to the New Testament reality that congregations in Corinth and elsewhere included weak and immature believers. The church on earth, they argued, is a mixed body—a community of those truly born again and others who profess faith yet may not be genuine. Final separation belongs to Christ at the judgment, not to human authorities now.

From a conservative evangelical perspective, the biblical pattern supports this latter view. Congregations must pursue holiness, exercise discipline, and remove those who persist in clear, unrepentant sin. Overers who fail morally are to be rebuked and, if necessary, removed from office. But the attempt to create a perfectly pure church by cutting off all who have ever compromised, or by treating their ministry as intrinsically invalid, risks ignoring the reality of remaining sin and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement for genuinely repentant believers.

---

The Rise of Donatist Separatism

The Election of Caecilian and the Numidian Challenge

When Caecilian was quickly elected overseer of Carthage and consecrated by neighboring bishops, a party in the city objected. Some had personal grievances; a wealthy woman named Lucilla, for example, resented Caecilian’s earlier rebukes of her veneration of a martyr’s relic. Others, especially among the confessors who had suffered in prison, believed that Caecilian had been unsympathetic during the persecution and too ready to restore the lapsed.

Most decisively, they challenged the legitimacy of his consecration. One of the bishops who laid hands on Caecilian was Felix of Aptunga, whom opponents accused of being a traditor during the Great Persecution. If this accusation stood, Donatist logic demanded that Caecilian’s whole ordination was void.

Opponents therefore appealed to the Numidian bishops, headed by Secundus of Tigisis, who had a reputation for rigor. In North Africa, Numidian bishops traditionally participated in the consecration of the Carthaginian overseer. Feeling slighted by their exclusion and already inclined toward severity against the lapsed, they responded eagerly.

At a council in Carthage, these bishops declared Caecilian deposed and appointed a rival overseer, Majorinus, supported financially by Lucilla. After Majorinus’ death a few years later, Donatus of Casae Nigrae took his place and gave his name to the movement that consolidated around this separatist line.

A Parallel Church in North Africa

With two rival overseers in Carthage—Caecilian recognized by many bishops across the Mediterranean, Donatus (after Majorinus) recognized by rigorists—a schism had effectively begun. The Donatist party considered themselves the true African church, free of traditors and faithful to the martyrs’ legacy. They often called their opponents “the church of the betrayed,” accusing them of communion with traitors.

This division extended beyond the city into the countryside. Many rural congregations, especially those whose members had suffered severely under the persecution, sided with Donatus. They resented what they perceived as a wealthy, urban, more politically connected church willing to accommodate compromised leaders. In the hills and villages of Numidia, Donatist overseers and elders gained strong support.

Thus a parallel structure emerged: Donatist congregations with their own bishops, councils, and disciplinary practices, existing alongside the wider Catholic (that is, universal) church. Both claimed to be the true continuation of the apostolic faith in Africa; both read the same Scriptures; both appealed to the authority of Christ. The difference lay in their understanding of purity, ministry, and the treatment of the lapsed.

Donatist Rigor and Popular Passion

Over time, Donatist identity hardened. Their rhetoric exalted martyrs and confessors as the true heroes of the faith, implicitly contrasting them with what they saw as soft, worldly bishops in the Caecilian camp. Donatist preachers denounced traditores fiercely, portraying the controversy as a battle between the church of Christ and a counterfeit body allied with imperial power.

In some areas, especially later with the rise of militant groups called Circumcellions, Donatist passion spilled over into violence, with attacks on property and sometimes on rival believers. While such extremism was not universal among Donatists, it shows how a movement born from concern for holiness can be twisted, under demonic influence and human anger, into hostility and even bloodshed.

---

Theological and Moral Implications

The Nature of the Church

At its heart, the Donatist controversy was a debate about what the church is. Donatists envisioned the congregation as a society of the visibly pure, a fellowship where serious sin—especially apostasy under persecution—permanently excluded a person from leadership and, in many cases, from fellowship itself.

The Caecilian party, while insisting on the necessity of discipline, argued that the church on earth is a mixed body. It consists of truly converted believers and others who profess faith but may not be regenerate. Elders and overseers must meet biblical qualifications, but their hidden faults do not erase the validity of the Word they preach or the ordinances they administer, so long as they teach the apostolic gospel.

Scripture supports this view through images such as the net that gathers fish of every kind and the field where wheat and weeds grow together until the harvest. Christ and His apostles warned congregations to confront open sin, yet they also assumed that some hypocrites would remain until the final judgment.

From a conservative evangelical standpoint, this does not excuse lax discipline. Congregations sin when they tolerate clear, ongoing sin without correction. But it does mean that believers must avoid the illusion of constructing a perfectly pure church by human selectivity. Only Christ sees hearts perfectly; only He, at His return, will separate the true from the false.

The Validity of Baptism and the Word

Another key implication concerned the ordinances. Donatists practiced rebaptism of those who came from the Caecilian side, convinced that a baptism administered by a compromised or heretical minister was no baptism at all.

Their opponents appealed to the principle that the Word of God, when rightly proclaimed and obeyed, does not lose its power because of the minister’s flaws. When a repentant believer is immersed in the name of the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit, confessing Christ as Lord and trusting in His atoning sacrifice, the act’s validity rests on Jehovah’s promise, not on the later track record of the immerser.

This principle aligns with Scripture. John the Baptist’s disciples did not receive new baptisms because John later experienced doubt; those Paul baptized did not need fresh immersion if Paul later faced criticisms. Nowhere do the apostles suggest that a believer’s status before Jehovah hangs on the secret state of the minister’s conscience.

By insisting that the ordinances depend on ministerial purity, Donatists unintentionally shifted focus from Christ and His Word to human worthiness. This endangered assurance. Ordinary believers could never be sure whether their baptism or participation in the Lord’s Supper was valid unless they could trace the spotless morals of every minister in a long chain of ordinations—a task impossible in practice and contrary to the spirit of the gospel.

Holiness, Grace, and the Danger of Legalism

The Donatist movement arose from a genuine concern for holiness. They rightly abhored cowardice and compromise; they honored martyrs who had suffered under pagan tyranny. Their grief over leaders who had failed was understandable, and their rejection of superficial leniency reflected a desire to take sin seriously.

However, when this zeal was divorced from the full biblical teaching on grace and restoration, it hardened into legalism. Donatists often treated post-baptismal sin—especially acts committed under severe persecution—as unforgivable in practice, even if they conceded that Jehovah might show mercy at the final judgment. Their congregations could become communities more defined by denunciation of others than by humility over their own need for mercy.

Scripture presents a different balance. It warns that denial of Christ is a grave sin and that those who persist in sin without repentance will not inherit the Kingdom. At the same time, it records Peter’s denial and restoration, holds out forgiveness for those who have fallen, and commands congregations to reaffirm their love for repentant offenders so that they are not swallowed up by excessive sorrow.

The Donatist controversy therefore serves as a cautionary tale. It shows how a rightly grounded concern for purity can, under the influence of human pride and satanic accusation, become a refusal to extend the same mercy that believers themselves have received in Christ.

---

Early Attempts at Resolution

Appeal to Constantine and Imperial Arbitration

The controversy quickly spread beyond Africa and caught the attention of Emperor Constantine, who had recently granted toleration to Christians and begun to favor the church. Both sides sought his support.

Constantine, seeing the division as a threat to unity within a group he now regarded as vital to the empire’s stability, agreed to intervene. He was not a theologian and had much to learn about the gospel, but he believed that disputes among Christians should be resolved by councils of bishops whose decisions could then be supported by imperial authority.

He first asked Miltiades, overseer of Rome, to examine the case. A small council in Rome in 313 heard accusations against Caecilian and ultimately upheld his legitimacy, declaring the charges against him unproven. Donatists rejected this verdict as biased.

To address their objections, Constantine called a larger council at Arles in 314, summoning bishops from across the West. There, too, the decision went against the Donatist party. The council affirmed that traditor bishops, though guilty and subject to discipline, did not invalidate the ordinances they had performed. Rebaptism was rejected; Caecilian’s position as overseer of Carthage was confirmed.

Donatist Refusal and the Limits of Coercion

Despite these rulings, Donatists did not submit. They argued that the councils were dominated by bishops sympathetic to Caecilian and tainted, in their view, by communion with traditores. For them, the only legitimate church was the Donatist network in North Africa, which they believed preserved the purity of the martyrs.

Constantine, frustrated, tried to enforce unity by confiscating Donatist buildings and supporting Caecilian’s party with imperial backing. This attempt at coercion backfired. Donatists, already convinced that the “church of the traditors” was in league with secular power, now viewed themselves as a persecuted righteous remnant. The use of state force in a church dispute confirmed their suspicions and hardened their opposition.

Over time, Constantine moderated his policies, realizing that violence could not produce genuine unity. Yet the damage was done. The empire’s involvement in the controversy introduced a pattern in which secular rulers regarded themselves as arbiters of ecclesiastical purity—a pattern that would have long-term implications in later centuries.

A Schism That Would Not Heal Quickly

By the time this first generation of conflict ended, Donatism had become entrenched. In the countryside of North Africa, Donatist overseers, elders, and servants shepherded substantial congregations, while Caecilian’s supporters continued to represent the wider “catholic” communion.

Neither side considered the division minor. Donatists believed that outside their fellowship there was no true church in Africa. Their opponents regarded Donatists as schismatics who had separated from the body of Christ, even though they continued to hold many orthodox doctrines.

The controversy thus remained unresolved as the fourth century progressed. Later, Augustine of Hippo would devote immense energy to addressing Donatist arguments, grounding his responses in Scripture and in a more balanced understanding of the church as a mixed body held together by the Word and Spirit of Christ. But those developments belong to a later chapter.

For now, at the beginning of the Donatist controversy, we see the opening of a long struggle that would shape North African Christianity for generations. Issues of purity, ministry, forgiveness, and the relationship between church and empire—set against the backdrop of recent persecution—combined to produce a schism that neither councils nor imperial decrees could quickly mend.

The history of these early stages reminds us that the church’s greatest dangers often arise not only from overt persecution but from the way believers respond to failure within their own ranks. When holiness is pursued without grace, or grace is proclaimed without holiness, the enemy finds opportunity. Only by holding fast to the full teaching of Scripture—about sin, repentance, restoration, and the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement—can congregations navigate such tensions without tearing themselves apart.

You May Also Enjoy

The Alexandrian and Antiochene Theological Schools

About the Author

CLICK LINKED IMAGE TO VISIT ONLINE STORE

CLICK TO SCROLL THROUGH OUR BOOKS