Donatist, a member of a Christian group in North Africa that broke with the Roman Catholics in 312 over the election of Caecilian as bishop of Carthage; the name derived from their leader, Donatus (d. c. 355). Historically, the Donatists belong to the tradition of early Christianity that produced the Montanist and Novatianist movements in Asia Minor and the Melitians in Egypt. They opposed state interference in church affairs, and, through the peasant warriors called Circumcellions, they had a program of social revolution combined with eschatological hopes. Martyrdom following a life of penance was the goal of the religiously minded Donatist. Despite almost continuous pressure from successive Roman, Vandal, and Byzantine rulers of North Africa, the Donatist church survived until the extinction of Christianity in North Africa in the early European Middle Ages.
The ultimate causes of the schism were both doctrinal and social. Throughout the 3rd century the prevailing tradition in the African church had regarded the church as a body of the elect. This view, which was espoused by Cyprian and developed in response to earlier controversy, had as its corollary the belief that the validity of sacerdotal acts depended on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the minister and that a minister who was not in a state of grace could not administer a valid sacrament. At the same time, riches and sin had tended to become identified; mammon and the Roman world were equally to be shunned.
In 311 Caecilian was elected bishop, but he was opposed by many because he allowed himself to be consecrated by a traditor bishop (one who had surrendered copies of Scripture to the authorities during Emperor Diocletian’s persecution of Christians, beginning in 303). The primate of Numidia, Secundus of Tigisi, who had acquired in the previous 40 years the right of consecrating the bishop of Carthage, arrived in Carthage with 70 bishops and in solemn council declared Caecilian’s election invalid. The council then appointed a reader (lector), Majorinus, to replace Caecilian.
The new emperor, Constantine the Great, ordered arbitration of the controversy. A mixed commission of Italian and Gallic bishops under the presidency of Miltiades, bishop of Rome, found Caecilian innocent of all charges on Oct. 2, 313. Meantime, Majorinus had been replaced by Donatus, who appealed against Miltiades’ judgment. Constantine summoned a council of bishops from the western provinces of the empire at Arles on Aug. 1, 314, and again Caecilian was upheld and his position strengthened by a canon that ordination was not invalid if it had been performed by a traditor. Despite further appeals by Donatus and his supporters, Constantine gave a final decision in favour of Caecilian in November 316.
The schism did not die out. Persecution from 317 to 321 failed, and in May 321 Constantine grudgingly granted toleration to the Donatists. The movement gained strength for several years, but in August 347 Emperor Constans I exiled Donatus and other leaders to Gaul, where Donatus died about 355.
When Julian the Apostate became emperor in 361, the exiled Donatists returned to Africa and were the majority Christian party for the next 30 years. Their opponents, however, now led by St. Augustine of Hippo, gained strength, and in 411 a conference presided over by Augustine’s friend the imperial tribune Marcellinus was held in Carthage. This council decided against the Donatists and for the Catholics. In 412 and 414 severe laws denied the Donatists civil and ecclesiastical rights; however, the Donatists expected hostility from the world as part of the natural order of things, and they survived into the 7th century.