Augustine

Catholic Augustine, a Roman African, was born in 354

lived in the Roman Africa Province.

Catholic Augustine campaigned against the true church throughout his tenure as Bishop of Hippo.

The Donatists lived in the Roman province of Africa and flourished in the fourth and fifth centuries.

The church must be a church of saints, not sinners,

In 313, a commission appointed by Pope Miltiades found against the Donatists,

but they continued to exist, viewing themselves, and not what was known as the Catholic Church, as the true Church,

disappeared only after the Arab conquest of the 7th-8th century

The Donatists refused to accept the spiritual authority of the priests and bishops

who had fallen away from the faith during the persecution.

During the persecution some Church leaders had gone so far as to turn Christians over to Roman authorities

and had handed over religious texts to authorities to be publicly burned.

These people were called traditors ("people who had handed over").

These traditors had returned to positions of authority under Constantine I,

many towns were divided between Donatist and non-Donatist congregations.

developed and grown in northern Africa.

Constantine, as emperor, began to get involved in the dispute,

and in 314 he called the Council of Arles;

the issue was debated and the decision went against the Donatists.

The Donatists refused to accept the decision of the council,

their distaste for bishops who had collaborated with Rome came out of their broader view of the Roman Empire.

After the Constantinian shift, when Catholics accepted the emperor as a leader in the Church,

the Donatists continued to see the emperor as the devil.

In 317 Constantine sent troops to deal with the Donatists in Carthage,

for the first time Catholics persecuting Christians.

It resulted in banishments, but ultimately failed, and Constantine had to withdraw and end the persecutions in 321.

More laws against the Donatists were issued by Valentinian I,

after the defeat of the Donatist usurper Firmus in Northern Africa.

Catholic Augustine of Hippo campaigned against this belief throughout his tenure as Bishop of Hippo,

and through his efforts the Catholic Church gained the upper hand.

Augustine's view, which was also the majority view within the Catholic Church,

In 409, Marcellinus of Carthage, Emperor Honorius's secretary of state,

decreed the Donatists heretical and demanded that they give up their churches.

This was made possible after a collatio, in which Augustine, with legal documents,

proved that Emperor Constantine had chosen the Catholic Church over the Donatists as the official church of the empire.

As a result the Donatists were harshly persecuted by the Roman authorities,

Augustine thought that the Donatists had perverted God's grace.

Nevertheless, his successes were reversed when the Vandals conquered North Africa.

Donatism survived the Vandal occupation and the Byzantine reconquest under Justinian I.

Some Christian historians believe the Donatist schism

and the discord it caused in the Christian community made the Arab conquest of the region in the 7th century easier.

Roman Africa was overrun by the Vandals, a warlike tribe with Arian sympathies.

They had entered Africa at the instigation of Count Boniface,

The Vandals arrived in the spring of 430 to besiege Hippo,

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