Ross Douthat wrote in The New York Times that I was making a "terrible mistake." In another of the six columns on the subject of my exodus--all of them arguing against--a writer for The Federalist accused me of the heresy of
Donatism. Reading it made me suspect that he was mostly excited to know what
Donatism is.
On
Donatism, see Spinks, Early and Medieval Rituals and Theologies of Baptism, 66-67.
Press, 1952]) tried to link together the lives of laypersons and clerics by arguing that the North African Christianities of
Donatism and Catholicism were born from geographical location and political identity.
In chapter 2, Tilley aptly prepares readers for
Donatism's theological vicissitudes.
Subordinationism, Arianism, which caused the murder of millions, Macedonianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism,
Donatism, Pelagianism--all these in the first five hundred years of the Church.
Just as Augustine's early confrontations with Manichaeism (a dualist religion that believed the cosmos to emanate from two coequal principles of goodness and evil) left their mark on the Confessions, so did his post-conversion wranglings with Pelagianism (which denied original sin and man's need of divine grace for salvation) and
Donatism (which tied the efficacy of the sacraments to the moral purity of their ministers) inform his mature writings.
Some examples include: Alcuin of York, Lombards,
Donatism, Peasants, Salic Law, and more.
El obispo de Roma se nego a asistir y envio a dos legados, inaugurando una practica que ha perdurado hasta nuestros dias para situaciones similares, reservandose no obstante la decision final (Optato de Milevi, Contra Parmenianum donatistam, 1, 23-24), vease Timothy David BARNES, The Beginnings of
Donatism, en Journal of Theological Studies, 26 (1975), pp.
Ancient heresies also attempted to establish an elite class within the church, whether by virtue of a presumed "purity" (
donatism) or a special knowledge and spiritual status (gnosticism).
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Donatism was a heresy prominent in North Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries.
Finally, well-known controversies, Pelagianism and
Donatism, for example, also appear in these pages, their debates about boundaries closely keyed to Augustine's perceptions of pride and the soul's debility.