Donatists, a sect of North Africa which took its rise in 311, on the election of Cæcilian as Bishop of Carthage. Already as an archdeacon he had become obnoxious to the admirers of the fanatical zealots for martyrdom in the Diocletian persecution. To be beforehand with these rigorists, who, under the influence of a rich and bigoted widow, named Lucila, were anxious to prevent his succession to Mensurius as Bishop of Carthage, the moderate party elected Cæcilian without waiting for the arrival of the Numidian bishops, and he was hurriedly consecrated by Felix, Bishop of Aptunga. Secundus, Bishop of Tigisis, coming afterwards to Carthage with seventy other bishops, a synod of North Africa was held, which excommunicated Cæcilian for the illegality of his appointment, and for contumacy in refusing to appear before it. The lector Majorinus was elected in his place, and on his death in 313 was succeeded by Donatus (called the Great), from whom the sect derived its name, and who is to be distinguished from Donatus of Casæ Nigræ, another of its leaders. The schism quickly spread over all Northern Africa. A commission of five Gallic bishops under Melchiades, Bishop of Rome, being charged by the Emperor Constantine to investigate the matter in dispute, repelled the charge against Cæcilian, and the general synod at Arles, in 314, came to a similar finding. Völter has disapproved the later Catholic charge that the Donatists were the first to appeal to the intervention of the civil government. The memorial which they now addressed to Constantine was simply in self-defence, the state, in the person of the emperor, having already pronounced a judgment in the controversy, and that under the influence of their ecclesiastical opponents. He has also shown that neither at Rome nor at Arles had the question of rebaptism of Catholic Christians by Donatists yet arisen; though at Arles the reproach of being a traditor was first brought against the consecrator of Cæcilian, and it was decided that ordination by a traditor was really valid, and that the African practice of rebaptising heretics should thenceforth cease.
The party of Cæcilian, acquiescing in these decisions, thus gave up the established practice of the provincial church of Africa, and from that time the schism became one of principle, for the Donatists now came forward as the champions of use and wont. Their belief that ordination by a traditor was invalid was but a consequence of part of those theories of the church and of the communication of grace which had been advocated by Cyprian (q.v.). A further development of the principle was the rebaptism by the Donatists of such Catholics as came over to them, and at this stage the schism was complete. Constantine having dismissed their appeal to him at Milan in 316, the Donatists then raised the further question—'What has the emperor to do with the church?' and the emperor's answer was the closing of their churches and the banishment of their bishops. After having tried every means to make them unite with the Catholics, Constantine from 321 pursued the policy of ignoring them; but a new and more rigorous persecution under Constans again roused the party to fanaticism. It was reinforced by roving bands of ascetics who called themselves 'Soldiers of Christ,' or 'Agonistici,' and by the Catholics were called Circumcelliones, from their habit of wandering about among the houses of the peasants (circum cellas). To these joined themselves numbers of fugitive slaves and overtaxed peasants, and the Donatist movement took the form of an intermittent political insurrection, which was repeatedly quelled by imperial troops (from 345). There were now Donatist as well as Catholic bishops in nearly every city of the province. From about 400 Augustine made energetic efforts to persuade the Donatists to return to the Catholic communion. On their failure he justified a resort to violence by Christ's command in Luke, xiv. 23. A public disputation was held by imperial command at Carthage in 411, attended by 279 Donatist and 286 Catholic bishops. The former were led by Petilian and Primian, the latter by Augustine and Aurelius; and Marcellinus, the imperial commissary, awarded the victory to the Catholics. In 414 the Donatists were deprived of civil rights, and in 415 attendance at their religious assemblies was forbidden on pain of death. Along with the Catholics, they were in the 5th century decimated by the Vandals, and in the 7th century annihilated by the Saracens.
See the works referred to under AUGUSTINE, and Neander's History, vol. ii.; also Optatus of Milevi, De Schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum (written about end of 4th century; ed. by Dupin, Paris, 1700); Walch, Historie der Ketzereien, vol. iv. (1768); Ribbeck, Donatus und Augustinus (Elberfeld, 1858); and Völter, Der Ursprung des Donatismus (Freiburg, 1883).