And then:
At the close of the forth century, and during the fifth,
Manichaeism,
Donatism, and
Priscillianism were the
heresies most in view… Though they were found guilty of abominable teachings and misdeeds (St. Augustine, De haeresibus", no. 46), the
Church refused to invoke the
civil power against them; indeed, the great
Bishop of Hippo explicitly rejected the use force. He sought their return only through public and private acts of submission, and his efforts seem to have met with success. Indeed, we learn from him that the
Donatists themselves were the first to appeal to the
civil power for protection against the
Church. However, they fared like
Daniel’s accusers: the lions turned upon them. State intervention not answering to their wishes, and the
violent excesses of the
Circumcellions being condignly punished, the
Donatists complained bitterly of administrative cruelty.
St. Optatus of Mileve defended the
civil authority (De Schismate Donatistarum, III, cc. 6-7) as follows:
. . . as though it were not permitted to come forward as avengers of
God, and to pronounce sentence of
death! . . . But, say you, the State cannot punish in the name of
God. Yet was it not in the name of
God that
Moses and Phineas consigned to death the worshippers of the
Golden Calf and those who despised the
true religion?
In his (St. Augustine) correspondence with state officials he dwells on
Christian charity and
toleration, and represents the
heretics as straying lambs, to be sought out and perhaps, if recalcitrant chastised with rods and frightened with threats of severer but not to be driven back to the fold by means of rack and sword . On the other hand, in his writings against the
Donatists he upholds the
rights of the State: sometimes, he says, a salutary severity would be to the interest of the
erring ones themselves and likewise protective of
true believers and the community at large (Vacandard, 1. c., pp. 17-26).
