Donatus, Bishop of Casa Nigra, was the foremost of these Numidian malcontents, and from him the sect of Donatists took its name; they denied the orders of those ordained by Caecilianus, and hence the validity of the Sacraments administered by them.  Excommunicated themselves, “they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind who had embraced the impious party of Caecilianus, and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination.  They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism, and that the prerogatives of the Catholic Church were confined to the chosen portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the integrity of their faith and discipline.  This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct.  Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the east, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or of schismatics” (Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” vol. iii. pp. 5, 6).  A number of Donatists, known as Circumcelliones, “maintained their cause by the force of arms, and overrunning all Africa, filled that province with slaughter and rapine, and committed the most enormous acts of perfidy and cruelty against the followers of Caecilianus” (p. 109).  To complete the darkly terrible picture of the Church in the fourth century, we need only note the various orders of fanatical monks, filthy in their habits, densely ignorant, hopelessly superstitious, amongst whom may be numbered the travelling mendicants called Sarabaites.  “Many of the Coenobites were chargeable with vicious and scandalous practices.  This order, however, was not so universally corrupt as that of the Sarabaites, who were, for the most part, profligates of the most abandoned kind” (p. 102).  The pen wearies over the list of scandals of these early Christian ages; we can but sketch the outline here; let the student fill the picture in, and he will find even blacker shades needed to darken it enough.

CENTURY V.

This century sees the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West, and the rise into importance of the great Gothic monarchies.  The Christian emperors of the East put down paganism with a strong hand, conferring state offices on Christians only, and forbidding pagan ceremonies [unless under Christian names].  The sons of Constantine had pronounced the penalty of death and confiscation against any who sacrificed to the old gods; and Theodosius, in A.D. 390, had forbidden, under heavy penalties, all pagan rites.  This work of repression was rigorously carried on.  Clovis, king of the Franks, embraced Christianity, finding its profession “of great use to him, both in confirming and enlarging his empire”