early 4th century (from 311)

The Donatist controversy: the holiness of the Church and the validity of the sacraments

The dispute grew out of the persecution of Diocletian, when edicts required that the Scriptures be handed over to the authorities. Against Caecilian, elected bishop of Carthage, the Numidians claimed that his ordination was invalid because one of those who ordained him had allegedly been a traditor. The Donatists, continuing Cyprian's line, insisted on the empirical holiness of the Church: sacraments are invalid outside the holy Church and at the hands of unworthy ministers, and only their own community is true. Most African bishops and Rome held that the validity of a sacrament depends on the office and not on the personal purity of the minister. Augustine replied that the Church's holiness lies in the grace of the sacraments and not in the person of the minister; the sin that threatens the Church is schism.