Donatism Revisited: Moderates and Militants in Late Antique North Africa

The little we know about the relationships between moderate and militant Donatists in the late fourth and early fifth centuries tells us more about the opposition that both groups stirred among the Caecilianists. What follows is an effort to reenter the Caecilianists’ polemic to discover what we can learn about Donatism and its critics, chiefly Augustine, by reading the evidence with some useful conclusions drawn from the study of more recent religious violence.