Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.
Donatists were exclusively an African schismatic sect who viewed themselves as the true heirs to Christianity and claimed to be the church of martyrs. They argued that the martyred endorsed separation from Catholics and they also provided the necessary link between the present purity and past persecutions (Boer 7). Augustine pursued to link the Donatists with the martyrs through the discourses on their lives and death where he redefined fundamentally the martyrdom tradition for the North African congregants (Bukin 10). He taught that the core of martyrdom basically rested on testifying rather than the view that martyrdom involved sacrifice. As such, this redefinition of martyrdom tradition provided the basis for an attack on the extreme expressions of Donatist devotion, that glorified voluntary martyrdom. Secondly, the view allowed him to emphasize the cause of Christian martyrdom in order to challenge the Donatists claim to characterize the Church of the Martyrs (Bukin 13). Thirdly, it allowed him to offer the benefits of martyrdom to his own congregation even in times free from persecution.
Pelagian controversy was based on Pelagianism whose emphasis was laid on the goodness of human nature and the freedom of free will which denied the ruin of the race and necessity of grace. Augustine responded that human is alienated from God despite retaining their goodness in their creation nature since everything in their created nature is perverted. Thus, no amount of moral training could deliver a person from their inherited sinfulness. Augustine emphasized on absolute dependence of the men on the grace of God in whom all salvation and all good are sourced (Boer 4). This could only be achieved by spiritual death and resurrection of Christ. Augustine then used the political powers that he had and the Roman Empire powers to suppress the Pelagius for the Roman Catholic church.
Works Cited
Boer, Harry R. A Short History of the Early Church. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1976.
Bukin, Mikhail A. St. Augustine of Hippo. On Baptism, Against the Donatists. I:V-IX. Proceedings and translations, no. 1, 2020, pp. 9-17.
Order from us for quality, customized work in due time of your choice.