CarpentersApprentice said:
Eliyahu, or anyone else who knows:
What are the original source documents that lead you to believe this is a true statement?
(I am a little bit familiar with Optatus' and Augustin's writings against the Donatists. I do not recall any sections there that would lead to the above conclusions.)
CA
I understand what your questions mean.
In fact we must discuss all the issues based on the Primary sources of the information. However, it is quite difficult for us to gather such Info and have limited accesses to many of them even if they may exist.
At the moment, I am rather busy with other works, but after sometime I would focus on those as much as possible.
At this stage, what I posted was brought from the article by Dr Cassidy who appears on this board from time to time, at Bible Translation threads.
From my survey, I have noticed that there are 2 major distinctive ranges of the historical views, one Catholic plus the extended Catholics like Anglican or Orthodox, Presbyterian, then Baptists and Brethren.
The first group advocate the Compromise with the Secularism as Catholic, while the second group condemned them as Apostasy.
As the two runs parallel, we can check what those groups believe are biblical or not.
For example, Calvin said there is no salvation outside the holy Catholic church, which may be learned from Augustine.
But is it true when we notice the Robber at the Cross went to the Paradise?
Calvin claimed the church is the mother to those who call the God as their Father. There is no word like that in the Bible saying the church is Mother, though we find Paul indicated Sarah is our mother ( Gal 4:26) and Peter said the women believers are the daughters of Sarah ( 1 Pet 3:6). Then Calvin claimed the Baptismal Regeneration which means the Being born again by Water Baptism, and means that 1 second before the baptism, the person is not born again, but 1 second after the Baptism, he or she is born again by the magic power of Baptism.
Then, Calvin advocated Infant Baptism which means the Unbelievers baptism, then Immersion or Sprinkling is left free, he said, which is ridiculous to the Bible believers.
Then Calvin condemned Anabaptists, Cathari, Donatists, which is no wonder to me.
Often when Calvin interpretted the Bible in defense of his arguments, he revealed his ignorance very much.
For example, he brought the story of Noah's family to defend Infant Baptism, then he said Noah's children passed thru the Rain-shower and Flood which is the shadow of the Baptism. Therefore the children of Noah were saved. However, he was quite stupid to miss how old they were.
They were about 98 year old ( Shem) and Japeth was even older than Shem, then Ham was younger, but married already. Therefore it doesn't support the babies baptism there!
There is no distinction between Clergy people and Lay people in the Bible. All the believers are the priests cleansed by the Blood of Jesus, offering the sacrifice with what Jesus has done at the Cross.
However, Calvin claimed that the sacraments must be done by the pastors or ordained people. If the deacon Philip baptized the Eunuch of Ethiopia, can any other deacon not perform the baptism?
But the Bible clearly tells us that Jesus HATES the doctrine and deeds of Nicolaitanes ( Rev 2:6, 15)
In hundreds of verses, Calvin revealed his absolute ignorance about the Bible. Can we trust such people's exegesis?
I don't know much about Optatus, but understand Augustine caused another problems with his Catholic theory. I would rather trust chick.com than Augustine.
One of the effective way to discern the correct history is to check the beliefs and doctrines which the historians support.
Whether they condone or condemn the Idolatry, goddess worship ( Mary as Mother of God), Purgatory, Infant Baptism, Baptismal Regeneration, Papacy, Transubstantiation, etc. are to be checked.
If any true history exist about Donatists, it must include which Bible verses they brought in support of their beliefs, how they interpretted thousands of Bible verses, how they preached the Gospel,
They must have interpretted Exodus 20:24, for example. What was their interpretation?
The powerful weapon used by the true believers are the interpretation of the Bible, which cannot be immitated by fake-Christians.
Those exegesis disappeared as the Muslims and Catholics swept them, but their remnants and seeds flew into other areas forming other groups of believers like Albigenes, Waldensians, Bogomils, etc. This will continue until the Lord comes.
