The Donatists were moral perfectionists, the purest of the self-proclaimed pure. The main problem with a purity test, of course, is that it affirms its author as pure and condemns as impure those with whom the author disagrees. A purity test is inherently exclusionary. And how many among us are pure enough to pass such a test? Fortunately, God shows mercy to penitents. We who claim to follow God should emulate that example.
Marcellinus was a a friend of St. Augustine of Hippo, the great bishop and theologian. He was also the Secretary of State of the Western Roman Empire during the reign of the Emperor Honorius, who held that office 395-423. Marcellinus, in his imperial capacity, granted the Donatists freedom of worship in 409. Two years later, when the Donatists had become powerful and begun to oppress Roman Catholics, the latter petitioned Honorius for protection from the former. The Emperor sent Marcellinus to preside over a conference at Carthage. The Secretary of State declared the Donatists heretics and ordered them to surrender their buildings to Roman Catholic bishops and priests. The Western Roman Army executed this order brutally.
Two years later, in 413, some Donatists, blaming Marcellinus for army brutality, accused the Secretary of State and his brother, Apringus, who had also been active in the Donatist matter in 411, of having been complicit in a recent rebellion against the Emperor. Heraclion, an African count, had led an insurrection against Honorius in the wake of Alaric’s 410 Sack of Rome. The Western Roman Army had suppressed the revolt and executed Heraclion. General Marcius, a Donatist sympathizer who had suppressed the recent rebellion, ordered the arrest and imprisonment of Marcellinus and Apringus. Their deaths on the false charge constituted judicial murder.
