Located in the Sahel hinterland of the Byzacena coastline, close to the towns of Aquae and Nefta and south of Capsa and Roman Tursuros became an important center of Donatism.
22.
Church negotiations lasted about a century until finally the Catholics declared Donatism a heresy in 405, though general tolerance persisted until the ban became enforced late in the 6th century.
23.
The Circumcellions were bands of nomadic anti-Roman rebels, Punic-speaking bandits from the lower strata of society, who supported Donatism and were sometimes led by Donatist clergy.
24.
Donatism, also, and Semi-Pelagianism were stricken to death at an hour when political events of the utmost gravity changed the history and the destiny of the African Church.
25.
Donatism became a serious problem in the 4th century and was not got rid of even through the Conference of Carthage of 411, which decided in favour of the Catholic side.
26.
At the conference of Carthage in 411 AD-which saw gathered together the bishops of Roman Catholicism and of Donatism-Victorius II took part for the Catholic church and Gedudus for the Donatists.
27.
During his office as " vicarius Africae " he received a law against Donatism; however it seems he somehow sided with the Donatists, if in 405 Augustine of Hippo misbelieved him a Donatist.
28.
We do not know much about his life however, in 314, he participated as bishop of Lyon in the Council of Arles, just after Donatism, already affirmed by a council in Rome in 313.
29.
Mascula in the fourth century was at the center of the Donatism controversy, and there are beautiful mosaics discovered from those years There are even some Roman baths from the late third century, still efficiently working after recent restoration.
30.
The Church had always dealt harshly with strands of Christianity that it considered heretical, but before the 11th century these tended to centre on individual preachers or small localised sects, like Arianism, Pelagianism, Donatism, Marcionism and Montanism.
