High Church Donatists

The Donatists are usually seen as the sectarians of the early church but Robert Dodaro points out that for Augustine their sectarianism derived from their clericalism: “Augustine explains that cultic acts which remit sins, such as baptism, are in reality performed by Christ, who acts through Christian priests. Augustine’s frequent insistence on this point is due, in part, to his conclusion that the Donatists, by erroneously attributing to their bishops the power of obtaining forgiveness of sins through intercessory prayer, establish the latter as mediators on a par with Christ . . . . he complains that ‘Donatists put Donatus in the place of Christ.’ Behind the Donatist conception of the cultic role of bishops stands their conviction that the holiness of the church is, in effect, guaranteed by the bishop, inasmuch as he obtains divine forgiveness for the sins of the church’s lay members through intercessory prayer . . . . Moreover, he opposes the sharp, Donatist distinction between the intercessory roles of bishops and laity in the church by insisting that Christ, as high priest, incorporates into his body the whole church and not just priests.”

It’s totus Christus against Donatist clericalism. Surely this counts as counter-evidence to Warfield’s characterization of the Reformation as the triumph of Augustine’s soteriology over his ecclesiology.