How far were the Donatists Baptists?

On the original quote...

David Burcham Ray was of the opinion on the quote given by Eliyahu. This can be found in his book, "Ray's Baptist Succession: Revised 1912 (twenty-seventh edition).

I may be mistaken, but I believe Cathcart was of the same opinion as well... but I will have to find that info again to be sure.

I quite enjoy this studey and would like some more information as well.
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Some extras in regards to Augustine and Optatus on Donatists:


On Augustine I was able to locate this from a book he he said to have written, "On Baptism, Against the Donatists".

The quote is,

If this quote is true, and the book is actual, it is expressly written against the niews of baptism held by the Donatists.

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On Optatus...

As others have stated, I am not a particular wikipedia fan... but if it will provide a mention of the primary source I feel it is useful.

Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Optatus

 

#1. "IF the Catholics burned the writings" of those they called hereitcs?? IF??

What dark cave have you been living in?? EVEN the RCC ADMITS tol this!!

"At the very LEAST" you should be agreeing with the RCC itself. This "deny all" approach is not giving you credibility.

#2. The RCC of the 4th century is not the RCC of the dark ages -- It was only "just beginning" in the 3rd and 4th century due to errors creeping in - in the 2nd century.

Your equivocation is noted though.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Did the Church burn writings? Sure, I’m not denying that. The problem I see here is that how the Church could’ve been so absolute in burning any historical evidence of any writings of the Apostolic “Baptist” Church fathers and yet the Church was so careless in burning all the Gnostic writings that were, in my opinion, more threatening to the Church.
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I would think that the truth was more threatening. Which apparently the cAtholics thought as well.

 

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.

 

Ok - but your "IF the Catholic church" burned writings statement made it appear that you doubted that they were not doing that -

I agree that if you go back far enough - the RCC was not burning writings at the time - (though one can not say for sure what a document-burning group would have done at later dates.)

WE DO have documents from the early centuries (and even the RCC admits to this) that SHOWS that the current practice of infant baptism "evolved over time" and was "not normative for NT saints" even by RC standards.

in Christ,

Bob

 

Even worse - Noah and family entered the ark SEVEN DAYS before any rain at all fell - and they only left AFTER the rains of the flood ceased.

in Christ,

Bob

 

The original question included scriptual baptism. The quote given on Augustine shows he was opposed and contrary to the Donatist's form by 1) the title of the book and 2) the fact that he believed if the baptism wasn't as "the church" viewed it, then it was wrong.

I was not able to locate additonal information on the other criteria of the primary sources as of yet.