4th century in Roman Africa

thumb|alt=Painting of Augustine of Hippo arguing with a man before an audience|Charles-André van Loo's 18th-century Augustine arguing with Donatists Donatism was a schism from the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Carthage from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman province Africa Proconsularis (present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeria, and the western coast of Libya) and M

The Circumcellions, or Agonistici (as called by Donatists), were bands of Roman Christian radicals in North Africa in the early to mid-4th century. They were initially concerned with remedying social grievances. They condemned poverty and slavery and advocated canceling debt and freeing slaves. The term "Circumcellions" may have been coined by critics who referred to them as "circum cellas euntes" (they go around larders) because "they roved about among the peasants, living on those they sought to indoctrinate."

church councils