… a rival priesthood who insisted that all their members must be ‘cleansed’ by re-baptism.
Constantine’s change of tactics towards the Donatists
Now Constantine, proclaimed Emperor at York in 306, came down on the side of what we might call the ‘Old School’ believers who were less High Church in their views of the sacraments and ordination and a dire persecution against the Donatists started. This was not instigated by the Old School Christians but by unbaptised and …
… off by alarming exaggeration. For instance, only a generation ago, Baptists were telling us that Constantine was the very man who had helped keep up Baptist succession chiefly because of his supposed Welsh Baptist connections and his delay of Baptism for himself and son. Now we hear that Constantine was the pioneer of infant baptism and any one whom Gay thinks follows Constantine, such as Luther, Calvin, Mary, Elizabeth and the majority of British Reformers, are all apostate and rebels …
