In the great persecutions schisms arose in connection with the administration of discipline (_cf._ § 46). The schismatics held in general the same faith as the main body of Christians. Were the sacraments they administered to be regarded, then, as valid in such a sense that when they conformed to the Catholic Church, which they frequently did, they need not be baptized, having once been validly baptized; or should their schismatic baptism be regarded as invalid and they be required to receive baptism on conforming if they had not previously been baptized within the Church? Was baptism outside the unity of the Church valid? Rome answered in the affirmative, admitting conforming schismatics without distinguishing as to where they had been baptized; North Africa answered in the negative and required not, indeed, a second baptism, but claimed that the Church’s baptism was alone valid, and that if the person conforming had been baptized in schism he had not been baptized at all. This view was shared by at least some churches in Asia Minor (_cf._ § 51, _b_), and possibly elsewhere. It became the basis of the Donatist position (_cf._ § 62), which schism shared with the Novatian schism the opinion, generally rejected by the Church, that the validity of a sacrament depended upon the spiritual condition of the minister of the sacrament, _e.g._, whether he was in schism or not. Additional source material: Seventh Council of Carthage (ANF, vol. V); Eusebius, _Hist. Ec._, VII, 7:4-6; Augustine, _De Baptismo contra Donatistas_, Bk. III (PNF, ser. I, vol. IV). (_a_) Cyprian, _Ep. ad Jubianum_, _Ep._ 73, 7 [=72]. (MSL, 3:1159, 168.) A portion of this epistle may be found in Mirbt, n. 70. Ch. 7. It is manifest where and by whom the remission of sins can be given, _i.e._, that remission which is given by baptism. For first of all the Lord gave the power to Peter, upon whom He built the Church, and whence he appointed and showed the source of unity, the power, namely, that that should be loosed in heaven which he loosed on earth [John 20:21 quoted]. When we perceive that only they who are set over the Church and established in the Gospel law and in the ordinance of the Lord are allowed to baptize and to give remission of sins, we see that outside of the Church nothing can be bound or loosed, for there there is no one who can either bind or loose anything.