I'm quite serious.  I have a masters degree in theology, with a concentration in Church history.  Behind the question of "worthiness" of the celebrant of the Sacraments was an ecclesiology that believed that the Church was a "society of saints" more than a "school for sinners."  

This was a tension in the Church at that time.  Roman persecutions having ended, there were those, like the Egyptian hermits, who believed that the Church had gone "soft."  Only the hard-core believer, willing to offer his/her very life for the Lord was worthy of discipleship.    They lamented how "secular" Christian had become (Sound familiar?)  

The rigorists (i.e., Donatists) were often allied with the Arians, presenting Christ as the "super-human" who, by sheer effort and heroic self-denial, served as a witness for all Christians.  For that reason, Athanasius was happy to use St. Antony of the Desert, hero of the Egyptian monastics, as an ally against the Arians.