XXI. A. D. 345, etc. 158 СНАР. cellions, formed the ftrength and fcandal of the Donatift party "". The fevere execution of the laws of Conftantine had excited a fpirit of discontent and refiftance; the ftrenuous efforts of his son Conftans, to restore the unity of the church, exafperated the fentiments of mutual hatred, which had firft occafioned the feparation; and the methods of force and corruption employed by the two Imperial commiffioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the fchifmatics with a fpecious contrast between the maxims of the apoftles and the conduct of their pretended fucceffars "". The peafants who inhabited the villages of Numidia and Mauritania, were a ferocious race, who had been imperfectly reduced under the authority of the Roman laws; who were imperfectly converted to the Chriftian faith; but who were actuated by a blind and furious enthusiasm in the cause of their Donatift teachers. They indignantly fupported the exile of their bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the interruption of their fecret affemblies. The violence of the officers of justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was fometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of fome popular ecclefiaftics, which had been shed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager defire of revenging the death of thefe holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashnefs, the minifters of perfecution sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the criminals into defpair and rebellion. Driven XXI. from their native villages, the Donatift peasants CHAP. affembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Getulian defert; and readily exchanged the habits of labour for a life of idleness and rapine, which was confecrated by the name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of the fect. The leaders of the Circumcellions affumed the title of captains of the faints; their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with fwords and fpears, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed an Ifraelite; and the well-known found of "Praise be to God, which they used as their cry of war, diffused confternation over the unarmed provinces of Africa. At first their depredations were coloured by the plea of neceffity; but they foon exceeded the measure of fubfiftence, indulged without controul their intemperance and avarice, burnt the villages which they had pillaged, and reigned the licentious tyrants of the open country. The occupations of husbandry, and the administration of juftice, were interrupted; and as the Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the abuses of civil society, they opened a fecure afylum for the slaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy standard. When they were not refifted, they usually contented themselves with plunder, but the slightest oppofition provoked them to acts of violence and murder; and fome Catholic priests, who had imprudently fignalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and CHAP. XXI. Their re ligious fuicides. wanton barbarity. The fpirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valour, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatifts who were taken in arms, received, and they foon deserved, the fame treatment which might have been shewn to the wild beafts of the defert. The captives died, without a murmur, either by the fword, the axe, or the fire; and the measures of retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual forgiveness. In the beginning of the prefent century, the example of the Circumcellions has been renewed in the perfecution, the boldness, the crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camifards; and if the fanatics of Languedoc furpaffed thofe of Numidia, by their military atchievements, the Africans maintained their fierce independence with more refolution and perseverance 159 Such diforders are the natural effects of religious tyranny; but the rage of the Donatifts was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordiuary kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them info extravagant a degree, cannot furely be paralleled in any country, or in any age. Many of these fanatics were poffeffed with the horror of life, and the defire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or 160 by what hands, they perished, if their conduct was fanctified by the intention of devoting themfelves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happiness ***. Sometimes they rudely disturbed the festivals, and profaned the temples of paganism, with the defign of exciting the most zealous of the idolaters to revenge the infulted honour of their gods. They fometimes forced their way into the courts of juftice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently stopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the ftroke of martyrdom, by the promise of a reward, if they confented, and by the threat of instant death, if they refused to grant so very fingular a favour. When they were disappointed of every other resource, they announced the day on which, in the prefence of their friends and brethren, they should caft themselves headlong from fome lofty rock; and many precipices were shewn, which had acquired fame by the number of religious fuicides. In the actions of these desperate enthusiasts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by the other, as the victims of Satan, an impartial philosopher may difcover the influence and the Taft abuse of that inflexible spirit, which was originally derived from the character and principles of the Jewish nation. СНАР. XXI. General character The fimple narrative of the inteftine divifions, which distracted the peace, and dishonoured the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark of Chriftian of the fects, СНАР. a pagan hiftorian, and juftify the complaint of a venerable bishop. The experience of Ammianus 312-361. had convinced him, that the enmity of the Chrif tians towards each other, furpaffed the fury of favage beafts against man "; and Gregory Nazianzen most pathetically laments, that the kingdom of heaven was converted, by difcord, into the image of chaos, of a nocturnal tempeft, and of hell itself ". The fierce and partial writers of the times, afcribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and dæmons. Our calmer reafon will reject fuch pure and perfect monsters of vice or fanctity, and will impute an equal, or at least an indifcriminate, measure of good and evil to the hostile fectaries, who affumed and beftowed the appellations of orthodox and heretics. They had been educated in the fame religion, and the fame civil fociety. Their hopes and fears in the prefent, or in a future, life, were balanced in the fame proportion. On either fide, the error might be innocent, the faith fincere, the practice meritorious or corrupt. Their paffions were excited by fimilar objects; and they might alternately abuse the favour of the court, or of the people. The metaphyfical opinions of the Athanafians and the Arians, could not influence their moral character; and they were alike actuated by the intolerant fpirit, which has been extracted from the pure and fimple maxims of the gospel. . Toleration A modern writer, who, with a just confidence, ilm. has prefixed to his own history the honourable of pagan epithets |