XXI. thods of force and corruption employed by the CHAP. two Imperial commiffioners, Paul and Macarius, furnished the schifmatics with a fpecious contrast between the maxims of the apoftles and the conduct of their pretended fucceffors 158. 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 Christian faith; but who were actuated by a blind and furious enthufiafm in the cause of their Donatift teachers. They indignantly supported 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 fhed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude followers with an eager defire of revenging the death of these holy martyrs. By their own cruelty and rafhnefs, the minifters of ... 158 It is amusing enough to obferve the language of oppofite parties, when they fpeak of the fame men and things. Gratus, ihop of Carthage, begins the acclamations of an orthodox fynod, "Gra"tias Deo omnipotenti et Chrifto Jefu. qui imperavit religiofiffimo "Conftanti Imperatori, ut votum gereret unitatis, et mitteret ministros "fancti operis famul s Dei Paulum et Macarium.” Monument. Vet. ad Calcem Optati, p. 313. "Ecce fubito," (fays the Donatift author of the Paffion of Marculus)" de Conftantis regis tyrannicâ domo.. "pollutum Macarianæ perfecutionis murmur increpuit, et duabus befisis "ad Africam miffis, eodem fcilicet Macario et Paulo execrandum "prorfus ac dirum ecclefiæ certamen indictum eft; ut populus Chrif "tianus ad unionem cum traditoribus faciendam, uratis militum gladiis "et draconum prefentibus fignis, et tubarum vocibus cogeretur." Monument. p. 304 per CHAP. perfecution fometimes provoked their fate; and XXI. the guilt of an accidental tumult precipitated the criminals into defpair and rebellion. Driven from their native villages, the Donatift peafants affembled in formidable gangs on the edge of the Getulian defert; and readily exchanged the habits of labour for a life of idlenefs 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 captain' 4 the faints; their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with swords and fpeats, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed an Ifraelite: and the well-known found of "Praife 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 meafure 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 adminiftration of juftice, were interrupted; and as the Circumcellions pretended to restore the primitive equality of mankind, and to reform the abufes of civil fociety they opened a fecure afylum for the flaves and debtors, who flocked in crowds to their holy ftandard. When they were not refifted, they ufually contented themfelves with plunder, but the flightest oppofition provoked them to acts of violence XXI. violence and murder; and fome Catholic priests, c H A P. who had imprudently fignalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanten barbarity. The fpirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and fometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unfuccessful valour, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatifts who were taken in a tha ceived, and they foon deferved, the fame treatment which might have been fhewn to the wild beasts 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 enthufiafm 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 perfeverance 159. gious fui Such disorders are the natural effects of religious Their relityranny; but the rage of the Donatifts was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary kind; 159 The Hiftoire des Camifards, in 3 vol. 12mo. Villefranche, 1760, may be recommended as accurate and impartial. It requires fome attention to discover the religion of the author, D d VOL. III. and cides. CHAP. and which, if it really prevailed among them in XXI. fo extravagant a degree, cannot furely be paral leled in any country, or in any age. Many of thefe fanatics were poffeffed with the horror of life, and the defire of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or by what hands, they perifhed, if their conduct was fanctified by the intention of devoting themfelves to the glory of the true faith, and the hope of eternal happinefs. Sometimes they rudely. difturbed the feftivals, and profaned the temples. of paganifm, 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 justice, and compelled the affrighted judge to give orders for their immediate execution. They frequently ftopped travellers on the public highways, and obliged them to inflict the ftroke of martyrdom, by the promife of a reward, if they confented, and by the threat of inftant death, if they refused to grant fo very fingular a favour. When they were difappointed of every other refource, they announced the day on which, in the prefence of their friends and brethren, they fhould caft themfelves headlong from fome lofty rock; and many precipices were fhewn, which had acquired fame by the number of religious fuicides. In the actions of these desperate enthufiafts, who were admired by one party as the martyrs of God, and abhorred by 160 The Donatift fuicides alleged in their juftification the example. of Razias, which is related in the 14th chapter of the fecond book of the Maccabees. XXI. the other as the victims of Satan, an impartial CHA P. character fects, A.D. The fimple narrative of the inteftine divifions, General which distracted the peace, and difhonoured the of the triumph, of the church, will confirm the remark of Chriftian a pagan historian, 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 161; 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 2. The fierce and partial-writers of the times, afcribing all virtue to themselves, and imputing all guilt to their adverfaries, 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 leaft 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 in 16 Nullas infeftas hominibus beftias, ut funt fibi ferales plerique Chriftianorum expertus. Ammian, xxii. 5. 162 Gregor. Nazianzen, Orat.i. p. 33. See Tillemont, tom, vi. •P. 50%. quarto edit. Dd 2. nocent, |