heretical works in their stead. The consul, learning the "pious fraud," declined to take further action. Mensurius felt it his duty to check the growing and inordinate reverence for martyrdom. He saw that there were too many would-be martyrs whose character would not bear close scrutiny, and, together with his archdeacon Caecilian, did his best to discountenance the reverence of good but mistaken Christians for these undeserving men. This naturally brought him into odium with those to whom martyrdom was the becoming conclusion of the Christian life.
During his lifetime the storm was brewing, and it fairly broke out when Caecilian succeeded him (a.d. 311). That appointment was felt to be a blow to all who magnified martyrdom. His opponents rested their principal objection on the fact that he had been ordained by a traditor, Felix of Aptunga; and proceeded to elect Majorinus as successor to Mensurius. The charge was a strange one to be made by Caecilian's chief opponent, Secundus, bp. of Tigisis, for documents exist which prove Secundus himself a traditor, in spite of his boast to Mensurius. From that date Donatism, as it was afterwards called, had a separate and schismatical existence. Both sides appealed to Constantine, and the emperor at once subjected the alleged traditorship of Felix to a thorough examination by a council at Rome (a.d. 313), which decided in favour of Felix, cleared his character, and consequently declared the ordination of Caecilian valid. The subject was again exhaustively discussed before the consul Aelianus, who, at the bidding of Constantine, gave the Donatists another opportunity (a.d. 314), at Carthage, of proving their charge against Felix. The finding of the tribunal was unanimous: "Nemo in eum (Felicem) aliquid probare potuerit quod religiosissimas scripturas tradiderit vel exusserit."
Bp. Majorinus died a.d. 315, but had been a leader of little consequence. His followers had called themselves, for convenience' sake, the party of Majorinus; but after his death, if not before, they took the name—Donatists—by which they are best known. There were perhaps 2 bishops named Donatus; (1) of Casae Nigrae, who, before Caecilian's elevation, had shewn his schismatical tendencies; (2) the successor of Majorinus and surnamed "the Great." But this distinction has lately been questioned; see Sparrow Simpson, St. Aug. and Afr. Ch. Divisions (1910), p. 31; Monceaux, Revue de l’Hist. de Religion (1909).
In Donatus the Great personal hostility to Mensurius and Caecilian, and irritation against the decisions of Rome and Arles [Caecilian], of Aelianus and Constantine, led to a defiant attitude against both Church and State. The dissentients to Caecilian had, consistently enough, refused to his church the title of the Church of God, and appropriated that distinction to themselves. The Caecilianist clergy were condemned for their league with a traditor and their acts repudiated as invalid; hence those who followed Majorinus were rebaptized. But Constantine's edict (a.d. 316) took away from them their churches, and the heavy hand of Ursacius deprived them of their lives. The sectarians found in Donatus a man bold enough to denounce the imperial power and to infuse vigour into their strife against the Caecilianists. He was neither "the angel" his followers called him nor "the fiend" his opponents described him. He was a man of unquestionable ability, eloquence, and thoroughness—the Cyprian of his party, as St. Augustine called him; but also hard and unloving to foe, proud and overbearing to friend. Optatus and St. Augustine were justified in comparing with the proud "prince of Tyre" (Ezek. xxviii. 2) the man who in his lifetime permitted his followers to swear by his name and by his grey hairs, and could ask of the menial bishops, "What do you say to my party?" and who, after his death, was described by Donatists at the conference of Carthage as the miracle-worker, "the pride of the church of Carthage, the man with the reputation of a martyr."
When the soldiers of Ursacius appeared in N. Africa, Donatus was ready to resist them, and his courage infected the timid people and prelates. His name became the rallying-point for every man who had real or imaginary grievances against existing ecclesiastical, civil, and social powers, amongst others the Circumcellions. "They were a class of men," says St. Augustine, "who followed no kind of useful occupation, held their own lives in fanatical contempt, and thought no death too cruel for those who differed from them; they wandered about from place to place, chiefly in the country districts, and haunted the cells of the peasants for the purpose of obtaining food. Hence they were called 'Circumcelliones.'" The better class of Donatists turned away in horror from fanatics who imbrued their hands with the blood of the innocent as well as of the guilty; but the offer of partisanship having been once accepted, it was impossible to withdraw it altogether. Donatus, Parmenian, Petilian, and Cresconius in turn were forced to palliate as much as they could the actions of these allies, who preferred to be called Agonistici, Champions of Christ, and who rushed into the battle with "Deo laudes" as their war-cry, and with a weapon dubbed "Israelite" as their war-club.
Constantine soon found that Donatism was not to be put down by the sword. In a.d. 317 Ursacius was bidden hold his hand, and Caecilian was exhorted to treat his opponents kindly, and leave vengeance to God. The emperor's letter was a mixture of truth and sarcasm: "All schisms," he wrote, "are from the devil; and these Separatists proceed from him. What good can you expect from those who are the adversaries of God and the enemies of the holy church? Such men must split off from the church, and attach themselves to the devil. Surely we act most wisely, if we leave to them what they have wrenched from us. By patience and kindness we may hope to gain them. Let us leave vengeance to God. I rejoice to think that you meet their brutality with gentleness and good temper. As I understand that these men have destroyed a church in Constantinople, I have ordered my finance-minister to build you a new one. God grant that these mistaken Separatists may at last see their error and turn to the one true God!" It was not a letter calculated to soothe the
