the schismatics with a specious contrast between the
maxims of the apostles and the conduct of their pretended successors.
[158] The peasants 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 enthusiasm
in the cause of their Donatist teachers. They indignantly supported
the exile of their bishops, the demolition of their churches, and the
interruption of their secret assemblies. The violence of the officers of
justice, who were usually sustained by a military guard, was
sometimes repelled with equal violence; and the blood of some popular
ecclesiastics, which had been shed in the quarrel, inflamed their rude
followers with an eager desire of revenging the death of these holy
martyrs. By their own cruelty and rashness, the ministers of persecution
sometimes provoked their fate; and the guilt of an accidental tumult
precipitated the criminals into despair and rebellion. Driven from their
native villages, the Donatist peasants assembled in formidable gangs
on the edge of the Getulian desert; and readily exchanged the habits of
labor for a life of idleness and rapine, which was consecrated by the
name of religion, and faintly condemned by the doctors of the sect.
The leaders of the Circumcellions assumed the title of captains of the
saints; their principal weapon, as they were indifferently provided with
swords and spears, was a huge and weighty club, which they termed an
Israelite; and the well-known sound of "Praise be to God," which they
used as their cry of war, diffused consternation over the unarmed
provinces of Africa. At first their depredations were colored by the
plea of necessity; but they soon exceeded the measure of subsistence,
indulged without control 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 justice, 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 secure asylum for the slaves and debtors,
who flocked in crowds to their holy standard. When they were not
resisted, they usually contented themselves with plunder, but the
slightest opposition provoked them to acts of vi