re. As in another place, arguing
with these same Donatists, he distinctly considers the case of the judgment
of the Roman Pontiff being erroneous. "The Donatists,"[26] says he, "chose
with a double purpose, to plead their cause with Coecilian before the
Churches across the sea; being doubly prepared, that if they could by any
skilfulness of false accusation have overcome him, they might to the full
satiate their desire: but if they failed in this, might continue in the
same perversity, but still as if they would have to allege, that they had
suffered in having bad judges: this is what all wrong suitors cry, though
they have been overcome by the plainest truths: as if it might not be
answered them and most justly retorted,--Let us suppose that these Bishops
who judged at Rome," (Pope Melchiades and his Council,) "were not fair
judges; there still remained a plenary Council of the universal Church,
where the cause might have been tried even with those very judges, so that
had they been convicted of false judgment their decision might be
reversed."

Nay, it appears, the cause of the Donatists, after being decided by Pope
Melchiades, was reheard, and that, not by a plenary Council, but by other
Bishops of the West, deputed by Constantine. "Know,"[27] says St. Augustin,
"that your first ancestors carried the cause of Coecilianus before the
Emperor Constantine. Demand this of us, let us prove it to you, and if we
prove it not, do with us what you can. But because Constantine dared not to
judge in the cause of a Bishop, he delegated the discussion and terminating
of it to Bishops. This took place in the city of Rome under the presidency
of Melchiades, Bishop of that Church, with many of his colleagues. They
having pronounced Coecilianus innocent, and condemned Donatus, who had made
the schism at Carthage, your party again went to the Emperor, and murmured
against the judgment of the Bishops in which they had been beaten. For how
can the guilty party praise the judge by whose sentence he has been beaten?
Yet a second time the most indulgent Emperor assigned other Bishops as
judges, at Arles, in Gaul, and from them your party appealed to the Emperor
himself, until he too heard the cause, and pronounced Coecilianus innocent,
and them false accusers." Did he who wrote these words mean to censure
Constantine for granting a second hearing after the judgment of Pope
Melchiades?

"Basilides," says Mr. Newman, "deposed in Spain, betake