OF THE HOMAN EMPIRE.

309

the councils of Rome and of Arles , and the su- chap.preme judgment of Constantine himself in his XXI ’sacred consistory, were all favourable to thecause of Caecilian; and he was unanimouslyacknowledged by the civil and ecclesiasticalpowers, as the true and lawful primate of Af-rica . The honours and estates of the churchwere attributed to his suffragan bishops; and it■was not without difficulty, that Constantine wassatisfied with inflicting the punishment of exileon the principal leaders of the donatist faction.

As their cause was examined with attention,perhaps it was determined with justice. Per-haps their complaint was not without foundation,that the credulity of the emperor had beenabused by the insidious arts of his favouriteOsius. The influence of falsehood and corrup-tion might procure the condemnation of the in-nocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty.

Such an act, however, of injustice, if it conclud-ed an importunate dispute, might be numberedamong the transient evils of a despotic adminis-tration, which are neither felt nor rememberedby posterity.

But this incident, so inconsiderable that it Schism ofscarcely deserves a place in history, was pro- natuu*ductive of a memorable schism, which afflicted A,D-315,the provinces of Africa above three hundredyears, and was extinguished only with Christia-nity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom andfanaticism animated the donatists to refuseobedience to the usurpers, whose election theydisputed, and whose spiritual powers theydenied. Excluded from the civil and religious