OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 311

burnt the altar, which was commonly of wood,melted the consecrated plate, and cast the holyeucharist to the dogs, with every circumstance*of ignominy which could provoke and perpetu-ate the animosity of religious factions . 1 Not-withstanding this irreconcilable aversion, thetwo parties, who were mixed and separated inall the cities of Africa , had the same languageand manners, the same zeal and learning, thesame faith and worship. Proscribed by thecivil and ecclesiastical powers of the empire,the donatists still maintained in some provinces,particularly in Numidia , their superior num-bers ; and four hundred bishops acknowledgedthe jurisdiction of their primate. But the in-vincible spirit of the sect sometimes preyed onits own vitals; and the bosom of their schis-matical church was torn by intestine divisions.

A fourth part of the donatist bishops followedthe independent standard of the vnaxhnianists.

The narrow and solitary path which their firstleaders had marked out, continued to deviatefrom the great society of mankind. Even theimperceptible sect of the rogatians could affirm,without a blush, that when Christ should de-scend to judge the earth, he would find his truereligion preserved only in a few nameless vil-lages of the Caesarean Mauritania . 11

The schism of the donatists was confined to t 1 a ' t ! 1 e a ‘ nm ‘Africa : the more diffusive mischief of the trini- coutro -

versy.

* See the sixth hook of Optatus Milevitanus, p. 91-100.

k Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiastiqnes, tom. vi, part i, p. 253. Helaughs at their partial credulity. He revered Augustin, the great doc-tor of the system of predestination.