nals, which
were appointed by the emperor; and the whole proceeding, from the
first appeal to the final sentence, lasted above three years. A severe
inquisition, which was taken by the Praetorian vicar, and the proconsul
of Africa, the report of two episcopal visitors who had been sent to
Carthage, the decrees of the councils of Rome and of Arles, and the
supreme judgment of Constantine himself in his sacred consistory,
were all favorable to the cause of Caecilian; and he was unanimously
acknowledged by the civil and ecclesiastical powers, as the true and
lawful primate of Africa. The honors and estates of the church were
attributed to his suffragan bishops, and it was not without difficulty,
that Constantine was satisfied with inflicting the punishment of exile
on the principal leaders of the Donatist faction. As their cause was
examined with attention, perhaps it was determined with justice. Perhaps
their complaint was not without foundation, that the credulity of the
emperor had been abused by the insidious arts of his favorite Osius. The
influence of falsehood and corruption might procure the condemnation
of the innocent, or aggravate the sentence of the guilty. Such an act,
however, of injustice, if it concluded an importunate dispute, might be
numbered among the transient evils of a despotic administration, which
are neither felt nor remembered by posterity.

But this incident, so inconsiderable that it scarcely deserves a place
in history, was productive of a memorable schism which afflicted the
provinces of Africa above three hundred years, and was extinguished only
with Christianity itself. The inflexible zeal of freedom and fanaticism
animated the Donatists to refuse obedience to the usurpers, whose
election they disputed, and whose spiritual powers they denied.
Excluded from the civil and religious communion of mankind, they boldly
excommunicated the rest of mankind, who had embraced the impious party
of Caecilian, and of the Traditors, from which he derived his pretended
ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation,
that the Apostolical succession was interrupted; that all the bishops of
Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism; and
that the prerogatives of the Catholic church were confined to the chosen
portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the
integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported
by the most