he 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
violence and murder; and some Catholic priests, who had imprudently
signalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most
refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not
always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and
sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action
of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor,
an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken
in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which
might have been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. The captives
died, without a murmur, either by the sword, the axe, or the fire; and
the measures of retaliation were multiplied in a rapid proportion, which
aggravated the horrors of rebellion, and excluded the hope of mutual
forgiveness. In the beginning of the present century, the example of the
Circumcellions has been renewed in the persecution, the boldness, the
crimes, and the enthusiasm of the Camisards; and if the fanatics of
Languedoc surpassed those of Numidia, by their military achievements,
the Africans maintained their fierce independence with more resolution
and perseverance.

Such disorders are the natural effects of religious tyranny, but the
rage of the Donatists was inflamed by a frenzy of a very extraordinary
kind; and which, if it really prevailed among them in so extravagant a
degree, cannot surely be paralleled in any country or in any age. Many
of these fanatics were possessed with the horror of life, and the desire
of martyrdom; and they deemed it of little moment by what means, or
by what hands, they perished, if their conduct was sanctified by the
intention of devoting themselves to the glory of the true faith, and
the hope of eternal happiness. Sometimes they rudely disturbed the