This synod forbade the African churches to
hold communion with Caecilian, the schism became overt, and in a very
short time there were rival bishops and rival churches throughout the
whole province.

It was soon clear, by the exclusion of the "Pars Majorini" from certain
privileges conferred on the African church, that the sympathies of
Constantine were with the other party (Eusebius, _Hist. eccl._ x. 6, 7).
To investigate the dispute an imperial commission was issued to five
Gallic bishops, under the presidency of Melchiades, bishop of Rome. The
number of referees was afterwards increased to twenty, and the case was
tried at Rome in 313.[2] Ten bishops appeared on each side, the leading
representative of the Donatists being Donatus of Casae Nigrae. The
decision was entirely in favour of Caecilian, and Donatus was found
guilty of various ecclesiastical offences. An appeal was taken and
allowed; but the decision of the synod of Arles in 314 not only
confirmed the position of Caecilian, but greatly strengthened it by
passing a canon that ordination was not invalid because performed by a
traditor, if otherwise regular. Felix had previously been declared
innocent after an examination of records and witnesses at Carthage. A
further appeal to the emperor in person was heard at Milan in 316, when
all points were finally decided in favour of Caecilian, probably on the
advice of Hosius, bishop of Cordova. Henceforward the power of the state
was directed to the suppression of the defeated party. Persistent
Donatists were no longer merely heretics; they were rebels and incurred
the confiscation of their church property and the forfeiture of their
civil rights.

The attempt to destroy the sect by force had the result of intensifying
its fanaticism. Majorinus, the Donatist bishop of Carthage, died in 315,
and was succeeded by Donatus, surnamed Magnus, a man of great force of
character, under whose influence the schism gained fresh strength from
the opposition it encountered. Force was met with force; the
Circumcelliones, bands of fugitive slaves and vagrant (_circum cellas_)
peasants, attached themselves to the Donatists, and their violence
reached such a height as to threaten civil war. In 321 Constantine,
seeing probably that he had been wrong in abandoning his usual policy of
toleration, sought to retrace his steps by granting the Donatists
liberty to act according to their consciences, and declaring that the
points in dispute