m time to time, but do not seem to have been carried out. And
although the Donatists quarrelled much among themselves, and split up
into a number of parties, they were still very powerful in Augustine's
day. In his own city of Hippo he found that they were more in number
than the Catholics; and such was their bitter and pharisaical spirit
that the bishop of the sect at Hippo would not let any of his people so
much as bake for their Catholic neighbours.

[37] Page 56.

Augustine did all that he could to make something of the Donatists, but
it was mostly in vain. He could not get their bishops or clergy to argue
with him. They pretended to call themselves "the children of the
martyrs," on account of the troubles which their forefathers had gone
through in the reign of Constans: and they said that the children of the
martyrs could not stoop to argue with sinners and traditors. Although
they professed that their sect was made up of perfect saints, they took
in all sorts of worthless converts for the sake of swelling their
numbers; whereas Augustine would not let any Donatists join the Church
without inquiring into their characters, and, if he found that they had
done anything for which they had been condemned by their sect to do
penance, he insisted that they should go through a penance before being
admitted into the Church.

But, notwithstanding the difficulties which he found in dealing with
them, he and others succeeded in drawing over a great number of
Donatists to the Church. And this made the Circumcellions so furious
that they fell on the Catholic clergy whenever they could find them, and
tried to do them all possible mischief. They beat and mangled some of
them cruelly; they put out the eyes of some by throwing a mixture of
lime and vinegar into their faces; and, among other things, they laid a
plan for waylaying Augustine himself, which, however, he escaped,
through the providence of God. Many reports of these savage doings were
carried to the emperor, Honorius, and some of the sufferers appeared at
his court to tell their own tale; whereupon the old laws against the
sect were revived, and severe new laws were also made. In these even
death was threatened against Donatists who should molest the Catholics;
but Augustine begged that this penalty might be withdrawn, because the
Catholic clergy, who knew more about the sect than any one else, would
not give information against it, if the punishment of the Donatists w