Evander was one of the greatest dogmatists of his time; a man of profound and lucid intellect. He had lost his health, and grown prematurely old, over his books; he was almost blind, and his short-sighted eyes worn out with fatigue. Innumerable heresies besieged his brain, leaving him no sleep, or tormenting him in dreams, ever tempting him by their dread subtleties. Evander used to collect heresies, as one might collect jewels or scientific rarities, in an immense manuscript entitled Against Heresy. He hunted for them greedily, imagined those that might be in existence, and the better he refuted the more he was attracted towards them.
Sometimes he would entreat God to grant him simple faith, and God would refuse him simplicity.
In ordinary life he was timid, simple, and offenceless as a child. For rascals to deceive Evander was as easy as breathing, and on this score the mockers told a hundred stories against him. Plunged in doctrinal dreams, the bishop continually found himself in awkward situations. In one of these fits of abstraction he had come to this singular council, without thinking why he went thither, but attracted by the hope of lighting on a new heresy. Now his face was twitching with annoyance, and he shaded his weak eyes against the too bright rays of the sun, longing to be back amongst his books in his little twilight chamber.
Evander kept Juventinus at his side, and warned him against temptation by criticising various heresies. In the centre of the hall a vigorous old man was striding up and down. He had high cheek-bones and thick grey hair. It was the septuagenarian bishop Purpuris, recalled from exile by Julian. Neither Constantine nor Constantius had succeeded in stifling the Donatist heresy. For fifty years past streams of blood had flowed in Africa, by reason of the unjust deposition of a Donatist in favour of a Cæcilian, or of a Cæcilian in favour of a Donatist. Nor could any augury be made as to the final issue of this fratricidal strife.
Juventinus noticed that the Cæcilian bishop who was passing in front of Purpuris brushed the vestments of the Donatist with the corner of his chasuble. The latter turned fiercely round, with a growl of disgust, and, taking the stuff between two fingers, shook it several times before the eyes of everybody.
Evander informed Juventinus in a low voice that when a Cæcilian happened to enter a Donatist congregation he was hunted out and the flags touched by his feet were washed with salt water.
Behind Purpuris, dogging him step by step, walked his faithful bodyguard, an enormous half-savage African, brown-skinned, terrible, flat-nosed, and thick-lipped, the deacon Leona. He was armed with a cudgel, gripped tightly in his nervous hands. He was an Ethiopian peasant, belonging to the self-mutilating sect called Circumcellions. Weapon in hand, these sectaries would run along the high-roads offering money to passers-by, in return for destruction, adding, "Kill us, or we will kill you!" In the name of Christ the Circumcellions mutilated themselves, burned themselves, drowned themselves, but never would hang themselves, because Judas was hanged. They declared that suicide for God's glory washed all sin from the soul, and the people looked on them as martyrs. Before death, they abandoned themselves to all pleasures; ate, drank, and offered violence to women. A great number refrained from using swords, Christ having forbidden it, but on the other hand they felled heretics and pagans with huge bludgeons, "according to the Scriptures," and with consciences at ease. While spilling blood they would cry "Glory be to God!"
And the peaceful inhabitants lived more in terror of this religious cry than of war-trumpets or the roarings of a lion. The Donatists considered the Circumcellions as their guardians, and these Ethiopian peasants finding theological controversies hard to understand, the Donatists would point out beforehand those whom they were to strike according to the Scriptures.
Evander directed the attention of Juventinus on a handsome youth, whose tender and ingenuous expression seemed almost that of a young girl. He was a Caïnite.
"Blessed be our tameless brothers, Cain, Shem, the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah!" preached the Caïnites. "They are seeds of high wisdom, of reason divine!... Come to us, all ye hunted, reprobate, revolted! Blessed be Judas! he alone among the apostles was initiated in the higher knowledge!... He betrayed Christ that He might die and rise again, because he knew the death of Christ would save the world! He who is initiated in our wisdom can transgress all limits, daring all, despising matter, trampling all fear under foot; and giving himself up to all sins and delight of the sense, attain that disgust for matter which is the final purity of the soul!"