It is not a little difficult to understand why an Emperor who wrote such a letter as the above should have again acceded to the Donatist demand for a rehearing. Possibly the Donatists had powerful friends at court of whom we know nothing, some member, it may be, of the Imperial Family, or perhaps the case against them was not so one-sided as the Catholic authorities agree in representing. At any rate, Constantine summoned Cæcilianus to appear before him in Rome. Here is the letter which he wrote to the Donatist bishops to apprise them of his determination: “A few days ago I had decided to accede to your request and permit you to return to Africa, that the case which you think you have established against Cæcilianus might be fully investigated and brought to a proper conclusion. But, after long and careful consideration, I have deemed the following arrangement best. Knowing, as I do, that certain of you are of a decidedly turbulent nature and obstinately reject a right verdict and the reasoning of absolute truth, it might conceivably happen, if the case were heard in Africa, that the conclusion reached would not be a fitting one, or in accordance with the dictates of truth. In that event, owing to your exceeding obstinacy, something might occur which would greatly displease the Heavenly Divinity and do serious injury to my reputation, which I desire ever to maintain unimpaired. I have decided therefore, as I have said, that it is better for Cæcilianus to come here and I think he will speedily arrive. “But I pledge you my word that if, in his presence, you shall succeed in proving a single one of the crimes and misdeeds which you lay to his charge, it shall have as much weight with me as if you had proved every accusation you bring forward. May God Almighty keep you safe for ever.” At the same time Constantine wrote to Probianus, the successor of Ælianus in the governorship of Africa, instructing him to send under guard to Italy certain witnesses who had been imprisoned for forging documents purporting to shew that Felix of Aptunga was a _traditor_. Cæcilianus failed to appear at the appointed time, for some reason which is unknown to St. Augustine, who gives a brief account of the sequence of events.[85] The Donatists demanded that judgment should be given against the absent bishop by default, but Constantine refused and ordered them to follow him to Milan, where affairs of state necessitated his presence. If Augustine is to be trusted, the Emperor secured the attendance of the Donatists by clapping them under guard (_ab officialibus custoditos_). This time Cæcilianus did not fail his patron. Constantine, who was strongly averse from taking upon himself to revise, as it were, the judgments passed by so many bishops in council, deprecated their possible resentment by assuring them that his sole desire was to close the mouths of the Donatists. ----- Footnote 85: _Epist._, 43. -----