Thus they remained until the death of the emperor Constantius (A.D. 361), and Donatus had died in the mean time. Julian, on succeeding to the empire, gave leave to all whom Constantius had banished on account of religion to return to their homes.[37] But the Donatists were not the better for this, as they had not been banished by Constantius, but by Constans, before Constantius got possession of Africa: so they petitioned the emperor that they might be recalled from banishment; and in their petition they spoke of Julian in a way which disagreed strangely with their general defiance of governments, and which was especially ill suited for one who had forsaken the Christian faith and was persecuting it at that very time. Julian granted their request, and forthwith they returned home in great triumph, and committed violent outrages against the Catholics. They took possession of a number of churches, and, professing to consider everything that had been used by the Catholics unclean, they washed the pavement, scraped the walls, burnt the communion-tables, melted the plate, and cast the holy sacrament to the dogs. They soon became strong throughout the whole north of Africa, and in one part of it, Numidia, they were stronger than the Catholics. After the death of Julian, laws were made against them from 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.