The same Year another Council was held at _Carthage_, consisting of all the Bishops of _Africa_; and _Aurelius_, who presided in this, as he had done in the former, opened it with reading a Letter from _Anastasius_, exhorting the Bishops of _Africa_ no longer to dissemble the Cruelties of the _Donatists_, who continued to use with great Barbarity the Catholic Bishops and Clergy[1384]. The Fathers of the Council returned _Anastasius_ Thanks for his Advice; but, not thinking it quite agreeable to the true Spirit of Christianity, they declined complying with it. [Sidenote: _Who refuse to comply with his Advice._] They knew that their Persecutors, had they complained of their Cruelties to the Civil Magistrate, would have been punished with Death, pursuant to a Law enacted against them, Three Years before, by the Emperors _Arcadius_ and _Honorius_[1385]. They therefore chose, notwithstanding the Advice of _Anastasius_, rather to suffer with Patience a most cruel Persecution, than redeem themselves from it at so dear a Rate[1386]. In the same Council it was decreed among other things, that such of the _Donatist_ Clergy, as should return to the Church, might be admitted, if the Bishop, who received them, thought it expedient, to the same Rank, which they had enjoyed before their Conversion. As a Decree had been lately enacted by _Anastasius_, and the other _Italian_ Bishops, excluding converted Heretics from the Catholic Clergy[1387]; it was to acquaint them with the Motives which had prompted the Fathers assembled at _Carthage_, to admit the _Donatists_, that _Aurelius_ and his Collegues writ to _Anastasius_; and not to beg of him a Dispensation in favour of the converted _Donatists_, as is ridiculously supposed by _Baronius_[1388]. [Sidenote: Anastasius _dies_.]