3.
From the words of this Psalm was taken the name of Monks, that no one may reproach you who are Catholics by reason of the name. When you with justice reproach heretics by reason of the Circelliones, 1 that they may be saved by shame, they reproach you on the score of the Monks....
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The Circumcelliones were a wandering kind of Anchorites, who lived under no rule, and were guilty of various irregularities, and who were censured by the forty-second Canon of the Council of Trullo. Confer also Papias: St. Jerome, Ep. 22, § 34; Hunneric's Edict. Vict. Vitens. lib. 3. A number of these, in Africa, took up the cause of Donatus in a fanatical manner, and perpetrated various acts of violence under pretence of religion, robbing and beating whom they would, sending threatening notices, etc., and sometimes seeking death, or even committing suicide under the name of Martyrdom. See on Ps. xi. p. 42, note 4, on Ps. lv. p. 218, note 1, on Ps. xcvi. p. 473, note 8, and S. Optatus, b. iii. c. iv. p. 59, where a historical account is given. Ducange refers to St. Augustin, Ep. 48, 50, 61, 68; Contra Parmenian, b. i. cap. 11; Contra Crescon. b. iii. c. 42, 47; Collat. Carthag. 3, cap. 174, 281; Possidius, Life of St. Augustin, c. 10, 11; Auctor Praedestinati, b. i. haeres 69, etc. Also Cod. Theod. Cen. 52, De Haereticis, but doubtfully as to its application. [See Gibbon, D. and F. cap. xxi. note 157, ed. Milman.--C.] ↩
