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Against the Donatists

St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917

Book 1, 10. The Distinction Between Heretics and Schismatics

Now there is another question: For what purpose have you mentioned those who have not the Sacraments which you and we alike possess?¹ Sound health does not clamour for medicine; strength which is secure in itself does not need outside help; truth has no lack of arguments; it is the mark of a sick man to seek remedies; it is the sign of a sluggard and a weakling to run in search of auxiliaries; it belongs to a liar to rake up arguments.² To return to your book, you have said³ that the Endowments⁴ of the Church cannot be with heretics, and in this you have said rightly,⁵ for we know that the churches of each of the heretics have no lawful Sacraments, since they are adulteresses, without the rights of honest wedlock,⁶ and are rejected by Christ, who is the Bridegroom of One Church,⁷ as strangers.⁸ This He Himself makes clear in the Canticle of Canticles. When He praises One,⁹ He condemns the others because, besides the One which is the true Catholic Church, the others amongst the heretics are thought to be churches, but are not such.¹⁰ Thus He declares in the Canticle of Canticles (as we have already pointed out) that His Dove is One, and that she is also¹¹ the chosen Spouse, and again¹² a garden enclosed, and a fountain sealed up.¹³

Therefore none of the heretics possess either the Keys, which Peter alone received,¹⁴ or the Ring,¹⁵ with which we read that the Fountain¹⁶ has been sealed¹⁷; nor is any heretic one of those to whom that Garden belongs in which God plants His young trees.¹⁸ Concerning these men, that which you have written at length (although it has nothing to do with our present business) is abundantly sufficient.

But to my surprise you have thought good to attach yourselves to those who certainly are schismatics, for in denying the Endowments of the Church both to those who are heretics, and also to schismatics, you have denied them to yourselves.

Amongst other things you have said that schismatics have been cut off, like branches, from the Vine, and that they have been reserved, marked off for punishment, like dried wood, for the fires of Hell.

But I see that you do not yet know that the Schism at Carthage was begun by your fathers. Search out the beginning of these affairs, and you will find that in associating heretics with schismatics, you have pronounced judgement against yourselves.

For it was not Caecilian¹⁹ who went forth from Majorinus, your father’s father,²⁰ but it was Majorinus who deserted Caecilian; nor was it Caecilian who separated himself from the Chair of Peter,²¹ or from the Chair of Cyprian²² ----but Majorinus,²³ on whose Chair you sit----a Chair which had no existence²⁴ before Majorinus himself. Since then there can be no possible doubt that these things have thus happened, and that you are the heirs of Betrayers and schismatics, I am, my brother Parmenian, sufficiently surprised----seeing that you are yourself a schismatic----that you should have thought it advisable to join schismatics to heretics. If, however, these are your principles, and you wish to do so, heap up together²⁵ what you have laid down only a little before. For you have said that ‘It could not be that one who was stained should wash away sins in a baptism-that-is-not-Baptism,²⁶ that one who is unclean should cleanse, that one who trips men up²⁷ should raise them, that one who is lost should free, that one who is guilty should give pardon, that one who has been condemned should absolve.’²⁸

All these things might well be true of heretics alone, since they have falsified the creed,²⁹ for amongst them one has said that there are two Gods,³⁰ though God is One; another wishes the Father to be recognised in the Person of the Son³¹; another robs the Son of God of His Flesh,³² through which the world has been reconciled to God, and there are yet others of the same kind, who admittedly are separated from Catholic Sacraments.³³ Wherefore you should regret that you have coupled schismatics with such men as these, for, when you thought that you were attacking others, you failed to observe how wide is the gulf between schismatics and heretics, and turned the sword of judgement upon yourself.

This is the reason that you do not see which is the Holy Church,³⁴ and have in this way made confusion of everything.³⁵

Notes

Mr. Sparrow Simpson, professing to paraphrase St. Optatus, writes as follows: ‘Plainly these Donatists are schismatics. Although they are not in the Catholic Church, yet they are in possession of the same two Sacraments as the Catholics. They are not heretics. Heretics could not be in possession of true Sacraments, so Optatus teaches.’ St. Optatus teaches (1) that Baptism in the Name of the Trinity is valid (v, 3); (2) that Baptism by heretics who falsified the Creed (and consequently the Baptismal Formula) is ‘varium et falsum’ (i, 12; cf. v, 3); (3) that certain heretics of this character, whom he specifies, ‘have not the Sacraments,’ also that they are ‘separated from Catholic Sacraments’ (i, 10); (4) that heretics in general are without ‘Sacramenta legalia’ (id.), and ‘are strangers to the Sacraments of the Catholic Church’ (i, 5). This exhausts the teaching of Optatus on this subject: Mr. Sparrow Simpson would himself call Nestorians and Eutychians heretics; he would say rightly that though they possess true Sacraments, they cannot use them lawfully; Mr. Sparrow Simpson allows himself to slip in the word two before Sacraments. St. Optatus nowhere writes of ‘two’ or of ‘the same two Sacraments.’ (St. Augustine and the African Church Divisions, by the Rev. W. S. Sparrow Simpson, B.D., p. 44.)
If Parmenian had been in good faith, he would have confined himself to dealing with his living quarrel with Catholics. He was merely beating the air by arguing with dead heretics, none of whom were to be found at the time in Africa. All this was a virtual admission of the weakness of his cause, and a sign of intellectual dishonesty.
dixisti.
Dotes. Parmenian had maintained that there were six Notes or Endowments of the Church: Cathedra, Angelus, Spiritus, Fons, Sigillum and Umbilicus. St. Optatus recognises them all, except the last, and discourses on them in his second Book. (Cf. note 3, p. 64.)
et rede dixisti.
scimus enim haereticorum ecclesias singulorum, prostitutas, nullis legalibus Sacramentis, et sine iure honesti matrimonii esse. (Ziwsa has ‘prostitutas, i.q. adulteras.’) The whole analogy is from valid marriage, in contrast with, and opposed to, an irregular union. Cf. iv, 8: ‘de haereticis apud quos sunt sacramentorum falsa connubia’; iv, 6: ‘haereticos dicit moechos et moechas Ecclesias illorum.’ The True Church is the only Bride of Christ, who is ‘the Bridegroom of One Church.’
qui est Sponsus Unius Ecclesiae.
non necessarias. Cf. iii, 1: ‘Basilicas fecerunt non necessarias’ (where see note 3, p. 121).
Canticles vi, 8.
ceterae apud haereticos putantur esse sed non sunt.
eandem.
eandem (so PGb) hortum conclusum. RBv read here eundem. This reading is----as I venture to think somewhat strangely----followed by Ziwsa. Du Pin has eandem and omits any reference to the variant.
Canticles iv, 12.
Ut haeretici omnes neque claves habeant, quas solus Petrus accepit. These are no doubt Parmenian’s own words, a quotation from his book. They depend not upon what immediately precedes them, but upon dixisti . . . et recte dixisti, and are in the text adopted and endorsed by St. Optatus. This is made clear in i, 12: ‘Bene revocasti claves ad Petrum.’ It is hardly necessary to say that Peter received the Keys in the name of the Church.
This is exceedingly obscure, and means of illustrating it from other writings of the Fathers are so scanty as to be practically nonexistent. What is meant by the Ring? Albaspinaeus understands it of Absolution, and quotes a passage, which he claims to be relevant, from Tertullian (De Pudicitia). Casaubon will not have this at all. He understands it, though with hesitation, of the Ring with which, at certain fixed periods of the year, the baptisteries were sealed. Du Pin understands it either of baptism, for which he also quotes from Tertullian (De Poenitentia), or of the Creed. For the last interpretation Optatus himself may perhaps be quoted. He writes (ii, 8): ‘Sigillum integrum (id est Symbolum Catholicum) non habentes ad fontem verum aperire non possunt,’ and (i, 12): ‘Bene subdixisti anulum iis, quibus aperire non licet ad fontem.’ If, as is at least, highly probable, anulus = sigillum, this settles the question. (Cf. Aug. in Ioan. lxxx, 2: ‘Accedit verbum ad elementum et fit sacramentum.’ The Baptismal Formula is as it were the compendium of the Creed.)
Du Pin understands the Fountain to be the Catholic Faith. More probably, however, it signifies the Baptismal Font, where that Faith was professed. (Cf. Note 3; p. 64, and Note 1, p. 84.)
The reference is to Canticles iv, 12: ‘My spouse is a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up.’ We search, however, in vain for any reference to the Mystic Ring, with which it is said by Optatus that ‘we read that the Fountain has been sealed.’
arbusculas (cf. i, 12; ii, 11).
Caecilian was the Catholic Bishop of Carthage, whose consecration----as we shall soon see----was the occasion of the beginning of the Schism.
avo tuo. The line of the first Donatist Bishops of Carthage was Majorinus, Donatus, Parmenian.
Cathedra Petri. The manner in which St. Optatus goes first to the See of Peter and only in the second place to the local See of Carthage, in order to prove that the Donatists were in schism, is a fact of the greatest significance. … Otherwise, the reference to the Chair of Peter in this connection is utterly meaningless and unintelligible. Moreover, it is evident that Optatus expects the Donatists immediately to recognise the force of this argument. Without hesitation he appeals to them as follows: Cum haec ita gesta esse manifestissime constet. Now the facts which are here stated to be ‘most clearly certain’ are that Caecilian did not desert either the Apostolic See of Peter or the local See of Cyprian, and that consequently Majorinus, his rival, though consecrated by an influential party to the See of Carthage, ‘began with himself.’ Parmenian would no doubt have angrily denied that Majorinus was out of communion with the See of Cyprian; he could not possibly deny that Majorinus was out of communion with the See of Peter. This, in the eyes of Optatus, was decisive.
In Cathedra Petri vel Cypriani. Cf. ii, 4: ‘In Cathedra Petri quam nescio si vel oculis novit [Macrobius].’ For the distinction between the Chair of Peter and that of Cyprian, cf. Augustine (II. De Baptismo cont. Donat. i, 2): ‘Et si distat Cathedrarum gratia, una est tamen Martyrum gloria [Petri et Cypriani].’
Majorinus was the first Donatist bishop. He was, however, merely a figurehead, whose personality was lost very early in that of his successor, Donatus the Great, the immediate predecessor of Parmenian.
originem.
cumula illa. RBv read cum illa.
in falso baptismate. G omits in.
subplantator.
Cf. i, 12; ii, 20.
quia falsaverunt Symbolum. G reads qui for quia. Heretics who falsified the Creed would also falsify the Baptismal formula. Consequently, Baptism conferred by them would be invalid, since they did not baptise in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. (Cf. note i, p. 17.) Mr. Sparrow Simpson writes (op. cit. p.44): ‘Heresy is surrender of the Creed,’ and in a footnote gives ‘qui falsaverunt Symbolum.’ Heresy, according to Optatus, is something worse even than ‘surrender.’ It is ‘falsification,’ the substitution of false teaching for true. And so has it ever been with heretics in every age. Luther, for example, was not content with ‘surrendering’ the doctrines of the supreme authority of the Church in the interpretation of Holy Scripture, and of salvation through ‘Faith working by Charity.’ He ‘falsified’ them, substituting the doctrines of ‘Private Judgement,’ and of ‘Justification by Faith only.’
This was said by Marcion (cf. iv, 5; v, 3)----also by Cerdon.
With confusion of Personality (cf. iv, 5, note on Praxeas, note 2, p. 190).
Valentinus (cf. iv, 5; 8) and the other Docetae.
a Sacramentis Catholicis alieni esse noscuntur. Cf. note 4, p. 10, and note 1, p. 17.
quae sit Sancta Ecclesia.
sic omnia miscuisti.