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Against the Donatists

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

Book 1, 15. The Schism Took Its Rise from the Consecration of Majorinus

It was not long after this, that these very persons whom I have mentioned, of the character I have described, Betrayers, men who had offered incense to idols, and murderers,¹ proceeded to Carthage, and there, although Caecilian was already the Bishop, made the Schism by consecrating Majorinus----on whose Chair, Parmenian, you sit. And since I have shown, that men who were guilty of Betrayal were your first fathers, it follows that Betrayers were also the originators of your Schism.

In order to make this matter clear and beyond doubt to all, we shall have to prove from what root the branches of error have stretched themselves forth to the present day, and from what fountain this your rivulet of noxious water,² creeping stealthily along, has flowed down even to our times. We shall have to point out whence, and where, and from whom this evil of schism has arisen; what were the causes which met together³ to produce it; who were the persons who effected it⁴; who were the authors of this wicked thing; who fostered it; by whom appeal was made to the Emperor, that he should judge between the parties; who were they that sat in judgement; where the Council was held; what were its decrees.

The question is about a Division. Now in Africa, as in other parts of the world, the Church was One, before it was divided by those who consecrated Majorinus----whose Chair you have inherited, and now occupy.⁵ We shall have to see who has remained in the root, with the whole world⁶; who went forth; who sits on a second chair, which had no existence before the Schism⁷; who has raised altar against altar; who has consecrated a Bishop when another was in undisturbed possession; who it is that lies under the judgement of John, the Apostle, when he declared that many Anti-Christs should go forth without,
‘because they were not of us, for if they had been of us they would have remained with us.’⁸

Therefore, he who was unwilling to remain with his brethren in unity⁹ has followed the heretics, and gone forth without, as an Anti-Christ.

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