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Against the Donatists

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

Book 6, The Wickedness of the Donatists in Breaking or Scraping the Altars

Your wicked actions with regard to the Divine Sacraments¹ have----so it seems to me----been clearly shown up. I now have to describe things done by you, as you yourselves will not be able to deny, with cruelty and folly. For what so sacrilegious as to break, to scrape, to take away altars of God, upon which you too once offered sacrifice,² upon which were laid both the prayers of the people, and the Members of Christ,³ where Almighty God was called upon, where the Holy Spirit descended in answer to prayer, from which many have received the pledge of everlasting salvation, and the safeguard of faith, and the hope of resurrection? Altars, I say, upon which the Saviour forbade the gifts of the brotherhood⁴ to be laid, unless they should be seasoned with peace.⁵

‘Lay down,’ He said, ‘thy gift before the altar,⁶ and go back, agree with thy brother, that the priest may be able to offer on thy behalf.’⁷

For what is an altar excepting the seat of both the Body and the Blood of Christ?⁸

All these altars you, in your madness, have either scraped, or broken, or taken away. Whatever reason you may have had prompting you to this wickedness (for which no atonement is possible), it should have been done in the same way [everywhere]. But in one place, the abundance of wood it was (as I think) that led to the altars being broken up, in other places the lack of timber caused them to be scraped, whilst yet again elsewhere it was partly the sense of shame, which induced men to take them away. But in each case a disgraceful wickedness was committed when you laid sacrilegious and impious hands upon so great a Thing.⁹

Why should I mention the hired mob of abandoned wretches, and the wine that was given as the pay of crime?¹⁰ ----the wine, for which a fire was made out of the broken remnants of the altars, that unclean lips might drink it [hot] with sacrilegious draughts?¹¹ If in your jaundiced judgement we seemed to you to be corrupt,¹² what harm had God done you, God, who at those altars¹³ was once habitually invoked? In what way had Christ offended you, whose Body and Blood were wont during determinate times there to dwell¹⁴? In what way had you yourselves even offended yourselves, that you should break down those altars, upon which before us you had (as you think, with sanctity) offered sacrifice for long periods of time? In impiously attacking our hands there, where the Body of Christ used to dwell,¹⁵ you have also smitten your own.¹⁶

By thus acting you have imitated the Jews. They laid hands upon Christ on the cross; you have struck Him upon the altar.¹⁷ If you wished to attack Catholics at these altars, there¹⁸ you might have spared at least your own former sacrifices.¹⁹

Thy²⁰ pride has now been manifested in that place where formerly thou didst offer sacrifice with humility, there thou dost freely sin, where once thou wert accustomed to pray on behalf of the sins of many. After this fashion you²¹ have, of your own accord, entered into the company of sacrilegious priests, and are associated with the crimes of wicked men, concerning whom Elijah the prophet makes his plaint before the Lord. For he has used these words (with which you too, amongst others, have deserved to be accused by him):
‘O Lord,’ he says, ‘they have broken down Thine altars.’²²

When he says ‘Thine,’ he shows that the [altar] where any offering has been made to God by anyone whomsoever, belongs to God.²³

It might have satisfied your madness, to have wounded the members of the Church, and to have divided by your beguilements the peoples of God, who were formerly placed in unity. Amongst all your other proceedings, you might at least have spared the altars. Why did you break, together with the altars themselves, the entreaties and longings of men?²⁴ For from them the people’s prayer was wont to go up to the ears of God. Why did you cut to pieces the road of their prayers to Him?²⁵ With impious hands you have laboured in a sort of fashion to draw away the ladder,²⁶ that you might prevent supplication ascending in the accustomed way to God.

And though all of you shared in one conspiracy, still, in this matter, whilst your wrongdoing was the same, you carried it out by different methods.

If it was sufficient to move, it was not lawful to break; if it was right to break, it is a sin to have scraped. For if, as your assembly decreed, it was not lawful [to preserve the altars], that man who broke them up would seem to have acted rightly. In that case he is guilty who, by scraping, preserved the larger part of them.

What is this new and foolish wisdom of yours to seek for that which is new in the very heart of that which is old²⁷? It is as though, after having removed some skin from the body, you were to look, as it were, for a second skin in that part of the body which lay hid under the part which you had cut away.²⁸ The gift²⁹ which is proper to itself and, by reason of its unity,³⁰ is a whole in itself, may, after something has been taken from it, be lessened. Changed it cannot be. You have, it is true, scraped what seemed good to you, but what you hate is still there! Again, even though you have agreed,³¹ that whatever has been touched by us in the Name of God in His actual service,³² should be deemed by you to be unclean, which of the Faithful is there who is unaware that during the celebration of the Mysteries, the wood of the altar is itself covered with linen³³? During the sacred rites themselves,³⁴ the covering can be touched, not the wood. Or, if the veils can be penetrated by the touch, then so can the wood; and, if the wood can be penetrated, then so can the earth. If you scrape the wood, you should also dig up the earth which is underneath, you should make a deep hole, whilst you are searching after that which you are pleased to judge to be purity.³⁵ But take care lest you go down to those below,³⁶ there to find Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the schismatics----your masters. It is, then, well known that you have both broken and scraped altars. How is it that in this matter your madness seems to have presently somewhat cooled down³⁷? For we see that afterwards you changed your plan, and that the altars were now no longer either broken or scraped by you, but only moved. If this was enough, then you yourselves prove that what you did at first should by no means have been done.

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