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Against the Donatists

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

Book 6, That Virgins Consecrated to God Were Wrongfully Stripped by the Donatists of the…

Now consider what a foolish----what an empty thing it is for you to have exercised your will and your sham authority¹ by making God’s virgins² learn to do Penance, so that they who had already made their Profession had afterwards by your orders to change the signs of their choice upon their heads,³ and were compelled to cast away their veils, and to receive others in their place.⁴ First tell us where there is any commandment that has been given concerning veils. For virginity is a matter of choice,⁵ not of necessity.

So Paul the Apostle, that famous innkeeper,⁶ to whose care was entrusted a people wounded with the wounds of their sins, had received two pence to lay out----that is, the two Testaments. These he, as it were, expended by his teaching, and taught how Christian husbands and wives ought to live; but, when he was asked what command he would give concerning virgins, he answered that nothing about virginity had been commanded. He acknowledged that he had laid out the two Testaments, that is the two pence. In a certain way the commission was exhausted, but, inasmuch as Christ, who had entrusted the wounded man to his keeping, had promised that He would repay whatsoever over and above might be expended upon his care,⁷ Paul, after having laid out the two pence, gives not commandments, but a counsel with regard to virginity. He does not stand in the way of those who desire it,⁸ but neither does he drive or force those who desire it not.⁹

‘He who has given his virgin, does well, and he who has not given her, does better.’¹⁰

These are words of counsel, nor are any precepts joined to them, neither as to the kind of wool from which the veil should be made, nor with what sort of purple dye it should be stained. For virginity cannot be aided with this kind of garment,¹¹ nor with it are quenched the heats of the soul,¹² which sometimes are enkindled by the summer,¹³ nor by it is the mind relieved, which from time to time is pressed down by the burdens of desires. For if it were otherwise, not one veil, but very many, would be placed on the virgin’s head, that, whensoever the desires of the flesh should trouble¹⁴ the soul, the number of veils might fight against the stings of the mind.¹⁵ The veil was thought of as a sign for the head, not as a remedy on behalf of chastity. So a garment of this kind may get old, and be gnawed through and worn out; and yet virginity, as long as it has suffered no damage, can be safe without a veil.

This kind of life¹⁶ is a kind of spiritual marriage. They had already come to the nuptials of their Spouse by their choice and Profession; and had already loosed their hair,¹⁷ thus to show that they had given up worldly nuptials, and were joined to their spiritual Spouse. They had already celebrated heavenly nuptials. For what reason have you forced them to loose their hair a second time? For what reason is it, I say, that you have exacted of them a second Profession? Who is the second spiritual spouse whom they may wed a second time? When did He die, to whom they had been wedded, that they may marry again? You have laid heads once more bare, which had already received the veil. You have stripped them of the marks¹⁸ of their Profession, which seem to have been introduced, as a protection against abductors or suitors.¹⁹ The veil is a sign of their free choice ---- not an aid to chastity²⁰ ----lest the suitor should either continue to sue for, or the abductor dare to violate, that which had already been consecrated to God.

The veil, accordingly, is a sign, not a sacrament. You have then found virgins of this kind, who had already been wedded spiritually----these you forced to second nuptials, and ordered once more to loose their hair.

This is not suffered even by those women who enter upon a natural marriage.²¹ For if it should have chanced to any one of them to change her husband,²² after widowhood has befallen her, the great secular festivity is not repeated; she is not puffed up to the skies; there is no great assemblage of people provided. Therefore, you have not taken away ornaments from their heads, but (as we have said above) the proofs of the choice of the better part. You have sprinkled the hair, which had been already consecrated to God, with unclean ashes.²³ You even gave orders that they should be washed with salt water.

And would that you had quickly restored that which you had taken away. You lengthened out delays, so that some who were dragged back to [the world] remained a long time in their original dress, after you had removed the outward signs, with which they had fortified themselves against suitors and abductors. For when men saw that you had removed the barrier which formerly stood in their way, instead of suitors they became abductors. Nor did anyone seem to himself to have sinned, in carrying off one who was such as he had seen her to be, at the time when he was looking for a wife.²⁴

Notes

quasi dignitatem vestram.
Nuns who had deserted the Catholic Church for the Donatist schism.
ut iamdudum professae signa voluntatis capitibus . . . immutarent. Casaubon thinks that there should be a comma after professae, and conjectures that the word imposita has fallen out after capitibus. He remarks that the words profiteri and professae were already quite common, but that he knows no other instance of the phrase capite profiteri signa voluntatis, whereas Optatus proceeds very soon to write of veils capiti impositae. But signa voluntatis for veils sounds quite Optatian. The word signum for a Nun’s veil is traditional in the Church. Thus the consecrated virgin on receiving the veil is bidden by the Pontifical straightway to stand up and to sing ‘Posuit signum in faciem meam.’
ut mitellas alias proicerent et alias accepissent. For the first alias RBv read aureas.
voluntatis.
stabularius ille.
quicquid in curam amplius erogasset. As St. Optatus understands by the two pence of the parable the two Testaments, i.e. the Commandments of God, so by ‘whatever thou shalt spend over and above’ (Luke x, 35) he understands works of supererogation, v.g. the Counsels of Perfection.
nec impedimenta est volentibus.
This passage, from ‘For virginity is a matter of choice’ to ‘who desire it not,’ is incorporated, as it stands, by St. Fulgentius. (Cf. ii, ad Monimum, cap. 13.)
Cf. 1 Cor. vii, 25-38.
hoc panno.
aestus animi.
aestas, so Rv. G has aetas. This is adopted by Ziwsa, but is it not possible that Optatus used aestas metaphorically in juxtaposition with aestus (summer heats) just before, according to his custom of playing upon words?
pungerent.
impugnationem mentis.
hoc genus, sc. voluntary profession of virginity.
Nuns, like married women, of old ‘put up’ their hair. It was not, as now, cut off.
indicia.
raptores aut petitores.
non castitatis auxilium.
quae carnaliter nubunt.
maritum mutate.
sc. the ashes of Penance, inflicted by the Donatists.
dum talem rapuit, qualem viderat, quando, ut uxorem acciperet, postulabat.