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Against the Donatists
St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917
Book 6, 7. That the Donatists Raged Even Against the Dead
Why should I also mention that great act of irreverence which arose from your conspiracy to seize the temples for this purpose,1 that you might claim the cemeteries for yourselves alone, and not permit the bodies of Catholics to be buried? To terrify the living, you do wrong even to the dead and refuse them a place for their funeral rites. If you had been at war with them whilst they were living, at least the death of your foe might appease your hatreds. Now that man is silent, with whom a moment ago you were in conflict, why insult his obsequies? Why interfere with his burial? To what purpose do you enter into strife with the dead? You have lost the fruit of your malice.2 And if you are not willing that bodies should rest together,3 you will not be able to separate their souls, set together4 before God.
Notes
- Even in places where the Donatists had a church of their own, they were empowered by the Edict of Julian to seize the church of the Catholics. St. Optatus here suggests that they did this in order to deprive Catholics of the privilege of burial amongst their fellow Catholics in the cemeteries which were attached to every Catholic church.
- perdidisti malitiae fructum.
- in unum.
- in uno.