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Against the Donatists

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

Book 6, 8. The Donatists Compared to Bird-catchers

To make an end----it is impossible fully to narrate all the evil things that you have done; but we may take them for granted in you, who are the leaders of this wrongdoing. Still who could keep silence about those who are now yours----those, that is, whom you have succeeded in drawing to your faction either by party-spirit or by subtle craft¹ ----not only men, but also women? From sheep they have been suddenly made wolves, from being faithful they have become faithless, from being patient full of rage, from lovers of peace lovers of strife, from lovers of simplicity full of craft, from lovers of modesty without shame, once gentle now they are savage, once innocent now they are doers of evil.

After persons of either sex have fallen away to you,² they grieve that others are still there, where they were born³; they urge those who are standing firm⁴ to follow them in their fall. If they knew that they had gained glory,⁵ they would have enjoyed their own happiness in silence.⁶ But, desiring to have some consolation for their own wicked departure, they invite others to fall in like manner,⁷ and accuse those who are resting⁸ in the bosom of Mother Church as though they were slothful and slow.⁹ For they are not ashamed to use these words:
‘Gaius, Seius, or Gaia, Seia,¹⁰ how long are you staying where you are?’

That is to say:
‘You ought now to follow me in my error, you ought now to desert the truth. How long are you staying where you are?’

That is to say:
‘Imitate me in my fall, imitate me in my shameful passing over.¹¹ How long will you be called one of the Faithful? Now desert the Faith. Now learn to do Penance.’

You are bird-catchers, and these men or women are the birds. For there is not only one kind of bird-catchers.

Some there are who with an art that is not artful¹² go to trees resting on deep roots, which are to be found in front of a grove, where the birds fly naturally and sit on real boughs. Amongst them you will find no frauds, no wily devices. These men rely only upon their art and skill in bird-catching.

But I say that you resemble the bird-catcher, who, unlike the rest, is not content to go, after night has departed, before sunrise, to real trees. He carries his tree with him, and makes up into a bundle what will be his grove. Out of which, with all kinds of devices, he fashions a tree that has neither pith nor roots. On this he places false boughs. So that, which had been lately cut down, now receives strange leaves in place of those which it had lost. Some birds he carries with him shut up in a cage. Upon the false branches he places others that have been stuffed to look as though they were alive. The living birds are hid in their cages, the others are seen, like living birds upon the branches. A double fraud is united by the craft of one man.¹³ And to deceive the simplicity of the birds that are alive and flying about, those which are certainly dead seem to stretch out their necks and sing, whilst those which are out of sight in their prison are thought to be singing from the throats of the others. Between the appearance on the trees and the sound from the cage one crafty mind does its work. The birds that were already captured capture those that are free, and the birds that are dead slay those that are alive.¹⁴ Such are they whom you have wounded either by re-baptising them, or by making them submit to Penance. These men and women strive with great zeal and labour, that other men and women may perish with them----for fear lest they should perish alone.

Notes

quos aut factione aut subtilitate, ut vestros faceretis, seducere potuistis.
post quod ad vos delapsi stint aut delapsae.
sc. in the Catholic Church.
bene stantes, sc. in Ecclesia Catholica. Cf. iii, 9: ‘Aut stetit frater, sorore migrante.’
si scirent se gloriam consecutos. Cf. v, 7: ‘Quod quasi ad gloriam vestram a vobis semper auditur.’
Nothing, of course, could have been easier to the Donatists than to retort this observation.
nunc autem perditos transitus suos consolari cupientes ceteros, ut similiter labantur, invitant. Consolari = to divert their attention from their own mistake and thus get some consolation. Du Pin places a comma after perditos, thus making it agree with the ceteros that follows.
residentes.
quasi pigros. In iii, 8 St. Optatus has called the schismatic Donatists pigri.
Gai Sei vel Gaia Seia (cf. iii, 11).
transitus turpes. Evidently it was inconceivable to St. Optatus that any deserters from the Catholic Church should invite others to join their schism from any sense of duty.
arte simplici.
iungitur una geminata fraude calliditas.
A friend has been kind enough to give me the following information:----In the Shahabad District of Bengal, there are bird-catchers to this day who place a light woodwork frame on their heads covered with small branches and leaves. Armed with a long thin pole with a small two-pronged fork at the end, which is bird-limed, they catch birds sitting on the trees high above them. The man under the cover cannot be seen by the birds, whilst he can see the birds through two small eye-holes in the cover.