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Against the Donatists

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

Book 2, The Church is Rightly Called Paradise, But It Belongs to the Wide World

Nor do I pass over the fact that you have said openly that the Church is (as we believe) a Paradise----a thing which without doubt is true----a garden in which God sets His little trees. And yet you have denied to God His rich possessions by compressing His garden into a narrow corner,¹ claiming without reason everything for yourselves alone. Surely the plantations of God, through different precepts, have different seeds. The just, the continent, the merciful, the virgins are spiritual seeds. Of these seeds God raises little plants in His Paradise. Grant to God that His garden be spread far and wide. Why do you deny to Him the Christian peoples of East and North, also those of all the provinces of the West and of innumerable islands ----with whom you share no fellowship of communion----against whom you----few in number and rebels----are ranged, in isolation?

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