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Against the Donatists

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

Book 2, The Praise Bestowed Upon the Church by Parmenian Belongs to Catholics

In one thing alone we cannot be ungrateful to you, my brother Parmenian. You have praised our Church¹ (that is the Catholic, which is contained throughout the entire world)----although you do not belong to her² ----by enumerating her Endowments (mistaken though you are as to their number) and by teaching that she is a garden enclosed and a fountain sealed up, and the only Bride.³

This we say of that which is our own; you have said, it of that which does not belong to you.⁴ Whatever you have been able to say in praise of the Church, we, before you, have said the same. We too, with you, condemn the Betrayers----those men whom, if you remember, we have shown up in our first Book.

And although we are in communion with the whole [Catholic] world, and all the Provinces are in communion with us, you for some time past have thought well to provide two churches,⁵ as if Africa alone had Christian people----that Africa in which, through your fault, two parties have been made! And you----not remembering Christ, who says that His Spouse is One----have said, not that there are two parties in Africa, but two Churches. Without doubt that Church is One, to which it has been granted to be pointed out by the Word of Christ, who says:
‘One is My dove; My spouse is One.’⁶

Notes

Ecclesiam nostram. Cf. ‘Cathedra per Petrum nostra’ (ii, 6); ‘Cathedra Petri, quae nostra est’ (ii, 9).
quamvis ab ea sis alienus (cf. ii, 6: ‘quicquid foris est, alienum est’).
unica Sponsa.
de alieno locutus es.
Optatus complains that Parmenian was content with contrasting the rival churches in Africa, ignoring in his argument the rest of the Catholic world, as though the controversy could be settled solely by reference to what had happened in Africa.
Cant. vi, 8.