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Against the Donatists

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

Book 2, 14. The Catholics Have Done Nothing with Cruelty

But you, having forgotten this, have used these words in order to stir up hatred against Catholics:
‘That,’ you have said, ‘cannot rightly be called a Church which battens on bloody morsels, and is fattened on the blood and the flesh of the Saints.’

The Church has her own determinate members----Bishops, priests, deacons, clerics,¹ and the mass of the faithful.² Tell us against which class of men in our Church³ the charge that you have thought well to bring can be proved. Name some cleric individually, point out some deacon by his name; show that this evil thing has been done by some priest; prove the guilt of Bishops. Make us see that any one of our people has plotted against any man. Who of us has persecuted any one? Who is there on your side, of whom you can either say or prove that he has been persecuted by us?

Unity displeases you.

So----if you deem it to be a crime, convict us of being in communion with Thessalonians, Corinthians, Galatians and the Seven Churches which are in Asia.

If it seems to you wicked or a proof of guilt to communicate with the ‘shrines’⁴ of the Apostles and of all the Saints, far from denying this, we make it our boast.

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