Library › St Optatus of Milevis › Against the Donatists
Against the Donatists
St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917
Book 2, The Eucharist Was Given by the Donatists to Dogs. An Ampulla of Chrism Was Thrown…
Moreover, a hideous crime (which seems to you something of little importance)1 was committed, in such a fashion that your above-mentioned fellow-Bishops profaned everything which is most holy. They commanded the Eucharist to be cast to the dogs. This did not pass without evidence of the Divine Judgement, for these same dogs were inflamed with madness, and tore their own masters in pieces as though they had been murderers,2 and attacked with avenging teeth those guilty of the Holy Body,3 as if they had been strangers and enemies.
They also threw a phial of chrism out of a window, in order to break it, and although its fall was precipitated by violence, an angel’s hand was there to bring it down gently to earth, with the support that is from heaven. Though thrown away, it was not allowed to feel its fall, but, by the protection of God, found its home unbroken amongst the rocks.4
You never could have done such things as these, if you had borne in mind the Commands of Christ, who has said:
‘Give not that which is holy to dogs, and cast not your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turning rend you.’5
Could the makers of Unity have done anything of a like nature, out of which you might labour to create a baseless prejudice against us Catholics?6
Urban of Forma and Felix of Idicra, when they came back, found that nuns whom they had seduced from their state of chastity had become mothers. Such, my brother Parmenian, is the character of the Bishops, whose deeds you cover up; and, when you ought to be blushing for your own sins, you bring charges against innocent Catholics.
At this time the above-mentioned Bishop Felix, amongst his other crimes and horrible misdeeds, seized a young maiden to whom he himself had given the veil7 ----by whom he had a short time before been called by the name of Father----and did not hesitate in the least to be guilty of shameless incest. And, as if, through his sin, he had been made holy, he went with haste to Tysedis! There he ventured to rob of the episcopal name and office and honour Donatus, a Bishop seventy years of age, against whom no charge could be brought. The Catholic Bishop was approached by the schismatic, the innocent by the guilty, the priest of God by one steeped in sacrilege, the chaste by the incestuous. The Bishop was attacked by one no longer a Bishop, who, relying upon the decrees and conspiracy of your party, and armed by your laws and your commands, cast those hands which a short time before had been made heavy by sins, upon the head of the innocent, and dared to let judgement fall from that tongue of his, which was not now worthy even to be allowed to do penance. See, my brother Parmenian, the sort of persons whom you defend; see the kind of men they are, on whose behalf you have, this long while, maintained that the Endowments of the Church are working.
Notes
- quod vobis leve videtur, facinus inmane.
- latrones. Cf. ‘Christus percussus est in altari’ (vi, 1). For latro see note 9, p. 166.
- Sancti Corporis reos (cf. 1 Cor. xi, 27). Mr. Sparrow Simpson, giving a summary account of this passage in Optatus, observes (op. cit. p. 39): ‘The consecrated elements from the altars were flung to the dogs.’ St. Optatus writes nothing concerning ‘the consecrated elements.’ The very word ‘elements’ would, have been incomprehensible to him in this connection. He does call the Eucharist ‘the Holy Body’ and ‘the Body of Christ’ (Corpus Christi, vi, 1). It is impossible to avoid observing the contrast between Catholic terminology of the fourth, and Anglican terminology of the twentieth, century.
- We must not forget that Optatus was an eye-witness of many of the scenes which he describes. He does not, however, wish to suggest that the angel’s hand was seen, but simply to recall the fact that the vessel containing the Holy Chrism was uninjured by its fall. This he ascribes to the interposition of God, who uses His Angels to guard that which is His own, and to minister to the needs of His servants on earth. Mr. Sparrow Simpson (id.) comments on these events as follows: ‘By these fanatical measures’ [sic: one of which was throwing the Eucharist to dogs----the ‘facinus inmane’ of Optatus] ‘the Separatists relieved their feelings [sic] and expressed their contempt. Various strange and legendary incidents recall the scandal to the Catholic sense of reverence.’ History sometimes repeats herself with minute similarities. In Green’s History of the English People (vol. ii, p. 186) we read that in the year 1539 ‘In one church a Protestant lawyer raised a dog in his hands when the Priest elevated the Host.’
- Matt, vii, 6.
- quid tale . . . fieri potuit, unde etc. Du Pin, however, prints with a note of interrogation after potuit, and begins a fresh sentence with Unde.
- cui ipse mitram imposuerat (cf. vi, 4).