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Against the Donatists
St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917
Book 2, 3. The Succession of Bishops of Rome
To Peter succeeded Linus, to Linus succeeded Clement, to Clement Anacletus, to Anacletus Evaristus, to Evaristus1 Sixtus, to Sixtus Telesphorus, to Telesphorus Hyginus, to Hyginus Anacetus, to Anacetus Pius, to Pius Soter, to Soter Alexander, to Alexander Victor, to Victor Zephyrinus, to Zephyrinus Calixtus, to Calixtus Urban, to Urban Pontianus, to Pontianus Anterus, to Anterus Fabian, to Fabian Cornelius, to Cornelius Lucius, to Lucius Stephen, to Stephen Sixtus, to Sixtus Dionysius, to Dionysius Felix, to Felix Marcellinus, to Marcellinus Eusebius, to Eusebius Miltiades, to Miltiades Silvester, to Silvester Marcus, to Marcus Julius, to Julius Liberius, to Liberius Damasus, to Damasus Siricius,2 who to-day is our colleague, with whom ‘the whole world,’3 through the intercourse of letters of peace,4 agrees with us in one bond of communion.5
Now do you show the origin of your Cathedra,6 you who wish to claim the Holy Church for yourselves!
Notes
- St. Augustine copied this list of Popes given by St. Optatus. Yet it is incomplete and in one case inaccurate. The name Alexander should come after Evaristus, Eutychian and Gaius should come after Felix, Marcellus (probably) after Marcellinus, and where Optatus places Alexander (after Soter), he should have placed Eleutherius. It may also be mentioned that in the list given by Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. iii, 3) Pius precedes Anacetus.
- In the first edition of St. Optatus written about 370 a.d. the list of Popes ended with Damasus. The name of Siricius who became Pope in 383 was added in the second edition (cf. Preface to Book VII).
- Totus orbis (cf. note 1, p. 52).
- Commercio formatarum. As is well known, the Catholic world in the early centuries was kept in touch with its various parts through the communication of litterae formatae, or ‘letters of peace,’ which passed at stated times between the Bishop of Rome and all Catholic Bishops, and were also often sent from these Bishops to one another. (Cf. Aug. Ep. xliv, 3; con. Cresc. iii, 34.) Formatae ----τετυπωμέναι. τυποῦν = sigillare. (Cf. Du Cange, iii, 565.)
- in una communionis societate concordat.
- Dr. Darwell Stone (The Christian Church, p. 143) quotes this passage, but translates Cathedra ‘Episcopal See.’ This is to miss the point. There is no question here of the origin of the Donatist See at Carthage, or as to whether that See was rightly claimed by Caecilian and Restitutus (the Catholic Bishops) on the one hand, or by Majorinus and Parmenian (the Donatists) on the other----a matter which has already been discussed in i, 10. The present question is what have the Donatists to set against the Unica ac singularis Cathedra Petri. To this Optatus replies in the next sentence (we must remember that he knew nothing of the present division into chapters) by suggesting that they might allege their Bishops of Rome. ‘But you allege, etc’ St. Optatus is engaged exclusively with the See of Rome in the present chapters ii to vi, from the time, that is, when he begins, until he ceases, to deal with the Cathedra as an Endowment of the Church.