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Against the Donatists

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

Book 2, 4. The Donatist Bishops and Their Meetinghouses in Rome

But¹ you allege that you too have some sort of a party in the City of Rome.²

It is a branch of your error growing out of a lie, not from the root of truth. In a word, were Macrobius³ to be asked where he sits in the City, will he be able to say on Peter’s Cathedra? I doubt whether he has even set eyes upon it, and schismatic that he is, he has not drawn nigh to Peter’s ‘Shrine,’⁴ against the precept of the Apostle who writes:
‘Communicating with the “Shrines” of the Saints.’⁵

Behold, in Rome are the ‘Shrines’ of the two Apostles. Will you tell me whether he has been able to approach them, or has offered Sacrifice in those places, where----as is certain----are these ‘Shrines’ of the Saints.

So it follows that your colleague Macrobius must confess that he sits where once sat Encolpius; and if Encolpius himself could be questioned, he would say that he sat where before him sat Bonifacius of Balla; and if Bonifacius could be asked, he would in his turn reply that he sat where Victor of Garba sat, whom some time ago your people sent from Africa to a few wanderers.⁶

How do you explain that your party has not been able to possess a Roman citizen as Bishop in Rome? How is it that in that City they were all Africans⁷ and strangers who are known to have succeeded one another? Is not craft here manifest? Is this not the spirit of faction----the mother of schism?

This Victor of Garba was sent first, I will not say as a stone into a fountain (for he could not ruffle the pure waters of the Catholic people), but because some Africans who belonged to your party, having gone to Rome, and wishing to live there, begged that someone should be sent from Africa to preside over their public worship. So Victor was sent to them. He was there as a son without a father, as a beginner without a master, as a disciple without a teacher, as a follower without a predecessor,⁸ as a lodger without a home, as a guest without a guest-house, as a shepherd without a flock, as a Bishop without a people. For neither flock nor people can that handful be termed, who amongst the forty and more Basilicas in Rome, had not one place in which to assemble.

Accordingly they closed up⁹ a cave outside the City with trellis-work,¹⁰ where they might have a meeting-house at once,¹¹ and on account of this were called Mountaineers.¹²

Since then, Claudian has succeeded to Lucian, Lucian to Macrobius, Macrobius to Encolpius, Encolpius to Boniface, Boniface to Victor. Victor would not have been able, had he been asked where he sat,¹³ to show that anyone had been there¹⁴ before him, nor could he have pointed out that he possessed any Cathedra save the Cathedra of pestilence¹⁵; for pestilence sends down its victims, destroyed by diseases, to the regions of Hell which are known to have their gates----gates against which we read that Peter received the saving Keys----Peter, that is to say, the first of our line,¹⁶ to whom it was said by Christ:
‘To thee will I give the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,’
and these keys
‘the gates of Hell shall not overcome.’¹⁷

How is it, then, that you strive to usurp for yourselves the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, you who, with your arguments, and audacious sacrilege, war against the Chair of Peter?¹⁸

Notes

sed et habere vos in Urbe Roma aliquam partem dicitis.
Harnack points out that Donatists realised so clearly the necessity of communion with the See of Peter, that in the early days of their schism they established a line of Anti-Popes, consecrating a Bishop for the purpose and sending him to Rome, to preside over their handful of adherents in the City. He writes as follows: ‘The connection with Peter’s Chair was of decisive importance, not only for Optatus, but also for his opponent, who had appealed to the fact that the Donatists had also a Bishop in Rome’ (Harnack, History of Dogma, v, 155).
The Donatist Bishop in Rome at the time. When later on in this chapter St. Optatus comes to give the list of the Donatist Anti-Popes, he evidently added in his second edition the names of Lucian and Claudian, at the same time that he added the name of Siricius to that of the Popes. (See Preface, p. xxii.)
ad cuius Memoriam non accedit. Albaspinaeus translates Relics. But Memoria is a chapel or church built over the body of a Saint. Here it refers to the Basilica built by Constantine and destroyed in the sixteenth century, where Macrobius could naturally not say Mass. Over the body of St. Paul a small Basilica was erected by Constantine. The great church, burnt in 1826, was built in the fifth century, later than St. Optatus (cf. Condi. Carthag. 14: ‘altaria, quae . . . tanquam Memoriae martyrum constituuntur ‘).
Memoriis Sanctorum communicantes. The reference is to Romans xii, 13. It is quite unintelligible to us until we learn that some ancient MSS. had ταῖς μνείαις instead of ταῖς χρείαις. The reading μνείαις is in the Acts of Pionius (second or third century) and in the bilingual codices D and G; it was therefore the Western and Old Latin reading. It is used, amongst others, by St. Hilary, Ambrosiaster, St. Peter Chrysologus and St. Gregory the Great, who writes (De Verbis Domini cxxxvii. 3, 7, last chapter): ‘Communicatio Memoriis sanctorum martyrum.’ Both readings were known to Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Jerome, Rufinus, Augustine and Pelagius. So we see that in following this reading St. Optatus does not stand alone. There is, however, little, if any, doubt that St. Paul really wrote ταῖς χρείαις.
ad paucos erraticos----a few Africans staying in Rome----strangers in the city----out of communion with its Church and Bishop----rebuked by its Cathedra----mere ‘wanderers.’
toti Africani. For toti = omnes cf. ii, 5: ‘digiti, quos . . totos ‘; vii, 1: ‘libri legis dominicae toti ubique recitantur.’ Pope Miltiades was an African. The emphasis, therefore, is on the toti.
sequens sine antecedente (cf. St. Cypr. Ep. ad Magnum, 3: ‘Novatianus in Ecclesia non est, nec episcopus computari potest, quia evangelica et apostolica traditione contempta nemini succedens a se ipso ortus est’).
saepserunt. RB have serpserunt.
cratibus. RBvb have gradibus. Casaubon adopts this, translates saepserunt ‘they fortified,’ and understands by gradibus steps going down to the cave from above. But cratibus is almost certainly the true reading.
ipso tempore conventiculum. For ipso tempore Barthius conjectured pro tempore.
Montenses. Mountaineers----from this ‘cave,’ which was made to look like a little mountain. St. Jerome writes (In Chronico ad annum Christi 336): ‘Quidam sectatores Donati etiam Montenses vocant eo quod ecclesiam Romae primum in monte habere caeperunt.’
ubi sederet, i.e. on whose Chair (Cathedra) he sat.
illic fuisse, i.e. on his Chair.
St. Optatus will soon make great play with this Cathedra Pestilentiae (Ps. i, 1), which he declares to belong to the Donatists.
The Chair of Pestilence is ranged by him against the Chair of Peter. For ‘Cathedra Pestilentiae’ we may compare St. Ambrose (comm. in cap. xxiii Matthaei): ‘Quod autem ait super Cathedram Moysis . . . per Cathedram legis doctrinam ostendit. Ergo et illud quod dicitur in Psalmo “In Cathedra Pestilentiae non sedit,” . . . doctrinam debemus accipere.’
Principem scilicet nostrum, in contrast to Victor, who was the first ‘Mountaineer’ Bishop of Rome, or perhaps to the originators of the Schism, with whom Optatus often taunts the Donatists as being their Principes.
Claves regni coelorum tibi dabo, et portae inferorum non vincent eas.
Unde est ergo, quod claves regni coelorum vobis usurpare contenditis, qui contra Cathedram Petri vestris praesumptionibus et audaci sacrilegio militatis? (Rvb have audaciis). It may well be noted that Optatus accused the Donatists of ‘audacious sacrilege’ (audax sacrilegium) in ‘warring against’ the Chair of Peter. Their ‘warring’ consisted, according to Optatus, in claiming the keys argumentatively for themselves----thus justifying themselves in remaining out of communion with the Holy See----and in ignoring the Judgement of Pope Miltiades. Cf. i, 24, 25. Mr. Denny (Papalism, n. 873) quotes this passage, but translates usurpare ‘obtain,’ and omits altogether vestris praesumptionibus et audaci sacrilegio. (For praesumptionibus cf. i, 7: ‘de inconsideratis praesumptionibus et erroribus vestris’; v, 4: ‘quod praescribas praesumptionibus vestris’; vii.. 1: ‘praesumptiones vestrae.’)