Library › St Optatus of Milevis › Against the Donatists

Against the Donatists

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

Book 3, These Things Happened to the Donatists Through the Just Punishment of God

Still, none of these things was done at our instigation, none by our advice, none with our privity, none by our aid. They were all done through the grief of God,¹ (who grieved bitterly,²) to punish your sin against the water of Baptism which, contrary to His command, you had moved a second time,³ drawing to yourselves,⁴ as it were, the water of the ancient pool.⁵ I know not whether it contained that Fish by which is understood Christ,⁶ the Fish captured, as we read in the book of the Patriarch Tobias----captured in the River Tigris, of which the gall and the liver were taken by [young] Tobias as a protection for his wife Sara, and to give sight to his father in his blindness----that Fish through the entrails of which⁷ Asmodeus,⁸ the devil, was put to flight by Sara the maiden (by whom is understood the Church), and blindness was removed from Tobias.⁹ This is that Fish, which in Baptism, through the Invocation of God,¹⁰ is placed in the waters of the font, so that what had been water is, from the Fish,¹¹ also called ‘piscina.’

This is that Fish, the name of which in Greek contains in its one name alone, through each of its letters, a number of holy names, ΙΧΘΥΣ, that is to say in Latin, Iesus Christus, Dei Filius, Salvator----Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour.¹² This ‘piscina,’ which in the whole Catholic Church throughout the world is joyfully filled with saving waters for the life of the human race, you have drawn away¹³ according to your own wills; and have made null that one only Baptism¹⁴ (through which walls have been built up for the protection of men¹⁵), and have made as it were other walls,¹⁶ building an unworthy building, since you have not been able to build up without throwing down.

And what kind of building can that be which is built out of a ruin?¹⁷ This it is over which God grieves and weeps, through the prophet Isaiah,¹⁸ saying that the daughter of His people (generis) was laid low. For it is the genus of God to have no genus.¹⁹ He is of Himself,²⁰ and He remaineth for ever. And like to Him in this is the water, of which we do not read that it was created.²¹ To avenge the injury done to this water,²² God points out His Tears, which you have caused Him. These He declares can be dried by no consolation, addressing you by Isaiah His prophet:
‘Depart from me, I will weep bitterly. No one will be able to comfort me, for the laying low of the daughter of my people.’²³

In this passage our innocence is defended, whilst God with grief makes clear His wrath against you, giving the cause and alleging the reason.

Besides, He does not say ‘in Sion,’²⁴ for it is not in the whole of Sion,²⁵ but only in its valley²⁶ that judgements were delivered. Not that Mount Sion which in Syrian Palestine is separated by only a small river from the walls of Jerusalem,²⁷ on the summit of which there is not the great plain, on which were²⁸ the seven synagogues, whither the Jewish people might assemble and learn the law given to Moses----but where no lawsuits were heard and no judgements were given by any, for it was a place of teaching, not of controversial discussion. (If anything of this sort had to be done, it was done within the walls of Jerusalem.) Therefore was it written in Isaiah the prophet:
‘The Law shall go forth from Sion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.’²⁹

It was not therefore on this Mount Sion that Isaiah beheld the valley, but on the holy mountain, that is the Church, which has reared her head throughout all the Roman world, beneath the whole expanse of Heaven.

This is the mountain on which the Son of God rejoices that He is made King by God the Father, saying:
‘That He hath made me King upon His holy hill of Sion’³⁰ ----
that is, over the Church, of which He is King and Spouse and Head----not on the hill [in Palestine],³¹ where there were no gates beloved by God, but on the mount, by which the Church is spiritually signified. The gates of this Church are entered by the innocent, the just and the merciful, by the pure of heart, and the virgins. These are the gates of which the Holy Ghost makes mention, through David, in the eighty-sixth Psalm, when He says:
‘Her foundations are upon the holy hills; the Lord loveth the Gates of Sion’³² ----
not the gates of that material mountain,³³ where now, after the triumphs of the Emperor Vespasian, there are no gates, and scarce any traces of its ancient ruins are to be found.

Wherefore, the spiritual Sion is the Church, in which Christ was made King by God the Father----that is in the whole world, where there is One Catholic Church . . . for the most holy prophet David bears witness in another place also that Sion is the Church:
‘Laud thy God, O Sion, for he hath made fast the bars of thy gates. He hath blessed thy children within thee.’³⁴

We understand the various provinces of the whole world to represent the various valleys of the mountain.³⁵ And since Isaiah had not his vision of the whole mountain, but of one valley, that means in Africa alone, for in Africa alone your fathers were pleased to build fresh temples, although the first were amply sufficient. In Africa alone walls were cast down, and in order that walls might be made³⁶ the water of the holy font was turned to a wrong purpose, and novelty was introduced by you against antiquity, and water of human origin was provided, against that which is divine.³⁷

Chiding the valley of Sion, God challenges all this,³⁸ demanding³⁹:
‘What aileth you that you have gone up into superfluous temples? Every city is full of those who clamour. Their wounded were not wounded by the sword, and those who are dead in thee are not dead in battle. From the smallest to the greatest all thy princes are in error, wandering upon the hills.⁴⁰ They have been turned to flight, and those who have been taken have been grievously bound.⁴¹ And thy strong ones have been put to flight to a far distance. Let me go, for I will weep bitterly. No one will be able to console me for the devastation of the daughter of my people. And the Elamites⁴² shall come up with their quivers.’

Elamites in the Latin tongue⁴³ are called choirs of the camps.⁴⁴ And he goes on to say:
‘Your inmost recesses shall be made public,⁴⁵ and the secrets of the House of Israel shall be laid bare.’⁴⁶

This has happened in Africa alone, and God pointed out for what reason all this was done, blaming you with these words:
‘Because⁴⁷ you have diverted the water of the old pool into your city, and have cast down the walls of Jerusalem to build another wall, and have made a pool between the two walls. You have paid no heed to the old pool, nor to Him who created it in the beginning.’⁴⁸

So you see, my brother Parmenian, that you, by whose first fathers the seed of all these things was sown, find yourselves burdened with the crop.

Notes

in dolore Dei. Cf. iv, 9 (quod dolet Deus) and i, 2.
Is. xxii, 4. St. Optatus has led up to this quotation by his various references to this chapter of Isaiah.
By rebaptising Catholics.
transducentes ad vos aquam antiquae piscinae. Cf. Is. xxii, 9, which St. Optatus will soon quote from his version: ‘Quoniam convertistis aquam antiquae piscinae ad civitatem vestram.’
The reference is to the pool of Bethsaida (cf. John v, 4), the waters of which were regarded by Tertullian as typical of Baptism (De Baptism. v and vi). The Angel was only allowed to move the pool once each time for healing. Optatus looks upon this fact as a figure of the unity of Baptism.
The metaphor here is slightly changed. The ‘piscina’ is understood as a lake full of fish. St. Optatus asks sarcastically whether Christ was in that lake, meaning that the sacrilegious rebaptisms of the Donatists, in this unlike True Baptism, gave Christ to no man. It is well known, of course, that the Fish was a principal emblem of Christ among the early Christians.
eiusdem piscis visceribus.
Cf. Paradise Lost, iv, 168-170:
‘Than Asmodeus, with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
Of Tobit’s son.’
‘See Tobias vi, 9-10. St. Optatus mystically applies this narrative. Sara is the Church which puts the Evil One to flight through Christ. Christ is the one protection of His Church; by Christ alone, through His Church, is blindness removed from men.
per invocationem. The Invocation of God, that is to say, the Blessing of the Font, puts Christ (the Fish) into what was mere empty water, so that it becomes a Fishpond. But in the second Baptism of the Donatists there was no Christ, therefore no symbolic Fish.
a pisce.
Cf. Tertullian (De Baptismo i): ‘Sed nos pisciculi secundum ἴχθυν nostrum Iesum Christum in quo nascimur, nec aliter quam in aqua permanendo salvi sumus.’
transduxistis once more. Cf. Is. xxii, 9.
solvistis singulare Baptisma.
ex quo Baptismate hominibus muri facti sunt ad tutelam. The reference is to Is. xxii, 11, 12: ‘Et deicistis muros Hierusalem, ut faceretis alteram munitionem et constituistis aquam inter duas munitiones et ad piscinam antiquam (= the first----the Catholic Baptism) adtendere noluistis.’ The thought of St. Optatus is that the Donatists by rebaptising pulled down the first wall and built up a second (alteros muros, duas munitiones). This was to build an edifice on a ruin. Hence, as he will say immediately, comes the sorrow of God filiam esse contritam. (‘Recedite a Me, amare flebo. Nolite incumbere ut consolemini Me super vastitate filiae populi Mei.’ Is. xxii, 4. Vulgate.)
Cf. iii. 10: ‘foras exeuntes . . . parietem fecerunt,’ etc.
Cf. iii, 10.
Cf. Is. xxii, 4.
We here have another ‘paronomasia’ or play upon words, of which St. Optatus, like many of the Fathers, was so fond.
ex se est.
The reference is to the description of the Creation of the World in Genesis, where we read: ‘The Spirit of God was borne over the waters,’ without any account of the creation of the waters themselves.
in cuius aquae iniuria.
Isaiah xxii, 4: ‘Missum Me facite, amare plorabo: nemo poterit consolare Me in contritione filiae generis Mei.’ The Vulgate has ‘vastatione’ for ‘contritione.’
St. Optatus is continuing his argument from Isaiah xxii, where, instead of The Burden of the Valley of the Vision, he evidently read The Vision of the Valley of Sion. St. Jerome tells us that the LXX had Verbum Vallis Sionis for Onus Vallis Visionis. Optatus’ point here is that the subject of this prophecy is not the actual Mount Sion, but the spiritual Sion, which is the Catholic Church. (In v, 4 he writes: ‘Sion Ecclesiam esse in tertio libro probavimus.’)
In tota Sion. Only G has tota, but it seems to have probably slipped out of the older MSS., as a little later Optatus has in toto monte.
Is. xxii, 5. Vulgate In valle visionis.
We have here a digression which shows, and probably was intended to show, St. Optatus’ acquaintance with the topography of Jerusalem. Sion was outside of Jerusalem. We read as follows in the narrative of a Bordeaux pilgrim to the Holy Land, to be found in Itinera Hierosolymitana (CSEL. vol. 29, p. 22): ‘Item exeuntibus Hierusalem ut ascendas Sion, in parte sinistra et deorsum in Valle iuxta murum est piscina, quae dicitur Silua [i.e. Siloe] . . . Intus autem intra murum Sion paret locus, ubi palatium habuit David. Et septem synagogue, quae illic fuerunt, una tantum remansit, reliquae autem arantur et seminantur, sicut Isaias propheta dixit.’
fuerant. The Bordeaux pilgrim, whom I have just quoted, wrote in 333, about thirty years before St. Optatus. Nothing else seems to be known concerning these seven synagogues.
Is. ii, 3. The topographical digression finishes with this quotation.
Psalm ii, 6.
The material hill.
Psalm lxxxvi, 1.
non illius corporalis montis.
Psalm cxlvii, 1, 2.
per singulas provincias totius orbis valles singulas intellegimus montis. Casaubon suggests that St. Optatus wrote this by a slip of the pen instead of per singulas valles montis intellegimus singulas provincias totius orbis. As an alternative he conjectures that we should read praeterea for per. But surely St. Optatus may have thought it more elegant to write it as the MSS. give it. ‘By the provinces we understand the valleys.’
in qua sola deiecti sunt muri et, ut fierent muri, aqua sanctae piscinae transversa est. Ziwsa brackets ut fierent muri, which is omitted by RBGv, evidently regarding it as incomprehensible. But it represents ‘ut faceretis alteram munitionem’ in Optatus’ version of Is. xxii, 20. RBv have aqua sancta et piscina for aqua sanctae piscinae. The reference is still to the rebaptism by Donatists. They who were already Christians were, by an impious novelty, rebaptised, that they might become Christians. (Cf. v, 3: ‘Qui rebaptizatur, iam Christianus fuerat; quomodo dici potest iterum Christianus?’)
‘In una valle, hoc est sola Africa, in qua sola, cum sufficerent templa Dei, quae fuerant, alia facere voluerunt principes vestri, in qua sola deiecti sunt muri, et, ut fierent muri, aqua sanctae piscinae trans-
versa est, et novitas contra antiquitatem a vobis instituta est, et aqua humana contra divinam ordinata est’ (cf. v, 3 etc.). By aqua humana is meant water used by rebaptisers. By aqua divina is meant the water used in Baptism, which, in accordance with Catholic doctrine, is one, and once for all. This is a sort of summing up in which St. Optatus endeavours, with considerable ingenuity, to show once more that Is. xxii, 1-11 has reference to the Donatists. We shall perhaps see this more clearly if we place his words in juxtaposition with his Latin version of Isaiah, which he knew to be familiar to his readers.
St. Optatus. Isaias.
Cum sufficerent templa Dei, alia facere voluerunt = ‘Ascendistis in templa supervacanea.’
Principes vestri = ‘Omnes principes tui.’
In qua sola deiecti sunt muri = ‘Deiicistis muros Hierusalem.’
Ut fierent muri = ‘Ut faceretis alteram munitionem . . . inter duas munitiones.’
Aqua sanctae piscinae transversa est = ‘Convertistis aquam antiquae piscinae.’
Novitas contra antiquitatem = ‘Ad piscinam antiquam adtendere noluistis.’
Aqua humana contra divinam = ‘Nec ad Eum . . . qui creavit illam.’
hoc totum interrogat.
Is. xxii, 1.
errore sunt . . . errantes in montibus.
graviter adligati.
St. Jerome (in loco) writes that Elam ---- ascensus eorum. He adds that Elamites = contemptores.
Casaubon conjectures that Optatus by a mistake of memory thought that Elamite was found for Sulamite in Cant. vii, i: ‘Quid videbis in Sulamite nisi choros castrorum?’
chori castrorum seems to refer to the military bands----the singers of the camp.
penetralia vestra deferentur ad publicum. Cf. Is. xxii, 8, Vulgate: ‘Et revelabitur operimentum ludae.’ LXX ‘Et revelabunt portas Iudae, et aspicient die illo in domos electas civitatis.’
et secreta domus Israhel nudabuntur. Cf. Vulgate: ‘Et scissuras civitatis David videbitis.’ LXX: ‘Et revelabunt abscondita domorum arcis David.’
quoniam. ‘Because.’ This is emphatic. This was the cause of whatever violence may have been done by the troops of Macarius.
Is. xxii, 11 sq: ‘You refused to pay heed to the old pool’----that is to say, you would not count the first Baptism as valid, and you despised ‘Him, who created it in the beginning.’