Library › St Optatus of Milevis › Against the Donatists
Against the Donatists
St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917
Book 4, 1. The Argument of This Book
We have now, my brother Parmenian, shown openly and clearly that in charging us with asking for the help of the soldiers, you have calumniated us to no purpose.1 Now learn this also, that what you have said about the Sacraments and sacrifice of a sinner2 refers to you rather than to us.
Since a man is not necessarily a sinner3 because you have so chosen to term him, it would be equally easy for us, copying your gratuitous assumption,4 to say that you are the sinners. But assumptions of this kind on both, sides should be sent packing.5 Let neither of us judge the other with man’s judgement.
It belongs to God to know who is guilty; His it is to pass judgement. Let then all of us, who are but men, keep silence. Let God alone point out the sinner, whose sacrifice is unclean,6 and from whose hands one who wishes to be anointed should fear to receive unction.
How most clearly true this is, acknowledge, my brother Parmenian!
Notes
- Cf. iii, 4.
- de oleo et sacrificio peccatoris. For this phrase cf. i, 5, 6, 7; iv, 7, 9. For oleum cf. note 3, p. 11.
- non ille debet esse peccator.
- vestram praesumptionem. The Donatists boastfully claimed that the validity of the Sacraments depended upon their personal holiness. This was the ‘presumption’ with which they started.
- facessat ex utraque parte praesumptio. Cf. ‘facesse Tarquinios’ (Liv. i, 47).
- cuius sacrificium est canina victima. Canina = Like that of a dog. Cf. infra iv, 6: quasi qui victimet canem. The reference is to Deut. xxiii, 18: ‘Non offeres pretium canis in domo Domini Dei tui’; cf. also Is. lxvi, 3: ‘Facinorosus qui sacrificat Mihi vitulum, quasi qui canem occidat’ (the reading of St. Aug. c. ep. Par men. ii, 5).