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Against the Donatists

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

Book 7, That the Donatists Can Be Received Back into the Communion of the Church More…

Having shown up the Betrayers and having pointed out the holy Church----having refuted the calumnies which you were wont to utter against us, and having exposed your sins----which have merited to be chidden by God----and your repetition of the Sacraments, and your gratuitous claims¹ and your violence, we ought now to finish our answers and statements²; but, since I perceive that, though the wood of malice has been cut down by the axes of truth, challenges are still sprouting³ forth from you or from your friends, in which, as I hear, you maintain that, in consequence of your being known as the children of Betrayers, you ought not to be invited to the communion of unity⁴ ----to this let me say a few words in reply.

It is most true that the Catholic Church was sufficient for herself with her countless peoples in all countries⁵; she was sufficient for herself also in Africa, although here she is but in few places. But God was not pleased with your separation, for the members of one body had been torn asunder, and, against the Will of God, you, who are our brothers, wandered away from your brethren. Sentence had been passed at home⁶ upon your fathers, that they who ought to have been expelled in consequence of their confession of Betrayal, should go forth of their own accord. No [formal] judgement was pronounced,⁷ yet the effect of the sentence was obtained. They should have been cast off after the Betrayal, to which they owned in the Council in Numidia. But, not to give an opportunity for the display of their malice,⁸ the severity of judgement was refrained from, and your ancestors of their own accord made their plans, in consequence of their guilt, to cover up their crime and depart with the appearance of pride----when they should have grieved and blushed for shame. For if at that time they had thought it right, for the sake of Peace, to enter into unity,⁹ and had come to the Catholic Church of their own accord----unlike you, who are known to have been drawn¹⁰ by the Will of God¹¹ to return whence you had wandered (though you are wandering still)----if, as I have said, they had come of their own accord to the Catholic Church, perhaps our fathers would have hesitated about receiving them, because they had been Betrayers; but we have cause for rejoicing, that none guilty of Betrayal have lived down to our times.

So to-day we find quite a new state of affairs, since we have to deal, not with them, but with you. Although it appears that a stain has passed from them to you by inheritance, nevertheless you cannot on this ground be held guilty together with your fathers, according to the Judgement of God, who has spoken by Ezekiel the prophet, saying:
‘The soul of the father is Mine, and Mine is the soul of the son. The soul that sinneth, shall be punished alone.’¹²

And this was proved even in ancient times----at the very beginning of the world,¹³ in that his father’s sin did not belong to Seth, the son of Adam.¹⁴ And that no one might say that in another place it was written by the Lord that He would
‘punish the sins of the fathers even unto the fourth generation’¹⁵ ----
----these are undoubtedly both words¹⁶ of God, but both do not refer to one people. The first was said through Moses to a definite set of men, the second through Ezekiel to a different class. God, since He knew that the Jews would declare to Pontius Pilate:
‘His Blood be upon us, and upon our children,’¹⁷
in His foreknowledge saw that what they would say, was, in comparison with the greatness of their sin, but little, and threatened the Jews themselves, in order that their crime might be expiated by adequate¹⁸ penalties, saying that He would punish the offences of the fathers even to the fourth generation. So this word¹⁹ belongs in a particular way to the Jews, and to them alone; but the other, in which God has deigned to promise not to punish in sons any sins of their fathers, nor in fathers any faults perchance committed by their sons, belongs to Christians.²⁰

Your fathers, who are proved to have done these things in the days of Unity, have fallen away from the number of the living, leaving you as it were an inherited stain, which God has already washed away by His Providence, when He made a distinction (as we have said above) between fathers and their sons. Accordingly, since Betrayal is a sin, your fathers must see to it, as to what answer they may make in the Judgement of God; but your sin it cannot be, since you are living in other times.

Notes

[…] (cf. i, 7; ii, 5 etc.), i.e. that the effects of Baptism were derived from the sanctity of their recipients, not from God.
responsorum dictorumque nostrorum.
pullulare.
ad unam communionem.
revera sufficiebat sibi Ecclesia Catholica habens innumerabiles populos in provinciis universis.
domesticum iudicium. At the Council of Cirta in Numidia.
Against those who had consecrated Majorinus.
ne invidia esset. Du Pin forgets the ‘malice’ against Secundus (cf. ‘et cum ipse Secundus a Purpurio increparetur,’ i, 14), when he understands ‘ne invidia esset’ to mean here ‘that they might not be reproached with the expulsion of so many Bishops.’
Balduinus in his second Edition inserted here the passage A which I print at the end of the Book (p. 298).
adductos (cf. in, 11: ‘quem fides adduxerit’).
non sine voluntate Dei (St. Optatus often uses this phrase, as also its equivalent cum voluntate Dei).
Ez. xviii, 4.
in ipsis natalibus mundi.
dum non pertinuit ad Seth, filium Adae, patris admissum. From the theological point of view this has been considered the most difficult passage to be found in the works of St. Optatus. St. Augustine writes (de Haer. 19): ‘Sethiani nomen acceperunt a filio Adae, qui vocatus est Seth. Eum quippe honorant, sed fabulosa et haeretica vanitate.’ The Sethitic legend is distinctly African. Julius Africanus is quoted as one of the first Christian writers to extol this Patriarch unduly, and the legend went on growing. Some, therefore, have thought that St. Optatus had received unawares a false tradition from heretical sources about Seth. Thus Casaubon writes with regard to this passage of Optatus: ‘Non ego is iam, qui gravius quidquam de viro sancto pronuntiaverim. Id tantum dicam, vereri me, ne imprudenti et incauto illi haec exciderint, quae saevioris examinis acrimoniam aegre sustineant.’ All the other commentators pass the passage over in silence. But is it not almost certain that St. Optatus had not the doctrine of original sin before his mind at all? With much probability it may be urged that the question here concerns not Adam qua father of the human race, but Adam considered as any other father. In this sense it is clear that Adam’s sins were not attributed to his son Seth any more than are the sins of any other father attributed to any other son. We must always bear in mind that Optatus wrote before the rise of the Pelagian heresy. Still, the difficulty will remain unanswered: Why should Optatus in this connection have mentioned Seth rather than Abel, or even Cain?
Ex. xx, 5.
voces.
Matt. xxvii, 25.
conpetentibus.
vox.
Here Balduinus inserted B, the second doubtful passage. I have printed it immediately after A (p. 305).