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Against the Donatists

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

Book 1, To Return to the Difference Between Heretics and Schismatics

But heretics, exiles from the truth, deserters of the sound and most true Creed,¹ corrupted by their wicked opinions and led astray from the bosom of Holy Church, reckoning nothing of their noble birth, in order to deceive the ignorant and ill-informed, have been pleased to be born of themselves. And they, who for a long time had been nourished on living food----which not assimilated has turned to corruption² ----have by impious disputations vomited forth deadly poisons, to the destruction of their wretched dupes.

You see, then, my brother Parmenian, that none but heretics only----who are cut off from the home of truth----possess ‘various kinds of false Baptisms with which he, who is stained, cannot wash, nor the unclean cleanse, nor the destroyer raise, nor he, who is lost, free, nor the guilty man give pardon, nor the condemned man absolve.’³

Rightly hast thou closed the Garden to heretics; rightly hast thou claimed the Keys for Peter⁴; rightly hast thou denied the right of cultivating the young trees to those who are certainly shut out⁵ from the garden and from the paradise of God⁶; rightly hast thou withdrawn the Ring from those to whom it is not allowed to open the Fountain. But to you schismatics, although you are not in the Catholic Church,⁷ these things⁸ cannot be denied, since you have shared true Sacraments with us.⁹

Wherefore, since all these things are justly denied to heretics, why did you think well to deny them to yourselves as well, who clearly are schismatics, for you have gone outside? For our part we were willing that in this matter heretics alone should be condemned, but so far as lies with you, you have chosen to strike yourselves, together with them, in one condemnation.¹⁰

Notes

sani et verissimi Symboli desertores. Optatus here terms heretics symboli desertores; later on (iii, 8) he will term schismatics caritatis desertores. For sani cf. vestis sana (iii, 9); lex in Deo sana fuit (vii, 1).
corruptela malae digestionis.
This is a quotation from Parmenian’s own words in his book. (Cf. pp. 21, 22.)
Perhaps Parmenian held the view enunciated by Tertullian (De Pud. xxi, 9), after he had fallen into heresy, that the keys had been given to Peter only, not to the Church. Perhaps he held that they had passed from Peter to the Donatist Church. The Donatists, it will be remembered, had their Antipope.
alienos. St. Optatus here says that heretics are alieni ab hortulo et a Paradiso Dei; later (ii, 6) he uses the same word (alienum), in the same sense, of schismatics.
i.e. the Church. Cf. (ii, 11) ecclesiam paradisum esse dixisti, in quo horto Deus plantat arbusculas. We see that St. Optatus when writing hortulo et paradiso is joining them as synonyms (cf. note 3, p. 8).
quamvis in Catholica non sitis.
The Ring (= the Creed) and the Fountain (= the Font). Cf. note 6, p. 19.
quia nobiscum vera et communia Sacramenta traxistis.
quantum in te est, etiam vos ipsos una sententia ferire voluisti.