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Against the Donatists

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

Book 3, 9. It Was Necessary to Bring About Unity in Africa

The whole world rejoices concerning Catholic unity, excepting a portion of Africa, in which a conflagration has been blown up from a spark. You complain that some evil deeds or other¹ were committed by the makers of unity. No complaint of this kind is made by Italy, or by Gaul, or by Spain, or by Pannonia, or by Galatia, or by Greece, or by any of the Provinces of Asia.

No one was sent there to put things right,² because there was nothing there which needed setting right.³ No tailor⁴ (so to speak) was sent to them, because amongst them there was no rent to repair.

Here, too, in Africa, of old----so long as the people remained in unity----the garment had been whole, but it was torn by the envious hand of an enemy. It may be said, metaphorically, that pieces, coming originally from one garment, were hanging loose,⁵ and that branches, coming from the same root, were divided one from another.⁶

Why does part prefer itself before part?⁷ Why does one piece of the garment raise itself above the second, though it cannot prove itself to be better? What if the despised piece were to say:
‘Why dost them sound thine own praises only? Have we not grown up together? Have we not been together in the hands of those who made us up into one, and have we not together been cleansed by Him who washed us⁸? An enemy has wished to cut us off⁹ from one another; an adversary has wished to mar¹⁰ our beauty.’

In part of the garment we are still one, but we hang on different sides.¹¹ For that which has been rent¹² has been partly¹³ divided, not totally,¹⁴ since it is surely certain that you and we have one ecclesiastical discipline,¹⁵ and if men’s minds are at war, the Sacraments are not at war.¹⁶ Finally, we can also say:
‘Together we believe the same truths,¹⁷ and have been sealed with one Seal,¹⁸ nor have we been baptised otherwise than you; in like manner¹⁹ we read the divine Testament; in like manner together we worship one God; the Prayer of the Lord²⁰ is one with you and with us. But since, as we have just said, part had been rent asunder, the work of mending²¹ had become necessary, whilst parts [of the garment] were hanging on either side.’²²

When he who arranges or works at a matter of this sort²³ wishes to restore the garment to its former appearance, he torments²⁴ the threads that are next to his hand.²⁵ The tailor, who wounds whilst he is mending the rent, displeases you. He who brought it about that the tailor has had the opportunity of offending,²⁶ should displease you even more. And [remember] that the things which you allege to have been committed by the makers of unity either should be attributed to your fathers,²⁷ of whose actions they were the result, or came from the Will of God. But we had nothing to do with them.

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