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Against the Donatists
St Optatus of Milevis, tr. Vassall-Phillips, 1917
Book 6, That the Sacred Books and Vessels Were Taken Away Forcibly from the Catholics by…
In this business how great were the injuries that you did to God, how great were the gains that you won for the Devil. You impiously melted down Chalices, you savagely1 broke and foolishly2 scraped altars, you forced wretched maidens (not without disgrace) to take a second veil, although nothing can be read in Scripture3 about the first. And I cannot pass over a thing, which neither is pleasing to God, nor can be excused by your adherents, nor be defended by any man. You judged that by civil courts4 and public laws the books of the Divine Law should, through the action of officials,5 be torn away from very many, wishing to have for themselves alone that which before the schism the Church had held for all in common.6 I do not fear, as a Christian, to state a fact of which, through your accusations, the pagan officers could not be unaware.7 You seized with violence the altar cloths and books belonging to the Lord,8 which formerly had been possessed in common. You also seized the palls9 and the manuscripts. In your proud judgement you thought that in each case they had been defiled. If I mistake not, you made haste to purify all these things. Without doubt you washed the palls. Tell us what you did with the manuscripts. If you are to act wisely you must pass the same judgement in all things. Either wash both, or leave both alone. If you act differently, you will have tainted your own efforts.10 The pall you wash; the manuscript you wash not. If you do well on one side, you do evil on the other. You are unable to deny that you give scandal on the one hand, if you do well on the other; and if you rejoice to seem full of respect for religion11 in one matter, you ought also to bewail that you are held to be guilty of sacrilege in the other.
Notes
- crudeliter.
- inconsulte.
- in lectione.
- per iudicia saecularia. Under Julian the Apostate the churches and sacred books were taken from the Catholics and given to the Donatists by imperial decree and process of law.
- executione officiorum. ‘Officia pro officialibus, ut ministeria pro ministris et sexcenta huius generis’ (Casaubon).
- quod Pax in commune possederat.
- quod vobis postulantibus gentilis executio non potuit ignorare. Ziwsa points out that postulare here = criminari (cf. iii, 3: ‘postulabant utique contra episcopos’).
- velamina et instrumenta dominica extortistis. For velamina Cochlaeus suggested volumina---- a suggestion adopted by Casaubon.
- pallas. Casaubon thinks that pallas has crept in for pallia and quotes Victor Uticensis, who has written of velaminum pallia and of pallia altaris. But Pope Innocent I (De Mysteriis Missae, ii, 55) writes: ‘Duplex est palla quae dicitur corporalis; una quam Diaconus super altare totum extendit, altera, quam super calicem plicatam imponit.’
- corrupisti diligentiam tuam. RB concupisti.
- religiosus.