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Against the Donatists

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

Book 7, That Eccles. x, 1 Should Be Referred to Donatists Rather Than to Catholics

Now some of your party in their desire to point us out to their people as worthy of contempt, mix up in their discourses that which was said by the Prophet Solomon concerning ‘the flies that are soon to die’:
‘Flies that are soon to die banish the sweetness of oil,’¹
and call us ‘flies that are soon to die.’ That liquid² which is seasoned by³ the Name of Christ, and, after it has been seasoned is called Chrism, they call ‘Oil.’⁴ Before consecration⁵ it is still by nature simple oil; it becomes sweet, when it is seasoned from⁶ the Name of Christ.

There are then three things, of which the Prophet Solomon has made mention----the oil, the sweetness and the flies that are soon to die which destroy the sweetness. These three things have their places in due order. In the first place is the oil, in the second is the sweetness that has been produced,⁷ in the third the dying flies which banish the sweetness. Let then whoever amongst you brings forward such an argument⁸ prove why he calls us ‘flies that are soon to die.’ You think that you have the power of consecration⁹ which gives its sweetness to the oil----you have then both the oil and its sweetness. Do we ‘banish’ your oil,¹⁰ so that you may with reason¹¹ call us ‘flies which are soon to die’? That which is yours remains with you. And if anyone passes over from you to us, he is left by us, as he was sent away by you.¹² So how can you say that we are ‘flies soon to die, which corrupt the sweetness of the oil,’ when, [coming] after you, we do no such deed?¹³

Again if you say that the sweetness of the oil can be corrupted by us, either we can effect something, and give sweetness to the oil, or if, as you maintain, we are not able to effect anything, then the oil still remains such as it was by nature.¹⁴ How then do you say that we are ‘flies soon to die, which corrupt the sweetness of the oil’?

Accordingly, the oil, before it is consecrated by us, is such as it was by nature.¹⁵ After it has been consecrated,¹⁶ it is able to receive sweetness from the Name of Christ. How can we by the same action both consecrate and corrupt?¹⁷

It follows that, if the oil be sweet of its own nature, there is nothing more left for men to effect, when it is consecrated in the Name of Christ.

The same workman cannot at the same time make two things which are repugnant and opposite to each other.

When we, in your absence, consecrate, we do not corrupt. But if we do corrupt, who had before us consecrated anything for us to corrupt? Wherefore ----that the saying of the Prophet (if it be such) may not remain without application----understand that you are the flies that are soon to die. For you have banished what it had not by nature, but by consecration, since we read that what is sweet is not capable of corruption by nature,¹⁸ for oil is simple and has its own one and distinctive name. Once it has been consecrated it is called Chrism, in which there is the sweetness which, having shut out¹⁹ the hardness of sins, softens the outward skin of the conscience,²⁰ which renews a gentle mind, which prepares a habitation for the Holy Spirit, so that He may be hither invited and, after bitterness has been put to flight, may deign here gladly to dwell. This²¹ is the sweetness of the oil which flies that are soon to die are able to corrupt. If we were to banish the oil which you had consecrated, with reason might you call us flies that are soon to die, but so long as we preserve that which you have anointed even as we find it, we cannot be flies that are soon to die; but whilst you, driven by the storms of jealousy, falling, as it were, [like flies] into the oil, banish (by rebaptising) the sweetness of that oil, which has been consecrated in the Name of Christ----from which good morals should be seasoned,²² and the light of the mind be enkindled to a health-giving²³ and true understanding----you are banishing the reality in which was the oil and sweetness.²⁴

But how have we been able to corrupt a sweetness, which no man before us produced by consecration? You have led men astray. You have rebaptised. You have anointed a second time.²⁵ Oh for shame! To your own destruction have you----like flies, which destroy even whilst they are dying----banished that which had been consecrated in the Name of Christ. Now, sin which has no pardon is death. It has been written that:
‘he who shall have sinned against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven unto him, either in this world or in the world to come.’²⁶

Wherefore, inasmuch as you untruly call us flies, and hasten to annul²⁷ all that we have done, and say that we ought to be rejected or despised, claiming sanctity for yourselves alone, you put forward your innocence, as the ground for promising that you can forgive the sins of others. You see therefore that it was not of us, as you argue, but of yourselves that the most blessed Apostle Paul has said:
‘There shall be men, lovers of themselves, covetous, praising themselves, proud, blasphemers, not obeying parents, ungrateful, wicked; not guarding peace, without affection, detractors, not gentle, without kindness,²⁸ and the rest.’

Notes

Eccles. x, 1.
illum scilicet liquorem.
ex.
Albaspinaeus observes that the heretics of his day in like manner called the holy Chrism ‘oil’ out of contempt. This fact is familiar to all students of the letters of both the English and foreign Reformers. They habitually wrote of Ordination as ‘greasing.’
antequam fiat.
de.
suavitas de confectione, i.e. through consecration.
quisquis est talis tractator ex vobis.
si apud vos putatis esse confectionem. Catholic writers often use the phrase conficere sacramentum, and even conficere Corpus Domini.
Catholics never questioned the validity of Donatist orders. Consequently such an Episcopal act as the consecration of Chrism (however illicitly) was validly performed.
merito.
The baptised man was regarded as baptised, the priest as a priest, the Bishop as a Bishop, etc.
By re-baptising or re-confirming or re-ordaining converts from Donatism.
oleum tale esse, quale et natum est. Cf. natus est hoc facere in late Latin (it is his nature to do this), and the classical fruges consumere nati (whose nature it is).
conficiatur.
confectum.
quomodo possumus uno facto et conficere et corrumpere?
suavitas enim legitur non natura posse corrumpi (cf. supra).
exclusa.
cutem conscientiae.
sc. sweetness derived from consecration.
unde condirentur mores.
salutarem.
vos exterminatis rem ubi oleum fuit et suavitas.
You have repeated not only Baptism, but also Confirmation.
Matt. xii, 22. Casaubon thinks that St. Optatus could not have made this quotation, and that it slipped in from a marginal note. It is quite true that the object of St. Optatus, which was to show that the Donatists were not only muscae (flies) but also muscae moriturae (flies that were about to die), would have been attained without the quotation. It would have been enough for his purpose to have said that their rebaptising was a great sin and that ‘sin without pardon----until it is pardoned----is death.’ But unhappily he has already said (v, 3) that rebaptising (as involving a certain exorcism of the Holy Ghost) is that sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no forgiveness in this world, or in the world to come. So hard was it to kill rigorism in the African Church, that we find it even in unexpected places. Still, we rejoice to find that St. Optatus is not always consistent with himself in this terrible severity. We have seen how clear he was that even these rebaptisers should have been reconciled with the Church, had they been willing.
dissolvere.
2 Tim. iii, 2.