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Against the Donatists

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

Passages Wrongly Attributed to Optatus, Passage A (see p. 276, l. 21)

If at that time they had thought it right, for the sake of Peace, to enter into unity, even they would not have been repelled by the Church, since in their case dire straits¹ made excuse for the will. For not any of them had been voluntarily Betrayers; otherwise, this sin of theirs might have been likened to other transgressions.

Whatever God has willed not to be done, He has forbidden by His Mouth----even as He has said:
‘Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not commit adultery,’²
and the rest. He might have also forbidden what was done by your fathers. But since that which the mind does is one thing, whereas that which circumstances bring about is quite another, whatever is within the power of man to effect is fit matter for prohibition, but whatever evil deeds are brought about through necessity may not be blamed with much violence. Therefore wilful sins receive punishment, those done through necessity receive pardon.

The murderer, who is not compelled to his crime by any man, is free to do the deed; he is also free to leave it undone; the adulterer, who is compelled by no one from outside, can commit adultery or not, as he chooses. Similarly with other matters of like nature, where free choice exists.

Accordingly, when those things are done, which have been forbidden, they are destined for judgement; when things which have not been forbidden are done through some sort of necessity, perchance He who was unwilling to forbid them, may deign easily to pardon. So with regard to this crime³ which might have been brought against your fathers as a deadly⁴ offence----if at that time they had been exposed, or brought to judgement concerning it, they might have come to their own rescue by alleging more than one example. For we read that in the first times⁵ the Tables of the Law were broken,⁶ also that Books were given up or cut and burned,⁷ but that no one was condemned.

If (as I have just said) your fathers’ deeds had then been laid bare----if they could have been brought to judgement----without doubt they might have pleaded that they had done no more than was done by Moses the Lawgiver. Although necessity and free will have no resemblance, but are contrary to one another, [yet] since (so far as the legal name is concerned) there was the same case for your fathers as for Moses, your fathers might have said⁸ that they, through necessity, did what Moses had of his free will done first. In his indignation with the people, he did not consider that God had written with His own finger----and what has been written in heaven is more than what has been written on earth----nor did he reflect that what the Finger of God has written is not the same⁹ as that which has been written with a pen made by the hand of a man. Moses carried what he had received in the Cloud, and your fathers gave up what they had made for payment. With reason, then, might your fathers have defended themselves, arguing that it was not a deadly¹⁰ offence, if anyone of them had done, when terrified by an excessive fear, what Moses had done through anger. Neither do we read that the Lord was wroth with Moses, nor that He avenged those broken Tables which He had written with His own Hand, nor that Moses was termed a sinner or punished. The Law came from God in the same way that water comes from a fountain, or that fruit¹¹ is cut from a tree without injury to its root. That which has been used¹² is not lost, provided that it is safely preserved in its source.¹³ Similarly, Moses was not condemned after he had scattered and broken to pieces¹⁴ the Tables of the Law. And subsequently he was called back, went up Mount Sinai,¹⁵ was permitted to speak with God, and received a second time the Law now renewed, as has been disclosed by the title of the book, which in Greek is called Deuteronomy.¹⁶ You see that in the Law that which had been preserved safe in its Source was not lost. But lest anyone should suppose that Moses had merit in a certain boldness with God due to his converse with Him, and that it was for this cause that God was not displeased with him, and that, this being so, it was fitting for friendship always to demand and receive its reward and fruit----why then was he afterwards punished for another offence? Was it not to show that what he had done in his wrath was a venial¹⁷ offence? The Law was safe in God,¹⁸ even after it, together with the Tables of Stone, had been broken by man; whereas [on the other occasion] through not rendering that reverence which was due from man, Moses deserved the penalty of dying in the midst of his journey, so that he entered not into the Land of Promise¹⁹----from which it is clear that something, which, as in the present example,²⁰ could escape without punishment,²¹ cannot be looked upon as a very great sin.

If this had been pleaded by your fathers, who could have refused them communion? And again, if they had put forward instances, which followed afterwards, in which we read of what happened when the renewed²² Law was kept in the Ark, and the people of Israel were conquered in battle. The Law, which by the advice of the people²³ was borne in the Ark against the enemy, could not be guarded by the priests themselves and by the rest of the children of Israel, but far from being carried away [in safety] was given up²⁴ to the enemy.²⁵ When the Law had been given up,²⁴ those who had urged its being brought forward fled away in panic, and we do not read that they suffered any punishment in consequence. If this example had been alleged²⁶ by your fathers, who would have been able to repel them from his communion? Again, (what would have happened) if your leaders had not kept silence concerning those cases in which we read that Baruch gave up to Judin the Scribe the book of the Law which he had received from the lips of Jeremiah the Prophet, and that the king’s chief men commanded both Baruch himself, who had received the book, and Jeremiah, through whom God had spoken, to escape and lie hid? Jeremiah dictated, Baruch surrendered----both fled. The book was brought to Joachim the king. Now the king, in consequence of the coldness of the season, had a brazier²⁷ burning before him----so, as he was not pleased to hear the book recited by Judin the Scribe, he at once tore it up into small fragments²⁸ and consigned it to the flames. And God was wroth neither with Jeremiah who fled, nor with Baruch who fled with him and surrendered the book. For if God had been wroth with them, He would have spoken to some other Prophet. He did not speak to any other, but to Jeremiah himself, for thus do we read:
‘The Word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, after the King burned the chapter of the book²⁹ and the words, which Baruch wrote from the mouth of Jeremiah. God said to Jeremiah: “ Take to thyself another paper and write all thy words, which were formerly written in the book, that was burned by Joachim, king of Judah.”’³⁰

So we see that neither was God wroth, nor did the book which had been burned perish, nor was Baruch punished, nor was Jeremiah disowned by God.³¹ From this it is clear that something, which no punishment ever followed, was at no time a serious fault.³² If your fathers had alleged these examples, who could have rejected them from communion? So when God saw that the Tables of the Law had been broken by Moses, and that the Ark had been abandoned to its foes, and that the book of the Law, after it had been given up by Baruch, was both cut up and burned, He showed His Providence and promised that He would write the Law henceforward neither on Tables nor in Books, but in the very inward parts of man³³ ----that is, on the mind and heart of each believer, even as He had written it in the heart of Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the other Patriarchs, who, without the Law, certainly lived according to the Law.³⁴ This is proved by the blessed Apostle Paul, when he says:
‘Written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the Living God, not on Tables of Stone, but on the fleshy tablets of the heart.’³⁵

After the Law had been broken by Moses, and abandoned by the children of Israel to their enemies, and torn up and burned (when offered by Baruch to Joachim the king)----before the Christian times in which later on God would write in a better way----God pointed out a law through the Prophet, when He said:
‘For this is My Covenant, which I will provide for the house of Israel and for the house of Judah, and after those days, saith the Lord, I will give My Laws and will write them in their heart and in their minds.’³⁶

This He promised long ago and has last of all fulfilled in Christian times. Therefore the Book is now in the second place; in the second place are the parchments.³⁷ If God wrote the Law there, where it could not be betrayed ----so that your fathers, who had already believed in the Trinity, although they gave up the books, gave up neither their own hearts nor minds, in which God, according to His Promise, had already written His Law----on what ground, my brother Parmenian, have you said that the Law was completely burned by the Betrayers? Behold, neither has it been completely burned, nor has it been wholly taken away, so long as it both remains in the hearts of the Faithful, and thousands of books are everywhere read aloud.³⁸ From these considerations it is evident that you have, though in ignorance, taken on you to accuse your fathers in vain. If, therefore, it would have been impossible to repel even your fathers from communion, had they at the time of Unity brought forward so many examples which might have been reasonably alleged, how much more impossible is it to reject you, who are certainly not Betrayers, but the sons of Betrayers; since a distinction has to be made between both the persons and the names of fathers and sons, and where the sin has not been shared, there the same judgement cannot be passed?

Although if they had been brought into unity,³⁹ and had come to the Catholic Church of their own accord .... etc.⁴⁰

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