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Against the Donatists

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

Passages Wrongly Attributed to Optatus, Passage B (see p. 279, line 3)

Nor would he have visited upon the fathers any offences perchance committed by the sons. Since, therefore, the Law was renewed in the times of Moses without any man being punished, and the Ark of the Covenant was freely restored by the enemy, and at God’s command a second book was written by Jeremiah,¹ why is it thought that your fathers alone committed a deadly² sin, when they did something, on account of which, in so many instances, no one was condemned?

For if the Law was given for this purpose, that men should be taught, not that the Law itself should be as it were worshipped in the place of God, then, after your fathers’ sin, though individuals³ lost their volumes⁴ under the pressure of fear, yet the mass of the Faithful⁵ suffered no loss. For the Law, which had been necessary,⁶ still has its force⁷ amongst the teachers of the people and the worshippers of God. The libraries are filled with books. Nothing is wanting to the Church. In different places⁸ the divine praises are everywhere proclaimed. The mouths of the lectors keep not silence. The hands of all are full of volumes⁹ [of Scripture]. Nothing is lacking to the people who wish to be taught----although the law would not seem to have been written more for the sake of teaching, than for that of the judgement to come, in order that the sinner may know what may befall him, should he not live rightly. Thus has it been written, and thus do we read, that
‘the Law has not been given for the just,’
because
‘every just man is himself a law unto himself.’¹⁰

And in another place the blessed Apostle Paul also says that the Law does not make men just, but itself loves justice.¹¹ It is results which are always looked for in all those things that produce results.¹² The Law, which produces results, is not needed,¹³ when the result is obtained in a quicker way.¹⁴ It was not said to Abraham: ‘Believe,’ but he believed of his own accord¹⁵ ----so in him the result of the Law was made complete without the Law. We do not read:
‘Abraham heard the Law and believed,’
but we do read:
‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for justice.’¹⁶

And in the earliest times the Patriarch Noah did nothing by which he might become just, yet he as a just man was chosen to build the Ark, in which during the Deluge¹⁷ he might navigate the waters with success. It were a long task to go through all the cases individually of all who, without the Law, were found to be just.

If these things had been pleaded by your fathers, who would then have rejected them from his communion? Again, [what would have happened] if they had asserted that what the Apostle says of those who are outside the Law¹⁸ ought not to be passed over in silence?
‘the nations, that know not the Law, do the things that belong to the Law, for they have the Law written in their hearts.’¹⁹

For many are known to have sinned with the Law,²⁰ and many to have lived well without the Law. The Law and Man are two things, but they cannot be on an equality,²¹ for Man was not made for the Law, but the Law was given for the sake of men. I do not see that injury has anywhere been done to God, so long as the source²² of the Law remains with Him. After the Scripture has been given up----so it is said----by your fathers, it wants for nothing, all the members of the Law are sound----are safe, and are read aloud. There is, for those who desire to teach and to be taught, nothing less than there was of the Law. Was it then necessary for man to be slain rather than that any Scripture should be given up? Again, men have not been slain, yet all the Scriptures are here without diminution. The Law and God are not one and the same thing. If they had had to die for God, who can both raise up the dead and give reward, [well and good]; but a book that has not been surrendered cannot do even the second of these two things.²³

Therefore, necessity shackles [a man’s] own strength of will.²⁴ We often see that carelessness is as disastrous as necessity. For if the parchments or the books, in which the canonical²⁵ Scripture is contained, must be kept totally unimpaired, why are not some careless people condemned? There is no wide gulf between giving up²⁶ and placing in a bad situation, or treating badly. One man has placed the book in a house, which has been burned down in a fire. Let him be condemned, who carelessly placed the book in that house, if another is to be condemned who through fear gave up the book that he knew would be demanded of him. Let them also be condemned, who placed neglected parchments, or books, where they might be gnawed by little household animals²⁷ (that is by mice) in such a way that they could not be read. Let him be condemned, as well, who has placed them in a part of the house, where, in consequence of too great abundance of rain, water has dropped through the eaves from the roof, so that all the writing has been washed away by the wet, and can no longer be read. Let those too be condemned, who have been rash enough to entrust themselves, together with the books of the Law, to the hungry waves of the sea, and in their eagerness to save their lives, when in the water, have let the Scriptures slip from their hands. Accordingly if the Scripture be the same²⁸ always, and, if he who has not been able to save it, is guilty----then, one has given it up to the waves, another has abandoned it to rodents,²⁹ another has carelessly allowed it to be spoiled by the dropping water, and yet another, terrified by the fear of death, has, as man, given it to man. If all have done the same thing,³⁰ why is one chosen out to be condemned----and this, even though the fault of the Betrayer is lighter than is that of him who has been careless? He who placed it in the way of mice, or left it under the dropping water, with his will was careless, whilst he who lost it in the river, sinned through rashness. He who through the fear of death gave anything up, gave it as a man to a man. It was whole whilst with the giver, it remained whole in the hands of the receiver. If he who received it, gave it up to the flames, this is the sin of the one who burned it, not of him who surrendered it. If these things had been urged by your fathers, how could we have rejected them from our communion? Or if again they had thought well to refer to the times of King Antiochus,³¹ when all the Jews were compelled to surrender their Books to be burned, and the whole of the Scripture was given up so completely that not a letter³² remained in any one book? Not one of the Jews was then condemned, nor was any sentence pronounced against any Jew either by God or by some angel, because the sin was his who commanded and threatened, not the people’s who surrendered with fearfulness and sorrow. And in order that this Antiochus should do no injury to His people in these early days,³³ God immediately provided for one man Esdras,³⁴ who was called a Reader at the time, to dictate the whole as it had been before, to the minutest point.³⁵ In this way the tyrant Antiochus was not able to enjoy the fruit of his wickedness,³⁶ since (with the exception of the Seven Brothers and one old man who refused to eat swine’s flesh)³⁷ he killed no Jew, and yet the Law could not be destroyed.³⁸ In the same way your fathers too in their day were not killed, and yet all the books of the Law of the Lord are read aloud everywhere. If, as I have urged above, your fathers had pointed out these things, who would not have received them into his communion without fear,³⁹ since, as has been said, their sin was a sin of necessity, not of the will⁴⁰? Your fathers, who are proved, ....etc.⁴¹

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