Against the Donatists — Book 6

Against the Donatists · Optatus of Milevis · the golden age of the Fathers · part 9 of 10

Against the Donatists — Book 6

I. The wickedness of the Donatists in breaking or scraping the altars. II. That the Donatists sacrilegiously broke and sold the chalices. III. Refutation of the Donatist pretext that the altars and sacred vessels had been contaminated through being used by Catholics. IV. That virgins consecrated to God were wrongfully stripped by the Donatists of the ornaments proper to their state. V. That the sacred books and vessels were taken away forcibly from the Catholics by the Donatists. VI. The folly of the Donatists in washing the walls. VII. That the Donatists raged even against the dead. VIII. The Donatists compared to bird-catchers. In this Book it is shown that the Donatist Bishops wickedly destroyed altars, that they sold the Holy Vessels, and without Warrant stripped Nuns of their Veils. I. The wickedness of the Donatists in breaking or scraping the altars. Your wicked actions with regard to the Divine Sacraments have----so it seems to me----been clearly shown up. I now have to describe things done by you, as you yourselves will not be able to deny, with cruelty and folly. For what so sacrilegious as to break, to scrape, to take away altars of God, upon which you too once offered sacrifice, upon which were laid both the prayers of the people, and the Members of Christ, where Almighty God was called upon, where the Holy Spirit descended in answer to prayer, from which many have received the pledge of everlasting salvation, and the safeguard of faith, and the hope of resurrection?

Altars, I say, upon which the Saviour forbade the gifts of the brotherhood to be laid, unless they should be seasoned with peace. 6 'Lay down,' He said, 'thy gift before the altar, and go back, agree with thy brother, that the priest may be able to offer on thy behalf.' For what is an altar excepting the seat of both the Body and the Blood of Christ? All these altars you, in your madness, have either scraped, or broken, or taken away. Whatever reason you may have had prompting you to this wickedness (for which no atonement is possible), it should have been done in the same way [everywhere]. But in one place, the abundance of wood it was (as I think) that led to the altars being broken up, in other places the lack of timber caused them to be scraped, whilst yet again elsewhere it was partly the sense of shame, which induced men to take them away. But in each case a disgraceful wickedness was committed when you laid sacrilegious and impious hands upon so great a Thing. Why should I mention the hired mob of abandoned wretches, and the wine that was given as the pay of crime? ----the wine, for which a fire was made out of the broken remnants of the altars, that unclean lips might drink it [hot] with sacrilegious draughts? If in your jaundiced judgement we seemed to you to be corrupt, what harm had God done you, God, who at those altars was once habitually invoked?

In what way had Christ offended you, whose Body and Blood were wont during determinate times there to dwell ? In what way had you yourselves even offended yourselves, that you should break down those altars, upon which before us you had (as you think, with sanctity) offered sacrifice for long periods of time? In impiously attacking our hands there, where the Body of Christ used to dwell, you have also smitten your own. By thus acting you have imitated the Jews. They laid hands upon Christ on the cross; you have struck Him upon the altar. If you wished to attack Catholics at these altars, there you might have spared at least your own former sacrifices. Thy pride has now been manifested in that place where formerly thou didst offer sacrifice with humility, there thou dost freely sin, where once thou wert accustomed to pray on behalf of the sins of many. After this fashion you have, of your own accord, entered into the company of sacrilegious priests, and are associated with the crimes of wicked men, concerning whom Elijah the prophet makes his plaint before the Lord. For he has used these words (with which you too, amongst others, have deserved to be accused by him): 'O Lord,' he says, 'they have broken down Thine altars.' When he says 'Thine,' he shows that the [altar] where any offering has been made to God by anyone whomsoever, belongs to God.

It might have satisfied your madness, to have wounded the members of the Church, and to have divided by your beguilements the peoples of God, who were formerly placed in unity. Amongst all your other proceedings, you might at least have spared the altars. Why did you break, together with the altars themselves, the entreaties and longings of men? For from them the people's prayer was wont to go up to the ears of God. Why did you cut to pieces the road of their prayers to Him? With impious hands you have laboured in a sort of fashion to draw away the ladder, that you might prevent supplication ascending in the accustomed way to God. And though all of you shared in one conspiracy, still, in this matter, whilst your wrongdoing was the same, you carried it out by different methods. If it was sufficient to move, it was not lawful to break; if it was right to break, it is a sin to have scraped. For if, as your assembly decreed, it was not lawful [to preserve the altars], that man who broke them up would seem to have acted rightly. In that case he is guilty who, by scraping, preserved the larger part of them. What is this new and foolish wisdom of yours to seek for that which is new in the very heart of that which is old ?

It is as though, after having removed some skin from the body, you were to look, as it were, for a second skin in that part of the body which lay hid under the part which you had cut away. The gift which is proper to itself and, by reason of its unity, is a whole in itself, may, after something has been taken from it, be lessened. Changed it cannot be. You have, it is true, scraped what seemed good to you, but what you hate is still there! Again, even though you have agreed, that whatever has been touched by us in the Name of God in His actual service, should be deemed by you to be unclean, which of the Faithful is there who is unaware that during the celebration of the Mysteries, the wood of the altar is itself covered with linen ? During the sacred rites themselves, the covering can be touched, not the wood. Or, if the veils can be penetrated by the touch, then so can the wood; and, if the wood can be penetrated, then so can the earth. If you scrape the wood, you should also dig up the earth which is underneath, you should make a deep hole, whilst you are searching after that which you are pleased to judge to be purity. But take care lest you go down to those below, there to find Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the schismatics----your masters.

It is, then, well known that you have both broken and scraped altars. How is it that in this matter your madness seems to have presently somewhat cooled down ? For we see that afterwards you changed your plan, and that the altars were now no longer either broken or scraped by you, but only moved. If this was enough, then you yourselves prove that what you did at first should by no means have been done. II. That the Donatists sacrilegiously broke and sold the chalices. But when you broke the very Chalices, which carry the Blood of Christ, you committed two horrible sins. For you have melted them down, thus making money for yourselves by abominable bargains. Nor in this business did you even trouble to select the purchasers, but were guilty of sacrilege in selling indiscriminately, and of avarice in selling at all. You also suffered your own hands to be burned, with which you were accustomed, before us, to handle these same Chalices. Still you ordered the sale to take place everywhere. Perhaps wanton women bought them for their own purposes; Pagans bought them, so that from them they might manufacture vessels, in which to burn incense to their idols. O shameful wickedness! O unheard-of crime! To take away something from God, that you might give it to idols----to steal something from Christ, that it might serve for a sacrilege.

III. Refutation of the Donatist pretext that the altars and sacred vessels had been contaminated through being used by Catholics. But I perceive that, in this matter, in order to stir up undeserved hatred against us, you wish to have recourse to the book of the Prophet Haggai, where it has been written: 'Those things which have been touched by the defiled have been defiled.' For those who are in anger, it is easy whilst the anger lasts to hurl abuse, but whenever an accusation is made, some clear proof is necessary. Who then amongst us has ever entered the temples of idols? Who has watched the sacrilegious sacrifices? Men may be defiled by incense, odours, sacrileges, sacrifices, blood. But in this matter between us, who has entered the temple? Who has burnt incense to idols? Who has been stained by unclean odours ? Who has looked upon the blood of an unclean beast, or of a man, poured forth? Whom can you prove to have given his advice for the perpetration of any evil deed? Prove----if you can----that even one Bishop has been mixed up with any wrongdoing. You have your suspicions, about some Primate or other, who was at that time reported to have faltered. Suspicion is not a sufficient ground for accusation. Who has charged him? Who has convicted him? On what occasion was he ever ashamed, or put out of countenance?

Keep your suspicions to yourselves. So, as we have said above, if in this matter anything was done with severity, we have shown, when it is looked at in its commencement, that your fathers are responsible. Why then do you speak of Catholics, as though they were defiled? Is it because we have followed the Will and Command of God by loving peace, by communicating with the whole world, in union with those who live in the East, where Christ was born, where His holy footsteps touched the ground, where His adorable Feet have walked, where so many and such great miracles were worked by the Son of God Himself, where so many Apostles accompanied Him, where is the Sevenfold Church, on having been cut off from which, you do not merely fail to grieve, but in a sort of way rejoice? You call us defiled, because we have loved Unity well-pleasing to God. Because we have agreed with and hold communion with the Corinthians, Galatians, Thessalonians, you call us defiled. You call us defiled, because we have not, together with you, read corrupt books----deny, if you can, that you read books which differ [from those of the Church]. How do you venture to read the Epistles written to the Corinthians, you who have refused to communicate with the Corinthians? To what purpose do you read aloud that which was written to Galatians or to Thessalonians, with whom you are not in communion?

Since it is certain that all these things are so, understand that you have been cut off from the holy Church, and that we are not defiled. What ground, therefore, have you for thinking that the prophet Haggai can be of any help to you? The altars, then, and the sacred vessels, which we have mentioned above, were formerly in both your hands and ours. If you slander our hands, why at those altars condemn your own hands as well? But you say that you have read: 'That, which one, who is defiled, has touched, is defiled.' Suppose that anyone has been defiled, so that the things which he has touched appear to be defiled----let it be granted, if there has only been the touch, that the things which the defiled has touched, without any invocation of the Name of God, may be contaminated----provided that silence has been kept about God. For if there be invocation of the Name of God, the invocation itself sanctifies even that which appeared to have been defiled. Thus when two hundred and fifty censers, which had been carried in the hands of sinners, remained cast away (after those sinners were swallowed up by the earth), as the Holy priest Aaron hesitated what to do about them, he heard the Voice of God, saying: 'Take up, O Aaron, these censers, and make plates of them and fasten them in the corners of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, because, though those who carried them have sinned, nevertheless these vessels are holy, for My Name has been invoked with them, saith God.'

And surely to carry is more than to touch. Therefore it is quite clear that a thing can be made holy by the invocation of the Name of God, even though it be a sinner who invokes God. For the touch cannot have as much efficacy, as has the invocation of God's Name. And do you too, who count on your own sanctity, tell us whether the touch makes holy or the invocation. Surely it is the invocation not the touch. Otherwise if you rely upon the touch alone, touch a board, a stone, a garment----and let us see whether (if silence be kept about God) they can be sanctified. IV. That virgins consecrated to God were wrongfully stripped by the Donatists of the ornaments proper to their state. Now consider what a foolish----what an empty thing it is for you to have exercised your will and your sham authority by making God's virgins learn to do Penance, so that they who had already made their Profession had afterwards by your orders to change the signs of their choice upon their heads, and were compelled to cast away their veils, and to receive others in their place. First tell us where there is any commandment that has been given concerning veils. For virginity is a matter of choice, not of necessity. So Paul the Apostle, that famous innkeeper, to whose care was entrusted a people wounded with the wounds of their sins, had received two pence to lay out----that is, the two Testaments.

These he, as it were, expended by his teaching, and taught how Christian husbands and wives ought to live; but, when he was asked what command he would give concerning virgins, he answered that nothing about virginity had been commanded. He acknowledged that he had laid out the two Testaments, that is the two pence. In a certain way the commission was exhausted, but, inasmuch as Christ, who had entrusted the wounded man to his keeping, had promised that He would repay whatsoever over and above might be expended upon his care, Paul, after having laid out the two pence, gives not commandments, but a counsel with regard to virginity. He does not stand in the way of those who desire it, but neither does he drive or force those who desire it not. 'He who has given his virgin, does well, and he who has not given her, does better.' These are words of counsel, nor are any precepts joined to them, neither as to the kind of wool from which the veil should be made, nor with what sort of purple dye it should be stained. For virginity cannot be aided with this kind of garment, nor with it are quenched the heats of the soul, which sometimes are enkindled by the summer, nor by it is the mind relieved, which from time to time is pressed down by the burdens of desires.

For if it were otherwise, not one veil, but very many, would be placed on the virgin's head, that, whensoever the desires of the flesh should trouble the soul, the number of veils might fight against the stings of the mind. The veil was thought of as a sign for the head, not as a remedy on behalf of chastity. So a garment of this kind may get old, and be gnawed through and worn out; and yet virginity, as long as it has suffered no damage, can be safe without a veil. This kind of life is a kind of spiritual marriage. They had already come to the nuptials of their Spouse by their choice and Profession; and had already loosed their hair, thus to show that they had given up worldly nuptials, and were joined to their spiritual Spouse. They had already celebrated heavenly nuptials. For what reason have you forced them to loose their hair a second time? For what reason is it, I say, that you have exacted of them a second Profession? Who is the second spiritual spouse whom they may wed a second time? When did He die, to whom they had been wedded, that they may marry again? You have laid heads once more bare, which had already received the veil. You have stripped them of the marks of their Profession, which seem to have been introduced, as a protection against abductors or suitors.

The veil is a sign of their free choice ---- not an aid to chastity ----lest the suitor should either continue to sue for, or the abductor dare to violate, that which had already been consecrated to God. The veil, accordingly, is a sign, not a sacrament. You have then found virgins of this kind, who had already been wedded spiritually----these you forced to second nuptials, and ordered once more to loose their hair. This is not suffered even by those women who enter upon a natural marriage. For if it should have chanced to any one of them to change her husband, after widowhood has befallen her, the great secular festivity is not repeated; she is not puffed up to the skies; there is no great assemblage of people provided. Therefore, you have not taken away ornaments from their heads, but (as we have said above) the proofs of the choice of the better part. You have sprinkled the hair, which had been already consecrated to God, with unclean ashes. You even gave orders that they should be washed with salt water. And would that you had quickly restored that which you had taken away. You lengthened out delays, so that some who were dragged back to [the world] remained a long time in their original dress, after you had removed the outward signs, with which they had fortified themselves against suitors and abductors.

For when men saw that you had removed the barrier which formerly stood in their way, instead of suitors they became abductors. Nor did anyone seem to himself to have sinned, in carrying off one who was such as he had seen her to be, at the time when he was looking for a wife. V. That the sacred books and vessels were taken away forcibly from the Catholics by the 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 savagely broke and foolishly scraped altars, you forced wretched maidens (not without disgrace) to take a second veil, although nothing can be read in Scripture 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 courts and public laws the books of the Divine Law should, through the action of officials, 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. I do not fear, as a Christian, to state a fact of which, through your accusations, the pagan officers could not be unaware. You seized with violence the altar cloths and books belonging to the Lord, which formerly had been possessed in common.

You also seized the palls 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. 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 religion in one matter, you ought also to bewail that you are held to be guilty of sacrilege in the other. VI. The folly of the Donatists in washing the walls. Now, what kind of thing have you done when you determined in many places to have even the walls washed, and ordered the whole interior to be sprinkled with salt water? O Water, which by God wert created sweet, over which the Holy Spirit was borne before the very birth of the world! O Water, which, that thou mightest make the land pure, hast washed the earth!

O Water, which, in the days of Moses, after thou hadst been sweetened by wood, so that thou mightest lose the bitterness that is natural to thee, didst satiate by thy most sweet draughts the hearts of so many people ! It has remained for thee, after so high an office, to receive no slight degradation! In the presence of Moses bitterness dies in thee, and to-day thy sweetness, together with the Catholic people, is harassed by schismatics. Together we suffer the conflict, together we look for the vengeance of God. Tell us, my brother Parmenian, what injury the place had done you, what injury the very walls that they should suffer such things as these at your hands? Is it because within them God was entreated? Or, that there Christ was praised? Or, that there was invoked the Holy Ghost? Or, that there, though you were absent, the books of the Prophets and the Holy Gospels were read aloud? Or, that there the minds of brethren, who had once been at strife, had been brought into harmony? Or, that unity, well pleasing to God, had found there a house, wherein to dwell? Point out to us what it is that you have found to wash. If it be the footsteps of Catholics----we have trodden both street and square ----why do you not cleanse them all? For you and we, in order to care for our bodies, have cleansed them in the same baths, and many of ours have often used them before you.

If you think that everything should be purified after us----wash the water also, if you can. Or, if, as we have just said, our footsteps seem to you to be defiled, it might be enough to wash the earth. Why, then, have you thought fit to wash the walls also, on which the footsteps of men cannot be placed? We could not tread the walls, but have only been able to see them. But if you think that what has been touched even by our looks should be washed, why have you left other things unwashed? We see the roof; we also see the heavens. They cannot be washed by you! Have you deserved well of God by washing the one? In that case you would seem to have committed a sin, for which there is no expiation, in not washing the other. As, then, you wish to appear full of a sort of diligence in one quarter, you have been found to have been negligent in another. Your diligence, however, should be termed folly, or----to call it by its true name----vanity----unless, indeed, in thus acting you have perhaps inspired the uneducated populace with terror, making them think that, since the pillar in the church has been washed, so also should be their bodies. If you have had this cunning design, you have craftily deceived the wretched people; if you have acted as you have done without thought, then your dulness has been exposed.

Those whom you have led astray know that your conduct in these matters has been stupid, and this you will not yourselves be able to deny. VII. That the Donatists raged even against the dead. Why should I also mention that great act of irreverence which arose from your conspiracy to seize the temples for this purpose, that you might claim the cemeteries for yourselves alone, and not permit the bodies of Catholics to be buried? To terrify the living, you do wrong even to the dead and refuse them a place for their funeral rites. If you had been at war with them whilst they were living, at least the death of your foe might appease your hatreds. Now that man is silent, with whom a moment ago you were in conflict, why insult his obsequies? Why interfere with his burial? To what purpose do you enter into strife with the dead? You have lost the fruit of your malice. And if you are not willing that bodies should rest together, you will not be able to separate their souls, set together before God. VIII. The Donatists compared to bird-catchers. To make an end----it is impossible fully to narrate all the evil things that you have done; but we may take them for granted in you, who are the leaders of this wrongdoing. Still who could keep silence about those who are now yours----those, that is, whom you have succeeded in drawing to your faction either by party-spirit or by subtle craft ----not only men, but also women?

From sheep they have been suddenly made wolves, from being faithful they have become faithless, from being patient full of rage, from lovers of peace lovers of strife, from lovers of simplicity full of craft, from lovers of modesty without shame, once gentle now they are savage, once innocent now they are doers of evil. After persons of either sex have fallen away to you, they grieve that others are still there, where they were born ; they urge those who are standing firm to follow them in their fall. If they knew that they had gained glory, they would have enjoyed their own happiness in silence. But, desiring to have some consolation for their own wicked departure, they invite others to fall in like manner, and accuse those who are resting in the bosom of Mother Church as though they were slothful and slow. For they are not ashamed to use these words: 'Gaius, Seius, or Gaia, Seia, staying where you are?' how long are you That is to say: 'You ought now to follow me in my error, you ought now to desert the truth. How long are you staying where you are?' That is to say: 'Imitate me in my fall, imitate me in my shameful passing over. How long will you be called one of the Faithful? Now desert the Faith. Now learn to do Penance.'

You are bird-catchers, and these men or women are the birds. For there is not only one kind of bird-catchers. Some there are who with an art that is not artful go to trees resting on deep roots, which are to be found in front of a grove, where the birds fly naturally and sit on real boughs. Amongst them you will find no frauds, no wily devices. These men rely only upon their art and skill in bird-catching. But I say that you resemble the bird-catcher, who, unlike the rest, is not content to go, after night has departed, before sunrise, to real trees. He carries his tree with him, and makes up into a bundle what will be his grove. Out of which, with all kinds of devices, he fashions a tree that has neither pith nor roots. On this he places false boughs. So that, which had been lately cut down, now receives strange leaves in place of those which it had lost. Some birds he carries with him shut up in a cage. Upon the false branches he places others that have been stuffed to look as though they were alive. The living birds are hid in their cages, the others are seen, like living birds upon the branches. A double fraud is united by the craft of one man. And to deceive the simplicity of the birds that are alive and flying about, those which are certainly dead seem to stretch out their necks and sing, whilst those which are out of sight in their prison are thought to be singing from the throats of the others.

Between the appearance on the trees and the sound from the cage one crafty mind does its work. The birds that were already captured capture those that are free, and the birds that are dead slay those that are alive. Such are they whom you have wounded either by re-baptising them, or by making them submit to Penance. These men and women strive with great zeal and labour, that other men and women may perish with them----for fear lest they should perish alone.