From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   June 4th - St. Optatus of Milevis   
      
   Bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, in the fourth century. He was a convert, as   
   we   
   gather from St. Augustine: "Do we not see with how great a booty of gold and   
   silver and garments Cyprian, doctor suavissimus, came forth out of Egypt,   
   and   
   likewise Lactantius, Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary?" (De Doctrina Christ.,   
   xl).   
   Optatus probably had been a pagan rhetorician. His work against the   
   Donatists is   
   an answer to Parmenian, the successor of Donatus in the See of Carthage. St.   
   Jerome (De viris ill., cx) tells us it was in six books and was written   
   under   
   Valens and Valentinian (364-75). We now possess seven books, and the list of   
   popes is carried as far as Siricius (384-98). Similarly the Donatist   
   succession   
   of antipopes is given (II, iv), as Victor, Bonifatius, Encolpius, Macrobius,   
   Lucianus, Claudianus (the date of the last is about 380), though a few   
   sentences   
   earlier Macrobius is mentioned as the actual bishop. The plan of the work is   
   laid down in Book I, and is completed in six books. It seems, then, that the   
   seventh book, which St. Jerome did not know in 392, was an appendix to a new   
   edition in which St. Optatus made additions to the two episcopal lists. The   
   date   
   of the original work is fixed by the statement in I, xiii, that sixty years   
   and   
   more had passed since the persecution of Diocletian (303-5). Photinus (d.   
   376)   
   is apparently regarded as still alive; Julian is dead (363). Thus the first   
   books were published about 366-70, and the second edition about 385-90.   
      
   St. Optatus deals with the entire controversy between Catholics and   
   Donatists   
   (see DONATISTS). He distinguishes between schismatics and heretics. The   
   former   
   have rejected unity, but they have true doctrine and true sacraments, hence   
   Parmenian should not have threatened them (and consequently his own party)   
   with   
   eternal damnation. This mild doctrine is a great contrast to the severity of   
   many of the Fathers against schism. It seems to be motivated by the notion   
   that   
   all who have faith will be saved, though after long torments-a view which   
   St.   
   Augustine has frequently to combat. Donatists and Catholics were agreed as   
   to   
   the necessary unity of the Church. The question was, where is this One   
   Church?   
   Optatus argues that it cannot be only in a corner of Africa; it must be the   
   catholica (the word is used as a substantive) which is throughout the world.   
   Parmenian had enumerated six dotes, or properties, of the Church, of which   
   Optatus accepts five, and argues that the first, the episcopal chair,   
   cathedra,   
   belongs to the Catholics, and therefore they have all the others. The whole   
   schism has arisen through the quarrel as to the episcopal succession at   
   Carthage, and it might have been expected that Optatus would claim this   
   property   
   of cathedra by pointing out the legitimacy of the Catholic succession at   
   Carthage. But he does not. He replies: "We must examine who sat first in the   
   chair, and where. . . .You cannot deny that you know that in the city of   
   Rome   
   upon Peter first the chair of the bishop was conferred, in which sat the   
   head of   
   all the Apostles, Peter, whence also he was called Cephas, in which one   
   chair   
   unity should be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles should each stand   
   up   
   for his own chair, so that now he should be a schismatic and a sinner who   
   should   
   against this one chair set up another. Therefore in the one chair, which is   
   the   
   first of the dotes Peter first sat, to whom succeeded Linus." An incorrect   
   list   
   of popes follows, ending with, "and to Damasus Siricius, who is today our   
   colleague, with whom the whole world with us agrees by the communication of   
   commendatory letters in the fellowship of one communion. Tell us the origin   
   of   
   your chair, you who wish to claim the holy Church for yourselves". Optatus   
   then   
   mocks at the recent succession of Donatist antipopes at Rome.   
      
   Optatus argues, especially in book V, against the doctrine which the   
   Donatists   
   had inherited from St. Cyprian that baptism by those outside the Church   
   cannot   
   be valid, and he anticipates St. Augustine's argument that the faith of the   
   baptizer does not matter, since it is God who confers the grace. His   
   statement   
   of the objective efficacy of the sacraments ex opere operato is well known:   
   "Sacramenta per se esse sancta, non per homines" (V, iv). Thus in baptism   
   there   
   must be the Holy Trinity, the believer and the minister, and their   
   importance is   
   in this order, the third being the least important. In rebuking the   
   sacrileges   
   of the Donatists, he says: "What is so profane as to break, scrape, remove   
   the   
   altars of God, on which you yourselves had once offered, on which both the   
   prayers of the people and the members of Christ have been borne, where God   
   Almighty has been invoked, where the Holy Ghost has been asked for and has   
   come   
   down, from which by many has been received the pledge of eternal salvation   
   and   
   the safeguard of faith and the hope of resurrection? . . . For what is an   
   altar   
   but the seat of the Body and Blood of Christ?" In book VII a notable   
   argument   
   for unity is added: St. Peter sinned most grievously and denied his Master,   
   yet   
   he retained the keys, and for the sake of unity and charity the Apostles did   
   not   
   separate from his fellowship. Thus Optatus defends the willingness of the   
   Catholics to receive back the Donatists to unity without difficulty, for   
   there   
   must be always sinners in the Church, and the cockle is mixed with the   
   wheat;   
   but charity covers a multitude of sins.   
      
   The style of St. Optatus is vigorous and animated. He aims at terseness and   
   effect, rather than at flowing periods, and this in spite of the gentleness   
   and   
   charity which is so admirable in his polemics against his "brethren", as he   
   insists on calling the Donatist bishops. He uses Cyprian a great deal,   
   though he   
   refutes that saint's mistaken opinion about baptism, and does not copy his   
   easy   
   style. His descriptions of events are admirable and vivid. It is strange   
   that   
   Dupin should have called him minus nitidus ac politus, for both in the words   
   he   
   employs and in their order he almost incurs the blame of precocity. His is   
   as   
   strict as Cyprian as to the metrical cadences at the close of every   
   sentence. He   
   was evidently a man of good taste as well as of high culture, and he has   
   left us   
   in his one work a monument of convincing dialectic, of elegant literary   
   form,   
   and of Christian charity. But the general marshalling of his arguments is   
   not so   
   good as is the development of each by itself. His allegorical   
   interpretations   
   are far-fetched, but those of Parmenian were evidently yet more extravagant.   
   An   
   appendix contained an important dossier of documents which had apparently   
   been   
      
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