Tell us, then, who accused him and was not listened to? Tell us (if you can) that Macarius confessed his fault and that we did not pronounce sentence. For after all, we are in the Church judges of a kind, as you yourselves do not deny. Indeed, you maintain that we ought to judge in accordance with truth. We, then, cannot do that which God has not done. In His Judgement He has thought well to separate persons, and has not willed that one man should be at the same time accuser and judge. For no man can in one case at the same moment bear the weight of two persons, so as to be in the same judgement both accuser and judge. This is a thing which God has not done by His omnipotence, but, in order to set before us the form of passing judgement, has taught us that neither should a guilty man be condemned without an accuser, nor should he be the accuser, who would be the judge in the same case.
Accordingly, at the very beginning of the world, when men were commencing to be born, after his brother Abel had been killed by Cain, we read that God called Cain and asked him where was his brother. He doubled his sin and said that he did not know, as though he would make God ignorant, and when could there be anything not known to God, under whose eyes and countenance are all things which are done? Nevertheless, God does not judge without an accuser and asks concerning a thing which surely He knew. And yet you wish us to repel one whom we have not seen doing any evil, and who has had no one |179 to accuse him. I perceive here what your malice is about to whisper: you will say that what has been done has not escaped our knowledge. We acknowledge that we have heard about it, but to condemn one whom no man has ventured to accuse would be to sin. If you tell us that his deed has not escaped us, will you tell God, who had seen the brother's murder, why He asked about it? It would not have been right for us to do something which God refused to do, when He would not pass sentence, excepting on one who was guilty. You must find an accuser. Otherwise the condemnation could not be just----unless he who should pass sentence was himself to be the accuser! Wherefore God says:
'Behold thy brother's blood. It cries to me from the earth.'
Thus it is that, since by no means can you prove that Macarius was accused before us by any man, you cannot find fault with our judgement.
[Footnotes moved to the end and renumbered]
1. We find the names of Ursacius and Paulus joined to those of Macarius and Leontius in iii, 4. (Cf. also iii, 10, and for Taurinus iii, 4; iii, 12.)
2. Jeremiah xxi, 29: 'ut vobis stupescerent dentes, ipsi uvas acidas comederunt.' The Vulgate has: 'Patres comederunt uvam acerbam et dentes filiorum obstupuerunt.'
3. Basilicas non necessarias. We find this expression many times in Optatus. It is first used by him in i, 10, where the churches of heretics are said to have no relationship with Christ and are contrasted with His lawful Bride. Elsewhere it is a technical phrase and means simply that the Donatist churches are 'not wanted.' It evidently is a quotation----probably from a judgement, cither of Miltiades or of Arles----or possibly the words were those of Eunomius and Olimpius (i, 26). The Donatists erected new churches, refusing to go to the old ones. There is no doubt a μείωσις . The intention of the inventor of the expression was to avoid hurting the feelings of the Donatists by calling their new churches schismatical. They are simply non necessariae ----' not wanted.'
4. qui provocavit ----to the Emperor----to his horror (cf. Appendix, pp. 393, 396,397).
5. Cf. Is. xxii, 6: et Elam sumpsit pharetram.
6. repleta est unaquaeque civitas vociferantium. St. Optatus in his next chapter thus quotes Is. xxii, 2. Du Pin must have forgotten this when, without MS. authority, he supplied clamoribus after vociferantium.
7. Is. xxii, 3.
8. terror (in active sense).
9. Ps. lii, 6.
10. qui fortiores sunt etc. Cf. Is. xxii, 3----quoted thus in the next chapter: 'Omnes principes tui in fugam conversi sunt, et qui capti sunt graviter alligati et fortiores tui longe fugati sunt.'
11. in dolore Dei. Cf. iv, 9 (quod dolet Deus) and i, 2.
12. Is. xxii, 4. St. Optatus has led up to this quotation by his various references to this chapter of Isaiah.
13. By rebaptising Catholics.
14. transducentes ad vos aquam antiquae piscinae. Cf. Is. xxii, 9, which St. Optatus will soon quote from his version: 'Quoniam convertistis aquam antiquae piscinae ad civitatem vestram.'
15. The reference is to the pool of Bethsaida (cf. John v, 4), the waters of which were regarded by Tertullian as typical of Baptism ( De Baptism. v and vi). The Angel was only allowed to move the pool once each time for healing. Optatus looks upon this fact as a figure of the unity of Baptism.
16. The metaphor here is slightly changed. The 'piscina' is understood as a lake full of fish. St. Optatus asks sarcastically whether Christ was in that lake, meaning that the sacrilegious rebaptisms of the Donatists, in this unlike True Baptism, gave Christ to no man. It is well known, of course, that the Fish was a principal emblem of Christ among the early Christians.
17. eiusdem piscis visceribus.
18. Cf. Paradise Lost, iv, 168-170:
'Than Asmodeus, with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse