203. aeramentum (anything made of brass or copper, see Pliny xxxv, 15) tinniens.
204. Partly a quotation and partly a paraphrase of 1 Cor. xiii, 19.
205. si tanta res.
206. quamvis in imperiosa virtute.
207. nescio quae esse commissa.
208. emendator.
209. emendandum.
210. sartor.
211. pendebant quodam modo panni de una vestis origine.
212. St. Optatus here abruptly changes the metaphor. But he at once leaves the thought of the tree and its branches, which he has already developed (ii, 9), and returns to the garment and its rents.
213. ut quid se pars parti anteponit? The Donatists had preferred themselves before Catholics, saying in justification of their schism that the Catholic Church had become corrupt.
214. lotorem.
215. excidere.
216. deformare.
217. in parte vestis adhuc unum sumus, sed in diversa pendemus.
218. scissum est. St. Optatus here tries to establish a distinction between scindere, to tear away without dividing from the garment, and abscindere or excidere (the word he had just used), to tear away, or cut off, altogether----totally.
219. ex parte.
220. ex toto.
221. ecclesiastica conversatio.
222. si hominum litigant mentes, non litigant sacramenta. So Catholics now remind the 'Orthodox' Greeks that they use the same Sacraments, and by this remembrance exhort them to unity.
223. pares credimus.
224. uno sigillo signati sumus, sc. in Confirmation. St. Optatus goes on to speak of Baptism; elsewhere (v, 1) he writes of the seal of Circumcision: 'Iudaei hoc sigillo se insigniri gloriantur.'
225. pariter.
226. Oratio dominica. Some have seen here a reference to the holy Sacrifice of the Altar----the Lord's Prayer per eminentiam.
227. sartura.