228. partibus hinc atque inde pendentibus. It is most true that the One Catholic Church can never be divided. Yet, when large numbers of men, still keeping the Faith, fall into schism, they may be said to hang loosely to her in the manner described by Optatus in the text: thus ever since the great Division between East and West, the separated Eastern Bishops have been summoned to the Oecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church, as well as the Uniats who are in her full communion.
229. huius rei artifex aut operarius.
230. conpungit.
231. vicina fila.
232. ut sartor peccare potuisset. (For peccare cf. note 5, p. 151.)
233. ad parentes vestros pertinent.
234. lapides petrobolos.
235. ruinosam (cf. iii, 2).
236. Cf. Ez. xiii, 10. There is, however, nothing to be found here, in any extant version, of 'accusations,' unless they be found in the words 'Ubi est litura quam linistis?' (Ez. xiii, 12). (Cf. note 3, p. 168.)
237. Matris Ecclesiae.
238. persuasionibus vestris divisa sunt corpora et nomina pietatis, et non potuistis praetcr miller e quod legitimum est. In this very obscure passage, at first reading, it will probably seem that pietatis refers to corpora as well as to nomina. But this can hardly be the case. I think that it is clear that corpora refers to the relationship between husband and wife, nomina pietatis to that between parents and their children. The chief difficulty is as to the meaning of quod legitimum est. The context shows that St. Optatus is referring to the division between brother and sister. He has to bring in an idea to correspond to corpora and nomina pietatis. An unmarried man and woman under ordinary circumstances ought not to live alone in the same house, but natural law makes an exception for brother and sister. 'You,' he says, 'do not spare that affectionate union which natural law approves' ( quod legitimum est). Albaspinaeus, however, refers quod legitimum est not to the institution of the family, to which Optatus has just been alluding, but to that which is coming, and understands it thus: 'And yet you have not been able to omit the customary salutations.' But this involves a full stop after pietatis, which is awkward; besides it is exceedingly doubtful whether quod legitimum est can bear this meaning. Still it may be noted that in ii, 12, St. Optatus uses the phrase praeterire illud legitimum for passing over that 'which is prescribed' at Mass. In his references to the sad divisions in families caused by Donatism, St. Optatus shows a strange forgetfulness of the fact that such divisions were foretold by its divine Founder as an inevitable consequence of the spread of Christianity itself (Matt, x, 34; Luke xii, 51). Moreover, they must necessarily have followed upon that conversion of individual Donatists to the Catholic Church which throughout his work Optatus so urgently advocates.
239. Cf. Ez. xiii, 10.
240. Domus Dei una est. (Cf. iii, 2: Fecistis quasi alteros muros.)
241. partem.
242. quia non est alter Deus, qui alter am domum inhabitet.
243. conlocata. (Cf. ii, 2, Cathedram conlocaret.)
244. foris (sc. outside the One Church, which is the One House of God, of which St. Optatus has just written: 'The House of God is one').
245. nodo pacis. The metaphor seems to require cement rather than knot. The two walls abut upon the Corner Stone, which makes them into one wall (cf. Eph. ii, 20-21).
246. retundit.
247. diffundit.
248. latronem.
249. furem. The difference between latro and fur is that the former word carries with it the idea of violence----in Optatus even of murder (cf. i, 19 etc.).
250. aedificatus ruinosus.
251. nec lapidem angularem sustinet (for one wall has no corner).
252. ianuam sine caussa habet (cf. supra: 'quicunque intraverit foris est'----for when you enter the door you are still out of doors).