200. quem tenetis.
201. ' nolo. '
202. ' renuntio et credo ' et cetera.
203. non ille, pro cuius voluntate, ut dicitis, sanctitas vestra succedit. For succedit cf. i, 3: 'Petrus, cui successit Linus,' etc. In pro cuius voluntate we have another curious example of Optatus' use of pronouns. Cf. v, 5: 'Qui non post personam operarii interrogavit.'
204. confectione vellus candidum purpurascit. Cf. Cic. in Acad. ap. Non. 2, 717: 'Nonne unda, cum est pulsa remis, purpurascit? '
205. fidelem.
206. et vocabulum mutat et mentem.
207. consideranda sunt effecta, retractanda sunt efficientia.
208. quibus tincta vellera per colorem promoveantur in admirabilem dignitatem.
209. Luke ix, 49.
210. Luke ix, 49, 50.
211. ut opus esset illorum sanctificatio Trinitatis.
212. ergo Nomen est, quod sanctificat, non opus.
213. operarios esse non dominos. Cf. note 2, p. 22.
214. nam propter tumorem vestrum, quo in nos intumescitis. We may notice the verbal alliteration tumorem . . . intumescitis. St. Optatus does not, of course, mean to imply that St. Paul any more than Isaiah or Ezekiel had received a supernatural gift of prophecy, whereby Apostle or Prophet could consciously to himself foresee and provide medicine for the troubles brought on by Donatism. But the lessons given for all time by the Sacred Writers seemed to Optatus especially applicable to his own days.
215. in se et Apollo actus nostri temporis conformat.
216. i Cor. iv, 6.
217. i Cor. iii, 6.
218. vineam suam pastinare.
219. operarium.
220. electa plantaria.
221. aquam inducere potest; imperare, ut teneat, non potest. It is very difficult to understand what is meant here by ut teneat. How can water hold the vines? Possibly he may be the subject of teneat: 'He cannot command the vines, so as to keep them there.' If for teneat we read teneant, we might translate in an intransitive sense: 'He cannot order that they hold' = coalescere in terram (infra). But nothing is really satisfactory. Casaubon thinks that the ut teneat is probably a corrupt gloss due to some scribe who could not understand the imperare standing alone. The meaning is clear. It is God alone who can ripen the vine. Casaubon suggests that if St. Optatus wrote anything between imperare and non potest, it was vineae. On the other hand, cf. iv, 9: Lacus detritos, qui non possunt aquam continere. St. Optatus, who often slightly varies his phrases, may have had this phrase unconsciously lingering in his ear.
222. de medullis palmitum producere radices coalescentes in terram et gemmantes oculos, incrementa frondium provocare. Coalescentes: cf. Plin. xiv. 2: 'Ut nisi pinguissimo solo coalescere non possit.' The little feelers or feeling roots must be one with the soil. Gemmantes oculos: cf. Cicero, De oratore, iii. 38: ' gemmare vites, laetas segetes etiam rustici dicunt,' 'Even rustics understood and used such metaphors as these.' Oculos = the knob from which the bud rises; cf. Columel. iv, 29: 'Interest plures oculos, quibus egerminet inesse.'
223. operarius.
224. qui ad incrementa perducit. Cf. 1 Cor. iii, 7.