Optatus of Milevis, Against the Donatists (1917) Book 6. pp.246-268.
BOOK THE SIXTH
In this Book it is shown that the Donatist Bishops wickedly destroyed altars, that they sold the Holy Vessels, and without Warrant stripped Nuns of their Veils.
I. The wickedness of the Donatists in breaking or scraping the altars.
Your wicked actions with regard to the Divine Sacraments have----so it seems to me----been clearly shown up. I now have to describe things done by you, as you yourselves will not be able to deny, with cruelty and folly. For what so sacrilegious as to break, to scrape, to take away altars of God, upon which you too once offered sacrifice, upon which were laid both the prayers of the people, and the Members of Christ, where Almighty God was called upon, where the Holy Spirit descended in answer to prayer, from which many have received the pledge of everlasting salvation, and the safeguard of faith, and the hope of resurrection? Altars, I say, upon which the Saviour forbade the gifts of the brotherhood to be laid, unless they should be seasoned with peace. |247
'Lay down,' He said, 'thy gift before the altar, and go back, agree with thy brother, that the priest may be able to offer on thy behalf.'
For what is an altar excepting the seat of both the Body and the Blood of Christ?
All these altars you, in your madness, have either scraped, or broken, or taken away. Whatever reason you may have had prompting you to this wickedness (for which no atonement is possible), it should have been done in the same way [everywhere]. But in one place, the abundance of wood it was (as I think) that led to the altars being broken up, in other places the lack of timber caused them to be scraped, whilst yet again elsewhere it was partly the sense of shame, which induced men to take them away. But in each case a disgraceful wickedness was committed when you laid sacrilegious and impious hands upon so great a Thing.
Why should I mention the hired mob of abandoned wretches, and the wine that was given as the pay of crime? ----the wine, for which a fire was made out of |248 the broken remnants of the altars, that unclean lips might drink it [hot] with sacrilegious draughts? If in your jaundiced judgement we seemed to you to be corrupt, what harm had God done you, God, who at those altars was once habitually invoked? In what way had Christ offended you, whose Body and Blood were wont during determinate times there to dwell ? In what way had you yourselves even offended yourselves, that you should break down those altars, upon which before us you had (as you think, with sanctity) offered sacrifice for long periods of time? In impiously attacking our hands there, where the Body of Christ used to dwell, you have also smitten your own.
By thus acting you have imitated the Jews. They laid hands upon Christ on the cross; you have struck Him upon the altar. If you wished to attack Catholics at these altars, there you might have spared at least your own former sacrifices.
Thy pride has now been manifested in that place |249 where formerly thou didst offer sacrifice with humility, there thou dost freely sin, where once thou wert accustomed to pray on behalf of the sins of many. After this fashion you have, of your own accord, entered into the company of sacrilegious priests, and are associated with the crimes of wicked men, concerning whom Elijah the prophet makes his plaint before the Lord. For he has used these words (with which you too, amongst others, have deserved to be accused by him):
'O Lord,' he says, 'they have broken down Thine altars.'
When he says 'Thine,' he shows that the [altar] where any offering has been made to God by anyone whomsoever, belongs to God.
It might have satisfied your madness, to have wounded the members of the Church, and to have divided by your beguilements the peoples of God, who were formerly placed in unity. Amongst all your other proceedings, you might at least have spared the altars. Why did you break, together with the altars themselves, the entreaties and longings of men? For from them the people's prayer was wont to go up to the ears of God. Why did you cut to pieces the road of their prayers to Him? With impious hands you have laboured in a sort of |250 fashion to draw away the ladder, that you might prevent supplication ascending in the accustomed way to God.
And though all of you shared in one conspiracy, still, in this matter, whilst your wrongdoing was the same, you carried it out by different methods.
If it was sufficient to move, it was not lawful to break; if it was right to break, it is a sin to have scraped. For if, as your assembly decreed, it was not lawful [to preserve the altars], that man who broke them up would seem to have acted rightly. In that case he is guilty who, by scraping, preserved the larger part of them.
What is this new and foolish wisdom of yours to seek for that which is new in the very heart of that which is old ? It is as though, after having removed some skin from the body, you were to look, as it were, for a second skin in that part of the body which lay hid under the part which you had cut away. The gift which is proper to itself and, by reason of |251 its unity, is a whole in itself, may, after something has been taken from it, be lessened. Changed it cannot be. You have, it is true, scraped what seemed good to you, but what you hate is still there! Again, even though you have agreed, that whatever has been touched by us in the Name of God in His actual service, should be deemed by you to be unclean, which of the Faithful is there who is unaware that during the celebration of the Mysteries, the wood of the altar is itself covered with linen ? During the sacred rites themselves, the covering can be touched, not the wood. Or, if the veils can be penetrated by the touch, then so can the wood; and, if the wood can be penetrated, then so can the earth. If you scrape the wood, you should also dig up the earth which is underneath, you should make a deep hole, whilst you are searching after that which you are pleased to judge to be purity. But take care lest you go down to those below, there to find Korah, Dathan and Abiram, the schismatics----your masters. It is, then, well known that you have both broken and scraped altars. How is it that in this matter your madness seems to have presently somewhat cooled down ? For we see that afterwards you changed your plan, and that the altars were now no longer either broken or scraped by you, but only |252 moved. If this was enough, then you yourselves prove that what you did at first should by no means have been done.
II. That the Donatists sacrilegiously broke and sold the chalices.
But when you broke the very Chalices, which carry the Blood of Christ, you committed two horrible sins. For you have melted them down, thus making money for yourselves by abominable bargains. Nor in this business did you even trouble to select the purchasers, but were guilty of sacrilege in selling indiscriminately, and of avarice in selling at all. You also suffered your own hands to be burned, with which you were accustomed, before us, to handle these same Chalices. Still you ordered the sale to take place everywhere. Perhaps wanton women |253 bought them for their own purposes; Pagans bought them, so that from them they might manufacture vessels, in which to burn incense to their idols. O shameful wickedness! O unheard-of crime! To take away something from God, that you might give it to idols----to steal something from Christ, that it might serve for a sacrilege.
III. Refutation of the Donatist pretext that the altars and sacred vessels had been contaminated through being used by Catholics.
But I perceive that, in this matter, in order to stir up undeserved hatred against us, you wish to have recourse to the book of the Prophet Haggai, where it has been written:
'Those things which have been touched by the defiled have been defiled.'
For those who are in anger, it is easy whilst the anger lasts to hurl abuse, but whenever an accusation is made, some clear proof is necessary.
Who then amongst us has ever entered the temples of idols? Who has watched the sacrilegious sacrifices? Men may be defiled by incense, odours, sacrileges, sacrifices, blood. But in this matter between us, who has entered the temple? Who has burnt incense to idols? Who has been stained by unclean odours ? Who has looked upon the blood of an unclean beast, or of a man, poured forth? Whom can you prove to have given his advice for the perpetration of any |254 evil deed? Prove----if you can----that even one Bishop has been mixed up with any wrongdoing. You have your suspicions, about some Primate or other, who was at that time reported to have faltered. Suspicion is not a sufficient ground for accusation. Who has charged him? Who has convicted him? On what occasion was he ever ashamed, or put out of countenance? Keep your suspicions to yourselves.
So, as we have said above, if in this matter anything was done with severity, we have shown, when it is looked at in its commencement, that your fathers are responsible. Why then do you speak of Catholics, as though they were defiled? Is it because we have followed the Will and Command of God by loving peace, by communicating with the whole world, in union with those who live in the East, where Christ was born, where His holy footsteps touched the ground, where His adorable Feet have walked, where so many and such great miracles were worked by the Son of God Himself, where so many Apostles accompanied Him, where is the Sevenfold Church, on having been cut off from which, you do not merely fail to grieve, but in a sort of way rejoice? You call us defiled, because we have loved Unity well-pleasing to God. Because we have agreed with and hold communion with the Corinthians, Galatians, |255 Thessalonians, you call us defiled. You call us defiled, because we have not, together with you, read corrupt books----deny, if you can, that you read books which differ [from those of the Church]. How do you venture to read the Epistles written to the Corinthians, you who have refused to communicate with the Corinthians? To what purpose do you read aloud that which was written to Galatians or to Thessalonians, with whom you are not in communion?