114. quos aut factione aut subtilitate, ut vestros faceretis, seducere potuistis.
115. post quod ad vos delapsi stint aut delapsae.
116. sc. in the Catholic Church.
117. bene stantes, sc. in Ecclesia Catholica. Cf. iii, 9: 'Aut stetit frater, sorore migrante.'
118. si scirent se gloriam consecutos. Cf. v, 7: 'Quod quasi ad gloriam vestram a vobis semper auditur.'
119. Nothing, of course, could have been easier to the Donatists than to retort this observation.
120. nunc autem perditos transitus suos consolari cupientes ceteros, ut similiter labantur, invitant. Consolari = to divert their attention from their own mistake and thus get some consolation. Du Pin places a comma after perditos, thus making it agree with the ceteros that follows.
121. residentes.
122. quasi pigros. In iii, 8 St. Optatus has called the schismatic Donatists pigri.
123. Gai Sei vel Gaia Seia (cf. iii, 11).
124. transitus turpes. Evidently it was inconceivable to St. Optatus that any deserters from the Catholic Church should invite others to join their schism from any sense of duty.
125. arte simplici.
126. iungitur una geminata fraude calliditas.
127. A friend has been kind enough to give me the following information:----In the Shahabad District of Bengal, there are bird-catchers to this day who place a light woodwork frame on their heads covered with small branches and leaves. Armed with a long thin pole with a small two-pronged fork at the end, which is bird-limed, they catch birds sitting on the trees high above them. The man under the cover cannot be seen by the birds, whilst he can see the birds through two small eye-holes in the cover.
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2006. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.
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