2. responsorum dictorumque nostrorum.
3. pullulare.
4. ad unam communionem.
5. revera sufficiebat sibi Ecclesia Catholica habens innumerabiles populos in provinciis universis.
6. domesticum iudicium . At the Council of Cirta in Numidia.
7. Against those who had consecrated Majorinus.
8. ne invidia esset. Du Pin forgets the 'malice' against Secundus (cf. 'et cum ipse Secundus a Purpurio increparetur,' i, 14), when he understands 'ne invidia esset' to mean here 'that they might not be reproached with the expulsion of so many Bishops.'
9. Balduinus in his second Edition inserted here the passage A which I print at the end of the Book (p. 298).
10. adductos (cf. in, 11: 'quem fides adduxerit').
11. non sine voluntate Dei (St. Optatus often uses this phrase, as also its equivalent cum voluntate Dei ).
12. Ez. xviii, 4.
13. in ipsis natalibus mundi.
14. dum non pertinuit ad Seth, filium Adae, patris admissum. From the theological point of view this has been considered the most difficult passage to be found in the works of St. Optatus. St. Augustine writes ( de Haer. 19): ' Sethiani nomen acceperunt a filio Adae, qui vocatus est Seth. Eum quippe honorant, sed fabulosa et haeretica vanitate.' The Sethitic legend is distinctly African. Julius Africanus is quoted as one of the first Christian writers to extol this Patriarch unduly, and the legend went on growing. Some, therefore, have thought that St. Optatus had received unawares a false tradition from heretical sources about Seth. Thus Casaubon writes with regard to this passage of Optatus: 'Non ego is iam, qui gravius quidquam de viro sancto pronuntiaverim. Id tantum dicam, vereri me, ne imprudenti et incauto illi haec exciderint, quae saevioris examinis acrimoniam aegre sustineant.' All the other commentators pass the passage over in silence. But is it not almost certain that St. Optatus had not the doctrine of original sin before his mind at all? With much probability it may be urged that the question here concerns not Adam qua father of the human race, but Adam considered as any other father. In this sense it is clear that Adam's sins were not attributed to his son Seth any more than are the sins of any other father attributed to any other son. We must always bear in mind that Optatus wrote before the rise of the Pelagian heresy. Still, the difficulty will remain unanswered: Why should Optatus in this connection have mentioned Seth rather than Abel, or even Cain?
15. Ex. xx, 5.
16. voces.
17. Matt. xxvii, 25.
18. conpetentibus .
19. vox.
20. Here Balduinus inserted B, the second doubtful passage. I have printed it immediately after A (p. 305).
21. And here C; it may be found on page 310.
22. Matt. vii, 1; Luke vi, 37.
23. resignet. CGv designet.
24. I John i, 8.
25. ager, qui est totus orbis, in quo est Ecclesia. If St. Augustine at the Conference at Carthage had remembered and employed these careful words of St. Optatus----'the field in which is the Church,' he would have been saved a tiresome discussion with his Donatist adversaries. The Donatists naturally and triumphantly replied to the argument of the Catholics that the tares had to grow up with the wheat in the Field, and that the Field is the Church: 'Oh no, on the contrary, the Maker of the world Himself has said that the Field is the world. Now "the world has not known the Father." But if (as you say) the Church is the Field, it is also the world, for "the Field is the world." Therefore the Church has not known the Father! Which is absurd.' To this ingenious syllogism St. Augustine had to rely upon a long explanation as to the different meaning of the word 'world' in Holy Scripture ( Gesta Coll. Carthag. Diei iii, cclxv-cclxxxi; Brev. Coll. iii, 10). No exception could have been taken to the statement of Optatus 'the Church is in the world.' Had it been used, the Donatists would have been deprived of one of their many opportunities of wasting time.
26. praecepta salutaria.