102. sc. sweetness derived from consecration.
103. unde condirentur mores.
104. salutarem.
105. vos exterminatis rem ubi oleum fuit et suavitas.
106. You have repeated not only Baptism, but also Confirmation.
107. Matt. xii, 22. Casaubon thinks that St. Optatus could not have made this quotation, and that it slipped in from a marginal note. It is quite true that the object of St. Optatus, which was to show that the Donatists were not only muscae (flies) but also muscae moriturae (flies that were about to die), would have been attained without the quotation. It would have been enough for his purpose to have said that their rebaptising was a great sin and that 'sin without pardon----until it is pardoned----is death.' But unhappily he has already said (v, 3) that rebaptising (as involving a certain exorcism of the Holy Ghost) is that sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no forgiveness in this world, or in the world to come. So hard was it to kill rigorism in the African Church, that we find it even in unexpected places. Still, we rejoice to find that St. Optatus is not always consistent with himself in this terrible severity. We have seen how clear he was that even these rebaptisers should have been reconciled with the Church, had they been willing.
108. dissolvere.
109. 2 Tim. iii, 2.
110. Cf. 2 Tim. iii, 8; Ex. vii, 11.
111. Cathedram Petri et claves regni caelorum a Christo concessas, ubi est nostra societas, numquid poteris adprobare mendacium? (cf. ii, 23: 'Negare non potes scire te in urbe Roma . . . societate concordat'). The Donatists claimed that they possessed the truth. To this Optatus opposed the authority of the Catholic Church and set out the grounds of Catholic security in three pertinent questions:
(a) Is it a lie (a delusion) to appeal to the fact of communion with the Catholic Church throughout the world? ' Is it a delusion that we are in one communion with the whole [ Catholic ] world,?'
(b) Is it a delusion that we keep and guard the Creed? ' Is it a delusion that we keep and defend the true and one Creed?'
(c) Is the Chair of Peter a delusion? ' But you cannot deny that you know that Peter established his Chair at Rome.' Or, is it a delusion that we are in communion with that Chair? Or, is it, perhaps, a delusion that Christ gave the Keys of Heaven to Peter?----the Keys of Heaven which, through our communion with the Chair of Peter, we share (' ubi est nostra societas ': cf. i, 12; ii, 4; ii, 9).
Is this all a falsehood----a mere delusion? (' Numquid poteris adprobare mendacium? ')
Such is the argument of Optatus. He appealed just as Catholics appeal to-day (and as they always have appealed):
1. To communion with the Catholic Church in other lands,
2. To the possession of the Creed,
3. To communion with the Chair of Peter.
This is the ultimate assurance of safety for a Catholic that he is in the true Church of Christ----the Soliditas Cathedrae Petri. This is no freak of the imagination ( mendacium ). Here beyond all doubt we find and here we possess the great reality.
112. Moses came first, before Pharaoh, and though Jamnes and Mambres worked the same miracles, yet Moses had precedence and prescriptive right. (Cf. Exod. vii, 11.) St. Optatus here passes to another great argument for the Catholic Church. It is 'in possession.'
113. ut Moyses prior est, sic et Catholica prior est.
114. rebelles contra veram Catholicam militatis (cf. 'contra Cathedram Petri sacrilegio militatis,' ii, 5).
115. plural----Donatists in general.
116. singular----Parmenian in particular.
117. iamdudum de Catholica lapsi.