Much of what Optatus writes grates on some minds. The church organisation comes first; the question of right or wrong is barely discussed, and treated as unimportant. The clergy deserve special treatment. In short, we are firmly in the mindset of the medieval church, not the New Testament. To any who have witnessed the abuse of episcopal power to stifle objections of principle, Optatus will be exceedingly hard to read, as he attacks people who only sought to have an upright church, and defends the involvement of the police in oppressive action.
What can be said in defence of this? Well, it is entirely possible to misread the situation. Optatus, after all, is defending a tiny minority against a book written to attack them. This minority is threatened by popular violence, and dependent on the aid of a not very helpful secular power to keep the knives of the circumcellion bandits, allegedly in 'defence' of Donatism, from their throats. Much may be forgiven a man who is on the defensive; is this, perhaps, the situation in which Optatus writes? It's hard to see that a Donatist would be impressed by this book; is it perhaps written to bolster the confidence of the anti-Donatist, rather than as a piece intended to persuade? We may see state power oppressing a principled minority in the service of timeservers, and such things are indeed worthy of condemnation. But we should consider the possibility that, without hindsight, the situation looked different on the ground. Optatus could not foresee the burning of Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, a thousand years later, however straight the line may seem to some from the position he takes up to the evils of the inquisition and the persecution of the faithful by a nominally Christian episcopate.
Every organisation is entitled to self-definition. It is likewise entitled to expel those who do not share its values, and to remove any of its officials who should fall out of sympathy with its aims and objectives. If a church provides a congregation with a building, and that congregation and its minister apostasise, then it is surely reasonable to expect the property to revert to the church. Conversely if those heretics built that building themselves, common justice suggests that to expel them from it by means of legal maneuvering is theft. The same applies in each case when a Christian congregation finds that the church has apostasised. There is no special ecclesiastical principle involved; merely the ordinary principles of common justice and fair-dealing.
But it is hard to be neutral on these arguments today, with the sound of persecution in the air. Let those who can obtain blessing from Optatus do so. Let us take away from the whole experience the importance of being faithful to Christ, awareness that the Devil delights in creating these situations in order to drive believers to despair. He is the Prince of this world, and God allows him to do as he will, for a little time. Yet in the end it is all about people. Church buildings will crumble. But human beings live forever. Do unto others, as you would have them do to you. Don't curse them if they fail to treat you so: rather love your enemies, do good to those who persecute you. If they steal the churches you built with your own sweat and labour, let them have a donation also. For these men, wicked as they are, are but dupes of Satan, and they too have souls to lose.
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The translation that follows appears to have been made by a Roman Catholic who wrote with Anglo-Catholics in mind. Much of what it contains, in the very lengthy footnotes, will strike most modern Christians as curious. Is it really the case that the translator thought that no issue of principle should override the opinion of the Pope? Or that no Pope had ever erred? Will modern readers really consider it a condemnation of Donatism, that the Donatists made the same protests against corrupt ecclesiastical abuse of power as the Puritans and Covenanters? But most likely we are in danger of misunderstanding, through being in a very different situation.
Roger P EARSE
15th January 2006
This text was transcribed by Roger Pearse, 2006. All material on this page is in the public domain - copy freely.
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