Optatus: Schism in Africa

My current reading is Optatus' Against the Donatists as translated and edited by Mark Edwards for the Liverpool University Press and its Translated Texts for Historians series. Optatus was a bishop in the North African town of Milevis, now in Algeria, and an elder contemporary of the theologian Augustine (though the notes occasionally point out instances of disagreement). He wrote in the mid-380's about a controversy between the Catholics and a separatist group of Christians known as the Donatists.

At the beginning of the fourth century, the harshest official, imperial persecution of Christians was decreed by the Emperor Diocletian and his colleagues (later Christians sometimes exempted Constantius as Caesar from carrying out the persecution in his territories of Gaul and Britain due to his paternity of Constantine). From 303-305 the government tried to limit the practice and spread of the still new and very much minority Christian religion. Apparently, in Carthage and other nearby towns of North Africa, some clergy collaborated with the government authorities, for instance by giving over sacred texts. The group which eventually came under the leadership of a man named Donatus claimed that the existing church hierarchy had sinned in this manner and so formed a parallel church, known for their re-baptism of Christians who had originally been baptized by the tainted priests.

Optatus retried these charges using documentary evidence from the beginning of the century. As no similar group broke away from the catholic church in any other part of the empire (although the Novatians in Rome and elsewhere had very similar ideas stemming from an earlier era), Constantine and the imperial retinue, as well as the bishops of the other provinces, found in favor of the Catholics and, especially, the Bishop of Carthage named Caecilian. The Catholics, however, charged that it was the Donatists themselves who had collaborated with their tormentors. Even with some Donatist writing still in existence, it is unclear to me who is telling the truth. As I said the judges were most likely biased, yet the Catholics were the more conciliatory.

Indeed, the entire argument is addressed to a certain Permenianus, a leader in the Donatist church. Throughout, Optatus uses the epithet "brother" when he addresses him. Especially in the final book, which may have been written at a later date (actually, it would be the first six that were written at an earlier date), he tries to argue why the Donatists should re-join the catholic church and end the schism. He answers the charge that if the Donatists are so bad, why would the Catholics want them anyway. His answer is that even if the early Donatists had done wrong, the current generation has not suffered such persecution and so certainly hasn't committed the same sins in themselves. Their only problem now is continuing this schism, which would be rectified by embracing anew the catholic church.

Two points of interest follow from that. First is the distinction between heresy and schism. The theological controversies in the fourth century concerning the trinity led to the Arian heresy. The orthodox and the Arians held very different beliefs about the Christian religion, where the Donatists merely complained of the actions of the catholics. To the Optatus, however, because the schismatic Donatists knew what was right in terms of theology , their sin from remaining outside the catholic church with all the greater.

The other point of interest concerns a difference in idea pointed out in a note to Book 7, Chapter 1. When showing that the current Donatists should not be paying for the evils of the first members of their denomination, Optatus mentions the innocence of Seth with regard to the sin of his father Adam. On the other hand, Augustine believed that the sin did accrue to Seth, and through him to all his progeny. Here for Optatus, so-called original sin remains at its origin.

As you can tell, this is a well-annotated work. I was struck when one note cited a piece by "Ratzinger (1954)". With the bibliography adding an first initial of "J." to this scholar, this should be a reference to the current pope, a half-century before he achieved this office.

A free online translation (different from the one I used) can be found at The Tertullian Project.