ON SAINT OPTATUS,
BISHOP OF MILEVE IN NUMIDIA.
ABOUT 370.
Books written: cult, and age.
Optatus, Bishop of Mileve in Numidia (S.)
BY THE AUTHOR D. P.
Mileve, in the African province of Numidia, an Episcopal city, two Councils held there at the beginning of the IV century made famous: but before that there had shone there its Bishop Optatus, who, of what sort and how great he was, "reckon," says Baronius in his Notes on the Martyrology of this day, the madness of the emerging Donatists "from this, that against the bursting flood of the Donatists, inundating all Africa, he alone at that time opposed the dam of his writings." We have these published at Paris in seven books (it is thought that Jerome in the book on Ecclesiastical Writers, by error, counted only six); but they are published with the Annotations and Commentaries of Gabriel Albaspinaeus the Bishop, and Francis Balduinus the Jurisconsult, both of Orléans, no less prolix than learned; Optatus refutes, in 7 books which after their death Carolus Paulinus brought to press, also himself of Orléans, and a Theologian of our Society, in his dedicatory to Cardinal Richelieu, marveling at Optatus thus praises him:
[2] "How great against the Donatists, that is, against the most obstinate and pertinacious enemies of the Christian Cause, and with great spirit, does Optatus rise up in his books, sermons, and disputations? How does he challenge them, rush upon them, provoke, confute, one against six hundred? Nor does he fear the violence, the threats, the brandished arms, and the slaughter done of the most impudent and unbridled tribe of Circumcellions. This one thing Optatus has in his vows, with the heresy overthrown, with the things of the fatherland, the Emperor, and God established, not only willingly to fall from every honor, but also to give up his soul driven out by the weapons of his enemies, if it is right, if it is necessary." A little after however, as though grieving that so great a labor had not proved more fruitful, with the magnitude of the evil overcoming; "We know," he says, "what he accomplished with all his effort. but with little fruit: Many driven by the goads of perfidy he restrained with his authority, some he recalled to fruit and to the light of truth; that he might do more, and uproot the heresy itself by the roots, neither daily vigils, nor relentless labors, nor fortunes, nor dignity or life he spared; a more wretched man (if it is right so to say) than felicitous on every side. For an Ethiopian, says that Great One, writing to Domitian, Metropolitan of Armenia, 'although he enters the bath black, and exits black, yet the bather receives money': so for exhausted labor, although he did not purge the Augean — that is, the Donatist or Parmenian — stable, deservedly the Milevitan Prelate is given for his price among the native Divines."
[3] Would that it had pleased Paulinus to indicate the sources of his eulogies to us: probably suffered much from them: for I should not think the books of Optatus are whence he drew such things; in which no place anywhere occurs where the Author speaks of himself in the singular; in the first person indeed narrating many things, done bravely by the Catholic Bishops or endured with long-suffering; but plurally
through the pronouns We and Our; whence at the highest you may presume that he himself had in such things no small part, yet nothing can be certainly excerpted, much less specifically ascribed to him.
[4] As to the title of Holiness, this S. Fulgentius, Bishop of Ruspe in the same Africa, about two hundred years after Optatus, in book 2 to Mommus chap. 13, attributes to him, alleging his place on Virginity from book 6, and calling him "Saint Optatus the Milevitan," equally as S. Augustine and others. S. Augustine, closer in age, in book 1 against the epistle of the aforementioned Parmenianus, long since deceased, chap. 3, names him not without a worthy proclamation, alleging and summarily reporting what "he relates at length, and persuades by many proofs, the Milevitan Bishop of venerable memory, of Catholic communion, Optatus." praised by SS. Augustine and Fulgentius: But in book 2 of "On Christian Doctrine" chap. 4, the same Augustine numbers him among the distinguished writers, Cyprian, Lactantius, Victorinus, Hilary, "who went out of Egypt heavily laden with much gold and silver, that is, if perchance the gentile Philosophers said anything true and accommodated to our faith, they claimed it from them as from unjust possessors for our use."
[5] But these things prove very little that any ecclesiastical cult was conferred on Optatus after his death, Inscribed in the Catalog of Saints by Peter of Natalibus, at Mileve or elsewhere; so little would it help that Peter of Natalibus in book 1 of the Catalog the last Chapter of book 7 inscribed "On St. Optatus the Bishop," reporting what Jerome has on the Milevitan in the book on Writers. For he confuses him with the Auxerre Bishop of his name, who flourished in the VI century in Gaul, and is venerated on the 31st of August, when he so concludes; "Who also of not least sanctity of life, fell asleep in peace at Auxerre, on the day before the Kalends of September": which Jerome, alleged by error, but confused with the Auxerre one of 31 August. nowhere has. When the recognizers and amplifiers of the Roman Martyrology under Gregory XIII saw this; when they wished to ascribe Optatus to the sacred Calendars of the universal Church, they thought no account should be had by themselves of the day assigned by Peter; but (as they had done in S. Caecilius, master of S. Cyprian, choosing for him the 3rd day of June) they thus attributed this 4th day to S. Optatus. "At Mileve in Numidia, of St. Optatus the Bishop, distinguished in doctrine and sanctity." And this, now received by the use of the Church, He does not seem to be the one who wrote under Valens and Valentinian, ought to be enough for us to follow the example, not yet disapproved by a higher judgment.
[6] Baronius, who held the first place (as I have said elsewhere) of doctrine and authority in that work, and then illustrated the same Martyrology with his Annotations, on the time at which the Saint lived, thus discusses: "He flourished in the times of the Emperors Valens and Valentinian, when (as Jerome testifies) he wrote those learned Commentaries against Parmenianus. But when in his book 2 the series of Roman Pontiffs is woven by him, and it is led down to Pope Siricius; it will be necessary to affirm that he lived to the age of Theodosius, that he came down to the times of Siricius, who sat in the times of Theodosius. But Balduinus thought, and rightly indeed, that those words, 'Damasus, Siricius,' are not of the same author, but superadded: which indeed we confirm by a double reason. First indeed, that S. Augustine, when he often treats of him, not as of a man of his own time and contemporary, but as of one who long preceded him, seems to remember him … Besides Optatus himself lib. 1 and again 3, from the persecution of Diocletian declared, up to the time when he was writing those things, also from his own calculation, numbers sixty years and (as he says) 'what runs over.' But since it is established from the public edicts, that the persecution was declared in the year of the Lord 302; it is sufficiently clear that in the first times of Valens and Valentinian, according to the opinion of Jerome, Optatus wrote these things, and did not come down to the times of Siricius and Theodosius; unless that 'and what runs over,' against custom, with loosened reins, anyone allow to run on too far."
[7] Labbé in the historical Dissertation on Writers professes that Balduinus's opinion, of the interpolated text of Optatus there, has always seemed to him quite probable. Garnier in Marius Mercator, chronologically disputing about writings before the death of Augustine against the Pelagian heresy, in the year 418, also from Augustine. treating of the holy Doctor's epistle 157 to Optatus the Bishop, denies that this can be reckoned the Milevitan; for the reason that he died about the year 370, that is nearly half a century before that epistle, when it was being written, Severus was ruling the Milevitan Church. Certainly, if the Milevitan Optatus had lived long after his books were written, new and more copious material would not have failed him for tormenting the Donatists, through the enormous crimes which they thence designed, and the disturbances stirred up in the African Church, which we now must learn from Augustine: nor could Optatus, if he had lived, have dissembled them, the stylus once unsheathed not easily to be laid down as long as it was permitted, and supplying more arms to Augustine, than now appears that he took from him.