Saint Optatus | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Bishop | |
| Died | 4th century |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Feast | June 4 |
Saint Optatus, sometimes anglicized as St. Optate, was Bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, in the fourth century, remembered for his writings against Donatism. [1]
St. Augustine suggests that Optatus was a convert: "Do we not see with how great a booty of gold and silver and garments Cyprian, doctor suavissimus, came forth out of Egypt, and likewise Lactantius, Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary?" (De doctrina Christiana, xl).
His (untitled) work against the Donatists is an answer to Parmenianus, the successor of Donatus in the primatial see of Carthage. According to St. Jerome (De viris illustribus, # 110), it was in six books and was written under Valens and Valentinian I (364-75). Seven books are now known, and the list of popes is carried as far as Siricius (384-98). [2] Similarly the Donatist succession of antipopes is given (II, IV), as Victor, Bonifatius, Encolpius, Macrobius, Lucianus, Claudianus (the date of the last is about 380), though a few sentences earlier Macrobius is mentioned as the actual bishop.
The plan of the work is laid down in Book I, and is completed in six books. It seems, then, that the seventh book, which St. Jerome did not know in 392, was an appendix to a new edition in which St. Optatus made additions to the two episcopal lists. The date of the original work is fixed by the statement in I, xiii, that sixty years and more had passed since the persecution of Diocletian (303-5). Photinus (d. 376) is apparently regarded as still alive; Julian is dead (363). Thus the first books were published about 366–70, and the second edition about 385–90.
In his writings on the conflict between Catholics and Donatists, Optatus is notably mild among Church Fathers in his views against schism. Optatus distinguishes between schismatics and heretics, [3] saying that the former have rejected unity, but have true doctrine and true sacraments, and that therefore Parmenian should not have threatened them with eternal damnation.
Donatists and Catholics were agreed as to the necessary unity of the Church. The question was, where is this One Church? Optatus argues that it cannot be only in a corner of Africa; it must be the catholica (the word is used as a substantive) which is throughout the world. Parmenian had enumerated six dotes, or properties, of the Church, of which Optatus accepts five, and argues that the first, the cathedra (episcopal chair) belongs to the Catholics, and therefore they have all the others.
The whole schism has arisen through the quarrel as to the episcopal succession at Carthage, [4] and it might have been expected that Optatus would claim this property of cathedra by pointing out the legitimacy of the Catholic succession at Carthage. But he does not. He replies: "We must examine who sat first in the chair, and where... You cannot deny that you know that in the city of Rome upon Peter first the chair of the bishop was conferred, in which sat the head of all the Apostles, Peter, whence also he was called Cephas, in which one chair unity should be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles should each stand up for his own chair, so that now he should be a schismatic and a sinner who should against this one chair set up another. Therefore in the one chair, which is the first of the dotes Peter first sat, to whom succeeded Linus." An incorrect list of popes follows, ending with, "and to Damasus Siricius, who is to-day our colleague, with whom the whole world with us agrees by the communication of commendatory letters in the fellowship of one communion. Tell us the origin of your chair, you who wish to claim the holy Church for yourselves". Optatus then mocks at the recent succession of Donatist antipopes at Rome.
Optatus argues, especially in book V, against the doctrine which the Donatists had inherited from St. Cyprian that baptism by those outside the Church cannot be valid, and he anticipates St. Augustine's argument that the faith of the baptizer does not matter, since it is God who confers the grace. His statement of the objective efficacy of the sacraments ex opere operato is well known: "Sacramenta per se esse sancta, non per homines" (V, iv). Thus in baptism there must be the Holy Trinity, the believer and the minister, and their importance is in this order, the third being the least important. In rebuking the Donatists as sacrilegious, he says: "What is so profane as to break, scrape, remove the altars of God, on which you yourselves had once offered, on which both the prayers of the people and the members of Christ have been borne, where God Almighty has been invoked, where the Holy Ghost has been asked for and has come down, from which by many has been received the pledge of eternal salvation and the safeguard of faith and the hope of resurrection? ... For what is an altar but the seat of the Body and Blood of Christ?"
In book VII a notable argument for unity is added: St. Peter sinned most grievously and denied his Master, yet he retained the keys, and for the sake of unity and charity the Apostles did not separate from his fellowship. Thus Optatus defends the willingness of the Catholics to receive back the Donatists to unity without difficulty, saying that there must be always sinners in the Church, and the cockle is mixed with the wheat; but charity covers a multitude of sins.
An appendix contained an important dossier of documents which had apparently been collected by some Catholic controversialist between 330 and 347. This collection was already mutilated when it was copied by the scribe of the only manuscript which has preserved it, and that manuscript is incomplete; citations from Augustine and from Optatus himself give some indication of what has been lost.
St. Optatus has apparently never received any ecclesiastical cultus; but his name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology on June 4, though it is quite unknown to all the ancient martyrologies and calendars.
Included after the main body of Optatus' work - originally untitled, now often referred to as Against the Donatists - is an appendix consisting of ten official documents relating to the Donatist Schism. Six of these (nos. 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 10) claim to be letters written by Constantine and are addressed to various actors involved in the Donatist Schism, including local officials (nos. 3 and 7), 'Catholic' - i.e. anti-Donatist - bishops (nos. 5, 9 and 10) and one (no. 6) to Donatist bishops. The letters thus show the personal involvement of the Roman emperor in the Donatist controversy between 312/313 and 330 AD. [5]
Their authenticity, as well as that of the other four documents, has been the source of scholarly debate since the nineteenth century, though they are now generally seen as authentic. [6] The authenticity of some or all documents has been challenged by scholars such as Otto Seeck (1889), [7] Pierre Batiffol (1914), [8] William Hugh Clifford Frend (1952), [9] and Heinz Kraft (1955). [10] Meanwhile, the authenticity of some or all documents has been defended by Louis Duchesne (1890), [11] Norman Hepburn Baynes (1925/1931), [12] [13] H. Chadwick (1954), [14] and Charles Odahl (1993). [15] The authenticity of the documents has often been challenged on the basis of supposed anachronisms in the texts. Pierre Batiffol, for example, rejected Constantian authorship for Appendix 5 because of its use of specifically Christian formulas and Christian doctrines that he felt Constantine would not have used. Batiffol's view has been challenged by Charles Odahl (1993). [16]
M.W. Edwards has argued that the appendix was not edited by Optatus himself, but seems to have compiled by an African belonging to the 'Catholic' party. First, Appendix 5 was composed during the aftermath of the Council of Arles (314), and not during the preparation for the Council of Rome (313), as Optatus suggests. Second, two documents mentioned by Optatus - the epistle of the Donatists to Constantine, cited at I.22, and "the protocol of Cirta", to which Optatus alludes at I.14 - are not included in the appendix. Since the documents mostly involve letters of official correspondence between Emperor Constantine and persons holding authority in Africa and Numidia, or letters written in these provinces and under the supervision of local magistrates, Edwards suggests that "Our archivist [i.e. the compiler of the appendix] would therefore seem to have been an African of the catholic party, who had access to public records in his own country, but did not hold any commerce with the Donatists or take pains in gathering evidence overseas." [17]
Mireille Labrousse, Sources Chrétiennes 412, 413
Hermann Sieben, Fontes Christiani 56, 2013
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "St. Optatus". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Constantine I, also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337. He was the first emperor to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterranea, he was the son of Flavius Constantius, a Roman army officer of Illyrian origin who had been one of the four rulers of the Tetrarchy. His mother, Helena, was a Greek woman of low birth and a Christian. Later canonized as a saint, she is traditionally attributed with the conversion of her son. Constantine served with distinction under the Roman emperors Diocletian and Galerius. He began his career by campaigning in the eastern provinces before being recalled in the west to fight alongside his father in the province of Britannia. After his father's death in 306, Constantine was acclaimed as augustus (emperor) by his army at Eboracum. He eventually emerged victorious in the civil wars against emperors Maxentius and Licinius to become the sole ruler of the Roman Empire by 324.
Pope Miltiades, also known as Melchiades the African, was the bishop of Rome from 311 to his death on 10 or 11 January 314. It was during his pontificate that Emperor Constantine the Great issued the Edict of Milan (313), giving Christianity legal status within the Roman Empire. The pope also received the palace of Empress Fausta where the Lateran Palace, the papal seat and residence of the papal administration, would be built. At the Lateran Council, during the schism with the Church of Carthage, Miltiades condemned the rebaptism of apostatised bishops and priests, a teaching of Donatus Magnus.
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. Donatism had its roots in the long-established Christian community of the Roman province Africa Proconsularis and Mauretania Tingitana, in the persecutions of Christians under Diocletian. Named after the Berber Christian bishop Donatus Magnus, Donatism flourished during the fourth and fifth centuries. Donatism mainly spread among the indigenous Berber population, and Donatists were able to blend Christianity with many of the Berber local customs.
The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. Later edicts targeted the clergy and demanded universal sacrifice, ordering all inhabitants to sacrifice to the gods. The persecution varied in intensity across the empire—weakest in Gaul and Britain, where only the first edict was applied, and strongest in the Eastern provinces. Persecutory laws were nullified by different emperors at different times, but Constantine and Licinius' Edict of Milan in 313 has traditionally marked the end of the persecution.
Donatus Magnus, also known as Donatus of Casae Nigrae, was the leader of a schismatic sect known as the Donatists in North Africa, Algeria. He is believed to have died in exile around 355.
Mensurius was a bishop of Carthage in the early 4th century during the early Christian Church.
Caecilianus, or Caecilian, was archdeacon and then bishop of Carthage in 311 AD. His appointment as Bishop led to the Donatist Controversy of the Late Roman Empire. He was also one of only five Western bishops at the First Council of Nicea.
Christianity in the 4th century was dominated in its early stage by Constantine the Great and the First Council of Nicaea of 325, which was the beginning of the period of the First seven Ecumenical Councils (325–787), and in its late stage by the Edict of Thessalonica of 380, which made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire.
Constantine the Great's (272–337) relationship with the four Bishops of Rome during his reign is an important component of the history of the Papacy, and more generally the history of the Catholic Church.
Gaius Annius Anullinus was a Roman senator who was appointed consul in AD 295.
The Archdiocese of Carthage, also known as the Church of Carthage, was a Latin Catholic diocese established in Carthage, Roman Empire, in the 2nd century. Agrippin was the first named bishop, around 230 AD. The temporal importance of the city of Carthage in the Roman Empire had previously been restored by Julius Caesar and Augustus. When Christianity became firmly established around the Roman province of Africa Proconsulare, Carthage became its natural ecclesiastical seat. Carthage subsequently exercised informal primacy as an archdiocese, being the most important center of Christianity in the whole of Roman Africa, corresponding to most of today's Mediterranean coast and inland of Northern Africa. As such, it enjoyed honorary title of patriarch as well as primate of Africa: Pope Leo I confirmed the primacy of the bishop of Carthage in 446: "Indeed, after the Roman Bishop, the leading Bishop and metropolitan for all Africa is the Bishop of Carthage."
Secundus of Tigisis was an early church leader and primate of Numidia. He was a leading organiser of the early Donatist movement in Carthage.
Majorinus was the leader of a schismatic Christian sect in Roman North Africa known as the Donatists.
Felix, Bishop of Aptunga, in proconsular Africa was a 4th-century churchman, at the center of the Donatist controversy.
Optatus of Thamugadi was, from 388 to 398, a donatist bishop in the city of Thamugadi (Timgad) in the Roman province of Numidia. He was an important subject in the anti-donatistic polemic of Augustine, who was at that time a bishop in Hippo Regius and who called him evil.
Purpurius was a Donatist bishop from 305 to 320 AD, who was instrumental in establishing the Donatist movement of Roman North Africa.
Gaguari is a former diocese of North Africa and since 1933 a titular bishopric. The location of the former diocese is for the moment unknown. Under Roman hegemony, the bishop belonged to the province of Byzacène. This province was located in North Africa. The exact location of Gaguari can not be determined for the current state of research. However, everything leads us to believe that the bishopric site localizes to the current Sahel of Tunisia.
Marcarius was an imperial notary sent in 340 to enforce an imperial edict against the Donatist community, in Bagai, Numidia, Roman North Africa.
Parmenian was a North African Donatist bishop, the successor of Donatus in the Donatist bishopric of Carthage. He wrote several works defending the rigorist views of the Donatists and is recognized as "the most famous Donatist writer of his day", but none of his writings have survived.
Petilianus was an eminent Donatist of the 5th century Roman North Africa, who is known to history through the letters he wrote to the Catholic Bishop Augustine of Hippo and discourses in Augustine's replies. Although most of what we know of him comes from Augustine, his main theology seems to have been "that the true church was only composed of those who were repentant."
