St. Optatus

Saint Optatus
Died	4th century
Venerated in	Roman Catholic 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.

Optatus was a convert, as we gather from St. Augustine: "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 Christ., xl). Optatus probably began as a pagan rhetorician.

His (untitled) work against the Donatists is an answer to Parmenianus, the successor of Donatus in the primatial see of Carthage. St. Jerome (De viris illustribus, # 110) tells us it was in six books and was written under Valens and Valentinian (364-75). We now possess seven books, and the list of popes is carried as far as Siricius (384-98). 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.

St. Optatus deals with the entire controversy between Catholics and Donatists. He distinguishes between schismatics and heretics. The former have rejected unity, but they have true doctrine and true sacraments, hence Parmenian should not have threatened them (and consequently his own party) with eternal damnation. This mild doctrine is a great contrast to the severity of many of the Fathers against schism. It seems to be motived by the notion that all who have faith will be saved, though after long torments,--a view which St. Augustine has frequently to combat.

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.

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