(Updated July 15, 2025)
This Author Quote Archive collects pertinent quotes from the Church Father, St. Optatus of Milevis.
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This Quote Archive is being continuously updated as research continues. Quotes marked with “***” have not yet been organized into their respective Topic Quote Archives.
Treatises
St. Optatus of Milevis, Against the Donatists (c. 384)
- The Papacy and the Invincibility of the Church | Book 2, §§2-6
(Book 2, §§2-6)1
(§2) Since, therefore, we have proved that the Catholic Church is the one that is spread throughout the whole compass of the earth, we must describe its trappings and we must see where are the five gifts, which 31 | 32 according to you [the Donatists] are six. The first of these is the see, to which, unless the Bishop occupies it, the second gift cannot be joined, which is the angel. We must see who first occupied the see, and where. If you do not know, learn; if you do not know, blush. You cannot be supposed to be ignorant; it can only be, therefore, that you know. To sin is to err knowingly; for sometimes one ignores the faults of ignorance. Therefore you cannot deny that you know that the first episcopal see was set up in Rome, which was occupied by Peter the head of all the Apostles (for which reason he was called Cephas) so that in this one see unity might be preserved by all, lest each of the other Apostles should maintain his own; thus anyone who set up another see against this one see would be a schismatic and a sinner.
(§3) Therefore the one see, which is the first of the gifts, was first occupied by Peter, then Linus succeeded him, Clement succeeded to Linus, Anacletus to Clement, Evaristus to Anacletus, [Alexander] to 32 | 33 Evaristus, Sextus [to Alexander], Telesphorus to Sextus, Hyginus to Telesphorus, Anicetus to Hyginus, Pius to Anicetus, Soter to Pius, [Eleutherius] to Soter, Victor [to Eleutherius], Zephyrinus to Victor, Calixtus to Zephyrinus, Urbanus to Calixtus, Pontianus to Urbanus, Anterus to Pontianus, Fabian to Anterus, Cornelius to Fabian, Lucius to Cornelius, Stephen to Lucius, Sextus to Stephen, Dionysius to Sextus, Felix to Dionysius, [Eutychianus] to Felix, [Gaius to Eutychianus], Marcellinus [to Gaius], [Marcellus] to Marcellinus, Eusebius [to Marcellus], Miltiades to Eusebius, Sylvester to Miltiades, Marcus to Sylvester, Julius to Marcus, Liberius to Julius, Damasus to Liberius, Siricius to Damasus, and he is our colleague today. With him, the whole world, in a single fellowship of communion maintained by the exchange of official letters, agrees. Tell us the origin of your see, which you wish to claim for yourselves as a sacred church.
(§4) But you say that you too have a certain party in the city of Rome. It is a branch of your error, springing from a lie, not from the root of truth. Moreover, if Macrobius were to say where he has his see, could he say, in the see of Peter? I do not know if he has even seen it with 33 | 34 his eyes, and he has not approached Peter’s memorial, acting like a schismatic against the Apostle, who speaks of communicating with the memorials of the saints [Rom. 12:13]. See, there are the memorials of the two Apostles [Peter and Paul]. Tell me if he was able to come up to these or made an offering in the place where the memorials of the saints are agreed to be. Therefore, your colleague Macrobius can say only that he occupies the place that was once occupied by Encolpius; and if it were possible to interrogate Encolpius himself, he would say that he occupies the place formerly occupied by Boniface of Ballita. Then if it were possible to interface the latter, he would say that his is the place formerly occupied by Victor of Garba, sent long ago by your party to a few strays. How is it that your party has not been able to have a citizen as your Bishop in the city of Rome? How is it that all those acknowledged to have succeeded one another in that city are Africans and immigrants? Do you not see the trickery, the factiousness, which is the mother of schism?…
Victor was therefore sent [to Rome]; there he was a son without a father, a novice without a guide, a disciple without a master, a follower without a predecessor, a tenant without a house, a guest without a host, a shepherd without a flock, a bishop without a people. For one could not call either flock or people the few who had nowhere to convene among the forty and more churches [in Rome]. So they marked off a certain cave outside the city with hurdles, to have a meeting-place there 34 | 35 at that time; hence they were called Hillmen…[I]f Victor were to say what see he occupied, he could point to one before him, nor any see except in the midst of plague [presumably heresy]. For the plague sent disease-stricken men to hell, and hell is where they are acknowledged to have their gates; it was against these gates, as we read, that Peter received the keys of salvation, Christ saying to him, “I shall give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and the gates of hell shall not overcome them” (Matt. 16:18-19).
(§5) Whence, then, would you arrogate the keys of heaven [given to Peter] for yourselves, when you fight against the see of Peter with your presumptuous notions and sacrilegious audacity, rejecting the blessedness which is the merited praise of him who has not departed into the assembly of the impious and did not abide in the way of sinners and has not sat in the seat of plague [heresy]? Your ancestors went into the assembly of the impious, producing a division of the church. They also entered the way of sinners, when they tried to divide Christ, whose very clothes the Jews did not wish to rend, and that despite the Apostle’s exclamation, “Is Christ divided?” (2 Cor. 1:13). I wish that, having already entered the evil way, they would acknowledge their sin and return upon themselves, that is they would mend their errors and recall the peace that they have put to flight, which would be to return from their way; for in a way one walks, and does not abide. But, since your parents refused to return, it is patent that they stood in the route of sinners. Their steps had been impelled by madness, but lingering discord held them back and bound them. And, so that they could not go back to better ways, they put fetters of schism on themselves, so that they might stand pertinaciously in their error, making it impossible to go back to the peace which they had deserted… 35 | 37
(§6) Therefore of the aforesaid gifts [of the Church] the see is, as we said, the first, and we have proved that it is ours through Peter…
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