For confirming and establishing this doctrine, there are also witnesses from the same African Church: Optatus, bishop of Milevis, and Arnobius. Of these, the former disputes thus1 against Parmenian, who maintained that the Church existed among the Donatists alone and accordingly was circumscribed within the narrowest limits:
If you thus contract the Church into a narrow compass according to your will; if you withdraw all the nations, where will that be which the Son of God merited? Where will that be which the Father freely bestowed upon him, saying in the second Psalm2: “I will give thee the nations for thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession”? Why do you break so great a promise, so that the breadth of kingdoms should be sent by you, as it were, into a certain prison? Why do you strive to stand in the way of so great a pietas3? Why do you wage war against the merits of the Savior? Permit the Son to possess the things granted; permit the Father—
—to fulfill his promises. Why do you place boundaries? Why do you fix limits? Since the whole earth was promised by God the Father to the Savior, there is nothing in any part of the earth which appears excepted from his possession. The whole earth with the nations was given to him; the whole world is the one possession of Christ. God proves this, who says: “I will give thee the nations for thy inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession.” And in Psalm LXXI it is thus written4 concerning the Savior himself: “He shall have dominion from sea even unto sea, and from the rivers even unto the ends of the earth.” When the Father gives, he excepts nothing; while you, in order to concede an ounce, endeavor to take away the whole pound. And still you strive to persuade men that the Church is among you alone, taking merit away from Christ and denying what was appointed beforehand by God. O your ungrateful and foolish presumption! Christ invites you with the others into fellowship in the heavenly kingdom and exhorts you to be coheirs; and you labor to defraud him of the inheritance granted to him by the Father, when you concede a part of Africa and deny the whole world, which was given to him by the Father. Why do you wish the Holy Spirit to appear a liar, who in Psalm XLIX narrates the benevolence of almighty God, when he says5: “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and has called the earth from the rising of the sun even unto its setting”? The earth, therefore, was called6 that it might become flesh; and, as it is read, it was made, and it ought to render praises to its Creator.
But when he censures7 the customary formulas of the Donatists, which he calls seductions, and among which he also reckons this one, “Redeem your souls,” he writes:
What, therefore, is this which you say, “Redeem your souls”? From whom did you buy them, that you may sell them? Who is that angel, I know not who8, who holds a market of souls which the devil possessed before his advent? Christ our Savior redeemed these by his blood—
—the Apostle saying: “For you were bought with a great price.” It is certain, therefore, that all were redeemed by the blood of Christ.
What, therefore, according to Optatus, is to be held? First of all, this: that so great was the benevolence and pietas of God the Father that he promised all peoples and all nations to the Son and conferred them upon him to be possessed. Then this: that the possession of Christ is the whole earth together with its nations, and that there is nothing in any part of the world which appears excepted from his possession. For this reason, thirdly, no one can be withdrawn from the inheritance of Christ, nor can anyone be erased from the number of those who are invited into fellowship in the heavenly kingdom, without denying the merit acquired by Christ, overthrowing the promises of the Father, and convicting the Holy Spirit himself, who is the Spirit of truth, of falsehood. It remains, therefore, that all are to be considered redeemed by the blood of Christ.
Concerning this universal redemption through Christ, the things Arnobius has are altogether remarkable9, when at first he introduces the enemies of the same as disputing thus:
But indeed he is worthy of hatred, because he expelled religions from the world, because he forbade approach to the worship of the gods.
Then he meets them in this manner10:
Is it, then, because he introduced the true religion into the world11, opened the doors of pietas to men who were blind and were truly passing their lives in impiety, and indicated to whom they should submit themselves?
Do you hear for whom Christ was at hand and whom he raised up by his aid? He provided for blind men and those passing their lives in impiety. If he provided for them, whom, I ask you, did he not aid, or to whom did he not open the way of salvation?
Footnotes
-
On the Donatist Schism, book II, § I, p. 470, in Gallandius, vol. V. ↩
-
Ps. II.8. ↩
-
He understands divine pietas, by which name he signifies divine clemency. In the same sense Dracontius sang:
↩Great is the pietas of God, who always tempers wrath.
-
Ps. LXXI.8. ↩
-
Ps. XLIX.1. ↩
-
Just as “earth” and “flesh” are taken metaphorically, so the verb “to call” is used in the same sense as in Matt. IX.13: “I came not to call the just, but sinners.” ↩
-
On the Donatist Schism, book III, § XI, p. 485. ↩
-
An evil one, assuredly, since immediately afterward he is said to have possessed souls before the advent of Christ. ↩
-
Disputations against the Gentiles, book II, § II, p. 147, in Gallandius, vol. IV. ↩
-
Ibid., p. 147. ↩
-
The critics who, after introducing a correction, read “into the world,” did not consider within themselves the examples of a most similar construction which Muncker gathered on Hyginus, Fables L–XCII, and Davies on Commodianus, Instructions XIII. ↩