Yesterday, June 4, was the memorial of St. Optatus, a man whose life and writing deeply influenced St. Augustine. Optatus’s memorial this year was eclipsed by the great feast of Pentecost. But we shouldn’t let him slip by unnoticed. He’s an important voice and intercessor for some of our current vexations.

Optatus was the advance guard in the apologetic battle against the Donatist schism, which claimed great successes in North Africa throughout the fourth century. Donatism first emerged in 311, when some Christians refused to recognize the new bishop of Carthage. Why? Because he had been consecrated by another bishop who had once, during a purge, handed over the Scriptures to pagan Roman officials. According to the Donatists, this sin nullified Felix’s sacramental powers. So the disaffected Christians elected their own bishop and set in motion their own succession. They maintained that their sect was the only true and pure church, and that all the sacraments of others were invalid.

We don’t know much about the life of Optatus, though he is praised by many contemporaries, including Augustine and Jerome. Augustine says that Optatus was a convert from paganism. He was, at mid-century, the bishop of Milevis in Numidia, North Africa (now the eastern part of Algeria’s coast). Optatus opposed Donatism — firmly, but irenically — writing six treatises against the heresy and arguing persuasively that the validity of the sacraments did not depend upon the worthiness of the minister. Optatus’s favorite themes would re-emerge fully developed, in the next generation, in the writings of Augustine, who would end the Donatist schism once and for all. Augustine would sum up the argument in a memorable slogan: When Peter baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes. When Judas baptizes, it is Christ who baptizes.

Donatists and Catholics 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 Catholic” — in Latin, “Catholica,” used as a noun — for “The Catholic” is throughout the world. A Donatist theologian had listed six properties of the true Church, of which Optatus accepted five. Optatus argued, however, that the first property, the episcopal chair, belonged to the Catholics, who therefore possessed all the others.

The Donatist schism had first arisen from the quarrel about episcopal succession at Carthage. So we might expect Optatus to claim that first property, the episcopal chair, by pointing out the legitimacy of Catholic succession in Carthage. But he doesn’t. Instead, he replies: “We must examine who sat first in the chair, and where … You cannot deny knowing that in the city of Rome the bishop’s chair was conferred first upon Peter, the head of all the Apostles … In that one chair unity should be preserved by all, lest the other Apostles should each stand up for his own chair. Anyone who sets up another chair against this one chair is, then, a schismatic and a sinner. For in that one chair … Peter first sat, to whom succeeded Linus …”

Then Optatus traced the papal lineage, in unbroken succession, up to his own day.

The old Catholic Encyclopedia praises Optatus for his rhetorical style, calling it “vigorous and animated. He aims as terseness and effect … and this in spite of the gentleness and charity which is so admirable in his polemics against his ‘brethren,’ as he insists on calling the Donatist bishops.”

You’ll find Optatus’s work online at The Tertullian Project. The same works are still in print.

The life of St. Optatus should inspire us to prayer, today most especially! St. Optatus, pray for us who live in another time of scandal and division. Help us to draw together in unity and charity and hope, confident that the gates of hell won’t prevail against the one true Church, the Catholica, her ministers (even those who sin grievously), or her sacraments, for behind them stands Christ as their surety — and ours!