Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/294

 OPPIDO

262

OPTATUS

hims(-lf an oloRant dororator. In 1721 the oontiniia- tion of tlu' work on Saint-Svilpicc was transforred to him. llrliadalivaily (\n 1710) built the cliapol of St. John the Baptisl in thofathcdral of Amiens and earlier the Dominican novitiate iluirch in Paris. He |)os- sessed unusual talentasadrauf;htsmau. In liis " Des- sins, couronnements et anK)rtissements eonvenables pour de.ssu8 de porte" etc., Huquieres gives many of Oppenordt's designs.

Oppenobd, L'Arl lUcoralif du 18' siicle (Paris, 1SS8); Gnii^ M.\RD. Les maitres omeTnanistes (Paris, 1881); Destailleur, Recueil d'estampes (Paris, 1863 — ); Idem, Notices sur (pielques artistes fran^ais (Paris, 1S(>3) ; Lance, Didionnaire des architedes fran^ais (Paris, 1873).

G. GlBTMANN.

Oppido Mamertina, Diocese of (Oppidensis), sulTragan of Reggio Calabria, Italy, famous for its pro- longed resistance to Roger (eleventh century). Bishop Stefano (1295) is the first prelate of whom there is mention. In 1472 the see was united to that of Ge- race, under Bishop Athanasius Calceofilo, by whom the Greek Rite was abolished, although it remained in use in a few towns. In 1536 Oppido became again an inde- pendent see, under Bishop Pietro Andrea Ripanti; among other bishops were Antonio Cesconi (1609) and Giovanni Battista Montani (1632), who restored the cathedral and the episcopal palace; Bisanzio Fili (1696), who founded the seminary; Michele Caputo (1852), who was transferred to the See of Ariano, where it is suspected that he poisoned King Ferdinand II; eventually, he apostatized. Oppido has 19 par- ishes, with 28,000 inhabitants.

Cappelletti, Le Chiese d' Italia, vol. XXI.

U. Benigni.

Optatus, Saint, Bishop of Milevis, in Numidia, in the fourtli century. He was a convert, as we gather from St. Avigustino: "Do we not see with how great a booty of gold and silver and garments Cyprian, doctor suainsaimus, came forth out of Egypt, and likewise Lactantius, Victorinus, Optatus, Hilary?" (De Doc- trina Christ., xl). Optatus probably had been apagan rhetorician. His work against the Donatists is an an- swer to Parmenian, the successor of Donatus in the See of Carthage. St. Jerome (De viris ill., ex) tells us it was in six books and was written under Valens and Valentinian (364-75). We now possess seven books, and the Ust of popes is carried as far as Siricius (384-98). Similarly the Donatist succession of anti- popes is given (II, iv), as Victor, Bonifatius, Encol- pius, 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 com- pleted in six books. It seems, then, that the seventh book, w'hich 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 appar- ently regarded as still alive; Julian is dead (363). Thus the first books were published about 366-70, and the second edition about 38.5-90.

St. Optatus deals with the entire controversy be- tween. Cat holies and Donatists (see Donatists). He di.stinguishes between schismatics and heretics. The former have rejected unity, but they have true doc- trine 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 again.^t schism. It seems to be motived by the notion that a!! who have faith will be saved, though after long torments, — a view which St. Angn.stine has frequently to comb.at. Donatists and Catholics were agreed as to the neces.sary unity of the Church. The question was, where is this One Church? Optatus argues that it can-

not be only in a corner of Africa; it must be the calho- iica (the word is used as a substantive) which is throughout the world. Parmenian had enumerated six dotes, or properties, of the Church, of which Opta- tus accepts five, and argues that the lirst, the episco- pal chair, cathedra, belongs to the Catliolics, and there- fore they have all the others. Tlie whole schism had arisen through the quarrel as to the episcopal succes- sion at Carthage, 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 bishop was con- ferred, 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 Apos- tles 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 commenda- tory 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 docs not mat- ter, since it is God who confers the grace. His state- ment of the objective efficacy of the sacraments ex opere opcrato is well known: "Sacramenta per se esse sancta, non per homines" (V, iv). Thus in baptism there must be the Holy Trinity, the beUever and the minister, and their importance is in this order, the third being the least important. In rebuking the sac- rileges of the Donatists, 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 s.alvation and the safeguard of faith and the hope of resurrection? . . . For what ia 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, for there must be always sinners in the Church, and the ccckle is mixed with the wheat; but charity covers a multitude of sins.

The style of St. Optatus is vigorous and animated. He aims at terseness and effect, rather than at flowing periods, 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 bish- ops. He uses Cyprian a great deal, though he refutes that saint's mistaken opinion about baptism, and does not copy his easy style. His descriptions of events are admirable and viviil. It is strange that Dupin should hav(^ called him minus nitidus ac polilus, for both in the words he employs and in their order he almost in- curs the blame of preciosity. He is as strict as Cyp- rian as to the metrical cadences at the close of every sentence. He was evidently a man of good taste as well as of high culture, and he has left us in his one work a monument of convincing dialectic, of elegant