. . . through Ezekiel the Holy Spirit
reproaches the Prince of Tyre, and is the prince of Carthage, when he speaks
through his prophet in these words: Son of man, say against the Prince of
Tyre, Thus says the Lord God: Because your heart is lifted up and you have
said, I am God. The first proof that Tyre is Carthage is given by Isaiah,
in whom we read, A vision about Tyre, then follows, Wail, ships of
Carthage. Then secular literature also asserts that Tyre is Carthage; and
if there is another city which is called by his name, no such deed has been
observed in any other as is well known to have been committed in Carthage. Speak,
says God, against the Prince of Tyre. He did not say that he was to
speak against some temporal king, nor to many, but to the one, that is Bishop
Donatus. For it was not right for the prophet Ezekiel, whom I have lately named,
to compare to anyone but a prince the bishop who, as I have said, was claiming
for himself the principal place in Carthage, who lifted up his heart, who
seemed to himself superior to the human race, and who wanted to have everybody,
even his associates, under him. He would never accept any of the offerings, though
his involved faith, and Christ his God, as well as the complaints of many whom
he injured in his very association with them, by doing something or other in
secret and afterwards perfunctorily mingling with the rest. In this way his
heart was elated, so that he seemed to himself no longer a human being but God.
In the people’s mouths, indeed,
he was rarely called Bishop, but Donatus of Carthage. And he fully deserved to
be named and reproached as the prince of Tyre, that is of Carthage, because he
was first of bishops, as though he himself were more than the rest; and since
he wished to have no human traits, he lifted up his heart, not like the heart
of a human being, but like the heart of God, as he craved to be something more
than other humans. God’s speech to him follows on, You have said, I am God.
Thus, although he did not use this expression, he either did or suffered all
that fulfils the sense of this expression. He raised up his heart, so that he
judged no human comparable with himself, and he seemed higher to himself
because of his inflated thoughts, since whatever is above humanity is virtually
God. Then, whereas bishops ought to serve God, he exalted so much for himself
from his bishops that they all revered him with no less fear than God; that is
to say, since he thought himself God, and since humans should swearby God
alone, he suffered humans to wsear by himself in the same was as by God. if
anyone had made this error, he ought to have prevented it; as he did not
prevent him, he thought himself God. (Optatus of Milevis, Third Book Against
the Donatists, in Optatus: Against the Donatists [trans. Mark Edwards; Translated
texts for Historians 27; Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997], 64-65)
