(R. LlECHTENHAN.)
Bibliography: The sources as indicated in the text are Irenseus, Hcer., i. 29-31; Hippolytus, Hcer., v.; Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, iii. 4; Origen, Contra Celsum, vi. 24—35; Epiphanius, Hcer., xxv.— xxvi., xxxvii.— xl., xlv.; and the Pistis-Sophia — for editions see under Gnosticism, and the transl. by G. R. S. Mead, London, 1896. Of first importance is the literature given under Gnosticism, and useful material will be found also in the literature under Handj:ans; Manicheans. Consult further: A. Fuldner, De Ophitis, Rinteln, 1834; K. R. Kostlin, in Theologisches Jahrbuch, 1854, pp. i. sqq.; A. Hilgenfeld, in ZWT, 1862, pp. 400 sqq.; R. A. Lipsius, in ZWT, 1863. pp. 410 sqq.; J. N. Gruber, Die Ophiten, Wurzburg, 1864; A. Hoenig, Die Ophiten, Berlin, 1889; A. Harnack, in TV, vii. 2 (1892); W. Anz, in TV, xv (1897), 1-32; R. Liechtenhan, Die Offenbarung im Gnosticismus, Gottingen, 1901; idem, in ZWT, 1901, pp. 236 sqq.; idem, in ZNTW, 1902, pp. 222 sqq.; C. Schmidt, in TV, xx. 4 (1901); E. C. H. Peithmann, Biographia antiqua, ser. iv., parts 1-3, Bitterfeld, 1903; E. H. Schmitt, Die Gnosis, vol. i., Jena, 1903; E. Preuschen, Zwei Gnostische Hymnen, Giessen, 1904; DCB, iv. 80-89.
OPTATUS: Bishop of Mileve in Numidia, author of a well-known work entitled De schismate Donatistarum adversus Parmenianum. Augustine, in his work against Parmenianus, calls him " the Bishop of Mileve of venerable memory," and Fulgentius places him by the side of Augustine and Ambrose as a defender of the Catholic faith. Apart from his book nothing is known of his life. According to Jerome the work was written in the reigns of Valentinian and Valens (364-375); the fact that Optatus refers to the persecution of Maximian as haying occurred sixty years before allows us to date it about 368. It is true that he speaks (ii. 3) of Siricius as bishop of Rome, which he was not until 384; but these words were considered an interpolation even by earlier scholars. The fact appears to be that the work was originally in six books, and was known by Jerome in this form; the seventh is an
Opt at us Opzoomer
THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
independent addition, which was possibly written by Optatus himself in 384, when he may have revised the entire work. It is an answer from the Catholic side to the lost Donatist treatise of Parmenianus and is one of the most important sources for the history of the controversy.
The work is written in a conciliatory tone, and even when the author has allowed himself to bring grave charges in detail against his opponents, he checks himself by the recollection that they are his Christian brothers. He adheres throughout to the fundamental distinction between heretics and schismatics; the former are " deserters or falsifiers of the creed," and thus no Christians, while the Donatists are rebellious Christians. The heretics have no true baptism, no power of the keys, no proper worship; but the Donatists, although outside of the Catholic Church, " have derived true sacraments from the common source." Thus he goes much further than in the latter days of the Novatian controversy Cyprian had been willing to go, who had denied the legitimacy of both the faith and the sacraments of the schismatics, placing them practically on a level with heretics. Yet Optatus goes on to say that the possession of these gifts by the schismatics is a fruitless one; they are only a " quasichurch." The distinguishing marks of the true Church are, first, the possession of the sacraments — and here he is far from clear, if not self-contradictory; and, secondly, catholicity in extension, while the Donatists exist only in Africa, outside of a small colony in Rome. In both these points he prepared the way for Augustine's doctrine of the Church, and it is this that constitutes his importance in the history of dogma. Again, he takes a distinct step in advance of Cyprian in his doctrine of the sanctity of the sacraments, summed up in the proposition that " the sacraments are holy in themselves, not through the sanctity of men." This assertion of the objectivity of the sacraments was of fundamental importance for the development of western doctrine. Another part of the argument shows that the Cyprianic ideal view of the unity of the episcopate as summed up and represented in the Chair of Peter was still accepted and unsuspectingly fostered in Africa. Where Parmenianus enumerates six " gifts " of the Church (essential portions of its endowment), Optatus admits only five: cathedra, the ecumenical unity; angelus, the legitimate local bishop; spiritus; fons, a true baptism; and sigillum, the orthodox creed of the Trinity. In opposition to the Donatists, who denied the authority of the State over their ecclesiastical actions, he put forth the proposition which was afterward taken so ill, " The State is not in the Church, but the Church in the State, that is in the Roman Empire." The seventh book shows an even more conciliatory attitude than the others; the conception of the unity of the Church is still more sharply emphasized in it. (A. Harnack.)
Bibliography: The editio princeps was by J. Cochlseus, Mainz, 1549; a corrected ed. was by Baudouin, Paris, 1562, 1569; the edition upon which later editions were founded was by Dupin, Paris, 1562, or Antwerp, 1569, reproduced in MPL, xi.; the newest ed. is by C. Ziwsa, in CSEL, xxvi., Vienna, 1893. Consult C. Ziwsa, Beitrage zu Optatus Milevitanus, Eranos Vindobonensis, pp.
168-176, Vienna, 1893; Ceillier, Auteurs sacrls, v. 107- 149; Harnack, Dogma, ii. 93, iii. 80, 223, v., passim* DCB, iv. 90-93; KL, ix. 932-934.
OPTIMISM: Philosophically the theory that the universe is the best possible and existence is essentially good. The term is modern; yet as a mood and a disposition optimism is as old as human life. As a distinct theory it was proposed about the same time by Lord Shaftesbury, Archbishop King, and Leibnitz. Shaftesbury first expounded it in his Inquiry concerning Virtue, written in 1692 and surreptitiously published in 1699; King in his De origine mali (1702); and Leibnitz in his Theodicie (1710). It had occurred independently to Leibnitz; but before he published on the subject he had read what Shaftesbury and King had written. Pope's Essay on Man (1732-34) advocated the doctrine in verse; Voltaire in Candide (1759) ridiculed it. According to Leibnitz " there was an infinity of possible ways of creating the world, according to the different designs which God might form, and each possible world depends upon conditions of certain principal designs or ends of God proper to itself." From this infinite number of possible worlds God chose to bring into existence the present system of things. And since God is a being not only of infinite power but of infinite wisdom and goodness, under the law of sufficient reason the present world must be the best possible. The optimism here presented rests upon an assumption concerning the nature of God and his purpose in the creation, and interprets particular experiences and events in the light of the world-view. The theory of optimism has also been presented inductively, with the aim of showing that good or happiness preponderates over pain and evil in human life, and that the animal consciousness is far less susceptible to pain than has been commonly supposed. Moreover, experiences which, regarded separately, appear wholly evil, when brought into instrumental relations with ethical ends are seen to be indispensable to virtue or the good. Optimism has furnished a key to a difficult problem which haunted New England Theology (q.v.) from 1750 onwards, viz., the relation of sin to the divine goodness and government, or the wisdom of God in the permission of sin. The general principle was that sin is a necessary means of the greatest good. According to Joseph Bellamy (q.v.) sin was a means through which God's glory was manifested and the good of the universe promoted; a doctrine drawn from Leibnitz, grounded on the assumption of the divine nature alone (Works, vol. ii., Boston, 1850). Samuel Hopkins (q.v.), reasoning from the same premises, taught that sin, even the most odious and abominable, was necessary for the glory of God and the good of the creature; and God can so order things that any number of men shall become sinful when it is most for his glory and the general good {Works, i. 140, 220, Boston, 1852). Stephen West (q.v.) maintained the desirability of sinners and moral evil existing, that God might exercise and manifest his mercy and also his hatred of sin (Moral Agency, p. 204, New Haven, 1772). Leonard Woods (q.v.) declared that in every instance in which sin occurred God preferred it to holiness.
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