St. Pacian writes in Spain: the same contrast between the Church and sectarianism is presented to us in Africa in the instance of the Donatists; and St. Optatus is a witness both to the fact, and to its notoriety, and to the deep impressions which it made on all parties. Whether or not the Donatists identified themselves with the true Church, and cut off the rest of Christendom from it, is not the question here, nor alters the fact which I wish distinctly brought out and recognized, that in those ancient times the Church was that Body which was spread over the _orbis terrarum_, and sects were those bodies which were local or transitory. "What is that one Church," says St. Optatus, "which Christ calls 'Dove' and 'Spouse'? . . . It cannot be in the multitude of heretics and schismatics. If so, it follows that it is but in one place. Thou, brother Parmenian, hast said that it is with you alone; unless, perhaps, you aim at claiming for yourselves a special sanctity from your pride, so that where you will, there the Church may be, and may not be, where you will not. Must it then be in a small portion of Africa, in the corner of a small realm, among you, but not among us in another part of Africa? And not in Spain, in Gaul, in Italy, where you are not? And if you will have it only among you, not in the three Pannonian provinces, in Dacia, Mœsia, Thrace, Achaia, Macedonia, and in all Greece, where you are not? And that you may keep it among yourselves, not in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Pamphylia, Phrygia, Cilicia, in the three Syrias, in the two Armenias, in all Egypt, and in Mesopotamia, where you are not? Not among such innumerable islands and the other provinces, scarcely numerable, where you are not? What will become then of the meaning of the word Catholic, which is given to the Church, as being according to reason[263:1] and diffused every where? For if thus at your pleasure you narrow the Church, if you withdraw from her all the nations, where will be the earnings of the Son of God? where will be that which the Father hath so amply accorded to Him, saying in the second Psalm 'I will give thee the heathen for Thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,' &c.? . . The whole earth is given Him with the nations; its whole circuit (_orbis_) is Christ's one possession."[263:2] 12.