Novatianism

The Decian persecution and the vacant see

The Church had enjoyed thirty-eight years of peace when the emperor Decius, at the beginning of 250, published the edict obliging every inhabitant of the Empire to sacrifice to the gods before witnesses.^[8] Pope Saint Fabian was martyred on 20 January 250, among the first victims; electing his successor in the midst of the hunt for Christians was impossible, and the see of Peter remained vacant for over a year.^[9]

Meanwhile, thousands of Christians gave way: some sacrificed (sacrificati), others burned incense (thurificati), still others bought a certificate of sacrifice without sacrificing (libellatici). They were called the lapsi, "those who fell". When the persecution eased, they came knocking at the doors of the churches — and no one knew what to do with them: the martyrs and confessors still in prison handed out "letters of pardon" (libelli pacis) right and left, claiming to reconcile without penance, while the rigorists wanted to shut the door for good.^[10]

Novatian, spokesman of the Roman clergy

It was into this void that Novatian stepped. A Roman priest, a man of letters trained in literary composition, promoted to the priesthood by the pope — despite the protests of the clergy, says Cornelius, for he had received only a clinical baptism, by sprinkling on his sickbed, and the other rites, including the bishop's confirmation, had never been supplied.^[11] Cornelius mocks him as a "maker of dogmas" and a "champion of ecclesiastical learning"; Cyprian, for his part, admires his eloquence.^[12]

During the persecution, Novatian wrote in the name of the Roman clergy the letters addressed to Saint Cyprian of Carthage (letters 30 and 36 of the Cyprianic collection): the question of the lapsi must wait for councils convened when possible and for the election of a new bishop; Rome would keep its traditional disciplinary severity — that of the Church whose faith Saint Paul already praised (Romans 1:8) — without cruelty towards the repentant.^[13] At this stage, nothing heretical: the idea that reconciliation might be impossible does not yet surface in these letters. The most touching testimony comes from a later anonymous writing, the Ad Novatianum: as long as he remained in the one house, Novatian wept over his neighbour's sins as if they were his own, bore his brothers' burdens and consoled with his words those whose heavenly faith was wavering.^[14]

"As long as he was in the one house, that is, in the Church of Christ, he wept over his neighbour's sins as if they had been his own, he bore his brothers' burdens, according to the Apostle's exhortation, and he strengthened by consolation those whose heavenly faith was wavering." — Ad Novatianum, XIII^[15]

Shadows already, however: Cornelius recounts that, through cowardice and love of life, Novatian denied being a priest during the persecution, refused to leave the cell where he had shut himself away to assist his brothers in danger, and declared he no longer wished to be a priest — enamoured, he says, "of another philosophy".^[16] And the martyr Saint Moses, seeing his boldness, is said to have separated him from communion along with the five priests of his group.^[17]

Cornelius elected, Novatian consecrated

At the beginning of 251, the grip loosened. In March, "the chair of Fabian, that is, the place of Peter, being vacant", Cornelius was elected pope with the consent of almost all the clergy, the people and the bishops present.^[18] A few days later, Novatian set himself up as rival pope — he who, according to Cornelius, had just sworn a solemn oath that he would never seek to become bishop.^[19]

Cornelius's account to Fabius, bishop of Antioch (preserved by Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VI, 43) is striking: Novatian sends two men of his party to summon three bishops from a remote corner of Italy, on the pretext of healing a division through their mediation; these simple men, once in Rome, are forced to consecrate him bishop at the tenth hour of the day. One of the three at once returned to the Church, weeping and confessing his fault; Cornelius had successors ordained to the other two.^[20] To lock in his supporters, Novatian made them swear, at the moment of receiving Holy Communion, by the Body and Blood of Christ, that they would never go over to Cornelius.^[21]

The two rivals despatched messengers to all the Churches. The council of Carthage, after careful inquiry, recognised Cornelius with the entire African episcopate; Saint Dionysius of Alexandria took the same side, and these two adhesions sealed the cause.^[22] But for weeks, writes Chapman, the whole Church was torn apart by the question of the two popes — and Dionysius could later write to Pope Stephen that all the Churches of the East, cut in two, had come together again: Antioch, Caesarea in Palestine, Jerusalem, Tyre, Laodicea, Tarsus and all Cilicia, Cappadocia, the Syrias, Arabia, Mesopotamia, Pontus and Bithynia — "so far did the Roman schism make its effects felt".^[23]

Novatus and Novatian: not to be confused

Novatian's great reinforcement was a Carthaginian priest named Novatus — not to be confused with Novatianus the Roman. The irony is cruel: at Carthage, Novatus had taken the side of laxism against his bishop Cyprian, out of pure opposition; at Rome, he became the soul of the party of absolute rigour.^[24] The table helps fix the roles:

In his first letters on the affair (44-48), Cyprian speaks of no heresy: the whole question is who legitimately occupies the place of Peter. Novatian's envoys brought no doctrine on the lapsi, but "letters full of calumnies and maledictions" and bitter accusations against Cornelius — so shameful that Cyprian refused to read them to the council.^[25] The classic mistake of historians, Chapman warns, is to present the crisis as a debate between two doctrines: had Novatian been orthodox as an angel, one had first to examine whether his ordination was legitimate and whether his accusations were true or false.^[26]

Before the end of 251, Cornelius assembled a council of sixty bishops — probably all from Italy and the neighbouring islands — which excommunicated Novatian; the absent added their signatures, and the full list was sent to Antioch and the other great Churches.^[27]

What Rome and Carthage decided together

In the spring of 251, Cyprian regained Carthage and the two sees settled the affair of the lapsi by common accord, in synods held at Rome and in Africa.^[28] The discipline adopted distinguished the cases: the libellatici could be reconciled after penance; the sacrificati and thurificati were subjected to lifelong penance, with reconciliation at the point of death — a severity which Cyprian himself approved when late repentance seemed doubtful, but which he then showed was not an end in itself.^[29] Above all, the principle was safe: the Church has the power to bind and to loose, and she exercises it with measure — neither the easiness of the confessors' letters, nor the cruelty of definitive refusal.^[30]

The Novatian heresy: three sins without pardon

Within a few months, Novatian passed from schism to heresy — and henceforth the whole Church called him a heretic, writes Chapman, no longer Cyprian alone.^[31] His thesis: idolatry is a sin unforgivable by the Church. The fallen may repent and be admitted to perpetual penance, but their forgiveness must be left to God; it cannot be pronounced in this world.^[32] His disciples extended the doctrine to all "mortal sins":

Severity in itself was nothing new: Tertullian had already disputed Pope Callistus's pardon of adultery, and Saint Hippolytus leaned towards rigour; in various places, laws deferred communion to the hour of death, or even refused it at that hour.^[39] But there is heresy only when one denies that the Church has the power to grant absolution in certain cases — and that was Novatian's heresy.^[40]

The clearest sign of it was liturgical: Cyprian reports that the Novatians no longer held the baptismal symbol, for when they said "Dost thou believe in the remission of sins and eternal life through the holy Church?", they lied.^[41]

"He cannot have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother." — Saint Cyprian, On the Unity of the Church, 6^[42]

The Antonianus dossier and schismatic fury

Cyprian's letter 55, addressed to Antonianus, is the great dossier of the schism: in it we read for the first time the "Novatian heresy" argued as such.^[43]

"Schismatico immo haeretico furore — by a schismatic, nay, heretical frenzy." — Saint Cyprian, Letter 55 to Antonianus^[44]

The Roman precedent sheds light on the crisis: thirty years earlier, Saint Hippolytus — the first antipope in history — had already risen against Pope Callistus in the name of the same rigour, reproaching him for his edict pardoning adultery after penance; Tertullian, gone over to Montanism, had applauded.^[45] Rome had already decided once: the mercy of Peter's successor is not a betrayal, it is his office. Novatian replayed Hippolytus's part, with more talent and the same outcome. He even had to be sent Cyprian's De lapsis (letter 54), so central had the question of the fallen become.^[46]

Meanwhile, Novatian's support was collapsing: the confessors still in prison — Maximus, Urban, Nicostratus and their companions — whom Cyprian and Dionysius wrote to adjure, returned to the Church.^[47] And Novatian, who had "arrogated to himself the primacy" (letter 69), was sending his new apostles to found rival bishoprics in the provinces over the heads of bishops venerable in age, pure faith and proven virtue — glaring proof, Chapman notes, of the importance the 3rd century already attached to the Roman See: the whole Church convulsed over who was the true pope, and none could be a legitimate Catholic pastor on the side of the false one.^[48]

"To suffer martyrdom rather than divide the Church"

The finest answer addressed to Novatian came from the East. Saint Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to him — a letter preserved by Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, VI, 45):

"Dionysius to his brother Novatian, greeting. If it is against your will, as you say, that you have been led on, prove it by withdrawing of your own accord. For you ought to have suffered everything rather than divide the Church of God; and to suffer martyrdom rather than cause a schism would have been no less glorious than to suffer martyrdom rather than commit idolatry — in my judgement, it would have been an even greater act; for in the one case a man is a martyr for his own soul alone, in the other for the whole Church." — Saint Dionysius of Alexandria, letter to Novatian^[49]

Here again, no question of heresy: the debate concerns ordination and unity. But two months later, harshness over the lapsi had made Novatian a heretic in the eyes of all the Churches.^[50]

The first great Latin treatise written at Rome

Before being a schismatic, Novatian was a first-rate writer — and his masterwork outlived his cause. The De Trinitate, in thirty-one chapters, is a fine piece of doctrinal eloquence: the first eight celebrate the transcendence and greatness of God, above all thought, whom no name describes; then Novatian proves at length the divinity of the Son, from the Old as from the New Testament.^[51] Father DeSimone, who translated it in the Fathers of the Church collection, recalls that he is the first Roman theologian to write in Latin, at the heart of the birth of Latin Christian literature at Rome.^[52]

The nerve of the book is anti-Sabellian: against those who identify Father and Son to save the unity of God — the forebears of Sabellius and of Modalism —, Novatian hammers home that a Father who is God can beget a Son who is God, and that to say otherwise is to do insult to the Father.^[53]

"It is doing insult to the Father to say that a Father who is God cannot beget a Son who is God." — Novatian, De Trinitate, after the summary of the Catholic Encyclopedia^[54]

A still hesitant subordinationism

Praise stops where error begins — and Novatian commits that of almost all pre-Nicene writers: he separates Father and Son too much. The Father addresses to the Son the command to create, and the Son obeys; the Son is identified with the angels who appeared in the Old Testament to Agar or Abraham — for "it belongs to the person of Christ to be God because He is Son of God, and to be Angel because He announces the Father's will"; the Son is "the second Person after the Father", less than He in that He derives His origin from Him, imitator of all His works, ever obedient, one with Him "by concord, by love and by affection".^[55] Enough to cry two gods — so Novatian, after a chapter on the Holy Spirit (XXIX), returns to the subject in a kind of appendix (XXX-XXXI): two kinds of heretics want to keep the unity of God, some — the Sabellians — by identifying the Father with the Son, the others — Ebionites and their kin — by denying that the Son is God; Christ is crucified anew between two thieves, insulted on both sides.^[56] There is but one God, unbegotten, invisible, immense, immortal; the Word, His Son, is a substance proceeding from Him, and this energy of divinity, transmitted to the Son, returns to the Father by communion of substance.^[57] The unity obtained remains unsatisfactory, but Novatian has the merit of not identifying the Word with the Father and of clearly teaching eternal generation — a clear advance on Tertullian.^[58] Hippolytus, Tertullian and Justin nourished him; like them, he suffers from the Greek theology which applied to the Son as God words of Saint Paul that hold for Him as God-man.^[59]

An essentially sound Christology

On the Incarnation, Novatian seems to have been orthodox, though not very explicit: he speaks correctly of a single Person in two substances, divinity and humanity, in the manner of the most exact Western theologians.^[60] He has been suspected of Nestorianism before the letter because he often speaks of "the man" assumed by the divine Person — an unjust suspicion, for he is equally exposed to the reverse accusation, so little is "the man" in him but an assumed flesh, without distinct personality; nothing warrants supposing that he denied the intellectual soul of Christ: he does not consider the question, concerned only with affirming the reality of the Lord's flesh against all Docetism.^[61] His unfortunate formula — the Son of God unites to Himself the Son of man and, by this connection, makes become Son of God one who was not so by nature — has even been taxed with Adoptionism; but Novatian means only that before the assumption, humanity was not by nature Son of God: the form is bad, the thought not necessarily heretical.^[62]

The fairest verdict comes from an Anglican turned Catholic, the future Cardinal Newman:

"He approaches doctrinal precision more closely than any of the writers of East and West who preceded him." — John Henry Newman, Tracts Theological and Ecclesiastical, p. 239^[63]

Other writings: what remains, what is lost

Saint Jerome (On Illustrious Men, 70) lists Novatian's works: on Easter, the Sabbath, Circumcision, the Priesthood, Prayer, the Present Moment, Attalus, Jewish Foods and the Trinity — only the last two survive.^[64] The De cibis judaicis is a letter written in retreat during a persecution, preceded by two lost letters on circumcision and the sabbath: the unclean animals figure the various classes of vicious men, and Christian liberty must not become a pretext for luxury.^[65] Two pseudo-Cyprianic works by the same author, the De spectaculis and the De bono pudicitiae, are attributed to Novatian by Weyman, followed by Demmler, Bardenhewer and Harnack; the De laude martyrii is lent to him by Harnack with less likelihood; the sermon Adversus Judaeos is said to be by a close friend or a disciple, according to Landgraf.^[66] As for the twenty sermons published in 1900 by Batiffol and Wilmart as Tractatus Origenis, once attributed to Novatian by Zahn's school, they have finally been recognised as Gregory of Elvira — Dom Wilgory's demonstration remaining the reference.^[67]

A name, a scorn, a geography

Novatian's disciples called themselves katharoi — the Pure, the Puritans — and affected to call the Catholic Church the Apostaticum, the Synedrium or the Capitolinum: the Church of apostates, the sanhedrin, the Capitol.^[68] They were found in every province, numerous in places; they had bishops everywhere, and always a successor of Novatian at Rome.^[69] Our main source on them is the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates of Constantinople, who is very favourable to them and recounts at length their bishops, especially those of Constantinople — very estimable men, he says.^[70] They conformed to the Church in almost everything, including monasticism from the 4th century onwards; most forbade second marriages, made great use of Tertullian — and in Phrygia, they merged with the Montanists.^[71] Some did not rebaptise converts; according to Theodoret, they did not use confirmation — which Novatian himself had never received.^[72]

Nicaea 325: Acesius and the ladder to heaven

The Novatian bishop of Constantinople was invited by Constantine to the Council of Nicaea. He approved its decrees, but refused union — and the council settled their case in canon 8: those who call themselves Cathari and return to the Catholic Church shall be received; their clerics shall remain in the clergy; but they must profess in writing that they will follow Catholic dogmas, will communicate with the twice-married and with the fallen of the persecution, and where a Catholic bishop subsists, the Novatian bishop shall have only honorary rank.^[73] Socrates recounts the scene between Constantine and Bishop Acesius:

"Take a ladder, Acesius, and climb alone to heaven." — Constantine, to the Novatian bishop Acesius, after Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, I, 10^[74]

Because they held the homoousion, the Novatians were persecuted like the Catholics by Constantius; in Paphlagonia, Novatianist peasants attacked and killed the soldiers sent to impose the official semi-Arianism.^[75] Constantine, who had first treated them as schismatics and not heretics, later ordered the closure of their churches and cemeteries; after his death, Julian protected them, then the Arian Valens persecuted them anew.^[76] Honorius ranked them in a law against heretics in 412; Saint Innocent I closed some of their churches at Rome, Saint Celestine expelled them from it as Saint Cyril expelled them from Alexandria; earlier, Saint John Chrysostom had closed their churches at Ephesus — while at Constantinople they were tolerated, and their bishops there were, says Socrates, held in high esteem.^[77] The Roman martyrology itself notes that Saint Lucius, Cornelius's successor, "fought the Novatians".^[78]

A slow extinction, never a brutal disappearance

In Phrygia, around 374, some of them became Quartodecimans — the Protopaschites, among whom were converted Jews; Theodosius made a severe law against this sect, imported to Constantinople around 391 by one Sabbatius, whose supporters were called Sabbatians.^[79] The work of Eulogius of Alexandria, shortly before 600 — six books against them — proves that Novatians remained at Alexandria three and a half centuries after the schism.^[80] Eulogius complained that they would not venerate the martyrs — he probably meant the Catholic martyrs.^[81]

Firmness on principle does not exclude measure in welcome: four councils, in four centuries, fixed the mode of reconciliation — never rebaptising, but never giving it away either:

During the persecution of Gallus and Volusian (251-253), Novatian had to flee Rome; under Valerian, in 258, he suffered martyrdom — so Saint Pacian affirms (Letters, II, 7) — or at least became a confessor, according to Socrates (Ecclesiastical History, IV, 28).^[86] Should he be believed? In 1932, there was discovered on the Via Tiburtina a slab bearing the inscription "NOVATIANO BEATISSIMO MARTYRI GAUDENTIUS DIACONUS FECIT" — "To Novatian, most blessed martyr, the deacon Gaudentius made [this]"; but the attribution to the antipope rather than to some obscure namesake remains highly controversial.^[87] Honesty requires leaving the question open: a schismatic may die courageously without his death effacing his schism — and that is exactly what Dionysius was already writing in his lifetime: better martyrdom for unity than solitary martyrdom.

The power of the keys is not optional

The whole Catholic answer is contained in the word of the Risen One:

"Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven them; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained." — Gospel according to Saint John, 20:22-23^[88]

Matthew 16:19 and 18:18 give the binding and loosing; the parable of the prodigal son shows the Father running to meet the lost son and restoring to him robe, ring and feast (Luke 15:22-24)^[89]; and Saint Paul, far from devoting the Corinthian incestuous man to hell, orders that he be forgiven and consoled once penance is accomplished (2 Corinthians 2:7-8).^[90] To refuse on principle what Christ promised is not to defend the holiness of the Church: it is to amputate the creed — to lie, as Cyprian said, in professing the remission of sins through the holy Church.^[91]

Severity is not heresy; refusal of pardon is

The Church never canonised laxism: she kept public penance, the degrees, the delays, the rigour of the canons — and she kept Tertullian, Cyprian, Pacian, Ambrose, who knew how to be severe without denying pardon.^[92] The great refuters of Novatianism bear witness to it: besides Cyprian, the anonymous Ad Novatianum which Harnack attributes to Sixtus II (257-258), the writings of Saint Pacian of Barcelona and the De paenitentia of Saint Ambrose, the 4th-century Contra Novatianum preserved among Saint Augustine's works, the Heresies of Epiphanius and Philastrius, the Questions of Ambrosiaster — in the East, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom; the refutations of Rheticius of Autun and Eusebius of Emesa are lost.^[93] Pacian, grappling with the Novatianist Sympronianus around 370, left the word that sums up the whole affair:

"Christian is my name, Catholic my surname." — Saint Pacian of Barcelona, Letter I to Sympronianus, On the Catholic Name^[94]

And in his third letter, the same Pacian calls Novatus — the Carthaginian turncoat — traitor and parricide.^[95]

The mirror of Donatism

Half a century later, Africa would see the same drama in reverse: Donatism would refuse the validity of sacraments administered by traditores, as Novatianism refused pardon to the lapsi — same rigorism, same Church of the Pure, same appeal to purity against the communion of reconciled sinners.^[96] The answer would be the same, given by Saint Augustine: the Church is a net in which good fish swim alongside bad until the final sorting, and the holiness of the Church comes not from the impeccability of her members, but from her Spouse.^[97] To understand Novatian is thus to understand Donatus in advance — and to measure what the Church refused to sacrifice: neither holiness, nor sinners.

• The heresies of the early centuries
• Montanism
• Donatism
• Marcionism
• Gnosticism
• Sabellianism
• Docetism