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215 - Novatian

Novatian was said to be a native of Phrygia. Probably, however, this notice rose from the circumstance that he afterwards found many adherents in Phrygia; or perhaps it was purposely manufactured in order to insinuate a connection between him and the Montanists. With respect to his life before the schism, we depend entirely upon the spiteful and mendacious letter of Cornelius. Cyprian, PseudoCyprian, and Socrates give very little, and Eulogius is wholly unreliable. The plain facts seem to be these: during a severe illness, which even made the aid of an exorcist necessary, Novatian received the clinical baptism without any consecutive episcopal confirmation. Such a form of baptism, however, was not generally recognized as valid; and, when he was ordained a presbyter by a bishop of Rome (either Fabian or his predecessor), his ordination, we are told, met with great opposition, both among the clergy and the laity, on that account. Otherwise he enjoyed great reputation in the congregation for learning and eloquence.

Down to 220, idolatry, adultery, fornication, and murder, were punished in the Catholic Church by formal excommunication. This practice was first broken by the peculiar power which was ascribed to the confessors, - in accordance with an archaic idea which lived on to the end of the third century, - and then by an edict of Pope Calixtus I., which spoke of re-admittance into the church as a possibility. The edict caused the schism of Hippolytus ; but, as the schism was healed towards the middle of the third century, it seems probable that the successors of Calixtus returned to the old, more rigorous practice.

In March 251, Cornelius was elected bishop of Rome. He was elected by a majority, and, as it would seem, in accordance with all accepted rules. Nevertheless, there was in Rome a minority, comprising several presbyters and some of the most revered confessors, which was unwilling to accept the issue of the election, but put forward Novatian as anti-bishop, and had him ordained by three Italian bishops. Thus the schism began. It is evident, however, that though Cornelius represented the laxer, and Novatian the sterner, portion of the congregation, there was, in the beginning of the contest, no theoretical point of controversy, but simply a conflict between two persons.

The schism gradually assumed very dangerous proportions in the East, the views of Novatian finding many adherents in Egypt, Armenia, Pontus, Bithynia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, Syria, Arabia, and Mesopotamia.

The true principle at stake in the controversy was that of the power of the keys. Cyprian's argument was, that, since salvation oould be obained only through the church, every one who was definitely severed from her must necessarily perish. Consequently, to refuse the communion of the church to any one who had not definitely separated himself from her would be an anticipation of the judgment of God; while the re-admittance of a lapsus could in no wise prevent God from still refusing him salvation. On the other side, when Novatian considered it the right and the duty of the church to exclude forever all heavy sinners, and denied her power to give absolution to the idolater, it is apparent that his idea of the church, of the absolution of the church, of the right of the priest, in short, his idea of the power of the keys, is another than that held by his adversaries. The church is to him, not the conijitio sine ijua non for salvation, an institution educating mankind for salvation, but the congregation of saints, whose very existence is endangered if there is one single heavy sinner among its members. The idea of the church as a community of saints could not fail ending either in miserable delusion, or in bursting asunder the whole existing Christendom.

At the Council of Nicaea the Novatian bishop Arius was present. He accepted the decisions of the council concerning the faith and the Easter controversy, and was treated with much regard by the council. But the emperor did not succeed in alluring him and his party back into the bosom of the church. The emperor was convinced that he had too hastily proscribed the orthodox faith and the exemplary morals of the Novatians, who had dissented from the church in some articles of discipline which were not perhaps essential to salvation. By a particular edict, he exempted them from the general penalties of the law; allowed them to build a church at Constantinople, respected the miracles of their saints, invited their bishop Acesius to the council of Nice; and gently ridiculed the narrow tenets of his sect by a familiar jest; which, from the mouth of a sovereign, must have been received with applause and gratitude.

The emperor said to the bishop, "Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed the ladder of Acesius.

Ten years later, however, when Constantine had somewhat changed his theological views, he placed the Novatians in rank with the Marcionites and Valentinians, forbade them to worship in public, closed their churches, aud ordered their books to be burnt. During the Arian controversy the relation between the Novatians and the Catholic Church was generally good, as the former showed no inclination towards that heresy. But the danger was hardly over, before the Catholic Church began persecutions. In Rome, Innocent 1. closed their churches, and Celestine I forbade them to worship in public. In the East, however, the party lived on until the sixth or seventh century.