The History of the Church from Christ to Constantine (Classics) by Eusebius

Author:Eusebius
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780141904306
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1989-11-22T16:00:00+00:00

Novatus, his character and his heresy

43. Dionysius had good reason to argue thus, bringing up the question of those who had shown weakness at the time of the persecution, for Novatus, a presbyter of the Roman church, regarded them with lofty contempt: there was no hope of salvation for them now, even if they did everything in their power to prove their conversion sincere and their confession wholehearted. So he set himself up as leader of a new sect, whose members in the pride of their hearts entitled themselves the ‘Pure’. To deal with the situation a synod on the largest scale was convened at Rome, and was attended by sixty bishops and a still greater number of presbyters and deacons, while in the other provinces of the Empire the local pastors considered separately what was to be done. The result was a unanimous decree that Novatus, his companions in presumption, and any who thought fit to approve his attitude of hatred and inhumanity to brother-Christians, should be regarded as outside the Church, but that those brothers who had had the misfortune to fall should be treated and cured with the medicine of repentance.

I have had access to a letter from Bishop Cornelius of Rome to Bishop Fabius of Antioch, giving an account of the Synod of Rome and the decisions reached by the representatives of Italy, Africa, and the neighbouring regions; and another, written in Latin, from Cyprian and his companions in Africa, making it clear that they too agreed that those who had been tempted should be helped, and that it was right and fair to expel from the Catholic Church the leader of the sect and to deal in the same way with all who had erred with him. Attached to these was a second letter from Cornelius, about the resolutions of the synod, and yet a third, about the conduct of Novatus; from this I will quote certain passages to enable readers of this book to know the facts about him. Enlightening Fabius as to the character of Novatus, Cornelius writes thus:

It is essential that you should know that years ago this fine fellow set his heart on becoming a bishop, and kept this consuming ambition of his bottled up inside, cloaking his crazy notion with the support that from the start the Confessors had given him. Maximus, one of our own presbyters, and Urban, who by confessing their faith had twice won the highest renown; Sidonius; and Celerinus, a man who by the mercy of God had endured torture of every kind with unshakeable determination, fortifying the weakness of the flesh by the strength of his faith, and had crushingly defeated the adversary – these four men observed him, and detecting his unscrupulousness and shiftiness, his perjuries and prevarications, his self-centredness and hollow pretence of friendship, returned to Holy Church. All the artifices and dirty tricks that he had long kept out of sight they revealed publicly in the presence of several bishops and presbyters

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