verse with their kindred and relatives; but from the common prayers and from the sacred supper they re- mained excluded. This is, after all, different from to- tal deprivation of hope of salvation hereafter. Yet, notwithstanding this clearly established fact, a great number of modern writers tell us that Novatian cut off all those who fell into the greater sins after baptism, not only from the hope of readmission to the Church, but likewise from the hope of eternal salvation. And they have respectable authorities for their assertion in writers of the 4th and 5th centuries, namely, Eusebius (Hist. Eccles. 1. vi, c. 43, p. 241), Jerome (/w Jovinia- num, c. 2), and all those who affirm (and there are many who do so) that Novatian discarded and abolished all penances. A careful examination of the best and most trustworthy documents of this controversy makes it ap- pear rather that Novatian was not so destitute of clem- ency, and that those who so represent him attribute to him a consequence which f/iei/ deduce from his princi- ples, but which he did not allow. Let it be remem- bered, too, that very many in that age believed that the road to heaven was open only to members of the Church, and that those who were \vithout the Church must die with no hope of eternal salvation ; and therefore they baptized catechumens, if dangerously sick, before the regularly appointed time ; and they restored to the Church the unfaithful or the lapsed Christians, when alarmingly sick, without any penances or satisfaction, lest they should perish forever. Cyprian decides {Epist. lii, p. 71) thus: "Extra ecclesiam constitutus, et ab unitate atque caritate divisus, coronari in morte non poterit." And as there were many holding this doc- trine, they most likely reasoned thus: Novatian would leave the lapsed to die excluded from the Church; but there is no hope of salvation to those out of the Church. Therefore it ajipeared to them that Novatian excluded the lapsed not only from the Church, but also from heaven. Novatian, however, rejected this conclusion, and did not wholly take from the lapsed all hope of making their peace with God. For this assertion, our first great authority is Cyprian, who otherwise exag- gerates the Novatian error quite too much. He says (^Episf. lii, p. 75): "O ha?reticiE institutionis incfficax et vana trailitio ! hortari ad satisfactionis pcenitentiam et subtrahere de satisfactione mcdicinam, dicere fratri- bus nostris, |>lange et lacr3-mas funde, et diebus ac noc- tibus ingemisce, et pro abluendo et purgando delicto tuo largiter et frequenter operare, sed extra ecclesiam post omnia ista morieris; qurecunque ad pacem perti- nent facies, sed nullam pacem quam quajris accipies. Quis non statim percat, quis non ipsa desperatione de- ficiat, quis non animum suum a proposito lamentationis avertat?" After illustrating these thoughts with his usual eloquence, he concludes thus (p. 525) : " Quod si invenimus (in the Scriptures) a prenitentia agenda ne- minem debere prohiberi . . . admittendus est plangen- tium gemitus et poenitentiaj fructus dolentibus non ne- gandus." So, then, Novatian exhorted sinners ejected from the Church to weep, to pray, to grieve over their sins — in short, to exercise penitence. But why did he so, if he believed there was no hope of salvation for the lapsed? Undoubtedly he urged sinners to tears and penitence, that they might move God to have compas- sion on them, or, as Cyprian expresses it (" ut delictum abluerent et purgarent"), to wash and purt/e away their sin. Therefore he did not close up heaven against them, but only the doors of the Church ; and he believed that God had reserved to himself the power of pardoning the greater sins committed after baptism. This opinion of their master his disciples continued to retain. The Novatian bishop Acesius, at the Council of Nice, in the presence of Constantine the Great, according to the tes- timony of Socrates {/list. Eccles. 1. i, c. 10, p. 39), thus stated the doctrine of his sect: 'E;ri iiiravoiav fxiv t'lfiapTiKi'irag irpoTpiirHt', i\7ri£a c'l rij^ dipiaiuiQ fifi irapu Twv 'itp'tuiv, aWa Trapci roO Otou tKSixiaB'at, Tov cvvajiivov Kai t^ovaiai- ixot'Tog avy\iijptiv ajxap-
NOVATIAXS
213
NOVATUS
Trif^iara ("Ad pccnitentiam quidem invitandos esse pcc- catores, remissiouis vero speni non a sacerdotibus ex- pectare dcbere, verum a Deo, qui solus jus potcstatem- que habet dimittendi peccata"). A similar statement by Asclepiades, another Novatiau bishop, is found in Socrates {ih. 1. vii, c. 25, p. 3G7) : Btw fiovti) t)]v crvy- X^op^C'i^ (il-tapTiuiv iiriTpsTTOVTeg ("Soli Deo potesta- tem condonandi relinquimus"). Socrates himself (1. iv, c. 28, p. 245) obviously explains the doctrine of No- vatiau in the same manner. In short, most authors have ascribed to Novatian a denial of the possibility of salva- tion to those who after baptism fall into the greater or deadly sins. That this is an exaggeration is shown by Petavius, and our limits compel us to refer to his Essai/. Novatian denied that the Church can reconcile them.
The schism which Novatiau had formed in the Ro- man Church was not confined to Rome nor Italy, nor even to the West (comp. Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. bk. vi). It made its way into the East, and subsisted a long time at Alexandria, in several provinces of Asia, at Constanti- nople, in Scythia, and in Africa. The Novatians abound- ed particularly in Phrygia and Paphlagonia. Constan- tine seems to have favored them a little by a law of the j-ear 326, which preserved to them their churches and burying- places, provided they never belonged to the Catholic Church. But in a famous edict about the year 331 he sets them at the head of the heretics, forbidding them to hold public or private assemblies, confiscating their oratories or churches, and condemning their leaders to banishment. This edict, however, was modified in its effect as to the Novatians by means of Acesius, their bishop, who resided at Constantinople, and was in great esteem with the emperor on account of his virtuous and irreproachable life. Subsequent emperors were anything but indulgent to them. A law of the younger Theodo- sius, A.D. -123, decreed the same penalties against them as against the other sects. He had previously, in A.D. 413, enacted a severe law against a branch of the Nova- tian sect, who bore the name of Subbaiians (or Prolo- pascfdtes), so called after one Sabbatius, who near the beginning of the 5th century separated from the other Novatians because he thought the feast of Easter should be celebrated at the same time with the Jewish Pass- over. From the oth century the sect gradually died away, and only slight relics remained in the Gth cen- tury.