Against Novatian

As I was pondering, my mind seething beyond endurance, what I ought to do about our pitiable brothers who were wounded, not by their own will but by the assault of the raging devil, and who have been paying the penalty until now, that is, through a long series of times, behold, from the opposite side there has arisen another enemy, an adversary even of fatherly kindness, the heretic Novatian. Not only would he pass by the wounded man lying there, like the priest or the Levite, as the Gospel shows; with an ingenious and new cruelty he would rather kill the wounded man, taking away the hope of salvation, denying the Father's mercy, rejecting the brother's repentance. It is astonishing how many bitter, harsh, and perverse things there are. But one more easily sees the speck in another's eye than the beam in his own. But, dearest brothers, let not the headlong madness of this faithless heretic move or disturb us. Though he stands in so great a crime of dissension and schism and is separated from the church, he does not hesitate, with sacrilegious rashness, to turn his own crimes back upon us. For though he has now made himself unclean, defiled with sacrilegious filth, he now contends that it is we who are so. And though it is written that the dogs will remain outside, and the apostle taught that these same dogs are to be avoided, as we read, for he says, “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers,” he does not cease to stir up his rage with barking, and, like the wolves, to wish for a gloomy darkness in which, in a dark cave, with his wild cruelty, he may easily tear the sheep snatched from the shepherd. He declares that he and those he gathers are gold. Nor do we doubt that the deserters of the church, having become apostates, could now easily have been turned into gold, but into that gold in which the first sins of the people of Israel were marked. But the vessels of gold and silver that were shaken out of the Egyptians remain in the Lord's possession, that is, in the church of Christ. If you had remained in that house, Novatian, you would perhaps have been a precious vessel too; but now you neither understand nor lament that you have been turned into chaff and stubble.

Why, then, are you puffed up by empty things? You are gaining losses rather than profits. Why do you think yourself rich since you have become poorer? Hear in the Apocalypse the Lord's voice rebuking you with just reproaches: “You say, I am rich and have grown wealthy and need nothing; and you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable and blind and poor and naked.” Whoever, with blind reason, has left the church of Christ and does not fear to turn to those rash leaders of schisms and authors of dissension, let him be sure that he possesses these riches, this wealth of poverty. John calls them antichrists; the evangelist likens them to chaff; the Lord Christ calls them thieves and robbers, as he himself declares in the Gospel, saying: “Whoever has not entered the sheepfold by the door but climbs in another way is a thief and a robber.” And in the same Gospel he also says: “All who came are thieves and robbers.” Who are these, if not deserters of the faith and transgressors against the church of God, who strive against God's ordinance? The Holy Spirit rightly rebukes them through the prophet, saying: “You have made a plan, but not through me, and a design, but not through my Spirit, to add sins upon sins.” What can these most perverse Novatianists, now an unhappy few, answer to this, who have burst out into such madness of fury that they have had reverence neither for God nor for man? Among them a bishopric is sought shamelessly and without any law of ordination; among us it is renounced, along with one's own see and the chair handed down by God. There the truth applies: “They despise me while they sacrifice to me; they do not offer the holy offerings of the sons of Israel, nor do they come near to offer the holy of holies, but they will receive their shame in the error in which they have erred.” Let it be enough to have shown briefly what they are. Hear, then, Novatianists, among whom the heavenly Scriptures are read rather than understood, and that openly, … if they are not falsified. For your ears are closed and your hearts blinded, you who admit no light from the spiritual and saving warnings, as Isaiah says: “The servants of God have been blinded.” And rightly blinded, because the will of schismatics is not in the law, the law that points us to one single church, namely in that ark which was built by God's providence under Noah before the flood, in which we find that not only clean animals but also unclean were shut in (so that you may have a quick answer, Novatian). That ark alone, with those who were in it, was saved on the water, while the rest, who were not found in it, perished in the flood. From that ark, then, two birds were sent out, the raven and the dove. The raven truly bore the figure of unclean people, who would be in perpetual darkness, of future apostates walking the broad way of the world, feeding on unclean things, and never turning back to the church; for, as we find in reading, it was sent out and did not return. So whoever are found like this bird, that is, the unclean spirit, will not be able to return to the church any more; and even if they wish to, the Lord will forbid it, who commanded Moses, saying: “Cast every spotted and unclean thing outside the camp.” But the dove, sent out, is shown to have returned at once, because it had no rest for its feet; Noah received it into the ark, and after the seventh day sent it out again and received it back carrying an olive leaf in its mouth.

And I, dearest brothers, not thinking these things rashly nor agreeing with human wisdom, but as by the Lord's heavenly favor it is granted to conceive them in our minds, necessarily and fittingly, say that the dove signifies by itself a twofold figure to us. The first and chief is its own, that is, the spiritual figure …, which it has held from of old, that is, from the beginning of the divine dispensation; and by its mouth it foreshows the sacrament of baptism, which was provided for the salvation of the human race and granted by a heavenly plan to be celebrated by the church alone. For, sent out three times from the ark, flying through the air over the water, it signified even then the sacraments of our church. Hence the Lord Christ commands Peter and his other disciples too, saying: “Go, preach the gospel to the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”; that is, that the Trinity which worked figuratively through the dove under Noah may now work spiritually through us in the church.

Let us now take the second character of the dove sent out from the ark, namely at the time of the flood, when all the deeps burst forth and the floodgates of heaven were opened over the earth because of the crimes of men, which were growing daily before the Lord, as Moses said: “And the Lord God saw that the wickedness of men had overflowed on the earth, and that all were mindful of evil from the beginning of their days; and he said: I will destroy man whom I have made from the face of the earth, from man to beast, and from the creeping things to the birds of heaven.” The dove, then, was sent out from the ark at the time of the deluge, while the waters were violently assailing the earth over the whole world.

That ark, as we said above, bore the figure of the church, which was beaten on this side and that by the rising waters. That deluge which happened under Noah, then, showed the figure of the persecution that has lately been poured out over the whole world. And the waters, gathering from every side when the floodgates had burst, and rising, signified the nations that have risen up to lay waste the church, as the Apocalypse teaches, saying: “The waters that you saw are peoples and nations and kingdoms.” But the dove that could not find rest for its feet bore the image of the lapsed, who fell, forgetful of the divine preaching, either through simple ignorance or through bold pretense; and the Lord had foretold their ruin in the Gospel in these words: “Whoever hears my words and does not do them, I will liken him to a foolish man who built his house on sand; the storms came and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was its ruin.” And lest we seem to have been rash in comparing that dove to the image of the lapsed, the prophet too rebukes the city as a dove, that is, as the person of the lapsed, saying: “The dove did not hear the voice,” that is, the illustrious and redeemed city did not receive teaching, “and did not trust in the Lord.”

That the dove, as we said above, could not find rest for its feet signified the footsteps of those who denied, that is, of those who sacrificed, wounded by the poison of the slippery serpent and turned to a fall: footsteps that could no longer mount upon the asp and the basilisk, or tread on the dragon and the lion. This power the Lord gave to his disciples, as he says in the Gospel: “Behold, I give you power to tread upon every power of the enemy, and upon serpents and scorpions, and they will not harm you.” Since, then, so many and such great evil spirits were attacking and rising up to slaughter the lapsed, a way of salvation was provided for the wounded: that with whatever strength they had they might drag themselves with their whole body and be received back into their camp, where, once received, they could heal their wounds with spiritual remedies. So the dove was received back, and after a few days had passed it was sent out again from the ark; and returning, it showed not only firm footsteps but also the tokens of its peace and victory, the olive leaves it carried in its mouth. That double sending out, then, shows us a double trial of persecution: the first, in which the lapsed were conquered and fell; the second, in which these same people who had fallen came out victors. For none of us is in doubt or uncertainty, dearest brothers, that those who were wounded in the first battle, that is, in the Decian persecution, afterward, in the second battle, persevered so bravely that, despising the edicts of worldly rulers, they held to this unconquered: they did not fear, after the example of the good shepherd, to lay down their life and shed their blood, nor did they shrink from any savagery of the raging tyrant.

See how glorious, how dear to the Lord are those whom these schismatics do not hesitate to call wood, hay, and stubble! Their equals, that is, those who still remain in the same crime of their lapse, they presume must not be admitted to penance, on the basis of the Lord's pronouncement: “Whoever denies me before men, I will deny him before my Father who is in heaven.” Alas! Why do they contend against the Lord's decrees, so that what Christ will do at the time of his judgment, this brood of Novatian, following the example of their father the devil, now tries to carry out, although Scripture says: “Vengeance is mine, and I will repay, says the Lord”?

We shall answer them also about that pronouncement of the Lord which they understand badly and interpret badly for themselves. For when he says, “Whoever denies me before men, I too will deny him before my Father who is in heaven,” it certainly refers to the future time: the time when the Lord will begin to judge the secrets of men, the time when we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, the time when many will begin to say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and drive out demons in your name, and in your name, Lord, do many mighty works?” And then they will hear the voice of the Lord saying: “Depart from me, all you who have worked iniquity; I do not know you.” Then will be fulfilled what he says: “I too will deny them.” And whom will the Lord Christ deny above all, if not all of you heretics and schismatics, strangers to his name? For you who were once Christians and are now Novatianists, no longer Christians, have exchanged your first faith for later treachery by the name you go by. I would like you now to answer this argument of ours. Read, and show us whom the Lord denied, among those who had left him or denied him, while he was still here. On the contrary, he said to the rest of the disciples who had stayed with him: “Do you also want to go away?” And Peter, of whom he had foretold that he would deny him, the Lord himself did not deny when he had denied him, but bore with him, and afterward himself comforted him as he wept bitterly over his denial.

What madness is this of yours, Novatian, that you read only what makes for the ruin of salvation and pass over what makes for mercy, though Scripture cries out and says: “Repent, you who go astray; turn in heart”; and though another prophet likewise exhorts and says: “And turn to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments; turn to the Lord your God, for he is merciful and compassionate and of great mercy”?

Since we have heard that the Lord is of great mercy, let us hear what the Holy Spirit testifies through David: “If his sons forsake my law and do not walk in my commandments, and if they profane my statutes and do not keep my precepts, I will visit their crimes with the rod and their offenses with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them.” We read that the Lord said similar things through Ezekiel: “Son of man, the house of Israel dwelt on their land and defiled it with their crimes; their uncleanness before my face was like that of a menstruous woman. I poured out my wrath upon them and scattered them among the nations and judged them according to their sins, because they defiled my holy name. And because it was said of them, This is the people of the Lord, I spared them for the sake of my holy name, which the house of Israel despised among the nations.” And continuing he says: “Therefore say to the people of Israel: Thus says the Lord: It is not for your sake that I spare you, house of Israel, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have defiled among the nations, I will spare you; and you will know that I am the Lord, when I am sanctified in you.” Likewise the Lord to the same prophet: “Son of man, say to the people of Israel: Why have you spoken, saying, We are wasting away in our errors, and how shall we be saved? Say to them: As I live, says the Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but rather that the sinner should turn from his most wicked way and live. Return, then, from your most wicked way. Why do you hand yourselves over to death, house of Israel?” So also through the prophet Isaiah: “I will not be angry with you for ever, nor will I always leave you undefended.” And since the prophet Jeremiah, in the person of the sinful people, entreats the Lord, saying: “Correct us, Lord, but in judgment and not in anger, lest you make us few,” Isaiah added and said: “Because of sin I grieved him a little, and struck him, and turned my face from him; and he was grieved and went away sad in his ways”; and because he does good works, he added and said: “I have seen his ways and healed him, and given him true encouragement, peace upon peace.” … that those who repent, entreat, and do good works can be restored, even those who have perished miserably and turned away from Christ.

This is proved, finally, in the Gospel, where that sinful woman is described who came to the house of a certain Pharisee, where the Lord had been invited with his disciples, carrying a jar of ointment. She stood at the Lord's feet, washed his feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair, and covered them with kisses, so that the Pharisee there was stirred up and said: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who touches him, for she is a sinner.” At once the Lord, the forgiver of sins and receiver of penitents, said: “Peter, I have something to say to you.” And he answered: “Master, say it.” And the Lord said: “There were two debtors to a certain moneylender; one owed him five hundred denarii and the other fifty. And since they had nothing to pay with, he forgave them both.” And he asked: “Which of them loves more?” And Peter answered: “Surely the one to whom he forgave more.” And he added, saying: “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no kiss, but she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not wash my feet, but she washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not anoint my feet with oil, but she anointed them. Therefore I tell you, Peter, that her sins are forgiven her.” See, the Lord in his generous goodness remits the debt to both debtors. See him forgiving offenses; see the sinful woman repenting, weeping, entreating, and receiving forgiveness of her sins.

Blush now, if that is possible, Novatian! Stop deceiving the unwary with your impious arguments; stop terrifying them with the rule of a single chapter. We read and revere and do not pass over the Lord's heavenly sentence, in which he said that he would deny the one who denies him; but the one who repents as well? And why should I be eager to prove his mercies point by point at such length? God's mercy was not denied to the Ninevites, foreigners far from the Lord's law, when they entreated him because the overthrow of their city had been announced. Even to Pharaoh, who resisted him with sacrilegious rashness, when he was being struck with heavenly plagues and turned and said to Moses and his brother, “Pray for me to the Lord, for I have sinned,” God at once suspended his anger. And you, Novatian, now judge, and proclaim that the lapsed have no hope of peace and mercy, and you do not listen to the apostle rebuking you and saying: “Who are you to judge another's servant? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will stand, for God is able to make him stand.” Hence fittingly and necessarily the Holy Spirit, speaking in the person of these same lapsed, rebukes you, saying: “Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; for if I have fallen, I shall also rise; and if I walk in darkness, the Lord is my light. I will bear the anger of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, until he justifies my cause and executes justice and judgment and brings me out to the light. I shall see his justice, and my enemy will see me and will cover herself with shame.”

I ask you, have you not read: “Do not boast, and do not speak lofty things, and let no arrogance come out of your mouth, for he raises the poor from the earth and lifts the needy from the dunghill and makes him sit with the mighty of the people”? Have you not read: “You who stand, take care that you do not fall”? Have you not read that “the Lord opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”? Have you not read: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled”? Have you not read that “God has destroyed the memory of the proud and does not abandon the memory of the humble”? Have you not read that “by the judgment with which one judges, he must be judged”? Have you not read that “whoever hates his brother goes in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes”? How, then, this Novatian has become so wicked, so abandoned, so insane with the fury of discord, I cannot discover: he who, always in the one house, that is, the church of Christ, wept for his neighbors' offenses as his own, bore the burdens of the brothers, as the apostle urges, and strengthened with heavenly counsel those who were slipping in the faith. But now, since he began to practice that heresy of Cain, which desires nothing but to kill, he does not spare even himself in the end. Besides, if he had read that “the righteousness of the righteous will not deliver him on the day he goes astray, and the wickedness of the wicked will not harm him from the day he turns,” he would long ago be doing penance in ashes: he who always opposes penitents, who works more readily at the ruin of what is built and standing than at the rebuilding of ruins lying fallen; who has made many of our most wretched brothers heathens again, terrifying them with his false objections by saying that the penance of the lapsed is vain and cannot profit them for salvation. Yet Scripture cries out and says: “Remember from where you have fallen, and repent; otherwise I will come to you, unless you repent.” And indeed, writing to the seven churches and charging each with its own crimes and offenses, he said: “Repent.” To whom? Surely to those whom he had redeemed at the great price of his own blood.

O impious and wicked man, heretic Novatian! After so many and such great crimes committed willingly in the church in the past by certain people, which you yourself knew of in the house of God before you became an apostate, and which you had taught could be blotted from memory when good deeds followed, according to the faith of Scripture, which says, “If the wicked man turns from all his crimes that he has committed and follows righteousness, he shall live eternal life and shall not die in his crime” (for the offenses he has committed will be blotted from memory when good deeds follow): you today question whether the wounds of the lapsed ought to be healed, who fell, stripped by the devil, through the violence of the water that the serpent poured from his mouth after the woman. But what shall I say? The apostle says: “Shall I praise you? In this I do not praise you, because you come together not for the better but for the worse.” “For where there are jealousy and dissension among you, are you not carnal and walking in a merely human way?” Nor should we wonder why this Novatian now dares to do such abominable and grievous things against the lapsed, since we have earlier examples of this betrayal. Saul, good above the rest, was afterward overthrown by envy and set about doing everything hostile and adverse against David. Judas, chosen among the apostles, always of one mind and faithful in the house of God, afterward himself betrayed God. The Lord had indeed foretold that many would come, ravenous wolves in sheep's skins. Who are these ravenous wolves, if not those who conspire with crafty minds to harass the flock of Christ? As we read in Zechariah: “Behold, I raise up a shepherd in the land who will not visit what has turned away, and will eat the flesh of the chosen, and will twist their ankles.” Likewise through Ezekiel he rebukes such shepherds, robbers and butchers, if I may say so, saying: “O shepherds, why do you drink the milk and eat the curds, and have brought the strong to nothing, and have not visited the weak, nor healed the lame, nor called back the straying, and have let my people wander among thorns and thistles? Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I will come against the shepherds and seek my sheep from their hands, and I will drive them off so that they do not feed my sheep, and my sheep shall no longer be food for them. And I will seek them out as a shepherd seeks his flock on a day of darkness and cloud; so I will seek out my sheep, and seek them from every place where they have been scattered; and what had perished I will seek, what had strayed I will call back, what was lame I will heal, what is weak I will guard, and I will feed my sheep with judgment.”

Who says these things? Surely he who left the ninety-nine sheep and sought the one that had strayed from his flock, as David says, “I have gone astray like a sheep that is lost”; and when he had found it, Christ brought back the tender sinner carrying it on his shoulder, and, rejoicing and exulting, he called his friends and household and said: “Rejoice with me, for my sheep that was lost has been found. I tell you,” he says, “that there will be such joy in heaven over a sinner who repents.” And he adds: “Or what woman, having ten denarii, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp and sweep her house all day, searching until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying: Rejoice with me, for I have found the denarius that I had lost. I tell you that there will be such joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” On the other hand, let those who do not repent of their crimes learn from the Lord's own answer what awaits them. For we read in the Gospel that some came to the Lord from among the Galileans, telling him about those whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices, and the Lord answered them, saying: “Do you think that those Galileans were sinners above the other Galileans, because they suffered such things? No. For I tell you,” he says, “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell, do you think that they were debtors to death above all the people who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you,” he says; “unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Let us rouse ourselves, then, as much as we can, dearest brothers, and, breaking off the sleep of idleness and false security, let us keep watch to observe the Lord's precepts. Let us seek with our whole mind what we have lost, so that we may find it; for, Scripture says, to the one who seeks it will be given, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Let us cleanse our house with spiritual cleanness, so that all the secret and hidden places of our heart, lit by the true light of the gospel, may say: “Against you alone have I sinned, and done what is most wicked in your sight.” For the death of sinners is evil, and in the underworld there is no repentance. Let us keep above all before our eyes the day of judgment and recompense, and this must be believed and firmly held by all of us, that there is no partiality with God, since he commanded in Deuteronomy that no partiality be shown in judgment: “You shall not show partiality,” he says, “nor judge according to the least or according to the greatest.” He said similar things through Ezekiel: “All souls,” he says, “are mine, the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son; the soul that sins shall die.” He, then, is to be revered by us, he is to be held to, he is to be propitiated by our full and worthy confession, who has power to send soul and body into the gehenna of fire, as it is written: “Behold, he comes with many thousands of his messengers to execute judgment on all, and to destroy all the ungodly, and to convict all flesh of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have done ungodly, and of all the ungodly words that sinners have spoken against God.”

Daniel says similar things: “I saw,” he says, “a throne set, and the Ancient of Days sat on it, and his clothing was like snow, and the hair of his head like white wool; his throne was a flame of fire, its wheels burning fire. A river of fire came out before him; thousands of thousands served him, and thousands of thousands stood before him. He sat for judgment, and the books were opened.” And John declares still more plainly about the day of judgment and the consummation of the world, saying: “And when he had opened the sixth seal, behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became like blood, and the stars fell to the earth, as a fig tree shaken by a great wind drops its unripe figs; and the sky vanished like a scroll that is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved from its place. And the kings of the earth and all the great ones and the tribunes and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves of the rocks and in the hollows of the mountains, saying to the mountains and the rocks: Fall on us and hide us from the face of the Father who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the day of destruction has come, and who will be able to stand?” Likewise in the same Apocalypse John says that this too was revealed to him: “I saw,” he says, “a great white throne and one sitting on it, from whose face heaven and earth fled, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne of the Lord, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the book of life; and each was judged according to what was written in the book, according to their works.” And the apostle too, counseling us well, exhorts us thus: “Let no one deceive you with empty words; for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Do not be partners with them.”

Let us, then, with all the strength of our faith give praise to God; let us make full confession, since the powers of heaven rejoice over our repentance, all the angels rejoice, and Christ rejoices too, who with full and gentle moderation urges us, again loaded with sins and overwhelmed by offenses, to cease from crime, saying: “Turn and come back from your impieties, and your iniquities will not be your punishment. Cast away from you all the impieties that you have committed against me, and make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit. Why do you hand yourselves over to death, house of Israel? For I do not desire the death of the sinner.” “It is I, it is I, who blot out your crimes, and I will not remember you. But you, keep it in mind, and let us plead together. Tell your crimes first, that you may be justified.” While the way to indulgence lies open, brothers, let us entreat God with full satisfactions. Let us humble ourselves, that we may be exalted. Let us rest in the divine exhortation, by which we may escape the day and the wrath of the Lord. For it says: “Look, son, at the generations of men, and know: who has hoped in the Lord and been put to shame? Who has remained in his commandments and been forsaken? Or who has called upon him and been despised by him? For the Lord is kind and merciful, and in the time of tribulation forgives sins to all who seek him in truth.” It says, then: “Tell your crimes first, that you may be justified.” Let that prayer of confession, full …