Novatianism in the early church

Novatian's schism and the Novatianists (Cathari). Part of Heresy.

Letter 44.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian tells Cornelius, the new bishop of Rome, that he refused communion to envoys of Novatian, who had been made a rival bishop, once reliable witnesses confirmed Cornelius's lawful ordination.
Letter 49.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cornelius reports with joy that the confessors misled by Novatian have come back, admitting that they signed his slanderous letters and consented to his ordination.
Letter 50.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cornelius warns that Novatian has sent Nicostratus, Novatus, Evaristus and others to Africa, and describes their crimes.
Letter 52.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Evaristus has lost his see and Nicostratus his diaconate after robbing the church; one who has denied Christ's bride, the church, cannot call himself a confessor of Christ.
Letter 52.2Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian describes Novatus as a lifelong troublemaker who stirred schism at Carthage and then at Rome, robbed widows and orphans, neglected his dying father, and caused his wife's miscarriage by a kick.
Letter 55.24Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Whatever Novatian teaches, he is outside the church and not a bishop: the episcopate is one, spread through many bishops in concord, and he who breaks from it has neither the power nor the honor of a bishop.
Letter 59.9Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian explains why he had not hastened to report the schismatic bishop Fortunatus, one of five excommunicated presbyters: the African bishops had already sent Rome the list of lawful bishops, and his letter was overtaken by Felicissimus.
Letter 68.1Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian tells Stephen of Rome that Marcianus, bishop of Arles, has joined Novatian and refuses reconciliation to penitent lapsed.
Letter 68.2Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Cyprian urges Stephen to write to the bishops of Gaul so that Marcianus, who follows the long-excommunicated Novatian, is no longer treated as in communion.
Letter 68.4Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Shepherds who neglect wounded sheep stand under Ezekiel's threat; though bishops are many, they feed one flock, and Marcianus, who spurns the penitent, must be judged, not judge.
Letter 69.3Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · Only the church can baptize; since Cornelius was the lawful bishop of Rome, Novatian, who succeeded no one, is outside the church and no bishop.
Letter 73.2Cyprian of Carthage · 249/250–258 · That Novatian's followers rebaptize Catholics is no reason for the church to give up baptizing converts; he merely apes the church.
Against Novatian 1Anonymous · after 251 (disputed) · The anonymous bishop, troubled over the lapsed who have long been doing penance, attacks Novatian, who refuses them any hope of reconciliation and has separated from the church.
Against Novatian 2Anonymous · after 251 (disputed) · Novatian's schism is poverty, not wealth; like Noah's ark, the one church holds clean and unclean alike, and the raven that never returned figures the apostates, while the returning dove figures those who come back.
Against Novatian 14Anonymous · after 251 (disputed) · Novatian once taught that grave sins could be blotted out by good deeds, yet now refuses healing to the lapsed, like Saul and Judas and the false shepherds rebuked by Zechariah and Ezekiel.
Church History 6.43.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Novatian, a Roman presbyter, denied the lapsed any hope and founded the sect of the “Pure.”
Church History 6.43.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · A Roman synod of sixty bishops excommunicated Novatian and ruled that the lapsed be restored through penance.
Church History 6.43.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Letters of Cornelius and of Cyprian confirm that the lapsed should be helped and Novatian excommunicated.
Church History 6.43.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Eusebius will quote Cornelius's letter about Novatian.
Church History 6.43.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Cornelius: Novatian long coveted the episcopate, hiding his ambition behind the confessors' support.
Church History 6.43.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Confessors who had joined Novatian returned to the church and exposed his deceit.
Church History 6.43.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Cornelius: Novatian, who swore he did not want to be bishop, suddenly appeared as one.
Church History 6.43.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Novatian lured three simple rural bishops to Rome on a false pretext.
Church History 6.43.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Cornelius asks what merit Novatian had to claim the episcopate: none of long service or suffering.
Church History 6.43.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Novatian's followers were leaving him; the martyr Moses had excommunicated him and five presbyters.
Church History 6.44.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius wrote to Fabius, who leaned toward Novatian, and told a wonderful story.
Church History 6.45.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius urged Novatian to end the schism: dying to avoid schism is a greater martyrdom than dying to avoid idolatry.
Church History 6.46.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius told Cornelius he had been invited to a synod at Antioch on the Novatianist schism.
Church History 6.46.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius wrote several letters to Rome, including to the Novatianist confessors before and after their return.
Church History 7.4.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius told Stephen that the churches had rejected Novatian and were at peace.
Church History 7.8.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Dionysius condemns Novatian for schism, for making Christ unmerciful, and for rejecting the church's baptism.
Canon 8Anonymous · 325 · Novatianist clergy (the “Cathars”) who join the church keep their rank after the laying on of hands, if they accept the church's teaching on the remarried and the lapsed.
Letters to Serapion 4.13Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · Heb 6:4–6 forbids a second baptism, not repentance, as Paul’s readmission of the Corinthian penitent shows against the Novatianists.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.3Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian rejects Sympronian’s insulting names for Cyprian’s people and presses him to admit that his sect is called Novatian.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.5Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian answers the charge that Catholics brought imperial persecution on the Novatians: Christian rulers acted on their own, as rulers in Scripture defended the righteous.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.7Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian denies that Novatian was a martyr, recounts his schism against Cornelius from Cyprian’s letters, and argues that suffering outside the church’s peace is no martyrdom.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 2.8Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian warns Sympronian against Novatian’s pride, contrasting it with the intercession of Moses and Paul for sinners, and announces his treatise on penance.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.1Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian sums up the Novatian treatise (no repentance after baptism; the church cannot forgive mortal sin) and asks by what authority Novatian, so late, could teach a new gospel.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.3Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the Novatians, separated from the church, have neither its baptism nor its Spirit, and that receiving the lapsed did not make the whole church apostate, since each dies for his own sin.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.5Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian shows from Cyprian’s letter to Antonianus that Novatian himself, before the schism, wrote the Roman letter allowing peace to dying lapsed Christians.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.6Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian tells how Novatus, fleeing trial at Carthage, urged the disappointed Novatian at Rome to set himself up as a rival bishop to Cornelius.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.19Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian turns the Novatian charges of laxity back on them, pointing to the disreputable men they received, and reads “lay hands hastily on no one” as allowing reconciliation after penance.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.21Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian mocks the Novatians’ claim to sinlessness, describes the church as a gentle dove and a mixed ark, and applies Paul’s words about Jannes and Mambres to them.
Three Letters to Sympronianus 3.26Pacian of Barcelona · ca. 360-390 · Pacian argues that the Catholic church, not the Novatians, has kept to the apostolic foundation, and that the great house of God keeps humble vessels as Christ keeps sinners.
Oration 39.18Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Against the Novatianists, Gregory defends the readmission of the repentant, citing David, Peter, the Corinthian offender, and Paul's permission for young widows to remarry.
Oration 39.19Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory rejects the Novatianist refusal to readmit the repentant, warns of the final baptism of fire, and ends with the hope that the baptized will become perfect lights before the Trinity.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 1:14–16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul's thanks that he baptized few show that baptism's grace belongs to Christ, not the baptizer, against the Novatians and Donatists.
Commentary on 1 Corinthians 6:18Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Fornication binds the soul to the flesh and sins against one's own body, the wife being a portion of the man; Ambrosiaster rejects Novatian's view that it is an unforgivable sin against Christ's body and the Holy Spirit.
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 12:21Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul fears mourning the unrepentant; that some had repented of sexual sin refutes Novatian's denial of penance and readmission for such sinners.
Commentary on 2 Timothy 2:20Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The great house is the church, which contains good and bad members, as Corinth and the temple show; Novatian wrongly makes it the world in order to claim a pure church.
Question 102, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Against Novatian, Ambrosiaster contrasts the severity with which the law of Moses began and the mercy with which Christ’s preaching began, as when he spared the woman taken in adultery.
Question 102, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The old law began in severity but later showed mercy; the new began in mercy but sometimes punished, as with Ananias, Elymas, and Herod, so that mercy would not be despised.
Question 102, section 4Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christ forgave Peter’s denial after his bitter tears; Novatian, by equating denial with the sin against the Holy Spirit, offers penance in name only.
Question 102, section 6Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · If murder and adultery can be forgiven, Novatian’s refusal to forgive sexual sin collapses; the remaining question is idolatry, and sins must be loosed in this life if at all.
Question 102, section 8Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The warning to Nineveh, the long building of the ark, the Wisdom books, and Christ’s lament over Jerusalem all show that God wants sinners to repent and live.
Question 102, section 10Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Since no one lives without sin, John promises forgiveness to Christians who confess, and God, who had mercy on his enemies, will not refuse it to his friends attacked by the devil.
Question 102, section 11Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Since no one is free of sin, denying repentance would mean no one could be saved, contrary to the joy in heaven over a penitent sinner.
Question 102, section 12Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christ said all sins except blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be forgiven, so Novatian cannot exclude sexual sin and idolatry, which are forgiven through penance or baptism.
Question 102, section 16Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Novatian holds that serious sins after baptism cannot be forgiven, but that would make the New Testament less merciful than the Old and contradict Christ, who came to save and commands us to forgive seventy times seven.
Question 102, section 20Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · The letter to Thyatira refutes Novatian twice: it offers penance for idolatry, and it shows that the wicked and the good coexist in one church without the good being defiled.
Question 102, section 23Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Novatian’s claim that he allows penance for idolatry but leaves forgiveness to God is a deception, since he holds that such a sin can never be forgiven.
Question 102, section 27Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Novatian denies that Catholics are Christians, yet they share his baptismal faith and confession, which alone makes a Christian.
Question 102, section 28Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Even if some Catholic clergy were sinful, the truth they hand on is still true, and persecutors themselves recognize Catholics as Christians by their confession, so Novatian’s schism has no just cause.
Letter 42.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Against Novatian, Jerome argues that the unforgivable sin is ascribing Christ's works to the devil, not denying Christ under torture.
Letter 42.2Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues from Peter's denial and restoration that denying Christ under pressure is forgivable, unlike calling Christ's works diabolical.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 59.1.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Cathari derive from Novatus at Rome.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 59.3.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Novatians exclude the twice-married after baptism.
Book of Heresies 82.1Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Novatians arose from Novatus.
Book of Heresies 82.2Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Novatians objected to the readmission of the lapsed.
Book of Heresies 82.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The Novatians deny repentance after baptism.
Letter 265.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine replies to Seleuciana about a Novatianist who claimed Peter was not baptized though the other apostles were.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 38.37.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ gave the apostles power to loose sins; Novatian denied it.
Commentary on Titus 1:6Jerome · ca. 387 · Jerome explains “the husband of one wife” (Titus 1:6) as the example of single marriage a bishop must give, not as making every once-married man better than the twice-married; he rejects excluding men whose first marriage was before baptism, condemns the Montanist and Novatianist ban on second marriages and Tertullian's On Monogamy, and discusses the bishop's children.
On Illustrious Men 66Jerome · 392–393 · Cornelius of Rome wrote letters to Fabius of Antioch on Novatian and the lapsed.
On Illustrious Men 70Jerome · 392–393 · Novatian led a schism at Rome against receiving the lapsed; among his works are On Jewish Foods and On the Trinity.
On Illustrious Men 82Jerome · 392–393 · Reticius of Autun wrote on the Song of Songs and against Novatian.
On Illustrious Men 106Jerome · 392–393 · Pacian of Barcelona wrote The Stag and against the Novatians.
On the Christian Struggle 33Augustine of Hippo · ca. 396–397 · Augustine rejects those who deny that the church can forgive all sins and who condemn remarried widows as adulteresses, against Paul's permission.
Letter 2, chapter 8Innocent I, bishop of Rome · 401–417 · Converts baptized by Novatianists or Montenses are received by laying on of hands, but catholics who were rebaptized by them must do long penance.
Letter 17, chapter 5Innocent I, bishop of Rome · 401–417 · Innocent argues that receiving Bonosus’s clergy in their orders was a temporary concession, that the Nicene canon on the Novatianists applies to them alone, and that those who went over to Bonosus after his condemnation cannot be clerics.
On the Good of Widowhood 6Augustine of Hippo · ca. 414 · Widowhood does not condemn second marriage, which the apostle allows, against the Montanists, the Novatianists, and Tertullian; it simply ranks higher.
On 1 Cor 7:7.40Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Theodoret notes that Paul calls the widow who remains unmarried “more blessed”, so that one who remarries is also blessed, against the Novatians who called a second marriage sexual immorality; he then introduces 1 Cor 8.
On 1 Tim 5.14Theodoret of Cyrus · ca. 436-448 · Theodoret notes that Paul wishes younger widows to remarry, against the Novatianists who reject second marriage, and that his rule was taught by experience.
Canon 9Anonymous · date disputed (between ca. 442 and 506) · Novatians are received only after penance and renouncing their error.