Novatian of Rome (Full Script)

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Novatian of Rome

Post-Apostolic Church

INTRO

Novatian was an overseer in Rome and later in southern Italy.  He wrote between AD 235-260.

LIFE

At a young age, Novatian was converted from a deep belief in Stoicism.  (This was a Greek philosophical religion that taught that happiness comes through intellectual perfection and virtuous living.)  Novatian was the first Christian writer from Rome to write in Latin.

During the severe persecution under Emperor Decius, many Christians compromised and sacrificed or burned incense to Roman gods.  These was a division in the Roman presbytery over how to handle these Christians when they wanted to return to the church.  Like Hippolytus a generation before, Novatian took a strict stance, saying that the church should not endorse weak church discipline.

When the time came to appoint a new bishop of Rome, Cornelius--who was not strict in the practice of church discipline--was chosen instead of Novatian who was the most likely candidate.  In protest, Novatian and five other overseers left Rome and began a rival church to the Roman church.  Because of this, many bishops, such as Firmilian in Cappadocia and Cyprian in Carthage, opposed Novatian, when beforehand, they had great respect for him.

Novatian was excommunicated from the church and began a new sect that sought to return to more serious Christian practices.  His followers called themselves Purists while the mainstream church called them Novatianists.  They quickly spread throughout the whole Roman Empire but dissipated around AD 400.  Their beliefs were identical to the beliefs of the mainstream church, except that they preached that those who compromised by sacrificing or burning incense to the gods were not allowed back into the church at all.

Novatian has left us with many beautiful and powerful writings about God and the church.  His schism was a sad ordeal.  Because of it, most of the writings about Novatian himself come from his opponents.

QUOTATIONS AGAINST NOVATIAN

An unknown opponent of Novatian wrote about his life while he was still an overseer in Rome,

Novatian... always in one household--that is, [while he was in] the Church of Christ--would have mourned over the sins of his neighbors as his own, he would have borne the burdens of his brethren as the apostle exhorts,* and he would have strengthened the weak in the faith with heavenly counsel.  (Treatise Against the Heretic Novatian.  AD 255.  ANF, 5.661.)

* See Gal 6:2.

Other Pre-Nicene Christians, who were Novatian's opponents, wrote,

Disturbed by the wickedness of an unlawful ordination made in opposition to the Universal Church, we considered at once that they [the Novatianists] must be restrained from communion with us.  (Cyprian.  AD 250.  ANF, vol 5, page 319.)

They [the Novatianists] are striving here [in Carthage] also to distract the members of Christ into schismatic parties and to cut and tear the one body of the Universal Church.  (Cyprian.  AD 250.  ANF, vol 5, page 319.)

In spite of God's tradition, in spite of the combined and everywhere-compacted unity of the Universal Church, [Novatian] is endeavoring to make a human church and is sending his new apostles through very many cities, that he may establish some new foundations of his own ordination.  (Cyprian.  AD 250.  ANF, vol 5, page 333.)

This quote from Cyprian shows that Novatian did indeed begin a new church apart from the Universal Church he was once part of.

The Novatians re-baptize those whom they entice from us.  (Cyprian.  AD 250.  ANF, vol 5, page 380.)

Beloved brethren, do not let the abrupt madness of that treacherous heretic move or disturb us.  Although he is placed in such great guilt of dissension and schism and is separated from the Church, he does not hold back from hurling in return his charges upon us with profane recklessness.  For although he is now made unclean by himself, defiled with the filth of profaneness, he contends that we are so.  (Treatise against Novatian.  AD 255.  ANF, vol 5, pages 657.)

We rightly reject Novatian, who has divided the Church and drawn away some of the brethren to impiety and blasphemies.  (Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria.  AD 260.  ANF, vol 6, page 103.)