By Water & Blood

On Novatus

Novatus was a presbyter of the Church of the Romans. When a very fierce storm fell upon the churches, it happened that some who had been reared in piety, after many tortures, grew weary and made use of the words of denial. When calm came, these begged to obtain the medicines of repentance. And indeed it seemed good to the best shepherds to fear the Master’s accusation that says, “O shepherds, you did not bind up the crushed, and you did not turn back the wandering, and you did not raise up the fallen”; and to stretch out a hand to the fallen and to strengthen them according to the Master’s command. For to the great Peter the Lord said: “Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat; and I begged concerning you, that your faith may not fail.”

Novatus was not pleased with these counsels, but spoke openly against them, saying that those who had denied ought not to obtain salvation—doing much like those who prevent the sick from enjoying medical remedies. Those who begged to obtain healing refuted him: that though often called to run to them and at least to support with words those struck by the tyrant’s devices, he hid and tried to escape notice, and even denied that he was a presbyter. Yet even after hearing these words, the bishops who had gathered at Rome tried to persuade him to agree with what had seemed best. But when they saw him raging and legislating God-hated cruelty, they separated him from the body of the Church, Cornelius then steering Rome.

This Novatus, having persuaded a few, and those very easily numbered, to share the heresy, went out into Italy, and having deceived three bishops of little towns he brought them, as if they would plead for him before the bishop of Rome. Coming with them to a certain village, he compelled them to grant him episcopal ordination; and they themselves lamented this violence when they reached Rome and reported what had happened. Having thus stolen the ordination, the wretched man became leader of the heresy. Those of his own company he named not only Novatianists but also Cathari. And he did not even fear the accusation of the Master God, which he made against certain ones saying, “Those who say, ‘I am pure; do not touch me’”; and he added, “He himself is smoke of my wrath; a fire burns in him all the days.” For the Lord arrays himself against the proud.

His successors also added other things to the doctrine: for they drive from the sacred mysteries those who have entered second marriages; and they utterly exile the doctrine of repentance from their own assemblies; and to those baptized by them they do not offer the all-holy chrism. Therefore the all-renowned Fathers also ordered that those from this heresy who are joined to the body of the Church be anointed. Against this heresy Cornelius wrote many letters, and Dionysius, bishop of the Alexandrians, many, and many other bishops of that time, through which Novatus’s cruelty at once became plain to all.