The works of Nathaniel Lardner - The Christian Researcher - Home

NovATus. A. D. 251. 79
* the"^ bigh-priest, Of prayer, Of Jewish meats, [another"^
' piece, the title of which 1 do not understand,] Concerning
* Attains ; and many others ; and, Of the Trinity, a large
' volume, being a kind of epitome of a work of Tertullian.
' Many by mistake consider this as a work of Cyprian.'
There is another authentic account of Novatus in the fragments
of the before-mentioned long letter of Cornelius to
Fabius, bishop of Antioch, which we have preserved
in Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History. As it is the usual
method of this work to take the history of writers, as often
as we can, from contemporaries, it is fit we should hear
Cornelius.
In this letter, written after the council of Rome, where
Novatus and his principles had been condemned, near the
end of the year 251, or at the beginning of 252, Cornelius
informs Fabius, that several of those, who had sided with
Novatus, had now deserted him. ' 3Iaximus,' says*^ he, ' a
' presbyter among us, and Urbanus, who have acquired
' great honour by the confessions they have made of our
* religion; and Sidonius, and Celerinus, a man who, through
' the divine mercy, has patiently endured all kinds of tor-
' ments, and by the strength of his faith, surmounting the
' weakness of his body, completely vanquished the enemy
' all these, he*^ says, having detected Novatus's subtilty, his
' lies, perjuries, unsociable and wolfish disposition, were
* returned to the holy church, giving proofs of all these
' things in the presence of divers bishops and presbyters,
' and a great number of the laity ; lamenting and confessing
' their fault, that, being seduced, they had for a time with-
* drawn themselves from the church.' And soon afiter, as
Eusebius says, Cornelius adds; ' Thiss wonderful man, this
' zealous defender of church discipline in all its strictness,
' when he had determined to seize the episcopate, which was
' not assigned him by heaven, chose out two of his associates,
* men of an abandoned character: these he sent into an
' obscure corner of Italy, to fetch thence three bishops, sim-
' pie and illiterate men, whom they persuaded to believe that,
* a difference having arisen at Rome, they ought by all means
' to hasten thither to assist as mediators, together with other
*= Of the high priest.] In the Latin, de Sacerdote. But whether my trans-
lation be right, I cannot say. Du Pin translates, du Souverain Pontife; Tillemont,
sur le Pontife. ^ Another piece, the title of which I
do not understand.] In the Latin of Jerom, de Instantia : in the Greek version
of Sophroniiis, Trtpt riov tvf^wTwv : by Du Pin translated, de la Fer-
mere,; by Tillemont, sur I'lnstance. ^ Ap. Euseb. H. E. 1. vi.
cap. 43. p. 242. D. f Ibid. p. 243. A.
« Ibid. C. D. et p. 244.
;