Testimony of Novatian, a Roman Presbyter

Novatian, who wrote about A. D. 250, is accounted the founder of the sect called Cathari, or Puritans. He tried to resist some of the gross corruptions of the church of Rome. He wrote a treatise on the Sabbath, which is not extant. There is no reference to Sunday in any of his writings. In his treatise “On the Jewish Meats,” he speaks of the Sabbath thus:-TFTC 90.1

“But how perverse are the Jews, and remote from the understanding of their law, I have fully shown, as I believe, in two former letters, wherein it was absolutely proved that they are ignorant of what is the true circumcision, and what the true Sabbath.” Chapter 1.TFTC 90.2

If we contrast the doctrine of the Pharisees concerning the Sabbath with the teaching of the Saviour, or with that of Isaiah in his fifty-eighth chapter, we shall not think Novatian far from the truth in his views of the Jewish people. In his treatise “Concerning the Trinity” is the following allusion to the Sabbath:-TFTC 90.3

“For in the manner that as man he is of Abraham, so also as God he is before Abraham himself. And in the same manner as he is as man the ‘Son of David,’ so as God he is proclaimed David’s Lord. And in the same manner as he was made as man ‘under the laws,’ so as God he is declared to be ‘Lord of the Sabbath.’” Chapter 11.TFTC 90.4

These are the only references to the Sabbath in what remains of the writings of Novatian. He makes the following striking remarks concerning the moral law:-TFTC 90.5

“The law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose, that they might profit by it, and RETURN to those virtuous manners, which, although they have received them from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt by reason of their intercourse with a barbarous people. Finally, also, those ten commandments on the tables teach nothing new, but remind them of what had been obliterated - that righteousness in them, which had been put to sleep, might revive again as it were by the afflatus of the law, after the manner of a fire [nearly extinguished].” - On the Jewish Meats, chap 3.TFTC 91.1

It is therefore certain that in the judgment of Novatian, the ten commandments enjoined nothing that was not sacredly regarded by the patriarchs before that Jacob went down into Egypt. It follows, therefore, that in his opinion the Sabbath was made, not at the fall of the manna, but when God sanctified the seventh day, and that holy men from the earliest ages observed it. The Sunday festival with its varied names and titles he never mentions.TFTC 91.2