Evils That Forced Separation

Novatian was a kind of minister who refused to take any part in the apostasy. His character, and some of the evils that forced him to separate from the main body, are set forth by Robinson: Novatian was “a man of extensive learning, and held the same doctrine as the church did, and published several treatises in defense of what he believed. His address was eloquent and insinuating, and his morals were irreproachable. He saw with extreme pain the intolerable depravity of the church. Christians, within the space of a very few years, were caressed by one emperor and persecuted by another. In seasons of prosperity, many rushed into the church for base purposes. In times of adversity, they denied the faith, and ran back to idolatry again. When the squall was over, away they came again to the church, with all their vices, to deprave others by their examples. The bishops, fond of proselytes, encouraged all this, and transferred the attention of the Christians from the old confederacy for virtue, to vain shows at Easter, and other Jewish ceremonies, adulterated too with paganism…. In the end, Novatian formed a church, and was elected bishop. Great numbers followed his example, and all over the empire Puritan churches were constituted and flourished through the succeeding two hundred years. Afterward, when penal laws obliged them to lurk in corners, and worship God in private, they were distinguished by a variety of names, and a succession of them continued till the Reformation.”—“Ecclesiastical Researches,” Robert Robinson, p. 126. Cambridge: Francis Hodson, 1792.AGP 202.1

Of the surprising extent of this body, we read:AGP 202.2

“With respect to the extension of the schismatic (Novatian) church, notice, for Spain, Pacian; for Gaul, the polemical work of Bishop Reticius of the fourth century; for Upper Italy, Ambrose (De poenitentia); for Rome, where in the fifth century, the Novatians had a bishop and many churches, Socrates (Hist. Eccl., V. 14, VII, 1, 11); for Mauritania, Alexandria (where they also had a bishop and several churches), Syria, Paphlagonia, Phrygia, Bithynia, Scythia, etc., Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret. In Constantinople they had three churches; and Socrates gives the list of their bishops, with the principal events of their lives. At the Council of Nicaea the Novatian bishop Arius was present. He accepted the decisions of the council concerning the faith and the Easter controversy, and was treated with much regard by the council. But the emperor did not succeed in alluring him (the Novatian bishop) and his party back into the bosom of the church. Ten years later, however, (after the Council of Nicaea) when Constantine had somewhat changed his theological views, he placed the Novatians in rank with the Marcionites and Valentinians, forbade them to worship in public, closed their (heretical) churches, and ordered their books to be burnt. During the Arian controversy the relation between the Novatians and the Catholic Church was generally good, as the former showed no inclination towards that heresy. But the danger was hardly over, before the Catholic Church began persecutions. In Rome, Innocent I closed their churches, and Celestine I forbade them to worship in public.” “Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge” (three-volume edition, 1889), Vol. II, art., “Novatian,” p. 1672.