NOVATIANUS

This article appears in Volume V19, Page 832 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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NOVATIANUS , Roman presbyter, and one of the earliest antipopes, founder of the sect of the Novatiani or Novatians, was born about the beginning of the 3rd century. On the authority of Philostorgius (H.E. viii. 15) he has been called a native of Phrygia, but perhaps the historian merely intended to indicate the persistence of Novatianism in Phrygia at the time when he wrote. Little is known of his life, and that only from his opponents. His conversion is said to have taken place after an intense mental struggle; he _was baptized by sprinkling, and without episcopal confirmation, when in hourly expectation of death; and on his recovery his Christianity retained all the gioomy character of its earliest stages. He was ordained at Rome by

Fabian

FABIAN [FABIANUS], SAINT (d. 250)

, or perhaps by an earlier

bishop

; and during the Decian persecution he maintained the view which excluded from ecclesiastical communion all those (lapsi) who after

baptism

BAPTISM

had sacrificed to idolsa view which had frequently found expression, and had caused the schism of Hippolytus.

Bishop

Fabian

FABIAN [FABIANUS], SAINT (d. 250)

suffered martyrdom in January 25o, and, when Corneliuswas elected his successor in

March

or April 251, Novatian objected on account of his known laxity on the above-mentioned point of discipline, and allowed himself to be consecrated bishop by the minority who shared his views. He and his followers were excommunicated by the synod held at Rome in October of the same year. He is said by Socrates (H.11. iv. 28) to have suffered martyrdom under Valerian. After his death the Novatians spread rapidly over the empire; they called them-selves KaOapoi, or Puritans, and rebaptized their converts from the Catholic view. The eighth canon of the council of Nice provides in a liberal spirit for the readmission of the clergy of the KaOapoi to the Catholic

Church

, and the sect finally disappeared some two centuries after its origin. Novatian has sometimes been confounded with his contemporary Novatus, a Carthaginian presbyter, who held similar views.
Novatian was the first Roman Christian who wrote to any considerable extent in Latin. Of his numerous writings three are extant: (1) a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the
alphabet
- ALPHABET (see also WRITING)
; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

written in the name of the Roman clergy to Cyprian in 25o; (2) a treatise in thirty-one chapters, De trinitate; (3) a

letter

LETTER (through Fr. lettre from Lat. littera or litera, letter of the
alphabet
- ALPHABET (see also WRITING)
; the origin of the Latin word is obscure; it has probably no connexion with the root of linere, to smear, i.e. with wax, for an inscription with a stilus)

written at the request of the Roman laity, De cibis
judaicis. They are well-arranged compositions, written in an elegant and vigorous style. The best editions are by Welchman (

Oxford

, 1724) and by Jackson (London. 1728); they are translated in vol. ii. of Cyprian's works in the Ante-Nicene Theol. Libr. (Edinburgh, 1869). The Novatian controversy can be advantageously studied in the Epistles of Cyprian.

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