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NOVATIANUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V19, Page 832 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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NOVATIANUS , See also:

Roman See also:presbyter, and one of the earliest antipopes, founder of the See also:sect of the Novatiani or Novatians, was See also:born about the beginning of the 3rd See also:century. On the authority of Philostorgius (H.E. viii. 15) he has been called a native of See also:Phrygia, but perhaps the historian merely intended to indicate the persistence of Novatianism in Phrygia at the See also:time when he wrote. Little is known of his See also:life, and that only from his opponents. His See also:conversion is said to have taken See also:place after an intense See also:mental struggle; he _was baptized by sprinkling, and without episcopal See also:confirmation, when in hourly expectation of See also:death; and on his recovery his See also:Christianity retained all the gioomy See also:character of its earliest stages. He was ordained at See also:Rome by See also:Fabian, or perhaps by an earlier See also:bishop; and during the Decian persecution he maintained the view which excluded from ecclesiastical communion all those (lapsi) who after See also:baptism had sacrificed to idols—a view which had frequently found expression, and had caused the See also:schism of See also:Hippolytus. Bishop Fabian suffered martyrdom in See also:January 25o, and, when Corneliuswas elected his successor in See also:March or See also:April 251, Novatian objected on See also: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 See also:synod held at Rome in See also:October of the same See also:year. He is said by See also:Socrates (H.11. iv. 28) to have suffered martyrdom under See also:Valerian. After his death the Novatians spread rapidly over the See also:empire; they called them-selves KaOapoi, or Puritans, and rebaptized their converts from the See also:Catholic view. The eighth See also:canon of the See also:council of See also:Nice provides in a liberal spirit for the readmission of the See also:clergy of the KaOapoi to the Catholic See also: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 See also:

Christian who wrote to any considerable extent in Latin. Of his numerous writings three are extant: (1) a See also:letter written in the name of the Roman clergy to See also:Cyprian in 25o; (2) a See also:treatise in See also:thirty-one chapters, De trinitate; (3) a letter written at the See also:request of the Roman laity, De cibis judaicis. They are well-arranged compositions, written in an elegant and vigorous See also:style. The best See also:editions are by Welchman (See also:Oxford, 1724) and by See also:Jackson (See also:London. 1728); they are translated in vol. ii. of Cyprian's See also:works in the Ante-Nicene Theol. Libr. (See also:Edinburgh, 1869). The Novatian controversy can be advantageously studied in the Epistles of Cyprian.

End of Article: NOVATIANUS

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