From A Non-catholic

[Cure of Ars]

Cure,

I ignore it. jk.

I should not have stated that nothing has ever confused me. Of course things have, the bible is a big book. But I've never had a question that I've never found an answer to. As for 1 Cor 15:29...

"If the total supremacy of God is not ultimately established, then the Gospel is worthless, and those who believe it deluded dupes.  Relative to their being “baptized for the dead,” the obvious meaning is that as believers “fall asleep,” and others come along to take their places, the baptism of the new converts, like that of those who have preceded them, is a meaningless rite, for the baptismal candidate is declaring symbolically that he has not only died with Christ, but that he also lives with Him, and will be resurrected from physical death, to live and reign for ever with Him in heaven.  All of this is a mere myth if the undisputed supremacy of God isn’t eventually established.  If God lacks the power to raise the dead, then the Gospel, and all that pertains to it, is a myth, a delusion. " 

1 Cor 15:29

This commentary helped me with it. The author has taught bible studies at my school in the past, he is quite brilliant.

I know that Mormons use this passage to defend actual baptisms for the dead...in which as person will actually be baptized in the name and place of a dead person, so that God's grace will take affect on the deceased.

What is the traditional Catholic understanding?

First I would like to say that I respect the fact that you are on phatmass. I know how it is to be on a forum of a different faith with a 100 questions and answers hurled at you.

I don’t know about the interpretation that you first gave. For one thing his interpretation is not “obvious”. He is reading the man made tradition that Baptism is only a symbol into the passage. Luther himself would have disagreed with him on this point. So if Luther missed it I don’t know how it is “obvious”.

Paul was arguing that there will be a literal bodily resurrection. But the strange thing is he uses the practice of baptism for the dead as a proof for belief in the resurrection. Now if baptism for the dead was not in some way a legitimate practice I do not know how this would have any weight as an argument. The same is true if you explain the passage away as only symbolic. How would the symbol of baptism for the dead be a reasonable argument for the bodily resurrection? It doesn’t make sense and this really bothered me in the past when talking to Mormons. Then I came across the historic interpretation from the Church Fathers and it made perfect sense. Here is the interpretation from one of my favorite saints.

St. Francis de Sales:

‘This passage properly understood evidently shows that it was the custom of the primitive Church to watch, pray, fast, for the souls of the departed. For, firstly, in the Scriptures to be baptized is often taken for afflictions and penances; as in Luke 12:50…and in St Mark 10:38-9…in which places Our Lord calls pains and afflictions baptism [Matthew 3:11, 20:22-3 Luke 3:16]. This then is the sense of that Scripture: if the dead rise not again, what is the use of mortifying and afflicting oneself, of praying and fasting for the dead? And indeed this sentence of St. Paul’s resembles that of 2 Maccabees 12:44: “it is superfluous and vain to pray for the dead if the dead rise not again…” Now it was not for those in Paradise [heaven], had no need of it, nor for those in hell, who could get no benefit from it; it was, then, for those in Purgatory. Thus did St. Ephraim [A.D. 373] expound it.”

Also I want to explain the Catholic Church's stance on how the Bible should be interpreted. If your first question when reading the Bible is, “What does this passage mean to me?” You are not submitting to the word of God. Instead you are making the word of God submit to you. Not a good thing. The first question should be “What meaning and intention did this passage have for the sacred author?” Then after that you need to ask how did Christians understand this passage throught out the 2000 year history of the Church. Especially the Early Church fathers and the doctors of the Church. If you do this many times you are going to come up with a totally different answer if you ask these question first. Here is what the catechism has to say about the process of interpretation.

III. THE HOLY SPIRIT, INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE

109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.[75]

110 In order to discover the sacred authors' intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."[76]

111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."[77]

The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.[78]

112 Be especially attentive "to the content and unity of the whole Scripture". Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God's plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.[79]

The phrase "heart of Christ" can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.[80]

113 2. Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"[81]).

114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.[82] By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

[cmotherofpirl]

"

can God get some of that credit for the bible? anyone?

sorry guys, but give praise where praise is due.

God inspired it, but man wrote it down.

The first Catholics got along quite well without the NT, because they had the Church.

[ironmonk]

i can post just as many testimonies of people leaving the Catholic church as you can about people who join it. but i guess none of those people ever knew anything true about Catholocism.

My main beef is that biblical truths are only biblical truths because the Church says so. It looks like I've come full circle....why read the bible when you can just read the catechism to make sure you get everything right? I think that's one of the first questions I asked here.

Anyone who leaves the Catholic Church it is because they don't know what the Church teaches or they don't want to give up a sin.

Every single one of them... NONE are based on historical fact or what the Church teaches.

Not to mention, many of the so called testimonies of people leaving the Church are lies. Such as Rick Jones. See www.MoralTruth.com then go to anti-Catholic 101 link.

There are facts, you can't get around them. The Catholic Church is the Church built by Christ.

It's time to back up what you claim....

I give you a challenge... If you can do it, I'll join whatever church you say is the true church....

1.. Prove the the Catholic Church teaching is wrong with the Bible, by posting links to the parts of the Catechism and quoting verses in the bible...here is the link to the Catechism

http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/entiretoc1.htm

2.. For you to find writings from the First Christians, before 1000 AD to show that the Catholic Church was not the Church that Christ built. (even Luther knew it was)

Read this: http://www.logos.com/products/details/518

All those exact writings can be found at http://www.NewAdvent.org/Fathers/

God Bless, Love in Christ & Mary

-ironmonk

Edited July 23, 2003 by ironmonk

[mulls]

well, i found this....... early church

[Dave]

Just thought I'd throw in a comment (which I don't do enough ) --

I've often heard people who leave the Catholic Church and then "find God" say God led them out of the Catholic Church. But the fact is, God never does any such thing. The Catholic Church is truth, and God CANNOT and WILL NOT lead anyone to do whatever is contrary to that truth, since He is a God of truth and not of lies. Those who leave the Catholic Church leave because of feelings, opinions, hasty assumptions, and rash judgments. I think we all agree that if you let those things be your guide, then you will ALWAYS be led astray.

Edited July 23, 2003 by davejc29201

[IcePrincessKRS]

well, i found this.......      early church

Do you really believe all that stuff?

[marielapin]

Why would Christ leave a Church behind that had virtually no traces for 1500 years? A shadow of a Church?

[marielapin]

Mulls, here is an article discussing Trail of Blood

http://www.catholic-convert.com/writings/blood.html

Here is another interesting article: Was the Early Church Protestant?

http://catholicoutlook.com/earlycath.html

[dUSt]

Mulls,

I read the your link (the first lecture) thouroghly. I have several points to bring to your attention.

The first thing that I noticed is that they misuse Matthew 16:18. They quote it as, "I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Matthew 16:18 actually reads, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Don't you find something wrong with an article that quotes scripture by cutting it off in mid-sentence?

Another thing I found odd was the article talks about the errors that crept into the Church the first 300 years of it's existence, saying, "change from the New Testament teachings". What? The New Testament wasn't compiled until later. How could the Church have changed from NT teachings if the NT didn't even exist?

I couldn't find a source for any of the information that pre-dated the year 1160, where the author makes a reference to the Paulicians, and tells us that the Paulicians were actually Baptist.

What good is a history lesson if sources are not cited? I could write a history just as compelling with no sources. I notice the author references many Catholic councils and teachings. We all know that already. I was hoping to find some references to Baptist teachings. What good is it to claim that Catholic teaching throughout history is wrong when one can't provide evidence that there was other Christians who opposed it?

I don't get it. Maybe you can re-read that article and specifically show me where I may have missed the evidence.

God bless.

[dUSt]

The only compelling statement that I found is where the author cites Cardinal Hosius.

I question the authenticity of that statement. Please see this link:

http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/forgeri...ies/hosius.html

[Cure of Ars]

I want to quote from the link that marielapin provided.

Baptist James Edward McGoldrick, professor of history at Cedarville College, summarizes the situation well. "Perhaps no other major body of professing Christians has had as much difficulty in discerning it historical roots as have the Baptists. A survey of conflicting opinions might lead a perceptive observer to conclude that Baptists suffer from an identity crisis. . . . Many Baptists object vehemently and argue that their history can be traced across the centuries to New Testament times. Some Baptist deny categorically that they are Protestants and that the history of their churches is related to the success of the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. Those who reject the Protestant character and Reformation origins of the Baptists usually maintain a view of church history sometimes called 'Baptist Successionism' . . . enhanced enormously by a booklet entitled The Trail of Blood."

After acknowledging his initial advocacy of "successionism", McGoldrick explains, "Extensive graduate study and independent investigation of church history has, however, convinced [me] that the view once held so dear has not been, and cannot be, verified. On the contrary, surviving primary documents render the successionist view untenable. . . . Although free church groups in ancient and medieval times sometimes promoted doctrines and practices agreeable to modern Baptists, when judged by standards now acknowledged as baptistic, not one of them merits recognition as a Baptist church. Baptists arose in the seventeenth century in Holland and England. They are Protestants, heirs of the Reformers" (Baptist Successionism: A Crucial Question in Baptist History [Metuchen, NJ: American Theological Library Assoc. and Scarecrow Press, 1994], 1-2).

[Jake Huether]

Following the Christians

Down Through the Centuries

or

The History of Baptist Churches

From the Time of Christ, Their Founder,

to the Present Day

That in itself was compelling enough to make me stop short of reading the article.

I'd like to know when the "Church" started calling itself the "Baptist Church".

I sure as heck know the Catholic Church was calling itself Catholic before the before the 2nd century.

In fact, all one has to do is look up the founder of the Baptist Church to know that it didn't exist until after the 16th century!

But then again what's in a name? If they can prove that the "early Baptist Church" didn't believe in the real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, then I'll submit. Or for that matter, if the "early Baptist Church" didn't believe in the intecession of Saints, or infant Baptism.

[Jake Huether]

Okay, so I gave in and skanned the article.

Not good news:

He states that the Mark of the New Testament Church was that its only rule of faith was the Bible. But he failed to explain how they believed in what WAS NOT written yet. If they believed in what wasn't written yet, then that proves that the ACTUAL Mark of the New Testament Church was that it produced the Bible. In otherwords, the Bible was New Testament Church believeing, the not the other way around.

[hyperdulia again]

lol...oh my...when the Orthdodox Church writes that they were the first church, I smile (from where they're standing we, not them, are in schism), but when Prots claim they're the first church, I lauggh so hard people look at me like I'm crazy.

Edited July 23, 2003 by hyperdulia again

[ironmonk]

well, i found this.......    early church

Do you fear the challenge?

It's understandable, it's been almost two years and no protestant can do it.

As for the "trail a tears" it is a massive LIE. That is why no reputable historian says that.

All the heretics they mentioned, were totally seperate groups, they had NO relation to any of the others. They ALL believe things that contradicted each other.

You should really study something before you post it....

Anabaptists

Anabaptism in Saxony and Thuringia (1521-25) / The Swiss Anabaptist Movement (1523-25) / The Anabaptists in Münster (1533-35)

The name Anabaptists, etymologically applicable, and sometimes applied to Christian denominations that practise re-baptism is, in general historical usage, restricted to those who, denying the validity of infant baptism, became prominent during the great reform movement of the sixteenth century. The designation was generally repudiated by those to whom it was applied, as the discussion did not centre around the question whether baptism can be repeated, but around the question whether the first baptism was valid. The distinctive principles upon which Anabaptists generally agreed were the following:

a.. They aimed at restoring what they claimed to have been primitive Christianity. This restoration included the rejection of oaths and capital punishment and the abstention from the exercise of magistracy.

b.. In a more consistent manner than the majority of Protestant reformers, they maintained the absolute supremacy and sole sufficiency of the canonical Scriptures as a norm of faith. However, private inspiration and religious sentiment played an important role among them.

c.. Infant baptism and the Lutheran doctrine of justification by faith alone were rejected as without scriptural warrant.

d.. The new Kingdom of God, which they purposed to found, was to be the reconstruction, on an entirely different basis, of both ecclesiastical and civil society. Communism, including for some of them the community of women, was to be the underlying principle of the new state. The Anabaptists also believed that the church, which to them was the community of the redeemed, should be separated from the state, which for them existed only for the punishment of sinners. Most Anabaptists opposed the use of the sword by Christians in the maintenance of social order and in the conduct of a just war. They also refused to swear civil oaths.

Paulicians

The cardinal point of the Paulician heresy is a distinction between the God who made and governs the material world and the God of heaven who created souls, who alone should be adored. They thought all matter bad. It seems therefore obvious to count them as one of the many neo-Manichaean sects, in spite of their own denial and that of modern writers (Ter-Mkrttschian, Conybeare, Adeney, loc. cit.; Harnack, "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschicte", Tubingen, 1909, II, 528). But there is a strong Marcionite element too. They rejected the Old Testament; there was no Incarnation, Christ was an angel sent into the world by God, his real mother was the heavenly Jerusalem. His work consisted only in his teaching; to believe in him saves men from judgment. The true baptism and Eucharist consist in hearing his word, as in John, iv, 10. But many Paulicians, nevertheless, let their children be baptized by the Catholic clergy. They honoured not the Cross, but only the book of the Gospel. They were Iconoclasts, rejecting all pictures. Their Bible was a fragmentary New Testament. They rejected St. Peter's epistles because he had denied Christ. They referred always to the "Gospel and Apostle", apparently only St Luke and St. Paul; though they quoted other Gospels in controversy.

Henricians

The Henricians were started by Henry of Lausanne (died 1148), the Petrobrussians by Peter de Bruys (died 1126). They worked together denouncing romanist doctrines like infant baptism and transubstantiation (both were eventually condemned as heretics and martyred.). They also rejected Church buildings, and "preached on the streets and in the open places."

Waldensians

The name was derived from Waldes their founder and occurs also in the variations of Valdesii, Vallenses. Numerous other designations were applied to them; to their profession of extreme poverty they owed the named of "the Poor"; from their place of origin, Lyons, they were called "Leonistae"; and frequently the two ideas were combined in the title "Poor Men of Lyons". Their practice of wearing sandals or wooden shoes (sabots) caused them to be named "Sandaliati", "Insabbatati", "Sabbatati", Sabotiers". Anxious to surround their own history and doctrine with the halo of antiquity, some Waldenses claimed for their churches an Apostolic origin. The first Waldensian congregations, it was maintained, were established by St. Paul who, on his journey to Spain, visited the valleys of Piedmont. The history of these foundations was identified with that of primitive Christendom as long as the Church remained lowly and poor. But in the beginning of the fourth century Pope Sylvester was raised by Constantine, whom he had cured of leprosy, to a position of power and wealth, and the Papacy became unfaithful to its mission. Some Christians, however, remained true to the Faith and practice of the early days, and in the twelfth century a certain Peter appeared who, from the valleys of the Alps, was called "Waldes". He was not the founder of a new sect, but a missionary among these faithful observers of the genuine Christian law, and he gained numerous adherents. This account was, indeed, far from being universally accredited among the Waldenses; many of them, however, for a considerable period accepted as founded on fact the assertion that they originated in the time of Constantine. Others among them considered Claudius of Turin (died 840), Berengarius of Tours (died 1088), or other such men who had preceded Waldes, the first representatives of the sect. The claim of its Constantinian origin was for a long time credulously accepted as valid by Protestant historians. In the nineteenth century, however, it became evident to critics that the Waldensian documents had been tampered with. As a result the pretentious claims of the Waldenses to high antiquity were relegated to the realm of fable.

The real founder of the sect was a wealthy merchant of Lyons who in the early documents is called Waldes (Waldo). To this name is added from 1368 the designation of Peter, assumed by him at his "conversion", or more likely, attributed to him by his followers. Few details concerning his personal history are known; there are extant, however, two important accounts of the complete change in his religious life; one written about 1220 by a Premonstratensian monk, usually designated as the "anonymous chronicler of Laon"; the other by a Dominican Friar and Inquisitor Stephen of Bourbon (died about 1262), and dates back to about the middle of the thirteenth century. The former writer assigns a prominent place to the influence exercised on Waldes by the history of St. Alexius, while the latter makes no mention of it but speaks of his acquaintance with the contents of the Bible through translations. The history of Waldes's conversion may perhaps be reconstructed in the following manner. Desirous of acquiring a knowledge of biblical teaching, Waldes requested two priests to translate for him the four Gospels. In a similar manner he subsequently obtained translations of other Biblical books and of some writings of the Fathers. Through the reading of these works he was attracted to the practice of Christian perfection; his fervour increased when one day he heard from an itinerant singer (ioculator) the history of St. Alexius. He now consulted a master of theology on the best and surest way to salvation. In answer the words of Christ to the rich young man were cited to him: "If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor." (Matt., xix, 21). Waldes immediately put into effect the counsel of the Divine Master. He made over part of his wealth to his wife, part to those from whom he had acquired it, left some to the nuns of Fontevrault in whose monastery he placed his two little daughters, and distributed the greatest part to the poor. On the feast of the Assumption, 1176, he disposed of the last of his earthly possessions and shortly after took the vow of poverty. His example created a great stir in Lyons and soon found imitators, particularly among the lower and uneducated classes. A special confraternity was established for the practice of apostolic poverty. Its members almost immediately began to preach in the streets and public places and gained more adherents. Their preaching, however, was not unmixed with doctrinal error and was consequently prohibited, according to Stephen of Bourbon, by the Archbishop of Lyons, according to Walter Map, present at the assembly, by the Third General Lateran Council (1179). The Waldenses, instead of heeding the prohibition, continued to preach on the plea that obedience is due rather to God than to man. Pope Lucius III consequently included them among the heretics against whom he issued a Bull of excommunication at Verona in 1184.

founder Peter Waldo, or Valdo. As a layman, Valdes preached in Lyon (1170–76), but ecclesiastical authorities were disturbed by his lack of theological training and by his use of a non-Latin version of the Bible. Valdes attended the third Lateran Council (1179) in Rome and was confirmed in his vow of poverty by Pope Alexander III. Probably during this council Valdes made his Profession of Faith (which still survives); it is a statement of orthodox beliefs such as accused heretics were required to sign. Valdes, however, did not receive the ecclesiastical recognition that he sought. Undeterred, he and his followers (Pauperes: “Poor”) continued to preach; the archbishop of Lyon condemned him, and Pope Lucius III placed the Waldenses under ban with his bull Ad Abolendam (1184), issued during the Synod of Verona.

Thereafter, the Waldenses departed from the teaching of the Roman Catholic church by rejecting some of the seven sacraments and the notion of purgatory.

Though the Waldenses confessed regularly, celebrated communion once a year, fasted, and preached poverty, they repudiated such Roman practices as prayers for the dead and the veneration of saints, and they refused to recognize secular courts because they did not believe in taking oaths.

In the early 13th century a number of Waldenses returned to orthodoxy.

Also noteworthy it was the Waldenses that first denied that Peter did not die in Rome, in the 13th century. They had a purpose in view, yet who could produce no evidence that he died anywhere else.

Albigenses

The Albigenses asserted the co-existence of two mutually opposed principles, one good, the other evil. The former is the creator of the spiritual, the latter of the material world. The bad principle is the source of all evil; natural phenomena, either ordinary like the growth of plants, or extraordinary as earthquakes, likewise moral disorders (war), must be attributed to him. He created the human body and is the author of sin, which springs from matter and not from the spirit. The Old Testament must be either partly or entirely ascribed to him; whereas the New Testament is the revelation of the beneficent God. The latter is the creator of human souls, which the bad principle imprisoned in material bodies after he had deceived them into leaving the kingdom of light. This earth is a place of punishment, the only hell that exists for the human soul. Punishment, however, is not everlasting; for all souls, being Divine in nature, must eventually be liberated. To accomplish this deliverance God sent upon earth Jesus Christ, who, although very perfect, like the Holy Ghost, is still a mere creature. The Redeemer could not take on a genuine human body, because he would thereby have come under the control of the evil principle. His body was, therefore, of celestial essence, and with it He penetrated the ear of Mary. It was only apparently that He was born from her and only apparently that He suffered. His redemption was not operative, but solely instructive. To enjoy its benefits, one must become a member of the Church of Christ (the Albigenses). Here below, it is not the Catholic sacraments but the peculiar ceremony of the Albigenses known as the consolamentum, or "consolation," that purifies the soul from all sin and ensures its immediate return to heaven. The resurrection of the body will not take place, since by its nature all flesh is evil.

Moral -

The dualism of the Albigenses was also the basis of their moral teaching. Man, they taught, is a living contradiction. Hence, the liberation of the soul from its captivity in the body is the true end of our being. To attain this, suicide is commendable; it was customary among them in the form of the endura (starvation). The extinction of bodily life on the largest scale consistent with human existence is also a perfect aim. As generation propagates the slavery of the soul to the body, perpetual chastity should be practiced. Matrimonial intercourse is unlawful; concubinage, being of a less permanent nature, is preferable to marriage. Abandonment of his wife by the husband, or vice versa, is desirable. Generation was abhorred by the Albigenses even in the animal kingdom. Consequently, abstention from all animal food, except fish, was enjoined. Their belief in metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, the result of their logical rejection of purgatory, furnishes another explanation for the same abstinence. To this practice they added long and rigorous fasts. The necessity of absolute fidelity to the sect was strongly inculcated. War and capital punishment were absolutely condemned.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Montanists

Schismatics of the second century, first known as Phrygians, or "those among the Phrygians" (oi kata Phrygas), then as Montanists, Pepuzians, and (in the West) Cataphrygians. The sect was founded by a prophet, Montanus, and two prophetesses, Maximilla and Prisca, sometimes called Priscilla.

CHRONOLOGY

An anonymous anti-Montanist writer, cited by Eusebius, addressed his work to Abercius Marcellus, Bishop of Hieropolis, who died about 200. Maximilla had prophesied continual wars and troubles, but this writer declared that he wrote more than thirteen years after her death, yet no war, general or partial, had taken place, but on the contrary the Christians enjoyed permanent peace through the mercy of God (Eusebius, "Hist. eccl.", V, xvi, 19). These thirteen years can be identified only with the twelve and a half years of Commodus (17 March, 180--31 December, 192). The wars between rival emperors began early in 193, so that this anonymous author wrote not much later than January, 193, and Maximilla must have died about the end of 179, not long before Marcus Aurelius. Montanus and Priscilla had died yet earlier. Consequently the date given by Eusebius in his "Chronicle"--eleventh (or twelfth) year of Marcus, i.e. about 172--for the first appearance of Montanus leaves insufficient time for the development of the sect, which we know further to have been of great importance in 177, when the Church of Lyons wrote to Pope Eleutherius on the subject. Again, the Montanists are co-ordinated with the martyr Thraseas, mentioned chronologically between Polycarp (155) and Sagaris (under Sergius Paulus, 166-7) in the letter of Polycrates to Pope Victor; the date of Thraseas is therefore about 160, and the origin of Montanism must be yet earlier. Consequently, Zahn, Harnack, Duchesne, and others (against Völter and Voigt, who accept the late date given by Eusebius, regard St. Epiphanius (Hær., xlviii, 1) as giving the true date of the rise of the sect, "about the nineteenth year of Antoninus Pius" (that is, about the year 156 or 157).

Bonwetsch, accepting Zahn's view that previously (Hær., xlvi, 1) Epiphanius had given the twelfth year of Antoninus Pius where he should have said M. Aurelius, wishes similarly to substitute that emperor here, so that we would get 179, the very date of the death of Maximilla. But the emendation is unnecessary in either case. In "Hæreses", xlvi, 1, Epiphanius clearly meant the earlier date, whether right or wrong; and in xlviii, 1, he is not dating the death of Maximilla but the first appearance of the sect. From Eusebius, V, xvi, 7, we learn that this was in the proconsulship of Gratus. Such a proconsul of Asia is not known. Bonwetsch accepts Zahn's suggestion to read "Quadratus", and points out that there was a Quadratus in 155 (if that is the year of Polycarp's death, which was under Quadratus), and another in 166, so that one of these years was the real date of the birth of Montanism. But 166 for Quadratus merely depends on Schmid's chronology of Aristides, which has been rejected by Ramsay and others in favor of the earlier chronology worked out by Waddington, who obtained 155 for the Quadratus of Aristides as well as for the Quadratus of Polycarp. Now it is most probable that Epiphanius's authority counted the years of emperors from the September preceding their accession (as Hegesippus seems to have done), and therefore the nineteenth year of Pius would be Sept., 155-Sept., 156. Even if the later and Western mode of reckoning from the January after accession is used, the year 157 can be reconciled with the proconsulship of Quadratus in 155, if we remember that Epiphanius merely says "about the nineteenth year of Pius", without vouching for strict accuracy. He tells us further on that Maximilla prophesied: "After me there shall be no prophetess, but the end", whereas he was writing after 290 years, more or less, in the year 375 or 376. To correct the evident error Harnack would read 190, which brings us roughly to the death of Maximilla (385 for 379). But ekaton for diakosia is a big change. It is more likely that Epiphanius is calculating from the date he had himself given, 19th of Pius=156, as he did not know that of Maximilla's death; his "more or less" corresponds to his former "about". So we shall with Zahn adopt Scaliger's conjecture diakosia enneakaideka for diakosia enenekonta, which brings us from 156 to 375!9 years. As Apollonius wrote forty years after the sect emerged, his work must be dated about 196.

MONTANISM IN ASIA MINOR

Montanus was a recent convert when he first began to prophesy in the village of Ardabau in Phrygia. He is said by Jerome to have been previously a priest of Cybele; but this is perhaps a later invention intended to connect his ecstasies with the dervish-like behavior of the priests and devotees of the "great goddess". The same prophetic gift was believed to have descended also upon his two companions, the prophetesses Maximilla and Prisca or Priscilla. Their headquarters were in the village of Pepuza. The anonymous opponent of the sect describes the method of prophecy (Eusebius, V, xvii, 2-3): first the prophet appears distraught with terror (en parekstasei), then follows quiet (adeia kai aphobia, fearlessness); beginning by studied vacancy of thought or passivity of intellect (ekousios amathia), he is seized by an uncontrollable madness (akousios mania psyches). The prophets did not speak as messengers of God: "Thus saith the Lord," but described themselves as possessed by God and spoke in His Person. "I am the Father, the Word, and the Paraclete," said Montanus (Didymus, "De Trin.", III, xli); and again: "I am the Lord God omnipotent, who have descended into to man", and "neither an angel, nor an ambassador, but I, the Lord, the Father, am come" (Epiphanius, "Hær.", xlviii, 11). And Maximilla said: "Hear not me, but hear Christ" (ibid.); and: "I am driven off from among the sheep like a wolf [that is, a false prophet--cf. Matt., vii, 15]; I am not a wolf, but I am speech, and spirit, and power." This possession by a spirit, which spoke while the prophet was incapable of resisting, is described by the spirit of Montanus: "Behold the man is like a lyre, and I dart like the plectrum. The man sleeps, and I am awake" (Epiphanius, "Hær.", xlviii, 4).

We hear of no false doctrines at first. The Paraclete ordered a few fasts and abstinences; the latter were strict xerophagioe, but only for two weeks in the year, and even then the Saturdays and Sundays did not count (Tertullian, "De jej.", xv). Not only was virginity strongly recommended (as always by the Church), but second marriages were disapproved. Chastity was declared by Priscilla to be a preparation for ecstasy: "The holy [chaste] minister knows how to minister holiness. For those who purify their hearts [reading purificantes enim corda, by conjecture for purificantia enim concordal] both see visions, and placing their head downwards (!) also hear manifest voices, as saving as they are secret" (Tertullian, "Exhort." X, in one MS.). It was rumored, however, that Priscilla had been married, and had left her husband. Martyrdom was valued so highly that flight from persecution was disapproved, and so was the buying off of punishment. "You are made an outlaw?" said Montanus, "it is good for you. For he who is not outlawed among men is outlawed in the Lord. Be not confounded. It is justice which hales you in public. Why are you confounded, when you are sowing praise? Power comes, when you are stared at by men." And again: "Do not desire to depart this life in beds, in miscarriages, in soft fevers, but in martyrdoms, that He who suffered for you may be glorified" (Tertullian, "De fuga", ix; cf. "De anima", lv). Tertullian says: "Those who receive the Paraclete, know neither to flee persecution nor to bribe" (De fuga, 14), but he is unable to cite any formal prohibition by Montanus.

So far, the most that can be said of these didactic utterances is that there was a slight tendency to extravagance. The people of Phrygia were accustomed to the orgiastic cult of Cybele. There were doubtless many Christians there. The contemporary accounts of Montanism mention Christians in otherwise unknown villages: Ardabau on the Mysian border, Pepuza, Tymion, as well as in Otrus, Apamea, Cumane, Eumenea. Early Christian inscriptions have been found at Otrus, Hieropolis, Pepuza (of 260), Trajanopolis (of 279), Eumenea (of 249) etc. (see Harnack, "Expansion of Christianity", II, 360). There was a council at Synnada in the third century. The "Acta Theodoti" represent the village of Malus near Ancyra as entirely Christian under Diocletian. Above all we must remember what crowds of Christians were found in Pontus and Bithynia by Pliny in 112, not only in the cities but in country places. No doubt, therefore, there were numerous Christians in the Phrygian villages to be drawn by the astounding phenomena. Crowds came to Pepuza, it seems, and contradiction was provoked. In the very first days Apollinarius, a successor of St. Papias as Bishop of Hierapolis in the southwestern corner of the province, wrote against Montanus. Eusebius knew this letter from its being enclosed by Serapion of Antioch (about 191-212) in a letter addressed by him to the Christians of Caria and Pontus. Apollinarius related that Ælius Publius Julius of Debeltum (now Burgas) in Thrace, swore that "Sotas the blessed who was in Anchialus [on the Thracian coast] had wished to cast out the demon from Priscilla; but the hypocrites would not allow it." Clearly Sotas was dead, and could not speak for himself. The anonymous writer tells us that some thought Montanus to be possessed by an evil spirit, and a troubler of the people; they rebuked him and tried to stop his prophesying; the faithful of Asia assembled in many places, and examining the prophecies declared them profane, and condemned the heresy, so that the disciples were thrust out of the Church and its communion.

It is difficult to say how soon this excommunication took place in Asia. Probably from the beginning some bishops excluded the followers of Montanus, and this severity was growing common before the death of Montanus; but it was hardly a general rule much before the death of Maximilla in 179; condemnation of the prophets themselves, and mere disapproval of their disciples was the first stage. We hear of holy persons, including the bishops Zoticus of Cumana and Julian of Apamea, attempting to exorcise Maximilla at Pepuza, doubtless after the death of Montanus. But Themison prevented them (Eusebius, V, xvi, 17; xviii, 12). This personage was called a confessor but, according to the anonymous writer, he had bought himself off. He published "a catholic epistle, in imitation of the Apostle", in support of his party. Another so- called martyr, called Alexander, was for many years a companion of Maximilla, who, though a prophetess, did not know that it was for robbery, and not "for the Name", that he had been condemned by the proconsul Æmilius Frontinus (date unknown) in Ephesus; in proof of this the public archives of Asia are appealed to. Of another leader, Alcibiades, nothing is known. The prophets are accused of taking gifts under the guise of offerings; Montanus sent out salaried preachers; the prophetesses painted their faces, dyed their eyelids with stibium, wore ornaments and played at dice. But these accusations may be untrue. The great point was the manner of prophesying. It was denounced as contrary to custom and to tradition. A Catholic writer, Miltiades, wrote a book to which the anonymous author refers, "How a prophet ought not to speak in ecstasy". It was urged that the phenomena were those of possession, not those of the Old Testament prophets, or of New Testament prophets like Silas, Agabus, and the daughters of Philip the Deacon; or of prophets recently known in Asia, Quadratus (Bishop of Athens) and Ammia, prophetess of Philadelphia, of whom the Montanist prophets boasted of being successors. To speak in the first person as the Father or the Paraclete appeared blasphemous. The older prophets had spoken "in the Spirit", as mouthpieces of the Spirit, but to have no free will, to be helpless in a state of madness, was not consonant with the text: "The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets." Montanus declared: "The Lord hath sent me as the chooser, the revealer, the interpreter of this labor, this promise, and this covenant, being forced, willingly or unwillingly, to learn the gnosis of God." The Montanists appealed to Gen., ii, 21: "The Lord sent an ecstasy [ektasin] upon Adam"; Ps. cxv, 2: "I said in my ecstasy"; Acts, x, 10: "There came upon him [Peter] an ecstasy"; but these texts proved neither that an ecstasy of excitement was proper to sanctity, nor that it was a right state in which to prophesy.

A better argument was the declaration that the new prophecy was of a higher order than the old, and therefore unlike it. It came to be thought higher than the Apostles, and even beyond the teaching of Christ. Priscilla went to sleep, she said, at Pepuza, and Christ came to her and slept by her side "in the form of a woman, clad in a bright garment, and put wisdom into me, and revealed to me that this place is holy, and that here Jerusalem above comes down". "Mysteries" (sacraments?) were celebrated there publicly. In Epiphanius's time Pepuza was a desert, and the village was gone. Marcellina, surviving the other two, prophesied continual wars after her death--no other prophet, but the end.

It seems on the whole that Montanus had no particular doctrine, and that his prophetesses went further than he did. The extravagances of his sect were after the deaths of all three; but it is difficult to know how far we are to trust our authorities. The anonymous writer admits that he has only an uncertain report for the story that Montanus and Maximilla both hanged themselves, and that Themison was carried into the air by a devil, flung down, and so died. The sect gained much popularity in Asia. It would seem that some Churches were wholly Montanist. The anonymous writer found the Church at Ancyra in 193 greatly disturbed about the new prophecy. Tertullian's lost writing "De Ecstasi", in defense of their trances, is said by Prædestinatus to have been an answer to Pope Soter (Hær., xxvi, lxxxvi), who had condemned or disapproved them; but the authority is not a good one. He has presumably confounded Soter with Sotas, Bishop of Anchialus. In 177 the Churches of Lyons and Vienne sent to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia their celebrated account of the martyrdoms that had been taking place. Eusebius tells us that at the same time they enclosed letters which had been written in prison by the martyrs on the question of the Montanists. They sent the same by Irenæus to Pope Eleutherius. Eusebius says only that they took a prudent and most orthodox view. It is probable that they disapproved of the prophets, but were not inclined to extreme measures against their followers. It was not denied that the Montanists could count many martyrs; it was replied to their boast, that all the heretics had many, and especially the Marcionites, but that true martyrs like Gaius and Alexander of Eumenea had refused to communicate with fellow martyrs who had approved the new prophecy (Anon. in Eusebius, V, xvi, 27). The acts of Carpus, Papylus, and Agathonice (the last of these threw herself into the fire), martyrs of Thyatira under Marcus Aurelius (about 161-9), may exhibit an influence of Montanism on the martyrs.

MONTANISM IN THE WEST

A second-century pope (more probably Eleutherius than Victor) was inclined to approve the new prophecies, according to Tertullian, but was dissuaded by Praxeas (q.v.). Their defender in Rome was Proclus or Proculus, much reverenced by Tertullian. A disputation was held by Gaius against him in the presence of Pope Zephyrinus (about 202-3, it would seem). As Gaius supported the side of the Church, Eusebius calls him a Churchman (II, xxv, 6), and is delighted to find in the minutes of the discussion that Gaius rejected the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse, and attributed it to Cerinthus. But Gaius was the worse of the two, for we know from the commentary on the Apocalypse by Bar Salibi, a Syriac writer of the twelfth century (see Theodore H. Robinson in "Expositor", VII, sixth series, June, 1906), that he rejected the Gospel and Epistles of St. John as well, and attributed them all to Cerinthus. It was against Gaius that Hippolytus wrote his "Heads against Gaius" and also his "Defense of the Gospel and the Apocalypse of John" (unless these are two names for the same work). St. Epiphanius used these works for his fifty-first heresy (cf. Philastrius, "Hær." lx), and as the heresy had no name he invented that of Alogoi, meaning at once "the unreasoning" and "those who reject the Logos". We gather that Gaius was led to reject the Gospel out of opposition to Proclus, who taught (Pseudo-Tertullian, "De Præsc.", lii) that "the Holy Ghost was in the Apostles, but the Paraclete was not, and that the Paraclete published through Montanus more than Christ revealed in the Gospel, and not only more, but also better and greater things"; thus the promise of the Paraclete (John, xiv, 16) was not to the Apostles but to the next age. St. Irenæus refers to Gaius without naming him (III, xi, 9): "Others, in order that they may frustrate the gift of the Spirit, which in the last days has been poured upon the human race according to the good pleasure of the Father, do not admit that form [lion] which corresponds with the Gospel of John in which the Lord promised to send the Paraclete; but they reject the Gospel and with it the prophetic Spirit. Unhappy, indeed, in that, wishing to have no false prophets [reading with Zahn pseudoprophetas esse nolunt for pseudoprophetoe esse volunt], they drive away the grace of prophecy from the Church; resembling persons who, to avoid those who come in hypocrisy, withdraw from communion even with brethren." The old notion that the Alogi were an Asiatic sect (see ALOGI) is no longer tenable; they were the Roman Gaius and his followers, if he had any. But Gaius evidently did not venture to reject the Gospel in his dispute before Zephyrinus, the account of which was known to Dionysius of Alexandria as well as to Eusebius (cf. Eusebius, III, xx, 1, 4). It is to be noted that Gaius is a witness to the sojourn of St. John in Asia, since he considers the Johannine writings to be forgeries, attributed by their author Cerinthus to St. John; hence he thinks St. John is represented by Cerinthus as the ruler of the Asiatic Churches. Another Montanist (about 200), who seems to have separated from Proclus, was Æschines, who taught that "the Father is the Son", and is counted as a Monarchian of the type of Noetus or Sabellius.

But Tertullian is the most famous of the Montanists. He was born about 150-5, and became a Christian about 190-5. His excessive nature led him to adopt the Montanist teaching as soon as he knew it (about 202-3). His writings from this date onwards grow more and more bitter against the Catholic Church, from which he definitively broke away about 207. He died about 223, or not much later. His first Montanist work was a defense of the new prophecy in six books, "De Ecstasi", written probably in Greek; he added a seventh book in reply to Apollonius. The work is lost, but a sentence preserved by Prædestinatus (xxvi) is important: "In this alone we differ, in that we do not receive second marriage, and that we do not refuse the prophecy of Montanus concerning the future judgment." In fact Tertullian holds as an absolute law the recommendations of Montanus to eschew second marriages and flight from persecution. He denies the possibility of forgiveness of sins by the Church; he insists upon the newly ordained fasts and abstinences. Catholics are the Psychici as opposed to the "spiritual" followers of the Paraclete; the Catholic Church consists of gluttons and adulterers, who hate to fast and love to remarry. Tertullian evidently exaggerated those parts of the Montanist teaching which appealed to himself, caring little for the rest. He has no idea of making a pilgrimage to Pepuza, but he speaks of joining in spirit with the celebration of the Montanist feasts in Asia Minor. The Acts of Sts. Perpetua and Felicitas are by some thought to reflect a period a Carthage when the Montanist teaching was arousing interest and sympathy but had not yet formed a schism.

The following of Tertullian cannot have been large; but a Tertullianist sect survived him and its remnants were reconciled to the Church by St. Augustine (Hær., lxxxvi). About 392-4 an African lady, Octaviana, wife of Hesperius, a favorite of the Duke Arbogastes and the usurper Maximus, brought to Rome a Tertullianist priest who raved as if possessed. He obtained the use of the church of Sts. Processus and Martinianus on the Via Aurelia, but was turned out by Theodosius, and he and Octaviana were heard of no more. Epiphanius distinguished a sect of Montanists as Pepuzians or Quintillians (he calls Priscilla also Quintilla). He says they had some foolish sayings which gave thanks to Eve for eating of the tree of knowledge. They used to sleep at Pepuza in order to see Christ as Priscilla had done. Often in their church seven virgins would enter with lamps, dressed in white, to prophesy to the people, whom by their excited action they would move to tears; this reminds us of some modern missions rather than of the Irvingite "speaking with tongues", with which the Montanist ecstasies have often been compared. These heretics were said to have women for their bishops and priests, in honor of Eve. They were called "Artotyrites", because their sacrament was of bread and coagulated milk. Prædestinatus says the Pepuzians did not really differ from other Montanists, but despised all who did not actually dwell at the "new Jerusalem". There is a well-known story that the Montanists (or at least the Pepuzians) on a certain feast took a baby child whom they stuck all over with brazen pins. They used the blood to make cakes for sacrifice. If the child died it was looked upon as a martyr; if it lived, as a high-priest. This story was no doubt a pure invention, and was especially denied in the "De Ecstasi" of Tertullian. An absurd nickname for the sect was Tascodrugitoe, from Phrygian words meaning peg and nose, because they were said to put their forefinger up their nose when praying "in order to appear dejected and pious" (Epiphanius, Hær., xlviii, 14).

It is interesting to take St. Jerome's account, written in 384, of the doctrines of Montanism as he believed them to be in his own time (Ep., xli). He describes them as Sabellians in their idea of the Trinity, as forbidding second marriage, as observing three Lents "as though three Saviours had suffered". Above bishops they have "Cenones" (probably not koinonoi, but a Phrygian word) and patriarchs above these at Pepuza. They close the door of the Church to almost every sin. They say that God, not being able to save the world by Moses and the Prophets, took flesh of the Virgin Mary, and in Christ, His Son, preached and died for us. And because He could not accomplish the salvation of the world by this second method, the Holy Spirit descended upon Montanus, Prisca, and Maximilla, giving them the plenitude which St. Paul had not (I Cor., xiii, 9). St. Jerome refuses to believe the story of the blood of a baby; but his account is already exaggerated beyond what the Montanists would have admitted that they held. Origen ("Ep. ad Titum" in "Pamph. Apol.", I fin.) is uncertain whether they are schismatics or heretics. St. Basil is amazed that Dionysius of Alexandria admitted their baptism to be valid (Ep., clxxxii). According to Philastrius (Hær., xlix) they baptized the dead. Sozomen (xviii) tells us that they observed Easter on 6 April or on the following Sunday. Germanus of Constantinople (P.G., XCVIII, 44) says they taught eight heavens and eight degrees of damnation. The Christian emperors from Constantine onwards made laws against them, which were scarcely put into execution in Phrygia (Sozomen, II, xxxii). But gradually they became a small and secret sect. The bones of Montanus were dug up in 861. The numerous Montanist writings (bibloi apeiroi, "Philosophumena", VIII, xix) are all lost. It seems that a certain Asterius Urbanus made a collection of the prophecies (Euseb., V, xvi, 17).

A theory of the origin of Montanism, originated by Ritschl, has been followed by Harnack, Bonwetsch, and other German critics. The secularizing in the second century of the Church by her very success and the disappearance of the primitive "Enthusiasmus" made a difficulty for "those believers of the old school who protested in the name of the Gospel against this secular Church, and who wished to gather together a people prepared for their God regardless alike of numbers an circumstances". Some of these "joined an enthusiastic movement which had originated amongst a small circle in a remote province, and had at first a merely local importance. Then, in Phrygia, the cry for a strict Christian life was reinforced by the belief in a new and final outpouring of the Spirit. . .The wish was, as usual, father to the thought; and thus societies of 'spiritual' Christians were formed, which served, especially in times of persecution, as rallying points for all those, far and near, who sighed for the end of the world and the excessus e soeculo, and who wished in these last days to lead a holy life. These zealots hailed the appearance of the Paraclete in Phrygia, and surrendered themselves to his guidance" (Harnack in "Encycl. Brit.", London, 1878, s.v. Montanism). This ingenious theory has its basis only in the imagination, nor have any facts ever been advanced in its favor.

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Novatian and Novatianism

Novatian was a schismatic of the third century, and founder of the sect of the Novatians; he was a Roman priest, and made himself antipope. His name is given as Novatus (Noouatos, Eusebius; Nauatos, Socrates) by Greek writers, and also in the verses of Damasus and Prudentius, on account of the metre.

Biography

We know little of his life. St. Cornelius in his letter to Fabius of Antioch relates that Novatian was possessed by Satan for a season, aparently while a catechumen; for the exorcists attended him, and he fell into a sickness from which instant death was expected; he was, therefore, given baptism by affusion as he lay on his bed. The rest of the rites were not supplied on his recovery, nor was he confirmed by the bishop. "How then can he have received the Holy Ghost? " asks Cornelius. Novatian was a man of learning and had been trained in literary composition. Cornelius speaks of him sarcastically as "that maker of dogmas, that champion of ecclesiastical learning". His eloquence is mentioned by Cyprian (Ep. lx, 3) and a pope (presumably Fabian) promoted him to the priesthood in spite of the protests (according to Cornelius) of all the clergy and many of the laity that it was uncanonical for one who had received only clinical baptism to be admitted among the clergy. The story told by Eulogius of Alexandria that Novatian was Archdeacon of Rome, and was made a priest by the pope in order to prevent his succeeding to the papacy, contradicts the evidence of Cornelius and supposes a later state of things when the Roman deacons were statesmen rather than ministers. The anonymous work "Ad Novatianum" (xiii) tells us that Novatian, "so long as he was in the one house, that is in Christ's Church, bewailed the sins of his neighbours as if they were his own, bore the burdens of the brethren, as the Apostle exhorts, and strengthened with consolation the backsliding in heavenly faith."

The Church had enjoyed a peace of thirty-eight years when Decius issued his edict of persecution early in 250. Pope St. Fabian was martyred on 20 January, and it was impossible to elect a successor. Cornelius, writing in the following year, says of Novatian that, through cowardice and love of his life, he denied that he was a priest in the time of persecution; for he was exhorted by the deacons to come out of the cell, in which he had shut himself up, to assist the brethren as a priest now that they were in danger. But he was angry and departed, saying he no longer wished to be a priest, for he was in love with another philosophy. The meaning of this story is not clear. Did Novitian wish to eschew the active work of the priesthood and give himself to an ascetic life?

At all events, during the persecution he certainly wrote letters in the name of the Roman clergy, which were sent by them to St. Cyprian (Epp. xxx and xxxvi). The letters are concerned with the question of the Lapsi (q. v.), and with the exaggerated claim of the martyrs at Carthage to restore them all without penance. The Roman clergy agree with Cyprian that the matter must be settled with moderation by councils to be held when this should be possible; the election of a new bishop must be awaited; proper severity of discipline must be preserved, such as had always digtinguished the Roman Church since the days when her faith was praised by St. Paul (Rom., i, 8), but cruelty to the repentant must be avoided. There is evidently no idea in the minds of the Roman priests that restoration of the lapsed to communion is impossible or improper; but there are severe expressions in the letters. It seems that Novatian got into some trouble during the persecution, since Cornelius says that St. Moses, the martyr (d. 250), seeing the boldness of Novatian, separated him from communion, together with the five priests who had been associated with him.

At the beginning of 251 the persecution relaxed, and St. Cornelius was elected pope in March, "when the chair of Fabian, that is the place of Peter, was vacant", with the consent of nearly all the clergy, of the people, and of the bishops present (Cyprian Ep. lv, 8-9). Some days later Novatian set himself up as a rival pope. Cornelius tells us Novatian suffered an extraordinary and sudden change; for he had taken a tremendous oath that he would never attempt to become bishop. But now he sent two of his party to summon three bishops from a distant corner of Italy, telling them they must come to Rome in haste, in order that a division might be healed by their mediation and that of other bishops. These simple men were constrained to confer the episcopal order upon him at the tenth hour of the day. One of these returned to the church bewailing and confessing his sin, "and we despatched" says Comelius, "successors of the other two bishops to the places whence they came, after ordaining them." To ensure the loyalty of his supporters Novatian forced them, when receiving Holy Communion, to swear by the Blood and the Body of Christ that they would not go over to Cornelius.

Cornelius and Novatian sent messengers to the different Churches to announce their respective claims. From St. Cyprian's correspondence we know of the careful investigation made by the Council of Carthage, with the result that Cornelius was supported by the whole African episcopate. St. Dionysius of Alexandria also took his side, and these influential adhesions soon made his position secure. But for a time the whole Church was torn by the question of the rival popes. We have few details. St. Cyprian writes that Novatian "assumed the primacy" (Ep. lxix, 8), and sent out his new apostles to many cities to set new foundations for his new establishment; and, though there were already in all provinces and cities bishops of venerable age, of pure faith, of tried virtue, who had been proscribed in the persecution, he dared to create other false bishops over their heads (Ep. lv, 24) thus claiming the right of substituting bishops by his own authority as Cornelius did in the case just mentioned. There could be no more startling proof of the importance of the Roman See than this sudden revelation of an episode of the third century: the whole Church convulsed by the claim of an antipope; the recognized impossibility of a bishop being a Catholic and legitimate pastor if he is on the side of the wrong pope; the uncontested claim of both rivals to consecrate a new bishop in any place (at all events, in the West) where the existing bishop resisted their authority. Later, in the same way, in a letter to Pope Stephen, St. Cyprian urges him to appoint (so he seems to imply) a new bishop at Arles, where the bishop had become a Novatianist. St. Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to Pope Stephen that all the Churches in the East and beyond, which had been split in two, were now united, and that all their prelates were now rejoicing exceedingly in this unexpected peace -- in Antioch, Caesarea of Palestine, Jerusalem, Tyre, Laodicea of Syria, Tarsus and all the Churches of Cilicia, Caesarea and all Cappadocia, the Syrias and Arabia (which depended for alms on the Roman Church), Mesopotamia, Pontus and Bithynia, "and all the Churches everywhere", so far did the Roman schism cause its effects to be felt. Meanwhile, before the end of 251, Cornelius had assembled a council of sixty bishops (probably all from Italy or the neighbouring islands), in which Novatian was excommunicated. Other bishops who were not present added their signatures, and the entire list was sent to Antioch and doubtless to all the other principal Churches.

It is not surpr sing that a man of such talents as Novatian should have been, conscious of his superiority to Cornelius, or that he should have found priests to assist his ambitious views. His mainstay was in the confessors yet in prison, Maximus, Urbanus, Nicostratus, and others. Dionysius and Cyprian wrote to remonstrate with them, and they returned to the Church. A prime mover on Novatian's side was the Carthaginian priest Novatus, who had favoured laxity at Carthage out of opposition to his bishop. In St. Cyprian's earlier letters about Novatian (xliv-xlviii, 1), there is not a word about any heresy, the whole question being as to the legitimate occupant of the place of Peter. In Ep. li, the words "schismatico immo haeretico furore" refer to the wickedness of opposing the true bishop. The same is true of " haereticae pravitatis nocens factio" with Ep. liii. In Ep. liv, Cyprian found it necessary to send his book "De lapsis" to Rome, so that the question of the lapsed was already prominent, but Ep. lv is the earliest in which the "Novatian heresy" as such is argued against. The letters of the Roman confessors (Ep. liii) and Cornelius (xlix, 1) to Cyprian do not mention it, though the latter speaks in general terms of Novatian as a schismatic or a heretic; nor does the pope mention heresy in his abuse of Novatian in the letter to Fabius of Antioch (Eusebius, VI, xliii), from which so much has been quoted above. It is equally clear that the letters sent out by Novatian were not concerned with the lapsi, but were "letters full of calumnies and maledictions sent in large numbers, which threw nearly all the Churches into disorder"' (Cornelius, Ep. xlix). The first of those sent to Carthage consisted apparently of "bitter accusations" against Cornelius, and St. Cyprian thought it so disgraceful that he did not read it to the council (Ep. xlv, 2). , The messengers from Rome to the Carthaginian Council broke out into similar attacks (Ep. xliv). It is necessary to notice this point, because it is so frequently overlooked by historians, who represent the sudden but short-lived disturbance throughout the Catholic Church caused by Novatian's ordination to have been a division between bishops on the subject of his heresy. Yet it is obvious enough that the question could not present itself: "Which is preferable, the doctrine of Cornelius or that of Novatian?" If Novatian were ever so orthodox, the first matter was to examine whether his ordination was legitimate or not, and whether his accusations against Cornelius were false or true. An admirable reply addressed to him by St. Dionysius of Alexandria has been preserved (Eusebius, VI, xlv): "Dionysius to his brother Novatian, greeting. If it was against your will, as you say, that you were led, you will prove it by retiring of your free will. For you ought to have suffered anything rather than divide the Church of God and to be martyred rather than cause a schism woul have been no less glorious than to be martyred rather than commit idolatry, nay in my opinion it would have been a yet greater act; for in the one case one is a martyr for one's own soul alone, in the other for the whole Church". Here again there is no question of heresy.

But yet within a couple of months Novatian was called a heretic, not only by Cyprian but throughout the Church, for his severe views about the restoration of those who had lapsed in the persecution. He held that idolatry was an unpardonable sin, and that the Church had no right to restore to communion any who had fallen into it. They might repent and be admitted to a lifelong penance, but their forgiveness must be left to God; it could not be pronounced in this world. Such harsh sentiments were not altogether a novelty. Tertullian had resisted the forgiveness of adultery by Pope Callistus as an innovation. Hippolytus was equally inclined to severity. In various places and at various times laws were made which punished certain sins either with the deferring of Communion till the hour of death, or even with refusal of Communion in the hour of death. Even St. Cyprian approved the latter course in the case of those who refused to do pennance and only repented on their death-bed; but this was because such a repentance seemed of doubtful sincerity. But severity in itself was but cruelty or injustice; there was no heresy until it was denied that the Church has the power to grant absolution in certain cases. This was Novatian's heresy; and St. Cyprian says the Novatians held no longer the Catholic creed and baptismal interrogation, for when they said "Dost thou believe in the remission of sins, and everlasting life, through Holy Church?" they were liars.

Writings

St. Jerome mentions a number of writings of Novatian, only two of which have come down to us, the "De Cibis Judaicis" and the "De Trinitate". The former is a letter written in retirement during a time of persecution, and was preceded by two other letters on Circumcision and the Sabbath, which are lost. It interprets the unclean animals as signifying different classes of vicious men; and explains that the greater liberty allowed to Christians is not to be a motive for luxury. The book "De Trinitate" is a fine piece of writing. The first eight chapters concern the transcendence and greatness of God, who is above all thought and can be described by no name. Novatian goes on to prove the Divinity of the Son at great length, arguing from both the Old and the New Testaments, and adding that it is an insult to the Father to say that a Father who is God cannot beget a Son who is God. But Novatian falls into the error made by so many early writers of separating the Father from the Son, so that he makes the Father address to the Son the command to create, and the Son obeys; he identifies the Son with the angels who appeared in the Old Testament to Agar, Abraham. etc. "It pertains to the person of Christ that he should be God because He is the Son of God, and that He should be an Angel because He announces the Father's Will" (paternae dispositionis annuntiator est). The Son is "the second Person after the Father", less than the Father in that He is originated by the Father; He is the imitator of all His works, and is always obedient to the Father, and is one with Him "by concord, by love, and by affection".

No wonder such a description should seem to opponents to make two Gods; and consequently, after a chapter on the Holy Ghost (xxix), Novatian returns to the subject in a kind of appendix (xxx-xxxi). Two kinds of heretics, he explains, try to guard the unity of God, the one kind (Sabellians) by identifying the Father with the Son, the other (Ebionites, etc.) by denying that the Son is God; thus is Christ again crucified between two thieves, and is reviled by both. Novatian declares that there is indeed but one God, unbegotten, invisible, immense, immortal; the Word (Sermo), His Son, is a substance that proceeds from Him (substantia prolata), whose generation no apostle nor angel nor any creature can declare. He is not a second God, because He is eternally in the Father, else the Father would not be eternally Father. He proceeded from the Father, when the Father willed (this syncatabasis for the purpose of creation is evidently distinguished from the eternal begetting in the Father), and remained with the Father. If He were also the unbegotten, invisible, incomprehensible, there might indeed be said to be two Gods; but in fact He has from the Father whatever He has, and there is but one origin (origo, principium), the Father. "One God is demonstrated, the true and eternal Father, from whom alone this energy of the Godhead is sent forth, being handed on to the Son, and again by communion of substance it is returned to the Father." In this doctrine there is much that is incorrect, yet much that seems meant to express the consubstantiality of the Son, or at least His generation out of the substance of the Father. But it is a very unsatisfactory unity which is attained, and it seems to be suggested that the Son is not immense or invisible, but the image of the Father capable of manifesting Him. Hippolytus is in the same difficulty, and it appears that Novatian borrowed from him as well as from Tertullian and Justin. It would seem that Tertullian and Hippolytus understood somewhat better than did Novatian the traditional Roman doctrine of the consubstantiality of the Son, but that all three were led astray by their acquaintance with the Greek theology, which interpreted of the Son as God Scriptural expressions (especially those of St. Paul) which properly apply to Him as the God-Man. But at least Novatian has the merit of not identifying the Word with the Father, nor Sonship with the prolation of the Word for the purpose of Creation, for He plainly teaches the eternal generation. This is a notable advance on Tertullian.

On the Incarnation Novatian seems to have been orthodox, though he is not explicit. He speaks correctly of the one Person having two substances, the Godhead and Humanity, in the way that is habitual to the most exact Western theologians. But he very often speaks of "the man" assumed by the Divine Person, so that he has been suspected of Nestorianizing. This is unfair, since he is equally liable to the opposite accusation of making "the man" so far from being a distinct personality that He is merely flesh assumed (caro, or substantia carnis et corporis). But there is no real ground for supposing that Novatian meant to deny an intellectual soul in Christ; he does not think of the point, and is only anxious to assert the reality of our Lord's flesh. The Son of God, he says, joins to Himself the Son of Man, and by this connection and mingling he makes the Son of Man become Son of God, which He was not by nature. This last sentence has been described as Adoptionism. But the Spanish Adoptionists taught that the Human Nature of Christ as joined to the Godhead is the adopted Son of God. Novatian only means that before its assumption it was not by nature the Son of God; the form of words is bad, but there is not necessarily any heresy in the thought. Newman, though he does not make the best of Novatian, says that he "approaches more nearly to doctrinal precision than any of the writers of the East and West" who preceded him (Tracts theological and ecclesiastical, p. 239).

The two pseudo-Cyprianic works, both by one author, "De Spectaculis" and "De bono pudicitiae", are attributed to Novatian by Weyman, followed by Demmler, Bardenhewer, Harnack, and others. The pseudo-Cyprianic "De laude martyrii" has been ascribed to Novatian by Harnack, but with less probability. The pseudo-Cyprianic sermon, "Adversus Judaeos", is by a close friend or follower of Novatian if not by himself, according to Landgraf, followed by Harnack and Jordan. In 1900 Mgr Batiffol with the help of Dom A. Wilmart published, under the title of "Tractatus Origenis de libris SS. Scripturarum", twenty sermons which he had discovered in two MSS. at Orleans and St. Omer. Weyman, Haussleiter, and Zahn perceived that these curious homilies on the Old Testament were written in Latin and are not translations from the Greek. They attributed them to Novatian with so much confidence that a disciple of Zahn's, H. Jordan, has written a book on the theology of Novatian, grounded principally on these sermons. It was, however, pointed out that the theology is of a more developed and later character than that of Novatian. Funk showed that the mention of competentes (candidates for baptism) implies the fourth century. Dom Morin suggested Gregorius Baeticus of Illiberis (Elvira), but withdrew this when it seemed clear that the author had used Gaudentius of Brescia and Rufinus' translation of Origen on Genesis. But these resemblances must be resolved in the sense that the "Tractatus" are the originals, for finally Dom Wilgory showed that Gregory of Elvira is their true author, by a comparison especially with the five homilies of Gregory on the Canticle of Canticles (in Heine's "Bibliotheca Anecdotorum" Leipzig, 1848).

The Novationist Sect

The followers of Novatian named themselves katharoi, or Puritans, and affected to call the Catholic Church Apostaticum, Synedrium, or Capitolinum. They were found in every province, and in some places were very numerous. Our chief information about them is from the "History" of Socrates, who is very favourable to them, and tells us much about their bishops, especially those of Constantinople. The chief works written against them are those of St. Cyprian, the anonymous "Ad Novatianum" (attributed by Harnack to Sixtus II, 257-8), writings of St. Pacian of Barcelona and St. Ambrose (De paenitentia), "Contra Novatianum", a work of the fourth century among the works of St. Augustine, the "Heresies" of Epiphanius and Philastrius, and the "Quaestiones" of Ambrosiaster. In the East they are mentioned especially by Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom. Eulogius of Alexandria, not long before 600, wrote six books against them. Refutations by Reticius of Autun and Eusebius of Emesa are lost.

Novatian had refused absolution to idolaters; his followers extended this doctrine to all "mortal sins" (idolatry, murder, and adultery, or fornication). Most of them forbade second marriage, and they made much use of Tertullian's works; indeed, in Phrygia they combined with the Montanists. A few of them did not rebaptize converts from other persuasions. Theodoret says that they did not use confirmation (which Novatian himself hadnever received). Eulogius complained that they would not venerate martyrs, but he probably refers to Catholic martyrs. They always had a successor of Novatian at Rome, and everywhere they were governed by bishops. Their bishops at Constantinople were most estimable persons, according to Socrates, who has much to relate about them. The conformed to the Church in almost everything, including monasticism in the fourth century. Their bishop at Constantinople was invited by Constantine to the Council of Nicaea. He approved the decrees, though he would not consent to union. On account of the homoousion the Novatians were persecuted like the Catholics by Constantius. In Paphlagonia the Novatianist peasants attacked and slew the soldiers sent by the emperor to enforce conformity to the official semi-Arianism. Constantine the Great, who at first treated them as schismatics, not heretics, later ordered the closing of their churches and cemeteries. After the death of Constantius they were protected by Julian, but the Arian Valens persecuted them once more. Honorius included them in a law against heretics in 412, and St. Innocent I closed some of their churches in Rome. St. Celestine expelled them from Rome, as St. Cyril had from Alexandria. Earlier St. Chrysostom had shut up their churches at Ephesus, but at Constantinople they were tolerated, and their bishops there are said by Socrates to have been highly respected. The work of Eulogius shows that there were still Novatians in Alexandria about 600. In Phrygia (about 374) some of them became Quartodecimans, and were called Protopaschitoe; they included some converted Jews. Theodosius mad