The Novatians deny this.
The Novatians deny this.
Even in earlier times, around AD 220, there were the Novatians [Novatiani], named from Novatus, a sly African man, who claimed that forgiveness must be denied to the penitent.1 Eusebius (bk. 6, ch. 43): “They called themselves the ‘Clean’ [καθαροὺς] because of the pride in their reasoning.”
** [Eusebius again] (Hist. eccles., bk. 6, ch. 7) in reference to the Novatians says, “They fabricate false charges of mercilessness against our kind Lord Jesus Christ.” **
Cyprian (bk. 1, Letter 1 ad Cornelium, p. 2): “A Novatian is a deserter from the church, a foe of mercy, a destroyer of repentance.” [Cyprian again] (Sermon de coen. Dom., p. 455): “If there is true contrition and a pure change of desires, no greatness of the crime, no brevity of time, no lateness of the hour, no enormity of life excludes one from forgiveness. Rather, mother love takes up into her ample bosom those who return to her, and the grace of God always takes back the repentant, whether or not the heretic Novatus likes it.”
** [Cyril of Alexandria] (on John 15, bk. 5): “For the present situation now demands that we show both with the words and with the examples of Scripture that the mercy of God is granted to people as often as they ask for forgiveness. The children of Israel sinned in their worship of the molten calf. Moses prayed to the Lord and obtained forgiveness for this trespass [Exod. 32:1–14]. The people burned with the desire for meat and murmured against the Lord, who was again placated when Moses prayed [Exod. 16:1–11]. Shocked by the report of the spies, the same people complained about the Lord that, though He was going to lead them into that land, they would fall under a hostile sword there. Again with his prayers Moses made the Lord capable of being pacified [Num. 11:1–12:20]—not to mention the stirring up of the Israelites which occurred in the rebellion of Korah [Numbers 16], their murmuring at the waters of contradiction [Exod. 17:1–7], and the sending of the fiery serpents against the people because of their murmurings among themselves and daily murmurings against God [Num. 21:4–9]. In all these instances, God was moved by the prayers of Moses and gave forgiveness to the people not just once or twice,” etc. [Cyprian] (bk. 4, Letter 2): “If with Novatus we reject the repentance of the fallen, it will be ascribed to us on Judgment Day that we did not heal the hurt sheep and that because of the one hurt sheep many healthy ones were lost. Christ looked for those who wandered away. Will He reject those who come to Him?” Basil the Great (Sermon de poenit.): “Let us ask our Savior: ‘Why did You come to us?’ He will respond: ‘I did not come to save the righteous but to bring sinners to repentance’ [Matt. 9:13; Mark 2:17]. Let us ask Him: ‘What are You carrying on Your shoulders?’ He will answer: ‘The lost sheep.’ Let us ask: ‘For whose sake do those who are in heaven rejoice?’ He will answer: ‘The angels rejoice over one who repents [Luke 15:10]. God embraces him with joy. Do you forbid this?’ ” Epiphanius (bk. 2, vol. 1, fol. 216): “Those who call themselves ‘Pure’ [καθαροὺς] make themselves impure by that very supposition; for everyone who declares that he is pure condemns himself completely as being impure.” **
Ambrose (De poenit., 1, ch. 2, p. 153, vol. 1) says that the Novatians “say that, except for the more serious sins, they grant pardon for the lesser ones. The instigator of this error of yours is not a Novatian who thought that penance should not be given to anyone, namely, because of this consideration: that one should not bind what he himself could not loose.”
Epiphanius (Haeres. 59, bk. 2, vol. 1, p. 214, Greek edition):
The “Pure” [καθαροὶ] are so called by a certain Novatus. 2 This Novatus was in Rome at the time of the persecution which preceded the one which Maximinus stirred up. Because of those who had fallen in that persecution, he, along with his people, was puffed up with arrogance and did not wish to admit into communion those who became repentant after the persecution. Therefore he turned to this heresy, saying that there was no salvation, that there was only one repentance, and that no mercy could be shown to one who sinned after Baptism.
Augustine (De haeres. ad Quodvultdeum, heresy 38): “The Cathari [i.e., ‘the Pure’], who call themselves by that name as if naming themselves very proudly and hatefully because of their purity, deny repentance, following the heretic Novatus. Thus they are also called the Novatians.”
Socrates (Hist. eccles., bk. 6, ch. 20) mentions that Leontius, the bishop of Ancyra, said to Bishop Sisinnius of the Novatians, who was asking Leontius to restore the church that he had taken away from them: “You Novatians should not have churches, for you take away repentance and shut out God’s love of mankind.” Socrates also reports (Hist., bk. 1, ch. 7) that when the Novatian Acesius said that those who fell into a mortal sin after Baptism should be urged to repent but that they should not await forgiveness from the priests but from God, Emperor Constantine responded: “Set up a ladder, Acesius, and climb all alone into heaven!”
The origin of the Novatian error was the apostasy of some people in time of persecution. Novatus decried that these should be treated with severity. Here the troublesome statements of the ancients also pertain. Clement (Strom., bk. 2): “To ask often for forgiveness for those things which are often sins appears to be repentance, but it is not.” Tertullian (De poenit., p. 557): “Because the door to dipping” (Baptism) “is locked, God placed in the vestibule a second repentance to open to those who knock, but only once, because that is already the second chance. There is never another chance because it would be almost in vain. After all, is not this once enough?” Here Beatus Rhenanus is correct in annotating [Tertullian]: “No, not just once or seven times, but seventy times seven.”
A little later we shall see that Bellarmine (De poenit., 1, chs. 6, 9) attributes the heresy of the Novatians to us and says that we do not give priests the power to forgive sins. This calumny and the rest of the lies which the same writer attributes to us at great length (De poenit., 1, chs. 2–4, 6) do not appear worthwhile of deep discussion because they are readily refuted on the basis of an inspection of the text, a comparison of dogmas, and the following declaration.
** Some of the ancients in the papacy affirmed that “repentance is useful only once and should not be repeated out of reverence for the sacrament, lest it become cheap and contemptible to people” (Gratian, dist. 2, in the introduction to De poenit.; Lombard, Sent., 4, dist. 14). **