Is it the Novatian heresy to say that repentance is not a sacrament?
Is it the Novatian heresy to say that repentance is not a sacrament?
§ 21. There is also no reason for Bellarmine to class us with Montanists and Novatians (De poenit., bk. 1, ch. 9) because we say that repentance, properly speaking, is not a sacrament. Earlier [§§ 14–17] we described the heresy of Novatus, who followed the error of Montanus. What connection do we and our churches have with it? By the consolation of the Gospel we lift up even those who have fallen into the most serious sins and announce to them the forgiveness of sins if they repent truly and seriously. The Novatians left no hope of salvation for them, or at least they were teaching that they should hope for the pardon of their sins from God alone (Eusebius, Hist., bk. 6, ch. 3).
The Papist writers themselves admit this. Alphonsus de Castro (Adv. haeres., bk. 12, title Poenitentia): “The Novatian heresy removes every virtue of repentance because it says that those who have once fallen after Baptism never afterward receive the forgiveness of sins even if they repent later.” Vega (De justif., bk. 13, ch. 2): “They considered every lethal sin committed after Baptism unforgivable.” Maldonatus (on John 14): “In John 5[:14] Christ says, ‘Sin no more, lest something worse happen to you.’ From this text Pacian proves against the Novatians that pardon must not be denied to those who repent, for Christ did not say, ‘Do not sin because you will not be healed again,’ but ‘lest something worse happen to you.’ ”
What do we have in common with this Novatian heresy? Yet as Bellarmine says, “You deny that the true and judiciary power to forgive sins has been given to priests.”
We respond. We do not deny that the true ministerial power to forgive sins belongs to ministers of the church, but rather we deny the fictional power which the Roman sacrificers attribute to themselves, that after one has made an enumeration of individual sins and they have made an evaluation of both their quality and quantity, they impose by dictatorial or, as Bellarmine says, judiciary authority some certain satisfactions or even pecuniary fines, and then remit the same according to their own whim. Such a power we certainly do deny to Roman sacrificers because they cannot prove that Christ gave them any such thing. Chrysostom (De poenit., homily 9): “This is a place for medicine, not for judgment. Repentance bestows not punishments but the forgiveness of sins.”