Novatian and the Rigorists

After the Decian persecution produced a flood of lapsi — Christians who had sacrificed or obtained false certificates — the Roman church split not over leniency but over severity: the learned presbyter Novatian, arguing that the Church had no power to readmit the lapsed at all, had himself consecrated a rival bishop of Rome against the lawful Cornelius and founded a schism that outlasted the century. Cyprian of Carthage recognized Cornelius, condemned Novatian, and carefully distinguished the Roman rigorist from the simultaneously erupting laxist schism in Carthage — the two being mirror-image corruptions of the one middle path of penance and restoration.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father / Latin)

The Roman See in Crisis

Pope Fabian died as a martyr in January 250 under the Decian persecution, and the Roman see stood vacant for approximately fourteen months — the longest vacancy Rome had yet known (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.39.1; trans. NPNF II/1). No election could safely be held while the persecution continued. During the vacancy the Roman church was governed by its college of presbyters, among whom the most distinguished theologian was the presbyter Novatian (c. 200–258), author of De Trinitate — the first systematic Latin treatise on the Trinity — as well as several shorter works and a series of letters written in the name of the Roman clergy (Novatian, De Trinitate [CSEL 4]; trans. ANF 5; Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian, ACW 43, introduction). His theological standing was high, and it was widely expected that he would be elected when conditions allowed (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.2).

When the persecution eased in early 251, however, the Roman church elected the presbyter Cornelius. Cornelius favored the position that would also prevail at Carthage: the lapsed could be restored, but only after due penance (Cyprian, Epistula 44 [CSEL 3.2:598–600]; Clarke, ACW 44; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.3–5). For Novatian, this was an intolerable compromise: the Church, as the community of the holy, lacked the power to release apostasy, and those who had sacrificed to the imperial gods were to be permanently excluded from her communion (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.1; Cyprian, Epistula 55.26–27 [CSEL 3.2:643–645]; Clarke, ACW 44).

The Rival Consecration

Novatian’s response was schism. Persuading three Italian bishops — described by Eusebius as men of “simple mind” fetched from “remote parts of Italy” — to consecrate him as a rival bishop of Rome, he demanded the allegiance of churches across the Mediterranean (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.8–9; trans. NPNF II/1). This was, in Cyprian’s terms, the setting up of “altar against altar and bishop against bishop” — the archetypal act of schism identified in De Unitate (Cyprian, De Unitate 17 [CSEL 3.1:225; PL 4:513–514]; trans. ANF 5). Novatian and his followers called themselves the katharoi — the “pure” — a name Cyprian found both revealing and self-condemning: no one who has torn the seamless robe of Christ can meaningfully claim purity (Cyprian, Epistula 55.26; Clarke, ACW 44; De Unitate 3–4 [CSEL 3.1:210–212]).

The Rigorist Doctrine

Novatian’s argument had a pneumatological root. The Church’s power to bind and loose extended to ordinary sins, but not to the gravest ones — apostasy, murder, adultery — which God alone could forgive. The Church might pray for the lapsed, but she could not herself restore them; her communion remained closed to them permanently (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.1; Cyprian, Epistula 55.10–11 [CSEL 3.2:627–629]; Clarke, ACW 44). This was not a denial of divine mercy but a claim about ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In practice, however, it meant that hundreds of thousands of Christians who had sacrificed under fear — or had merely purchased compliance certificates from corrupt officials — were permanently excluded from full communion.

Novatian vs. Novatus: Two Men, Opposite Errors

A note of precision is essential, because the names are nearly identical and the errors diametrically opposed.

Novatus was a Carthaginian presbyter and one of the five who had opposed Cyprian’s election (Cyprian, Epistula 43 [CSEL 3.2:591–596]; Clarke, ACW 44). In Carthage, Novatus allied with the deacon Felicissimus in a laxist schism — demanding that the lapsed be restored immediately and without penance, in defiance of Cyprian’s authority. Their faction eventually had a counter-bishop, Fortunatus, consecrated against Cyprian (Cyprian, Epistula 59.9–10 [CSEL 3.2:676–678]; Clarke, ACW 46). Novatus subsequently traveled to Rome and there supported Novatian the rigorist — the link being not doctrinal consistency but shared opposition to the lawful bishop (Clarke, ACW 44, introduction; Sage, Cyprian, ch. 9).

Novatian was the Roman presbyter and rigorist — a quite different man, representing the opposite extreme. The irony is complete: the Carthaginian laxist and the Roman rigorist found common cause in opposing their respective legitimate bishops, illustrating Cyprian’s point that schism’s root is ecclesiological, not theological (Burns, Cyprian the Bishop, ch. 4).

Cyprian’s Recognition of Cornelius

Cyprian did not recognize Cornelius immediately upon news of his election, but dispatched representatives to Rome to investigate before committing himself (Cyprian, Epistula 44; Clarke, ACW 44). Once satisfied that Cornelius had been lawfully elected with the assent of the Roman clergy, people, and neighboring bishops, Cyprian recognized him without reservation, writing warmly across the cluster of letters now called the Cornelius correspondence (Epistulae 44–55; Clarke, ACW 44).

The recognition was ecclesiologically principled. For Cyprian, Cornelius was the lawful occupant of the chair of Peter and his brother in the one college of bishops; to follow Novatian, however learned, was to stand outside that college. “The Church is in the bishop, and if anyone is not with the bishop, he is not in the Church” (Cyprian, Epistula 66.8 [CSEL 3.2:733]; Clarke, ACW 46). Cornelius convened a Roman synod of sixty bishops that formally excommunicated Novatian (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.2; Cyprian, Epistula 55.6 [CSEL 3.2:623–624]; Clarke, ACW 44). The Council of Carthage in 251 similarly condemned the rigorist position. When Cornelius died in exile at Centumcellae in June 253, driven there by the Gallian persecution, Cyprian honored him as a confessor who had “crowned the priesthood of his faith with a glorious end” (Cyprian, Epistula 55.9 [CSEL 3.2:626]; Clarke, ACW 44; Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.10.1).

The Spread and Duration of Novatianism

Novatian’s schism proved remarkably durable. The katharoi spread across Africa, Spain, Gaul, and the East, and in Phrygia their rigorism merged with older Montanist tendencies (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.43.1; Socrates Scholasticus, Historia Ecclesiastica 4.28; trans. NPNF II/2). The Council of Nicaea (325) legislated for them explicitly in Canon 8, providing a mechanism by which Novatianist clergy could be received into the Catholic Church without re-ordination, provided they accepted the Church’s practice on the restoration of the lapsed (Council of Nicaea 325, Canon 8; Tanner, Decrees, vol. 1). That the first ecumenical council felt obliged to address the Novatianists seventy years after Novatian’s consecration is testimony to the schism’s tenacity. Their baptismal practice — rebaptism of those coming from the Catholic Church — became one of the pivots of the later clash between Cyprian and Pope Stephen over the validity of heretical baptism (see Baptism and the Boundaries of the Church).

See Also

• Cyprian’s Middle Path — Cyprian between the laxists and the rigorists, and the episcopate as the answer to both schisms
• De Lapsis and the Libelli — the lapsi crisis that provoked both schisms
• On the Unity of the Catholic Church (De Unitate) — the treatise written against both schisms simultaneously
• Baptism and the Boundaries of the Church — the question of Novatianist baptism and the limits of Church membership
• Orthodoxy: The Church Fathers — Cyprian among the ante-Nicene Latin Fathers

References

• Cyprian of Carthage. Epistulae 43–44, 49, 54–55, 59, 66. CSEL 3.2, ed. W. Hartel, Vienna 1871. Trans. G. W. Clarke, The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage, 4 vols., ACW 43–47, New York: Newman Press, 1984–1989.
• Cyprian of Carthage. De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate 3–4, 17. CSEL 3.1; PL 4:493–520. Trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5. Online: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/050701.htm
• Novatian. De Trinitate. CSEL 4, ed. W. Hartel, Vienna 1871. Trans. Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5.
• Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 6.39, 6.43, 7.10. Trans. A. C. McGiffert, NPNF II/1, Buffalo 1890.
• Socrates Scholasticus. Historia Ecclesiastica 4.28. Trans. NPNF II/2.
• Council of Nicaea (325), Canon 8. In N. P. Tanner, S.J., ed. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, Vol. 1. London: Sheed and Ward / Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1990.
• Burns, J. Patout. Cyprian the Bishop. London: Routledge, 2002. Ch. 4 on the double schism of 251.
• Clarke, G. W. The Letters of St. Cyprian of Carthage. ACW 43–47. Introductions to vols. 43–44 cover the Cornelius and Novatian episodes.
• Sage, Michael M. Cyprian. Patristic Monograph Series 1. Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975. Ch. 9 on the Novatian schism.
• Brent, Allen. Cyprian and Roman Carthage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.