Novatian (~200-258 A.D.) was baptized on his death bed and then unexpectedly recovered. He was a priest in Rome when Fabian, the Bishop of Rome, was martyred in 250 A.D. Because of the intense persecution, the role of bishop was left vacant for a year.
During this same time, the churches were also dealing with the grief for those believers who had remained faithful in the face of persecution and lost their lives. Believers honoured the memory of the martyrs by celebrating their "birthdays" into eternal life. In Carthage, some believers felt the martyrs had access to incredible supernatural power when they faced death and that their excess merit was sufficient to cover the failures of others. They even urged their bishop, Cyprian, to issue a blanket pardon for all those who had lapsed and sacrificed to idols based on this alleged power of the martyrs. It was the earliest seeds of the modern Catholic practice of venerating saints.
Cyprian rightly declined this request on the basis that martyrs do not have the power to forgive sins. However, the question of readmission of lapsed believers was a sticky one. The traditional approach was that any serious sins such as apostasy resulted in believers being permanently excommunicated from the church. Cyprian proposed a new and more moderate approach that they be readmitted based on the seriousness of the sin. Leniency should be shown for those who failed during the worst kinds of physical torture, while those who willingly went to sacrifice to idols should be punished severely. Additionally, sufficient remorse should be evident on the part of the lapsed.
This approach led the church leaders to establish a graded system of "penance," or actions that demonstrated repentance based on the seriousness of the sin. After the required acts of humility and the required time had elapsed, the person was declared absolved of their sins by the bishop, readmitted to the church and could participate once again in the sacraments.
While there was agreement with Cyprian's solution among some churches and leaders, support was not unanimous. Novatian in Rome led the opposition on the basis that only God can forgive men from their sins, especially serious sins like apostasy or murder. Cyprian had simply moved that supposed power of forgiveness away from martyrs and gave it to the bishops instead, and Novatian argued it belonged to neither. Further, the church had taught clearly against sacrificing to idols before and during the persecution. They encouraged believers to face death with courage. Now those same leaders were welcoming back those who had failed that test. Wasn't this dishonouring the sacrifice of those martyrs who had proven faithful to Christ? How would you feel if those martyrs included your family members? Why hadn't those same church leaders taught this during the persecution? Wouldn't that have avoided a lot of unnecessary deaths? Did this mean the church leaders were admitting their previous teachings were wrong? One can imagine the strong emotions that must have been present on both sides of the debate. It was not a theoretical exercise -- it had intensely practical implications for each congregation.
Another priest in Rome named Cornelius took Cyprian's position and argued that bishops did in fact possess the power to forgive sins. This set the stage for a showdown when the election for Bishop of Rome took place.
The majority of bishops sided with Cornelius and he was elected Bishop of Rome in 251 A.D. However, Novatian and those who agreed with his position on the lapsed were not content to accept this change in church practice. Just because a new bishop decrees a new practice in the church, did that mean the believers who disagreed with him had to adopt that practice even if it was contrary to the Scriptures? What options did they have?
As a result, some priests in the Catholic Church elected Novatian bishop in open defiance of Cornelius. We don't have any versions of this process from Novatian, only from his enemies, so it's unclear how much of their version of events is embellished, but Novatian may have engineered his election using some priests who were not entirely aware of what they were doing. However, Novatian had a significant following and they immediately began establishing new churches under his leadership and appointed new bishops in other cities. Suddenly there was a parallel network of churches and church leaders all over the Roman Empire.
While it is possible the Novatian schism was caused in part by a personality clash between Cornelius and Novatian, it could not be the main cause. Cornelius was martyred just two years after becoming bishop, Novatian was martyred 5 years after that, and Cyprian was martyred the same year as Novatian. By 258 A.D. all of the original players in the schism were gone from the scene, but Novatian churches continued to exist for centuries. It is much more likely that the schism was primarily caused by differences of theology rather than of personality.
Initially the Catholic leaders called the Novatians a schism (meaning division) which is what they were, but over time leaders such as Cyprian changed their tone and declared them heretics. Their only heresy was that they refused to acknowledge the power of the church to absolve sins. This is strange, because that was a new teaching in Novatian's lifetime that was adopted by the Catholic Church leadership even though it had no Scriptural basis. (Tertullian had opposed a similar issue decades earlier when a Bishop of Rome declared an adulterer forgiven.) Novatian was declared a heretic because he did not accept a newly-invented doctrine that had been voted for by a majority of Catholic bishops and priests. The definition of heresy now became anything contrary to what the Catholic Church taught. Spiritual truth was determined by democratic vote. Those in the majority were orthodox, while those in the minority were heretics. It had nothing to do with what the Bible taught. There was no room for multiple opinions on any matter of church life. This definition of heresy has been used by the Catholic Church down to the present day.
In this short period of church history, the Catholic Church invented a brand new sacrament. Instead of just baptism and communion, there was now penance and absolution of sins. The church had gotten into the business of setting the price for and dispensing forgiveness of sins. It began with trivial punishments and outward signs of humility, but it would be a small step in later centuries to make that price for forgiveness purely monetary -- indulgences would be the logical conclusion of this doctrine, and it would be one of the driving causes for the Protestant Reformation.
The Novatians called themselves "Cathars" from the Greek word for "pure," so in a sense they were the first Puritans. Some of their churches also re-baptized converts from the Catholic Church, so in a sense they were the first Anabaptists. They strongly opposed the teaching that the Catholic Church could absolve sins and they expected that Christians' lives should show evidence of their faith in how they behave. Their bishops were admired for their Godly behaviour and Constantine invited the Novatian bishop from Constantinople to the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. The bishop approved all the decrees that the council put forward but refused union with the Catholic Church.
Since the Catholic Church declared them to be heretics, Novatians were persecuted on and off for centuries, sometimes having their church buildings closed or confiscated and at other times being reluctantly tolerated. The last reference to them is in Alexandria, Egypt around 600 A.D.
The Novatians were essentially orthodox in all the foundational doctrines of Christianity, but they rejected the un-Biblical ordinances that the Catholic Church had begun to adopt. Their punishment was excommunication from the Catholic Church, but they didn't seem to care.
No comments:
Post a Comment