Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series II/Volume I/Church History of Eusebius/Book VII/Chapter 8

The Heterodoxy of Novatus.

&#8220; with good reason do we feel hatred toward Novatian, who has sundered the Church and drawn some of the brethren into impiety and blasphemy, and has introduced impious teaching concerning God, and has calumniated our most compassionate Lord Jesus Christ as unmerciful. And besides all this he rejects the holy baptism, and overturns the faith and confession which precede it, It was the custom from a very early period to cause the candidate for baptism to go through a certain course of training of greater or less length, and to require him to assent to a formulated statement of belief before the administration of the sacred rite. Thus we learn from the Didache that even as early as the very beginning of the second century the custom of pre-baptismal training was already in vogue, and we know that by the third century the system of catechetical instruction was a highly developed thing, extending commonly over two to three years. Candidates for baptism were then known as catechumens. So far as a baptismal creed or confession of faith is concerned, Caspari (see his great work, Studien zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols) has shown that such a creed was in use in the Roman church before the middle of the second century, and that it formed the basis of what we know as the Apostles&#8217; Creed, which in the form in which we have it is a later development.

Inasmuch as Novatian, so far as we can learn, was perfectly orthodox on matters of faith, he would not have cared to make any alteration in such a creed as the present Apostles&#8217; Creed. Exactly what Dionysius means in the present case is not certain. It is possible that he is simply speaking in general terms, assuming that if Novatian does not accept the Church baptism, he must overturn and pervert with it the instruction which had preceded; or it may be that he is thinking of that form of confession to which the candidate was required to give his assent, according to Cyprian, Ep. 69 (al. 70): credis in vitam &#230;ternam et remissionem peccatorum per sanctam ecclesiam? &#8220;Dost thou believe in eternal life and remission of sins through the holy Church?&#8221; The latter is the view of Valesius, who is followed by all others that have discussed the passage so far as I am aware. Of course Novatian could not put the last clause of this question to his converts, and hence Dionysius may have been thinking of this omission in using the words he does. At the same time I confess myself unable to agree with others in interpreting him thus. In the first place, it is, to say the least, very doubtful whether the question quoted above from Cyprian formed an article in the baptismal confession of the Church in general. It does not appear in the Apostles&#8217; Creed, and can therefore hardly have formed a part of the earlier Roman formula which underlay that. And so far as I am aware there are no traces of the use of such an article in the church of Alexandria. In the second place, Dionysius&#8217; language seems to me too general to admit of such a particular application. Had he been thinking of one especial article of the confession, as omitted or altered by Novatian, he would, in my opinion, have given some indication of it. I am, therefore, inclined to take his words in the most general sense, suggested as possible just above. and entirely banishes from them the Holy Ghost, if indeed there was any hope that he would remain or return to them.&#8221;