Chapter IV: Constitution, Worship, Life and Discipline.94 (3)

§ 39.5. =Beginning of Veneration of Martyrs.=--In very early
times a martyr death was prized as a sin-atoning _Lavacrum
sanguinis_, which might even abundantly compensate for the want
of water baptism. The day of the martyr’s death which was
regarded as the day of his birth into a higher life, γενέθλια,
_Natalitia martyrum_, was celebrated at his grave by prayers,
oblations and administration of the Lord’s Supper as a testimony
to the continuance of that fellowship with them in the Lord that
had been begun here below. Their bones were therefore gathered
with the greatest care and solemnly buried; so _e.g._ Polycarp’s
bones at Smyrna (§ 22, 2), as τιμιώτερα λίθων πολυτελῶν καὶ
δωκιμώτερα ὑπὲρ χρυσίον, so that at the spot where they were
laid the brethren might be able to celebrate his γενέθλιον ἐν
ἀγαλλιάσει καὶ χαρᾷ, εἴς τε τῶν προηθληκότων μνήμην καὶ τῶν
μελλόντων τε καὶ ἑτοιμασίαν. Of miracles wrought by means of
the relics, however, we as yet find no mention. The _Graffiti_
on the walls of the catacombs seem to represent the beginning
of the invocation of martyrs. In these the pious visitors seek
for themselves and those belonging to them an interest in the
martyr’s intercessions. Some of those scribblings may belong
to the end of our period; at least the expression “_Otia petite
pro_,” etc. in one of them seem to point to a time when they
were still undergoing persecution. The greatest reverence, too,
was shown to the _Confessors_ all through their lives, and great
influence was assigned them in regard to all church affairs,
_e.g._ in the election of bishops, the restoration of the fallen,
etc.--Continuation, § 57.

§ 39.6. =Superstition.=--Just as in later times every great
Christian missionary enterprise has seen religious ideas
transferred from the old heathenism into the young Christianity,
and, consciously or unconsciously, secretly or openly, acquiesced
in or contended against, securing for themselves a footing, so
also the Church of the first centuries did not succeed in keeping
itself free from such intrusions. A superstition forcing its
entrance in this way can either be taken over _nude crude_ in its
genuinely pagan form and, in spite of its palpable inconsistency
with the Christian faith, may nevertheless assert itself side
by side with it, or it may divest itself of that old pagan form,
and so unobserved and uncontested gain an entrance with its not
altogether extinguished heathenish spirit into new Christian
views and institutions and thus all the more dangerously make its
way among them. It is especially the magico-theurgical element
present in all heathen religions, which even at this early period
stole into the Christian life and the services of the church
and especially into the sacraments and things pertaining thereto
(§ 58), while it assumed new forms in the veneration of martyrs
and the worship of relics. One can scarcely indeed accept as a
convincing proof of this the statement of the Emperor Hadrian
in his correspondence regarding the religious condition of
Alexandria as given by the historian Vopiscus: _Illic qui
Serāpem colunt Christiani sunt, et devoti sunt Serapi qui se
Christi episcopos dicunt; nemo illic archisynagogus Judæorum,
nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter non mathematicus,
non haruspex, non aliptes_. This statement bears on its face
too evidently the character of superficial observation, of vague
hearsay and confused massing together of sundry reports. What
he says of the worship of Serapis, may have had some support
from the conduct of many Christians in the ascetic order, the
designating of their presbyters _aliptæ_ may have been suggested
by the chrism in baptism and the anointing at the consecration
of the clergy, perhaps also in the anointing of the sick
(Matt. vi. 13; Jas. v. 14); so too the characterizing of them
as _mathematici_ may have arisen from their determining the date
of Easter by means of astronomical observations (§ 37, 2; 56, 3),
though it could not be specially wonderful if there actually
were Christian scholars among the Alexandrian clergy skilled
in astronomy, notwithstanding the frequent alliance of this
science with astrology. But much more significant is the gross
superstition which in many ways shows itself in so highly
cultured a Christian as Julius Africanus in his _Cestæ_ (§ 31, 8).
In criticising it, however, we should bear in mind that this book
was written in the age of Alexander Severus, in which, on the one
hand, a wonderful mixture of religion and theurgical superstition
had a wonderful fascination for men, while on the Christian side
the whirlwind of persecution had not for a long time blown its
purifying breeze. The catacombs, too, afford some evidences of a
mode of respect for the departed that was borrowed from heathen
practices, but these on the whole are wonderfully free from
traces of superstition.

§ 40. THE MONTANIST REFORMATION.[108]

Earnest and strict as the moral, religious and ascetical requirements of the church of the 2nd and 3rd centuries generally were in regard to the life and morals of its members, and rigidly as these principles were carried out in its penitential discipline, there yet appeared even at this early date, in consequence of various instances of the relaxation of such strictness, certain eager spirits who clamoured for a restoration or even an intensification of the earlier rules of discipline. Such a movement secured for itself a footing about the middle of the 2nd century in Montanism, a growth of Phrygian soil, which without traversing in any way the doctrine of the church, undertook a thorough reformation of the ecclesiastical constitution on the practical side. Montanism, in opposition to the eclecticism of heretical Gnosticism, showed the attitude of Christianity to heathenism to be exclusive; against the spiritualizing and allegorizing tendencies of the church Gnosticism it opposed the realism and literalism of the doctrines and facts of the scripture revelation; against what seemed the excessive secularization of the church it presented a model of church discipline such as the nearness of the Lord’s coming demanded; against hierarchical tendencies that were always being more and more emphasized it maintained the rights of the laity and the membership of the church; while in order to secure the establishment of all these reforms it proclaimed that a prophetically inspired spiritual church had succeeded to Apostolic Christianity.

§ 40.1. =Montanism in Asia Minor.=--According to Epiphanius as
early as A.D. 156, according to Eusebius in A.D. 172, according
to Jerome in A.D. 171, a certain Montanus appeared as a prophet
and church reformer at Pepuza in Phrygia. He was formerly a
heathen priest and was only shortly before known as a Christian.
He had visions, preached while unconscious in ecstasy of the
immediate coming again of Christ (_Parousia_), fulminated against
the advancing secularisation of the church, and, as the supposed
organ of the _Paraclete_ promised by Christ (John xiv. 16)
presented in their most vigorous form the church’s demands in
respect of morals and discipline. A couple of excited women
_Prisca_ and _Maximilla_ were affected by the same extravagant
spirit by which he was animated, fell into a somnambulistic
condition and prophesied as he had done. On the death of
Maximilla about A.D. 180, Montanus and Prisca having died
before this, the supposed prophetic gift among them seems to
have been quenched. At least an anonymous writer quoted in
Eusebius (according to Jerome it was Rhodon, § 27, 12), in
his controversial treatise published thirteen years afterwards,
states that the voices of the prophets were then silent. So
indeed she herself had declared: Μεθ’ ἐμὲ προφῆτης οὐκέτι ἔσται,
ἀλλὰ συντέλεια. The Montanist prophecies occasioned a mighty
commotion in the whole church of Asia Minor. Many earnest
Christians threw themselves eagerly into the movement. Even
among the bishops they found here and there favour or else mild
criticism, while others combated them passionately, some going
so far as to regard the prophesying women as possessed ones and
calling exorcism to their aid. By the end of the year 170 several
synods, the first synods regularly convened, had been held
against them, the final result of which was their exclusion from
the catholic church. Montanus now organized his followers into an
independent community. After his death, his most zealous follower,
Alcibiades, undertook its direction. It was also not without
literary defenders. Themison, Alcibiades’ successor, issued “in
imitation of the Apostle” (John?) a Καθολικὴ ἐπιστολή, and the
utterances of the prophets were collected and circulated as
holy scripture. On the other hand during this same year 170 they
were attacked by the eminent apologists Claudius Apollinaris
and Miltiades (§ 36, 9) probably also by Melito. Their radical
opponents were the so-called _Alogi_ (§ 33, 2). Among their later
antagonists, who assumed more and more a passionately embittered
tone, the most important according to Eusebius were one
Apollinaris, whom Tertullian combats in the VII. Bk. of his
work, _De ecstasi_, and Serapion. At a Synod at Iconium about
the middle of the 3rd century at which also Firmilian of Cæsarea
(§ 35, 5) was present and voted, the baptism of the Montanists,
although their trinitarian orthodoxy could not be questioned,
was pronounced to be like heretical baptism null, because
administered _extra ecclesiam_, and a second baptism declared
necessary on admission to the Catholic church. And although at the
Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325 and of Constantinople in A.D. 381,
the validity of heretics’ baptism was admitted if given orderly
in the name of the Holy Trinity, the baptism of the Montanists was
excluded because it was thought that the Paraclete of Montanism
could not be recognised as the Holy Spirit of the church.--Already
in the time of Constantine the Great the Montanists were spreading
out from Phrygia over all the neighbouring provinces, and were
called from the place where they originated Κατάφρυγες and
Pepuziani. The Emperor now forbade them holding any public
assemblies for worship and ordered that all places for public
service should be taken from them and given over to the Catholic
church. Far stricter laws than even these were enforced against
them by later emperors down to the 5th century, _e.g._ prohibition
of all Montanist writings, deprivation of almost all civil rights,
banishment of their clergy to the mines, etc. Thus they could only
prolong a miserable existence in secret, and by the beginning of
the sixth century every trace of them had disappeared.

§ 40.2. =Montanism at Rome.=--The movement called forth by
Montanism in the East spread by and by also into the West. When
the first news reached Gaul of the synodal proceedings in Asia
Minor that had rent the church, the Confessors imprisoned at
Lyons and Vienne during the persecution of Marcus Aurelius, of
whom more than one belonged to a colony that had emigrated from
Phrygia to Gaul, were displeased, and, along with their report
of the persecution they had endured (§ 32, 8), addressed a letter
to those of Asia Minor, not given by Eusebius, but reckoned pious
and orthodox, exhorting to peace and the preservation of unity.
At the same time (A.D. 177) they sent the Presbyter Irenæus to
Rome in order to win from Bishop Eleutherus (A.D. 174-189), who
was opposed to Montanism, a mild and pacific sentence. Owing,
however, to the arrival of Praxeas, a Confessor of Asia Minor and
a bitter opponent of Montanism, a formal condemnation was at last
obtained (§ 33, 4). Tertullian relates that the Roman bishop, at
the instigation of Praxeas, revoked the letters of peace which
had been already prepared in opposition to his predecessors.
It is matter of controversy whether by this unnamed bishop
Eleutherus is meant, who then was first inclined to a peaceable
decision by Irenæus and thereafter by the picture of Montanist
extravagances given by Praxeas was led again to form another
opinion; or that it was, what seems from the chronological
references most probable, his successor Victor (A.D. 189-199), in
which case Eleutherus is represented as having hardened himself
against Montanism in spite of the entreaties of Irenæus, while
Victor was the first who for a season had been brought to think
otherwise.--Yet even after their condemnation a small body of
Montanists continued to exist in Rome, whose mouthpiece during
the time of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199-217) was Proclus, whom
the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7) opposed by word and writing.

§ 40.3. =Montanism in Proconsular Africa.=--When and how
Montanism gained a footing in North Africa is unknown, but
very probably it spread thither from Rome. The movement issuing
therefrom first attracted attention when Tertullian, about
A.D. 201 or 202, returned from Rome to Carthage, and with the
whole energy of his character decided in its favour, and devoted
his rich intellectual gifts to its advocacy. That the Montanist
party in Africa at that time still continued in connection with
the Catholic church is witnessed to by the Acts of the Martyrs
Perpetua and Felicitas (§ 32, 8), composed some time after this,
which bear upon them almost all the characteristic marks of
Montanism, while a vision communicated there shows that division
was already threatened. The bishop and clergy together with the
majority of the membership were decided opponents of the new
ecstatic-visionary prophecy already under ecclesiastical ban in
Asia Minor. They had not yet, however, come to an open breach
with it, which was probably brought about in A.D. 206 when quiet
had been again restored after the cessation of the persecution
begun about A.D. 202 by Septimius Severus. Tertullian had stood
at the head of the sundered party as leader of their sectarian
services, and defended their prophesyings and rigorism in
numerous apologetico-polemical writings with excessive bitterness
and passion, applying them with consistent stringency to all the
relations of life, especially on the ethical side. From the high
esteem in which, notwithstanding his Montanist eccentricities,
Tertullian’s writings continued to be held in Africa, _e.g._
by Cyprian (§ 31, 11), and generally throughout the West, the
tendency defended by him was not regarded in the church there as
in the East as thoroughly heretical, but only as a separatistic
overstraining of views allowed by the church. This mild estimate
could all the easier win favour, since to all appearance the
extravagant visionary prophesying, which caused most offence, had
been in these parts very soon extinguished.--Augustine reports
that a small body of “Tertullianists” continued in Carthage
down to his time († 430), and had by him been induced to return
to the Catholic church; and besides this, he also tells us
that Tertullian had subsequently separated himself from the
“Cataphrygians,” _i.e._ from the communion of the Montanists of
Asia Minor, whose excesses were only then perhaps made known to
him.

§ 40.4. =The Fundamental Principle of Montanism.=--Montanism
arose out of a theory of a divinely educative revelation
proceeding by advancing stages, not finding its conclusion in
Christ and the Apostles, but in the age of the Paraclete which
began with Montanus and in him reached its highest development.
The times of the law and the prophets in the Old Covenant is
the childhood of the kingdom of God; in the gospel it appears in
its youth; and by the Montanist shedding forth of the Spirit it
reaches the maturity of manhood. Its absolute perfection will be
attained in the millennium introduced by the approaching Parousia
and the descent of the heavenly Jerusalem at Pepuza (Rev. xx. 21).
The Montanist prophecy did not enrich or expand but only
maintained and established against the heretics, the system of
Christian doctrine already exclusively revealed in the times of
Christ. Montanism regarded as its special task a reformation of
Christian life and Church discipline highly necessary in view of
the approaching Parousia. The defects that had been borne with
during the earlier stages of revelation were to be repaired or
removed by the _Mandata_ of the Paraclete. The following are some
of the chief of these prescriptions: Second marriage is adultery;
Fasting must be practised with greater strictness; On _dies
stationum_ (§ 37, 3) nothing should be eaten until evening, and
twice a year for a whole week only water and bread (ξηροφαγίαι);
The excommunicated must remain their whole lifetime in _status
pœnitentiæ_; Martyrdom should be courted, to withdraw in any way
from persecution is apostasy and denial of the faith; Virgins
should take part in the worship of God only when veiled; Women
generally must put away all finery and ornaments; secular science
and art, all worldly enjoyments, even those that seem innocent,
are only snares of the devil, etc. An anti-hierarchical tendency
early showed itself in Montanism from the circumstance that
it arrogated to itself a new and high authority to which
the hierarchical organs of the church refused to submit
themselves. Yet even Montanism, after repudiating it, for its
own self-preservation was obliged to give itself an official
congregational organization, which, according to Jerome, had
as its head a patriarch resident at Pepuza, and, according to
Epiphanius, founding on Gal. iii. 28, gave even women admission
into ecclesiastical offices. Its worship was distinguished
only by the space given to the prophesyings of its prophets and
prophetesses. Epiphanius notes this as a special characteristic
of the sect, that often in their assemblies seven white-robed
virgins with torches made their appearance prophesying; evidently,
as the number seven itself shows, as representatives of the seven
spirits of God (Rev. iv. 5, etc.), and not of the ten virgins
who wait for the coming of the Lord. According to Philaster they
allowed even unbaptized persons to attend all their services and
were in the habit of baptizing even the dead, as is elsewhere
told also of certain Gnostic sects. Epiphanius too speaks of a
Montanist party which celebrated the Lord’s Supper with bread and
cheese, _Artotyrites_, according to Augustine, because the first
men had presented offerings of the fruits of the earth and sheep.

§ 40.5. =The Attitude of Montanism toward the Church.=--The
derivation of Montanism from Ebionism, contended for by Schwegler,
has nothing in its favour and much against it. To disprove this
notion it is enough to refer to the Montanist fundamental idea
of a higher stage of revelation above Moses and the prophets as
well as above the Messiah and His Apostles. Neither can we agree
with Neander in regarding the peculiar character of the Phrygian
people, as exhibited in their extravagant and fanatical worship
of Cybele, as affording a starting point for the Montanist
movement, but at most as a predisposition which rendered the
inhabitants of this province peculiarly susceptible in presence
of such a movement. The origin of Montanism is rather to be
sought purely among the specifically Catholic conditions and
conflicts within the church of Asia which at that time was
pre-eminently gifted and active. In regard to dogma Montanism
occupied precisely the same ground as the Catholic church;
even upon the trinitarian controversies of the age it took up
no sectarian position but went with the stream of the general
development. Not on the dogmatical but purely on the practical
side, namely, on that of the Christian life and ecclesiastical
constitution, discipline and morals, lay the problems which by
the action of the Montanists were brought into conflict. But
even upon this side Montanism, with all its eccentricities, did
not assume the attitude of an isolated separatistic sect, but
rather as a quickening and intensifying of views and principles
which from of old had obtained the recognition and sanction of
the church,--views which on the wider spread of Christianity
had already begun to be in every respect toned down or even
obliterated, and just in this way called forth that reaction of
enthusiasm which we meet with in Montanism. From the Apostles’
time the expectation of the early return of the Lord had stood
in the foreground of Christian faith, hope and yearning, and
this expectation continued still to be heartily entertained.
Nevertheless the fulfilment had now been so long delayed that men
were beginning to put this coming into an indefinitely distant
future (2 Pet. iii. 4). Hence it happened that even the leaders
of the church, in building up its hierarchical constitution and
adjusting it to the social circumstances and conditions of life
by which they were surrounded, made their arrangements more and
more deliberately in view of a longer continuance of the present
state of things, and thus the primitive Christian hope of an
early Parousia, though not expressly denied, seemed practically
to have been set aside. Hence the Montanist revivalists
proclaimed this hope as most certain, giving a guarantee for it
by means of a new divine revelation. Similarly too the moral,
ascetic and disciplinary rigorism of the Montanist prophecy is
to be estimated as a vigorous reaction against the mild practice
prevailing in the church with its tendency to make concessions
to human weakness, in favour of the strict exercise of church
discipline in view of the nearness of the Parousia. Montanism
could also justify the reappearance of prophetic gifts among
its founders by referring to the historical tradition which from
the Apostolic Age (Acts xi. 27 f.; xxi. 9) presented to view a
series of famous prophets and prophetesses, endowed with ecstatic
visionary powers. The exclusion of Montanism from the Catholic
Church could not, therefore, have been occasioned either by its
proclaiming an early Parousia or by its rigorism, or finally,
even by its prophetic claims, but purely by its doctrine of the
Paraclete. Under the pretence of instituting a new and higher
stage of revelation, it had really undertaken to correct the
moral and religious doctrines of Christ and the Apostles as
defective and incomplete, and had thereby proved itself to the
representatives of the church to be undoubtedly a pseudo-prophecy.
The spiritual pride with which the Montanists proclaimed
themselves to be the privileged people of the Holy Spirit,
Πνευματικοὶ, _Spirituales_ and characterized the Catholics as,
on the contrary, Ψυχικοὶ, _Carnales_, as also the assumption
that chose their own obscure Pepuza for the site of the heavenly
Jerusalem, and the manifold extravagances committed by their
prophets and prophetesses in their ecstatic trances, must
have greatly tended to create an aversion to every form of
spiritualistic manifestation. The origin of Montanism, the
contesting of it and its final expulsion, constitute indeed a
highly significant crisis in the historical development of the
church, conditioned not so much by a separatistic sectarian
tendency, but rather by the struggle of two tendencies existing
within the church, in which the tendency represented by Montanism
and honestly endeavouring the salvation of the church, went
under, while that which was victorious would have put an end
to all enthusiasm. The expulsion of Montanism from the church
contributed greatly to freeing the church from the reproach
so often advanced against it of being a narrow sect, made its
consenting to the terms, demands and conditions of everyday
life in the world easier, gave a freer course and more powerful
impulse to its development in constitution and worship dependent
upon these, as well as in the further building up of its
practical and scientific endeavours, and generally advanced
greatly its expansion and transformation from a sectarian close
association into a universal church opening itself up more and
more to embrace all the interests of the culture of the age;--a
transformation which indeed in many respects involved a
secularizing of the church and imparted to its spiritual
functions too much of an official and superficial character.

§ 41. SCHISMATIC DIVISIONS IN THE CHURCH.

Even after the ecclesiastical sentence had gone forth against Montanism, the rigoristic penitential discipline in a form more or less severe still found its representatives within the Catholic church. As compared with the advocates of a milder procedure these were indeed generally in the minority, but this made them all the more zealously contend for their opinions and endeavour to secure for them universal recognition. Out of the contentions occasioned thereby, augmented by the rivalry of presbyter and episcopus, or episcopus and metropolitan, several ecclesiastical divisions originated which, in spite of the pressing need of the time for ecclesiastical unity, were long continued by ambitious churchmen in order to serve their own selfish ends.

§ 41.1. =The Schism of Hippolytus at Rome about A.D. 220.=--On
what seems to have been the oldest attempt to form a sect at Rome
over a purely doctrinal question, namely that of the Theodotians,
about A.D. 210, see § 33, 3.--Much more serious was the schism of
Hippolytus, which broke out ten years later. In A.D. 217, after
an eventful and adventurous life, a freedman Callistus was raised
to the bishopric of Rome, but not without strong opposition on
the part of the rigorists, at whose head stood the celebrated
presbyter Hippolytus. They charged the bishop with scoffing at
all Christian earnestness, conniving at the loosening of all
church discipline toward the fallen and sinners of all kinds, and
denounced him especially as a supporter of the Noetian [Noëtian]
heresy (§ 33, 5). They took great offence also at his previous
life which his opponent Hippolytus (_Elench._, ix. 11 ff.) thus
describes: When the slave of a Christian member of the imperial
household, Callistus with the help of his lord established
a bank; he failed, took to flight, was brought back, sprang into
the sea, was taken out again and sent to the treadmill. At the
intercession of Christian friends he was set free, but failing to
satisfy his urgent creditors, he despairingly sought a martyr’s
death, for this end wantonly disturbed the Jewish worship, and
was on that account scourged and banished to the Sardinian mines.
At the request of bishop Victor the imperial concubine Marcia
(§ 22, 3) obtained the freedom of the exiled Christian confessors
among whom Callistus, although his name had been intentionally
omitted from the list presented by Victor, was included. After
Victor’s death he wormed himself into the favour of his weak
successor Zephyrinus, who placed him at the head of his clergy,
in consequence of which he was able by intrigues and craft
to secure for himself the succession to the bishopric.--An
opportunity of reconciliation was first given, it would seem,
under Pontianus, the second successor of Callistus, by banishing
the two rival chiefs to Sardinia. Both parties then united in
making a unanimous choice in A.D. 235.[109]

§ 41.2. =The Schism of Felicissimus at Carthage in
A.D. 250.=--Several presbyters in Carthage were dissatisfied with
the choice of Cyprian as bishop in A.D. 248 and sought to assert
their independence. At their head stood Novatus. Taking the
law into their own hands they chose Felicissimus, the next
head of the party, as a deacon. When Cyprian during the Decian
persecution withdrew for a time from Carthage, they charged him
with dereliction of duty and faint-heartedness. Cyprian, however,
soon returned, A.D. 251, and now they used his strictness toward
the _Lapsi_ as a means of creating a feeling against him. He
expressed himself very decidedly as to the recklessness with
which many confessors gave without examination _Libelli pacis_
to the fallen, and called upon these to commit their case to a
Synod that should be convened after the persecution. A church
visitation completed the schism; the discontented presbyters
without more ado received all the fallen and, notwithstanding
that Cyprian himself on the return of persecution introduced
a milder practice, they severed themselves from him under an
opposition bishop Fortunatus. Only by the unwearied exercise of
wisdom and firmness did Cyprian succeed in putting down the
schism.[110]

§ 41.3. =The Schism of the Presbyter Novatian at Rome in
A.D. 251.=--In this case the rigorist and presbyterial interests
coincide. After the martyrdom of bishop Fabian under Decian in
A.D. 250, the Roman bishopric remained vacant for more than a
year. His successor Cornelius (A.D. 251-253) was an advocate
of the milder practice. At the head of his rigorist opponents
stood his unsuccessful rival, Novatian, a learned but ambitious
presbyter (§ 31, 12). Meanwhile Novatus, excommunicated by Cyprian
at Carthage, had also made his way to Rome. Notwithstanding his
having previously maintained contrary principles in the matter
of church discipline, he attached himself to the party of the
purists and urged them into schism. They now chose Novatian as
bishop. Both parties sought to obtain the recognition of the most
celebrated churches. In doing so Cornelius described his opponent
in the most violent and bitter manner as a mere intriguer,
against whose reception into the number of presbyters as one
who had received clinical baptism (§ 35, 3) and especially
as an energoumenon under the care of the exorcists, he had
already protested; further as having extorted a sham episcopal
consecration from three simple Italian bishops, after he had
attached them to himself by pretending to be a peacemaker, then
locking them up and making them drunk, etc. Cyprian, as well as
Dionysius of Alexandria, expressed himself against Novatian, and
attacked the principles of his party, namely, that the church has
no right to give assurance of forgiveness to the fallen or such
as have broken their baptismal vows by grievous sin (although
the possibility of finding forgiveness through the mercy of
God was indeed admitted), and that the church as a communion of
thoroughly pure members should never endure any impure ones in
its bosom, nor receive back any excommunicated ones, even after
a full ecclesiastical course of penitence. The Novatianists had
therefore called themselves the Καθαροί. The moral earnestness of
their fundamental principles secured for them even from bishops
of contrary views an indulgent verdict, and Novatianist churches
sprang up over almost all the Roman empire. The Œcumenical
Council at Nicæa in A.D. 325 maintained an attitude toward them
upon the whole friendly, and in the Arian controversy (§ 50) they
stood faithfully side by side with their ecclesiastical opponents
in the defence of Nicene orthodoxy, and with them suffered
persecution from the Arians. Later on, however, the Catholic
church without more ado treated them as heretics. Theodosius
the Great sympathizing with them because of such unfair treatment,
took them under his protection; but Honorius soon again withdrew
these privileges from them. Remnants of the party continued
nevertheless to exist down to the 6th century.[111]

§ 41.4. =The Schism of Meletius in Egypt in A.D. 306.=--Meletius,
bishop of Lycopolis in the Thebaid, a representative of the
rigorist party, during the Diocletian persecution claimed to
confer ordinations and otherwise infringed upon the metropolitan
rights of Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a supporter of the
milder practice who for the time being lived in retirement. All
warnings and admonitions were in vain. An Egyptian Synod under
the presidency of Peter issued a decree of excommunication and
deposition against him. Then arose the schism, A.D. 306, which
won the whole of Egypt. The General Synod at Nicæa in A.D. 325
confirmed the Alexandrian bishop in his rights of supremacy
(§ 46, 3) and offered to all the Meletian bishops an amnesty
and confirmation in the succession on the death of the catholic
anti-bishop of their respective dioceses. Many availed themselves
of this concession, but others persisted in their schismatical
course and finally attached themselves to the Arian party
(§ 50, 2).

SECOND SECTION.

The History of the Græco-Roman Church from
the 4th-7th centuries.
A.D. 323-692.