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GENERAL INTRODUCTION IHIHROUGH HIS COMPOSITION of The Trinity in the ' . i.; ยท'. ~iddle of ~he third .century, Novatian ~as the di~tinc- "" . bon of beIng the fIrst Roman theologIan to wrIte a : I ~ .. ' theolOgical treatise in Latin and so becomes a pioneer and founder of Roman Latin theology. This is an eminence that to some extent stands apart from the administrative importance his ability won him in the Roman church of that time. His outstanding position there may by judged from his standing at Rome after Pope Fabian's martyrdom in A. D. 250. As presbyter Novatian had charge during the vacancy of the see and wrote in the name of the church at Rome to churches throughout the world. Of such letters, however, only three-albeit important ones-survive.1 Thus we do not have an adequate body of primary documents from which to illustrate fully Novatian's central importance for the Church at a brief crisis in her history and his valuable contribution to it. History tends to emphasize rather the immediately succeeding years, which brought Novatian , as antipope, into contumacious opposition to the duly elected bishop of Rome. The greatest of the historians of the early Church, Eusebius of Caesarea, calls Novatian Novatus, and later Greek writers have the forms Navatus and Novatus;2 his real name, however, was Novatianus . This is quite evident, not only from the works of Cyprian and Dionysius of Alexandria (contemporaries of Novatian), but also on 1 The three letters survived among the correspondence of Cyprian (Epp. 30, 31, 36 [CSEL 3.2.549-64, 572-7~]); henceforth, we shall refer to them as Novatian, Ep. 1, 2, 3 respectively. 2 Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica 6.43(GCS 92 .612; tr. by R.J. Deferrari, FC 29.78 and n. 1); Photius, Bibliotheca Cod. 182 (PG 103.531D; ed. R. Henry, Ph0 tius: Bibliotheque [Paris 1960] 2.192; henceforth, Henry); Epiphanius, Panarion 59 (GCS 31.363); Theodoret of Cyr(rh)us, Haereticarum fabularum compendium 3.5 (PG 83.406C). 1 2 NOVATIAN the testimony of Ambrose, Jerome, and other latar sources. 3 The two names were confused because a Novatus who was a priest of Carthage and an adversary of Cyprian was involved with Novatian in the schism against Pope Cornelius. We do not know the exact date of his birth. He must have been born either at the end of the second century or at the beginning of the third century, that is, about 190-210, since at the middle of the third century he was already an outstanding priest of the Roman Church and very active. Plotius, in his extracts of now lost works of Philostorgius, reports the latter's claim that Novatian was born in Phrygia. Photius himself, however, does not know where Philostorgius received his information .4 Such a statement was probably due to a certain tendency to link Novatian's doctrine with Montanist rigorism. Authors give Ron1e, or at least Italy, as the place of his birth.s We know practically nothing of Novatian's early years. Before his conversion, which took place at a mature age, he was a Stoic philosopher .6 A circumstantial account of how Novatian came into the Church is given by Pope Cornelius in writing to Fabius bishop of Antioch.7 The occasion of his having accepted the faith was Satan, who entered him and dwelt in him for a long time; when he was being healed by the exorcists he fell into a severe illness and, being 3 Cyprian, Epp. 44.1; 47.1; 52.1; 55.1, 2, 3, 5, 24; 59.9; 60.3; 68.1 (CSEL 3.2.597 etc.; FC 51.112 etc.); Dionysius of Alexandria, Letter to Novatian (Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.45 [GCS 92 .626; FC 29.87 D; id., Letter to Dionysius of Rome (Eusebius, Ope cit. 7.8 [GCS 92 .646; FC 29.99); (Ambrose, Depaenitentia 1.3.10 (bis), 3.14 (bis) (CSEL 83.123,124,126) etc.; Jerome, De vin's ill. 70 (PL 23.681; ed. E. Richardson, Texte und Untersuchungen 14.1 (Leipzig 1896) 39). 4 Philostorgius, Hist. eccl 8.15 (GCS 21.115). ~ E. Peterson, "Novaziano e Novazianismo," EC 8 (1952) 1976; C. Mohrmann, "Les origines de la latinite chretienne aRome," Vigiliae Chris~ tianae 3 (1949) 163 (Etudes . .. 3.106). 6 Cyprian, Ep. 55.16 (FC 51.143), 60.3 (FC 51.195). Cf. Casamassa, Novaziano 233, 252-54. 7 Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 6.43 (FC 29.78-86, esp...

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