later than over when it was written. It at least admits of an earlier application. the begin- It only says, in that secundum prælium1 some who had before lapsed, ning of 'victores extiterunt,' that they "fortiter perseverasse...nec ullam inthe persecution of sævientis tyranni sævitiam recusare.' But these noble Gallus. No second outbreak of Nova recoveries were of frequent occurrence. One of the strongest arguments of Cyprian and the Council 'de pace maturius danda,' A.D. 252, even before the persecution of Gallus, was the cases of the Lapsed who in a second trial 'fortiter steterint et adversarium nobiscum in congressione prostraverint' (Ep. 57. 3) and Epistle 56 is occupied with the case of three such persons whose endurance was marvellous. The passage contains no indication that the secundum prælium was more than begun, and we know that it was not considered to be ended. 9. Harnack thinks (p. 41) that the new outbreak of Novatianism in the time of Sixtus II., which he infers from ad Novat., is indicated by Dionysius tianism de- who, in writing to his namesake the Roman presbyter (Euseb. H. E. vii. 8), scribed by gives these reasons for hostility to Novatian, namely as diakóYAVTI TηV ÉRKÀI Dionysius σίαν, καί τινας τῶν ἀδελφῶν εἰς ἀσεβείας καὶ βλασφημίας ἑλκύσαντι, καὶ περὶ τοῖ Alex. Θεοῦ διδασκαλίαν ἀνοσιωτάτην ἐπεισκυκλήσαντι· καὶ τὸν χρηστότατον Κύριον ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν ὡς ἀνηλεή συκοφαντοῦντι, ἐπὶ πᾶσιν δὲ τούτοις τὸ λουτρὸν ἀθετοῦντι τὸ ἅγιον, καὶ τήν τε πρὸ αὐτοῦ πίστιν καὶ ὁμολογίαν ἀνατρέποντι τό τε πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον ἐξ αὐτῶν, εἰ καί τις ἦν ἐλπὶς τοῦ παραμεῖναι ἢ ἐπανελθεῖν πρὸς αὐτούς, παντελώς φυγαδεύοντι. I am obliged to quote the whole passage in Greek because all turns upon the participial tenses, which are surely most carefully kept apart, and lead, as it seems to me, to a conclusion contrary to Harnack's.—The continuous result is distinguished from the outbreak of the schism. The violent cleavage of the Church, the perversion of a body of believers to irreverent and even blasphemous acts (such as the Eucharistic pledges by which Novatian compacted a following), the introduction of a doctrine dishonouring to God,—these are told in aorists; they were one group of actions past, the formation of the heretical schism. But the misrepresentation of Christ's compassionate character, the contempt of the font, and perversion of the baptismal confession, the keeping of the Holy Ghost at a distance from those who would repent but are not allowed: 1 We do not doubt the application of these words. Cyprian shews that there was a short interval before it after the Decian persecution, which he calls 'quies et tranquillitas,' but they were even then under the fear 'impendentis prælii,' 'urguente certamine,' Ep. 57. 2, 3, 5. 2 Harnack, p. 42, thinks this account of Novatian's Eucharist incredible, but holds that it may be a version of his altering the Baptismal Creed. But let us observe that the account is the original of Cornelius, describing the very gestures and words of Novatian. Cornelius had such particulars of his τεχνάσματα καὶ πονηρεύματα from Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius and Celerinus (Eus. .c.). these are the continuous operation, not new strokes, of Novatianism, and so are related in the present tense. The passage distinctly differences from each other the first energetic movement and the continuous result. The former it places in past time, but gives no sign of new development or even revival in the time of Xystus. V. There remains one external argument for the book being by Sixtus. The testimony of The Prædestinatus, which belongs to the middle of the fifth century the Pre(so Harnack, pp. 44--49)1, has in its Part I., The Catalogue of Heresies, destinatus. this notice. 'XXXVIII. hæresis est Catharorum qui se ipsos isto nomine quasi propter munditiam superbissime appellarunt, secundas nuptias non admittunt, pænitentiam denegant, Novatum sectantes hæreticum, unde etiam Novatiani appellantur. contra hunc beatus Xystus martyr et episcopus et venerabilis Cyprianus martyr Christi tunc Carthaginiensis pontifex scripsit contra Novatum librum de lapsis quod possint per pænitentiam recuperare gratiam quam labendo perdiderant, quod Novatus adserebat fieri omnino non posse.' This description of the book 'contra Novatum' is an account exactly to the point of this fragment ad Novatianum, but has no relation to Cyprian's de Lapsis. I suggest that it was the occurrence of these two words de lapsis which caused some erudite scribe to insert all the words 'et venerabilis...pontifex. Fortunately the word scripsit remains, which by its construction makes the insertion certain. The rest of the statement I must leave for what it is worth. The Catalogue of Heresies is of course admitted by Harnack himself to be much of it quite valueless. But his historic Erkenntniss assures him that its assignment of the authorship of this obscure fragment is correct. VI. Upon the whole, I believe that if this fragment (which does not present many points to lay hold of) is not an historic and theological study but a book genuinely addressed to Novatian, it is the work of a responsible Bishop in or about Rome. But to identify the writer with Xystus is to create a view of that doctor himself, of Rome as under the influence of Cyprian, and of the end of the Baptismal controversy, which is not warranted, but discredited by our other knowledge of the times. 1 [First published by Jacques Sirmond, Paris 1643. Printed in Sirmondi Opera varia, vol. 1. pp. 465 ff. (Paris 1696); La Bigne, Max. Bibl. vett. Patr., vol. XXVII. p. 543 (Lyon 1677); Galland. Bibl. vett. Patr., vol. x. p. 359 (Ven. 1774). Book 1. edited by Oehler, Corpus hæreseologicum, Berlin, 1856, Part I., The Catalogue of Heresies, is But there is nothing which would not fall in with the conditions of five or six years earlier, the anxious days in which Cornelius and Cyprian were with great unanimity dealing with the rise of Novatianism and the proper treatment of the Lapsed; when Cyprian was sending Cornelius his new book de Unitate; and the kinder view of the Lapsed, as 'vulnerati a diabolo,' and not as wilful sinners, had already come in, see Cyprian's Ep. 55. 19 (H. p. 637, 22), Ep. 58. 13 (H. 680, 16) et passim. carried (if so desired) almost to the end of Cornelius's life. It might be It is not inconceivable that the author might be Cornelius1. Yet its general, abstract style contrasts too much with the detailed, definite, personal style in which he handles Novatian in the letter to Fabius (Euseb. H. E. vi. 43), even allowing for the different situations. I am also loth to impute to him either the confusion between Simon the Pharisee and Simon Peter, or the lengthy, feeble and inextricably confused applications of the flights of Noah's dove to the fall and recovery of the Lapsed. There were other Bishops near to Rome who were quite capable of inditing the book and who (like Hippolytus before this time) may have felt their responsibility for all that went on as even superior to that of the Pope. These observations I make with diffidence, with a lively appreciation of the interest of Dr Harnack's paper, and with gratitude for the incidental lights which in brief space he has thrown on the subject and its literature. 1 Erasmus thought so, but only through misapprehension of Jerome, de Viris Illustribus, lxvi., 'Cornelius ...scripsit epistolam ad Fabium...et aliam de Novatiano et de his qui lapsi sunt,' as if this could describe the ad Novatianum. Erasmus's adnotatiunculs (in Fo. 500) prefixed to his Cyprian, 1520; repeated in ed. 1530. 565 APPENDIX H. Examination of the Lists of Bishops attending the Councils. (Genuineness, Seniority.) THERE are four lists of Bishops, varying in number from 36 to 86, who were assembled in Councils, or were formally addressed by Councils, from the year 252 to 256 A.D. (Epp. 57, 67, 70, and Sentt. Episc.). The African bishops sat by seniority according to Codex Canonum Eccles. Africanæ Can. 86, which comes from Concil. Milevit. A.D. 416, Labbe, 11. c. 1316, III. cc. 383, 4. This, as all the bishops there affirmed, represented the tradition. Augustine complains of breaches of the rule, Ep. 59. 1. They sate under their primates, and it is evident in the list of the Council of 256 A.D. that they did not sit by provinces from the mixture of Proconsular and Numidian sees. If the Cyprianic lists were genuine, then (1) From an episcopate so large and so widespread, we should expect that in lists so far short of the whole number some names would recur in more than one list, but many would appear only once. Also we should find certain relations among the recurrent names. (2) Names which appeared in more than one list would, when intervening non-recurrent names were struck out, stand in nearly the same order in different lists, allowance being made for incidents such as disputable precedence which might arise, for instance, from date of consecration being uncertain or other causes, such as appear in Augustine and the Canon as cited above. (3) The percentage of recurrent names would dwindle in later lists on account of deaths. (4) In a longer list the recurrent names would be more spread out, dotted along its whole length. The later names in a list of 36 might be the later in a list of 86, but if the largest list be the latest it would probably have at the end a number of junior names not occurring in earlier ones. If those conditions were met the genuineness of the lists would be established. In forged lists such conditions would find no place, unless they had been clearly foreseen, and the names arranged upon a skeleton drawn before to ensure the appearances. But the multiplicity and complication of the relations between the names on these lists and in other parts of the Cyprianic correspondence is far too great to have been invented and constructed by any romancer. Disturbances we do find, but small in proportion. Some of them are singular and explicable, while the very presence of other disturbances to which we find no clue, in a case where most is coherent and our knowledge so limited, indicates that at least they are not shaped on a plan. |