Heterodox / condemned
c. 200–258 · 3rd c. · 2 works
Novatian (c. 200–258) was a learned Roman presbyter and the most accomplished Latin-writing theologian of the Western Church before his rupture with Rome. Widely respected for his scholarship and rhetorical training, he is generally reckoned the first Roman theologian to compose in Latin rather than Greek. He rose to prominence in the Roman clergy during the turbulent years following the Decian persecution.
His most important work is the treatise De Trinitate (On the Trinity), a systematic defense of orthodox Trinitarian doctrine. In it he upholds the oneness of God against the Gnostics, the true divinity of Christ against the Adoptionists, Christ's true humanity against the Docetists, and the distinction of the Son from the Father against Sabellius, while maintaining that there is only one God. The work secured his lasting reputation as a careful and orthodox expositor of the faith. A second surviving treatise, De Cibis Judaicis (On Jewish Foods), is also attributed to him.
On the disputed question of how to treat the lapsi—Christians who had renounced the faith under persecution and later sought readmission—Novatian took an uncompromisingly rigorist position, holding that the Church had no power to readmit such apostates to communion. This severity set him sharply against the more lenient discipline favored by the majority of the Roman clergy. The dispute over penance and the membership of the Church became the defining controversy of his career.
When Cornelius was elected bishop of Rome in 251, a rigorist minority set Novatian up as a rival bishop, making him one of the earliest antipopes and founding the lasting Novatianist schism. He and his followers were excommunicated by a Roman synod the same year, yet the sect spread across the empire and endured for centuries. Though judged a schismatic and heterodox figure for his rigorism and his rival episcopate, he is widely acknowledged as orthodox in his Trinitarian theology; he is reported to have died a martyr under Valerian around 258.
Sources: Encyclopædia Britannica — Novatian · Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent) — Novatian and Novatianism · Encyclopedia.com — Novatian (Antipope) and Novatianism