A History of the Church in Seven Books

loxius, in his notes on the life of Irenæus (page 664), vindicates him from the charge of Baronius, who wrote (A. D. 159) thus respecting him :-"These things Socrates the Novatian, he himself also celebrating the passover with the Jews on the 14th day of the month," &c. For he remarks that, "whereas Socrates is called a Novatian, it may be understood in two senses: in one that he sometimes favoured the Novatians, which Bellarminus also affirms in his treatise De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis' (A. D. 440); in the other that he had adopted their heretical opinions. But in the chapter referred to he clearly shows that he is neither a Novatian, nor favourable to their views: on the contrary he censures them, and exposes their dissensions and vices in the character of an enemy rather than a friend, or perhaps that which most became him as an historian, neither, but simply a narrator of truth."

But while we are bound to exonerate him from actual identification with a sect whom he himself (book vi. chap. 20 and 23) reckons among the schismatics, we cannot so easily justify all that he has advanced respecting the Novatians; for he seems misinformed as to the state of their schism and errors. Moreover he confounds Novatian, a presbyter of the Roman church, who really first broke the unity of the church, with Novatus, a person that was either among the presbytery, or as some say was bishop of Africa, and who merely favoured that division, but was not the author of it. Cyprian, from his personal knowledge of the latter, represents him as "an unruly spirit, the enemy of peace, fond of novelties, of insatiable avarice, and inflated with insufferable pride." He further accuses him of having cast the seeds of discord among the faithful of Carthage, of having robbed the widows and orphans, and of having appropriated to his own use the

property of the church and of the poor which had been deposited in his hands. He also charges him with having suffered his father to die of hunger, and then neglected to give him the honour of sepulture, with other gross enormities. And finally, he adds that apprehending the deposition and excommunication he had merited, he anticipated his condemnation by flight, and going to Rome, joined himself to Novatian, and committed there greater crimes than he had been guilty of at Carthage. One would not wonder so

much that Socrates has not distinguished these two men, since other Greek authors have not done so, who had little need of information on Oriental affairs; had not Eusebius in book vi. of his History inserted a letter of Cornelius containing a description of the occasion of the separation of the Novatians, so very unlike his own. This difference can only be attributed to the too great readiness with which he listened to one of these heretics at Constantinople; who so artfully disguised the circumstances connected with the origin of the schism, as to lead him to suspect the credibility of Cornelius, as of an interested party. It is under the influence of the same principle, without doubt, that he sometimes passes such extravagant encomiums on the exterior austerity of their conduct, and the apparent sanctity of their life.

* Socrates takes no notice whatever of the declaration of Cornelius that Novatian separated from ecclesiastical communion through jealousy, because he had not been elected bishop: that he managed to get himself ordained by three prelates whose reason had been clouded by the fumes of wine: and that the pardon granted to those who had sacrificed to idols during the persecution excited by Decius against the church, was but a pretext for his schism.

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