SOME DISSENTERS FROM ERROR.
The ark of God, together with his loyal ones, led on by faith, passed out of the portals of the church of apostasy, putting the deep between. More purity was maintained among the dissenters. Novatian, ordained pastor in Rome, A.D. 251, separated from the Catholic communion and maintained no fellowship with it. Vast multitudes all over the empire followed his example. They were called by their enemies "Cathari," or "puritan," denoting, even by the confession of their bitter opponents, the purity of their discipline. Novatian is said to have been a man of much learning and eloquence. He was, of course, excommunicated, and is called by Catholic authorities the first antipope. Novatian's writings, two books of which are now extant, show apostolical purity of doctrine. In his book on the Trinity eight chapters speak of the Father, twenty of the Son, showing him to have been the one who inspired the Old Testament, and who appeared to the patriarchs and Moses, and twenty-nine sections are given to consider the operations of the Holy Spirit. This was written A.D. 257. Of the law of God he speaks as follows:— The law was given to the children of Israel for this purpose, that they might profit by it and return to those virtuous manners which, although they had received them from their fathers, they had corrupted in Egypt by reason of their intercourse with a barbarous people. Finally, those ten commandments on the tables teach nothing new, but remind them of what had been obliterated—that righteousness in them, which had been put to sleep, might revive again, as it were, by the afflatus of the law. The Novatianists allowed no converts from the Catholic party to come into their communion without rebaptism. They were charged with not giving due reverence to martyrs, or worshiping their bones, or regarding relics. Their kindness to the oppressed in the Arian controversy was so exceptionable that it comes down to us in history. Even Milman says it reflects an "amiable luster" upon the character of those dissidents. They alone were spoken of with leniency in the Council of Nice, and exhorted to return to the Catholic fold. Three churches in this period were established in the city of Constantinople. Catholic writers in every quarter of the empire speak of them. They were mentioned as existing in "vast multitudes." Puritan churches flourished for more than two hundred and fifty years, and under a variety of names. This remnant continued even to the Reformation. Servetus, also, remonstrating against the adulterations in the Roman doctrines, withdrew. Donatus, of Carthage, from whom sprang the Donatists, who, throughout the third and fourth centuries, were very conspicuous in Northern Africa, was another dissenter. Both Arians and Catholics so desired the coöperation and help of the Donatists that imperial messengers, and also a Catholic convoy, were sent to them. To the imperial messengers Donatus replied: "What was the emperor to do with the church? We at least will have nothing to do with his largesses." The emperor had ordered the commissioners to distribute alms freely among the churches. They were, however, utterly intractable. "What have bishops to do with kings? or what have bishops to do at court?" was their stern, almost scornful, answer to the emperor. They resembled the Novatianists, and required rebaptism of all Catholics who came to their fold. They were styled "puritans" by Optatus and Augustus, who wrote against them. A little later, in a council at Carthage, there were present two hundred and seventy-nine Donatist bishops, and two hundred and eighty-six Catholics. So we see to what extent the Puritan church of Northern Africa grew, and what their influence must have been. We ought also to mention the Corinthians, Ebionites, Hypsistarii, and Montanists, who obtained a large footing in the early times; but their history, coming through the hands of their enemies, has been destroyed or greatly distorted. They were Sabbath keepers, as we know the Cathari very generally to have been. They also believed in spiritual gifts, and, if the truth could be known, it probably would reveal them to have been much more exemplary in life than the Catholic element, from which they stood aloof. Such was the church of Christ, now fled to the wilderness, retreating from the stage of public observation. Gradually the church of God is lost sight of in the mists, which deepened, and the antichrist of prophecy prepared to stretch out his scepter over the world.