A.D. 251. In A.D. 251, we find Novatian leaves the dominant party, on account of its corrupt doctrine and practice, and was ordained pastor of a church in the city of Rome. Novatian had been baptized by pouring, but so different from the pouring administered for baptism at the present day, that no one thinks of giving him as an example.
He was sick, and supposing that he was about to die, he greatly desired to be baptized. Water was poured around him until he was completely covered, and this was recognized as baptism, inasmuch as he could not be immersed in the usual way. It had, at least, the merit of representing a burial.
There were now two opposing parties in Rome, each claiming to be the true church. The dominant party called themselves the Catholic church, and denominated the other the Paterines. The Paterines were sometimes called the Church of the Martyrs.
Novatian, who was their pastor, enforced such strict discipline by his teaching, which was so rigidly adhered to by his church, that they were often called Puritans, or Cathari, the pure. Sometimes they were called Novatians, from the name of their pastor, and this appellation continued to be applied to them long after his death.
A.D. 330. All over Italy these people were known by the name Paterines, and in A.D. 330, Italy was said to be “full of them.”
The Novatians had no fellowship with the Catholics, and rebaptized all who came to them from that party. They regarded the Catholics as having abandoned the true faith and were no longer a true church.
George Waddington, in speaking of the Novatians, calls them “Sectaries,” as quoted by Dr. Ray, and says: “And these rigid principles which had characterized and sanctified the church in the first century, were abandoned to the profession of schismatic Sectaries in the third.” Mr. Ray very correctly remarks on this testimony as follows:
“This important testimony of George Waddington, the learned Episcopal historian, establishes two important points.
1. That the Novatians, called Sectaries by their enemies, preserved those rigid principles which had characterized and sanctified the church in the first century.
2. That the Catholic, or orthodox party ‘abandoned these principles to the profession of Schismatic Sectaries in the third’ century.”