repentance, that no one prevent
or put by the judgment of Christ." St. Pacian answers his reply by a
second letter, that remedies seem often bitter, and says, "How can you
be offended at my catalogue of heresies, unless you was a heretic? I
congratulate with you for agreeing upon our name Catholic, which if you
denied, the thing itself would cry out against you." St. Pacian denies
that St. Cyprian's people were ever called Apostatics or Capitoline, or
by any name but that of Catholics, which the Novatians, with all their
ambition for it, could never obtain, nor ever be known but by the name
of Novatians. He says, the emperors persecuted the Novatians of their
own authority, not at the instigation of the church. "You say I am
angry," says he, "God forbid. I am like the bee which sometimes defends
its honey with its sting." He vindicates the martyr St. Cyprian, and
denies that Novatian ever suffered for the faith; adding, that "if he
had, he could not have been crowned, because he was out of the church,
out of which, no one can be a martyr. Etsi occisus, non tamen coronatus:
quidni? Extra Ecclesiae pacem, extra concordiam, extra eam matrem cujus
portio debet esse, qui martyr est. Si charitatem non habeam, nihil sum.
1 Cor. xiii." In his third letter he confutes the Novatian error: that
the church could not forgive mortal sin after baptism. "Moses, St. Paul,
Christ, express tender charity for sinners; who then broached this
doctrine? Novatian. But when? Immediately from Christ? No; almost three
hundred years after him: since Decius's reign. Had he any prophets to
learn it from? any proof of his revelation? had he the gift of tongues?
did he prophesy? could he raise the dead? for he ought to have some of
these to introduce a new gospel. Nay, St. Paul (Gal. i.) forbids a
novelty in faith to be received from an angel. You will say, Let us
dispute our point. But I am secure; content with the succession and
tradition of the church, with the communion of the ancient body. I have
sought no arguments." He assents that the church is holy, and more than
Sympronian had given it: but says it cannot perish by receiving sinners.
The good have always lived amidst the wicked. It is the heretic who
divides it, and tears it, which is Christ's garment, asunder. The church
is diffused over the whole world, and cannot be reduced to one little
portion, or as it were chained to a part, as the Novatians, whose
history he touches upon. Sympronian o