Chapter 2 Martyrs Before Roman Catholicism Started
The third century saw a widening of the chasm between Bible believing Christians and the system of apostasy that was developing. It would be the year 385 before the Roman Catholic Church was begun formally, when the Roman Emperor Theodosius made the institutional church, by now far from New Testament truth, the state religion of the Roman Empire. Theodosius would not accept the title, Pontifex Maximus (Chief Bridge-Builder), which had been conferred on the heads of the Babylonian cult, which had moved from Pergamos to Rome and had its High Priesthood conferred on Roman Emperors.
The Bishop of Rome, Siricius, was willing to assume this title, and ever since the Bishop of Rome, now called the pope, has had the title Pontifex Maximus, or Supreme Pontiff. While Roman Catholic commentators like to assume the title of pontiff refers to building bridges between man and God, all it originally meant was that the priests (pontiffs) of pagan Rome were in charge of the bridges of the city.
During the century and a half between Tertullian and the formation of the Roman Catholic church, a number of men stand out as defenders of the faith, even though they are castigated by Catholic historians. Although they did not have the luxury of having their writings preserved, for they fell into the hands of their enemies, we can glean some information from Catholic and Protestant sources.
Novatians
Priest Markoe's history of Novatian is not at all complimentary. He is termed a schismatic who made himself an anti-pope and was turbulent, seditious and avaricious. According to St. Cornelius, he was possessed by Satan for a season. He was finally excommunicated by the Council of Carthage in 251. He has the dubious distinction of being termed an anti-pope even before there was a pope.
Novatians are accused of holding that idolatry is an unpardonable sin, that confirmation was not a sacrament, that mortal sins committed after baptism could not be forgiven. Novatian likewise condemned second marriages and refused Communion to those who had contracted them.
Robert Robinson in Ecclesiastical Researches, page 126 sums up as follows: "Novatian was an elder in the Church at Rome. He was a man of extensive learning, and held the same doctrine as the Church did, and published several treatises in defense of what he believed. He saw with extreme pain the intolerable depravity of the Church. Christians within the space of a few years were caressed by one emperor and persecuted by another. In seasons of prosperity many rushed into the Church for base purposes. In times of adversity they denied the faith and ran back to idolatry again. When the squall was over, away they came to the Church again."
The Bishop of Rome at this time was Fabian, who received that honor in an unusual way. He was a farmer and as he was walking into the the city of Rome, he saw all of the town folk and clergy gathering together to elect a new bishop. As he watched the proceedings, a dove lit on Fabian's head, and the people took this as a sign from God and acclaimed him to be the bishop of Rome. Fabian died, and Cornelius was put up for election. Novatian opposed him, but Cornelius won. Robinson continues, "(Novatian) saw no prospect of reformation (and) withdrew himself. Great numbers followed his example, and Puritan churches were constituted and flourished through the succeeding two hundred years. Afterward, when penal laws obliged them to lurk in the corners and in private, they were distinguished by a variety of names and a succession of them continued until the Reformation."
The New Catholic Dictionary (page 686) admits that Novatian's followers were still flourishing in the fifth century.
H.C. Vedder, in A Short History Of The Baptists, writes: "The Novatians were the earliest Anabaptists; refusing to recognize as valid the ministry and sacraments of their opponents and claiming to be the true Church, they were logically compelled to rebaptize all who came to them. The party gained good strength in Asia Minor, where many Montanists joined them.
Donatists
The Donatists are another group of "heretics" against whom Markoe does not level a charge of gross heresy or behavior. Historically, their great "failure", in Catholic eyes, was that they would not allow a person who had fallen into heresy to be quickly absorbed back into the Church, and therefore they felt that a person once fallen back into idolatry because of succumbing to persecution was not a fit minister of Christ. They would have been much in agreement with the assessment of C.H. Spurgeon about ministers who have fallen in sin. In Lectures To My Students, Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote, "The highest mortal character must be maintained. Many are disqualified for office in the church who are well enough as simple members. I hold very stern opinions with regard to Christian men who have fallen into gross sin; I rejoice that they may be truly converted, and may be with mingled hope and caution received into the church; but I question, gravely question, whether a man who has so grossly sinned should readily be restored to the pulpit. As John Angell James remarks, `When a preacher of righteousness has stood in the way of sinners, he should never again open his lips in the great congregation until his repentance is as notorious as his sin.' Let those who have been shorn by the sons of Ammon tarry at Jericho till their beards be grown. It is accurate enough a metaphor for dishonored and characterless men, let their age be what it may. Alas! The beard of reputation once shorn is harder to grow again. Open immorality, in most cases, however deep the repentance, is a fatal sign that ministerial graces were never in a man's character. There must be no ugly rumors as to ministerial inconsistency in the past, or the hope of usefulness will be slender. Into the church such fallen ones are to be received as penitents, and into the ministry they may be received if God puts them there; my doubt is not about that, but as to whether God ever did place them there: and my belief is that we should be very slow to help back into the pulpit men, who having been once tried, have proved themselves to have too little grace to stand the crucial test of ministerial life."
De Wohl, in Founded On A Rock, argued that Donatus' insistence that the presiding officer at the Lord's Table be of praiseworthy moral character in order to properly officiate meant that "no one could ever have been sure that he really received Holy Communion." The doctrine of Intention, fiercely debated for centuries but promulgated by the Council of Trent, would cause the same problem since no one knows if the priest withholds his intention, thereby invalidating the sacrament. Of course the basis of that problem is looking to the office of a priest as an intermediary between you and God.
Donatism provoked the Rebaptism Controversy because they maintained that a person who fell away into heresy, in time of persecution, must be re-baptized to be brought back into the Church.
They also maintained that baptism conferred by one who is in the state of mortal sin is not valid. This helped to develop the entire sacramental system of Rome and led to the claim that sacraments were all instituted by Christ and derived their efficacy from Him, and not from their human ministers. In spite of this, it was centuries before there was complete unanimity among Roman Catholic theologians as to the exact number of the sacraments.
J.M. Cramp, in Baptist History, writes, "Like the Novatians, they insisted on absolute purity in the Church, although they allowed that penitents might be admitted into their communion. Their own churches they regarded as pure while they denounced the (Roman) Catholics as schismatics, who had no fellowship with Christ, and whose sacraments were therefore invalid. On this ground they rebaptized the proselytes." (page 59).
Thomas Armitage, in History Of The Baptists, p. 200-201, quoting Merivale says, "They represented the broad principle of the Montanists and Novatians, that the true Church of Christ is an assembly of real pious persons. . . Jerome and Augustine and others class the Donatists with the Novatians as to general aim and purpose, and Augustine sneers at them as `spotless saints.'"
Valentinians, Antidicomarianites And Aerians
Markoe writes of the Valentinians, "They denied that Mary was the Mother of God and taught justification by faith alone." This is a remarkable admission, since most Catholic writers claim that justification by faith alone was not preached until the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation. The Valentinians are listed by Markoe as having taught in the second century.
Another very apparent lapse in Roman Catholic timing is found in one regard to the veneration of Mary. In Catholicism And Fundamentalism (page 280), Karl Keating quotes my book, Christian's Guide To Roman Catholicism as follows: "the rise in devotion to (Mary) came when a backslidden church, having lost its reality of Christ, was presented with the pagan concept of a female deity and she was deemed able to mediate between them and a God Who was too far away."
Karl's answer is, "One of the problems with this argument is timing. Paganism effectively disappeared by the end of the sixth century, but devotion to Mary of a sort seen today was not common until the Middle Ages."
If this were true, Markoe has no right to fault the second-century Valentinians for not believing that Mary was the "Mother of God." Not only does Markoe criticize them, he goes on to tell us of the rise of the Antidicomarianites, in the same century, who denied that Mary remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. They may not have realized the manner in which Mariology would develop into Mariolatry through the centuries so that in some cultures and among some Catholics
it would rival the devotion shown to Christ, but they were astute enough to know that the development of an unbiblical doctrine could lead no where but error.
(I recently was sent a photograph of the Roman Catholic Chapel in Quito, Ecuador, which has a figure of Mary on the crucifix instead of Christ. A copy of this is on the "Crucifix Card" published by C.E.C.)
In the fourth century, the Aerians (not Arians) taught that there was no sacred character distinguishing priests from laymen, and that it was wrong to prescribe fasts by law; and that it was useless to pray for the dead.
We are often asked by Catholic apologists to name some early Christians who opposed developing doctrines that became part of Roman Catholic dogma. Here, between the second and fourth centuries, we see a denial of the Marian doctrines of Divine maternity and perpetual virginity. We also see a denial of the uplifted clergy, which developed into the Roman hierarchy, legalized fasting, and prayer for the dead, from which developed the lucrative dogma of purgatory. Further, evidence of these dissenting groups comes not from a Protestant historian, but from a Jesuit priest who is trying to prove the claims of the Roman Catholic Church.
Jovinians
The Jovinians were followers of Jovinianus, who was a monk for a while but then turned against asceticism. His views were promulgated mostly by writing and condemned by Siricius, Bishop of Rome, in a local Council held at Rome in 390. Soon after, he was again condemned in a Council held by St. Ambrose in Milan, another non-ecumenical Council which had no infallibility or universal jurisdiction. Jovinianus was exiled by the emperor Theodosius (who has the dubious honor of being the Roman Emperor to make the developing Roman Church the state religion of the Empire, hence paving the way for pagan introductions that would produce the travesty we know as Roman Catholicism today), and afterward by Honorius, to Boas, a maritime town of Dalmatia, where, according to Priest Markoe, "he died in misery in the year 412."
What, you might ask, were the crimes that banished this man and doomed him to a death of privation? We cannot find any other history of this man than that penned by Priest Markoe, and, while we do not know the exact extent of his "heresy", we know that, among other things, >he taught the following:
1. A virgin, as such, is no better in the sight of God than a wife. God never once, in His Word, proclaimed that a virgin was superior, although, in the Vatican II document Optatium Totius promulgated by Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965 we read, "Virginal consecration to Christ is of greater excellence than Christian marriage." If we are to follow the mandate given to us in Isaiah 8:20 (To the law and to the testimony; if they say not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them), I wonder which we would brand as a heretic - Jovinianus or Paul VI?
2. Abstinence is no better than the taking of food in a proper disposition.
3. All sins are equal. That would mean no mortal or venial sins. The unscriptural division of sins is necessary to implement the Roman Catholic inventions of penance, confession, temporal punishment and purgatory.
4. He denied the perpetual virginity of the Mary. This, of course, was first denied by God Himself in Psalm 69:8 and Matthew 13:55. This perverse doctrine of Rome is one of the stepping-stones by which Mary is elevated until she has, in practical Catholic piety, a higher place than Jesus. For this fourth century Christian to declare it showed a great regard for the truth of God's Word, and a bravery that dared to take the consequences which proved dire indeed.
It is a tragedy of the darkened unsaved mind that would call such a noble Christian a heretic. This man shines out from among others of his age, a beacon of truth in a world of error. I for one, am glad to be in the same family as Jovinianus.