Pseudo Cyprian

Novatian responded by establishing a rigorist Church of the ‘Pure’ (Eusebius, HE 6.43.1), which granted no reconciliation to those who had lapsed during the persecution, and had himself ordained as its bishop. Cyprian’s Letters 44–54, written in the weeks immediately following the election, document Novatian’s angry reaction. The author of the anonymous Ad Novatianum, written only a few years later, hints that it was this rejection that prompted Novatian to set up a rival church, when he compares Novatian to Saul who was ‘once a good man’, but who turned against David out of ‘envy’ (14.4).

Ronald E. Heine, “Articulating Identity,” in The Cambridge History of Early Christian Literature, ed. Frances Young, Lewis Ayres, and Andrew Louth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 214–15.