ON SAINT NOVATUS,
PRESBYTER AT ROME.
A.D. CLI.
HISTORICAL SYLLOGE.
On his death, cultus, age, and family.
Novatus, Presbyter at Rome (S.)
D. P.
[1] No more certain notice of St. Novatus can be had than from the epistle, illustrated by us on May XIX, From the epistle of St. Pastor to Timothy the brother of Novatus which Pastor, Roman Presbyter, wrote to Timothy likewise a Roman Presbyter; briefly comprehending whatever pertains to the Holy Virgins Pudentiana and Praxedes, the daughters of the Senator Pudens. Namely, when the elder of these had died, and her body had for some time been held hidden in the title which their father had dedicated under the name of Pastor, and which Pope Pius had equipped with a baptismal font built by his own hands; it is said that after the death of her sister, the Virgin of Christ Praxedes dwelt in the same title, it is known he died here in the year after S. Potentiana, vehemently afflicting herself on account of the passing of her sister. To her, when many noble Christians came for the sake of consoling her, together with the holy Bishop Pius; there had also come to her your brother Novatus, who is our brother in the Lord, consoling her; and he was refreshing many poor Christians from his own resources, and ministered to all from his resources in honor of the same Virgin Praxedes, asking that by her prayers he might merit forgiveness; and he frequently commended both of you to the most blessed Bishop Pius, when he was about to approach the altar of the Lord.
[2] It happened after these things, after a year and twenty-eight days, that Novatus, detained by sickness, was absent from the sight of the blessed Virgin Praxedes. So when Bishop Pius was thinking of all the Christians, his resources and baths having been given to the Church. together with the Virgin Praxedes; Novatus too was inquired about among them: about whom when it had been heard that he was detained by illness, we were all saddened. Then B. Praxedes said to our Father, the holy Bishop Pius: Let your Sanctity command that we go to him, if perhaps by our visitation and your prayers the Lord may save him. When this saying had pleased us all, and rising at night we had proceeded to him; the man of God Novatus, seeing us all gathered to have come to him, began to give thanks to God, because he merited to be visited by the holy Bishop Pius, and by the Virgin of the Lord, together with our devotion. And we were in his house for eight days and nights. In those days it pleased him to leave to us and to the blessed Virgin all his substance. This having thus been ordered, on the thirteenth day he passed to the Lord *. About which deed we have directed letters of this text to you, together with the authority of the blessed Pius Bishop of the Apostolic See, and of the Virgin of Christ Praxedes: so that what pleased you about the substance of your brother, you may make known to us; that your ordering may in all things be kept.
[3] Such an epistle having been received through Eusebius, Subdeacon of the Roman Church, Timothy the Presbyter, writing back to the holy Brother Pastor and the most holy Sister Praxedes, salutation; Let your Sanctity know, he says, that my conscience in this matter, concerning which you have written, is favorable; and what pleased my brother, in which things with S. Timothy consenting, pleases also us your servants; that is, that whatever he has left should be at the discretion of you and the holy Virgin; and you may have power to dispense it according as it shall please you. By this epistle we were filled with joy: and we handed it over for reading to the holy Bishop Pius: which he having read gave thanks to God. At the same time the Virgin of the Lord Praxedes, having received the power, asked the blessed Bishop Pius that he should consecrate as a church the baths of Novatus, the title of S. Potentiana dedicated. which were already then not in use: because a great and spacious building seemed to be in them. Which also pleased the holy Bishop Pius: and he dedicated the baths of Novatus as a church, under the name of the blessed Virgin Potentiana.
[4] From these things it becomes certain that Timothy and Novatus were brothers german. The name of Novatus inscribed in the Fasti Thus in the most ancient Additions to the genuine Bede, found at Dijon, (for Bede himself is vacant on this day) it is placed thus in the first place: At Rome, of Novatus, brother of Timothy the Presbyter: who were instructed by the Apostles (namely the Holy Peter and Paul): which last does not agree with their age, nor is it rightly drawn from the aforesaid Epistle. In the Vallicelli Ms. at Rome, very ancient, we read thus: At Rome the deposition of Novatus, brother of Timothy the Presbyter. The same words which we gave from the Dijon one, Ado and Usuardus transcribed. But Ado adds: Concerning this Novatus, Pastor writes, in the acts of Pudentiana and Praxedes the Virgins, to the aforesaid Timothy his brother, where wrongly he is said to have been instructed by the Apostles: and he transcribes the same in almost the same words, which above as far as *. Usuardus, those things omitted, added by way of Elogium: Of whom the sisters were the blessed Potentiana and Praxedes, sacred Virgins: which when others and yet others increased, at length it seemed good to the Recognitors of the Roman Martyrology to prescribe to be read thus: At Rome the deposition of S. Novatus, son of B. Pudens the Senator, and brother of S. Timothy the Presbyter and of the holy Virgins of Christ Pudentiana and Praxedes, who were instructed by the Apostles in the faith. Their house, converted into a church, is called the title of Pastor.
[5] About the house of Pudens, and also therefore of his daughters, this is true, and brother of the holy Virgins. provided that from it be distinguished the Houses of the Holy Novatus and Timothy, the former of which received the title of Pudentiana, the latter of Praxedes. Nor were those holy Virgins instructed or baptized by the Apostles, and likely not even their father; but another Pudens, different from him, perhaps their grandfather, otherwise Pudas and Pudes. But if Novatus and Timothy had been instructed by the Apostles slain in the year LXV, they would have had to have been centenarians when Novatus died. For they lived under Pope Pius: about whose Pontificate, which is to be placed after that of Anicetus, when I had treated in the Chronico-historical Conatus to the Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs; in the Appendix to May XIX after tome 7 of the same month I judged, He died in the year 151 that, the year and XXVIII days, or rather XXIII, that is, in the year CLI on June XI, having passed after the death of S. Pudentiana, the visit was made to S. Novatus: who, with SS. Pius and Praxedes assisting him for eight days and nights, died on the XIII Kalends of July, although the feast is kept on the day of his Deposition the XII Kalends. But there is nothing in the whole aforesaid epistle which, I will not say, makes those holy Virgins, but not even the aforesaid Presbyters, be believed disciples of the Apostles, if the first words of the Epistle be rightly read thus: Of Pudens neither son, nor brother, but friend. Pudens, our brother, and friend of the Apostles, and host of pilgrims. Here the "amicus" friend can be the same as "cultor" reverer also of those long since dead: if however you punctuate otherwise, supplying one word, Pudens our brother and friend, reverer of the Apostles and host of pilgrims, the sense will become even clearer; and meanwhile it appears that they were not the sons of Pudens, who here are called his brothers and friends; and it appears also that the names of Brother and Sister, by which Christians were accustomed to address one another, pretend nothing carnal in this Epistle; and so the author of the Epistle Pastor likewise writes of Novatus, that he is our Brother in the Lord.
[6] More things which I might say concerning him do not lie to hand, except that Baronius notes, Another Novatus under Nero. that not ignoble or obscure was the name of Novatus at Rome in the times of Nero: for there are extant three books of Seneca to Novatus, written On Anger: whom I think to be as different from this our Novatus, as was Pudens the friend of this our Novatus, father of the Holy Virgins, from Pudes or Pudens, the disciple of the Holy Apostles.