Ml 



NOVATIANS. 



NOVEL. 



NOVATI AXS, a Christian sect which arose in the middle of the Sr.1 

 century. Tlu-ir leader, Xovstionus (or as Lardm-r prafnn to call him, 

 following the Clreek writer*, Novatus), wu a presbyter at Rome, who, 

 after the death at Fabian, biahop of Rome (A.D. 250), and the election 

 of Corneliui aa his successor (A.D. 251), refused to submit to the 

 authority of Cornelius, and procured from three bishops hU own ordi- 

 nation u biahop of Rome. Upon thin, (_'ornelm called a council at 

 Rome, and excommunicated Novatian and hi adherent*, who imme- 

 diately funned a distinct sect, and thus became schismatics. But 

 Novatian u also reckoned as a heretic, on account of his opinions 

 respecting those Christians who after baptism had fallen into open sin, 

 whom he declared that the Church had not the power to admit again 

 to her communion, even though they should give satisfactory evidence 

 of their repentance. In consequence of this strictness of discipline, 

 bis followers obtained from the Greek writers the name of Caihari 

 (rafafioli, that U, Puritans. In other points the opinions of Novatian 

 did not differ from those of the Catholics. Some writers charge him 

 with unsound opinions respecting the Trinity, but there is ample 

 evidence to disprove this accusation. HU later followers condemned 

 second marriages. Novatian is highly spoken of by the ecclesiastical 

 writers for his learning, eloquence, piety, and exemplary conduct. It 

 is true that Cornelius accuses him of very disreputable conduct in the 

 means by which he obtained ordination, and in other matters ; but 

 these are the statements of a violent opponent, couched in very 

 unmeasured language, and some of them are highly improbable. 



Novatian was assisted in his proceedings by Novatus, a presbyter of 

 Cartilage, whom Cyprian calls the author of the schism ; and he num- 

 bered also among his followers some bishops and several presbyters. 

 His sect spread widely, and embraced at various times some men of 

 very high character and attainments. The Novations were included in 

 the severe edict which Constantino issued, about A.D. 831 , against the 

 Valentinians, Harcionites, Cataphrygians, and other heretics ; but it is 

 thought that, through the influence which some of their leaders had 

 with the emperor, they suffered little on that occasion. Under the 

 Arian emperors they shared in common with the orthodox in the 

 persecutions which they endured ; but under the Catholic emperors 

 they appear to have enjoyed repose on account of their orthodox 

 opinions on the Trinity. This sect declined in importance during the 

 5th century. 



Novatian wrote several works, of which there remain a treatise, ' Of 

 Jewish Meats ; ' another, ' Of the Trinity,' or ' Of the Rule of Faith,' 

 a letter of the Roman clergy to Cyprian, written during the vacancy of 

 the see of Rome, after the death of Fabian, in August, 250. There is 

 another letter to Cyprian, written in the same year, but it is not certain 

 that Novatian was its author. Jerome gives a catalogue of Novatian 's 

 works, among which are two, ' Of Easter,' and ' Of Circumcision.' The 

 Novatiani asserted that their leader suffered martyrdom, but of this 

 we have no proof. 



(Eusebius, Hat. Ecc. vi. 43 ; Hieronymus, De Yir. Mum. chap. 70 ; 

 Epiphanius, De Hctruiii ; Lardner's Credibility, pt. ii. chap. 47 ; 

 Moeheim's JScdaicutical Jlitlory, cent. iii. part it. ; Neander's Kirehcn- 

 gackitktr.) 



NOVEL. It will be as well to draw a distinction at starting 

 between romances and novels; the one term includes all fictitious 

 narratives of the kind called romantic, whether in prose or verse ; the 

 other is used to designate that species of romance which is most 

 common at present. .Those who are accustomed to look upon all 

 literary composition as depending for its changes on that prevalent 

 tone and character of society, which are usually known by the name of 

 the spirit of the age, will easily allow that imaginative writings are 

 not exccpted from the general rule ; that they are in fact the expres- 

 sion of the age in which they appear. It remains then for us to find 

 out, if possible, what relation they bear to that prevalent tone of 

 society to which we have already alluded, aa the spirit of the age. 



A comparison between the novel and other imaginative composi- 

 tions, such aa narrative, lyrical, or dramatic poetry, will show tlj.it 

 while the hitter depend for their effect on our tastes and sympathies as 

 men, the former requires us to be interested in the circumstances of 

 the plot as well as in the characters themselves. The interest excited 

 by the ' Iliad,' and by ' Hamlet,' exists independently of our knowledge 

 f tlie history of Troy or of Denmark; and hence the in 

 celebrity of those poems. They have been read and will be read with 

 ili-light, not only by one age or country, luit by all. They exhibit 

 i of humanity ; and, as such, do not depend fur their popularity 

 nn the fact of their readers being interested by the customs which 

 they describe or the scenes in which the stories are laid. It is as a 

 man, not a* a prince of Denmark, that we are interested in Hamlet. 

 If II. tor and Andromache had been natives of the South Sea Islands, 

 we should have read the description of their parting with as much 

 sympathy as we do now. 



In n<>v<-l. on tin- > ontrary, we require, in order to be fully satisfied, 

 to be interested in the circuinxtances, the drew, manners ami language 

 of the character*, as well a* in the characters themselves But these 

 circumstances, the outward drew of the story, are precisely those parts 

 in which the peculiarities of age and country are developed those 

 which render the hero of the novel an individual, not the representative 

 of a class. If we acknowledge thui far, we shall see that the nib-rout 

 which the novel excites depends on more causes than that of the 



narrative or dramatic poem. But being a more intense, it is also a 

 more confined, interest ; and thus we see why the ponderous romances 

 of the 17th century have ceased to delight the world, while the 

 ' Iliad ' is as fresh to us as it was to Plato or Cicero. 



This additional source of interest however is that which depends in 

 itself on the peculiarities of the age in which any one novel or class of 

 novels appears. Thus the stilted romance of Elizabeth's time wai the 

 legitimate offspring of a taste then very prevalent for an ideal state of 

 pastoral life called Arcadian. The readers in that day were the higher 

 ranks, the court and the nobility, and the novel both led and followed 

 their taste. In another country we find romances of chivalry 

 particularly current when the age of chivalry was nearly pass* 

 when the realities of Moorish warfare had been succeeded by a 

 fashionable enthusiasm unaccompanied by action. Such wore the 

 novels which Cervantes began by caricaturing and ended by sur- 

 passing 



Sir Walter Scott's novels are in like manner the legitimate creation 

 of then- age. Percy's ' Reliques ' and some other books had given a 

 retrospective turn to literature. Men began to find tint !'..] an.l 

 Dryden, or even Milton, did not contain all that was worth knowing in 

 the literature of England. A race of antiquaries sprang up, and with 

 them on antiquarian novelist. Gothc's fatuous saying about Sh : 

 which Carlyle has so cleverly applied to Scott, "that Shal. 

 formed his characters from within outwards, Scott from without 

 inwards," is so true, that any one who bears it in mind while reading 

 Scott will not fail to see that the attraction of the \Vavci Icy novels' 

 depends more on the dresses and decorations than on the actors. 



To quote one more instance ; during the ti r.-tt half of the hut 

 century the great object of attention was " the town," by which was 

 meant the profligate life spent by men of fashion. A glance at the 

 poetry of that age is enough to show that Nature had small chai i 

 the reading public, and that fashion was then everything. If v. > 

 to the novelists, to Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, anil tin u to 

 their descriptions, can anything be more obvious, than that the 

 external dress of the novel that by which it is distinguished from 

 other narrative works of imagination, depends entirely on the age in 

 which it is written, and is in effect a tolerably faithful but sotn 

 exaggerated reflection of the favourite ideal objects and pursuits of the 

 reading classes at the time. 



But there is another salient feature in the novel, which it possesses 

 in common with the poetical romance, and which distinguishes it most 

 completely from all classical fictions. We refer to the important part 

 played in almost all novels by that kind of love which goes by the 

 name of romantic. 



It cannot be doubted that the influence of Christianity and of the 

 old German spirit upon the nations of modern Europe has contributed 

 to alter the treatment and condition of women, not only in degi < 

 in kind. To the eye of a Roman observer, one of the most remarkable 

 peculiarities of the German nation was the veneration paid to women, 

 and this veneration, transmitted through generations, affect. -il in no 

 unfavourable degree by Christian precepts, although rh.in>xing in 

 appearance with the change of ages, still exists in that gallantry of 

 which the Romans and Greeks seem to have been wholly i: 

 which in the romantic novel, as being a picture of human l:ie. 

 most important part. But it is still to be remembered that it is not 

 the passion of love as a classical author would have described it, but 

 the passion as developed in those nations among whom romantic tales 

 have been principally current, which thus predominates in tin- lomanti.- 

 novel 



The popularity of novels is one of the most curious features of our 

 literature ; and it is to be observed that it is attended with an almost 

 entire discouragement of dramatic compo-ition. and with a marked 

 preference on the part of those who apparently patronise the drama, 

 for scenic effect, in place of accurate dramatic delineation of chai 

 There is scarcely one tragedy worth i a date posterior 



time of Fielding. ' Philip van Artcvelde,' the offspring of our day, 

 and, although for below it in merit, Talfourd's ' Ion,' are worth n 

 as well for other reasons as because they have been accompanied l>y an 

 effort, in act, to redeem the stage from serving as the mere vehicle of 

 dramatised novels. But we cannot give to ' Philip van Arti-vi !<l<> ' the 

 name of a drama ; indeed the author himself styles it a dramatic 

 romance; and its length and the character of many of its in. 

 bring it rather under the romance than the drama. We have drawn a 

 'ion between the romance am 1 tin 1 novel, the former being the 

 more comprehensive wonl ; but we must still bear in miml that a 

 prose novel stands in the same relation to a later age that a poetical 

 romance does to an earlier, for poetry coni-titutes the only possible 

 literature of an age of reciters; and it is not until men begin to read 

 for themselves that prose comes into being. 



There is another feature about the novels of the present day which 

 deserves especial notice, and that is the manifold forms v.hi.-h they 

 assume. We have them as naval tales, military records, love stories, 

 political memoirs, the diaries of clergymen, lawyers, and physicians, 

 novels embodying theological disquisitions,-- suited in short to every 

 class of readers. From this we sec how much the demand influences 

 the supply, even in that most incorporeal of all manufactures, book- 

 making. That the appetite is fed by the supply is also true, but not 

 to on extent sufficient to justify us in supposing that the one <1> 



