AD NOVATIANUM. - This is a pamphlet that has come down to us, mutilated at the end, under the name of St. Cyprian (v.). It takes a stand against the rigorism of Novatian (v.), who had already been excommunicated, in the question of the lapsi, reproaching the presumption of the apostate, extolling the divine mercy proclaimed in the Old Testament and in the Gospel, and exhorting all to vigilance and penance.
The scarcity of the manuscript tradition; the difference in the biblical text used in the numerous quotations; the silence of Pontius, Cyprian’s biographer, and of the catalogue of Cyprian’s works contained in the Cheltenham codex; the diversity of composition and style; moreover, according to some, the excessive indulgence toward the lapsi, all lead almost all scholars to deny this pamphlet to St. Cyprian. Harnack attributes it to Pope Sixtus II (256–58), Monceaux to an African bishop. It seems certain that it was composed by a bishop not long after the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus (252–53), to which it alludes as a recent event (ch. 5).