(scil. martyrii) pacem et accepturo
maiorem de domini dignatione mercedem,"--"the absolution of the bishop
is not needed by him who will receive the peace of his glory (i.e.,
martyrdom) and will obtain a greater reward from the approbation of the
Lord" (Cypr. ep. 57. 4), and on the other hand taught: "peccato alterius
inquinari alterum et idololatriam delinquentis ad non delinquentem
transire,"--"the one is defiled by the sin of the other and the idolatry
of the transgressor passes over to him who does not transgress." His
proposition that none but God can forgive sins does not depotentiate the
idea of the Church; but secures both her proper religious significance
and the full sense of her dispensations of grace: it limits her powers
and _extent_ in favour of her _content_. Refusal of her forgiveness
under certain circumstances--though this does not exclude the confident
hope of God's mercy--can only mean that in Novatian's view this
forgiveness is the foundation of salvation and does not merely avert the
certainty of perdition. To the Novatians, then, membership of the Church
is not the _sine qua non_ of salvation, but it really secures it in some
measure. In certain cases nevertheless the Church may not anticipate the
judgment of God. Now it is never by exclusion, but by readmission, that
she does so. As the assembly of the baptised, who have received God's
forgiveness, the Church must be a real communion of salvation and of
saints; hence she cannot endure unholy persons in her midst without
losing her essence. Each gross sinner that is tolerated within her calls
her legitimacy in question. But, from this point of view, the
constitution of the Church, i.e., the distinction of lay and spiritual
and the authority of the bishops, likewise retained nothing but the
secondary importance it had in earlier times. For, according to those
principles, the primary question as regards Church membership is not
connection with the clergy (the bishop). It is rather connection with
the community, fellowship with which secures the salvation that may
indeed be found outside its pale, but not with certainty. But other
causes contributed to lessen the importance of the bishops: the art of
casuistry, so far-reaching in its results, was unable to find a fruitful
soil here, and the laity were treated in exactly the same way as the
clergy. The ultimate difference between Novatian and Cyprian as to the
idea of the Church and the power to bind an