Epistle XLVII.
2436
Cornelius to Cyprian, Concerning the
Faction of Novatian with His Party.
Argument
.—Cornelius Gives Cyprian an Account of the Faction of
Novatian.
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Cornelius to Cyprian his brother, greeting. That
nothing might be wanting to the future punishment of this wretched man,
when cast down by the powers of God, (on the expulsion by you of
Maximus, and Longinus, and Machæus;) he has risen again; and, as I
intimated in my former letter which I sent to you by Augendus the
confessor, I think that Nicostratus, and Novatus, and Evaristus, and
Primus, and Dionysius, have already come thither. Therefore let
care be taken that it be made known to all our co-bishops and brethren,
that Nicostratus is accused of many crimes, and that not only has he
committed frauds and plunders on his secular patroness, whose affairs
he managed; but, moreover (which is reserved to him for a perpetual
punishment), he has abstracted no small deposits of the Church; that
Evaristus has been the author of a schism; and that Zetus has been
appointed bishop in his room, and his successor to the people over whom
he had previously presided. But he contrived greater and worse
things by his malice and insatiable wickedness than those which he was
then always practising among his own people; so that you may know what
kind of leaders and protectors that schismatic and heretic constantly
had joined to his side. I bid you, dearest brother, ever heartily
fare well.
2436
Oxford ed.: Ep. l.
a.d
.
251.
2437
[Oxford trans., p. 111. Elucidation VIII. and p. 319,
supra
.]