Containing Various Sections of the Works.
II. A Refutation of This Dogma on the Ground of Familiar Human Analogies.
III. A Refutation on the Ground of the Constitution of the Universe.
IV. A Refutation of the Same on the Grounds of the Human Constitution.
V. That to Work is Not a Matter of Pain and Weariness to God.
Epistle to Dionysius Bishop of Rome.
About the Middle of the Treatise.
The Conclusion of the Entire Treatise.
The Epistle to Bishop Basilides.
Containing Epistles, or Fragments of Epistles.
Epistle VIII.—To Dionysius.236 At that time presbyter of Xystus, and afterwards his successor. He teaches that Novatian is deservedly to be opposed on account of his schism, on account of his impious doctrine, on account of the repetition of baptism to those who came to him.
For we rightly repulse Novatian, who has rent the Church, and has drawn away some of the brethren to impiety and blasphemies; who has brought into the world a most impious doctrine concerning God, and calumniates our most merciful Lord Jesus Christ as if He were unmerciful; and besides all these things, holds the sacred laver as of no effect, and rejects it, and overturns faith and confession, which are put before baptism, and utterly drives away the Holy Spirit from them, even if any hope subsists either that He would abide in them, or that He should return to them.