On the Jewish Meats.1    Entitled “A Letter of Novatian, the Roman Presbyter.”

Chapter I.  Argument.—Novatian, a Roman Presbyter, During His Retirement at the Time of the Decian Persecution, Being Urged by Various Letters from His Brethren, Had Written Two Earlier Epistles Against the Jews on the Subjects of Circumcision and the Sabbath, and Now Writes the Present One on the Jewish Meats.

Although, most holy brethren, the day in which I receive your letters and writings is most ardently longed for by me, and to be reckoned among the chief and happiest—for what else is there now to make me more joyous?2    “Liberiorem,” translated, according to a plausible emendation, as “hilariorem.”—still I think that the day is to be deemed not less notable, and among special days, wherein I return to you similar communications, with the affection of love that I owe you, and write you letters with a corresponding interest. For nothing, most holy brethren, holds me bound with such bonds, nothing stirs and arouses me with such a stimulus of care and anxiety, as the fear lest you should think that any disadvantage is suffered by you by reason of my absence; and this I strive to remedy, in labouring to show myself present with you by frequent letters. Although, therefore, the duty which I owe, and the charge I have undertaken, and the very ministerial office imposed upon me, require of me this necessity of writing letters, yet you still further enhance it, by stirring me up to write through means of your continual communications. And inclined although I am to those periodical expressions of love, you urge me the more by showing that you stand fast continually in the Gospel: whence it results, that by my letters I am not so much instructing you who are already informed, as inciting you who are already prepared. For you, who not only hold the Gospel pure and purged from all stain of perverse doctrine, but also energetically teach the same, seek not man for a master, since you show yourselves by these very things to be teachers. Therefore as you run, I exhort you; and as you watch, I stir you up; and as you contend against “the spiritual things of wickedness,”3    Eph. vi. 12. I address you; and as you press “in your course to the prize of your calling in Christ,”4    Phil. iii. 14. I urge you on,—that, treading under foot and rejecting as well the sacrilegious calumnies of heretics as also the idle fables of Jews, you may hold the sole word5    Traditionem. and teaching of Christ, so as worthily to claim for yourselves the authority of His name. But how perverse are the Jews, and remote from the understanding of their law, I have fully shown, as I believe, in two former letters,6    These letters are not extant, but they are mentioned by Jerome, De vir. Illustr., ch. lxx. wherein it was absolutely proved that they are ignorant of what is the true circumcision, and what the true Sabbath; and their ever increasing blindness is confuted in this present epistle, wherein I have briefly discoursed concerning their meats, because that in them they consider that they only are holy, and that all others are defiled.7    [1 Cor. vi. 13. A passage probably connected with the Jewish superstition. But see the Peshito-Syriac version on Mark vii. 19. Compare Murdock’s version ad loc., ed. 1855.]

CAPUT PRIMUM. Novatianus presbyter Romanus in secessu suo, tempore persecutionis Decianae, variis fratrum litteris provocatus, adversus Judaeos post superiores duas Epistolas de Circumcisione et de Sabbato, etiam hanc de Cibis Judaicis edidit.

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Et si mihi, fratres sanctissimi, exoptatissimus dies ille et inter praecipuos beatosque referendus est quo litteras vestras et scripta suscipio; (quid enim me aliud nunc faciat liberiorem?) tamen non minus egregium diem et inter eximios arbitror computandum, quo similes vobis affectu debitae charitatis remittens, et ego ad vos compari voto litteras scribo. Nihil enim me, fratres sanctissimi, tantis constrictum 0953B vinculis tenet, nihil tantis curarum ac sollicitudinum stimulis excitat et exagitat, quam ne jacturam vobis quamdam per absentiam meam putetis illatam, cui remedium connitor dare, dum elaboro vobis me praesentem frequentibus litteris exhibere. Quamquam ergo et officium debitum, et cura suscepta, et ipsa ministerii imposita persona hanc a me litterarum scribendarum exposcant necessitatem, tamen vos illam plus exaggeratis, dum me ad scribendum frequentioribus litteris provocatis, et pronum me licet ad ista charitatis solemnia magis impellitis, dum sine cessatione in Evangelio vos perstare monstratis: ex quo efficitur, ut et ego vos litteris meis non tam instruam jam cruditos, quam incitem paratos. Nam qui sincerum Evangelium et excretum 0953C ab omni perversae labe doctrinae non tantum tenetis, verum etiam animose docetis, magistrum hominem non quaeritis; qui rebus ipsis vos doctores esse monstratis. Currentes igitur vos exhortor et vigilantes excito, et adversus spiritalia nequitiae (Ephes. VI, 12) dimicantes alloquor, et ad brabium cursu vocationis in Christo (Phil. III, 14) tendentes impello: ut tam haereticorum sacrilegis calumniis, quam etiam Judaeorum 0954A otiosis fabulis calcatis et rejectis, traditionem solam Christi doctrinamque teneatis, ut condigne auctoritatem vobis ejus nominis vindicare possitis. Quam vero sint perversi Judaei, et ab intellectu suae Legis alieni, duabus epistolis superioribus, ut arbitror, plene ostendi, in quibus probatum est prorsus ignorare illos quae sit vera Circumcisio, et quid verum Sabbatum; quorum adhuc magis ac magis caecitas revincitur in hac epistola, in qua aliquid de Cibis ipsorum breviter disseritur: hinc etenim se solos sanctos, et caeteros omnes aestimant inquinatos.