Salutation / Introduction

Notes

1. 1

   Eusebius, Hist. Eccles., vi. 45.

2. 2

   Jerome, in his Catalogus, where he adduces the beginning of this epistle, gives Novatianus for Novatus. So in the Chronicon of Georgius Syncellus we have Διονύσιος Ναυατιανῷ. Rufinus’ account appears to be that there were two such epistles,—one to Novatus, and another to Novatianus. The confounding of these two forms seems, however, to have been frequent among the Greeks. [See Lardner, Credib., sub voce Novat. Wordsworth thinks the Greeks shortened the name, on the grounds which Horace notes ad vocem “Equotuticum.” Satires, I. v. 87.]

3. 3

   We read, with Gallandi, καὶ ἦν οὐκ ἀδοξυτέρα τῆς ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ ἰδωλολατρεῦσαι (sic) γινομένης, ἡ ἕνεκεν τοῦ μὴ σχίσαι μαρτυρία. This is substantially the reading of three Venetian codices, as also of Sophronius on Jerome’s De vir. illustr., ch. 69, and Georgius Syncellus in the Chronogr., p. 374, and Nicephorus Callist., Hist. Eccles., vi. 4. Pearson, in the Annales Cyprian., Num. x. p. 31, proposes θῦσαι for σχίσαι. Rufinus renders it: “et erat non inferior gloria sustinere martyrium ne scindatur ecclesia quam est illa ne idolis immoletur.”