crime, inasmuch as they wish to be called‘Protopaschites’. But if the Novatians
should suppose that the day of Easter...ought to be celebrated on another day
than that observed by the bishops of the orthodox, deportation as well as
proscription shall pursue the authors of such assemblies. Against such persons
an even more severe punishment ought to have been promulgated, since in this
crime they even surpass the insanity of the heretics by observing the festival of
Easter at another time than that of the orthodox, and thus they venerate almost
another Son of God than the one whom we worship.^164‘Protopaschites’refers to the early observance of Easter, following the Jews, i.e.
sometimes before the equinox; not all Novatians subscribed to this practice, as
we shall later see, which explains the pejorative reference to‘deserters and
fugitives from the company of the Novatians’, and perhaps also the need for
this sub-group to be given a distinctive name.^165 Note the emphasis on the
‘orthodox’, and the suggestion at the end of the constitution that these Pro-
topaschites are worse than other heretics and‘venerate almost another Son of
God’—which indicates, at the very least, the centrality that calendar deviance
had come to occupy, by the earlyfifth century, in the definition of Christian
heresy.
A similar point is reiterated in another imperial constitution in 423, which
punishes with proscription of goods and exile‘those persons who are worse
than all other heretics in this one belief, namely, that they disagree with
all others as to the venerable day of Easter’. A little later, a long list of
forbidden heresies in an imperial constitution of 428 includes the Sabbatian
Novatians and the Quartodecimans.^166 The punishments laid down in these
constitutions—deportation, proscription, etc.—reveal again the very real so-
cial consequences that calendar heresy could at least potentially (if the laws
were implemented) entail.
Church historians in the mid-fifth century also take interest in the rise of
these new Easter calendar heresies in the late fourth century, and provide us
more information about the Novatians than any other source. The most
important of these is Socrates (c.440CE); Sozomen (a few years later) is heavily
dependent on his predecessor and differs only on points of detail. According
to Socrates, observance of Easter with the Jews was practised only by a
breakaway movement within the Novatian heresy: Novatus, founder of the
movement in the mid-third century, had observed it as in theWest after the
equinox (HE4. 28. 14; 5. 21. 15), but his followers in Phrygia‘turned away
(^164) Ibid. 16. 6. 6 (Pharr 1952: 465); see Millar (2004) 121–2.
(^165) Floëri and Nautin (1957) 72–3 n. 1 dismiss the term‘Protopaschites’as a‘néologisme
barbare’, but they seem to have overlooked its occurrence in this passage. It is commonly used in
modern scholarship, although in ancient sources, to my knowledge, it is only attested here.
(^166) C. Theod.16. 10. 24 (Pharr 1952: 476; see Grumel 1960: 177–8),Codex Justinianus1. 5. 5
(Novatiani sive Sabbatiani, Tetraditae sive Tessarescaedecatitae).‘Sabbatian’will be presently
explained. On the significance of the use of Greek in Latin transliteration, see above, n. 160.
Sectarianism andHeresy 417