The Company Novatian Keeps

Cornelius to his brother Cyprian: greetings. [a]

So that nothing should be missing from the punishment waiting for this wretched man, he has got up again — he had been thrown down by the powers of God when you drove out Maximus, Longinus, and Machaeus. And as I told you in the earlier letter I sent you by Augendus the confessor, I think Nicostratus, Novatus, Evaristus, Primus, and Dionysius have by now arrived where you are.

So see that all our fellow overseers and all the brothers are told this. Nicostratus stands charged with many crimes. He not only cheated and robbed his patroness outside the church, whose business affairs he was managing; he also carried off sums the church held on deposit, and they were not small ones — and that charge is stored up against him for a punishment that never ends. Evaristus is the man who started a split; Zetus has been made overseer in his place, and is now the successor over the people Evaristus used to lead.

But out of his own spite and insatiable wickedness he schemed up things bigger and worse than the ones he was always busy with among his own people — so you can see what kind of leaders and protectors that schismatic and heretic kept attaching to his side.

I wish you always well, dearest brother, with all my heart.