From the second century before Christ, when the Jew had to defend his faith against a paganism which sought to destroy and supplant it, the supreme virtue was martyrdom, and the greatest sin conceivable, apostasy; he hated false brethren, traitors to the Law, even more than national enemies; a future of ‘shame and everlasting contempt’^[1] was their just desert.  Some of the most puzzling sayings in the New Testament on the subject of repentance are found in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which has the threat of apostasy for its background; the writer’s aim is to show the ephemeral character of Judaism, with a view to preventing a lapse into Judaism by some Christians.

Although the view of the finality of some sins, notably apostasy, had representatives in every generation in the early Church, beginning with the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it was given special prominence when large numbers of Christians abjured the Faith during the sharp Decian persecution in the third century.  In this crisis, Novatian, a Roman presbyter, opposed their restoration to the communion of the Church.  But at a Synod held at Carthage (A.D. 251) provision was made for the readmission of all offenders after certain intervals and courses of penance, according to the circumstances of their lapse.  This rigorist doctrine of Novatian is yet another example of an old extremist belief that was not admitted to the general teaching of the Church, but reappeared in the religious ferment of the Reformation, and is rejected in our Article.