The Trinity, the Spectacles, Jewish Foods, in Praise of Purity, LettersAfter Novatian's break with the Church over the treatment of Christians who had lapsed in the persecution of Decius (A. D. 250 52), Church authorities were reluctant to recognize officially his contributions to Christian theology. Because his writings were too valuable to ignore, a number of them were attributed to less controversial authors. On the basis of stylistic and other internal evidence, scholars have been able to retrieve Novatian's work