Saint Novatus (died c. 151) is an early Christian
saint. His feast day is 20 June.
Novatus and his brother, the martyr Timotheus, were the sons of
Saint Pudens, and the brothers of Saints
Pudentiana and
Praxedes. His paternal grandfather was
Quintus Cornelius Pudens, the Roman senator, who with his wife, Priscilla, was among St. Peter's earliest converts in Rome and in whose house the Apostle dwelt while in that city. A portion of the structure of the modern church of
Santa Pudenziana
Santa Pudenziana is a church of Rome, a basilica built in the 4th century and dedicated to Saint Pudentiana, sister of Praxedes and daughter of Pudens (mentioned by Paul the Apostle in ''2 Timothy'', 4: 21). It is one of the national churches in ...
(Via Urbana) is thought to be part of the senatorial palace or of the
baths built by Novatus.
According to the 5th-century church historian
Philostorgius
Philostorgius ( grc-gre, Φιλοστόργιος; 368 – c. 439 AD) was an Anomoean Church historian of the 4th and 5th centuries.
Very little information about his life is available. He was born in Borissus, Cappadocia to Eulampia and Car ...
, Novatus was of
Phrygian descent.
The city of
Novato, California
Novato (Spanish for "Novatus") is a city in Marin County, California, in the North Bay region of the Bay Area. At the 2020 census, Novato had a population of 53,225.
History
What is now Novato was originally the site of several Coast Miwok ...
, is named after a local
Miwok
The Miwok (also spelled Miwuk, Mi-Wuk, or Me-Wuk) are members of four linguistically related Native American groups indigenous to what is now Northern California, who traditionally spoke one of the Miwok languages in the Utian family. The word ...
leader who had probably been given the name of Saint Novatus at his baptism.
References
151 deaths
2nd-century Christian saints
Year of birth unknown
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