Appendix quarta: Oxoniensis editionis selectae in Cyprianum notae; J. M. Routh, notae; J. Trombelli, praefatio in Exhortationem ad poenitentiam

FOURTH APPENDIX.

OF THE OXFORD EDITION

SELECT NOTES ON CYPRIAN.

FIRST LETTER.

Those standing firm. This formula occurs rather often, and seems to mean more than merely to designate the brethren who had been at Furnos, or who stood by while the presbyters sat with him. Let us rather believe it was put here with the same meaning with which, further on, brethren are called "standing" and "standing firm", inasmuch as it was to distinguish them from apostates and the lapsed, from schismatics and heretics.

My colleagues who were present. The most eminent Baronius, Pamelius, and those who have lately edited the councils will have it that this Letter was written in some synod after Cyprian's return from his retreat. But on the contrary, it is almost Cyprian's custom in synodical Letters to set down the names of the bishops; whence it seems quite likely that the bishops of whom mention is made here were present for some less solemn cause, at the time when the news of that appointment made by Victor arrived. Certainly in Letter XXXIV, by Pamelius's numbering XXVIII, mention is made of "Colleagues who were present", where there can be no suspicion of a council having been held. The occasion for the conjecture about the time at which the Letter was written seems to have been given by that passage of the council of Carthage of 87 bishops on the baptizing of heretics, where the name of Geminius of Furnos is found: learned men believed him to be the same as Geminius Victor, and therefore that the latter departed from among the living some while after that synod. But it is less credible that this Geminius was a bishop, both because of the stigma of the deed itself and also because Cyprian calls him brother, not colleague. But granted that Geminius Victor was a bishop, is it not equally probable that Geminius Faustinus also was a bishop; and that he who, at the time he was appointed guardian under the will of the other Geminius, was a presbyter of the church of the Furnitani, had afterwards, and specifically by the time of the aforesaid council, been promoted to the episcopate? Indeed it may be added to these points that in that synod, on the authority of some manuscripts and also of St Augustine, not Geminius but Geminus is named as bishop of the Furnitani. But, setting aside this controversy about the name, let us give the reason for the changed order, and why we judge that this Letter was written not after the return from retreat, as the most learned men have held, but at the very beginning of Cyprian's episcopate, while the Philips still held the empire. And first, Victor's deed seems to belong to those times of peace which Cyprian describes in the book On the Lapsed; when, to use his words, "there was no devoted religion in the priests, no sound faith in the ministers, no mercy in works, no discipline in morals; when very many bishops, who ought to be an encouragement and an example to the rest, despising their divine stewardship, became stewards of worldly affairs." And indeed Geminius would scarcely seem to have been of sound mind if in his last will he had named a Christian presbyter as guardian in the heat of the Decian persecution, or at least while it had not yet burned itself out; and had assigned as protector of another's welfare one who would be in peril of his own life day by day. Moreover, since Cyprian expressly says in this Letter that the canon which forbids that clerics by any of the faithful

be named guardians was sanctioned by the bishops his predecessors, and yet that this ruling was given recently, the last times of his episcopate will by no means fit this event. It is not to be concealed that Cyprian also says that "this was long ago established in council": but those words, according to Cyprian's manner of speaking, denote a very short time, as we shall see below in Letter LVII, by Pamelius's numbering LIV, where our author says that a thing done scarcely a year before had been "long since established". But on these matters let the Annals be consulted, year 249, § 9.

The presbyters who sat with us. On either side, that is. Ignatius, To the Magnesians, greets them "with your most worthy bishop, and the spiritual crown of the presbytery". Theodoret, book V, chapter 3, teaches that "the middle seat" belongs to the bishop. Indeed learned men refer to this custom of the bishop's sitting in the midst of the clergy what is found in Apoc. V, 2 (Rev. 5:2).

Geminius Faustinus the presbyter as guardian. It is to be observed at this point that by Roman law the guardianship of wards, being held a public office, was a burden from which exemption was granted only for certain, and those very grave, causes defined by law; whoever would know them, let him go to book I of the Institutes, title 25. Now although it was by no means to be expected that Christian priests should enjoy so singular a privilege by the indulgence of heathen emperors, yet by mutual agreement among themselves, and by force of the canons, provision could be made that no Christian should wish to lay that burden on any of the clergy, and that under the penalties contained in those same canons. Constantine, indeed, once he was emperor and master of affairs, held nothing more important than to secure by enacted laws the immunities granted privately to the Christian clergy, heaped up with manifold increase. To this point belongs the rescript to Anulinus, proconsul of Africa, which Eusebius records, book X, chapter 7, and which Anulinus himself has in view in his Letter to Constantine, which St Augustine cites, Letter LXVIII to Januarius, and which the acts of the Conference of Carthage contain, day 3, numbers 216 and 220. To this also belongs that law issued on the day before the calends of November, Constantine Augustus for the third time and Licinius for the third time being consuls, that is, in the year of Christ 313. "We have learned," says the emperor, "that by the faction of heretics the clergy of the Catholic Church are so harassed that they are burdened, contrary to the privileges granted them, with certain nominations or charges which public custom imposes. And it is our pleasure that, if your Gravity finds anyone so harassed, another be substituted in his place, and that henceforth injuries of this kind be kept off from men of the aforesaid religion." Indeed the importunate fury of the Donatists wrung yet other laws thereafter. But in about the same century, when peace had been restored to the Church, and the evils of a long peace were sprouting up, since clerics were mixing themselves in worldly cares for the sake of base gain, the emperors who had succeeded, and the synods too, thought it necessary that they should not be exempted by privilege, but should thenceforth be driven off from them by enacted laws. Thus among the three heads proposed by Marcian to the synod of Chalcedon, and in canon 3, there is found decreed "that henceforth no one, neither bishop, nor cleric, nor monk, either lease estates, or take on business, or involve

himself to worldly administrations." Likewise Justinian, Novel 123, chapter 6, forbids those placed in the clergy to become, under any law, guardians or curators of any person whatever, etc.

In the honour of the brethren who receive sportulae. The gifts that went under the name of sportulae were quite honourable; such, namely, as the highest magistrates did not refuse to accept. Hence a law was passed and a limit set for them, so that it was provided by a rescript of Theodosius the Great: Except for the ordinary consuls, let no one else whatever have the right of giving a gold sportula; but when public offices are celebrated, let the sportula be a silver coin, and let it not be lawful to spend a larger silver coin than the one that is usually struck when we divide one pound of silver into sixty silver pieces. To these things seems to refer what Pliny has on the honoraria of decurions, book 10, Letter 114, and they also occur in book 5, last section, Digest, On Gifts between Husband [and Wife]. But in the usage of the Church regard seems to have been had not only to the sportulae of the Romans but to the custom of the Jewish Church, among whom offerings were to be placed in baskets, as may be seen at Deut. 26:2. Certainly, on the Canons of the Apostles 3 and 4, where the Christian people are forbidden to offer honey, milk or strong drink, etc., at the altar, but are ordered to send them to the house of the bishops and presbyters, Balsamon notes that these are called κανίσκια, that is, sportulae.

As receiving tithes from the produce. Tithes, the payment of which had preceded the Mosaic law by long intervals of time, by no means draw their right from that law; but just as we still dedicate the seventh part of the time granted to us as owed to God, so we still rightly pay tithes of our means. It is true that Christian priests received tithes from the produce rather late, because the dwellers in the country and those who practised agriculture were converted to the faith only late; whence the name of pagans clung to the heathen. And even now among us, where tithes are paid everywhere, the parish priests of cities are maintained chiefly from offerings, that is, sportulae. Therefore the most learned Rigault seems not very fittingly to cast odium in this place on the payment of tithes. But this matter is treated more fully near the end of the book On the Unity of the Church.

Letter II.

In the disgrace of his art. Tertullian, On the Shows, chapter 22, says that those who profess these arts are condemned with ignominy and loss of civil status, are kept from the curia, the rostra, the senate, the equestrian order and all other honours, and at the same time from certain distinctions. Likewise Augustine, City of God book 2, chapter 14: The actors of poetic fables are removed from the fellowship of the city and driven from all honours. Hence Laberius, when he had been compelled by Caesar to act a mime, grieved as one affected by a most grievous injury, the price of five hundred thousand intervening in vain, saying: A Roman knight, I went out from my home; I shall return home a mime; too much by this day, by one day I have lived longer than I should have lived. And certainly the Church is chaster than the city. Empty, therefore, was the excuse that this actor had given up the theatre and taught privately. Those who may not think what is evil will by no means be permitted to commit it privately.

In the law men are forbidden. Tertullian, On the Shows, chapter 23, says: Since in the law He prescribes that he is accursed who is clothed in women's garments, what will He judge of the pantomime, who is even groomed in women's fashion?

That he must be bought off with a salary. With allowances of provisions and generous terms, which were paid out of the public funds to military tribunes and commanders. So Pliny, book 31, chapter 7: It is brought into honours and military service; from it salaries are named. Moreover this expression passed even to the Eastern nations. For in Ezra 4:14 מלח היכלא מלחנא means a nursling of the Persian court.

He will be able to transfer himself to us. Eucratius, in the African council of 87 bishops, is said to be the bishop of Thenae, which is a city of Byzacena and situated on the military road to Carthage, as is clear from Antoninus; hence an easy passage for a traveller.

Letter 3.

Rogatianus. Pamelius conjectures that this is the same man who in the council of 87 bishops is called "of Nova"; but this is less likely, both because of the old age of the Rogatianus who is mentioned here, and because the other, of Nova, cast his vote not among the first, as by the custom of the African Church the years of episcopate that had elapsed would have required, but among the last. The Lincoln codex gives us the name of the deacon, and calls him Cassius. We do not agree with Cardinal Baronius, who at the year 257, c. 12, declares that these things were written in a synod, for the reasons brought forward above at Ep. 1. Rigaltius observes that in this Letter Cyprian gives Rogatianus advice which he himself in other Letters was unwilling to take upon himself, he who says to the bishops and presbyters: "But as to the other matter about which our fellow presbyters wrote to us, I could make no reply alone, since from the beginning of my episcopate I resolved to do nothing on my own private judgement without your counsel and without the consent of the people." But whoever considers with how much ill will Cyprian, a neophyte and quite new, reached the summit of the see of Carthage, will not be surprised that he found it necessary to use popular arts and to depart from his own right in very many things, especially in the first beginnings of his administration; which it was by no means necessary for Rogatianus, an old man and bishop of an obscure little town, to do.

Three of the ministers, Korah, and Dathan, and Abiram. It is agreed that Korah alone was a Levite, while Dathan and Abiram sprang from the tribe of Reuben. But a crime makes equal those whom it defiles; and those who sided with the rebellious Levites are not undeservedly counted among them. Hence Moses himself spoke to Korah and all the multitude, Dathan and Abiram not excepted: You exalt yourselves greatly, sons of Levi.

Reproach concerning the evil. The Greek has μαρτύρησον περὶ τοῦ κακοῦ ("bear witness concerning the evil"). In a priest of the Jews it will fit well enough to speak insultingly of an accused man; our Lord did not repay in this way, however much He was provoked. Perhaps "exproba" was written. By way of proof, that is, bring forward against me those things that I have said.

But the deacons ought to remember. This admonition touches the presbyters equally: who are admitted by the bishops to a share of their cares, yet in such a way that they remain in obedience to them.

Apostles, that is, bishops. Thus Irenaeus, book 3, ch. 3, cited by Eusebius, book 5 of the History, ch. 6, says that bishops were instituted by the Apostles, and their successors down to us. Then he lists the bishops who succeeded the Apostles in the more celebrated churches. Likewise also Tertullian, book On Prescription, ch. 32: "Let them produce," he says, "the origins of their churches; let them unroll the order of their bishops, running down by succession from the beginning in such a way that that first bishop had as his author and predecessor one of the Apostles or of apostolic men who nevertheless persevered with the Apostles. For in this way the apostolic Churches present their registers, as the church of the Smyrnaeans reports Polycarp placed by John, as that of the Romans," etc. Further, this constitution and succession of bishops is described by one nearly contemporary with the Apostles, Clement of Rome, in the Epistle to the Corinthians, ch. 44.

Letter 4.

To be in their state. Three states of women are counted: of virgins, of widows, of the married. Virgins were held in the first rank of esteem before the rest; to whom, not only for protection but also for the sake of honour, a special place in the Church was assigned; and those who took it were clothed in a dress not of matrons but of virgins, that is, with the veil, and openly professed that they followed that excellent rule of life. But the word "status" either signifies civil condition, namely the dignities and rights of a free person, or belongs to athletic contest, the stance by which one is equipped to defend oneself or to throw an adversary from his footing.