Prudentius Maran, O.S.B., Praefatio, Vita S. Cypriani, Notitia codicum manuscriptorum et indices

Letter 41, in order to report how the legates of Novatian had been received at Carthage. For he does not speak of his own letters to all Africa except in Letter 42, delivered by Mettius the subdeacon and Nicephorus the acolyte, who followed after Primitivus. 'But also,' he says, 'bringing these same things to the notice of each of our colleagues throughout our province, we have directed that brothers of ours be sent by them too with letters.' But at the time when the African bishops, admonished by Cyprian, were writing to Cornelius, the presbyter Primitivus had already returned with the letters of Cornelius, in reply to which Cyprian says (Ep. XLX): 'It was decided that letters should be written through absolutely all those placed there, as they have been, etc.' Therefore between the ordination of Novatian and the assembly of Africa in approving the episcopate of Cornelius many things intervened: the arrival of Novatian's legates, the return of the legates of Africa, the going and return of the presbyter Primitivus.

1. Tillemont relies on these words of Cyprian from Ep. 52: 'When this (the place of Peter) has been occupied by the will of God and confirmed by the consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to become bishop must necessarily become so outside.' From this he concludes that the rights of Cornelius had already been confirmed by all the bishops, or at least by the Africans, when Novatian was ordained. But the most learned critic failed to notice that Cyprian is speaking of the state of affairs that existed at that time. For since the consent of the whole world was uniting in the defence of Cornelius, and yet Novatian did not desist from his attempts, Cyprian rightly sets this consent against him, and with this argument attacks not so much his ordination as his mind obstinate in retaining it. There, in the same Letter 52, speaking of Novatian's ordination, he reproaches him only with this, that 'when a bishop had been made in the Church by sixteen bishops,' he tried 'to be made an adulterous and alien bishop by deserters through canvassing.' Likewise Cyprian did not set the consent of the whole world against Novatian's legates, but the testimony of the colleagues by whom Cornelius had been ordained, attested in the letters brought by Caldonius and Fortunatus, as is seen from Ep. 41.

2. Tillemont asks why the ordination of Novatian was at once rejected by the Africans 'as unlawful and done against the Church', and his legates were barred from communion, if the African bishops had not yet approved the ordination of Cornelius. But the answer is easy and ready. For Cyprian, as we have just seen, never doubted that the ordination of Cornelius was lawful; but, having received letters from both sides, he wished everything to be kept unchanged until the return of the legates, so as to leave no room for discord. Therefore it is not at all surprising if he was moved with the greatest indignation as soon as he learned of the wicked ordination of Novatian.

3. Tillemont thinks it can be gathered from Letter 67 that Novatian, when he sent legates into Africa, had already been judged an enemy of the Church, or at least that Cornelius was already then held throughout all Africa to be the lawful bishop of Rome. But nothing of the kind is to be read in Letter 67. Cyprian does indeed say

that Novatian had formerly been judged an enemy of the Church, and that when he had sent legates into Africa, he brought back from here the sentence of a council of very many priests. He adds that he had lately been beaten back and refuted, and excluded from communion by the priests of God throughout the whole world. But he does not reproach him with having been ordained when the episcopate of Cornelius had already been confirmed by the authority of the whole world, but with this, that, "Cornelius having been ordained in the Catholic Church by the judgement of God and the suffrage of the clergy and people, he attempted to raise up a profane altar and to set up an adulterous chair, and to offer sacrilegious sacrifices against the true priest."

4° Finally, Tillemont observes that Antonianus, to whom Cyprian wrote Epistle 52, had already, on Cyprian's advice, embraced the communion of Cornelius before, stirred by the letters of Novatian, he conceived unjust suspicions about Cornelius and Cyprian. But by this very example of Antonianus the opinion of Tillemont is utterly overthrown. For Antonianus had written to Cyprian not only that he "held one accord with Cornelius, but also that he did not communicate with Novatian." At one and the same time, therefore, he both approved the ordination of Cornelius and rejected Novatian, his rival. That he seems to have read Novatian's letters rather late, namely after he had already, at Cyprian's urging, declared his communion with Cornelius, is easily reconciled. For when Novatian's legates had been rejected at Carthage, they began to run about from town to town through the cities; and so it could have happened that they came to Antonianus rather late. Moreover, Novatian afterwards sent another legation and other letters, and nothing prevents Cyprian from speaking of these.

XXII. — The order of the things done by Saint Cyprian in the cause of Cornelius.

Thus, then, we can weave together this whole series of events. As soon as, upon the return of the legates, the truth shone forth with such great light that it was not necessary for Novatian's legates to be heard again, Cyprian wrote to Rome by the presbyter Primitivus, to whom he had given instructions to relate to Cornelius what it would have been too lengthy to gather into a letter. This is the forty-first epistle in Pamelius. Next the bishops who were present at Carthage write to the other bishops of all Africa, and inform them about the affairs of Cornelius and the schism of Novatian, and direct that brethren be sent to Rome with letters. And what they urged upon others, they themselves carried out first of all, and wrote jointly to Cornelius. There is scarcely any doubt that these are the very letters of Cyprian and his colleagues in which, as Eusebius testifies (book 6, ch. 43), it was decreed that help should be given to the lapsed and that the author of the wicked heresy should be cast out of the Church. In the same letters there was much about Felicissimus and his associates, about whom they related to Cornelius what the bishops had judged after hearing them, and what they had pronounced. Both these letters of the council, both that to the African bishops and that to Cornelius, are mentioned by Cyprian in Ep. 62, which by Mettius the acolyte subdeacon and Nicephorus

was sent. By the same clerics Cyprian sent copies of the letters which he had written concerning Felicissimus and his presbytery to the clergy and people of Carthage, and which he had already sent to Cornelius earlier by Caldonius and Fortunatus. He urges Cornelius to have them read to the brethren. This Letter 42 was sent before the presbyter Primitivus had returned; for Cyprian had not yet learned, from the letter which he brought, that it had annoyed Cornelius that he had advised the people of Hadrumetum to write not to Cornelius by name, but to the Roman Church. Yet Cyprian, suspecting something, and fearing that some offence might have entered Cornelius's mind, shows in the same Letter 42 that he had been led by zeal for peace and unity to keep everything intact until letters should come from the bishops of Italy.

Besides this Letter 42, another, shorter one to Cornelius was entrusted to Mettius, which is Letter 43. Cyprian informs him that he has written to the schismatic confessors, but has instructed Mettius to read this letter to Cornelius, and not to deliver it unless Cornelius judged that it should be delivered. It is not likely that Mettius was sent to Rome twice by Cyprian, once with Nicephorus to carry Letter 42, and again to carry the forty-third, concerning the schismatic confessors. This, I say, is not made likely; for Nicephorus, who probably returned with Mettius, brought Cyprian the most welcome news of the return of the confessors. But why did Cyprian give Cornelius two letters at the same time? Tillemont resolves the matter. Since Cyprian well knew that his letters were customarily read publicly at Rome, he prudently entrusted to a shorter letter what he did not wish to be spread abroad among the people. Besides the Letter to the Confessors, which is Letter 44, Cyprian sent them his books On the Lapsed and On the Unity of the Church. From this it is an easy conjecture that this book On the Unity of the Church was written about this time, and this is confirmed by the testimony of Pontius, who lists it immediately after the book On the Lapsed.

Before Cornelius received this letter, he wrote to Cyprian by the presbyter Primitivus, and indicated that the advice given by Cyprian to the people of Hadrumetum had displeased him. Cyprian answers him by Letter 45, which was written at the time when African bishops on every side were writing to Rome to testify that they adhered to Cornelius. In matters of such moment it is not likely that either Cyprian or the clerics whom he was sending to Rome were idle; nor does much time seem to have elapsed between those Letters 41, 42 and 45. For the forty-first was written, through the presbyter Primitivus, shortly after the return of the envoys; the forty-second shortly after the council's letter to Cornelius, before the return of Primitivus, before people wrote to Cornelius from the various provinces of Africa, which was happening at the time when, on the arrival of the letter brought by Primitivus, Cyprian replied by Letter 45.

XXIII.—New attempts of Novatian.—The return of the Roman confessors into the Church at the urging of Cyprian: it is shown that this happened before the Roman council of the year 251.

When Maximus, Longinus and Machaeus, the envoys of Novatian, had been driven out by Cyprian and his colleagues, Novatian sent others into Africa, namely Nicostratus and Novatus and Evaristus and Primus and Dionysius. Cornelius warned Cyprian about this matter by a letter sent through Augendus the confessor, which is not extant. Not long afterwards, another opportunity having presented itself, he wrote again to Cyprian through Nicephorus the acolyte the letter which is XLVIII among Cyprian's, in which he asks that through Cyprian's agency it be made known to all his fellow bishops and brethren that Nicostratus was guilty of many crimes, and had not only committed frauds and robberies against his patroness after the flesh, whose accounts he had managed, but had also carried off no small deposits of the church; and that Evaristus had been the author of the schism, and that a successor had been appointed for the people over whom he had formerly presided, Zetus, as bishop in his place. On the day after the envoys of Novatian had come, Nicephorus the acolyte arrived with the letter of Cornelius, from which Cyprian learned, and informed the other bishops of, what concerned Nicostratus and Evaristus. Afterwards he gave thanks to Cornelius by Letter XLIX.

But the same Nicephorus brought another letter, far more joyful, by which Cornelius informed Cyprian of the return of the four confessors Maximus, Urbanus, Sidonius and Macharius. When certain brethren had reported that the confessors were returning to a sound mind, and afterwards Urbanus and Sidonius had come to the presbyters, affirming that Maximus, presbyter and confessor, likewise desired together with them to return into the Church, Cornelius resolved that what they had communicated through an embassy should be heard from their own mouth and confession. When they had come, and an account of what they had done was demanded of them by the presbyters, they affirmed that they had been deceived, and that they had not known what was contained in the letters sent in their name through all the churches, and they entreated that what had gone before be abolished and removed from memory. When the whole proceeding had been reported to Cornelius, he ordered the presbytery to be assembled; five bishops were present, and the matter having been put forward for deliberation, opinions were delivered by each, which Cornelius appended to his letter to Cyprian. These things having been done, the four confessors came into the presbytery, and very many brethren who had joined themselves to them, desiring with the most earnest prayers that what had previously been done should fall into oblivion. And when a great concourse of the brotherhood had gathered, there was one voice of all giving thanks to God, says Cornelius, expressing the joy of their hearts with tears, embracing them as if on that day they had been freed from the punishment of prison. The confessors declared that they acknowledged Cornelius as bishop of the most holy Catholic Church, confessed that they had suffered imposture and been deceived, but that nevertheless their mind had always been sincerely in the Church; since indeed they were not ignorant that there is one God, one Christ

the Lord, and one Holy Spirit, and that there ought to be one bishop in the Catholic Church. Moved by these things, Cornelius ordered Maximus the presbyter to acknowledge his own place, received the rest with the great approval of the people, and left everything to almighty God. These things, moreover, at the same hour and the same moment, he conveyed to Cyprian in writing, namely by the letter that is 46 among Cyprian's, and he at once dispatched Nicephorus the acolyte, who was intending to go down to set sail. The letters of Cornelius flooded the church of Carthage with joy; and there is no doubt that Cyprian sent them on to the other churches of Africa, as Cornelius had asked, to whom he replied by Letter 47. The confessors also wrote to Cyprian, and their letter is 50 among Cyprian's. Cyprian replied to them by Letter 52. But what we have related, drawn from the letters of Cornelius, proves that it was not the confessors alone who returned. There came with them into the presbytery "very many brethren who had joined themselves to them"; which indeed does not seem capable of being understood of the Catholic people interceding on behalf of the confessors. For afterwards Cornelius tells of the throng of the brotherhood, which he indicates took place only when he judged that this whole proceeding should be made known to the people; it is surely unlikely that the confessors, who had drawn many away by their authority, should have had no companions and imitators in returning. Cyprian interpreted the words of Cornelius in no other way: "How much greater is the joy," he says (Ep. 47), "both on earth and likewise in heaven over the confessors returning to the Church of God with their glory and with praise, and making the way of return for the rest by the faith and proof of their example! For error had led certain of our brethren there, in that they seemed to themselves to be following the communion of the confessors. Now that this error is removed, light has been poured into the hearts of all, and the Catholic Church has been shown to be capable of being neither torn nor divided." Hence it seems strange that Tillemont should think Cyprian spoke of the confessors alone. The whole affair is narrated by the same learned writer as though it had been transacted on one and the same day. But nevertheless from these words of Cornelius, "there were also present five bishops, who were also present today," it is clear that two days were taken up, of which the first held a deliberation on receiving the confessors, while on the next day the things which had been settled the day before were completed and carried through, with a great throng of the brotherhood.

Tillemont and Pearson think this notable event should be assigned to the month of November of this year 251, after the Roman council which Cornelius held in this year 251 with sixty bishops in the month of October, as Pearson holds, or even much earlier, as Tillemont reckons, and before the ordination of Novatian. But those four confessors do not seem to have returned into the Church so late, or at any rate [they seem to have returned] before the Roman council.

The return of the confessors followed a few days after a new embassy of Novatian. "For when Novatus had departed from you there," says Cyprian (Ep. 49), that is,

the storm and whirlwind receding, calm was in part restored there." Moreover, not much time passed between the first legation and this new one: for Novatian, "laid low by the powers of God," as Cornelius says (Ep. 48), "when Maximus and Longinus and Machaeus had been driven out by Cyprian and his colleagues, rose up again." From these words it is clear that Novatian did not rest idle from the month of July to November, but wished to repair at once the losses he had suffered, sending more skilful and more industrious legates. Therefore the return of the confessors, which came very close to the departure of the new legation, cannot be pushed back into the month of November. Then again, Nicephorus, that acolyte who brought both letters, both about the new legation and about the return of the confessors, seems not to have been a Roman cleric, but rather that very Nicephorus the acolyte whom Cyprian had sent to Rome with Mettius the subdeacon at the end of July or the beginning of August. For thus Cornelius speaks of him in Ep. 46: "These things, therefore, dearest brother, in the same hour, at the same moment, we have sent across to you in writing, and I have at once dispatched to you Nicephorus the acolyte, who was intending to go down to take ship." From these words it is clear that this cleric was not sent on purpose by Cornelius, but rather that, when he was returning, having completed the business for which he had come, the holy Pontiff made use of the opportunity offered. Hence he had already given him a letter to deliver about the new attempts of Novatian, but one by no means necessary, nor such as would require a cleric to be sent, since Augendus the confessor had already been sent on that matter, and there was no need to send another afterwards to announce the same thing. Moreover, if this is the Nicephorus the acolyte who carried Cyprian's Letter 42 together with Mettius, it is in vain that his return is deferred to the month of November. It matters little that in the letters of Cornelius no mention is made of Mettius the subdeacon, with whom Nicephorus the acolyte had set out from Carthage; for likewise Mettius, as we saw above in Letter 43, is named alone, although Nicephorus had been joined to him as companion.

As regards the Roman council, it seems altogether later than the return of the confessors. There is absolutely no trace of this council in the letters sent to Rome or to Carthage within the time that elapsed from the ordination of Cornelius to the return of the confessors. The legates Caldonius and Fortunatus, who returned to Carthage after the ordination of Novatian, brought letters of no more than sixteen bishops. Who then would believe that already at that time the ordination of Cornelius had been confirmed in a council of sixty bishops, as Tillemont suspects? Furthermore this council, as Eusebius testifies (book 6, ch. 43), decreed "that Novatus indeed, and those who had insolently exalted themselves together with him, and whoever had presumed to agree with his most inhuman opinion, alien to brotherly charity, were to be held as aliens from the Church." But the confessors so conducted themselves before their return, and on returning were so received, that they do not appear to have been excommunicated by the council of sixty bishops: for, if by this synod

they had been called to judgement and excommunicated and had hardened in schism, could they have said that they had been deceived and had suffered imposture, and that their mind had always been in the Church? Who would believe that Cornelius would have received them in such a way as to refer everything to God almighty? That is not how one usually deals with men already judged and excommunicated. The council was therefore later than the return of the confessors, yet not much later; for there were very weighty reasons why it should be held soon, both so that the party of Novatian might be thoroughly broken, and so that the cause of the lapsed, which had been deferred to a council, might be decided.

XXIV. — On the deeds and writings of St Cyprian in the year 252, before the persecution.

Novatian, though condemned throughout the whole world, did not lose heart, but sent his new apostles through very many cities, in order to lay certain fresh foundations for his establishment and to create other false bishops over the lawful bishops. Cyprian attests this in the Letter to Antonianus, written at the end of the year 251 or the beginning of 252. Cyprian had long before received a letter from this bishop of Numidia, in which he indicated that he was not in communion with Novatian but was attached to Cornelius, and asked that a copy of that same letter be sent to Cornelius. But afterwards another letter arrived, in which he seemed to waver, moved by Novatian's letter, and he inquired what heresy that man had introduced and on what grounds Cornelius was in communion with Trophimus and with those who had offered incense, and he did not accept with equanimity even Cyprian's own kindness towards the lapsed. Cyprian answers him in this Letter 52 in such a way as to defend himself and Cornelius admirably, and to show that no one can be in communion with Novatian except one who rejects the communion of the whole Church. It is clear that the letter was written after the return of the confessors, who he says have been joined with Cornelius in the Church, and after the death of Decius, whom he calls a tyrant, but nevertheless before the indulgence granted to the lapsed in this year 252, since Cyprian's defence deals only with those things which had been granted in the previous year to the Libellatici and to the others placed in danger of death. Not without reason does that Antonianus seem to be the same as the one who is listed among the Numidian bishops in the title of Letter 70; which is also a proof that he did not resist Cyprian's admonitions.

About this time Novatian's emissaries made Maximus false bishop of Carthage; but this deed was so ignoble and obscure that Cyprian did not even judge that he should write to Rome about the matter. For a little before, on the advice of his colleagues, he had sent Cornelius the names of the sound and catholic bishops in Africa, so that Cornelius and his colleagues might know to whom they ought to write and from whom they ought to receive letters in return; but if anyone besides those whom Cyprian had included in his letter dared to write, they should know that he was stained either by sacrifice or by a certificate, or was one of the heretics, that is, perverse and profane.

Cyprian's most excellent work On the Lord's Prayer is thought to have been written in this year. It is listed by Pontius after the book On the Unity of the Church; and since many things are said vehemently and copiously against schismatics in that same book, it is not wrongly concluded that the schisms of Felicissimus and Novatian had already come forth when Cyprian was writing these things.

Around the first solemnities of Easter Cyprian wrote Letter 53 to the bishops Fortunatus, Abymnus, Optatus, Donatianus, Fortunatus and Felix, who, when they were in the city of Capsa for the ordination of a bishop (of Donatulus, as is likely, bishop of Capsa, who gives his opinion in the sixty-ninth place in the council of Carthage in the year 257), had been consulted by Superius whether Ninus, Clementianus and Florus should now be admitted to communion, who, having confessed Christ before the magistrate and the people, and afterwards having been overcome amid tortures before the proconsul, had not ceased to do penance throughout this three-year period, a period not indeed completed but begun. Not daring to decide the matter, they had referred it to Cyprian, and had written "that he should deal most fully with this very matter together with more colleagues". Cyprian replies that communion should be restored to men of this kind, and promises that he will deliberate on that matter with the bishops "when they have discharged the solemnity to be celebrated among their own people", and have "come" to Carthage.

There is scarcely any doubt that he fulfilled his promise in the council which was held at Carthage this year on the Ides of May, as he himself attests in Letter 55 (p. 84). He writes in the same place that "Privatus, an old heretic in the colony of Lambesis, condemned for many and grave offences some many years before by the sentence of ninety bishops, and" by the "letters" of Pope Fabian and of Donatus bishop of Carthage "most severely censured, when he said he wished to plead his cause in this council", was not admitted. Sixty-six bishops attended this council, if, as is most likely, it was there that a reply was given to the questions put forward by Bishop Fidus. He had complained by letter that Therapius, bishop of Bulla and a confessor, as Pamelius conjectures from the council of Carthage of the year 256, had given peace at an untimely moment to Victor, formerly a presbyter, before he had done full penance. Moreover Fidus had put forward a certain novel opinion concerning infants, in whose case he thought the custom of the ancient circumcision should be kept, so that they should not be baptized within the eighth day. Among other reasons he alleged this one: "that the footprint of an infant set in the first days of its birth is not clean, because everyone shrinks from kissing it". The sixty-six bishops reply through Letter 59 that Therapius had been rebuked, yet communion had not been taken away from Victor. But the opinion put forward by him concerning infants they all reject with one voice, and they defend the baptism of infants "at the very first beginning of their birth" with most splendid weight of reasons. Moreover this council of sixty-six bishops is seen to be entirely the same as that which was held on the Ides of May in this year 252. For the fact that the lay communion granted to Victor, formerly a presbyter, reprehension

did not escape is proof that nothing had yet been taken away or filed down from the decree of the previous year, and that peace had not yet been restored to the penitents; yet this indulgence was granted to them a very few months after the council held on the ides of May.

Pearson rightly rebukes Lombert for having placed this council of sixty-six bishops not long after the council of the previous year. It is not likely that, after a council which had been occupied so long in judging the cases of the lapsed, another so well attended was convened in the same year, especially since no trace of this matter survives in the letters written in the previous year. But the same Pearson pushes this council, in which sixty-six bishops replied to Fidus, back to the month of September of the year 253, when the bishops, as he himself supposes, were deliberating on ecclesiastical affairs after peace had been restored. This opinion does not agree with these words of the bishops: « This matter, they say, troubled us considerably, that there had been a departure from the authority of our decree, so that peace was granted to him before the lawful and full time of satisfaction, and without the request and knowledge of the people, with no illness pressing and no necessity compelling. » These words fit the ides of May of the year 252 excellently. Victor had already fulfilled no small part of his penance; one thing is censured, that he had not completed the full time; indeed nothing would have been censured if peace had been granted at the request of the people. But surely the bishops would never have acted so leniently in the year 253, amid the very first beginnings of peace. For those who, when the persecution of Decius had been laid to rest, had displayed such severity that they threatened excommunication if anyone admitted the lapsed to communion, would they, when the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus was ended, while the hands of the lapsed were still smoking from their unspeakable sacrifices, have been so slack as to say that they would not have censured the peace granted if it had not been granted « without the request and knowledge of the people »? Moreover, councils do not seem to have been necessary after the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus, because, from what had been decreed concerning the lapsed in the earlier council, the deliberation on the whole matter was easy; or rather because in this persecution either none, or at least very few, seem to have fallen. Cyprian testifies in Letter 57 that those who had fallen at Rome under Decius had won the praise of confession in this second battle. The author of the book To Novatian (p. 11) gives the same testimony at least for Africa. Hence Cyprian, in Letter 81 To the Martyrs, does not lament the disasters and deaths of his people, as he had done in Letter 9 under Decius. Nor is it any wonder if they were victors in this fight, whom we perceive from Letter 54 to have been ready for fighting with such ardour of spirit.

About the same time, as Tillemont observes, was written Letter 64 To Epictetus and the people of Assuras, against Fortunatianus, formerly bishop of this city, who, having been cast down from the priesthood for the worship of idols, « wished to act as one unimpaired, » and had begun to claim the episcopate for himself. Epictetus, whom Cyprian calls brother, seems to have been appointed in Fortunatianus's place. Fortunatianus was not the only one of the lapsed bishops attempting a deed of this kind, but Cyprian observes that some others had undertaken the same, while

they long for the contributions and offerings and gains over which they formerly brooded insatiably, and they still gape after the suppers and banquets whose surfeit they lately belched out, with indigestion lingering from day to day." But since he exhorts all the lapsed that, "recognizing the magnitude of their offence, they should not cease from entreating the Lord, but should persist in making satisfaction and knock at the Church," this letter is not without reason thought to have been written before indulgence was granted to the lapsed generally.

Rejected, as we have just said, by the council of Carthage, Privatus set up Fortunatus as pseudo-bishop at Carthage, who was "one of the five presbyters long since fugitives from the Church and [condemned] by the sentence of fellow bishops," says Cyprian, Letter 55 (p. 83), "many and most weighty men, who about this matter the previous year" had written letters to Cornelius. There lent their efforts to this crime, as the holy Martyr says in the same place, a certain Felix, who had come with him, whom he himself had once set up as pseudo-bishop outside the Church in heresy; Jovinus and Maximus, condemned by the sentence of nine bishops for abominable sacrifices and crimes proved against them, and excommunicated again also by many others in the council of the previous year; Repostus of Saturnica, who had not only himself fallen in the persecution but had also cast down the greatest part of his people by sacrilegious persuasion. These five, with a few who had either sacrificed or had an evil conscience, co-opted Fortunatus as pseudo-bishop for themselves. But the crime did not succeed for them as they intended. For although they had kept saying that twenty-five bishops would come to Carthage, to the disgrace of their lie only five were found. Then those whom they had formerly been deceiving and leading on with a false hope of returning to the Church, when they saw the pseudo-bishop, having discovered the fraud, returned to the Church. And so there were more who had passed judgement on those wicked men, if presbyters and deacons are counted, than those who then appeared to be joined with them. Cyprian, however, tested and diligently examined which ought to be admitted and received into the Church. For some could not be received "without the scandal and danger of very many." For the people murmured and resisted "whenever incorrigible and insolent men, defiled either by adulteries or by sacrifices, and after this, moreover, even from schism, were returning to the Church." He could scarcely persuade the people, or rather he extorted from them, that they should consent to such men being admitted; and the grief of the brotherhood had been made the more just by the fact that one or another, received through Cyprian's indulgence while the people strove against it and contradicted, had turned out worse than they had been before (ibid.).

Cyprian was so little moved by the ordination of Fortunatus that he did not judge it necessary to write to Cornelius about the matter at once. Having found, however, the opportunity of a very intimate man and cleric, through Felicianus the acolyte, whom Cornelius had sent into Africa with the bishop Perseus, he had written to Cornelius about this Fortunatus too; but while Felicianus was either held back at Carthage by the wind or detained in receiving other letters, he was forestalled by Felicissimus hastening to Rome. For he was being sent to Rome with letters of Fortunatus to Cornelius, since that wicked faction, shut out on every side and in

Africa known everywhere for the infamy of its crimes, had judged that one must sail to Rome. So Felicissimus came to Rome, surrounded by a crowd and faction of desperate men, but he was rejected by Cornelius and, "with the full vigour with which bishops ought to act," driven out of the Church. But when the wicked men kept saying that Fortunatus had been ordained by twenty-five bishops, and when they "had assailed" Cornelius, "threatening that, if he did not accept the letters which they had brought, they would read them out publicly, and uttering many base and shameful things worthy of their own mouth," Cornelius, to whom Cyprian's silence was vexing, "somewhat shaken by their threats and terrors," wrote two letters at once to Cyprian by Saturus the acolyte, of which the first reported that Felicissimus had been firmly driven out, the second that the mind of Cornelius himself had been shaken and terrified.

It was most vexing to Cyprian that, although he had shown the utmost fortitude of mind in defending the episcopate of Cornelius, the same was not returned to him by Cornelius in a very similar matter. He therefore wrote Letter 55 to him, by no means concealing his grief that Cornelius had lent his ears to schismatics branded with every stain of crime and condemned in council, against a bishop chosen in peace by the vote of the whole people, protected by God's help in persecution, faithfully joined to all his colleagues, already proved to his people in the episcopate for four years, serving discipline in quiet, proscribed in the storm with the name of his episcopate attached and added, so often demanded for the lion, honoured in the circus and in the amphitheatre with the testimony of the Lord's favour, and lately also demanded for the lion once again by the clamour of the populace. He shows that it was wicked for schismatics to carry letters "to the chair of Peter and to the principal Church, from which priestly unity took its rise," "since it has been decreed by all of us," he says, "and is equally fair and just, that each person's case be heard there where the crime was committed..., unless to a few desperate and lost men the authority of the bishops established in Africa seems to be less, etc." Thus Cyprian defends the rights of his episcopate in such a way that he acknowledges the origin of unity in the Roman Church, as the principal church; and, just as elsewhere, while admitting equal power among the Apostles, he acknowledges the origin of unity established in Peter, so in this place, although he denies that the authority of the African bishops is less, the Oxford editor wrongly declares that the primacy is denied by him: but we have already spoken of these matters in the preface. Now although this letter might seem able to detract somewhat from the esteem for Cornelius's prudence and constancy, yet Cyprian does not hesitate to admonish and ask him to read this letter, according to his custom, to the clergy presiding with him and to the most holy and most ample people, so well known to Cyprian and so proven was the virtue of Cornelius. It is certain that this letter was written in this year 252; for Cyprian mentions the council of the previous year, and also another held on the last Ides of May: hence he says he has already been proved to his people for four years. But it does not seem to have been written except at the end of the month of June or the beginning of July.

XXV.—The persecution is revealed to Cyprian.—He exhorts the Thibaritans to the contest.—He restores peace to the penitent lapsed in a council, which must be distinguished from another held on the Ides of May.

Since a good many things intervened between the council of Carthage, which we have said was held on the Ides of May, and the persecution, it is clear that the emperors Gallus and Volusianus, who had obtained the empire at the end of the year 251, did nothing in anger against the Christians during all that time, and did not stir up their fury against them before the middle of the summer of this year. But the persecution was violent, and had no other end than the very life of the emperors. Already some sparks had flashed out when Cyprian was writing Letter 55 to Cornelius. For he says that "in these very days" in which he was writing, "on account of the sacrifices which the people were ordered by a published edict to celebrate," he had been "demanded again for the lion by the clamour of the populace" "in the circus." The cause of proclaiming the sacrifices seems to have been that plague which raged in horrifying fashion under Gallus and Volusianus and the other emperors after them. Not long afterwards followed the edicts of the emperors Gallus and Volusianus against the Christians; and when Cyprian had received foreknowledge of them, many visions having been divinely granted him, he wrote Letter 56 to the Thibaritans, whom he had earlier resolved to visit but could not then carry out his plan, and so sent letters in his stead, in which he advises them that he had learned "by the condescension of the Lord instructing him," and that it must be known, and believed and held for certain, that a heavier and fiercer battle now threatened than before; and then from the holy Scriptures and from the principles of the Christian religion he gathers whatever could encourage them to endure the persecution steadfastly.

What seems to have kept Cyprian from satisfying the wishes of the Thibaritans is the necessity laid upon him of providing for the affairs of his church, with persecution imminent. And judging that nothing was to be done by him at this most troublesome time before he gathered within the camp of the Lord all the soldiers of Christ without exception who desired arms and demanded battle, he decreed in a council with forty-one bishops that, the cases of each having been examined, peace should be given to the lapsed who had not ceased to do penance from the first day of their lapse. The bishops inform Cornelius of this matter through Letter 54, and say that they so decided "at the prompting of the Holy Spirit," and show that the blood of Christ is not to be denied to those who promised that they would shed their own for Christ and would fight fiercely. They add that they hope this same thing "will please" Cornelius "in consideration of his fatherly mercy." I am surprised that this council is confused by Pearson with that which was held on the Ides of May. For, first, no letter was written to Cornelius in the name of the synod about the matters deliberated on the Ides of May; indeed, concerning Privatus, whom the synod had not admitted, Cyprian wrote to Cornelius in his own name only when the opportunity of Felicianus the acolyte offered itself. Secondly, in Letter 55, from which we say that the council was held on the Ides of May, there exists no trace of indulgence granted to the lapsed

but only the necessity of penance is defended against Felicissimus and his henchmen. And hence it is evident that in the Oxford edition this letter is undeservedly placed before the fifty-fourth, by which Cornelius was informed of the communion granted to the lapsed. Thirdly, the council of forty-one bishops, in which communion was given to the lapsed, was held when persecution was imminent and the enemy was proclaiming the contest, when the lapsed desired and demanded arms, as is said in Epist. 54, and professed that they were "ready for battle, and to stand firm and fight for the name of their Lord and for their own salvation". Therefore the confession of Cornelius, who was the first at Rome to confess, must have followed immediately upon this decision. But between the council held on the Ides of May and the persecution and the confession of Cornelius many things intervened: the ordination of Fortunatus, the embassy sent by him to Rome, the letter of Cornelius to Cyprian and the reply of Cyprian.

XXVI.—St Cyprian congratulates St Cornelius on the glory of his confession.—He exhorts the confessors of Carthage by Epist. 81, which is shown to have been written in this persecution, in the year 252.

Cyprian's prediction of the coming persecution was not vain, nor did the precautions he applied for strengthening the Christians lack the desired outcome. At Rome the adversary sprang forth to throw the camp of Christ into confusion by violent terror; but there the valour of the bishop who led the way was publicly proved, and in a manner the whole Roman church confessed: not single soldiers but the whole camp went out to battle, and whoever heard of it ran up in haste and came. Very many of those who had lapsed under Decius were restored by a glorious confession, made stronger for battle by the very grief of penance, so that it appeared that in the first persecution they had trembled from fear of a new and unaccustomed thing. This we learn from Epist. 57 of Cyprian, in which he congratulates Cornelius, in exile at Centumcellae, on the glory of his confession, and shares with him what he had learned, instructed by the providence of the Lord admonishing him: "that the day of our contest and struggle is already drawing near," he says. Finally he asks that whichever of them departs first to the Lord should pray to God for the other and for the brothers and sisters. This prediction had its outcome not long afterwards in Cornelius, who died a martyr at Centumcellae on 14 September of this year 252, as is agreed among all the most learned. Meanwhile Novatian, as Cyprian observes, being a sharer neither in the unity of the Church nor in its triumphs, remained at rest, nor did the persecution touch him at all. Lucius, who succeeded Cornelius, obtained at almost the same time the glory of the priesthood and of exile; but having been recalled shortly afterwards, he died a martyr on the fourth or fifth day of the month of March in the year 253, having presided five months and a few days. Cyprian, having congratulated him on his priesthood and confession by a letter which has not come down to us, also congratulated him on his return by Epistle 58 in his own name and that of his colleagues. But besides this office of a letter, in which he testifies that his own [joy] too is added to the common joy of the Roman Church, he says that he does not

cease "in sacrifices and in prayers to give thanks to God the Father and to Christ His Son our Lord, and at the same time to pray and to ask that He Who is perfect and perfecting may guard and perfect (in Lucius) the glorious crown of confession," etc.; and as if he foresaw what afterwards came to pass, he surmises that Lucius had been recalled from exile for this reason, that he might pour out his life for Christ before the eyes of his own church. That Lucius confirmed the decrees of Cornelius concerning the lapsed we learn from Cyprian, who calls Lucius and Cornelius blessed martyrs, and says that he honours their memory, and testifies that they, full of the Spirit of God and established in glorious martyrdom, judged that peace was to be given to the lapsed, and set down under the seal of their letters that, once penance had been done, the fruit of communion and peace was not to be denied (Ep. 67).

Although, when the sparks of persecution broke out, Cyprian was demanded for the lion, he nevertheless did not withdraw, as he had in the persecution under Decius, nor was he driven out or proscribed. The first at Carthage to withstand the onslaught of the raging populace, as may be seen in Ep. 81, was the glorious old man Rogatianus the presbyter, who had confessed in the persecution of Decius and, released from prison, had been joined by Cyprian to two bishops and the presbyter Numidicus in governing the church of Carthage. Since he was the first in this persecution of Gallus and Volusianus to be cast into prison, together with Felicissimus, whom Cyprian calls a brother ever quiet and sober, he was crowned together with him. Cyprian exhorts the other confessors shut up in prison (in Ep. 81) to imitate Rogatianus, and says that he continually prays the Lord that they may attain the same crown as he. Among these confessors boys and women shone forth, which we perceive also to have happened in the persecution of Decius from the book On the Lapsed (p. 181), and in the persecution of Valerian from Ep. 77. The same glory of confession was attained, as we observed in chapter 24, by those who had lapsed under Decius. This indeed must be understood of very many, yet not of all; for the author of the book To Novatian mentions others of their number who were still given over to penance. But since some assign Epistle 81 to the persecution of Valerian, others to that of Decius, we must set out why it seems rather to be referred to this persecution under Gallus and Volusianus.

Pamelius and Baronius count this epistle among the last of Cyprian's, and think it written in the persecution of Valerian. They are led chiefly by this reason, that Rogatianus the presbyter and confessor, who is known to have survived the persecution of Decius, is said in this Epistle 81 to have poured out his life for Christ together with Felicissimus. And this indeed agrees with the ecclesiastical records, in which, says Baronius, "the solemnity of the birthday of Rogatianus and Felicissimus, who suffered on one day, is entered on the seventh day before the calends of November." Pearson on the contrary contends that this epistle was written under Decius, while Cyprian was in hiding, and proves it from the first words of the epistle: "I greet you, dearest brethren, wishing that I too might enjoy your presence, if the circumstances of my place allowed me to come to you." [Thus], moreover, Cyprian is accustomed to speak from his retreat, as in

Epist. 5: "And since the condition of my place does not now permit me to be present;" and in Epist. 37 to the same clergy: "Would that the condition of my place and rank permitted me to be present myself now!" From this Pearson concludes that these words denote not Cyprian's exile under Valerian, but his withdrawal under Decius. The passage, however, from which Rogatianus is judged to have been dead, he thinks must be taken in an entirely different sense, and that an error crept into the ecclesiastical tables when Usuard, Ado and others followed without examination Bede, who cites this letter of Cyprian and teaches from it that Rogatianus and Felicissimus were crowned with martyrdom.

Pearson's opinion pleases Tillemont; but nevertheless it is perceived from many things that this letter was written not in his withdrawal but at Carthage, when Rogatianus had already died, yet not under Valerian, but under Gallus and Volusianus. Cyprian's context is too plain for us to deny that Rogatianus and Felicissimus were crowned with martyrdom before Cyprian wrote this letter. Let us examine the passage. "Holding fast this faith," he says, "and meditating on it day and night, you too, ready with your whole heart towards God, in contempt of present things think only of the things to come, so that you may be able to come to the fruit of the eternal kingdom and to the embrace and kiss and sight of the Lord, so that you may follow in all things Rogatianus the presbyter, the glorious old man, who by devout virtue and divine favour makes the way for you to the glory of our time, who, together with Felicissimus our brother, ever quiet and sober, receiving the onslaught of the raging populace, prepared for you the first lodging in prison, and, as it were your quartermaster, now also goes before you. That this may be brought to completion in you we beseech the Lord with constant prayers, that, as beginnings advance to the highest things, He may cause those whom He causes to confess also to be crowned." There is scarcely a word in this passage that does not indicate that Rogatianus suffered for Christ. Cyprian calls him "a glorious old man," which is proof that he had attained to glory. He praises the confessors because they think only of things to come, so that they may attain to the embrace of the Lord, so that they may follow in all things Rogatianus, whom they had already imitated in many things. Rogatianus, therefore, had already attained to the sight of the Lord, since to attain to the sight of the Lord is the same as to follow Rogatianus in all things. Rogatianus had prepared for them the first lodging in prison. Where was he preparing the second, if not in heaven, going before them like a quartermaster? Finally Cyprian prays God that that in which Rogatianus was going before them may be brought to completion in them and that they may attain to the crown. Therefore Rogatianus had already attained to this crown; and since he did not obtain it in the persecution of Decius, but came out of prison before Cyprian came out of his withdrawal, this letter must necessarily be referred to another time. Tillemont relies on these words, "making the way, goes before you," to prove that Rogatianus had not died when this letter was written. But who does not know that the poverty of the Latin tongue often compels the use of expressions of this kind? The martyrs in Ep. 78 praise Cyprian

that, when he first raised the standard of confessing, his soul "began not only to be the companion of the martyrs already departing from the world, but also" joined "a heavenly friendship with those who are to come". In quite the same way Cyprian, in Ep. 9, exhorts the confessors to follow the martyr Mappalicus. "This now most blessed martyr," he says, "and the others, sharers in the same contest and companions steadfast in faith, patient in pain, victors under interrogation, I both wish and exhort that the rest of you also follow, so that those whom the bond of confession and the lodging of the prison have joined together, the consummation of virtue and the heavenly crown may also join."

Pearson did not understand rightly these words, "if the condition of my place permitted me to come to you." For he says that by these words Cyprian indicates "the place in which he most desired to be present and to enjoy the sight of the confessors, but that the condition of the place, that is, of Carthage, where the persecution was already raging, did not permit it." But it is seen from several testimonies of Cyprian that by this word not Carthage but the episcopal authority is indicated; thus in Ep. 11: "The responsibility of our place and the fear of the Lord compel." "Since they (the martyrs), mindful of our place, have directed letters to me" (Ep. 10). "It befits that very place and office of our priesthood" (Ep. 63). See Ep. 65. Therefore, when Cyprian says in this Ep. 81: "I greet you, dearest brothers, myself also wishing to enjoy the sight of you, if the condition of my place permitted me to come to you. For what could happen to me more desired and more joyful than now to cling to you, so that you might embrace me with those hands which, pure and innocent and keeping the Lord's faith, have spurned sacrilegious services? What more delightful and more sublime than now to kiss your mouths, and also to be seen present by your eyes?", when, I say, Cyprian says this, he indicates that he is held back by this one thing from visiting the martyrs, that he fears that, conspicuous by his dignity, he could not escape the eyes of the Gentiles. Nor is it necessary that he was absent from Carthage in order to write thus: for his dignity, even if he had been present at Carthage, could have held him back from visiting the holy martyrs. For he who took care that the martyrs "should not be visited in crowds nor by a multitude gathered together, but that the presbyters too who offered there among the confessors" should take turns, one at a time with one deacon each (Ep. 5), would much less himself have allowed that, running into the eyes of the Gentiles, he should stir up new fires. Moreover, this custom was in force in Africa before Cyprian, that the bishop did not visit the confessors. For Cyprian testifies in Epp. 10 and 21 that this was always done in the past under his predecessors, that the presbyters and deacons instructed the martyrs and confessors most fully concerning the law of the Gospel, and that the deacons, going to and fro to the prison, governed the desires of the martyrs by their counsels and by the precepts of the Scriptures. Nothing therefore prevents us from judging that Cyprian, in the city itself, kept from the sight of the confessors by necessary affairs and by the example of his predecessors, wrote these things. Nor shall I even be afraid to say that he would not thus

have spoken if he had been absent from Carthage. For how would his dignity alone keep him, absent and hiding in a concealed place, from the embrace of the martyrs, when in the city itself necessary precautions and the examples of his predecessors would have kept him from this joy? Hence in Ep. 9, which was evidently written to the martyrs and confessors from his retreat, he does not say that his retreat is troublesome to him in this respect, that he cannot visit them. He expresses a longing for the city in Ep. 37, but by no means in order to cling to the embraces of the martyrs, but rather “that, ready and willing, he may fulfil in solemn ministry all the services of love towards the most valiant brethren.”

This letter, therefore, does not fit the times of Decius, nor yet the persecution of Valerian, whose first onslaught Cyprian bore; and Rogatianus and Felicissimus did not carry the torch before him for confessing the name of Christ, but he himself carried it before all the others, as we shall see below. Letter 81 will be referred much more fittingly to the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus, in which Cyprian was neither driven out of Carthage nor withdrew of his own accord; but there is no doubt at all that he sent a letter in his stead to the ears and eyes of the confessors, since his dignity, exposed to the eyes of all, did not allow him to visit them. In the month of October of the year 252, in which Rogatianus and Felicissimus are said in the church records to have suffered, the persecution was raging; a witness of this is Cornelius, who died a martyr in the month of September of that year. Pearson, from the assault of the raging people which Rogatianus is said to have met, concludes that Letter 81 belongs to the persecution of Decius, because in that persecution the rashness of the populace often broke out against Cyprian. But in the persecution of Gallus Cyprian experienced the same rashness of the people, as he himself relates in Letter 55. Then, moreover, that dreadful plague which was joined with the persecution of Gallus seems to have been much more apt for stirring up popular tumults, since the cause of the calamity was laid upon the Christians.

27.—The wonderful charity of St Cyprian in the calamity of the plague.—He defends religion against Demetrian.—The abundant generosity of the whole Church of Carthage in ransoming captives.

To the persecution was added a dreadful plague which, having begun, as is likely, under the Decii themselves, raged to a greater degree under Gallus and Volusianus. Here the charity of Cyprian shone out before the very eyes of the heathen, and overflowed to the highest benefit of the commonwealth. For when all the heathen shuddered at and fled the contagion and impiously cast out their own, and, with corpses lying throughout the whole city, no one regarded anything but cruel gains, then indeed the Pontiff of Christ and of God, having gathered the people in one place, led them by lively exhortation to bestow the offices of piety not only on those of the household of faith but also on the heathen themselves; and, inflamed with charity, he said such things as, “if the gentiles had been able to hear them,” says Pontius, “they would perhaps have believed at once.” So the ministries were at once distributed according to the condition of persons and ranks. Many who, through the narrowness of poverty, could not exercise the kindness of expense, more

than expense they provided, making up by their own labour a reward dearer than all riches. Thus by the bounty of overflowing works there was done what is good towards all, not towards those of the household of faith alone.

Amid these calamities of persecution and plague Cyprian wrote the book Against Demetrianus, which Pontius designates in these words: « Through whom were the gentiles to be overcome, the things which they heap upon us being thrown back upon themselves? » Demetrianus used to come often to Cyprian, and since Cyprian judged him, « barking against God and clamouring with impious words, » by no means a fit person with whom to engage, « since it seemed to him that he could neither teach one unteachable, nor restrain the impious by religion, nor check the raging by gentleness. » But when the same Demetrianus kept saying that the fact « that wars arise more often, that plague and famine rage, and that long spells of fair weather hold back the showers and rains » was to be imputed to the Christians, Cyprian would no longer keep silent; and, lest his silence be put down to distrust rather than to modesty, he judged that he must reply to this man, « and likewise to the rest whom he himself had perhaps stirred up, and, by sowing hatreds against the Christians with abusive words, » had made « many companions for himself by the sprouting of » his « root and origin. » He shows, therefore, that the calamities arise not from the fact that the Christians worship God, but from the fact that the gentiles do not worship Him and torment His worshippers with every kind of torture; and that, although these calamities touch the Christians themselves too, they nevertheless harm the gentiles alone, not the Christians, whom they lead to eternal joys. Lactantius (bk 5, ch. 4) thought that Cyprian had acted less suitably in citing, to break and refute Demetrianus, the testimonies of the Scripture rather than those of poets and philosophers. But, besides the fact that the Scriptures had to be employed so that what the Christians thought and what they hoped might be readily at hand, there is assuredly in the testimonies of the Holy Spirit such force and such majesty that they can move even those who have most hardened themselves. (See Baluze's note.)

That this book was written in the persecution of Gallus and Volusian is clear from the testimony of Pontius, who lists it between the books On the Lapsed and On the Unity of the Church, written after the persecution of Decius, and the book On Patience, which preceded the persecution of Valerian. The same can also be inferred from these words of Cyprian (p. 221): « To pass over ancient memories in silence, and not to rehearse with any proclamation of the voice the vengeances often repeated on behalf of the worshippers of God, the proof of a recent event is enough, that so swiftly, and in such swiftness so grandly, the vindication lately followed, in the ruin of affairs, the loss of wealth, the waste of soldiers, the diminution of camps. » In the earlier editions it read « in the ruin of kings, » by which words the learned thought the Decii were meant. But although Baluze, on the authority of old manuscripts, has put « ruin of affairs, » it is no less plainly a description of the things that befell the Decii for having harassed the Christians, nor can it be referred to the Gordians or the Philips, who did not persecute the Christians.

Demetrian, whom Cyprian refutes, some have supposed to have been proconsul of Africa, others one of the judges. I would rather believe that he was one of the sophists; and this is made sufficiently convincing by the frequent disputes with Cyprian, and the calumnies against the Christians and the accusations with which Cyprian reproaches him, while he in no way indicates that power was joined to this evil mind. Learned men seem to have been misled by these words (p. 219): "You who judge others, be at some time judge of yourself too." But these words do not pertain to a judgement in court, nor does Cyprian aim at Demetrian by name, but at the gentiles in general, who, as he says in the same place, had leisure "amid the very adversities to be wicked, and in such great dangers to pass judgement not so much on themselves as on another." Nor do these words (p. 220) properly regard Demetrian either: "The innocent, the just, those dear to God, you deprive of home, you strip of patrimony, you press with chains, you shut up in prison, you punish with the sword, with beasts, with fires, etc.," but they regard in general all the heathen, whom, as is customary in speeches of this kind, he addresses now in the singular number, now in the plural. A little before he was saying: "Moreover, you further harass with unjust persecutions the servants of God and those dedicated to His majesty and name. It is not enough that you yourself do not worship God; moreover, you further persecute with sacrilegious hostility those who do worship Him."

Fired by Cyprian's exhortations, the people of Carthage gladly seized any occasion for exercising charity that presented itself. This they showed most of all when eight bishops of Numidia, struck by a most grievous misfortune, because barbarians had carried off a number of Christians from Numidia, among them virgins dedicated to Christ, implored Cyprian's help. Then indeed there fell upon the church of Carthage a common "grief and torment over the peril of the virgins, for whom the loss not only of liberty but also of chastity" seemed "to be lamented." Therefore "all promptly, willingly and generously contributed sums of money for the brethren, always indeed inclined to the work of God according to the firmness of their faith, but now, says Cyprian, the more fired towards works of salvation by the contemplation of so great a sorrow." Cyprian therefore wrote Epistle 60 to the bishops of Numidia, and sent "a hundred thousand sesterces, collected by the contribution of the clergy and people." The holy Martyr asks them that, if anything of the kind should happen hereafter, they announce it by letter without delay, "holding it for certain that the church (of Carthage) and the whole brotherhood pray with their prayers that these things may not happen again, and, if they have happened, give help willingly and generously." Cyprian also appended the names of each of those who had worked promptly and willingly at so necessary a work, so that the bishops might repay them for their good work in their sacrifices and prayers; and he added also the names of his colleagues and fellow priests, who themselves, being present, had contributed something according to their means both in their own name and in that of their people, and he indicated and sent their small sums. Pearson thinks that these things happened at the beginning of the year 253, when through the negligence of Gallus to the barbarian nations into the territories of the Romans

an entry lay open. This at least, it seems, can be established: that this letter was written after the persecution of Decius. For if anyone compares the book On the Lapsed with this letter, he will easily understand that the Carthaginians had been both so purged by the persecution and so changed by the cares and labours of Cyprian that you would scarcely recognize them as the same people. For whereas before, the long continuance of peace had corrupted very many in this church, and love of their patrimony had driven them to sacrifice to images, now all, on receiving the news of what had happened in Numidia, reckon the captivity of the brethren as their own; all grieve and are tormented at the danger to the virgins; all vie in pouring out their wealth to redeem the temples of God; all pray that these things may not happen any more; but, if they should happen, they promise help willingly and generously.

XXVIII. — On the books and letters written after the persecution, under Valerian and at the beginning of Pope Stephen, in the years 253 and 254.

Not long after the martyrdom of Lucius, which occurred on the fifth day of March of this year 253, Stephen was elected, perhaps because the disturbances stirred up in the empire were already then allowing the Christians to breathe again. For in the month of May, as it seems to the most learned critics, vengeance for the blood of the Christians shone forth in Gallus, whom his own soldiers, when they saw him unequal to repelling Aemilianus, who had already occupied Italy, stripped of empire and of life. And when Aemilianus himself, around the month of August, had been killed by the soldiers who had conferred the empire on him, Valerian took possession of the empire with no one hindering, and through his fairness and exceptional favour the greatest peace shone upon the Church. But, though the storm of persecution had been stilled, the plague was growing worse. Therefore Cyprian, when he noticed that “among the people some, whether through weakness of mind, or smallness of faith, or the sweetness of worldly life, or the softness of their sex, or, what is more serious, through error regarding the truth, were standing less firmly, and were not putting forth the divine and unconquered strength of their breast,” did not let slip the opportunity of teaching the truth, and wrote the most excellent book On Mortality, in which he shows that it is for him who does not want to go to Christ to fear death, but that those who truly believe in Christ ought to rejoice when they are called to Christ. He relates that a certain bishop, who was asking that he might escape from the disease, was rebuked in a vision: “To us too ourselves, the least and last,” he says (p. 234), “how often has it been revealed, how frequently and plainly has it been commanded by the condescension of God, that I should testify constantly and preach publicly that our brethren, set free from the world by the Lord’s summons, are not to be mourned!” Pontius designates this book thus, after the work Against the Gentiles and before the books On Works and Almsgiving and On Patience: “By which Christians of softer feeling concerning the loss of their own, or, what is more, of smaller faith, might be consoled by the hope of things to come.” It seems to have been written in peace under Valerian: for there is no indication in it of a persecution joined with the plague; indeed Cyprian declares that by this calamity Christians are armed and prepared, so that they may conduct themselves bravely when persecution comes. “Depart

behold, in peace, he says, the virgins safe with their glory....., the lukewarm are kindled, the slack are drawn tight, the idle are roused, deserters are compelled to return, gentiles are driven to believe, the old people of the faithful is called to rest, and for the battle-line a fresh and plentiful army is gathered with stronger vigour, which, coming to military service in the time of mortality, will fight without fear of death when the battle comes." Hence also some cloaked their fear under this pretext, that the plague was snatching from them the occasion of martyrdom; an excuse which they could not have used if some persecution had then opened the way to martyrdom.

Pearson, however, judges that this book was written under Gallus, in the year 252, "because" Cyprian "pursues at length an argument drawn from the impending persecution and the coming Antichrist". But since the holy martyr had long believed that the end of the world and the advent of Antichrist were at hand, he must have held this opinion even in the peace itself, especially since the plague which was then raging seemed to be one of the things that would precede the end of the world. Hence the same forebodings of a world perishing and of Antichrist approaching in books and letters written after the persecution, as in the book On the Unity of the Church (pp. 199 and 200), and in Letter 68, on Basilides and Martial (p. 120). It is therefore more probable that the book On Mortality was written under Valerian in the year 253 or 254.

The book On Works and Almsgiving is listed by Pontius immediately after the book On Mortality, and was therefore written under Valerian. The conclusion of the book points to a time of peace: "If the day," says Cyprian, "either of our rendering up or of persecution finds us unencumbered, swift, running in this contest of works, the Lord will never fail to reward our merits. To those who conquer in peace He will give a white crown for their works; in persecution He will add a second, a purple one, for their suffering."

To the beginning of the year 254 is assigned Letter 69, which Cyprian wrote to Florentius Pupianus when he had already governed the church of Carthage for six years. That Pupianus had been in the Church before the persecution and had been in communion with Cyprian; but afterwards, joining himself to the schismatics, he had rashly believed "unspeakable, shameful things, accursed even among the gentiles" about Cyprian. Indeed, he even dared to write him a letter, in which, setting himself up as judge of his own bishop, he said that priests ought to be humble, that the scruple into which he had fallen had to be removed from his mind, that on account of Cyprian the Church had a portion of itself scattered, that all who were in communion with him were polluted by his polluted mouth, and had lost the hope of eternal life through the contagion of communion with him. Cyprian defended his innocence with the gravity and constancy that befitted a bishop, and offers pardon to the shameless detractor if he should begin, even late, to do penance for his rashness and pride and insolence; "Yet there remains with us," he says, "regard for and fear of the divine judgement, so that I may first consult my Lord whether peace to you

He permits to be given, and you to be admitted to the communion of His Church, by His own showing and admonition." From this it is plain that this man was not a bishop, as some have imagined, but a layman subject to Cyprian's jurisdiction, from which, however, he had withdrawn himself by a wicked schism. Nor is the opinion of those more probable who contend that Pupianus suffered something in the persecution, because Cyprian says to him (p. 121): "Lest perhaps the dignity of your renown and martyrdom be stained by communion with us." And p. 122: "For the persecution, when it came, raised you to the highest sublimity of martyrdom, but weighed me down with the burden of proscription, when it was publicly read out: If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprianus, bishop of the Christians." But in these words the irony is manifest; and in not dissimilar fashion Dionysius of Alexandria refutes the calumnies of Germanus: "But perhaps Germanus," he says in Eusebius (book 7, ch. 11), "boasts of many confessions of the faith, and can proclaim many things done against him." Moreover, Cyprian indicates that there would be no lack of matter for reproach if inquiry were made into the things done by Pupianus in persecution and in peace. "But concerning the things," he says (p. 124), "which you did either in persecution or in peace, it is foolish that I should wish to judge you, since you have rather made yourself our judge."

There is no doubt that Cyprian wrote Letters 67 and 68 in the first days of Pope Stephen, while peace prevailed under Valerian. The occasion of the sixty-seventh was this: Marcianus, bishop of Arles, having joined himself to Novatian and departed from the unity of the Catholic Church, was shutting off the aids of divine mercy from the servants of God who were repenting and grieving and knocking at the Church with tears and groaning and sorrow; and since he did not yet appear to have been excluded by the bishops, he boasted and proclaimed that, as a partisan of Novatian and following his obstinacy, he had separated himself from the communion of the bishops. Faustinus of Lyons wrote about this matter to Cyprian once and again. On receiving his letter, Cyprian writes to Pope Stephen and urges him again and again to send the fullest letters into the province and to the people dwelling at Arles, by which, Marcianus being excluded, another might be substituted in his place; and, since many of the brethren had departed in former years without peace, that at least the rest who survive, who groan day and night, might be succoured. He also asks him to inform him who had been substituted at Arles in the place of Marcianus, so that he might know to whom he ought to direct the brethren and to whom he ought to write. Launoy denied this letter to Cyprian, but his opinion has been so exploded among the learned that whoever should wish to refute it would be doing what is already done.

About the same time another affair, transacted in the Spains, moved the charity of Cyprian, which was not confined within the bounds of Africa, to come to the aid of foreign churches. Two bishops, Basilides and Martialis, deposed for very grave offences, dared to claim for themselves the priesthood rightly taken from them. Each was defiled by the abominable certificate of idolatry; Basilides besides, over and above the stain of the certificate, when he lay in sickness, against God

had blasphemed, and had confessed that he had blasphemed, and, laying down the episcopate of his own accord because of the wound to his conscience, had turned to doing penance, entreating God, and thinking himself well content if it should fall to him to communicate even as a layman. Martialis too, besides having long frequented the shameful and filthy banquets of the gentiles in a guild, and having laid his sons in that same guild, after the custom of foreign nations, beside profane tombs and buried them together with strangers, had also attested in acts publicly drawn up before the ducenarian procurator that he had complied with idolatry and denied Christ. When both had been deposed for these and many other offences, Basilides, in whose place Sabinus had been substituted by the vote of the whole brotherhood and by the judgement of the bishops, went to Rome and deceived Stephen, who was placed far off and ignorant of what had been done and of the truth, so as to canvass to be unjustly restored to the episcopate from which he had been justly deposed. Cyprian does not say by name that Martialis too made his way to Rome, but he indicates it plainly enough when he says: « But neither can deceit have profited Martialis, so as to prevent that he too, entangled in grave offences, should be unable to hold the episcopate. »

Some bishops in Spain seem to have favoured those deposed bishops, but the churches of León and Astorga and Mérida wrote about the matter to the African bishops, and sent as envoys Sabinus and Felix, who, it is probable, had been substituted in the place of Basilides and Martialis. Another Felix, of Saragossa, whom Cyprian calls a cultivator of the faith and a defender of the truth, confirmed by his own letter whatever those churches had written and had entrusted to the envoys. The letters were read and the envoys heard in a council of thirty-seven bishops. Cyprian, who presided, and the other bishops replied by Letter 68 that the offences of Basilides had not so much been wiped out as heaped up, and that an ordination lawfully completed could not be rescinded; nor could deceit profit Martialis either; that such men tried in vain to usurp the episcopate for themselves, since it is manifest that men of this kind can neither preside over the Church of Christ nor ought to offer sacrifices to God. They express their indignation against the bishops who favoured their deposed colleagues, and they declare to the people itself that there must be no communion with such men, and that those who mingle with them in unlawful communion are polluted by contact with them. This judgement, indeed, not only does not slacken the reins of popular licence, but even curbs it, lest the people pass judgement on its bishop at its own discretion, either rejecting one lawfully ordained by the other bishops, or retaining one lawfully deposed.

XXIX.—The dissensions over baptism arose at the end of the year 255: and St Stephen contended with the Easterners before he did with the Africans.

At length in our discussion we have come to that most celebrated controversy over the baptism of heretics, in which it was not a small band of heretics or schismatics that declared war on the universal Church, but distinguished churches, Africa, Cappadocia, Cilicia and the neighbouring provinces, on a matter by far the gravest, with other churches

fought it out. But although in the very blaze of the dissension the face of affairs was mournful, yet from the advantages which flowed into the Church from this controversy it is easily seen that it arose by Christ's providence and dispensation, not only so that a matter of such moment might at length be confirmed by the united and concordant consent of all, but also so that posterity might have something to imitate in dissensions of this kind. For the defenders of the baptism of heretics did not break the bond of fraternal charity with those by whom they saw the greatest injury being done to the sacraments; these, for their part, did not hesitate to hold communion both with those whom they did not consider to have been initiated even by Baptism, and with those who seemed to deny Baptism to dying infants and to offer the Eucharist to the unbaptized. Tillemont assigns the beginning of the dispute to the year 256, although he does not reject Pearson, who thinks that the first Council of Carthage was held in the autumn of the year 255. Both are of the opinion that the struggle was fought in Africa before it was in the East. Those who hold that Stephen died in the year 255 maintain that the dispute flared up earlier. But although Tillemont and Pearson, for weighty reasons, consider that Stephen died in the year 257, they nevertheless seem to place the beginnings of the dissension too late. I shall set about proving that the controversy began to be agitated at the end of the year 253, and that Stephen contended with the Easterners earlier than with the Africans.

1° My authority for thinking that the dispute about baptism began in the year 253 is Eusebius, who declares in express words (bk. 7, ch. 4) that Dionysius, in a letter written to Stephen on Baptism, indicated that "all the churches everywhere, the fury of the persecution having now abated, detesting the turbulent novelty of Novatus, had made peace among themselves." Scarcely, then, had the persecution ceased when Dionysius was trying to calm the controversy that had arisen over Baptism. Moreover, since the persecution was quieted in the month of May of the year 253, Dionysius does not seem to have written to Stephen on Baptism later than the end of this year. Pearson, with Tillemont not disagreeing, holds that this is an error of Eusebius, who believed that what Dionysius had said of the peace established after the dissensions stirred up by the Novatianists was said of the peace that followed the persecutions of the heathen. But for Eusebius to be said to have blundered so carelessly, some weighty cause must underlie it. He carefully distinguishes the fury of persecution from the turbulent novelty, and the peace made among the churches from the abating of the fury of persecution. Who, then, would believe that nothing at all was said in the letter of Dionysius about the quieting of the persecution, although Eusebius testifies that he read it? 2° Dionysius, in the same letter on Baptism, announced to Stephen, as an altogether recent event, that the disturbances which the heresy of Novatian had stirred up in the East had been quieted. But if the beginnings of the controversy over Baptism are joined to the end of this dissension, they ought not to be placed later than the year 253. For Dionysius speaks of the quieted dissension in such a way that it seems to have happened not long after the persecution. For when he says "that all the bishops everywhere hold one and the same view, and on account of the peace unexpectedly

brought about, rejoice beyond belief," sufficiently shows that the evil was suppressed before it could take root, and that peace was settled when it was feared that the dissension might grow worse. But if the dispute over the opinion of the Novatianists had gone on in the East right up to the year 256, it does not seem that a fire strengthened over a long time could have been put out so completely that not even any smoke at all remained. To this is added the authority of Cyprian, who in his letter to Stephen, written around the year 254, testifies that Novatian had « always been beaten back and refuted, and kept from communion by the priests of God throughout the whole world. » If, then, the whole world had already at that time agreed in condemning Novatian, the letter of Dionysius which announced this agreement of bishops formerly at variance cannot be referred to the year 256. Another argument for the same view is supplied by what we undertook to prove in the second place, that the dispute took place sooner in the East than in Africa. For if the dissension arose in the East before it arose in Africa, it cannot be placed later than the year 254 or the end of 253.

That this dissension, however, flared up in Cappadocia, Cilicia and the neighbouring provinces before it did in Africa is clear from these words of Firmilian against Stephen: « What is more humble or more gentle than to have disagreed with so many bishops throughout the whole world, breaking peace with each of them by a different kind of discord, now with the Easterners, as we are confident does not escape you either, now with you who are in the south? » (p. 150). Tillemont observes excellently that the dissension of Stephen with the Easterners which Firmilian mentions arose not over the schism of Novatian, as Lombert supposed, but over Baptism. For this schism was suppressed in the East at the beginning of Stephen's pontificate; nor did the Easterners, Firmilian among them, apply less zeal than Stephen himself to extinguishing this schism, much less was peace broken between them and Stephen. Very few favoured this schism, and those at Antioch, as is clear from the Letter of Dionysius to Cornelius in Eusebius (book 6, chapter 46). Firmilian is therefore speaking of Baptism. From his words, moreover, it is gathered that Stephen did not contend with the Easterners and the Africans at the same time, but at different times and in different ways; and that affairs in the East were in a milder state at the time when in Africa they were thrown into greater turmoil. Hence the same Dionysius, in the letter which he wrote after Stephen's death to Philemon, a Roman presbyter, puts himself forward as intercessor for the Africans alone; and, in order to soften the Romans, he shows (in Eusebius, History book 7, chapter 5) « that this custom was not then introduced for the first time by the Africans alone, » but that the same had previously been established by the Easterners in councils; which would indeed seem quite absurd if Rome had not been more appeased towards these than towards the Africans. But in the letter to Xystus, discussing Stephen and his contest with the Africans, he said « that he had previously written to him about Helenus and about Firmilian, and finally about all the priests established throughout Cilicia, Cappadocia and all the neighbouring provinces; that he would withdraw from communion with them for the same reason, because, he said, they rebaptized heretics

" The former point is evidence that Stephen contended over the same baptism of heretics with Cilicia and the neighbouring provinces before he did with Africa; and that, when he was complaining gravely to Dionysius about Helenus and Firmilian, Cyprian and the African bishops had not yet given him offence. As for what Dionysius added, "about all these things I wrote to him, praying and beseeching," who would not gather from these words that the letter which, on the testimony of Eusebius, he wrote as his one letter to Stephen was written not on behalf of the Africans, as Tillemont and Pearson supposed, but on behalf of those about whom Stephen had written, namely Helenus and Firmilian, who accordingly made use of his efforts and recommendation before the Africans did? This difficulty also arises in the opinion which we are refuting, that far too many events are compressed by Tillemont and Pearson within a single year: three synods of Carthage, as many letters of Cyprian, the letters of Stephen to Dionysius and to Cyprian, and his disagreements now with the Orientals, now with the Africans. It is far better to distinguish this variety of events by their times.

But perhaps there will be raised as an objection what Eusebius says in book 7, chapter 3, πρῶτος τῶν τότε Κυπριανός, etc.: "First of those who lived at that time, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, judged that heretics were not to be admitted unless first cleansed of their error through baptism." Gerhard, Johannes Vossius and Valois accuse Eusebius of error; but Pearson, although he rightly observes against Valois that these words of Eusebius, πρῶτος τῶν τότε, are to be rendered thus, "first of those who lived at that time," and not, as Valois has it, "first of all," nevertheless made little progress in clearing Eusebius. For since Firmilian, Cyprian's contemporary, had rejected the baptism of heretics long before Cyprian at the council of Iconium, at which he testifies in his letter to Cyprian that he was present, Eusebius will equally be convicted of error, whether he said that Cyprian was the first of all or the first of his contemporaries to lay this down. It is therefore far more probable that the first place is accorded to Cyprian for this reason, because he added very great weight to this opinion, and his controversy with Stephen became far more celebrated than that of the Orientals.

XXX. — The order and sequence of the events in Africa in the years 255 and 256, up to the third council of Carthage.

About the beginnings of this dissension in Africa we need not labour greatly; for the whole matter rests on conjectures. Pearson refers the first council of Carthage to the autumn of the year 255. Tillemont, who compresses everything within the space of the year 256, does not reject Pearson; nor perhaps would anyone be rejected who traced the controversy from the very beginning of the year 255. This alone we can establish, that the Africans contended among themselves before they did with Stephen. In the Letter to the Numidians those "who defend the heretics" are refuted. Cyprian touches on the same people in the Letter to Quintus: "For I do not know," he says, "by what presumption certain of our colleagues are led to think that those who among the heretics

have been dipped, ought not to be baptized when they come to us." Yet this diversity of practices did not cause peace and grace to break apart, as is seen from the Letter to Stephen: "For the rest, we know," says Cyprian, "that certain men are unwilling to lay aside what they have once imbibed," nor "easily to change their purpose, but, while the bond of peace and concord among colleagues is preserved, retain certain practices of their own which have once been adopted among them." These words of Cyprian in the Letter to Jubaianus seem to be aimed at some bishops from Africa: "And now it is asserted that among certain of our own the baptism of heretics has been taken up." Through the same Jubaianus there came into Cyprian's hands a letter written against the rebaptizers. But it seems to have been composed not by Pope Stephen, nor by any of the bishops overseas (for then it would have reached Cyprian at Carthage by a direct route), but by someone among the Africans. Jubaianus himself too did not entirely agree with Cyprian, but indicated a mind averse to rebaptism, because the Novatianists, if they enticed any from among the Catholics to their party, rebaptized them in a horrible crime.

Eighteen Numidian bishops were the first to give Cyprian occasion for proclaiming his opinion publicly and openly. For although they were accustomed to reject baptism administered by heretics, nevertheless, when a synod was being held at Carthage, they judged that it should be consulted "concerning those who seem to be baptized among heretics and schismatics, whether on coming to the Catholic Church, which is one, they ought to be baptized." Cyprian and the other bishops, thirty-one in number, as is clear from the title of Letter 70, praise the Numidians because "they too hold the truth and firmness of the Catholic rule, and they declare that they agree with them that no one can be baptized outside, beyond the Church." Not long afterwards Cyprian, consulted on the same matter by Quintus, a bishop in Mauretania, through the presbyter Lucianus, wrote Letter 71 to him, and so that he might know "what the fellow bishops, with the fellow presbyters who were present, had lately" decreed "in council," he sent him a copy of that letter.

Nor indeed did much time elapse between this letter and the second Council of Carthage, "in which many things were indeed brought forward and transacted," but this above all, which Cyprian, in the name of the seventy bishops who had sat with him, writes in full to Pope Stephen: that those who have been dipped among heretics or schismatics ought to be baptized on returning to the Church. Cyprian testifies that this had "lately been carefully expressed," both in the letter to Quintus and in the letter to the Numidian bishops. He sends a copy of each letter to Stephen with Letter 72. He adds that in the same council it was decreed by common consent and authority "that also if any presbyters or deacons, who either were previously ordained in the Catholic Church and afterwards stood faithless and rebellious against the Church, or were promoted among heretics by false bishops and antichrists by a profane ordination contrary to the ordinance of Christ, and attempted to offer false and sacrilegious sacrifices outside, against the one and divine altar, they too

be received on this condition when they return: that they communicate as laymen, and that those who were enemies of peace consider it enough that they are admitted to peace; and that on returning they ought not to retain among us those arms of ordination and honour with which they fought against us. »

To this time I am compelled to assign the embassy of bishops whom the African council sent to Stephen. These envoy bishops, says Firmilian, Stephen received in such a way « that he did not admit them even to the conversation of common speech, and moreover.... ordered the whole brotherhood that no one should receive them into his house, so that to those coming not only peace and communion but also roof and hospitality were denied » (p. 150). Firmilian also complains that Stephen called Cyprian « a false Christ and a false apostle and a deceitful worker » (p. 151). These things would certainly be incredible, were they not supported by the testimony of two men whose credibility cannot be impugned, I mean Firmilian and Cyprian, who rendered Firmilian's letter into Latin, or at least published it on his own authority. But we must examine Firmilian's words one by one, both so that nothing may be added to his complaints, which are grave enough of themselves, and so that we may determine at what time and in what manner these things were done.

First, I think I perceive that these envoys did not come with the greatest speed, but that report of them was the forerunner of their arrival. For Stephen forbade anyone to receive them in his house, « so that to those coming not only peace and communion but also roof and hospitality were denied. » They had therefore not yet arrived when Stephen issued this edict, and they gave him time to learn both of their arrival and of the things done in the council. And from this I infer that this embassy cannot be assigned to the third council of Carthage, although Tillemont thinks otherwise. For it is established that Rogatian was not sent by Cyprian into Cappadocia until after the envoy bishops had returned from Rome. But since the third council of Carthage was held on the first of September, and Rogatian, as Firmilian testifies, hastened to return because the winter season was pressing, how could it happen that after the council the envoy bishops went to Rome and came back, and that Rogatian, sent into Cappadocia after their return, had time to return before winter? Tillemont admits that this could not easily have happened; but nevertheless he maintains that it is not impossible, supposing, that is, that both embassies hastened their going and returning. But we see that the arrival of the bishops who were sent to Rome was not very swift but rather slow; and had Tillemont noticed this, I believe he would have judged otherwise. Moreover, since Stephen in his Letter to Cyprian, which was sent before the third council, holds that the rebaptizers are to be excluded, I very much doubt whether this council would have exposed the envoy bishops to such a danger as to be refused communion at Rome. It is therefore more probable that the embassy was sent after the second council.

This too can be deduced from Firmilian's words, that the edict

of Stephen was not put into effect at all. 1° It is incredible that it should have come to pass in so holy a Church that the bishop legates sought among unbelievers the hospitality denied them by their brethren. 2° Firmilian distinguishes roof and hospitality from peace and communion and the converse of common speech: he declares in express words that the bishops were "not admitted even to the converse of common speech"; but as regards roof and hospitality, he reproaches only threats and orders, not the thing itself, which nevertheless he does not seem likely to have passed over if they had been deprived of this office of humanity as well. 3° It is probable that in the Roman Church, which abounded in holy presbyters, there were then some who set themselves as mediators between Stephen and Cyprian; and if they did not succeed in obtaining from Stephen that he admit the legates to communion and converse, they at least deterred him from forbidding them to be received with hospitality. For to no more fitting time can we assign what Dionysius says (in Eusebius, History, book 7, ch. 5) in his letter to Xystus: "And to our beloved fellow presbyters Dionysius and Philemon, who were formerly of one vote with Stephen and who write to me about the same matters, I wrote, formerly a few words, and now at greater length." "But also to the most dear brethren and fellow presbyters Dionysius and Philemon, who had previously agreed with Stephen and had written to me about the same matters, I wrote, formerly indeed briefly, but now in more words." It is clear from these words that Dionysius and Philemon, although formerly they agreed with Stephen in all things, afterwards dissented from him on some matter. But quite absurdly Launoy (vol. 8, p. 603) concludes from these words that these two presbyters, although formerly they did not reject Baptism given by heretics, afterwards came over to Cyprian's opinion. I think there will be very few who do not reject Launoy's conjecture. For the question here is not so much about the dogma as about the manner of defending the dogma: nor does Dionysius disapprove of Stephen's doctrine, since indeed he himself followed it, but he looks for gentleness and moderation of spirit in him. Therefore, when he says that Dionysius and Philemon had previously agreed with Stephen and had written to him about the same matters, this must be understood of this opinion of Stephen's, that there was to be no communion with Helenus and Firmilian and the others who rebaptized; which was both the chief origin of the discords and the matter of the cares and anxieties of Dionysius. But if Dionysius and Philemon at some point ceased to approve Stephen's manner of acting, they seem to have done so above all when they saw him carried away to those extreme signs of discord; and not without reason do we judge that by their wisdom the edict of Stephen was softened, which not even Firmilian himself says was carried into effect, namely that roof and hospitality should be denied to the legate bishops.

Now, it is not difficult to answer Tillemont's reasons. He does not think it probable that Stephen blazed up so vehemently at the first news of the African decree. But this difficulty, which seemed great to Tillemont, who supposed that the dissension had begun in Africa, vanishes in the light of what we have said about the East. Nor is it any longer surprising if to Stephen, by the things which between him

and the Asiatics had passed, already inflamed, the African decrees applied new torches of resentment.

Tillemont also asks why Stephen wrote to Cyprian if he admitted the envoys neither to communion nor to conversation. But it is not at all inconsistent that those two presbyters whom we have mentioned should have obtained from the holy Pontiff that he at least write to Cyprian; although Stephen, since in this letter he holds that the rebaptizers are to be kept away, does not seem to depart much from his manner of dealing with the envoys.

Tillemont also takes this as an argument, that Cyprian in the third council of Carthage said nothing about these insults against the envoys: from which the most learned writer concludes that the embassy is to be placed after the third council. But this silence is to be attributed to the gentleness which was supreme in Cyprian. In the letter to Pompeius, however, in which Stephen's letter is refuted, some rather harsh things against Stephen escaped the holy Martyr, which, in so great a moderation of mind, indicate a resentment conceived from the gravest insults. The same is proved by these words from the Letter to Jubaianus, which was written before the third council and not long after the second: "Why," he says (p. 133), "why are we considered betrayers of the truth, traitors to unity?"

The embassy was followed most closely by the letter to Bishop Jubaianus. He had consulted Cyprian about baptism given by heretics, and at the same time had sent a letter written not by himself but by another against Cyprian's opinion. Cyprian refutes this letter, and with the greatest zeal gathers whatever he judged to be of force for the defence of his cause, always preserving moderation of mind and charity, than which he held nothing more precious. He also sends Jubaianus a copy of the letter to the Numidians and to Quintus, and perhaps also the decrees of the most recent synod, of which he speaks thus: "And now also, when we had come together in one, bishops both of the province of Africa and of Numidia, seventy-one in number, we confirmed this same thing anew by our judgement" (p. 120). From which it is clear that this letter was written not long after the council, but nevertheless after the letter from Stephen had arrived: for in the Letter to Stephen Cyprian testifies that some dissent from him, "but with the bond of peace and concord among colleagues kept intact." On the other hand, in the Letter to Jubaianus he says (p. 129): "Why are we considered betrayers of the truth, why traitors to unity" (p. 132). Already then, therefore, he missed in his adversaries that zeal for peace and concord which he had praised when writing to Stephen.

He sent Jubaianus another gift, the little book On the Good of Patience, of which he speaks thus (p. 137): "Charity of mind, the honour of the college, the bond of faith and the concord of the priesthood are preserved by us patiently and gently. For this reason also we have written, as far as our mediocrity was able, the Lord permitting and inspiring, a little book On the Good of Patience, which we have sent to you in token of mutual love." Learned men have observed excellently that this book was written so temperately that the controversy which was then raging was touched no more

by Cyprian than if there had been none at all. Not long afterwards he wrote another book, On Zeal and Envy, with the same purpose. Both are listed by Pontius after the book On Works and Almsgiving.

When the letter of Stephen had been brought to Africa, Pompeius, bishop of Sabrata, the same, as is likely, who had been present at the ordination of St Cornelius, let Cyprian know that he was eager to see Stephen's letter. Cyprian complies with his wish, and refutes this letter somewhat heatedly, because Stephen thought that "priests of God who defend the truth of Christ and the unity of the Church" should be "excluded from communion" (Ep. 74). At the same time he sent Pompeius copies of the other letters in which he had discussed the baptizing of heretics.

The book On the Baptism of Heretics, whose author was a bishop, as we shall prove elsewhere, assails Cyprian with such unworthy abuse that I do not doubt it was written after the time when Cyprian, writing to Stephen, bore witness that those from whom he differed had kept charity and concord.

Letter 75, To Magnus, was also written after the heat of the dispute had carried some of Cyprian's opponents away into abuse and reviling. For in that he calls them "obstinate and unteachable", and says that "transgressors of the faith and betrayers of the Church stand against the Church within the very enclosure of the Church", this language shows his grief that he did not find in all his opponents the restraint of mind and the zeal for unity which he most wished to see provided for. Baronius and Pearson, however, would have this letter the first of all written on Baptism, because in it Cyprian does not mention the earlier letters. But neither is this letter mentioned in the letters to Quintus and Jubaianus and others. Moreover Magnus seems, as Tillemont observes, to have known and examined the earlier letters of Cyprian: for he agreed with him in everything, and only one scruple sat in his mind, whether among the other heretics those who came from Novatian were to be baptized.

Magnus had also asked what Cyprian thought about those "who obtain the grace of God in sickness and weakness, whether they are to be held lawful Christians", since they were not washed in the saving water but poured over. Cyprian replies that such men are lawful Christians, and that it matters little that they were poured over or sprinkled. But he so censures those who approve the baptism of heretics and were detracting from ecclesiastical Baptism its majesty and holiness, that he points not obscurely to the Roman Church, in which it is known that clinics were excluded from the clergy.

31. On the third Council of Carthage. Cyprian sends the deacon Rogatianus to Firmilian. On the letter of Firmilian to Cyprian.

The immoderate zeal of his opponents had given Cyprian the most just cause to fear lest some wound be inflicted on the unity of the Church. Therefore, so that he may counter so great an evil,

he convenes a council more often than before, and with some bishops of foreign nations he joins in counsels for fostering peace and unity.

But in what year this synod was held is worth inquiring. The whole matter hangs on the death of Pope Stephen; for, since no one doubts that he died on the second day of August, it is necessary that the third Council of Carthage, which was held on the calends of September while he was still living, be said to have been held one year before his death. Now it is sufficiently agreed among all that Stephen was ordained in the year 253, but some reckon that he sat only two years and died in the year 255; others assign him four years of pontificate and refer his death to the year 257. The latter opinion, which Tillemont and Pearson have followed, seems the less encumbered and the more easily explained. For if the death of Stephen is referred to the year 255, the third Council of Carthage will have to be referred to the calends of September of the year 254, and at the same time Stephen's disputes with the Africans and with the Easterners, which we have proved to be separated in time, will coincide. To this are added the weighty reasons on which Tillemont and Pearson rely; this above all, that Firmilian in his Letter to Cyprian testifies that « about twenty-two years ago, in the times after the emperor Alexander, many calamities befell throughout Cappadocia and throughout Pontus, so that from this a grievous persecution also arose against us of the Christian name. » Therefore, since Alexander died in the year 235, the twenty-second year from his death is exactly the same as 256, and accordingly it was in this year above all that the dispute about Baptism was raging, and Stephen had not yet died. 2° If Stephen had died in the year 255, how would Cyprian, who poured out his life for Christ in the year 258 on the ides of September, have kept silent so long in a matter of such moment? For nothing could be assigned throughout that whole time which might be said to have been done by him either for the defence of his cause or for the pacification of affairs. But if the controversy about Baptism is referred to the year 256, it will not seem very strange that Cyprian kept silent after the third Council of Carthage and after the letter written to Firmilian, because the persecution, which began together with the year 257, left no room for pursuing these matters. 3° Tillemont proves by several arguments that St Stephen died a martyr; and since the persecution did not blaze up until the year 257, he concludes from this that the death of that holy pope must be referred to the month of August of the same year, and accordingly that the third Council of Carthage, which was celebrated while he was still living, and Cyprian's letter to Firmilian, which was likewise written under this Pontiff, belong to the year 256.

The chief difficulties which stood in the way of this opinion of Tillemont and Pearson seem able to be resolved from what we have just observed about the dissension having arisen later in Africa than in the East. For once this distinction is noted, the authority of Eusebius no longer stands in the way, nor is it necessary to fasten an absurd blemish on an accurate writer. Tillemont admits that it cannot easily be explained

why Dionysius of Alexandria, if Xystus did not preside even for a whole year, nevertheless sent three letters to him, and that while held fast by the troubles of persecution and exile, whereas to Stephen, his predecessor, under whom the discords were sharper, he had written only once. This difficulty, which at first sight urges that something be taken away from Stephen's years and added to Xystus, is not slightly lessened if Dionysius is said to have written to Stephen about Eastern affairs and afterwards to Xystus about African ones. For, since Stephen's dispute with the Easterners had not indeed been settled, but had nevertheless been softened, and, while they peaceably retained their own custom, the war, so to speak, had afterwards been carried over into Africa, it is not at all surprising if Dionysius wrote no more to Stephen, and did not rouse his zeal for making peace until he had learned for certain about the affairs of the Africans, who perhaps implored his help rather late.

The acts of this third council of Carthage survive, at which there were present from the province of Africa, Numidia and Mauretania eighty-five bishops, or even eighty-seven if two absentees are counted, Pompeius of Sabratha and Dioga of Leptis Magna, who had entrusted their part to Natalis of Oea. When, therefore, they had assembled together on the calends of September with the presbyters and deacons, the greatest part of the people also being present, there were read the letter of Jubaianus to Cyprian, likewise that of Cyprian to Jubaianus, and the one which Jubaianus had afterwards written back to Cyprian. Then Cyprian urged them to state their opinion freely and peaceably, « judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently. For none of us, he said, sets himself up as a bishop of bishops, or drives his colleagues by tyrannical terror to the necessity of obeying : » by which words Baronius observes that Stephen is censured. All pronounced the same with one mouth, and last of all Cyprian declared that his opinion had been most fully expressed in the Letter to Jubaianus.

The unity established among the Africans by this council Cyprian resolved to strengthen with new defences. He sent the deacon Rogatianus with a letter to Firmilian, by which he informed him of the dissension with Stephen. He seems also to have sent what he had written to others on the baptism of heretics; for Firmilian praises his replies against Stephen, and reports some things which are read in the letter to Jubaianus. Cyprian's writings were most welcome to Firmilian, who indeed testifies that he received them as if they were his own, and did not read them in passing, but committed them to memory by frequent repetition. And he answers Cyprian in such a way as to go over again what had been said by him, in order to confirm the truth, and to add certain things to heap up the proof. But as he wrote in haste, many things were let fall too angrily against Stephen, which Firmilian, in keeping with his exceptional moderation of mind, would perhaps have corrected, had not Rogatianus, impatient of delay, snatched away the time for rereading the letter, as was fitting. Now this letter of Firmilian, which survives rendered into Latin as the seventy-fifth among Cyprian's letters, so much of Cyprian's

style does it smack that it seems to have had no other translator.

The faithful translator kept the genius of the Greek language in a number of places. A little after the beginning (p. 143): "They (the angels) are grieved when they see the divided minds and split wills of certain people, as if they did not merely invoke one and the same God together, but, being separated and divided from one another, there could no longer be conversation or common speech between them," that is, as if they did not merely fail to invoke one and the same God together; this latter negative is sometimes omitted among the Latins, but more often among the Greeks. (Page 145): "Unless Paul was less than these bishops who are now"; Pamelius thought it should read "than those of whom now"; but it is a manifest Hellenism, τούτοις ἐπισκόποις τοῖς νῦν, "these bishops now existing." A Hellenism is more easily detected in these words (p. 147): "The error is the same, the deceit of the demons is the very same," that is, the same.

Firmilian relates (p. 146) the story of a woman inspired by a demon, who "also frequently dared this, that with an invocation not to be despised she pretended to sanctify bread and to make the Eucharist, and offered sacrifice to the Lord (not) without the sacrament of the customary proclamation," etc. Rigaltius, whose note is placed in the Oxford edition, reads "of the customary prayer." But nothing at all is to be changed; for these words are accurately rendered from the Greek. The prayers customarily made at the sacrifice are called in Basil (Letter 241) ἐκκλησιαστικὰ κηρύγματα, "ecclesiastical proclamations."

Since Firmilian thought that his adversaries acknowledged the grace of Christ in a baptism received outside by adults, he refutes them thus (p. 147): "For if the Apostle does not lie when he says, As many of you as have been dipped in Christ have put on Christ [Gal. 3:27], then certainly he who was baptized there in Christ has put on Christ; but if he has put on Christ, he could also receive the Holy Spirit, Who was sent by Christ, and in vain is the hand laid on him when he comes to receive the Spirit; unless he has put on the Spirit apart from Christ, so that among the heretics Christ is indeed present, but the Holy Spirit is not there." That phrase "unless he has put on the Spirit apart from Christ" means the same as "after Christ"; nor is the conjecture of Cauchius and Pamelius probable, who think it should read "unless he has not put on the Spirit from Christ."

I shall try to emend another, far more difficult passage. Concerning those who, baptized outside, died in the Church without a new baptism, Firmilian determines thus (p. 149): "If they have departed from the world, they are counted among the number of those who have indeed been catechized among us but died before they were baptized. Not only do they say the benefit of the truth and of the faith, to which they had come after abandoning error, even though, forestalled by death, they did not attain the consummation of grace." Rigaltius thinks the word "they have" should be restored after "they are counted," and emends thus: "They have, not only do they learn, the benefit of the truth and of the faith"; but it could be read much more fittingly, "They have no small benefit," in place of "not small they say" or "not only do they learn."

XXXII.—Some observations are added on this controversy concerning baptism.

What Stephen and Cyprian did next in this affair is attested by no record whatever. Perhaps the persecution, which came upon them a few months afterwards, called their minds away from domestic contentions to the defence of religion; but nothing else drove the danger of schism back from the Church than the love of unity impressed and engraved upon minds on both sides. Each side seemed to itself to be defending a position of the greatest importance. Cyprian's adversaries were not unaware that a grave injury was being done by the rebaptizers both to the sacraments of Christ and to the apostolic tradition and to so many churches which, had Cyprian's opinion been true, would have given communion to unbaptized men, and would often also have brought it about that infants died defrauded of baptism. That these things were objected against Cyprian is evident both from his own letters and from the book On Rebaptism. On the other side, Firmilian and Cyprian, since this question had not yet been set in the clearest light and decided by a settled judgement of the Church, thought that a very bad custom had crept in and that their adversaries were gravely at fault. "What obstinacy is this," says Cyprian in the Letter to Pompeius (p. 139), "or what presumption, to set human tradition before divine ordinance, and not to perceive that God is indignant and angry whenever human tradition loosens and passes over the divine precepts?" He complains in the same letter that authority is ascribed to heretics, and that faith and truth are betrayed (p. 141). He believed that the truth had been disclosed to himself and to others of the same mind by a singular kindness of God, so that he might set it before other churches. "Accordingly in vain," he says in the Letter to Jubaianus (p. 133), "do certain men who are overcome by reason set custom against us, as if custom were greater than truth, or as if that ought not to be followed in spiritual matters which has been revealed for the better by the Holy Spirit. For one who errs in simplicity can be pardoned, as the apostle Paul says of himself: I who at first, he says, was a blasphemer and a persecutor and insolent, but obtained mercy, because I did it in ignorance. But after inspiration and revelation have been given, he who persists knowingly and wittingly in that wherein he had erred sins without the pardon due to ignorance; for he leans on a certain presumption and obstinacy, though he is overcome by reason." So too Firmilian: "What sort of offence is it," he says (p. 149), "either of those who are admitted or of those who admit them, that, with their filth not washed away by the laver of the Church and their sins not put off, they should rashly usurp communion and touch the body and blood of the Lord?"

But the greater the importance each side held its own position to be, the more brightly the love of unity shines forth in both. In the East there does not seem to have been great contention of minds, although several provinces differed from the ancient and common view. Dionysius of Alexandria, when he wrote to Stephen so that he might be at peace with the Asiatic rebaptizers, praised the very great concord of the bishops in the East. From

which it is clear that the bishops of the East dealt more liberally with the Asiatics than Stephen did. Indeed Helenus and Firmilian were always held in great esteem among their colleagues. In the West too there shone forth a hatred and avoidance of schism. The author of the book On Rebaptism, although he tears at Cyprian with unworthy reproaches and insults, nevertheless admits that this whole question was debated among brethren. "I observe," he says at the beginning of the book, "that it has been asked among the brethren what ought rather to be observed with respect to those who have been dipped in heresy indeed, but in the name of our God Jesus Christ, etc." Stephen was more vehement than was just; yet Africa did not for that reason cease to be in communion with the other churches, and even with the Roman. Certainly there exists no record that other bishops denied their communion to the Africans, or thought that those who rebaptized ought to be excluded, as Stephen had thought. Moreover, since in the Roman Church itself two most eminent presbyters, Philemon and Dionysius, as we have just seen, early perceived wherein Stephen's excessive severity erred, I think I may rightly judge that that whole dissension did not, even under this Pontiff, have the outcomes which could have followed from the first heat of feelings. Under St Xystus, the successor of Stephen, although the persecution ought to have quelled domestic quarrels, or at least brought a truce, the contention over Baptism does not seem to have cooled at once, since Dionysius of Alexandria, amid the hardships of exile and in the very blaze of the persecution, wrote three letters to Xystus to call him to mildness and concord. The most holy Martyr made use of the counsels of Dionysius; and for that reason he is believed to have been called "a good and peaceable priest" by Pontius, and to have been inscribed among the martyrs in the diptychs of the African church, because he had settled the controversy that arose under Stephen. That communion between him and Cyprian was not interrupted is plain from Epistle 82, in which Cyprian relates that he had sent men to Rome to bring back sure reports about the affairs of the Church. As for Dionysius, there is no doubt that he dealt liberally with the Africans, he who while still a presbyter had ceased to approve the excessive severity of Stephen. The same humanity was preserved by the other pontiffs, "until," as Augustine says (Book 1 On Baptism), "what was most wholesomely held should be confirmed by a plenary council of the whole world, with even the doubts removed."

But Cyprian above all displayed his love of unity, to whom "the Lord did not reveal the truth," says Augustine (Book 1 On Baptism, ch. 18), "precisely for this reason, that his godly humility and charity in wholesomely guarding the peace of the Church might be made manifest, and might be marked out for the medicinal, so to speak, knowledge not only of the Christians of that time but also of posterity." Although he seemed to himself to perceive a great error in his opponents, nevertheless "in these questions which," as Augustine says (Book 3 On Baptism, ch. 3), "have not yet been examined with the most refined scrutiny," by no means doubting that "every bishop has his own judgement according to the licence of his liberty and power, and can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another," thus in the council of Carthage

he addresses his colleagues: "It remains that we each bring forward what we think on this very matter, judging no one, nor removing anyone from the right of communion if he should think differently." The Donatists once used to say of Saint Cyprian, "as if with praise of him", that he had lied "and had intended to catch his simpler colleagues out in a word, so that, when they had revealed that they thought differently, he would then, contrary to what he had promised, judge that they were to be excommunicated." But Augustine refutes this calumny in book 3 On Baptism, ch. 3. Firmilian was certainly hot-tempered and more vehement than was just; but nonetheless love of unity breathes through his whole letter, and nothing more expressive can be said about the unity of the Church. Hence, although he seemed to himself to be defending a truth of the greatest moment, yet because the judgement of the Church had not yet been added, he thinks that one should act in the same way as in the various usages pertaining to discipline. "In accordance with which," he says (p. 144), "in very many other provinces too many things vary according to the diversity of places and names, and yet on account of this there has never been any departure from the peace and unity of the Church."

33. On Cyprian's Letter 63, against those who used water alone in the morning sacrifice.

Besides the letters which Cyprian wrote in defence of his cause, I conjecture that another, not on the same matter but written around the same time, namely the sixty-third, to Caecilius, bishop, as is most likely, of Bilta, who gave his opinion first at the Council of Carthage, [was written then]. The occasion for this letter was given by a perverse custom introduced among some, that in the morning sacrifice they used water only. Yet they did not do this, like the Encratites, out of hatred of wine created by God, for in the evening they offered a cup mixed with wine. Cyprian shows that by this perverse custom both Christ's precept is violated and the sacrament is utterly overturned, since the blood of Christ cannot be in the cup unless wine is used. From these words, moreover, "and let him see to it, dearest brother, if any of our predecessors, either in ignorance or in simplicity, did not observe this", it is easily perceived that this fault did not then creep in for the first time, but had grown inveterate over many years, and accordingly had been introduced not into any notable church, but rather into certain country districts: for if anything of the kind had been committed in the larger cities, the matter, quickly becoming known to other churches, would have stirred the indignation of all. Therefore Pearson undeservedly thinks that it flowed from one of the bishops of Carthage. For the phrase "if any of our predecessors" refers no more to Cyprian's predecessors than to those of Caecilius; but since the episcopate is one, Cyprian calls those who had formerly presided over the Church both his own predecessors and those of Caecilius.

Why, moreover, I think this letter was written after the controversy over Baptism had arisen, I conjecture from these words: "And since His second coming is now drawing near to us, His kind and generous condescension illuminates our hearts more and more with the light of truth."

These words indicate something greater than that they should be understood of the matters treated in this letter. For it was well established among all Christians that the blood of Christ cannot be in the cup unless wine is offered; and in this respect very few were at fault, and that more from fear and a perverse shame than from obstinate error. But in the controversy which Cyprian had with so many churches about Baptism, he maintained that the truth had been revealed by a singular favour to himself and to the colleagues who held the same view, as we observed in the preceding chapter. It is this fuller enlightenment, this kind and generous condescension of Christ, that he seems to touch upon in passing in this Letter 63. To this may be added that he refutes the authority of custom urged against him in the letters written on Baptism in the same way as in the sixty-third.

Pearson, however, places this letter in the year 253, in the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus. He infers a time of persecution both from the expectation of Christ's coming and from these words (p. 109): «Unless perhaps someone fears this in the morning sacrifices, lest through the taste of wine he should smell of the blood of Christ. Thus, then, the brotherhood begins to be held back even from the passion of Christ in persecutions, while in the oblations it learns to be ashamed of His blood and gore.»

As regards the coming of Christ, the expectation of it is no less plain, as we said above, ch. 28, in several works of Cyprian which are agreed to have been written in time of peace. Moreover, in the passage cited Cyprian does not reproach those whom he refutes with the fear that someone might be convicted of being a Christian from the smell of wine; for how could the heathen have suspected this, from whom what was done in the mysteries of the Christians was wholly hidden? but rather the fear that the morning smell of wine might give an appearance less honourable and less worthy of a sober man. Hence Cyprian indicates a time of peace rather than of persecution, when he says that those become slower to shed their blood in persecutions who shrink from so slight an inconvenience arising from communion in the blood of Christ; although he rebukes that empty fear not by asserting it but rather by conjecturing it.

XXXIV. — The Confession and Martyrdom of Cyprian.

To so many outstanding services of Cyprian to the Church, to so many deeds splendidly done, nothing, it seemed, could be added except the glory of confession and martyrdom. Both of these he attained by the gift of Christ in the persecution of Valerian, who, after he had for some time cherished the Christians privately and publicly with every kindness, afterwards, led on by the arts of Macrianus, hoped that he would be a great and fortunate emperor if he attacked the Christian religion. When persecution was threatening in Africa, Fortunatus the bishop, perhaps the same who in the synod of Carthage is called bishop of Tuccabori, asked Cyprian to compose exhortations from the divine Scriptures for preparing and strengthening the minds of the brethren. Cyprian willingly complied, thinking it too little to rouse the people of God with the trumpet of his own voice unless the faith of believers and the courage dedicated and devoted to God were by divine

reading made firm. He therefore wrote the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom, composed almost entirely of testimonies of Scripture. Baronius and Fell wrongly place this work under Gallus; for it is listed by Pontius the deacon after the books On Patience and On Jealousy and Envy, as Tillemont observes. But since Cyprian's confession and martyrdom are recorded in his Acts, which we shall append below, I shall not waste time in narrating those same matters, but it will be enough to review briefly the letters written in this persecution.

When Valerian had decreed that Christians should not hold assemblies nor enter the cemeteries, or that, if anyone did not obey this command, he should be punished with the loss of his head, Cyprian seems to have been the first of all in Africa to receive the onslaught of the persecution. For learned men have noted this from these words of Letter 78, where the martyrs address Cyprian thus: "Like a good and true teacher, you first declared in the proceedings before the proconsul what we, the disciples who followed, ought to say before the governor; and, sounding God's trumpet, you roused soldiers equipped with heavenly arms to the battle of the encounter, and, fighting in the front line, you slew the devil with the spiritual sword; you also marshalled the columns of the brethren on this side and that by your words," etc.

Having confessed Christ with the utmost firmness of mind before Paternus the proconsul on the third day before the Kalends of September in the year 257, he is carried off as an exile to a hidden and remote place, which was called Curubis. Pontius the deacon, who wrote his Life, accompanied him in exile. On the day on which they first stayed in the place of exile, Cyprian was warned by a vision at night of his future martyrdom; but he obtained a postponement until the morrow, so that he might set his affairs in order on the day which he had obtained. But "this one day signified a year," says Pontius; "for he was crowned on that day, after a full year had passed, on which this had been shown to him a year before." He could, moreover, the more easily provide for the affairs of his church and above all devote his care to relieving the poor, because the dissensions settled under Xystus, "a good and peaceful priest," as Pontius says, had released him from great troubles. While Cyprian was staying in exile, many bishops imitated his constancy, and, following their example, a manifold portion of the people confessed together with them and was crowned together with them, separated from its leaders neither by prison nor by the mines. Nor were virgins and boys lacking in this number. Of the blessed martyrs part were crowned, part remained in prison; others were condemned to the mines, and how many hardships they endured there can be seen from Letter 77, which Cyprian wrote to them for the sake of congratulation rather than of consolation. Their feet were bound with cross-bars and fetters; they lay on the ground without a bed; scanty bread was supplied; clothing was lacking to them in the cold; the hair of their half-shorn heads stood rough. The letter is addressed to fellow bishops, priests and deacons and the other brethren. At the same time he sent a sum of money in his own name and that of Quirinus by Herennianus the subdeacon, and Lucanus and Maximus and Amantius, acolytes. The confessors gave thanks by three different letters, because they were toiling in various places. There survive

these letters, and they are among the Cyprianic letters as 78, 79, 80.

Cyprian's charity was not confined within the borders of Africa; but if credence is to be given to a very ancient codex, he exhorted by letter two other martyrs, Augustine and Felicitas, who are said to have suffered at Capua in Campania in the same persecution of Valerian. The name of each is read in the ancient martyrologies ascribed to Jerome. Tillemont reckons that Cyprian, besides the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom and besides the letters To the Confessors, wrote another work to the same purpose. For Pontius, after he has mentioned the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom, adds this: "Who, finally, would have roused with the incitement of the heavenly trumpet so many confessors of marked foreheads, sealed with a second inscription and kept alive to be an example of martyrdom?" Moreover, since Pontius in this place reviews the books written by Cyprian and says nothing at all about the letters, the learned man thinks that some book is indicated by these words.

While Cyprian was staying a long time at Curubis, Galerius Maximus succeeded the proconsul Paternus, and he ordered Cyprian, recalled from exile, to remain in his gardens until he should pass sentence on him. These gardens Cyprian had sold at the beginning of his conversion and had distributed the price to the poor; but we learn from Pontius the deacon that they had been restored to him by the indulgence of God. While he was providing for his church, and waiting from day to day to be crowned with the martyrdom promised in a vision, various and uncertain rumours spread among the people led him to send to Rome men who should report certain and verified information about the affairs of the Church. They on their return announced that Valerian had written in reply to the senate that bishops, presbyters and deacons should be punished forthwith; that senators, moreover, and men of rank and Roman knights should lose their dignity and also be stripped of their goods, and if, after their means had been taken away, they persisted in being Christians, they should also be punished with death; that matrons should have their goods taken away and be banished into exile; that members of the imperial household, whoever had either confessed before or should now confess, should have their property confiscated and be sent in chains, enrolled, to the imperial estates. They added that Xystus had been executed in the cemetery on the eighth day before the Ides of August, and with him four deacons; and also that the prefects were pressing on with the persecution daily, so that any who were brought before them should be executed and their goods claimed for the treasury. Cyprian would gladly have informed his colleagues of these matters, but he had no clergy available whom he could send: for all, placed under the stroke of the contest, could by no means withdraw from Carthage, all being ready, in accordance with the devotion of their soul, for divine and heavenly glory. At length, when an opportunity offered, he wrote to Successus the bishop Letter 82 about the news brought from Rome, and asked him that these things be made known through him to their colleagues, so that everywhere the brotherhood might be strengthened by their exhortation. In place of what Valerian is said to have written in reply, that the members of the imperial household, "whoever had either confessed before or should now confess, should have their property confiscated and be sent in chains, enrolled, to the imperial estates," it might much more fittingly be read "and registered," as it is in the Verona codex, or "and inscribed,"

as in Colbert 2442. Among the punishments came that ignominy of the inscribed forehead, as is evident from these words of Pontius: « Who, finally, would have roused with the incentive of the heavenly trumpet so many confessors of branded foreheads, sealed with a second inscription and kept back as survivors for an example of martyrdom? »

After it had been reported to Cyprian that frumentarii had been sent to take him to Utica, on the advice of his dearest friends he consented to withdraw from his gardens to some hidden place. From there he wrote to his church his last letter, which is the 83rd, and relates that he had this reason for withdrawing, that he was unwilling to allow that, having received sentence upon his confession in a foreign city, he should go from there as a martyr to the Lord; « since I, he says, both for myself and for you, beg in continual prayers, and long with all my desires, and am bound, to confess among you, and to suffer there, and from there to go to the Lord. » He exhorts them to keep quiet and calm, and that no one should stir up a disturbance or offer himself to the gentiles of his own accord.

When the proconsul had returned to Carthage, Cyprian returned to his gardens, awaiting the executioner. « Meanwhile, says Pontius, there gathered many men eminent and most distinguished in rank and blood, and also well-born in the nobility of the world, who, on account of their old friendship with him, repeatedly urged withdrawal; and, lest bare persuasion should be too little, they even offered places to which he might withdraw. » Not a few of the faithful also urged the same. Cyprian would not have hesitated to depart, if God had commanded it, as the same Pontius observes. But at that time he did not at all assent to their persuasions; rather, desirous of dying for Christ, he did not cease to exhort others also to constancy. At length the princeps came into the gardens, by order of the proconsul, with his soldiers, and Cyprian, having been seized, on the following day, that is, 14 September, in the year 258, confessed Christ and shed his blood for Him, as can be seen from his life written by Pontius and from the Proconsular Acts, where the various circumstances of his confession and martyrdom, to which we refer the reader, are accurately described. The text of both documents we have extracted from the Acta Martyrum sincera, since it is more accurately corrected there than in the editions of Cyprian, together with some notes of their most learned editor. One thing I shall add to the praise of St Cyprian: that his sacred relics have been preserved with the highest veneration in the monastery of Compiègne since the times of Charles the Bald. For that emperor magnificently built this basilica in his palace, endowed it with most splendid privileges, and wished the body of the holy Martyr, which had been granted by Aaron, king of the Persians, to the envoys of Charlemagne, and had been deposited at Arles and then at Lyons, to be placed there as an exceptional protection and ornament, as Ado of Vienne and the most certain records of that same monastery attest.

35. On the books ascribed to Cyprian, and first on the three letters published by Baluze. The books On the Shows, On the Praise of Martyrdom, On Rebaptism, On Modesty, To Novatian, etc., are reviewed.

To what we have set out concerning the deeds and writings of Cyprian, it seems that something should be added about the works ascribed to his name, especially those which their antiquity commends. Baluze brought to light three letters from ancient manuscripts, but that learned critic does not pronounce them genuine. The first, which is from Pope Cornelius to Cyprian against the perverse novelty of rebaptizing, bears on its face a manifest mark of fraud and falsehood; for it is established that this controversy did not arise under Cornelius, and that the greatest agreement always existed between Cornelius and Cyprian. The second comes forth under the name of Cyprian to the people of Carthage; but it does not reflect the age of Cyprian, for it speaks of nothing else but the betrayers of the Scriptures, and it is even further removed from his style. The third Cyprian is said to write to his blessed and most beloved kinsman Turasius, to console his mind, stirred by grief over the falling asleep of his daughter. There are some things in it very similar to those read in Cyprian's book On Mortality, but the style is entirely different. Moreover, I will point out that this letter, long since published among the works of Jerome, is found in the old and the more recent editions under the name of Jerome to Tyrasius.

The book On the Shows is a work not unworthy of Cyprian, whether you consider its eloquence or its evangelical vigour: many probable reasons concur for attributing it to him. A bishop writes to his church, from which he was absent against his will; he writes at a time when the custom of carrying the Eucharist home was in force, when Christians had especially to beware of the customs of the heathen. Much is modelled in imitation of Tertullian, who had formerly discoursed on the same matters at Carthage. Nor is it surprising if in that great city, which lacked no kind of shows, the contagion of evil tempted the Christians themselves. But nevertheless there do not seem to be reasons weighty enough for the book On the Shows to be adjudged to Cyprian. There is no mention of it in Pontius, and although, of those which have been published among the works of Cyprian, none comes nearer to the style of the holy Martyr, there is nevertheless a certain dissimilarity, which ears accustomed to and worn by reading Cyprian may easily perceive.

The book On the Praise of Martyrdom has been ascribed to Cyprian, which Erasmus, Dupin and Fell supposed to be the offspring of an idle declaimer. But surely a fairer judgement ought to have been passed on an excellent work, composed for the exhorting of confessors not without a certain lively ardour of piety, which a cold craftsman of words would not easily imitate. This too commends the antiquity of this work, that in several places the author laments the horrible plague which raged under Gallus and Volusianus. But, since the little book is addressed to Moses and Maximus, who it is established were crowned with martyrdom in the year 251, and the plague did not break out before the reign of Gallus and Volusianus, Fell concludes from this that the author of the little book, in matters from his own age

removed, contrived not very fittingly. But Baluze cut the knot, who testifies that this title, To Moses and Maximus, is lacking in the old manuscripts. Add to these the observation of Tillemont, who, from a certain testimony of Dionysius of Alexandria in Eusebius (book 7, ch. 11) about deacons carried off by the plague, which seems necessarily to be referred to the times of Decius, concludes that this plague began under this emperor, although it raged most of all under Gallus and Volusianus. For the rest, although I contend that this work is ancient, I would nevertheless not assign it to Cyprian; so great is the discrepancy in style between this little book and the writings of Cyprian.

There follows in Baluze's edition the book On Rebaptism, or Against the Rebaptizers, on which Baluze's notes may be consulted. The work is attributed by some to Ursinus the monk, who, Gennadius testifies, wrote in the fourth century against those who rebaptized. What Gennadius says was contained in the book of Ursinus the monk, it is not difficult to notice in this treatment of rebaptism; for the author, whoever he may in the end be, does nothing else than to prove that those who were baptized in heresy are not to be rebaptized, but that hands are to be laid on them when they have been converted to the sounder faith. But Ursinus the monk cannot be considered the author of this little book, unless he be said to have been a bishop in the third century. That he is a bishop our writer expressly declares: "Since Baptism will be handed on by us," he says (p. 360), "let it be assigned wholly and solemnly and through all things that are written, and let it be handed on without any separation of anything at all; or if it has been handed on by the lesser clergy through necessity, let us await the outcome, so that either it may be supplied by us, or be reserved to be supplied by the Lord." There occur in the same writer clear marks of the third century. For he speaks of that whole controversy in such a way as to indicate that it had recently arisen and was still flourishing. For he says (p. 354) "that it is like a monstrosity that bishops should devise such scandals:" that his purpose is to persuade turbulent men that they should at least now begin to attend to their own business." In the very passage which is objected by Baluze, he lays down (p. 357) that it is useful "to acquiesce with good reason in the authority of so many years and so many churches, and likewise of the Apostles and bishops, since it is the greatest disadvantage and loss to the most holy mother Church, after so long a series of centuries, now for the first time suddenly and without reason to rise up against the ancient decrees." It ought not to be inferred from these words that the author lived in the fourth century, but only that he was not very timid in exaggerating. For, besides the fact that not even in the fourth century could he have put forward "so long a series of centuries" without absurd exaggeration, he certainly declares in express words that the controversy about the baptism of heretics had then for the first time flared up; which properly fits the third century. Moreover, he attacks Cyprian himself, his name being kept silent, as one still living and defending the opposing side by his authority. For he lays down (p. 355) that there is no other fruit of a controversy of this kind than that one man, whoever he is, as being of great prudence and constancy among certain fickle men,

should be proclaimed with empty glory, and, endowed with the stupidity of heretics, whose one consolation is not to seem to sin alone, should be celebrated among those most like himself and his peers for having corrected the errors and faults of all the churches. Who would have reviled Cyprian in so unworthy a manner, after he had washed away by martyrdom the stain of the error which he had defended, not without the greatest moderation of mind, in a matter not yet decided, and when, the heat of the dispute having cooled, the highest renown of his name arose in all the churches?

Pamelius thought that the book On Modesty was written by Cyprian in his retreat; and indeed it does not seem unworthy of the holy Martyr, so outstanding is it in the marks of piety; and it is established that it was written by a bishop absent from his church. But to the dissimilarity of style is added the silence of Pontius, who ought above all to have mentioned the things which had been written in the retreat. The author is very ancient, whoever he may ultimately be, and he was writing when the persecutions had not yet been calmed. "Virginity," he says (p. 4), "cannot fear persecution, since it can challenge it from a position of security." Tillemont, however, conjectures that these words can be understood of the persecutions of the Vandals; and from the splendid testimonies concerning the grace of Christ he suspects that this writer is later than Augustine. But this conjecture is less probable, since in Cyprian himself testimonies of that kind occur that are far more numerous and, I rather think, more explicit.

It is established that the author of the book To Novatian was a contemporary of Cyprian, nor can there be any doubt that he wrote in the peaceful beginnings of Valerian, favourable to the Church. For he counts only one persecution after the one which raged under Decius, and he says that those who fell in the first were victors in the second (p. 11). He also seems to have been an African, both because he plays thus on the name of Felicissimus, who was scarcely known outside Africa: "What would those most perverse Novatians reply to these things, or now those most unhappy few (p. 9)?", and because, declaring that the Church alone baptizes by a heavenly principle, he not obscurely rejects the baptism of heretics (p. 10). The dissimilarity of style alone deterred Tillemont from attributing this work to Cyprian. But nevertheless, besides this reason, another seems able to be brought forward: for the author of this book declares in the very opening that, "as [he] was pondering and intolerably agitated in mind as to what [he ought] to do about the pitiable brethren who, wounded not by their own will but by the onslaught of the raging devil, were still up to now, that is, through a long series of times, doing penance and paying the penalty, from the opposite side" there arose another enemy and adversary of fatherly piety itself, the heretic Novatian. By these words he indicates that he is a bishop and, while providing most humanely for the lapsed who had long been doing penance, is vexed that he has the heretic Novatian as an adversary to his leniency. Hence also below, after he has spoken of those who, "wounded in the first battle-line, that is, in the Decian persecution, afterwards, that is, in the second battle," had conquered, he adds that their "equals, that is, those still placed up to now in the same crime of their lapse and not to be admitted to penance," are so judged by the Novatians.

So the author of this work had not yet granted peace to those who had lapsed under Decius. For he is not speaking of others: he calls them the equals of those who, defeated in the first battle, had been victors in the second; he says that, living on through a long succession of times, they are paying penalties, and are still remaining in the same crime of lapse which others had expiated by martyrdom. But Cyprian, when the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus was pressing, had gathered into the Lord's flock the lapsed who had done penance from the first day of their lapse, and had given them the blood of Christ, so as to arm them for shedding their own for Christ.

In this book (p. 14) Novatian is said, while he was in the Church, to have wept over the sins of others as though they were his own. But it is surprising whence he obtained for himself this praise for humanity and diligence in caring for the lapsed. The testimony of Cornelius seems to contradict it, who testifies, in Eusebius (book 6, ch. 43), that in the persecution of Decius Novatian refused to succour brethren in need of help. But perhaps this reputation for humanity came to Novatian from the most distinguished letter of the Roman clergy, the 31st among Cyprian's, which was written by Novatian and sent into the whole world, as Cyprian witnesses, Letter 52.

That the book On Dice-Players is not Cyprian's is agreed among all. It is clear from the beginning that it is the offspring of some bishop, or even, as Bellarmine thought, of a Roman Pontiff. The manner of citing Scripture shows that it is an ancient work. Yet it would not undeservedly seem to have been written later, if, as some have supposed, it were censuring the vicious habit of dice in priests themselves. But nothing forbids these words being understood of laymen: "The hand which [has been] admitted to the Lord's sacrifice; and which by condescension receives what pertains to the salvation of the whole man, which accomplishes the divine sacraments." Nor can any controversy be raised by the book On the Mountains Sinai and Sion, the two Prayers falsely ascribed to Cyprian, or the book On the Twelve Cardinal Works of Christ. This last work is very celebrated; Pamelius contends that it is either Cyprian's or that of a contemporary writer. But long ago, on the evidence of manuscript codices, it was assigned to Arnold, abbot of Bonneval in the diocese of Chartres. There follow certain poems which in old codices are ascribed now to Cyprian, now to Tertullian, and are denied to both by all critics.

XXXVI. — On the Singleness of Clerics, the Letter of Celsus to Vigilius, and some others.

Not lightly did they err who attributed the book On the Singleness of Clerics to Cyprian, or to Origen, or to Augustine. The dissimilarity of style wholly denies it to Cyprian and Augustine, and to Origen the episcopal dignity with which the author of this work seems to have been adorned. To some it seemed a probable reason for ascribing this book to Origen that they believed those who unman themselves out of zeal for chastity are praised in this book. But they are by no means praised; rather, the author of the work takes care not to seem to praise them. For he says: "Concerning whom I now suspend [the matter] of examination, leaving the judgement to be brought forth in another discussion." And, even if of this kind faci-

elaborate circumlocutions about the individual forms of the vices, which seem utterly cold, and to be held together more by curious reflection than by a grief piercing the innermost feelings. Then again, the one who introduces Cyprian speaking in this book indicates not obscurely that in recounting his crimes he does not always follow things certain and ascertained, but conjectures what Cyprian had done from the things that magicians are accustomed to do. For Eusebius says to Cyprian: "I approve your confession, in which you have recounted to me the impieties committed and not committed by you." Cyprian himself would never have written this; but another, by these words, gives notice that he attributed so many crimes to Cyprian not because he knew for certain that all were committed by him, but because the most celebrated magician did not seem to have avoided most of them, inasmuch as they were customarily perpetrated by magicians. In this indeed he performed the duty of an honest writer, who would not deceive his readers if he took any licence in writing. Although, therefore, this work was not written by Cyprian himself, his conversion is nevertheless not to be ascribed to fables; nor, if someone chose this event to labour at adorning and amplifying it, is the substance of the history on that account to be called into suspicion, especially since that writer could have used more ancient records which contained the acts of the martyrdom of Cyprian and Justina, as we read towards the end of the little book on the passion of both, "written from the beginning right to the end".

As regards the time at which this Confession was written, although the Oxford editor gives this work no credence whatever, he nevertheless judges it older than the reign of Constantine. But the fact that in the Conversion, which seems to be the offspring of the same writer as the Confession, Christians are called Galileans has a close connection with the age of the emperor Julian, who, as no one is unaware, was accustomed to address Christians by this name: the things read in both little books about the vain attempts of the magic art against Christians seem quite suited to this time.

It does not conflict with the institutions of the third century that the administration of a monastery of virgins was entrusted to Justina, as we read towards the end of the Conversion; for that convents of virgins of this kind already existed at that time is seen from the Life of St Antony, who, on the testimony of Athanasius (n. 3), brought his sister to a house of virgins to be brought up, about the year 271: but it fits the fourth century more than the third that the same Justina is said, towards the end of the Confession, to have shorn her hair for God. Jerome testifies in the Letter to Sabinianus that it is the custom in the monasteries of Egypt and Syria that both a virgin and a widow who have vowed themselves to God offer their hair to the mothers of the monasteries to be cut off: and he adds that this is indeed done for the sake of cleanliness, because women of this kind used neither bath nor oil. Here, however, I shall observe that virgins of this kind differ greatly from those whom the synod of Gangra condemned with anathema; concerning whom Theodosius also decreed in the year 390 "that women who, against divine and human laws, at the instigation of a profession they have been persuaded into, have cut off their hair, be kept from the doors of the church.....; so much so indeed that a bishop, if he has permitted a woman with shorn head to enter, himself also with

associations of this kind be kept away," etc. (Theodosian Code, vol. 6, p. 61). Gothofredus thinks that every custom whatever of shaving the head was condemned in women by the synod of Gangra and by Theodosius. Hence that most learned man inveighs, as against a great wickedness, against the custom adopted by the monasteries of Syria and Egypt and afterwards by others, and complains with no small grief "that customs have at last brought human and divine laws under their own power." But it is clearer than daylight that neither the synod of Gangra nor Theodosius had in view those virgins who, as Jerome testifies, although they cut their hair, were nevertheless with veiled and bound head; but other women far unlike them, who, as the synod of Gangra says, were dissolving "the precept of subjection", ἀναλύουσα τὸ πρόσταγμα τῆς ὑποταγῆς, namely because they went about with uncovered head. Hence Theodosius, since women of that kind could be seen by all, orders bishops to be deposed if they have granted them entry into the church.

Since therefore that threefold monument is marked with many signs of the fourth century, and so stands at some distance from Cyprian of Antioch, it could have happened that some things were added to the substance of the history for the sake of embellishing or amplifying it. For I am not pleased with Justina sitting at a window while she hears the deacon Praelius discoursing on the Gospel, and being accustomed to be taught daily through the window by the same deacon. The same is said of Thecla listening to Paul in the Life of that virgin. Moreover, the parts that survive only in Latin ought not to carry as much weight as the Greek text itself would: for since, comparing the Latin translation of the Confession with the Greek text, I have found that the translator removed many things, added many, and in very many places strayed from the true sense, I fear that the same has happened in the two other parts. Hence you will find nothing in the Conversion about that excellent prayer with which Justina, on the testimony of Gregory Nazianzen, in the very crisis of temptation, prayed to the Mother of God that the Virgin might come to the aid of a virgin; nothing about the magical books burned by Cyprian before baptism, nothing about the office of doorkeeper which was entrusted to him after baptism. Perhaps for the same reason, in the Passion of Cyprian and Justina, the judge who condemned them is called count of the East, and writes thus to Diocletian: "To Claudius (to Diocletian, Colbert manuscript), great Caesar, lord of land and sea, greeting." Thus also Cyprian and Justina are summoned to Damascus, although in Photius Justina is said to have moved to this city already before, and Cyprian alone to have been brought there at that time.

That Cyprian suffered with Justina at Nicomedia under Diocletian and Maximian, at the time when Diocletian was staying at Nicomedia, is seen from the testimony of Eudocia in Photius, and from the Passion itself. But if they suffered on 26 September, the day on which the Latins celebrate their heavenly birthday, or, as among the Greeks, on 2 October, it must be, as Tillemont observes, that this happened in the year 304. For it could not have happened in the year 303, because in that year Diocletian was staying at Rome around the month of November, nor did the persecution flare up against the laity before the year 304; nor

even in the year 305, because in this year Diocletian had already abdicated the empire in the month of May.

Cyprian seems to have been advanced in age when he poured out his life for Christ. At thirty years of age he set out from Egypt into Chaldaea, and having stayed there he returned to his homeland, where by many misdeeds he gained fame and a name; and at length, when he perceived that the attempts of his wicked art against Justina were in vain, he gave his name to the Christian religion. After a year he was made a presbyter, and having spent sixteen years in this rank he succeeded the bishop Anthimus. He must have passed several years in the episcopate, « since he enlightened the hearts of many through the word of God, and turned them from every heresy, and increased the flock of Christ. » Now Anthimus, Cyprian's predecessor, had succeeded Optatus, by whom Aedesius and Cledonia with their daughter Justina were baptized; Aedesius was also made a presbyter, and he discharged this ministry for a year and six months.

Account of the Manuscript Codices

Which Were Used in Preparing This Edition.

Baluze had collated with manuscript codices very many printed copies of Cyprian's works, which we were not permitted to inspect. But from his notes it can be judged how much diligence and labour he spent in this kind of work. For, besides the codices which were of use to Manutius, Pamelius, Rigault and the English, Baluze had, and carefully collated with the printed editions, several from the Royal Library, among them an old codex which once belonged to St Martin of Tournai; from the Colbert library, codices 137, 782, 801, 2412, and the very old 1305, which once belonged to the library of de Thou, and another which once belonged to the college of Foix; from the library of Saint-Remi one very old one and another more recent; one from the monastery of St Denis in the same city; several also both from St Victor of Paris and from Baluze's own library. Add to these the Séguier codex, written a thousand years ago, those of Bec, Dijon, Corbie, the Grenoble codex of the most distinguished Gaspard Bon, the Burgundian, those of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, Chartres, the Lamoignon, those of Compiègne, the Pithou, the Sorbonne, the Monasteriensis now kept at Paris in the library of the Augustinians of the suburb of Saint-Germain, those of Fleury and Moissac, an old book which belonged to Raymond, bishop of Acre; and finally others from the monasteries of St Arnulf of Metz, St Michael in Peril of the Sea, Saint-Germain-des-Prés, St Gall, and Mont-Saint-Éloi. Moreover, variant readings excerpted from Vatican codices were sent to Baluze, as is clear from his notes on Cyprian's Epistle 48. Of these codices which we have listed, some are customarily cited by the English; but Baluze nevertheless uses them in such a way that he seems to have collated them with the printed editions, or at least consulted them.

For the works ascribed to Cyprian we also used old books from the Royal Library, from the Colbert, from the Sorbonne, Saint-Victor and Saint-Germain libraries. But for accurately emending and correcting those which are of greater value, three very ancient codices were of especially great use: one of Saint-Remi for the letter of Celsus to Vigilius, and two of Saint-Germain for the book On the Singularity of Clerics and the Exposition of the Creed.

Dom Prudent Maran.

Index of Chapters

Which Are Contained in the Preface and the Life of St Cyprian, Now Prepared for the First Time.

Preface, in which, after the editions of St Cyprian's works have been enumerated, the doctrine of the holy Martyr is discussed at length. p. 9.

I Cyprian's opinion on the unity and infallibility of the Church. 15

II Those are refuted who deny that in Cyprian bishops are distinguished from presbyters by divine right. 22

III The primacy of the Roman Church always acknowledged by St Cyprian. 23

IV On the disagreement of St Cyprian with St Stephen. No baptism was approved by Stephen except that which had been given according to the form prescribed by Christ. 27

V St Cyprian did not well understand the opinion of his opponents. On baptism in the name of Christ. Stephen's opinion derived from the Apostles. 31

VI By what arguments chiefly St Cyprian defended himself. He rejected neither the sacraments administered in the Church by wicked men nor tradition. 35

VII St Cyprian does not confuse confirmation with the imposition of hands upon returning heretics. He numbers confirmation among the sacraments. 39

VIII The sacrament of penance is defended from the testimonies of St Cyprian. It is shown how necessary he judged it, and how holily he wished it to be administered. Some of his sayings are explained. 42

IX Whether in Africa before St Cyprian communion after penance was denied for the gravest crimes. 47

X. Whether a new discipline was introduced under St Cyprian, and the former severity retained against apostates and deserters alone? Col. 51

XI. Whether St Cyprian denied peace to the lapsed who died in the course of their penance, excepting only those who had received certificates from the martyrs. 55

XII. Whether the council of Carthage imposed penance on those who had sacrificed for the whole period of their life. 59

XIII. On the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 62

XIV. On Communion under both kinds. 66

XV. St Cyprian's opinion on the sacrifice, on purgatory and the invocation of the saints. 67

XVI. On the divinity of Christ, and His grace. 71

The Life of St Cyprian, now drawn up for the first time. 74

I. On St Cyprian when not yet a Christian. He must be distinguished from Cyprian of Antioch. 75

II. On St Cyprian's conversion. As a catechumen he distributed his goods and bound himself by a vow of continence. It is uncertain in what year and at what time he was baptized. 77

III. On the studies and writings of St Cyprian from his baptism up to his ordination. 81

IV. Cyprian at once receives the presbyterate and the priesthood. In what year he was ordained bishop. Things done and written at the beginning of his episcopate. 82

V. On the persecution of Decius and its beginnings, and on the great number of the lapsed and of the confessors. 86

VI. In what consisted the offence of those who were called Libellatici. 89

VII. Cyprian withdraws during the persecution for the most just reasons. 93

VIII. On the letters of the Roman clergy sent to Carthage after it was announced that Cyprian had withdrawn. 95

IX. On Cyprian's first reply to the letters of the Romans. On the thirteen letters written before the second reply and carried to Rome together with it, of which it is shown that many are missing. 96

X. The order of Cyprian's letters before the fifteenth, written to the Romans, and first of the fifth and ninth. The thirty-seventh is to be assigned to another time. 99

XI. Five letters of St Cyprian on the lapsed. He did not conceal the misdeed of the presbyters who had given communion to the lapsed. He threatens them not with suspension but with excommunication. 101

XII. On the fifteenth letter of St Cyprian and several others written a little later when a new disturbance had arisen. 106

XIII. On the letter of Celerinus to Lucianus and the reply of Lucianus. 108

XIV. St Cyprian writes to the clergy about the ordination of Saturus and Optatus. Various letters of the lapsed to St Cyprian. The clergy remove Gaius of Didda from their communion. At what time letters 23 and 29 were written. On the letters of the Roman clergy and of the confessors. 110

XV. The persecution breaks out afresh; the coming peace is revealed to St Cyprian. The things done and written by him meanwhile at the close of the year 250 are reviewed. 113

XVI. Cyprian sends deputies in his place. The threats of Felicissimus. 115

XVII. The schism of Felicissimus at the beginning of the year 251. Novatus one of the five schismatic presbyters. On the fortieth letter of Cyprian. 117

XVIII. Cyprian returns when the persecution has died down, and deliberates with his colleagues on the case of the lapsed; but before the council he writes the book On the Lapsed. 119

XIX. The prudence of St Cyprian in suppressing the schism of Novatian and in confirming the episcopate of St Cornelius. 123

XX. At what time the schism of Novatian broke out. 125

XXI. At what time Novatian was ordained. 128

XXII. The order of the things done by St Cyprian in the case of Cornelius. 131

XXIII. New attempts of Novatian. The return of the Roman confessors into the Church at Cyprian's urging; it is shown that this happened before the Roman council of the year 251. 133

XXIV. On the deeds and writings of St Cyprian in the year 252 before the persecution. 136

XXV. The persecution is revealed to Cyprian. He exhorts the people of Thibaris to the contest. He restores peace to the penitent lapsed in a council, which must be distinguished from another held on the Ides of May. 141

XXVI. St Cyprian congratulates St Cornelius on the glory of his confession. He exhorts the confessors of Carthage by Letter 81, which is shown to have been written in this persecution in the year 252. 142

XXVII. The wonderful charity of St Cyprian in the calamity of the plague. He defends religion against Demetrianus. The lavish generosity of the whole church of Carthage in ransoming captives. 146

XXVIII. On the books and letters written after the persecution under Valerian and at the beginning of Pope Stephen's time, in the years 253 and 254. 149

XXIX. Dissensions on baptism arose at the close of the year 253; and St Stephen contended with the Easterners before he did with the Africans. 152

XXX. The order and sequence of things done in Africa in the years 255 and 256, up to the third council of Carthage. 155

XXXI. On the third council of Carthage. Cyprian sends the deacon Rogatianus to Firmilian. On the letter of Firmilian to Cyprian. 160

XXXII. Some observations are added on this controversy over baptism. 164

XXXIII. On Letter 63 of Cyprian against those who used water alone in the morning sacrifice. 166

XXXIV. The confession and martyrdom of Cyprian. 167

XXXV. On the books ascribed to Cyprian, and first on the three letters published by Baluze. The books On the Shows, On the Praise of Martyrdom, On Rebaptism, On Modesty, To Novatian, etc. are reviewed. 171

XXXVI. On the Celibacy of the Clergy, the letter of Celsus to Vigilius, and some others. 174

XXXVII. On the Penitence of St Cyprian of Antioch, and two other little books relating to him. 178

Order of the Letters of Saint Cyprian

which Pamelius and Baluze followed,

compared with the order of the Oxford edition.

Oxf. | Pamel. | Baluze | | Baluze ed. | New ed.

| I | | Struck out by Baluze. | » | »

| II | 1 | To Donatus. | Page 1 | 193

8 | III | 2 | Of the Roman clergy to the clergy of Carthage, on the withdrawal of the holy Cyprian. | 7 | 225

9 | IV | 3 | To the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome. | 8 | 230

5 | V | 4 | To the presbyters and deacons. | 9 | 232

14 | VI | 5 | To the presbyters and deacons. | Ibid. | 233

13 | VII | 6 | To Rogatianus the presbyter and the other confessors. | 11 | 235

11 | VIII | 7 | To the clergy, on praying to God. | 13 | 240

10 | IX | 8 | To the martyrs and confessors. | 16 | 245

16 | X | 9 | To the clergy, on certain presbyters who rashly gave peace to the lapsed, while the persecution was not yet stilled and without the knowledge of the bishops. | 18 | 250

15 | XI | 10 | To the martyrs and confessors who asked that peace be given to the lapsed. | 19 | 253

17 | XII | 11 | To the people. | 21 | 256

18 | XIII | 12 | To the clergy, on the lapsed and the catechumens, that they may not depart empty. | 22 | 258

19 | XIV | 13 | To the clergy, on those who hasten to peace. | Ibid. | 260

20 | XV | 14 | To the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome. | 23 | 261

37 | XVI | 15 | To Moyses and Maximus and the other confessors. | 24 | 264

23 | XVII | 16 | Of the confessors to Cyprian. | 26 | 268

26 | XVIII | 17 | To the presbyters and deacons, on the preceding letter and the two following. | Ibid. | 269

24 | XIX | 18 | Of Caldonius to Cyprian | 27 | 271

25 | XX | 19 | Of Cyprian to Caldonius. | 28 | 273

21 | XXI | 20 | Of Celerinus to Lucianus. | Ibid. | 274

22 | XXII | 21 | Of Lucianus to Celerinus. | 30 | 279

27 | XXIII | 22 | To the clergy abiding at Rome, on the many confessors and on the shamelessness of Lucianus and the modesty of Celerinus the confessor. | 31 | 282

29 | XXIV | To the clergy, on the letters sent to Rome and on Saturus made reader and Optatus subdeacon. | 33 | 287

28 | XXV | To Moyses and Maximus and the other confessors. | Ibid. | 288

31 | XXVI | Moyses, Maximus, Nicostratus and other confessors reply to the preceding letter. | 34 | 290

33 | XXVII | Cyprian to the lapsed. | 37 | 298

34 | XXVIII | To the presbyters and deacons. | 38 | 300

35 | XXIX | To the presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome. | 39 | 302

36 | XXX | The presbyters and deacons abiding at Rome to Cyprian. | 40 | 303

30 | XXXI | Of the Roman clergy to Cyprian. | 42 | 307

32 | XXXII | To the clergy of Carthage, on the letters sent to Rome and received from there. | 45 | 315

38 | XXXIII | To the clergy and people, on Aurelius ordained reader. | 46 | 317

39 | XXXIV | To the clergy and people on Celerinus ordained reader. | 47 | 320

40 | XXXV | To the same, on Numidicus ordained presbyter. | 48 | 324

7 | XXXVI | To the clergy, on the care of the poor and of strangers. | 49 | 326

12 | XXXVII | To the clergy, that every kindness be shown to the confessors held in prison. | 50 | 327

41 | XXXVIII | To Caldonius, Herculanus and the others, on excluding Felicissimus. | 51 | 329

42 | XXXIX | Letter of Caldonius, Herculanus and the others to Cyprian, on the exclusion of Felicissimus with his followers. | 52 | 331

43 | XL | To the people, on the five schismatic presbyters of the faction of Felicissimus. | Ibid. | 332

44 | XLI | To Cornelius, that he has not accepted the ordination of Novatian. | 55 | 339

45 | XLII | To Cornelius, on his ordination approved by him, and on Felicissimus. | 56 | Ibid.

47 | XLIII | To the same, that he has written a letter to the confessors led astray by Novatian. | 58 | Ibid.

46 | XLIV | To the Roman confessors, that they return to unity. | Ibid. | 340

48 | XLV | To Cornelius, on Polycarp of Hadrumetum. | 59 | 341

49 | XLVI | Of Cornelius to Cyprian, on the confessors returned to unity. | 60 | Ibid.

51 | XLVII | Of Cyprian to Cornelius, a reply of congratulation on their return from schism. | 61 | Ibid.

50 | XLVIII | Of Cornelius to Cyprian, on the faction of Novatian with his followers. | 62 | 342

52 | XLIX | Cyprian's reply to Cornelius, on the crimes of Novatus. | 63 | Ibid.

53 | L | Of Maximus and the other confessors to Cyprian, on their return from schism. | 64 | Ibid.

54 | LI | Of Cyprian to the confessors, a letter of congratulation on their return from schism. | 65 | Ibid.

55 | LII | To Antonianus, on Cornelius and Novatian. | 66 | 345

56 | LIII | To Fortunatus and other colleagues, on those who are overcome by tortures. | 76 | 346

57 | LIV | To Cornelius, on granting peace to the lapsed. | 77 | 348

59 | LV | To Cornelius, on Fortunatus and Felicissimus, or against the heretics. | 79 | Ibid.

58 | LVI | To the people of Thibaris, on exhortation to martyrdom. | 90 | 349

60 | LVII | To Cornelius in exile, on his confession. | 94 | 358

61 | LVIII | To Lucius, Pope of Rome, returned from exile | 96 | Ibid.

64 | LIX | To Fidus, on the baptizing of infants. | 97 | 359

62 | LX | To the Numidian bishops, on the ransoming of the brethren from captivity among the Barbarians. | 99 | Ibid.

2 | LXI | To Euchratius, on an actor. | 101 | 362

4 | LXII | To Pomponius, on virgins. | 102 | 364

63 | LXIII | To Caecilius, on the sacrament of the Lord's cup. | 104 | 372

65 | LXIV | To Epictetus and the people of Assuras, on Fortunatianus, formerly their bishop. | 110 | 389

3 | LXV | To Rogatianus, on the deacon who strove against his bishop. | 112 | 393

1 | LXVI | To the clergy and people abiding at Furni, on Victor, who named Faustinus the presbyter as guardian. | 114 | 397