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

PREFACE,

IN WHICH, AFTER THE EDITIONS OF THE WORKS OF SAINT CYPRIAN HAVE BEEN ENUMERATED, THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY MARTYR IS DISCUSSED AT LENGTH.

BY DOM PRUDENTIUS MARAN, O.S.B.

To one approaching this preface it seems necessary neither to recount the praises of St Cyprian nor to commend the labour of Baluze. The unanimous agreement of all in admiring Cyprian has no need of courting favour: the editor is supported by the fame of his learning and by his very great industry in editing and emending ancient writers. Many monuments of Baluze's labours do indeed survive, and he yields to scarcely anyone who has more amply enriched the republic of letters; but, besides the fact that he came to this last work practised by long experience, he seems never at any other time to have spared less effort and labour in gathering ancient codices from every quarter and turning their pages. Ordered to leave this city in the year 1710, he did not abandon the plan of editing Cyprian, nor did he break off the labour, which, however, on his return towards the end of the year 1713, he took up again with fresh effort, and at length began to commit to type in the year 1717. The press had already completed the genuine works of Cyprian and the greatest part of Baluze's annotations when life failed him while he was usefully at work, on the 28th day of the month of July, in the 88th year of his age, of Christ 1718. When Baluze had died, not without the regret of all men of letters, the work of this new edition hung long interrupted; but in the year 1724 the very reverend father Dom Denis de Sainte-Marthe, superior general of the Congregation of Saint-Maur, at the request of the prefect of the royal press together with many others, entrusted the matter to one of his own men, who willingly took up the burden and, helped by another, endeavoured to finish weaving the web which that most learned man had left not yet completed, both by editing and emending what Baluze had left untouched, and also, as has been done very profitably in the case of many other Fathers, by discoursing more fully on the deeds of Cyprian and on his doctrine. That the promises may be fulfilled, several opinions of the holy Martyr are to be examined with fair weights in this preface, which the Life of Cyprian will immediately follow: but first, it seems, the various editions of his works must be reviewed.

The various editions of the works of Cyprian, which were produced in the very cradle of printing and afterwards repeated in many places, show how great was the zeal for reading this writer. Three very ancient ones are recorded: the Roman, in the year 1471, by Conrad Sweynheym and Arnold Pannartz; the Venetian, in the year 1471, by Vindelinus of Speyer; then the one called the innominata, because neither the name of the city nor that of the printer is written on it. The Oxford editor testifies that he used three editions: 'I had at hand,' he says, 'the most ancient editions, the Speyer one of the year 1471; the innominata, to which neither place nor date is attached; and also that of Rembolt of the year 1512.' And yet that edition which is commonly called the Speyer edition [was] printed not at Speyer but at Venice, as several of the learned have already observed; and the error of those who attribute it to Speyer arose from the name of Vindelinus of Speyer, by whom it was completed in the year 1471. For John of Speyer died at Venice in the year 1470, and his brother Vindelinus succeeded to his office and labours in the same city, to whom accordingly this edition is owed. This is clear from these verses, which are read at the end of the edition of the books On the City of God produced by the same Vindelinus:

John of Speyer, who taught the Venetians that in about three months a hundred volumes of Pliny could be reproduced, and as many little books of great Cicero, had begun Aurelius; but, carried off by sudden death, he could not finish at Venice the labour he had begun. Vindelinus is at hand, his brother, and no less in art; and he will stay in the Adriatic city.

M.CCCC.LXX.

In the light of these, what the learned author of the Annales Typographici, volume I, says after several others seems highly doubtful: that Vindelinus went away to Germany and in the year 1571 published the works of Bartholdus there. The same writer lists books published by Vindelinus at Venice in the years 1572 and 1577.

At Paris, in the year 1512, there appeared another edition of the works of Cyprian, from the press of Berthold Rembolt and Jean Waterloes. In this edition were added the Cardinal Works of Christ, the Exposition of the Apostles' Creed and the Passion of St Cyprian; the book or letter On Dice-Players, and certain others which had been sent to Robert Fortunatus, being

the others being put off to another time. For Robert Fortunatus undertook the charge of revising the works of Cyprian; or rather, as he himself testifies in the dedicatory letter to Ruricius of Blois, a man of senatorial rank, while he was occupied either with readings or with household affairs, William Potetus "re-read the remarkable work, cleansed it of faults, and furnished it in the margin, very handsomely and with much labour, with certain annotations not to be neglected, and with citations, or, as they say, quotations, of passages of the Bible and of other writers": after the dedicatory letter another is placed by the same Fortunatus, which treats of the usefulness of Cyprian's books and of his eloquence, with this inscription: C. DE P. TO JACOBUS GRASOLARIUS, CITIZEN OF VENICE, GREETING. For the rest, this edition is fairly accurate, and in many places which had been wrongly altered in the following editions it agrees with the manuscript codices. Erasmus says that he used "the help of three editions: the Roman, than which," he says, "I have seen nothing more corrupt, and yet even it was of use here and there; a certain other, whose title has fallen away; and the Badian." That edition which Erasmus attributes to the most celebrated Badius seems to be the same as Rembolt's; for Erasmus observes that the book On the cardinal works of Christ "is held separate from the rest of the volume in the Badian edition": which can be seen in Rembolt's edition, to which, when it was already complete, this work was added separately. The other edition, whose title had fallen away, was perhaps the same as the unnamed one. As regards the Roman, Friedrich Rheinart testifies that he used "both those editions of the works of Cyprian, most kindly lent from the library of the renowned republic of Nuremberg, made public as long ago as the year M. CCCC. LXXI, when printing was scarcely grown up: the Roman, beyond doubt different from that which Henr. Gravius in the Cologne edition of the year 1544 writes that he used, besides a certain Badian one and another, but than which he had seen nothing more corrupt; and the Speyer one, whose printer, one Vindelinus, is praised." Reinart confuses Gravius with Erasmus; nor will he easily prove to anyone that the Roman edition of the year 1471, which he says he used, is different from that which Erasmus mentions.

Erasmus, who by so many editions of the holy Fathers deserved splendidly of ecclesiastical and literary learning, did not allow his labour to be wanting in the case of Cyprian. Cyprian appeared under his care in the year 1520, at Basel, in folio, from the Froben press, but much richer than in the earlier editions. For Erasmus was the first to bring to light the letters on the baptizing of heretics to Quintus, to Jubaianus and to Pompeius, the third book of the Testimonies, and the opinions of the bishops at the third council of Carthage: to his diligence are owed three treatises, On the Praise of Martyrdom, On Discipline and the Good of Chastity, and To Novatian the heretic, which, although most critics deny them to Cyprian, no one will deny to be very ancient and worthy of Cyprian. To these were joined two prayers falsely ascribed to Cyprian. Erasmus, a man of keen scent, perceived that these works were not Cyprian's; but, what I cannot sufficiently wonder at, another work, whose author mentions Diocletian and the war against the Turks, he ascribes among the most certain offspring of Cyprian; I mean the book On the Twofold Martyrdom, to Fortunatus; by the discovery of which he seemed to himself, if we believe him, to have found a great treasure: "This, found in a very ancient library," he says, "we have added; would that it were granted to search out the other salutary writings of this man too!" But Henricus Gravius declares that Erasmus is the fabricator of this book, and that he foisted a work of his own wit on Cyprian; and Pamelius seems to agree with him in this matter. Certainly up to now neither the library from which Erasmus dug out this book has been known to anyone, nor has the codex which he indicates he used come into anyone's hands. Both matter and words smack of the style of Erasmus; and, what increases the suspicion, certain testimonies of Scripture, as Pamelius observes, are rendered in this book exactly as in other productions of Erasmus. This edition was often reprinted in various places, as at Basel by the same Froben in the year 1525, 1558, in folio (Fabricius adds 1540, in folio), as at Cologne 1525, 1544; as at Lyons 1528, 1537, 1544, 1554, at Paris 1541. But on these matters there is so little agreement among those who have reviewed the ecclesiastical writers, or woven catalogues of books, that no one could settle anything with certainty except one who had seen all these editions with his own eyes, which I confess has not fallen to my lot. Among these editions, however, that one is notable and especially to be remembered which Henricus Gravius, a most learned Dominican, is said to have prepared at Cologne in the year 1544; but Baluze points out in his notes (p. 281) that this edition was not got up by Gravius himself, but by another, who used a certain printed copy containing in the margin partly Gravius's conjectures, partly variant readings from a manuscript codex. Fabricius lists editions of Cyprian's works at Cologne in the year 1520, by Henricus Alopecius; at Venice in the year 1547, at Antwerp in the year 1541: he could have added 1542, by Joannes Grinitus. The same Fabricius counts Thomas James's Cyprianus redivivus, London, 1600; and he may be consulted both on these matters and on those by whom Cyprian has been made known in vernacular tongues, or some of his works published separately.

Whatever of Cyprian's works still lay hidden in libraries, Paulus Manutius and Guillaume Morel gathered so carefully that nothing has been found after them which could be ascribed to Cyprian: by the labour of Paulus Manutius there saw the light the book On the Shows and the Letters, in Pamelius's order, 5, 17, 19, 23, 26, 27, 29, 30, 38, 39, 60, 78, 80, 82, 83. Very ancient codices were employed for this edition, which appeared at Rome from Paulus Manutius in the year 1563. It was dedicated to St Charles Borromeo, who, as Manutius testifies in the same place, had given himself wholly to that care, "that all the writings of Cyprian, formerly disfigured with faults, might be restored to that ancient integrity and appearance by the careful industry of learned men, a copy of wonderful antiquity having also been fetched from Verona." Morel transferred into his own edition whatever Paulus Manutius had dug out of the darkness; and to these he added the letters of Firmilian to Cyprian, of Celerinus to Lucian and Lucian's answer, the letter of Celsus to Vigilius, the books On Dice-players, Against the Jews who persecuted Christ, On the twelve Abuses of the world, the Supper of Cyprian, and the poems ascribed to the holy Martyr. The edition appeared in the year 1564; but before it was finished there died at this labour the most learned

printer, who deserved exceedingly well of ecclesiastical and literary learning. Adrianus Turnebus addressed the dedicatory letter to Charles IX. In it he begs the Most Christian King to help with his beneficence the children and wife of Morel, whom he had left destitute, and to grant something towards paying off and discharging the debt contracted through his zeal to deserve well of the commonwealth, and to order that the annual payments settled on Morel by King Henry, which the unfairness of the times and the straits of the treasury had not allowed him to enjoy, be generously restored and paid in full.

Pamelius did not enlarge Cyprian, but he corrected him in many places with the help of manuscript codices, and illustrated him with a new order of the Letters and the other works, with learned notes, with a life gathered from his own works, and with copious indexes. Before the editions of Manutius and Morel came out, Pamelius had already resolved to undertake this labour; but his theological studies and a journey into France interrupted his plan. But when he saw those two editions, hoping that with the help of them and of other older ones and of manuscript codices he could work out something more accurate and more complete in all its parts, he applied himself to the work with such ardour of mind that everything was ready for the press in the year 1566; but the troubles in Belgium brought delay. At length this edition came out at Antwerp in the year 1568; it was repeated in the same place in the year 1589, at Cologne in 1617, and at Paris in 1574, 1603, 1616, 1644. The Barberini library adds Paris 1607 and 1632, Fabricius Paris 1633, and Cologne 1617, 1632; but these, as I have already said, are not very certain. In the catalogue of the books of the library of Leiden an edition of Cologne 1575 is listed. Pamelius anticipated John Harris, an Englishman, once secretary to Thomas More, who had in mind the same plan of editing the works of Cyprian. He gladly helped Pamelius with various readings from his copy; John Clement, a physician, also an Englishman, likewise gave him his assistance, as did Antonius and Valerius Cauchius, brothers, jurists of Utrecht, who communicated their father's corrections and conjectures. We learn these things from Pamelius in the dedicatory letter, which is addressed to Viglius Zuichemus of Friesland, provost of St Bavo's at Ghent.

Simon Goulart published the works of Cyprian at Geneva in the year 1593, following Pamelius's order and text, but adding of his own long observations, laborious to read, in which he tried to refute Pamelius and to make St Cyprian a Calvinist. At Paris, in the year 1648, there appeared the edition of Rigault, enlarged by the book On Rebaptism, which was followed in the same city, in the year 1666, by the edition of Prieur with the notes of Rigault and others, with the writings of Minucius Felix, Arnobius, Commodian, and also Julius Firmicus's On the Error of Profane Religions joined to Cyprian. A new edition of the letters of Cyprian, the other treatises being left aside, came out in the year 1681; its title runs thus: "The LXXXIII letters of St Caecilius Cyprian, bishop of Carthage and at last martyr, and of certain others written to him or in a like cause, placed in Pamelius's order, divided into sections from Goulart's edition, and with St Augustine's replies to Cyprian's arguments on the baptism of heretics subjoined in their place, with the various readings and conjectures also of Pamelius, Rigault and others, as well as the citations of Gratian in the Decree, of the Lombard in the books of the Sentences, and of Thomas Aquinas in the Summa of theology noted in the margin, and finally with some useful indexes, published separately, by the labour of Friedrich Reinhart, public professor of theology in the university of Altdorf and minister of the church there. At Altdorf, printed at the press and expense of Heinrich Meyer, printer to the university."

Next followed, in the year 1682, the Oxford edition from the Sheldonian Theatre, collated with manuscript codices, illustrated with the notes of Pamelius, of Rigault and of the editor himself as well, and enlarged with several treatises of Arnold, abbot of Bonneval, with the Confession of Cyprian of Antioch, and with an ancient paschal computus. In preparing this edition the industry of two Protestant bishops shone out, John Fell, bishop of Oxford, and John Pearson of Chester; the first of whom took upon himself the main charge of the edition, while the other worked out, with much praise for his learning, the Cyprianic annals which are set before the works of the holy Martyr. This edition was reprinted at Bremen in the year 1690, and at Amsterdam in 1699. So Fabricius; but Casimir Oudin thought otherwise, who records three editions after the first Oxford one.

Neither so many editions of Cyprian's works, nor the honourable judgements of not a few men on the latest Oxford one, deterred Baluze from undertaking a new one. For when he saw that each edition had its own faults, since either faulty manuscript codices are used, or the earlier editions are corrected where there was no need, and left uncorrected where there was need, he did not despair that the holy Martyr's text could be so corrected that at long last it might come forth pure and unsullied. Understanding that he must labour above all at this task, besides the manuscript codices which had served Pamelius, Rigault and the English, he took some thirty others to his aid. I shall give an account of them below, such as could be gathered from Baluze's notes: for when the learned man had inserted the various readings, excerpted from the manuscript codices, into printed copies, these copies were dispersed with the other books of the Baluze library, and I was able to find only very few of them. Baluze also added observations and notes, in which for the most part he gives the reason for the things he had judged must be changed in the text, and at times also, as he abounded in learning, he sharpened his pen in illustrating matters of antiquity. I should act most unfairly if, since his work was printed while he was still living, apart from very few pages, I were to draw to myself any part of the praise due to his labour; indeed, since time has not allowed me to weigh his notes and to compare them with the text of St Cyprian itself, I shall not interpose my own judgement, but shall agree with the public one. Yet I could not conceal that I have often noticed that the text of Cyprian has been very aptly corrected, as was fitting to be done by a most learned man with so great a store of manuscript codices.

As regards the works ascribed to Cyprian, a good part had already been committed to the press when death took Baluze from us

Besides those three treatises, On the Shows, On the Praise of Martyrdom and On Rebaptism, which Baluze joined to the genuine works of Cyprian, the following were finished: the books On the Good of Chastity, On Dice-Players, To Novatian the Heretic, On the Mountains Sina and Sion, two Prayers falsely ascribed to Cyprian, the treatise of Arnold, abbot of Bonneval, On the Last Words of the Lord on the Cross, and the same author's book On the Cardinal Works of Christ, except for two or three sheets. On what remained, the work of emending and editing had to be done. And for my part, had I undertaken a new edition of Cyprian's works, I confess I would have unburdened it of not a little of so heavy a load. But since I understood that I was bringing a deputy's labour to the completion of this edition, I had to proceed more cautiously. So I retained whatever Pamelius's edition contained, since Baluze had so decided. But of the pieces with which the English had loaded Cyprian, I thought it necessary to strike out the treatises of Arnold of Bonneval On the Works of the Six Days and On the Praises of the Blessed Virgin, and his Meditations: both so that the volume should not swell to excessive bulk (for it would have grown by ten sheets), and because other works of the same Arnold exist in our libraries which, with the same right as those three treatises, ought to have been received into this edition. The learned men whom we took into counsel judged that neither should be admitted. The Paschal Computation, which the same English had published, Baluze had resolved to exclude; and when he extracted the works ascribed to Cyprian from the Oxford edition, he had omitted it on purpose. We followed his wish the more willingly because this little book can neither be attributed to Cyprian nor be of much use to anyone, and moreover it runs riot with a forest of variant readings and rather long notes, which could not be fitted to the plan adopted for this edition. I would not, for my part, count among the better monuments of antiquity the Confession of Cyprian, which the Oxford editor published in Latin; but nevertheless, since Baluze judged that it should not be omitted, and since moreover it was held in esteem by Gregory Nazianzen, Eudocia and Photius, I not only did not allow it to be missing from this edition, but I did not hesitate to put, in place of the Latin translation which the English had given, gaping in many places and corrupt in countless others, the Greek text itself, liberally supplied from the library of the most illustrious Count de Seignelay, together with a new translation. Baluze had determined to publish the spurious works as they stand in the Oxford edition: as can be seen from those which, as we have said, were committed to the press while he was still living. But when I saw that some of these monuments were of great value, and that the more often they had been published with Cyprian the more blemishes they had contracted, I called to my aid the old editions and the ancient manuscript codices, as many as could be found in this city, and by their help and support I restored to their original lustre a great many passages that had been badly disfigured, especially in the book On the Singularity of Clerics, the Exposition of the Creed, and the Letter of Celsus to Vigilius. In this too I could not follow in Baluze's footsteps: whereas he had put his notes back after the text, I have placed the variant readings in the margin. But since Baluze at times indulged in rather copious notes, and I was occupied with the emendation of the text alone, it was not open to me to do otherwise. To this labour of emending the text was added another, which, within the modest measure of our ability, we have devoted to explaining the doctrine of St Cyprian and to weighing his deeds by the rule of criticism.

I. — CYPRIAN'S TEACHING ON THE UNITY AND INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH.

The things which we set out to draw from Cyprian's writings in defence of the truth are the harder to evade by quibbling the clearer they are and the better suited to everyone's understanding; and the greater the admiration they won in the third century of the Church, the fitter they seem for persuading those who do not dare to reject the first three centuries of the Church. Cyprian wrote for the learned and the unlearned alike, and his teaching did not only move in the light of Africa, but sailed to Italy and was carried to the most distant churches of the West and the East. Therefore his testimonies concerning the Church, concerning the sacraments (the question of the baptism of heretics excepted), and concerning the divinity of Christ and His grace, ought to be regarded as the testimonies not of one bishop, nor of one church, but of all the Catholics of that age. And just as love of unity shone out above all among Cyprian's virtues, so in his writings nothing is more urgently commended, nothing more carefully defended, than the unity of the Church. From his sayings anyone who has not cast all love of truth out of his mind will easily perceive three things above all: 1st, that the Church which was founded by Christ through the Apostles is conspicuous and visible to all; 2nd, that it can neither perish nor be corrupted by any error or schism; 3rd, that it is one in such a way that whatever sects have departed from it are strangers to eternal salvation as they are to the true Church.

The fictions of an invisible church, which were devised at a far more recent date, were unknown to the holy Martyr; rather, he understands that Church in which tares are seen mingled with the wheat, and earthen vessels with gold and silver ones, until the day of judgement (pp. 65 and 74); which, founded upon Peter by the Lord's word, "is one, and is extended far and wide into a multitude by the increase of its fruitfulness, and, flooded with the light of the Lord, stretches out its rays through the whole world; in which the episcopate is one, a part of which is held by each in full (On the Unity of the Church, p. 195); in which, through the changes of times and successions, the ordination of bishops and the order of the Church run on, so that the Church is established upon the bishops, and every act of the Church is governed by those same overseers (Letter XXVII)." In these and other passages of the kind there lingers no suspicion of an invisible church; for Cyprian would not exhort the lapsed to obey the decrees of an invisible Church, nor the confessors to return to an invisible Church; nor does an invisible church have a succession of bishops, nor does it spread its rays through the whole world.

But lest anyone say that the Church deserved these titles in the first centuries, but that afterwards the face of things was changed, Cyprian meets these calumnies, and contends that that visible Church can be overthrown by no strength of men, overcome by no error, divided by no schism. What he thought of the persecutions of the emperors can be seen from the book On the Lapsed, where he teaches that that dreadful persecution which Decius kindled was permitted by divine counsel, so that zeal for piety, grown cold through a long peace, might be roused up again; so too he observes that the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus broke out at Rome, "so that, for confounding and beating back the heretics, the Lord might show which was the Church..., who they were whom the enemy would attack, who on the other hand those whom the devil would spare as his own (Epist. 58)." Holding thus about the perpetuity of the Church, he was frightened neither by heresies nor by schisms: he knew that these had been foretold by Christ and the Apostles, and that no one ought to wonder when they come about (Epist. 55). And that the Church can be stained by no error, corrupted by no schism, he declares in many places, above all in the book On the Unity of the Church, where he speaks thus (p. 195): "The bride of Christ cannot be made an adulteress; she is uncorrupted and chaste; she knows one home, she guards the sanctity of one chamber with chaste modesty...; the Lord says: I and the Father are one: and again of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit it is written: And these three are one. And does anyone believe that this unity, coming from the divine firmness and cohering through heavenly sacraments, can be torn apart in the Church, and separated by the divorce of clashing wills!" And a little later: "Because the people of Christ cannot be torn apart, His tunic, woven and cohering throughout, was not divided by those who possessed it: undivided, joined, connected, it shows the cohering concord of our people, we who have put on Christ; by the sacrament and sign of the garment He declared the unity of the Church. Who then is so wicked and faithless, who so mad with the fury of discord, as either to believe that the unity of God, the garment of the Lord, the Church of Christ, can be torn apart, or to dare to tear it?" It was therefore clearly seen by the holy Martyr that, although heresies attack the Church, although schisms tear away some parts of her, the Church nevertheless always stands in her own strength, and neither can the truth which Christ entrusted to her be darkened by any heresy, nor her unity be corrupted by schism. Hence between the sects which depart from the Church and the Church herself he puts as great a difference as between the work of men and that of God; and he convicts Novatian of folly, "in that, though there is by Christ one Church divided throughout the whole world into many members, and likewise one episcopate spread abroad in the concordant multitude of many bishops, he, after the tradition of God, after the unity of the Catholic Church, connected and everywhere joined together, attempts to make a human church (Epist. 52)."

What follows necessarily from these principles, that it can never happen that there is a just cause for departing from the Church, is also often taught by Cyprian: for whomever he saw departing from the Church, he said they were condemned by their own sentence, so that there was no need for any other judgement to be instituted concerning them. Thus he says (Epist. 49) that Novatus, "who was to be cast out of the Church and excluded," had anticipated "the judgement of the priests by a voluntary departure," "as if to have escaped the penalty were to have forestalled the sentence"; and in the book On the Unity of the Church, p. 200: "Such a one is to be turned from," he says, "and shunned, whoever has been separated from the Church. Such a one is perverse, and sins, and is condemned by himself (see Epist. 40)." From these things it is easily seen that the Church of Christ is altogether one and undivided, although several sects claim that they are the true Church of Christ. For there cannot be more than one which cannot be overthrown by error and schism, and from which one cannot depart without crime. And all the sayings of Cyprian wonderfully confirm this. The Church, "which both lives for ever and gives life to the people of God (p. 127)," he contends is one in such a way that he declares that, if she was with Novatian, she was not with Cornelius (p. 152). Hence the Church is so often called a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed, as on the same page; the bride of Christ, who alone can bear sons, and who coheres with Christ by undivided bonds (pp. 63, 108, 140, 147, 195). "This unity of the Catholic Church, coming from the condescension of the divine dispensation (p. 128)," Cyprian does not hesitate to compare with the unity of Christ (p. 132), with the unity of God (p. 202), with the unity of the Trinity (p. 196).

And this was the hinge of all the controversies which befell Saint Cyprian. When Felicissimus and five presbyters had drawn away some of the lapsed from Cyprian's communion, and were cloaking their crime with specious pretexts, how great was Cyprian's grief at this ruin of the souls entrusted to him! With what zeal of charity he exhorts them to avoid the wolves who promise salvation, "so that he who has sinned may not come to salvation"; who pledge the Church, while they bring it about that whoever believes them "perishes from the Church altogether (Epp. 38 and 40)." And nothing seemed to Cyprian more apt for deterring those who had been deceived than to show them that they could not communicate in the Church with the bishops and the people of Christ if they followed the leaders of schism. Indeed this doctrine, that the Church is altogether one, and that no just cause for departing from her can arise, was so impressed and engraved even on the minds of the common people that the standard-bearers of the schism led on and coaxed those whom they had deceived with the hope of returning into the Church; but the ordination of Fortunatus, whom they set up as pseudo-bishop of Carthage, laid bare the fraud. "For those," says Cyprian (Ep. 55, p. 87), "before whom delusions were formerly held out and to whom deceitful words were given, that they would be said to return to the Church together, after they saw a pseudo-bishop made there, learned that they had been cheated and deceived, and they come back daily and knock at the Church." The faction of Novatian, as it was more glossy in the skin of piety than that of Felicissimus, so it drew on greater ruin: its painted colour dazzled the eyes even of the confessors themselves; it weighed upon Cyprian and saddened him, to use his own words (Ep. 44), and an intolerable grief of a stricken and almost prostrate heart struck him, because they had separated themselves from the flock of Christ and from His peace and concord; because, as they came forth from prison, schismatic and heretical error had received them (Epist. 51). Not a little did Cyprian's exhortation profit these confessors, that they should repair by a happy return the damage inflicted on unity:

for, "having recognized their error," as Saint Cornelius says (Ep. 46), "they came with a simple will to the Church from which they had gone out." They confessed their error before Cornelius and five other bishops, and the Roman presbytery and the people itself, of whom a great crowd had gathered, and declared that their sincere mind had always been in the Church; for they were not ignorant "that there is one God, and that there is one Christ the Lord, one Holy Spirit, and that there ought to be one bishop in the catholic Church." Yet if any sect could escape the mark of schism and appear to be part of the true Church, the sect of Novatian above all would claim this for itself, as one which, at least in its beginnings, violated neither the dogmas of the Church nor the outward form of religion. But Cyprian contends that it matters little what Novatian teaches, "since he teaches outside. Whoever he is," he says (Ep. 52, p. 73), "and whatever sort he is, he is not a Christian who is not in the Church of Christ." He teaches the same in many other places, especially in the letter to Magnus, where he speaks thus (p. 151): "For our Lord Jesus Christ," he says, "when He testified in His Gospel that those who were not with Him were His adversaries, did not designate any particular kind of heresy, but showed that all whatsoever who were not with Him, and who, not gathering with Him, were scattering His flock, were His adversaries, saying: He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters. Likewise the blessed apostle John himself did not distinguish any heresy or schism, nor did he set down any as specially separated, but he called all who had gone out from the Church, and who acted against the Church, antichrists, etc." Therefore the holy Martyr declares that not even martyrdom outside the Church frees from damnation. "Though they burn in flames," he says in the book On the Unity of the Church, p. 199, "and, handed over to the fires or thrown to the beasts, lay down their lives, that will not be the crown of faith but the punishment of faithlessness, not the glorious end of religious virtue but the death of despair. Such a one can be killed; he cannot be crowned." The same view often occurs elsewhere, as in the same book On Unity, p. 198, and in Ep. 52, p. 71, and in Ep. 57, p. 95.

But if anyone should suspect that Cyprian was carried further than is right by love of unity, he must be reminded that all the other churches agreed with Cyprian on these principles, although they did not draw the same consequences as he did, nor reject the baptism of heretics. For Cyprian refuted his adversaries with this argument, that they admitted that the Holy Spirit can be neither had nor given outside the Church: "Who, although obstinate and unteachable in other respects," he says (Ep. 76, p. 155), "yet confess at least this, that all, whether schismatics or heretics, do not have the Holy Spirit; and that therefore they can indeed baptize, but cannot give the Holy Spirit; on this very point they are held fast by us, so that we show that those who do not have the Holy Spirit cannot baptize at all." Not only does Cyprian himself use the same argument everywhere, but Firmilian also (p. 147). It is clear, therefore, both from the testimony of Cyprian and from the agreement of all the Christians who then existed, that among the various societies which claim for themselves the profession of the Christian religion there is some one outside of which eternal salvation cannot be obtained, whether one errs lightly or whether no error at all is added to schism; much less can it itself come, together with the sects torn away from it, into the composition of one common Church. For if any sects cut off from the Church retain the marks and rights of the true Church, then in vain was the succession of bishops, and the unity of the episcopate throughout the whole world, set against the ancient sects; in vain did the ancient Church contend that she is the only bride, that she can never err, that a lawful cause for departing from her can never arise, and that not even martyrdom profits those who depart from her for salvation. An impious and cruel error, then, must be imputed to the whole ancient Church, or rather to the Apostles, by whom alone that wonderful agreement could have been brought about, which we see all Christians to have reached concerning the marks of the true Church.

Strange are the views that pleased Dodwell when he examined Saint Cyprian's teaching on unity. For he lays down that in these disputations of the holy Martyr "the question is not of the unity of that Church which today we call catholic, which, namely, embraces within its compass all the particular churches throughout the world, but only of the particular churches themselves (Dissert. Cypr., 7)." It is indeed most true, as Dodwell proves, that each bishop in his own church is the principle of unity, and that he must be obeyed by all, but only on this condition, if he is in communion with the other bishops; but otherwise if he departs from the universal Church: for then he would rather be a principle of discord and schism than of unity. And, to dwell on Cyprian, it is easily shown that the unity of the Church is so defended by the holy Martyr in these disputations that the notion of the universal Church is always before his mind. This is seen from the very testimony which Dodwell extracted from the book On the Unity of the Church in defence of his own case: "As there are many rays of the sun but one light," he says, p. 195, "and many branches of a tree but one trunk founded on a tenacious root, and, when many streams flow down from one spring, although the multitude seems spread abroad by the bounty of an overflowing abundance, yet unity is preserved in the source. Tear a ray of the sun from its body: unity does not admit a division of light. Break a branch from a tree: once broken, it will not be able to bud. Cut off a stream from its spring: once cut off, it dries up. So too the Church of the Lord, flooded with light, extends her rays through the whole world. Yet it is one light which is spread everywhere, and the unity of the body is not separated. She extends her branches over the whole earth in the abundance of her fruitfulness, she spreads more widely her streams flowing out generously. Yet there is one head and one source, and one mother rich in the successes of her fruitfulness." In these words, "the Church of the Lord, flooded with light, extends her rays through the whole world, she extends her branches over the whole earth in the abundance of her fruitfulness," it is not the unity of a particular church but of the universal, or catholic, Church that is described. What precedes and what follows confirm the same. Before the words cited, Cyprian spoke thus: "This unity we ought to hold firmly and defend, especially we bishops who

we preside in the Church, so that we may prove the episcopate itself also to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood with a lie, let no one corrupt the truth of the faith by faithless prevarication. The episcopate is one, a part of which is held by each in full. The Church too is one, which is extended ever more widely into a multitude by the increase of her fruitfulness." After the testimony brought forward by Dodwell, Cyprian adds: "From her womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are given life. The bride of Christ cannot be made an adulteress; she is uncorrupted and chaste... Whoever, separated from the Church, is joined to an adulteress is cut off from the promises of the Church; nor will he who abandons the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is an alien, he is profane, he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his father who does not have the Church for his mother. If anyone who was outside the ark of Noah was able to escape, then he too who is outside the Church escapes." A charming interpreter of Cyprian, then, is Dodwell, who invents for himself a particular church where the holy Martyr commends one episcopate throughout the whole world. What, then, when he declares to the lapsed in Letter 40 that if anyone has joined himself to Felicissimus, he "cannot afterwards return to the Church and communicate with the bishops and the people of Christ"; when he exhorts the confessors in Letter 44 to return to the Church; and congratulates them after their return in Letter 51: "That the truth of the Church and the unity of the gospel sacrament, which was held by us," he says, "should be bound fast by" their "consent also and bond"; does he seem to have been discoursing about particular churches, with no account taken of the unity established among all the churches?

Nothing is more adverse to Dodwell than Cyprian's principle of the singleness of the bishop, which he nevertheless thinks strongly favours himself. For Cyprian never defended the unity of the Catholic Church more carefully than when he maintains that there ought to be one bishop in each church. When Novatian had seized the episcopate at Rome, and through his emissaries had attempted the same crime in other cities, Cyprian refutes his partisans with this argument: that since he alone is bishop whose episcopate is confirmed and acknowledged by his other colleagues, if anyone dares to rush into his place, he can have no communion with the bishops of the Catholic Church, and so, left outside, he perishes. "Cornelius was made," he says in Letter 52, page 68, "bishop by the judgement of God and of His Christ, by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people who were then present, and by the college of aged priests and good men, when no one had been made before him, when the place of Fabian, that is, when the place of Peter and the rank of the priestly chair, was vacant; and once this has been occupied by the will of God and confirmed by the consent of all of us, whoever now wishes to be made bishop must necessarily be made so outside, nor can he have ecclesiastical ordination who does not hold the unity of the Church." In the same way he shows that the bishops set up by Novatian in other cities are not bishops of the Church of Christ, but of a human church: "Unless," he says in the same letter, page 73, "he seems to you a bishop who, when a bishop has been made in the Church by sixteen fellow bishops, strives through canvassing to be made an adulterous and alien bishop by deserters; and, though there is one Church, divided by Christ throughout the whole world into many members, and likewise one episcopate spread abroad in the harmonious multitude of many bishops, he, after the tradition of God, after the unity of the Catholic Church that is knit together and everywhere joined, tries to make a human church, and sends his new apostles through very many cities so as to lay certain recent foundations of his own institution; and though bishops have long since been ordained throughout all the provinces and in each city, old in age, sound in faith, proved in tribulation, proscribed in persecution, he dares to create over them other false bishops." Hence he maintains that, even if they had been lawfully ordained, they still could not be acknowledged as lawful bishops, because they had departed from the Catholic Church: "But he could not hold the episcopate," he says, "even if, having been made bishop earlier, he were to break away from the body of his fellow bishops and from the unity of the Church."

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

Although the rights of the episcopate could not be defended more carefully than they are defended by Cyprian, there have nevertheless not been lacking those who seized from some of his words a handle for calumny. For because the holy Martyr sometimes seems to divide the clergy into two orders, namely into priests and ministers, and shares the names of priest and prelate with the presbyters themselves, as in Letters 65, 68, 72 and in the book On the Lapsed, Salmasius and Blondel conclude from this that presbyters are distinguished from bishops not by divine right, not by a different rank of priesthood. If a petty argument of this kind held good, it could with equal right be concluded that not even deacons and the other minor clerics are distinguished from presbyters and bishops by divine right; for the Church is often divided into clergy and people. But if deacons and minor clerics are included with presbyters and bishops in the clergy, what wonder is it if presbyters, who consecrate the Eucharist and have the power of binding and loosing, have the names of priest and prelate in common with bishops? Cyprian indeed always held presbyters in the very highest honour, and since he was accustomed to do nothing without the counsel of the clergy, as he himself testifies in Letter 6, there is no doubt that he attributed great authority to the presbyters, inasmuch as they sat with him. But he claims for himself a rank of priesthood distinct from the presbyters. He complains in Letter 11 that certain of the presbyters, mindful neither of the Gospel nor "reserving to the bishop the honour of his priesthood and chair," had already begun to communicate with the lapsed. There is therefore one rank of priesthood in bishops and another in presbyters, and consequently bishops are distinguished from presbyters not only by authority and chair, but also by order and character. And that this distinction of priesthood was instituted by Christ Himself is seen from several passages of Cyprian: "Our Lord," he says in Letter 27, page 37, "Whose precepts and admonitions we ought to observe, ordering the honour of the bishop and the constitution of His Church, speaks in the Gospel and says to Peter: I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My Church, and

by the judgement of that blessed martyr, those are to be held as desperate and lost to whom the authority of the bishops in Africa seems less than even that of Cornelius himself, sitting in the chair of Peter at Rome."

If there were some laying aside of preconceived opinions, nothing would be easier than to grasp Cyprian's meaning and to reconcile the primacy with an equal fellowship of honour and power. No one is unaware that Cyprian presided over Africa and Numidia and Mauretania: yet the bishops of those provinces had received equal power from Christ; they were certainly what Cyprian was, endowed with an equal fellowship both of honour and of power; but the bishop of Carthage presided over them. Now if Cyprian, while he acknowledges an equal fellowship of honour and power among bishops, did not on that account cast off the authority conferred on him by ecclesiastical law, why should he seem to have stripped Peter and his successors of the authority handed down by Christ Himself? His meaning is clearer than daylight; he shows that unity seemed of such importance to Christ that, although He assigned equal power to the Apostles, He nevertheless wished one to preside over the others: thus the Apostles were what Peter was, but with the primacy excepted. James and John had received power equal to Peter's, but Christ willed that unity should begin neither from James nor from John; on Peter alone He conferred this honour.

From these things too can be illuminated another passage of Cyprian, harped upon by the same adversaries. "The episcopate is one, of which a part is held by each in full," says Cyprian in the same place, in the book On the Unity of the Church. Elsewhere Cyprian often declares that, although "to each shepherd a portion of the flock has been assigned, although the shepherds are many," they nevertheless feed "one flock," and ought "to gather and cherish all the sheep which Christ sought by His blood and passion," "and that therefore" there is "a plentiful body of priests joined by the glue of mutual concord and the bond of unity, so that if anyone from their college should attempt to make a heresy and to tear and lay waste the flock of Christ, the rest may come to help, and as useful and merciful shepherds may gather the Lord's sheep into the flock (pp. 86 and 116)." But that plentiful number of priests, acting in concert in feeding the sheep, not only takes nothing away from the primacy, but even necessarily requires a leader and originator; otherwise there would be the utmost confusion of all things. The bishops ought, out of their zeal for unity, to lend their efforts to one another in matters of greater moment; they ought to join their authority and counsels in condemning heresies; but who would deny that in matters of this kind the chief part ought to belong to him from whom Christ "by His authority arranged the beginning origin of unity"?

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

Since St Cyprian, in the letters which were written on the baptism of heretics, says many things about his adversaries, or reports things said by them, it is of no small importance, for illuminating his testimonies, to set out what St Stephen and Cyprian's other adversaries thought. Very many even among Catholics have accused Stephen of error, and they maintain that he approved the baptism of all heretics, even of those who did not keep the form prescribed by Christ. Indeed Launoy so defends Cyprian as to judge that antiquity favours him rather than his adversaries, declaring that "this matter," to use his words, "is not of faith but of discipline" (vol. 8, p. 656). I shall try to show that Stephen taught nothing other than what was afterwards established by the consent of all, and that this doctrine of his is not contrary to antiquity, but flowed from the very heart of the tradition of the Apostles.

We have lost the letters written by Pope Stephen on the baptism of heretics; but what Cyprian reports from the letter written to him cuts off every handle for accusing the holy pontiff. For thus Stephen spoke in the letter to Cyprian: "If anyone, then, comes to us from any heresy whatever, LET NOTHING BE INNOVATED EXCEPT WHAT HAS BEEN HANDED DOWN, namely that a hand be laid on him for penance; since the heretics themselves, properly speaking, do not baptize those who come over to them from one another, but only admit them to communion." Most absurdly Rigault twists that word "properly" to refer to those "who are properly called heretics for some cause of their own." It is plain that this word refers to what follows, so that the heretics are said properly not to baptize, that is, not to imbue with a baptism of their own those who come over to them from one another; as in that saying of Horace, "it is difficult to express common things in one's own way." Now only two meanings, it seems, can be drawn from Stephen's words. Either he says that the heretics each have a baptism of their own, but nevertheless do not imbue with it those who come over to them from one another: or he lays down this, that the heretics do not claim for themselves a baptism of their own with which to baptize those who come to them, but revere a common baptism both in their own and in other sects. The first interpretation cannot stand; the second is established and clear. 1st: That diversity of the heretics in baptizing would be wholly at odds with their agreement in approving and retaining the baptism of others. For why would each sect have instituted a baptism of its own, differing from the others, unless because the baptism both of the Church and of the sects seemed little fit for salvation? Therefore it would have been consistent for those instituting a new baptism to reject the baptism of others. 2nd: In this passage Stephen proposes the heretics to Cyprian for imitation. For although each thought magnificently of baptism, yet each seemed to the other to think meanly of it. Cyprian judged that the holiness and majesty of Baptism were diminished if a baptism given by heretics were valid; Stephen thought that injury was done to Baptism if it were rejected even in the heretics themselves. Since, then, he proposes the heretics for imitation, he must be praising something in them that serves to commend Baptism. But if the heretics had violated the form prescribed by Christ in baptizing, and yet had not hesitated to approve the dissimilar baptism of others, this would have been the conduct of men who counted Baptism as nothing, as a useless and paltry ceremony. 3rd: In illustration of Stephen's meaning come the testimonies of Firmilian and Cyprian. "Stephen said in his letter," says Firmilian, "that the heretics themselves also agree in Baptism." Cyprian, after reporting Stephen's words, adds this in Ep. 74: "And although the several heresies have their several baptisms and diverse sins, this man, communicating with the Baptism of all, has gathered the heaped-up offences of all into his own bosom."

Cyprian sets against Stephen's principle another principle, and contends that the individual heresies have individual baptisms, because Stephen had laid down that there was one common baptism among the heretics. Yet Cyprian does not therefore count as many baptisms as there are heresies on the ground that the individual heresies had changed the form of Baptism; for no one will suspect that; but because each is, as it were, one body separated from the other sects and from the Church.

Launoius, and after him the author of the Bibliotheca of Ecclesiastical Writers, object that there were very few heretics at that time who baptized in the name of the three Persons; and that therefore all heretics without exception were approved by Stephen, among them the Marcionites, as Firmilian and Cyprian reproach him. But the practices of the ancient heretics were better known to Stephen, Cyprian and Firmilian than to recent writers. Now between Stephen on the one side and Cyprian and Firmilian on the other it was agreed in general, as we have just seen, that the heretics did not have a baptism of their own. Therefore very few can be excepted who perverted the common form of baptizing. Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian can be cited as witnesses of the same opinion; the first of whom (Strom. 1, p. 317) observes that the baptism of heretics is called in the Scriptures foreign water, and yet does not give as the reason that they had corrupted the rule of administering Baptism, but that they are strangers to the Church. Likewise Tertullian (book On Baptism, ch. 15) rejects the baptism of heretics not on the ground that they had changed the rite of administering it prescribed by Christ, but because "they have no fellowship in our discipline, and the very removal of communion attests that they are outsiders." To this is added also the testimony of Augustine, who in book 6 On Baptism, ch. 25, speaks thus: "Who would not know that it is not the Baptism of Christ if the words of the Gospel of which the symbol consists are lacking to it? But heretics who do not baptize at all are more easily found than those who do not baptize with those words."

In vain does Launoius think that Augustine's testimony is to be taken of the heretics contemporary with the holy Doctor, but that a different judgement is to be made about the older ones. For what Augustine observed in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Church can be asserted with better right of the second and third. For there were indeed heresies which, though at the beginnings of the sect they had followed the common rule of baptizing, afterwards changed it, so as to make the return of their members to the Catholic Church more difficult. Basil attests this expressly of the Encratites, canon 1. Yet not even they perverted the form prescribed by Christ, but they seem either to have added or to have removed certain ceremonies. For thus Basil says of them, canon 47: "Let them not say: We were baptized into the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit." Moreover he does not disapprove of their baptism being held valid, if some greater advantage should come of it. And he himself, canon 1, attests that the brothers Zoin and Saturninus were received by him in the chair of the bishops when they returned from this heresy. But if the Encratites had at first followed the common rites, and, when they wished to introduce something new, nevertheless did not dare to violate the form prescribed by Christ, can it be doubted that the Marcionites and others of that kind, who had a close neighbourhood with the Encratites, retained the baptism practised in the Catholic Church? Further, that Marcion baptized in the name of the three Persons, Cyprian is an ample witness, who rejects his baptism by this argument, that he does not acknowledge the same Trinity as the Catholics: "Does Marcion hold this Trinity?" he says in the Letter to Jubaianus, p. 131. "Does he assert the same Father Creator as we do? Does he know the same Son, Christ, born of the Virgin Mary?" Cyprian therefore acknowledged that the three Persons were named by the heretics in Baptism, and he was reduced to saying that the heretics did not interpret the Trinity in the same way as the Catholics. In like manner Firmilian rejects the baptism of the Gnostics and the Montanists, because the former did not acknowledge the same Father as the Catholics, and the Montanists not the same Holy Spirit. Tertullian presses Marcion so hard with arguments drawn from baptism that it is easily evident that the common rite of baptizing was not changed by this heretic. For he asks, book 1, ch. 28, how Marcion's god regenerates when he did not generate; how he bestows the Spirit in baptism when he did not first bestow the soul; why he washes a man never defiled in his sight, and plunges into this whole sacrament of salvation flesh that has no share in salvation. Epiphanius relates, p. 250, that "(among the Marcionites) not one baptism but three are granted after sin, that others are baptized on behalf of their dead catechumens, and that the faculty of conferring baptism is entrusted to women"; but he does not accuse Marcion of violating the form of baptism. Stephen is also said to have held the baptism of Valentinus and Apelles valid. But this followed from his principles. For since he held for certain, as Firmilian reproaches him, that Baptism is administered "with the trinity of the names of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit invoked," he was bound to exclude absolutely no one who was established not to depart from this rule of baptizing. And if Marcion himself, who surpassed all in impiety, baptized in the name of the three Persons, I do not see why the same should not be believed of Apelles and Valentinus. Cyprian objects this one thing to heretics of this kind, that they do not confess the same Father as the Catholics, the same Son, the same Holy Spirit and the same Church; and he joins the Patripassians, Anthropians, Valentinians, Apelletians and Ophites to the Marcionites, Letter to Jubaianus, p. 130. Marcus, the most celebrated among the followers of Valentinus, in consecrating the bread and wine pronounced all the words of the invocation, as Irenaeus attests, book 1, ch. 12; the other heretics of the same kind celebrated the Eucharist after the custom of the Church. Hence Irenaeus challenges them, book 4, ch. 18, "either to change their opinion or to abstain from offering the things aforesaid." It is not likely that those who had scruple about departing from the customary form of celebrating the Eucharist did not retain in the rites of Baptism even that which Christ had expressly prescribed. Most of the Gnostics did indeed introduce many impious and absurd things into the ceremonies of Baptism. But, as Augustine observes (book 6 On Baptism, n. 47), "those fixed words of the Gospel without which Baptism cannot be consecrated have so great

these words: Go, teach the nations. From this he contends that the Apostles, when they were baptized after the manner of the Jews, held [the belief] of Christ's immortality, and did not believe in His death and resurrection; whence he concludes thus (p. 360): "Therefore, as regards the disciples themselves, they are found, in the ways we have related, to have had a faith neither whole nor perfect, and, what is much graver, as is written in the Gospel according to John, they were even baptizing others." In this place, then, the question is not about the naming of the three Persons, but the matter is laid down as certain and in no way disputed; nor does Baptism in the name of Jesus mean anything else in this writer, as can be seen from the words just cited, than Baptism of water, Baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Now no long discussion is needed for us to show that the practice defended by Pope Stephen flowed from the springs of apostolic tradition. This custom certainly prevailed, except in those churches which the decrees of synods had turned to another opinion. In the West there is no trace of repeated Baptism except in Africa. In the East Eusebius testifies (Hist. bk. 7, ch. 2) that the ancient custom had prevailed that in receiving heretics only the imposition of hands with prayers was used. The practice of Egypt we see from the testimonies of Dionysius of Alexandria that survive in Eusebius in the same book. Stephen had threatened that he would not hold communion with Cappadocia, Cilicia, Galatia and the neighbouring regions; but there were no complaints at all about Egypt; indeed Dionysius of Alexandria, to the great advantage of the Church, interposed himself to bring about peace in the dispute. And the fact that he judged that Xystus, the Roman pontiff, should be consulted about a man who had long since returned to the Church, but who remembered that he had been initiated by an impious baptism full of blasphemy, not only declares Dionysius' agreement with the Roman Church and a mind averse to repeating Baptism, but is also a proof that by his predecessors Heraclas or Demetrius, who had received this man, returning heretics were not accustomed to be baptized. To this is added the testimony of Basil, who asserts in canon 1 that the baptism of the Montanists was approved by Dionysius of Alexandria. As for the objection drawn from Clement of Alexandria (Strom. 1, p. 317), that the water of heretics is foreign water, this proves that those who receive Baptism in heresy when already adult are not cleansed but defiled; but it does not prove that Baptism seemed void and null to Saint Clement. Harder to explain is Jerome, who in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers testifies that Dionysius of Alexandria held the same view as Cyprian on the baptism of heretics, and wrote several letters on that matter; but on this point Jerome is in head-on conflict with Basil.

Africa itself too can be cited as a witness to that tradition which it most fiercely attacked. For the Africans did not, before the decrees of Agrippinus, repeat baptism given by heretics; and that they admitted this is seen from these words of Firmilian: "This indeed you Africans can say against Stephen, that, having come to know the truth, you abandoned the error of custom." Cyprian himself also, when he says in the Letter to Jubaianus that it is not a new or sudden thing that those who come into the Church from heretics should be baptized, but that it is many years since the bishops had decreed it in council under Agrippinus, confesses not obscurely the novelty of his opinion, and acknowledges Agrippinus as its source and head. Augustine thought that the practice introduced by Agrippinus, after it had dried up shortly afterwards, was revived by Cyprian. But this is entirely in conflict, as Tillemont observed, with these words of Cyprian from the Letter to Jubaianus: "Since from then (that is, from Agrippinus) up to today so many thousands of heretics in our provinces, converted to the Church, have not scorned nor hesitated, but rather have both reasonably and willingly embraced [it], so as to obtain the grace of the life-giving washing and of saving Baptism." But if Cyprian defended a custom already established, Agrippinus certainly introduced a new one, as Augustine observes in so many places in the books On Baptism.

To these testimonies very great weight is added by the agreement of the sects, which did not dare to repeat Baptism received in other sects. Who does not see that the agreement of so many churches and so many sects flowed from no other head and source than from the Apostles, especially in a matter which, though beset with the greatest difficulties, neither openly indicated in the Scriptures nor confirmed by any decree of the Church, was nevertheless so well known to Catholics and heretics that the contrary opinion seemed a grave error? Surely, after the Apostles, so firm a conviction could never have been engraved on minds without the intervention of a decree of the universal Church; rather, hatred of heresy and a most just caution, lest either the Eucharist be given to unbaptized men, or infants baptized in heresy die without true Baptism, would have brought upon very many the necessity of repeating Baptism.

VI. — By what reasons chiefly Saint Cyprian defended himself. — He rejected neither the sacraments administered in the Church by wicked men, nor tradition.

Although the Church received her doctrine on the baptism of heretics from the very mouth of the Apostles, it must nevertheless be admitted that this tradition was not of that kind which daily preaching would impress on the ears of all. No one could ever be ignorant of the Church's teaching on the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit, on the change of the gifts into the body and blood of Christ, and on other matters of this kind, except through the utmost negligence, or attack it except through the utmost wickedness, because the ears of Christians in all churches resounded with these dogmas. But whether the baptism of heretics was to be held valid or not, this could become obscured and fall into disuse over time in many regions, in which the reception of heretics was either not practised at all or very rare. Therefore we ought not to wonder why most eminent men erred in this matter. And the truth could indeed have been easily investigated, if the most ancient churches had been consulted, which had never lacked heretics to combat, or returning into

received into the Church; of this kind above all was the Roman Church, since it is established that all the most ancient heretics betook themselves to this city. But Cyprian bears only the lightest blame for omitting this precaution, since he did not introduce the custom of rebaptizing into his church, but found it established by the authority of his predecessors.

The weight of the reasons which Cyprianus used carries so much lustre that Augustine confesses he is brought to the contrary opinion by the authority of the Church alone: "Nor would we ourselves," he says in book 2 of On Baptism, n. 5, "dare to assert any such thing, were we not strengthened by the most concordant authority of the universal Church; to which he too (Cyprianus) would without doubt have yielded, if already at that time the truth of this question had been sifted out, declared and made firm by a plenary council." Now the argument on which Cyprianus chiefly relied was this: that heresies, since they are cut off from the unity of the Church and consist of dead men, cannot sanctify, nor give remission of sins and the Holy Spirit. "But who can give," he says in Ep. 70, "what he himself does not have? Or how can he perform spiritual acts who has himself lost the Holy Spirit?" And in Ep. 71: "For they receive nothing there where there is nothing." And a little after: "But it is manifest that those who are not in the Church of Christ are counted among the dead, and that another cannot be brought to life by one who does not himself live." From these and other testimonies of the same kind Cyprianus by no means laid down what some of the learned have thought follows from his words, that holiness is necessary in individual ministers for them to administer the sacraments validly. He speaks of the whole society, not of private persons; and just as the sacraments of the Catholic Church, while they are administered by bad men, retain their force and effect through the prayers of the saints and the groans of the dove, so among heretics, where all are dead, he thought that the sacraments were cheated of their effect and were altogether null, since he could not persuade himself that the dove baptizes through heretics and schismatics in heresy and schism as it does through bad ministers in the Catholic Church. That the mind of Cyprianus is to be explained thus is seen from many places: "But how," he says in Ep. 70, "can he cleanse and sanctify the water with whom the Holy Spirit is not? ... Or how can the one baptizing give remission of sins to another, who cannot himself put off his own sins outside the Church?" And in Ep. 73, p. 132: "Can he water from the fountains of the Church who is not within in the Church?" A little after he admits that heretics, "if they are devoted to the Church and established in the Church, can use both its Baptism and its other saving goods." Finally in the same letter (p. 133) he distinguishes in express words the bad who are in the Church from heretics: "Moreover it is one thing, he says, for those who are within in the Church to speak of the name of Christ, another for those who are outside and act against the Church to baptize in the name of Christ. Therefore let those who act as patrons of heretics not bring forward what Paul set down concerning brethren, but let them show whether he thought anything was to be granted to a heretic, or whether he approved their faith and baptism, or whether he laid down that the faithless and blasphemers can receive remission of sins outside the Church." Firmilianus has the same things, p. 149. Hence Augustine observes (book 4 of On Baptism) that Cyprianus distinguishes "between those who are bad outside and those who are bad within;" and shows at length that it in no way follows from this distinction that the Church does not baptize outside through heretics, just as she baptizes within through bad men.

If the arguments drawn by Cyprianus from the Scriptures are not destitute of all colour of probability, yet what he replies to the tradition urged against him by his opponents is wholly unworthy of the light of so great a genius. He calls "human tradition" what, though established by the authority of no council, was observed with the highest consent in all the greatest churches, and had not ceased to be observed even in Africa itself before Agrippinus. And when it was objected to him: "What then will become of those who in time past, coming from heresy to the Church, were admitted without Baptism?" he answers thus in the Letter to Jubaianus: "The Lord is able by His mercy to grant pardon, and not to separate from the gifts of His Church those who, admitted simply to the Church, have fallen asleep in the Church." In this answer you may easily recognize the charity and moderation of mind of Cyprianus; but whereas what was objected to him embraced both adults and infants, he extricates himself as best he can concerning adults, but concerning infants baptized in heresy and dying in the Church without a new Baptism before the use of reason, he does not utter so much as a word.

But although Cyprianus answered the tradition urged against him less than handsomely, he did not on that account make light of the authority of tradition. Nowhere does he express or say what Simon Goulart in his notes on Ep. 74, and many other Protestants, have imputed to him: 1° that all evangelical and apostolic tradition is to be sought in the Gospels, Acts or Epistles; 2° that all those things which cannot be found in these books are to be rejected and despised.

Heaven does not seem to stand farther from earth than the opinion of Cyprianus from fictions of this kind. 1° From his testimonies on the infallibility of the Church which we have reported above, it can be seen whether he admitted no other rule of faith than the text of Scripture separated from tradition; 2° Cyprianus and Firmilianus nowhere complain that Stephen sets up tradition as a rule of faith. They admit that this tradition of not repeating the Baptism of heretics is to be observed, if it took its rise from the Apostles; but they deny that it arose from the Apostles, because the heretics who returned under the Apostles had already been baptized in the Church (Epp. 74 and 75). Firmilianus adds "that those who are at Rome do not observe in all things what was handed down from the beginning, as regarding the celebration of the days of Easter;" from which it is easily understood what Firmilianus thought of unwritten traditions. 3° To the tradition urged by his opponents Cyprianus opposes another, on which there was agreement on both sides: "Nor let anyone say," he says in the Letter to Jubaianus (p. 133), "'what we have received from the Apostles, this we follow,' since the Apostles handed down only one Church and one Baptism, which is established only in that same Church; and we find no one

Apostles, although he had been baptized among heretics, was admitted in that same Baptism and received communion, so that the Apostles would seem to have approved the baptism of heretics." And in Epist. 74, p. 141: "Which is what the priests of God, keeping the divine precepts, ought to do now as well: that if in any point the truth has wavered and faltered, we should return to the Lord's origin and to the evangelical and apostolic tradition, and the rationale of our action should arise from the source whence both order and origin arose. For it has been handed down to us that there is one God and one Christ, and one hope and one faith, and one Church and one Baptism," etc. 4° So far are Cyprian and Firmilian from tearing tradition away from the Scriptures, so wicked do they consider it to depart from the authority of the Church in interpreting the Scriptures, that they contend that the baptism of heretics is void by this argument too: that the heretics interpreted the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and even the very questions, "Do you believe in the remission of sins and eternal life through the holy Church," otherwise than the Church does (pp. 131, 145, 154).

VII. — St Cyprian does not confuse Confirmation with the imposition of hands upon returning heretics. — He counts Confirmation among the sacraments.

No light question must be examined here: whether Cyprian laboured under that error which I see attributed to him by many, namely that he believed that imposition of hands which returning heretics used to receive was the sacrament of Confirmation. The learned men Natalis Alexander (Dissert. on the 2nd century) and the author of the new edition of the Letters of the Supreme Pontiffs do indeed skilfully demonstrate that the imposition of hands upon returning heretics is far removed from the sacrament of Confirmation, and that Pope Stephen did not wish to repeat Confirmation when he maintained that it was enough to lay a hand on returning heretics so that they might receive the Holy Spirit. But the same men think that Cyprian did not properly understand the view of his adversaries, and so fought against them as though they were repeating a Confirmation received in heresy. These testimonies of his own are brought forward against Cyprian: "But if," he says in the Epistle to Jubaianus, p. 131, "someone could be baptized outside and obtain the remission of sins according to a depraved faith, he could obtain the Holy Spirit according to the same faith, and there is no need for a hand to be laid on him when he comes, that he may obtain the Holy Spirit and be sealed. For either faith outside could achieve both, or he who had been outside received neither of them"; and p. 136: "Those who come from heresy to the Church must be baptized, so that those who are prepared for the kingdom of God by divine regeneration through the lawful and only Baptism of the holy Church may be born by both sacraments, since it is written: Unless one is reborn of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"; and in the Epistle to Stephen, p. 128: "For only then can they be fully sanctified and be sons of God, if they are born by both sacraments, since it is written: Unless one is reborn, etc." Nemesianus of Thubunae speaks to the same effect in the council of Carthage: "Wrongly, then," he says, "do some interpret it to their own advantage, so as to say that they receive the Holy Spirit through the imposition of hands and are thus received, since it is manifest that they must be reborn in the Catholic Church by both sacraments."

But these testimonies seem capable of explanation, and they do not persuade me that Cyprian, through inattention, erred in a matter set before his eyes, and in his opinion confused things so distinct by nature and by the usage of the Church. His view, moreover, may be traced by the surest footprints in the Epistle to Quintus (p. 127), where he speaks thus: "And they say that in this they follow ancient custom, since among the ancients there were as yet only the first beginnings of heresy, so that those who were there were men who were withdrawing from the Church and had first been baptized here; whom, however, when they returned to the Church and did penance, it was not necessary to baptize. This we too observe today: that those who are known to have been baptized here and to have passed over from us to the heretics, if afterwards, having recognized their sin and put away their error, they return to the truth and to their mother, it is enough to lay a hand on them for penance; so that, since he had been a sheep, the shepherd may receive this estranged and wandering sheep into his fold." The question is not how rightly Cyprian answers his adversaries, but what he answers. When they maintained that it had been handed down by the Apostles, and always observed in the Church, that a Baptism received in heresy should not be repeated, but that on heretics returning with this Baptism a hand should only be laid for penance, Cyprian answers that heretics were formerly received without Baptism not without reason, because they had previously been baptized in the Church; and he declares that he does the same, so that, if he receives any of the heretics who were baptized in the Church, he only lays a hand on them for penance. In a word, he concedes to his adversaries that this custom of receiving heretics, which they defended with such zeal, was both practised formerly and is practised by himself whenever something similar occurs. But no one would say that Cyprian believed that confirmation was repeated in the earliest days of the Church, or wished to repeat it, whenever a hand was to be laid for penance on heretics baptized in the Church before their heresy. Unjustly, then, is he accused of having confused the imposition of hands upon returning heretics with the sacrament of Confirmation. Cyprian's view is confirmed in the council of Carthage by Crescens of Cirta, who judges that all returning from heresy and schism must be baptized, "except, of course, those who were baptized before in the Catholic Church, provided however that they are reconciled to the Church through the imposition of hands for penance."

But why does Cyprian demand that those who were baptized in heresy, on returning to the Church, "be born by both sacraments"? What else can that twofold sacrament be but Baptism and Confirmation? This difficulty can be solved: for there is nothing contradictory in Cyprian, taking a handle from his adversaries, concluding that the sacrament of Confirmation must be repeated, although he by no means suspected that it was being repeated by his adversaries. St Stephen and those who stood with him, although they held the baptism of heretics valid, nevertheless admitted that the Holy Spirit is not conferred in baptism of this kind;

and that therefore for those returning from heresy another sacrament is necessary, so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, Whom they had not been able to obtain in heresy. Now this sacrament was the laying on of the hand for penance, or the sacrament of Penance, which, on Cyprian's testimony, confers the Holy Spirit on penitents. For among the other reasons by which Cyprian was led to grant peace to penitents, he lists this one: that he judged it necessary to prepare the penitents for enduring persecution and to equip them with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. "But since (the Lord) says," he says, "that in those who have been handed over and placed in the confession of the Name the Spirit of the Father speaks, how can anyone be found prepared or fit for confession who has not first, having received peace, received the Spirit of the Father, Who, strengthening His servants, Himself speaks and confesses in us (Ep. 54)." Therefore Cyprian, when he saw that his adversaries denied that heretics returning had need of Baptism, but only of the laying on of the hand so that they might receive the Holy Spirit, seized on this as a handle for laying down that heretics returning had need of a twofold kind of sacrament, the one for the remission of sins, the other for receiving the Holy Spirit. On this point indeed there was general agreement between Cyprian and his adversaries that some sacrament was necessary for heretics returning, so that they might receive the Holy Spirit; but it was not necessary to designate this sacrament by name. In not dissimilar fashion Vincent of Thibaris, at the council of Carthage, agrees with the adversaries that the laying on of hands is necessary, but interprets it otherwise than they: "We know," he says, "that heretics are worse than heathens... Therefore first through the laying on of the hand in exorcism, secondly through the regeneration of Baptism, they can then come to the promise of Christ." Vincent agrees with the adversaries about the laying on of the hand; but they understood the laying on of the hand for penance, he in exorcism. It is therefore no wonder at all if Cyprian agreed with his adversaries about a sacrament necessary for conferring the Holy Spirit, although each side interprets that sacrament differently.

From these things, moreover, it is seen that Confirmation was always in the Church a sacrament distinct from Baptism. Each is called a sacrament and each obtains different effects: for although the Holy Spirit is received in Baptism, as Cyprian observes in so many places, yet He is attributed especially to Confirmation, which strengthens with new defences and with the gifts of the Holy Spirit those who have already put on Christ in Baptism. Hence the same Cyprian, when it was objected to him "that on those who had been baptized in Samaria, when the Apostles Peter and John arrived, only the hand was laid so that they might receive the Holy Spirit," replies thus in the Letter to Jubaianus: "And therefore," he says (p. 152), "because they had obtained lawful and ecclesiastical Baptism, it was not fitting that they be baptized further, but only what was lacking was done by Peter and John, so that, prayer having been made for them and the hand laid on, the Holy Spirit should be invoked and poured out upon them. This is also done now in the Church, so that those who are baptized in the Church are presented to the prelates of the Church, and through our prayer and the laying on of the hand obtain the Holy Spirit, and are perfected with the Lord's seal." Who would not see from these words that Confirmation is not some little appendage of Baptism, but a true sacrament distinct from Baptism, which can in no way be administered by deacons, and which pertains not only to outward gifts but above all to increasing and more intensely strengthening the grace of Baptism, so that we are said to be reborn by both sacraments? And indeed Cyprian and the other bishops of Africa confirm this wonderfully in the letter to the Numidians: "It is necessary also," they say, "that he who has been baptized be anointed, so that, having received the chrism, that is, the anointing, he may be the anointed of God and have the grace of Christ in himself." What follows I shall try to explain in passing. "Moreover it is the Eucharist," the same bishops say, "from which the baptized are anointed with the oil sanctified on the altar. But he who had neither altar nor church could not sanctify the creature of oil. Hence neither can there be spiritual anointing among heretics, since it is established that oil cannot be sanctified nor the Eucharist be made among them at all." Baluze excellently emended this passage, in place of what was read in the old editions, "oil sanctified on the altar"; or, in Erasmus and Pamelius by a freer conjecture, "the Eucharist, and from which the baptized are anointed, the oil is sanctified on the altar." Further, Cyprian does not say what Rigault and Fell think was said by him by metaphor, that the Eucharist is the oil with which we are anointed, but rather that the Eucharist is that from which the oil with which the baptized are anointed derives its sanctification; that is to say, because the oil was sanctified on the altar amid the very prayers of the sacrifice.

VIII. — The sacrament of Penance is defended from the testimonies of St Cyprian. — How necessary he judged it, how holily he wished it administered, is shown. — Some of his sayings are explained.

This too is easily seen from the testimonies adduced, that Penance was numbered among the sacraments of the Church, since, as we have said, there was general agreement between Cyprian and his adversaries that Penance and Confirmation are sacraments: whence Cyprian declares in express words, as we have just seen, that the Spirit of the Father is given in the sacrament of Penance. As he judged Baptism necessary for catechumens, so Cyprian judged absolution and peace necessary for the lapsed: for when, hiding in his retreat, he saw that he would not return so soon and that summer had already begun, a season troubled by constant and serious illnesses, he considered that provision must be made both for the hearers and for the lapsed, so that neither the former should die without Baptism nor the lapsed without peace. So highly did Cyprian value this remission of offence made through the priests (for so he himself calls it, book On the Lapsed, p. 191), that he thought a great crime had been committed by Marcian of Arles, because through his fault and cruelty many of the brethren had died without peace in the preceding years (Ep. 67). And this reason led the holy Martyr, when persecution was pressing,

of Gallus and Volusianus, he should admit to peace those who had lapsed under Decius and who had not ceased to do penance from the first day of their lapse. For he did not think that a man would be fit for the confession of Christ who had not first, having received peace from the priests, received the Spirit of the Father; and he also feared lest, if anyone, having left everything and fleeing, and being placed in darkness and in solitude, should by chance fall among robbers, or should die in fevers and in sickness, it should be imputed to him that so good a soldier had died without peace and without communion (Ep. 54). From these things it is clear how little care for salvation troubles those who make light of this sacrament and strike it from the roll of the sacraments, a sacrament which, if any of the lapsed had once been deprived of it, would have seemed a great loss, not only to those whose virtue was still weak, but also to those whose perfect charity shone forth in casting away all things for Christ.

The confession of sins is claimed by Cyprian as a part of the sacrament altogether necessary and prescribed by God; he exhorts the lapsed that "each should confess his offence while he who has sinned is still in this world, while his confession can be admitted, while the satisfaction and the remission made through the priests are acceptable before God" (book On the Lapsed, p. 191). In the same book he relates the miracles of divine vengeance lately wrought upon those who had withdrawn hidden sins from the knowledge of the priests; even if a crime has been undertaken in thought alone, he teaches that it must be declared and confessed to the priests. "Finally," he says (p. 190), "how much greater in faith and better in fear are those who, although bound by no deed of sacrifice or of certificate, yet because they have even thought of this, confess this very thing before the priests of God sorrowfully and simply, make the exomologesis of their conscience, lay bare the burden of their soul, and seek a saving remedy even for slight and moderate wounds, knowing that it is written: God is not mocked." I am astonished that the author of the Oxford edition denied that auricular confession follows from this passage. Indeed, he cites Lombert as witness to his opinion: "The most learned Lombert," he says in a note on this place, "rightly gathers from this that secret crimes are to be expiated by confession and penance before God, and that auricular confession, as Pamelius wished, is not to be concluded from it." But in fact Pamelius and Lombert agree remarkably, and Lombert declares in express words that the confession of secret thoughts was made to the priests. Nor indeed can anything else be drawn from the words of Cyprian. For since it is certain that the confession of hidden crimes was not made publicly and in the hearing of all, or at least was not prescribed, it is clearer than daylight that those who confessed evil thoughts before the priests, who made the exomologesis of their conscience, who laid bare the burden of their soul, and sought a remedy for their wounds, laid down their sins in the ears of some priest. Moreover, it cannot be denied that all the circumstances in imposing penance were examined as with a goldsmith's balance; Cyprian expressly testifies to this in Epistle 52. But how could the priests have imposed on each a penance suited to hidden sins, unless the lapsed had given them the opportunity of looking into their conscience? In this it is indeed to be observed that this confession of thoughts is contained not in some extraordinary and unprescribed ardour of piety, but in the necessity of fulfilling a divine precept; "knowing that it is written," says Cyprian, "God is not mocked."

The holier Cyprian was, the more vehemently he took care lest the sacrament which was instituted for the salvation of men should be turned to their ruin. And what roused his zeal in this matter, and gave occasion for handing down an excellent doctrine to posterity, was the wickedness of certain presbyters who, partly to cause trouble for Cyprian, partly to win favour with men by a new kind of fowling, relieved the lapsed of the burden of penance. Against men of this sort the holy Martyr, inflamed with zeal for the truth, inveighs thus in the book On the Lapsed: "They think it is peace," he says (p. 186), "which certain men peddle with deceitful words. That is not peace but war, nor is he joined to the Church who is separated from the Gospel. Why do they call an injury a benefit? Why do they call impiety by the name of piety? Why do they pretend to give communion to those who ought to weep continually and entreat their Lord, cutting off the lamentation of penance? To the lapsed such men are what hail is to the crops, what a stormy star is to the trees, what a pestilential ravaging is to the herds, what a fierce tempest is to ships: they take away the solace of eternal hope, they overturn the tree from the root, with diseased speech they spread a deadly contagion, they dash the ship upon the rocks lest it reach port. This easiness does not grant peace but takes it away, nor does it bestow communion but hinders it for salvation. This is another persecution and another temptation, through which the subtle enemy, still assailing the lapsed, prowls with hidden ravaging, so that lamentation may be stilled, grief be silent, the memory of the offence vanish, the groaning of hearts be suppressed, the weeping of eyes be stopped, and that the Lord, gravely offended, be not entreated with long and full penance, though it is written: Remember whence you have fallen, and do penance." I shall not report more, since anyone may see Cyprian's opinion with his own eyes in those excellent letters which he wrote concerning the cause of the lapsed to the clergy, to the people, to the confessors and even to the lapsed themselves. Nor does a lesser vigour of the Gospel shine forth in the letters of the Roman confessors, and above all in the excellent Letter of the Roman Clergy (number 31 among the Cyprianic ones), which we learn from Cyprian's Epistle 52 was sent throughout the whole world. "Far be it from the Roman Church," they say, "to let go its vigour with so profane an easiness, and to loosen the sinews of severity by overturning the majesty of the faith, so that, while the ruins of our overthrown brethren not only lie fallen but are still falling, over-hasty remedies of communion, which will certainly not profit, should be offered, and new wounds be imprinted through false mercy upon the old wounds of transgression, so that even penance is snatched from the wretched to their greater overthrow. For where can the medicine of indulgence profit, if even the physician himself, cutting off penance, indulges the dangers, if he merely covers the wound and does not allow the necessary remedies of time to draw a scar over it? This is not to cure but, if we wish to speak the truth, to kill." So great was Cyprian's constancy in this matter that nothing could bend him: not the certificates of the martyrs, to which he nevertheless attributed no little weight, not the danger threatening from wicked presbyters, not the seditions stirred up by them, since in some of the province's

Carthaginian [province] in [its] cities an assault had been made by the multitude upon those set over them, and at Carthage certain turbulent men, kindled as if by torches by the letter of the confessors, had begun to blaze up the more and to extort the peace granted to them. The holy Martyr held fast to what he had decreed before, that the matter should be kept intact for the council; and he did not hesitate to bar from his communion anyone who before that time should dare to communicate with the lapsed.

Yet it must not be thought that Cyprian was more severe than was just. Nothing was gentler than he, nothing more inclined to indulgence. He took pains that he should neither seem harsh or hard or inhumane in cherishing the brethren, nor again be lax and easy in rashly opening up communion. To the lapsed who had written to him praying, “that they acknowledged their offence and were doing true penance, and were not hastening rashly or importunately to the peace,” he showed the utmost kindness. “How much I rejoiced with them,” he says (Ep. 27), “the Lord is witness, Who has deigned to show what servants of this kind and such as these deserve of His kindness.” But Cyprian’s gentleness shone forth above all when, as the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus was pressing, he gathered within the Lord’s camp absolutely all the soldiers of Christ who were longing for arms and demanding battle, and with the other bishops resolved that peace should be given to those who had not withdrawn from the Church of the Lord, but had not ceased from the first day of their lapse to do penance and to lament and to beseech the Lord. He himself describes his gentleness thus in Epist. 55: “I wish,” he says, “that all should return into the Church; I wish that all our fellow soldiers should be enclosed within the camp of Christ and the dwellings of God the Father: I remit all things, I overlook many things out of zeal and desire to gather the brotherhood together; even the things that have been committed against God I do not examine with the full judgement of religion; by remitting offences more than I ought, I myself almost offend: I embrace with ready and full love those who return with penance, confessing their sin with humble and simple satisfaction.”

Cyprian’s whole manner both of acting and of arguing testifies that the power of binding and loosing was committed by Christ to the bishops, and shows how much caution and forethought of mind must be applied in this judgement: but, lest some of his sayings be dragged to a worse sense, I shall try to explain them briefly. The holy Martyr says in the book On the Dress of Virgins (p. 173) “that there is no pardon for sinning further after you have begun to know God”; in book 3 of the Testimonies (c. 18, p. 314): “That he who has sinned against God cannot be forgiven in the Church,” and he proves this from these words of 1 Kings [1 Sam.], c. 2: “If a man sin by offending against a man, they will pray to the Lord for him. But if a man sin against God, who will pray for him?” [1 Sam. 2:25]. But he himself sets out his opinion clearly in the book On Exhortation to Martyrdom (p. 264, c. 4), where he cites the same testimony; and he does not prove from it that sins committed against God cannot be forgiven, but only “that God does not easily pardon idolaters.” He therefore takes nothing away from the power of binding and loosing, nothing from the judgement of the priests; but he binds the judges by certain fixed laws, so that they should not easily forgive what is not easily forgiven by God. Hence, when the schismatics were relieving the lapsed of the burden of penance, he refutes them thus in the book On the Lapsed (p. 186): “Let no one deceive himself, let no one mislead himself: the Lord alone can have mercy: pardon for sins which have been committed against Himself He alone can bestow Who bore our sins, Who grieved for us, Whom God delivered up for our sins. Man cannot be greater than God: nor can a servant by his own indulgence remit or forgive what has been committed against the Lord by a graver offence, lest this too be added to the crime of one who has already lapsed, if he does not know that it was foretold: Cursed is the man who has hope in man [Jer. 17:5]. The Lord must be prayed to, the Lord must be appeased by our satisfaction, Who said that He would deny him who denies, Who alone received all judgement from the Father.” Just as in this place Cyprian does not deny that the martyrs can do very much with God, but requires a certain measure and discrimination in the certificates which they used to give; so he attacks only that power which wicked presbyters were arrogating to themselves by fair means and foul. But where the laws prescribed by Christ and the Church are kept, then indeed Cyprian teaches that the judgement of the priest is made valid with God. Hence he exhorts the lapsed in the book On the Lapsed (p. 191) to confess their sins “while satisfaction and remission made through the priests is pleasing with God.” Towards the end of the same book he teaches that God can “mercifully pardon one who repents, works and asks, and credit to his account whatever both the martyrs have asked and the priests have done for such persons.” Relying on this hope, when the lapsed, as a new persecution pressed, displayed very great ardour for the fight, he shortened the time of penance prescribed for them, and held it wrong (Epist. 54, p. 77) “that the Church should be closed to those knocking, when He Who gave the law permitted that things bound on earth should also be bound in heaven, but that those things could be loosed there which were first loosed here in the Church.”

In the same sense must be taken what Firmilian says (p. 144), that councils are held every year, so that the bishops may deliberate among themselves on matters of greater moment, and “that for the lapsed brethren too, and those wounded by the devil after the saving washing, a remedy may be sought through penance; not as though they obtain remission of sins from us,” he says, “but that through us they may be turned to an understanding of their offences, and be compelled to make fuller satisfaction to the Lord.” The holy prelate does not deny the power of forgiving sins, which in this very Letter (p. 148) he claims for the Catholic Church alone; but in the words just cited there seems to be a certain sting aimed at Stephen, whom Firmilian believed to attribute more than was fair both to the ministers and to the observance of the outward rite, as though he held that the effect of the sacraments was not interrupted even by heresy. Since this seemed otherwise to Firmilian, he denies that it has been granted to men to forgive sins at their own discretion. In a not dissimilar opinion Origen in the book On Prayer contends that not all sins are to be forgiven, or expiated by prayer and sacrifice alone, but that some are to be retained, that is, must be subjected to penance; and he refutes those who [claimed] that they condoned idolatries, adulteries

and fornications they boasted that they could remit; as if, through their own prayer for those who had committed these things, a sin unto death were remitted.

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

But, so that judgement may more easily be made about the decrees of Cyprian and his colleagues, the discipline of the African church must be traced back a little further, and we must briefly examine whether, before the age of Cyprian, peace was or was not granted after penance for the gravest crimes, such as idolatry and homicide.

Those who in extreme danger sought the penance that they had despised while healthy were, at least in Africa, rejected in the first centuries, as is clear from Cyprian's Letter 52 (p. 73): « And therefore, dearest brother, he says, we have judged that those who do not do penance, nor bear witness with their whole heart and by open profession of their lamentation to sorrow for their offences, are to be altogether barred from the hope of communion and peace if they begin to beg for it in sickness and in danger, because it is not penitence for the offence but the warning of pressing death that drives them to ask; nor is he worthy to receive comfort in death who did not reflect that he was going to die. » As for those who sought penance in good time, no one doubts that some bishops in Africa before Cyprian decreed that peace was to be denied to adulterers. Cyprian himself attests this expressly in Letter 52 (p. 72): « And indeed among our predecessors, he says, certain of the bishops here in our province thought that peace should not be given to adulterers, and wholly closed the place of penance against adulteries. » This decree seems to have been made within the span that elapsed from Tertullian to Cyprian. For Tertullian, in the book On Modesty, assails the custom of giving peace to adulterers after penance as the common practice of the Catholic Church, and admits that he once held that view himself while he was in the Church: « This too, then, will be a heading against the Psychics, he says in chapter 2, against my own former fellowship of opinion with them as well, so that they may the more cast this up at me as a mark of fickleness. » But as for the opinion of learned men that idolaters and homicides, whose crime is graver than adultery, were included in that severe decree which Cyprian mentions, this conjecture does not seem very probable. For it may have happened that in some places the bishops judged that the excessive licence of adultery should be curbed by heavier penalties, and yet did not determine the same about idolatry and homicide, especially since care had to be taken lest the institutions of the Montanists should seem to be brought into the Church. And given the hatred with which the severity of this heresy burned among all, one might conjecture that the bishops left at least this comfort to penitent adulterers, that they should receive peace at the point of death. But these words of Cyprian, « and wholly closed the place of penance against adulteries, » indicate that not only penance but also the hope of peace was altogether shut off. For why would penance not have been imposed on those to whom peace was to be given after a year, or perhaps even sooner, if they had fallen into danger of death; and who, if they had escaped from the illness, were going to retain the peace once received and to be of the same standing as the other faithful? For those who in these times had received peace under pressure of danger kept this benefit when their health was fully restored, and were not compelled to complete the course of penance, as is clear from Cyprian's Letter 52.

But concerning adulteries and other very grave sins before the heresy of the Montanists, and concerning idolatry and homicide after the Montanists themselves, many great difficulties arise, which have given room to various opinions. Petavius, in his notes on Epiphanius (p. 231), held that in the first centuries those guilty of the gravest crimes were barred from communion and never restored to the Church, whether in health or dying; and that this most severe discipline prevailed under the times of the Apostles and almost to the age of Tertullian, but, having been relaxed a little by the pontiff Zephyrinus as regards adultery, made greater progress towards leniency in the times of Cyprian. Morinus, book 9 On Penance, chapter 20, and Natalis Alexander, dissertation 7 in the History of the Third Century, went to an entirely different opinion, and contend that in those first centuries peace was granted to the lapsed once penance was completed, and was not denied to those dying in the course of penance. What you would wonder at more in this diversity of opinions is that both sides take the notable passage of Tertullian, which is the hinge of the whole controversy, in the same sense. Both sides agree that Tertullian, when he says in the book On Modesty, chapter 5: « Do you condemn the idolater and the homicide once and for all, but take the adulterer out from the midst? » and in chapter 12: « Hence it is that peace is restored by the churches neither to idolatry nor to blood; » teaches expressly that peace was denied by the Catholics to idolatry and homicide. But Petavius does not suspect Tertullian of lying in a matter exposed to the eyes of all; Morinus and Alexander do not hesitate to accuse him of wicked calumny and rank falsehood. I can altogether assent to neither, neither to Petavius ascribing excessive severity to the first centuries, nor to Morinus and Alexander branding Tertullian with the mark of falsehood. Therefore I shall undertake to demonstrate that those three gravest sins, idolatry, homicide and adultery, were not excluded from penance and peace in the ancient Church, and that Tertullian does not ascribe any other doctrine to the Catholics.

The first weight of argument, and that no light one, is supplied by Tertullian himself, whose words are read in the book On Penance, chapter 4: « For all offences, then, he says, whether committed by flesh or by spirit, whether by deed or by will, He Who appointed punishment through judgement has likewise promised pardon through penance. » That idolaters by name are not excluded from this benefit he declares in chapter 7: « And so (the enemy) watches, he says, attacks, besieges, if in any way he can either strike the eyes with carnal concupiscence, or ensnare the mind with worldly allurements, or overturn faith by fear of earthly power, or twist it from the sure way by perverse traditions: he is not short of stumbling-blocks, not short of temptations. God therefore, foreseeing these poisons of his, although the [door] of pardon is closed

the door being shut and barred by the bolt of baptism, has allowed something still to lie open. He has placed in the vestibule a second penitence, to open to those who knock." So Tertullian, while he was still living among the Catholics; having become a Montanist he taught otherwise, but with the Catholics opposing him, whom he brings in speaking thus in the book On Modesty, chapter 2: "But God," they say, "is good and most excellent, and merciful and compassionate and abounding in mercy, which He sets before every sacrifice, not valuing the death of the sinner so highly as his penitence, the Saviour of all and especially of the faithful. And so it will behove the sons of God also to be merciful, forgiving one another as Christ also has forgiven us; not judging, lest we be judged." The same Tertullian divides sins "into two outcomes," and lays down that "some are remissible, others irremissible"; but he admits that the Catholics oppose him in this matter, and acknowledge no sin whatever as irremissible: "but first," he says in chapter 3, "I shall cut off the reply that comes in from the opposite side against that kind of penitence which we are at this very moment defining as lacking pardon. For if, they say, some penitence lacks pardon, then it is not to be performed by you at all; for nothing is to be done in vain; moreover penitence will be performed in vain if it lacks pardon. But every penitence is to be performed: therefore let every one obtain pardon, lest it be performed in vain, since it will not be something to be performed if it is performed in vain. Moreover it will be performed in vain if it lacks pardon." These testimonies of Tertullian, however, must be understood not of Africa alone, but of all the churches which the champion of the Montanists attacks. For this discipline flourished everywhere, and had flourished in the first two centuries, as can be seen from the second book of Hermas, Mandate 4, and above all from what Clement, in Eusebius, book 3, chapter 23, relates of Saint John the Evangelist. Nor should the letter of Dionysius, bishop of the Corinthians, to the Amastrians and the other churches of Pontus be omitted, in which he directed that those returning from any lapse or offence, or even from heretical depravity, should be kindly received, as Eusebius testifies, book 4, chapter 23.

2° What Petavius says is wholly improbable, namely that Zephyrinus, as regards adultery, relaxed something of the severity of the ancient discipline, and that afterwards, in the times of Cyprian, greater advances were made towards leniency. This distribution of periods does not fit; for adultery, which, as we have just seen, in Tertullian's times obtained peace by the consent of all Catholics, was excluded from this benefit in some churches under Cyprian's predecessors. How then is the discipline said to have been mitigated at that time, when it received new additions of severity? 3° If one were permitted to conclude from Tertullian's words what Petavius concluded, it would follow that peace was mercilessly refused in the Catholic Church not only to murderers and idolaters, but also to those who after embracing the faith had defected to heresy, or had given way, overcome amid tortures: for thus Tertullian speaks of heretics, chapter 13: "But the crime of Hymenaeus and Alexander, if it is irremissible both in this age and in the age to come, namely blasphemy, assuredly the Apostle would not, against the limit set by the Lord, have delivered to Satan under hope of pardon men already sunk from faith into blasphemy, whence he also pronounced them shipwrecked concerning the faith, not having the solace of the ship of the Church. For pardon is refused to those who have denied, passing from faith into blasphemy." And in the last chapter, concerning those who are overcome by torments: "Whatever authority," he says, "whatever reason restores ecclesiastical peace to the adulterer and the fornicator, the same will be bound to come to the aid of the murderer also and of idolaters when they are penitent, certainly of the denier, and assuredly of him whom, having wrestled with torments in the battle of confession, cruelty has cast down. Besides, it is unworthy of God and of His mercy, Who prefers the penitence of the sinner to his death, that those who fell through lust should return into the Church more easily than those who fell while fighting. Indignation compels us to say: will you call back defiled bodies rather than bloodied ones? Which penitence is it that pitiably lays the flesh low: the flesh that was tickled, or rather the flesh that was torn?" In these passages Tertullian at first sight seems to argue as though he agreed with the Catholics that penitence ought to be granted neither to those who have fallen from faith into heresy, nor to those who gave way after wrestling with torments; but this severity is so foreign to the customs of the ancient Church that it can be imputed to it by no one. Cyprian, in the Letter to Quintus, avows that on heretics returning who had been baptized in the Church a hand must be laid for penitence, and he does not hesitate to trace the origin of this custom to the very cradle of the Church: but how much humanity was customarily shown in the Church to those whose spirit had not failed but whose body had failed under pain, and who sought pardon not with tears but with blood and wounds, can be seen both from Cyprian's book On the Lapsed, p. 185, and from his Letter 53.

What then shall we decide about Tertullian? He certainly errs entirely in the camp of Montanus and fights against himself, yet he never raves without some light of genius; nor would I believe him to have become so foolish as to offer himself up to the laughter of all men in an open lie. Therefore that saying, "neither to idolatry nor to blood is peace restored by the churches," is to be interpreted not of the Catholic churches but of the churches of the Montanists. Tertullian is accustomed to claim the name of church for the sect of Montanus as by a certain right of its own; as when he calls it the Church of the Spirit, the Church established in three, chapter 21, or when he says in chapter 10: "I would yield to you if the writing of the Shepherd, which alone loves adulterers, had deserved to be included in the divine instrument; if it were not judged among the apocryphal and false writings by every council of the churches, even of yours." He thinks he shows the Catholics much honour if he assigns second place to their churches, after the sect of Montanus. I shall bring forward another example from chapter 7, where he proves that the parables of the sheep and of the drachma do not fit the adulterer or the fornicator, because "as soon as he has come to light, the man is at once driven out of the Church, nor does he remain with her, nor does he bring joy to the Church that found him, but grief, nor does he summon the congratulation of the neighbours, but the sorrow of the nearest brotherhoods." Beware of thinking that the custom of the Church is described here, although Tertullian speaks in general terms; for these things do not breathe the charity of the Church, but the inhumanity of the Montanists, who kept the twice-married standing outside, and "the same boundary of the threshold to adulterers also and fornicators

our predecessors often did, he says (p. 69), our dearest brother (Cornelius) yielded to necessity in gathering our brethren together."

Albaspinaeus, and after him Gotofredus (book 16 of the Theodosian Code, p. 210), infer from these words of Letter 52 that the former severity was at times retained by Cyprian: "But apostates and deserters, or adversaries and enemies and those who scatter the Church of Christ, cannot, even if they have been slain outside for the Name, be admitted according to the Apostle to the peace of the Church, since they have held neither the Spirit nor the unity of the Church."

To explain this testimony of Cyprian, it must be observed, 1° that those called apostates and deserters are not, as Albaspinaeus and Gotofredus suppose, those who from being Jews became heathens or Christians, but those who gave their names to the schism of Felicissimus. 2° We must recall what we said above, that peace was denied in the crisis of death to those who, while in health, had despised penance, namely because it seemed with good reason doubtful whether they were coming to their senses with a sincere disposition of mind. And what had been laid down concerning men of this kind it was fitting to observe in the case of many others, whose wickedness seemed either incurable or dangerous to the rest of the sheep. Hence, when many, having seen through the villainy of Felicissimus, were coming back and knocking at the Church, Cyprian anxiously weighed and carefully examined "who ought to be received and admitted to the Church. For in the case of some," he says in Letter 55, p. 87, "either their crimes stand in the way, or the brethren resist so obstinately and firmly, that they cannot be received at all except with the scandal and peril of very many." To these Cyprian's threats in Letter 38 seem to refer, where he speaks thus: "But whoever also joins himself to his conspiracy and faction, let him know that he will not communicate with us in the Church, since he has of his own accord preferred to be separated from the Church." And in Letter 40: "But if anyone, refusing to do penance and make satisfaction to God, goes over to the party of Felicissimus and his satellites, and joins himself to the heretical faction, let him know that he cannot afterwards return to the Church and communicate with the bishops and the people of Christ." These threats Cyprian did not altogether put into effect. For he himself testifies in Letter 55 that many returning from the schism were received by him, and that the people were wont to rejoice and be glad when "tolerable and less culpable" persons returned. Moreover, he sometimes persuaded the people, nay wrung from them, that some of those who were incorrigible and insolent should be received; and one or two, received through Cyprian's indulgence though the people resisted and spoke against it, turned out worse than they had been before. With a not dissimilar judgement Cyprian, together with many other bishops, decrees thus concerning virgins who had been caught in the same bed with men: "But if they obstinately persevere and do not separate from one another, let them know that with this shameless obstinacy of theirs they can never be admitted by us into the Church, lest by their sins they begin to set an example to the rest unto ruin." Rightly, to obstinate sinners of this kind, just as to stubborn schismatics, not only pardon but even entry into the church was denied. But if they had returned with the due signs of a converted heart, and had long and often knocked at the doors of the Church, there is no doubt that Cyprian would have received them into his fatherly bosom and admitted them to penance. Therefore, since Felicissimus and his chief followers were men ready for every crime, Cyprian would not have departed from the rules of the Church had he shut off from them all return into the Church; nor should this be regarded as some trace of a discipline observed before Cyprian against all those guilty of graver crimes. 3° The passage of Cyprian objected by Albaspinaeus does not say that apostates and deserters cannot be admitted to the peace of the Church even if, having left the schism, they shed their blood for Christ, but only that martyrdom outside the Church can profit them nothing towards peace, because "they have held neither the Spirit nor the unity of the Church"; which Cyprian often inculcates elsewhere. He sets deserters of this kind over against the other lapsed who are doing penance in the Church, and whom the Lord will find within when He appears to judge the world.

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

Having proved that Cyprian did nothing new when he granted peace to the penitent lapsed, it follows that we inquire whether he denied communion to the same persons when dangerously ill before their penance was completed, unless they had received certificates from the martyrs. Petavius contends that Cyprian granted peace only to those who had received certificates from the martyrs, but did not grant it to the rest even in the present crisis of death; otherwise there would have been no difference between these and the former, who nevertheless ought to have enjoyed some better condition. But the very words of the holy Martyr must be brought forward: "Since, however, I see," he says in Letter 12, "that there is not yet opportunity of coming to you, and summer has already begun, a season beset by constant and grave sicknesses, I think we must come to the aid of our brethren; so that those who have received certificates from the martyrs, and can be helped by their privilege before God, if they are seized by any affliction and danger of sickness, may, without waiting for our presence, make confession of their sin before any presbyter who is present, or, if a presbyter is not found and death begins to press, before a deacon also, so that, hands having been laid on them unto penance, they may come to the Lord with the peace which the martyrs, in letters written to us, desired to be given."

Wrongly does Petavius infer from this testimony that peace was denied to those who did not have certificates. For, 1° who would suppose Cyprian to have been so forgetful of equity that he should provide so kindly for those who were evading penance and striving "to extort peace by bold demanding and violent assault", "in order meanwhile to soften their violence in whatever way" (Letter 15); but should allow fervent penitents, who had preferred to commit themselves to the judgement of their bishop rather than to decline penance, to die without peace and communion? 2° The clergy

the Roman [clergy] had advised the Carthaginian [clergy], in Cyprian's absence, "that those who after their lapse had been seized by illness and, being penitent, desired communion should be given help (Epist. 3 and 15)." And this counsel Cyprian not only did not disapprove, but in Epist. 15 he even declares that he had thought it right "to stand" "with" their "judgement, lest our action," he says, "which ought to be united and in agreement in all things, should differ in any respect." But how enormously would the conduct of Cyprian have differed from that of the Romans, if, when they had advised that peace was to be given to all who were truly penitent, Cyprian had used indulgence and humanity towards those alone who had added to their sin a flight from penance and the disturbance of the Church? 3° Cyprian indicates not obscurely in Epist. 13 that to those whom not certificates but the works of penance supported, peace was to be given with a far stronger right when they were dangerously ill. "The rest of the people too, which has lapsed," he says, "cherish by your presence, and refresh them with your consolation, that they may not fall away from faith and from the mercy of the Lord. For those who are meek and humble and, truly doing penance, have persevered in good works will not be deserted by the help and aid of the Lord, so as not to be provided for also by the divine remedy." He wishes them therefore to be persuaded that for such penitents it will come about that "they too are provided for by the divine remedy"; and this he grants them as a consolation consistent with the laws of the Church, and one which required no new decrees. For he was not writing Epistle 13 deliberately in order to provide for such lapsed persons, for whom both the custom of the Church and the admonitions of the Roman clergy had sufficiently provided, but in order to suppress the tumult of those who were inflaming the Carthaginian church with their complaints. And this I judge to be the reason why Cyprian, in Epist. 14, confirming what he had decreed in the thirteenth, says nothing expressly about the peace to be granted to true penitents in extreme danger. For after he has spoken of those who had received certificates from the martyrs, he adds this: "But the rest, who, having received no certificate from the martyrs, are stirring up ill will, since this cause belongs not to a few, nor to one church or one province, but to the whole world, let them wait, through the protection of the Lord, for the public peace of the Church itself." Cyprian assuredly does not here ordain that peace be denied at death to true penitents (for he does not undo what he had established in the preceding letter, but rather confirms it, when he says that he "had written fully on this matter in his last letter"), but he checks the haste of some who were seeking communion before peace had been restored to the Church, before they were assailed by grave illness; these he orders to wait until peace is restored to the Church. But he does not deny peace at death; nor does he reproach them because they were unwilling to be kept from communion at death, but because they sought it before the return of the exiles, and wished "to anticipate the confessors themselves."

But Petavius objects that those who had received certificates must have enjoyed a better condition than those who had not; and that if peace was granted to all, there was no difference at all between the two. Tillemont thinks that Cyprian, by a certain ingenious charity, so acted that, while he seemed to grant something special in honour of the martyrs, he nevertheless granted nothing special; and while he promised peace only to those who held certificates, he excluded absolutely no one from this indulgence, since the martyrs were so lavish with certificates that their liberality lay open to all. But if he had used the accommodation which Tillemont thinks he used, and had tacitly encouraged all the lapsed to fortify themselves with the protection of certificates, would he a little later have burned with such indignation against Lucianus, who dared to grant to all the lapsed what he himself had already granted to very many before? Then too Cyprian would most unjustly have exposed true penitents to the danger of dying cheated of peace; for it was not likely that those who had hitherto been so timid and modest would thenceforth become bolder in seeking certificates; or that the confessors themselves would not be more cautious in granting them after Cyprian had rebuked their excessive readiness.

Morinus interprets Cyprian thus: since the law was that the dying who had not done penance while in health should not obtain peace, the learned writer thinks that Cyprian decrees that in the case of those who had received certificates from the martyrs the severity of the law is not to be kept, and that peace is to be granted them in honour of the martyrs, which, lacking this protection, they would have sought in vain. But this interpretation agrees neither with the words nor with the mind of Cyprian. 1° Cyprian expressly requires that those who have received certificates from the martyrs be able "to be helped before the Lord in their offences by their prerogative and aid." Moreover, in these letters and in the book On the Lapsed he firmly holds and carefully defends this: that the commendation of the martyrs does not profit the lapsed if they refuse to do penance; wherefore, if the lapsed, after so many admonitions of Cyprian and the presbyters, had persevered in an obstinate resolve not to do penance, would they have seemed to Cyprian fit to be helped before the Lord by the aid of the martyrs? Then too, if he decreed peace for all holding certificates, whether they had done penance or not, what need was there to make a selection, and to require, by way of condition, that they be able to be helped by the aid of the martyrs? Cyprian therefore does not exempt the lapsed from the burden of penance, but rather exhorts them gently and mildly to penance, while he offers peace to the dying, provided that they can be helped by the merits of the martyrs. Hence in Epist. 14 he praises the presbyters and deacons for having exhorted the lapsed to penance and patience, and declares that penance is done by him who, meek and patient towards the divine precepts and obedient to the priests of God, wins the favour of the Lord by his submission and just works. And he seems to concede this to the merits of the martyrs: that for the lapsed not yet expiated by such penance as of itself would obtain peace in the crisis of death, the commendation of the martyrs should lend support. Nor ought this indulgence to seem slight, if the severity of those times is considered. For although peace used to be given to penitents dangerously ill, yet this was not granted without selection and judgement. Hence the Roman clergy, having deliberated on the matter with several bishops, judged that "of those whose departure, pressing upon the end of their life, cannot bear delay, penance having been done and confessed

by frequent detestation of their deeds, if by tears, if by groans, if by weeping they have shown the signs of a sorrowing and truly penitent mind, when no hope of living according to man remains, then at last that help be given cautiously and carefully," etc. (Letter 31). Cyprian himself, in Letter 13, promises peace only to those "who, gentle and humble and truly doing penance, have persevered in good works." From these things it can be seen how far Cyprian carries his gentleness and indulgence. For those whom he wished to have provided for in Letters 13 and 14 had either done penance sluggishly, or had even added to their most grievous offence this further one, that they shunned penance and threw the Church into confusion with dissensions and complaints: by which deeds they had deserved that peace be denied them when dying, even if they had begun penance a little before their illness. Therefore to the former the holy Martyr grants that whatever was lacking in their penance for obtaining peace should be made up by the merits of the martyrs. For the latter he likewise provides, and, in order to quell the tumult, he uses indulgence towards them; and provided only that they lay aside their mind averse to the remedies of penance, he orders that what of itself would seem defective and only begun, being compensated by the merits of the martyrs, be held valid by the presbyters.

XII. — Whether the Council of Carthage imposed on the sacrificers a penance for the whole time of their life.

Now another question follows to be examined: whether, at least in Cyprian's age, a penance for the whole time of life was imposed for graver sins, and communion deferred to the very moment of death. The matter can be judged from the custom which then prevailed, that those who had received peace in a grave illness did not, once their health was restored, complete the remaining time of penance, but were of the same standing as the other faithful. This is seen from these words of Cyprian in Letter 52 (p. 69): "For if any," he says, "are seized by infirmities, help is given to them, as has been decided. But after help has been given and peace granted to those in danger, they cannot be suffocated or smothered by us, or driven by our force and hand to the end of death, so that, because peace is given to the dying, those who have received peace must needs die; since rather in this there appears a sign of divine kindness and fatherly gentleness, that those who receive the pledge of life in the peace given are also held to life by the peace given. And therefore if, after peace has been received, a respite is granted by God, no one ought to charge this against the priests, since it has once been decided by the brethren that help be given at the point of death." Such great gentleness does not square with a penance imposed for the whole time of life; otherwise it would often have happened in practice that, for those who had received communion in a grave illness after one or two years of penance, the course of penance would already have been completed upon their recovering from the illness, while meanwhile for others in the same case, and perhaps even in a lighter fault, thirty or forty years would remain to be run. Too great indeed was the bishops' attention in judging, and their consideration and foresight in all things, for them not to avoid so grave an inconvenience. But nevertheless we must see what the Council of Carthage decreed on this matter, at which the case of the lapsed was judged shortly after Cyprian's return.

The holy Martyr sets out the decree of this council thus in Letter 52 (p. 71): "And therefore," he says, "it was decided, the cases of individuals having been examined, that the libellatici be admitted meanwhile, and that help be given to the sacrificers at the point of death." The learned were not of one opinion about this canon. The author of the Critical Observations on the Library of Ecclesiastical Writers denies that the libellatici were admitted to peace forthwith in the council itself; and he places this difference between them and the sacrificers, that the latter were bound to penance for the whole time of life, while the former were admitted "meanwhile", that is, after a fixed time of penance had been completed. The author of the Library himself holds the same concerning the sacrificers, although he thinks that peace was granted to the libellatici in the council itself. Tillemont agrees with him concerning the libellatici and attacks his critic, but refutes with many arguments what both had laid down as certain, that for those who had sacrificed no other limits of penance were prescribed than those of life. This opinion of Tillemont seems on many counts preferable. But this must be observed first of all, that those two questions, concerning the libellatici and concerning the sacrificers, are so linked together that what is said of either ought to be regarded as said of both. For if the libellatici were at once, in the council itself, most humanely restored to communion, it is not probable that the sacrificers were thrust back to the last crisis of life. Again, if by these words, "it was decided that help be given to the sacrificers at the point of death," it is not forbidden that peace be given before death, but rather decreed that it be granted to those dangerously ill within the prescribed time, it will be clear that on the libellatici, whose fault was much lighter, not a penance was imposed in the council, but communion granted; otherwise it would have been decreed that help be given to these too at the point of death.

As regards the libellatici, it is clear that the sense of these words, "it was decided that the libellatici be admitted meanwhile," is this: that the libellatici were admitted to peace meanwhile, while the sacrificers were doing penance; that is, that by the same decree both peace was decreed for the libellatici and penance for the sacrificers. Hence Cyprian in Letter 54 says that it was decreed in this council concerning those who had sacrificed that they should do full penance for a long time: but he by no means includes the libellatici in the same decree. When in the following year, as persecution was impending, he had decided to grant communion to those who had done penance from the first day of their lapse, this indulgence concerned only those who had sacrificed and on whom full penance had been imposed. But of the libellatici there is no mention, who nevertheless above all ought to have been made sharers in the indulgence, if they had not obtained it earlier in the council. Moreover, we see from Letter 52 that Cyprian communicated with the libellatici after the council. For what Cyprian says, that he "had indeed earlier communicated with none of the lapsed" as long as the persecution raged, "but afterwards had yielded to the necessity of the times," cannot be referred to the sacrificers (for penance had been imposed on them), but only to the libellatici.

And when this communion was turned into a reproach by Novatian, Cyprian refutes him thus in the same letter: « Or if, he says, he has set himself up as searcher and judge of heart and reins, let him judge equally in all things, and, since he knows that it is written: Behold, you have been made well; sin no more, lest something worse befall you, let him separate defrauders and adulterers from his side and his company, since the case of an adulterer is far both graver and worse than that of a Libellaticus, since the latter sinned through necessity, the former by his will. » Novatian therefore was assailing the catholic bishops because they held communion with the Libellatici. Yet peace was not granted in the council to all the Libellatici, but only to those who had done penance. For this reason the author of the Observations on the Bibliotheca proves at length, and to no purpose, what is denied by no one, that the crime of the certificate was not remitted without penance.

The other part of the decree is easily explained. And 1° that phrase, « that the sacrificed be succoured at their departure, » indicates not that penance was to be prolonged to the last breath, but that it was to be ended in grave illness; and it was decreed not by way of punishment but by way of benefit, since Cyprian in Letter 52 removes from this decree the suspicion of excessive remission, and gives the reason why the bishops descended to this leniency and indulgence. 2° He reports the same decree in Letter 54, but somewhat more clearly: « We had long ago determined, he says, dearest brother, having shared counsel with one another, that those who in the assault of persecution had been tripped up by the adversary and had lapsed, and had defiled themselves with unlawful sacrifices, should do full penance for a long time, and, if the danger of illness pressed, should receive peace at the stroke of death. » The whole matter therefore turns on this, that it be weighed what full penance is, whether it embraced the whole time of life or was bounded by some fixed span. But this is easily seen from Letter 59, where Cyprian complains that Therapius had granted peace to Victor, formerly a presbyter, « before he had done full penance, before the lawful and full time of satisfaction, without the request and knowledge of the people, with no illness or necessity compelling. » There was therefore some predetermined time of penance, the power of shortening which lay with the bishop, provided some grave cause had arisen. The same notion of full penance is furnished by Letter 62, in which Cyprian and other bishops with him decree concerning virgins who had been caught in the same bed with men that, « if they have done penance for this unlawful lying together of theirs and have separated from one another, the virgins meanwhile be carefully examined by midwives, and, if they are found to be virgins, having received communion, they be admitted to the Church....; but if any of them is found to have been corrupted, let her do full penance, because she who has committed this crime is an adulteress not of a husband but of Christ; and so, a just time having been assessed, afterwards, confession having been made, let her return to the Church. » A short penance therefore is imposed on virgins found intact, but on the corrupted a full one « and with a just time assessed: » and just as in the council of Carthage it was enacted that the lapsed be admitted meanwhile, while the sacrificed should do full penance, so also in this place the bishops decree that the virgins be examined meanwhile, and that, those found intact having been admitted into the Church, the corrupted should do full penance. 3° If the sacrificed had been bound to penance for the whole time of life, there would have been no need « that the causes and wills and necessities of each be examined; » but, as Tillemont observes, there would have been no distinction at all, no selection whatever.

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

The doctrine of the Church on the body and blood of the Lord is contained in plain testimonies of Cyprian. Whatever the holy Martyr proclaims about the Eucharist tends to confirm that notion which the words of Christ bring to minds at the first hearing. His view can be seen from what he discusses concerning the sacraments of heretics. For why in Letter 70 did he judge that « the Eucharist cannot be made among them at all, » unless because he held that the words of Christ were pronounced by them in vain, and the Holy Spirit invoked in vain, that He might make the bread and wine the body and blood of Christ? So too Firmilian, to prove that it is not enough for the effects of the sacraments that the prayers and rites of the Church be observed, uses the example of a certain mad little woman who had often dared « both to pretend that with an invocation not to be despised she sacrificed bread and made the Eucharist, and to offer sacrifice to the Lord not without the sacrament of the customary proclamation. » This, then, was the difference that Firmilian and Cyprian placed between the Eucharist of the Catholics and that of the heretics, that when heretics invoked the Holy Spirit no change of the gifts took place, whereas the prayers of the Catholics never lacked this wonderful effect.

So persuaded and assured was Cyprian of that wonderful effect of the Church's invocation that he does not hesitate to say of the lapsed who communicate before their conscience has been cleansed, in the book On the Lapsed (p. 186): « Violence is done to His body and blood, and they now sin more against the Lord with hands and mouth than when they denied the Lord. » Therefore the body of Christ is not received in the Eucharist by faith alone, but is truly received even by the unworthy themselves; nor is the body separated from the soul and divinity, but the Lord Himself is present, and those who communicate unworthily sin against Him with hands and mouth. Hence he declares in the same book that the very majesty of the Lord is present: for thus he speaks of a girl who, carried by her nurse to the idol and then by her parents to the church, threw up, not without sobbing, the blood of the Lord which the deacon had poured into her as she resisted. « In a violated body and mouth, he says, the Eucharist could not remain. The draught sanctified in the blood of the Lord burst forth from the polluted bowels. So great is the power of the Lord, so great His majesty! » (Page 189.) In the same place Cyprian relates another miracle: « And indeed another, he says, because he too, defiled by sacrifice, dared secretly to receive a portion with the rest when the sacrifice had been celebrated by the priest, could not eat and handle the holy thing of the Lord, but found that he was carrying ashes in his opened hands. By the proof of one it was shown that the Lord withdraws when He is denied. » Therefore it was not bread that had vanished from the hands of this man, but the Lord Himself had withdrawn.

Now Cyprian discusses these things with this intention: to explain to people who communicate with too little caution what is to be thought about this mystery. Hence it is easily seen in what sense the bishops of the first centuries took these words of Christ, THIS IS MY BODY, THIS IS THE BLOOD, etc., since from them they conclude that the body and blood of Christ are received, that those who communicate unworthily sin with mouth and hands against the Lord Himself, that the power and majesty of the Lord are present, and that the Lord Himself, not without a miracle, withdrew from defiled hands. If the change of the wine into the blood of Christ had not been believed at that time, would nothing else but the blood of Christ, I ask, now be recognized in the chalice after those prayers by which God is asked to make the wine the blood of Christ? Cyprian certainly recognizes nothing else, in hundreds of places. Against those who offered water alone in the morning sacrifices he lays down that it is unworthy of a Christian to fear "lest through the taste of the wine he should smell of the blood of Christ. Thus then," he says, "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...... But how can we shed our blood for Christ, who blush to drink the blood of Christ (p. 109)?" He calls it not only blood but also gore, and he does not hesitate to compare it with the blood that flows in our veins. He also says, p. 106: "Just as one cannot come to drinking wine unless the cluster is first trodden and pressed, so neither could we drink the blood of Christ, unless Christ had first been trodden and pressed, and had first drunk the cup in which He might pledge believers?"

Cyprian abhors unworthy communions because "the holy body of the Lord" is profaned (p. 20), and because "violence is done to the body and blood of the Lord, and sin is committed against the Lord with hands and mouth" (p. 186). Firmilian held it as a kind of sacrilege that men who, as it seemed to him, were not baptized "should by a rashly usurped communion touch the body and blood of the Lord (p. 149)." In the same way, the gifts of grace that are usually received from the Eucharist are traced back to the body and blood of Christ as present. Cyprian teaches that the soldiers of Christ ought to consider "that they drink the cup of the blood of Christ daily for this reason, that they too may be able to shed their blood for Christ." Hence, when, as the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus pressed on, he had decided to grant communion to those who had lapsed under Decius, he gives this reason for the indulgence in Ep. 54 (p. 78): "For how," he says, "do we teach or urge them to shed their own blood in confessing the Name, if we deny the blood of Christ to those who are about to go to battle? Or how do we make them fit for the cup of martyrdom, if we do not first admit them to drink the cup of the Lord in the church by the right of communion?" And in Ep. 63 (p. 107): "The Lord's cup so inebriates those who drink it that it makes them sober, that it directs their minds to spiritual wisdom, that each one comes back to his senses from this worldly taste to the understanding of God: and just as by this common wine the mind is loosened and the soul relaxed and all sadness laid aside, so, when the blood of the Lord has been drunk from the cup of salvation, the memory of the old man is laid aside, and there comes forgetfulness of the former worldly way of life, and the sorrowful and sad heart, which was formerly weighed down by distressing sins, is set free by the joy of divine indulgence." Whatever, therefore, the Catholic Church teaches about the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, whatever can be observed in a mind imbued with this faith, we see to have been impressed and engraved on the mind of Cyprian.

The Oxford editor raises against us this passage from Ep. 63: "Thus, however, in sanctifying the cup of the Lord," says Cyprian (p. 108), "water alone cannot be offered, just as wine alone cannot either? For if anyone offers wine only, the blood of Christ begins to be without us. But if the water is alone, the people begin to be without Christ. When, however, both are mixed, then the spiritual and heavenly sacrament is accomplished." From this he infers that the blood of Christ is in the chalice in the same way as the people themselves are said to be contained in the same chalice. But the difference is so plain that I wonder that a learned man should linger over these quibbles. For who ever said that the people are drunk in the chalice, touched with mouth and hands, that the people withdraw when the species have been changed, and other things of this kind which we have just reported as said of the blood of Christ? Therefore, when the people are said to be in the chalice, it is a plain figure, which could escape no one and could throw no one into danger of error. But after the words of Christ, this is the blood, etc., recalled and impressed daily, after the daily prayers in the sacrifice that the wine may become the blood of Christ, who could have suspected a figure, hearing nothing else than that the blood of Christ is in the chalice, is offered in the chalice, and is drunk, and strengthens our souls so that we may shed our blood for Christ?

But we must briefly examine what difference there is between the reasons by which Cyprian urges that water is to be poured into the chalice and those by which he urges that wine is altogether necessary. For in this way both the reality of the Lord's blood will become clear, and those will be refuted in passing who would have it that Cyprian commends water as prescribed by divine law, not merely by ecclesiastical law. The holy Martyr had resolved to overturn a most evil custom, which had crept in among some, that water alone should be offered in the morning sacrifice. Therefore he shows that water is the essential matter, for the proper effect of the sacrament, not in the Eucharist but only in Baptism, and that "whenever water alone is named in the Scriptures, Baptism is proclaimed, and Baptism is always signified by the name of water"; but that in the Eucharist "the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that it was wine which He called His blood, and that He taught by the example of His teaching that the cup is mixed by the joining of wine and water." Hence he shows that water is used only for mystical significations: "For divine Scripture declares in the Apocalypse," he says (p. 108), "that waters signify peoples, saying: The waters which you saw, upon which that harlot sits, are peoples and crowds and nations of the heathen and tongues. This, namely, we perceive to be contained in the sacrament of the cup as well. For because Christ bore us all, He who also bore our sins, we see that in the water the people is understood, but in the wine the blood of Christ is shown." Thus far Cyprian lessens the necessity of the water rather than commends it. But nevertheless he afterwards says that water

[water] alone cannot be offered, "just as neither can wine alone," and that the coupling and conjunction of water and wine is so mingled in the Lord's cup "that that mixture cannot be separated one from the other." Cyprian's purpose must be noted. Arguing with men who used water alone, he makes use of a principle which they would readily grant, namely that not even wine alone ought to be used. No preconceived opinion indeed stood in their way to prevent them from admitting this; for that reason Cyprian lays down that water alone ought not to be used, just as neither wine alone; not because he feared that such men would offer wine alone; not because he held that water, equally with wine, was prescribed by Christ and belonged to the essence of the sacrament, for he declared plainly enough that it is used for mystical significations; but because this comparison was suited to demonstrating the necessity of wine, and because it was evident that, compared with the drawbacks that would follow from using wine alone, far graver ones would follow if water alone were used. Hence, whenever in this letter he lays down that the cup ought to be mixed, he does not properly refer this to the water, but to the wine, which those whom he was refuting were omitting.

The necessity of wine Cyprian defends in a far different way. He shows, 1st, by testimonies of Scripture, that as water is signified in Baptism, so wine is signified in the Eucharist; 2nd, that a precept of Christ of by far the greatest weight is violated if wine is omitted. "Since, then," he says (p. 107), "neither the Apostle himself nor an Angel from heaven can announce or teach otherwise than what Christ once taught and His Apostles announced, I wonder greatly whence this has been usurped, that, contrary to the evangelical and apostolic discipline, in certain places water is offered in the Lord's cup, which alone cannot express the blood of Christ." And on p. 109: "But if it is not lawful to loosen even the least of the Lord's commandments, how much more is it unlawful to break things so great, so weighty, so pertaining to the very sacrament of the Lord's passion and of our redemption, or to change them by human tradition into something other than what was divinely instituted?" 3rd: what drawbacks does Cyprian judge to follow from this rash alteration of the divine institution? "For taking the cup," he says (p. 106), "on the day of the passion, He blessed it and gave it to His disciples, saying: Drink of this, all of you. For this is the blood of the new Testament, etc. In which part we find that the cup which the Lord offered was mixed, and that it was wine which He called His blood. Whence it appears that the blood of Christ is not offered if wine is lacking to the cup; nor is the Lord's sacrifice celebrated with lawful sanctification unless our oblation and sacrifice correspond to the passion. For the passion of the Lord is," as he says (p. 109), "the sacrifice which we offer." Therefore, then, according to Cyprian, wine must be used in the cup because, since Christ, having taken wine, said: This is the blood, etc., if water alone is used, water will remain, and the blood of Christ will no longer be offered, the passion of the Lord will not be our sacrifice, nor will the same thing be offered which was offered in the passion. 4th: Cyprian also recounts how many and how great benefits we receive "when the blood of the Lord and the saving cup have been drunk," in order to show how harmful it is to use water alone. He adds that it is a great offence to be ashamed of the "blood and gore" of Christ, and that those can no longer "shed their blood for Christ who blush to drink the blood of Christ." Now indeed it is easily seen in what sense Cyprian considers the people, and in what sense the blood of Christ, to be in the cup. He teaches that the conjunction of the people with Christ is signified by the conjunction of water with wine; and he admits that, if the water is omitted, the blood of Christ is indeed offered and the passion commemorated, but that nevertheless it would be no slight drawback if the conjunction of the people with Christ were lacking. But he declares that the blood of Christ is in the cup because Christ said: This is the blood, etc., and that, if the blood is lacking, the sacrifice can no longer be offered nor the passion of the Lord be celebrated; nay more, we shall be utterly defrauded of the gifts which have been promised to those who drink the blood of Christ.

XIV. — On communion under both kinds.

Although Cyprian maintains that the sacrifice must be offered under both kinds, and that this was instituted and prescribed by Christ, he nevertheless did not judge communion under both kinds to be necessary, as can be seen from his principles and from the custom of that age. For he did not hold that whatever Christ did in the institution of the sacrament must all be observed as law, but only those things which belong to the essence of the sacrament. For when it was objected to him that the Lord offered after supper, he replies thus (Ep. 63, p. 109): "Must we then celebrate the Lord's [sacrifice] after supper, so as to offer the mixed cup thus at the frequenting of the Lord's [assemblies]? It was fitting for Christ to offer about the evening of the day, so that the very hour of the sacrifice might show the setting and evening of the world..... But we celebrate the resurrection of the Lord in the morning." Why then does he deny that it is prescribed that we should do the same in this matter as Christ did, while in the oblation of bread and wine he maintains that that priest truly acts in Christ's stead "who imitates what Christ did, and offers according as he sees Christ Himself to have offered"? The reason for this is set before our eyes. It makes no difference to the nature of the sacrifice whether it is offered in the morning or after supper. But if water is offered in place of wine, the sacrifice instituted by Christ is utterly overthrown, His passion is not celebrated, nor will blood be offered or drunk in the cup, but common water. From these principles it can be seen what Cyprian thought about communion under both kinds. He could not believe it necessary and commanded by Christ, since it does not belong to the essence of the sacrament. For Cyprian acknowledges the whole Christ under either kind; he reveres His majesty in the cup, and declares that He withdrew from the hands of a defiled man, in which ash was found in place of the Eucharist.

The ancient customs of the Church agree with his faith and doctrine; we have already seen from Cyprian the example of a girl communicating from the cup alone, a custom which no one is unaware [continued] in the West up to

the twelfth century had continued. It is clearer than daylight that this girl had not communicated under the species of bread; for Cyprian relates this story so that it may be evident that the Eucharist could not remain in a defiled body and mouth: but if she had already consumed the species of bread, there would have been no miracle at all and no point to Cyprian's account. We have also adduced the example of the man who found ashes in his hands in place of the Eucharist: there is another very similar one in the same book On the Lapsed, of a certain woman who, when "she had tried with unworthy hands to open her box, in which the holy [thing] of the Lord was, was frightened off by fire rising from it, so that she did not dare to touch it."

XV. — The opinion of St Cyprian on the sacrifice, on purgatory and on the invocation of the saints.

Cyprian confirms by his testimony that the Eucharist is a true and properly so-called sacrifice. He says in the book On the Unity of the Church (p. 200) that schismatics "profane the truth of the Lord's victim through false sacrifices." That true victim which Cyprian maintains is offered in the Church alone is Christ Himself, immolated on the altar in an unbloody manner. "Jesus Christ our Lord and God," he says in Ep. 63 (p. 109), "is Himself the high priest of God the Father, and He first offered Himself as a sacrifice to the Father, and commanded that this be done in commemoration of Him." Since, then, the same victim which was offered on the cross is offered on the altar, Cyprian not without reason says: "The Passion of the Lord is the sacrifice which we offer." In the same letter he denies "that the Lord's sacrifice is celebrated with lawful sanctification unless our oblation and sacrifice correspond to the Passion." He also demonstrates the truth of the sacrifice instituted by Christ from the fact that it was prefigured by the priest Melchizedek. "Likewise in the priest Melchizedek," he says (p. 105), "we see the sacrament of the Lord's sacrifice prefigured, according to what divine Scripture testifies and says: And Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought forth bread and wine. Now he was a priest of the most high God, and he blessed Abraham. And that Melchizedek bore the type of Christ, the Holy Spirit declares in the Psalms, speaking in the person of the Father to the Son: Before the morning star I begot Thee. Thou art a priest for ever according to the order of Melchizedek. This order is assuredly this one, coming from that sacrifice and descending from it: that Melchizedek was a priest of the most high God, that he offered bread and wine, that he blessed Abraham. For who is more a priest of the most high God than our Lord Jesus Christ, Who offered a sacrifice to God the Father; and He offered this same thing which Melchizedek had offered, that is, bread and wine, namely His own body and blood."

The sacrifice is offered for the sins of the living and the dead. Hence Cyprian complains in the book On the Lapsed (p. 186) that communion was given to some of the lapsed "before their conscience had been purged by the sacrifice and the hand of the priest, before the offence of the indignant and threatening Lord had been appeased." Cyprian, in Letter 60 to the Numidian bishops, testifies that he has appended the names of each of those who worked promptly and generously for the redemption of the captives, so that the bishops may keep them in mind in their prayers, "and may represent to them a return for their good work in sacrifices and prayers." As regards the dead, we have an excellent testimony in Ep. 66, to the clergy and people dwelling at Furni. Cyprian's predecessors had decreed that no brother on departing [this life] should name a cleric to a guardianship or trusteeship; and if anyone had done this, no offering should be made for him, nor should the sacrifice be celebrated for his falling asleep. For he who wished to call priests and ministers away from the altar does not deserve to be named at the altar of God in the prayer of the priests. Therefore, when a certain Victor had dared to appoint the presbyter Geminius Faustinus as guardian, Cyprian forbids that "an offering be made for his falling asleep, or that any prayer be made frequently in the church in his name." In vain does the author of the Oxford edition contend that "these things were performed as a token of faith, hope and charity, but not as a help to souls or as refreshment for those burning in the heat of purgatorial fire, because these things concerned the martyrs above all." This example of the martyrs achieves nothing: the sacrifice was not offered for the sins of the martyrs, since it was certain to all that they see God in heaven. Therefore they were not named in the same place as the others who died in the peace of the Church; and what Cyprian says in Ep. 34, that sacrifices were customarily offered for them, Cyprian himself explains in Ep. 37, where he says that oblations and sacrifices are celebrated "for their commemorations." The case was different with those dying in the peace of the Church. For their sins the sacrifice was offered, as can be seen in the liturgy which is extant in book 8 of the Apostolic Constitutions, chap. 41, where these words are read: "For our brethren who have fallen asleep in Christ let us pray, that God, the lover of mankind, Who has received the soul of the departed, may forgive him every sin, voluntary and involuntary, and, being made propitious and merciful, may place him in the region of the godly, etc."

Nor indeed is it surprising if the ancient Christians hoped that the sacrifice would benefit the faithful departed; since all were persuaded and certain that the souls of the just which are released from the body before they have expiated all their sins are subjected to punishments in the other life and their beatitude is deferred. Hence the Roman clergy feared for those who died before their penance was completed, "God knowing," it says in Ep. 31, "what He does with such, and how He weighs the scales of His judgement." Cyprian compares such men thus with those who die having poured out their life for Christ or at least having spent it in holiness. "It is one thing," he says in Ep. 51 (p. 72), "to stand awaiting pardon, another to attain to glory; one thing, having been sent into prison, not to come out thence until one pays the last farthing, another at once to receive the reward of faith and virtue; one thing to be tormented with long pain for sins and to be cleansed and purged for a long time by fire, another to have purged all sins by suffering: one thing, finally, to hang upon the Lord's sentence until the day of judgement, another to be crowned at once by the Lord." Wholly useless is Rigault's

and the labour of the Oxford editor in evading this testimony. This prison, and the torment of long pain, and the fire that purges for a long time, they twist to mean the penance customarily imposed on the lapsed by the priests. But, first, they must at least admit that it follows from Cyprian's words that temporal punishments remain to be paid in full by those to whom the eternal ones have been remitted. Second, if Cyprian is describing the labours of penance, this fits much better those who die before the course of penance has been completed. For no one will attribute to Cyprian this opinion: that men of this kind do not wait for pardon but arrive at pardon; are not sent into prison until they pay the last farthing, but at once receive the reward of faith and virtue; are not, tormented with long pain for their sins, cleansed and purged for a long time by fire; do not hang in suspense until the day of judgement, but are at once crowned by the Lord. Third, Cyprian compares not only martyrs with the lapsed but also virgins with adulterers. There is no doubt that he is speaking of martyrs and virgins who have died, since he declares that the crown is given to them at once. Why then should we believe that he spoke of the state of penitents in this life only? It would truly be a splendid and remarkable comparison, to set martyrs and virgins beside idolaters and adulterers in this respect: that the former are crowned at once in the other life, while the latter must undergo the labour of penance in this life. But if these idolaters and adulterers die after beginning penance, will they at once, like the martyrs and virgins, receive the reward and the crown, and will they be regarded as having purged all their sins by penance? Who does not see that the comparison drawn by Cyprian refers chiefly to the future life? since indeed in this life the consecrated virgins, whose manner of living was austere, equalled the labour of the penitents, while the martyrs far surpassed it. Fourth, that phrase "to hang in suspense until the day of judgement" is very troublesome to our opponents. Nicolas Le Fèvre and Rigault think that the happiness of the just, martyrs excepted, is deferred by Cyprian until the day of judgement. But this opinion cannot be attributed to Cyprian, who in this place, as I have already observed, speaks not only of martyrs but also of virgins. He often teaches elsewhere, and especially in the book On Mortality, that not only martyrs but other saints too, when they depart from this life, begin to reign with Christ; that virgins and children happily attain the reward of continence and innocence; that the just are called to refreshment. That testimony, therefore, with which we are now dealing must be referred to those who, having died before full penance, are in Cyprian's view reserved until the day of the general judgement. Nor is it surprising that he defers the happiness of men of this kind until that time; for since he believed that the coming of the Lord was imminent, the interval of time could not seem unduly long. Moreover, Cyprian's view is illustrated also by the fact that he declares that on the day of judgement the merits of the martyrs will be of benefit to many who are in suspense until that day: "We believe indeed," he says in the book On the Lapsed (p. 187), "that the merits of the martyrs and the works of the just can do very much with the Judge, but when the day of judgement comes, when after the setting of this age and world His people stand before the tribunal of Christ." And this indeed concerns those who submit themselves to penance in the Church; but those who die outside the Church, Cyprian declares, even if they have been slain for the Name, will never attain to the pardon promised to others who die in the bosom of the Church. "And because in the underworld there is no confession," he says in the same Epist. 52, "nor can exomologesis be made there, those who have repented with their whole heart and have made petition ought to be received within into the Church and in it reserved for the Lord, Who, when He comes to His Church, will surely judge of those whom He finds within it. But apostates and deserters and adversaries and enemies, and those who scatter the Church of Christ, cannot, even if they have been slain for the Name, be admitted according to the Apostle to the peace of the Church, since they have held the unity neither of the Spirit nor of the Church." Rightly does Cyprian deny that the exomologesis which is prescribed in this life can be completed in the other. But it is clear that he acknowledges a certain pardon and peace which, shut off and denied to schismatics and heretics who have died outside the Church, even if they were slain for the Name, will be granted to others who have died in the Church and are reserved until the coming of the Lord.

From this it is evident that the communion which the Catholic Church fosters with the saints and martyrs, and with the just who have died before full penance, is not a new invention, but a dogma known and believed in the first centuries. Nor is it surprising if this communion does not please those who have departed from the unity of the Church; but Cyprian, among whose chief virtues love of unity shone out, besides the decrees made by him in honour of the martyrs which we have recounted, testifies in two other places how close a bond exists between the present Church and the saints and martyrs. The first is found in the book On the Dress of Virgins, which Cyprian concludes thus: "Only remember us then, when virginity begins to be honoured in you." The other testimony is read in Ep. 57 to Cornelius, whom Cyprian addresses thus: "Let us be mindful of one another, of one accord and one mind; on both sides let us always pray for one another, let us relieve our pressures and distresses by mutual charity, and if either of us goes ahead from here first by the swiftness of the divine favour, let our love persevere before the Lord, let prayer for our brothers and sisters not cease before the mercy of the Father." In vain does the Oxford editor try to evade these words. He says that virginity begins to be honoured when it attains the glory of confession; but Cyprian addresses all virgins in general, not martyrs alone, and accordingly points not to the crown of martyrdom but to that of virginity. The other passage Fell interprets as though Cyprian were making a pact with Cornelius "that he who survives, whose lot it is to be longer among the living, should continue to pray." But the quibble is manifest; for Cyprian commends this office of praying not to him who survives, but to him who "goes ahead first." But Fell denies that it follows from our interpretation that it is lawful to pray to the saints. Yet he does not notice how closely these things cohere with the invocation of the saints, which, if in ancient centuries it had been held to be like a superstition injurious to Christ, or rather if it had not flourished in the whole Church, as that it flourished

most certain records attest, it would never have entered Cyprian's mind to pray to and invoke virgins and martyrs in advance.

XVI. — On the Divinity of Christ, and His Grace.

I should overstep the bounds of a preface if I lingered over tracing Cyprian's other teachings with care. For no error has been devised in these later centuries, as Pamelius rightly observes, that is not refuted from the testimonies of Cyprian. On the divinity of Christ the holy Martyr did not treat of set purpose, but his brief statements about God incarnate have no less strength and weight than a fuller treatment. He is accustomed to call Christ our Lord and God, as when he says in Ep. 8 (p. 15): "We have as advocate and intercessor for our sins Jesus Christ our Lord and God." He teaches in Ep. 60 (p. 99) that we must strive "that we may win the favour of Christ, our judge and Lord and God, by our obedience." In Ep. 63 (p. 104): "Jesus Christ our Lord and God, the author and teacher of this sacrifice;" and p. 109: Jesus Christ our Lord and God is Himself the high priest of God the Father." In Ep. 47 (p. 61) he gives thanks "to God the Father almighty and to His Christ, our Lord and God and Saviour." See Ep. 56, pp. 92 and 94; Ep. 65, p. 113; Ep. 74, pp. 139 and 140; Ep. 77, pp. 158.

In the book On the Lord's Prayer (p. 204): "Let us pray, then, most beloved brethren, as God our teacher has taught;" and (p. 206): "The God of peace and teacher of concord, Who taught unity, willed that one should pray thus for all, just as He Himself bore all in one." In the book On the Vanity of Idols (p. 228) he likewise calls Christ our God, God mingled with man; in Book 2 of the Testimonies, man and God compounded of both kinds. He proves from the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, pp. 286, 287, 288, that He is God and is called God, and refers to Him all the most illustrious testimonies. In the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom (p. 267), after quoting that saying of Isaiah, I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, Who save you, he adds: "Who also in the Gospel promises divine help to the servants of God, saying that it will not fail them in persecutions: But when they deliver you up, etc." In the book On the Good of Patience he teaches that Christ is adored in heaven, and that the Father commanded that the Son be adored; to Him he refers these testimonies of Scripture: God shall come manifest, our God, and He shall not keep silence; the Lord God of hosts shall go forth; and others of the kind; then he adds: "But who is it that says He kept silence before and will not keep silence? Surely He Who was led as a sheep to the slaughter.... This is our God, that is, the God not of all but of the faithful and believing, Who, when He comes manifest in the second coming, will not keep silence." Not to be passed over is the notable passage from the Epistle to Jubaianus (p. 133), where Cyprian teaches in express words that three persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, are one God: "For if," he says, "anyone could be baptized among heretics, he could certainly also obtain remission of sins. If he obtained remission of sins, he was both sanctified and made a temple of God. If he was sanctified and made a temple of God, I ask, of what god? If of the Creator, he could not be, because he did not believe in Him; if of Christ, neither could he become His temple, since he denies that Christ is God; if of the Holy Spirit, since the three are one, how can the Holy Spirit be at peace with him who is the enemy either of the Father or of the Son?" See the book On the Unity of the Church, where he cites these testimonies of Scripture: I and the Father are one, and these three are one. See also Epist. 86 (p. 139), where he contends that it is said most absurdly that those who were baptized outside "had indeed put on Christ, but could not receive the Holy Spirit, as if either Christ could be put on without the Spirit, or the Spirit be separated from Christ."

That supreme devotion towards God incarnate, which shines out wonderfully in the writings of Cyprian, glowed equally in the minds of the other bishops of Africa, as we can see from the Council of Carthage, at which 87 bishops from Africa, Numidia and Mauretania were present, with presbyters and deacons, and with the greatest part of the people also in attendance. Nemesianus of Thubunae speaks thus in this council (p. 330) of the Holy Spirit: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit, because God is Spirit, and He was born of God." Less fittingly the Oxford editor explains that phrase, "He was born of God," thus: "He who is born of the Spirit is born of God." But Nemesianus would have had to say "it was born of God." Whoever pays even moderate attention will see that the meaning of this passage is this: that what is born of the Spirit is spirit, because the Holy Spirit, since He is God and was born or proceeded from God (for these sometimes mean the same), by His supreme power makes spirit those whom He regenerates. Fortunatus of Tuchabori speaks thus in the same council (p. 332): "Jesus Christ our Lord and God, Son of God the Father and Creator, built His Church upon the rock." Euchratius of Thenae (p. 333): "Our God and Lord Jesus Christ, teaching the Apostles with His own mouth, fully set forth our faith and the grace of Baptism, saying: Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." In the same place Felix of Uthina: "No one doubts, most holy fellow priests, that human presumption is not as powerful as the adorable and venerable majesty of our Lord Jesus Christ." Venantius of Timisa (p. 335): "Christ our Lord and God, departing to the Father, entrusted His bride to us."

As of the mystery of the Incarnation, so also of the benefits received from God incarnate Cyprian held a lofty view. Learned theologians have long since observed that the errors of the Pelagians were refuted by the holy Martyr long before, and that he supplied Augustine with a great deal for the overthrow of this heresy. Cyprian knew well

that the Lord at His coming healed "those wounds which Adam had borne", and cured "the ancient poisons of the serpent" (p. 237). Hence he believed Baptism to be altogether necessary for all: "All indeed," he says in the book On the Dress of Virgins (p. 180), "who come to the divine laver by the sanctification of Baptism put off there the old man by the grace of the saving laver, and, renewed by the Holy Spirit, are cleansed from the filth of the ancient contagion by a repeated birth." But above all the catholic dogma is defended in Epistle 59, which not Cyprian alone but also the other colleagues who were present at the council, sixty-six in number, wrote to Fidus. He, by I know not what error of opinion, had imagined for himself that infants "placed within the second or third day on which they are born ought not to be baptized, and that the law of the ancient circumcision should be considered, so that he did not think that one who is born should be baptized and sanctified within the eighth day." Something far different seemed right to all in the council, and they all judged "that the mercy and grace of God must be denied to no human being that is born. Moreover, they say, if even to the gravest offenders, and to those who have sinned much against God beforehand, remission of sins is granted, and no one is kept from Baptism and from grace, how much more ought an infant not to be kept from it, who, newly born, has committed no sin, except that, born after the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death by his first birth; who comes the more easily to receive remission of sins by this very fact, that it is not his own but another's sins that are remitted to him." Against the proud fictions of the Pelagians, Cyprian teaches in several places that we sin daily, as in the books On the Lord's Prayer, p. 211; On Works and Alms, pp. 238 and 243; and Testimonies book 3, p. 54.

Cyprian commends the grace of Christ wonderfully in countless places; he who, while he still lay in darkness and blind night, believed that what the Christians taught could not come about, "that anyone could be born again, and that, quickened into new life by the laver of saving water, he could put off what he had been before, and, though the frame of the body remained, change the man in soul and mind (Ep. to Donatus)." But he laid aside this error together with his other vices and errors, and thereafter preached the grace of Christ the more willingly, the more stubbornly he had rejected it. What he discusses to this effect in the Epistle to Donatus may be seen. He proves in the Exhortation to Martyrdom (p. 167), from several testimonies of Scripture, "that the injuries and punishments of persecutions are not to be feared, because the Lord is greater to protect than the devil to assail." See pp. 262, 268, 273. In Ep. 9 he exhorts the martyrs to constancy, "because greater is He Who is in us than he who is in this world, and earthly punishment cannot do more to cast down than divine protection to raise up." See more in the same epistle and in Ep. 55 (p. 88). To this may be referred very many other principles of Cyprian; as when he teaches that victory is given by God (p. 79); that God makes victors by His own condescension (162, 285); that God rewards in us whatever He Himself has bestowed, and honours what He Himself has made (169); that nothing is ours (305); that no one ought to claim anything for himself (212); that all must be given to God (ibid.). Above all the book On the Lord's Prayer should be read through, where he teaches that we must pray that the will of God be done in us, that the will of God be done in body and spirit, that we may be able to do what God wills; that the will of God be done in those who do not believe, just as the will of God has been done in us through our faith; for that there is need of the will of God for the will of God to be done in us; that we who have been sanctified in Baptism may persevere in that which we have begun to be; that the sanctification and quickening which is received from the grace of God may be preserved by His perfecting.

Life of Saint Cyprian,

prepared by the care of Dom Prudentius Maran, O.S.B.

Cyprian, a great light of the Christian religion, for as long as he shone in the Church, was a great part of the affairs that were then carried on. Therefore his life supplies a most ample harvest for discussion, and there would be need of a whole volume if I undertook to pursue both the kind and the manner of the matters pertaining to him, to set before the eyes the examples he gave of the several virtues, and to draw out the excellent sentiments of his mind from the epistles and other writings in which his character is wonderfully portrayed. But such a treatment does not belong to this place, nor is it my purpose to discuss the affairs of Cyprian in that way, but only to set them out in order, and also to assign the writings themselves to their dates. For, since this work appears joined with the writings of the holy Martyr, there is no need to add longer testimonies, which anyone can draw from the source itself; and various observations must be dispensed with, which perhaps ought not to be omitted if the life of St Cyprian were brought to light separately from his works.

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

That Cyprian was born in Africa no one disputes. Prudentius and Suidas held that he was born at Carthage. But since the holy Martyr does not acknowledge this benefit as owed to Carthage, and only says in Ep. 36: "For where could it be better or more joyful for me than there, where God willed me to believe and to grow," some other fatherland seems to have brought him into the light. He was called Thascius Cyprianus, as is clear from the sentence of the proconsul and from Epist. 69. Moreover, as Jerome witnesses, he had taken to himself the name of Caecilius, so that by this memorial he might bear witness to his grateful mind and his love towards the presbyter Caecilius, through whose work he had been converted to Christ. Pontius the deacon, who wrote the Life of Cyprian, judged the things done by him before his conversion less worthy to be committed to writing. And so this part of his life lies in oblivion and darkness. We know nothing for certain, except that he taught rhetoric with the greatest renown, and was not free of those vices which are usually joined with the worship of images and ignorance of Christ. "The fishermen were changed," says Augustine, Serm. 311 (new ed.), "afterwards very many senators also were changed, Cyprian was changed, whose memory we celebrate today.... He himself writes, he himself testifies what kind of life he once had, how wicked, how impious, how reprehensible and detestable." Yet what we read in Gregory Nazianzen, in Orat. 18, about a Cyprian given to the magic arts before his conversion in no way fits our Cyprian: it is plain that these things refer to Cyprian of Antioch, whom Gregory confuses with the Carthaginian, fashioning one person out of two. Nevertheless, since the learned Oxford editor contends that there was only one Cyprian, counts what is reported of the Antiochene among fables, and declares it to have been composed to embellish the history of the Carthaginian, it seems not useless to examine the matter.

First, this cannot be denied: the deeds of Cyprian of Antioch were handed down in very ancient records. The empress Eudocia celebrated him in excellent verses, as Photius witnesses (Cod. 184). The work was divided into three books. The first of these contained the conversion of Justina and her virginity, unconquered by the demons, and also the wonderful conversion of Cyprian himself after the crimes of his magic art, his baptism, his office of doorkeeper, his miracles and finally his episcopate. In another, Cyprian himself set out the sequence of what had befallen him. He related the magic arts by which he had changed both himself and others into various forms, his journeys, and finally his disgust with the wicked art, and how his mind was recalled, through the work of Eusebius, from the despair which the consciousness of his crimes cast upon him to hope in the divine mercy. In the third, finally, the martyrdom of Justina and Cyprian was described. And it is perceived that Eudocia wrote these things not with the licence of art but with the fidelity of history, both from Gregory Nazianzen, who quotes the confession of his crimes written by Cyprian himself, and relates the same things about him as Eudocia

in Oration 18, and then from the threefold record which those learned investigators of antiquity, Dom Edmond Martène and Dom Ursin Durand, published in their Thesaurus of Anecdota, namely the Conversion of Justina and Cyprian, the Confession of the same Cyprian, and the Passion of both. Thus that tripartite work agrees with the verses of Eudocia, so that there is very little doubt that it was worn by her hands. Who, then, would persuade himself that a man never existed of whom records survive almost contemporary with the time in which he is said to have lived? Fables seek hiding places in remote ages, and no one lies so ineptly as to pretend that things which no one remembers having seen or heard happened recently in the clearest light and before the eyes of all. Moreover Fell himself admits, though I do not entirely agree with him in this matter, that the Confession of Cyprian was written before the times of Constantine, that is, around the time at which he is believed to have undergone martyrdom, namely under Diocletian and Maximian, as Eudocia testifies. Furthermore, before this work the acts of Justina and Cyprian had been written, as we learn from the booklet on the passion of both. 2. It is not credible that records of this kind were fabricated to adorn the history of Cyprian of Carthage, records in which there was nothing at all that could be fitted to Cyprian of Carthage: not the time, not the place of martyrdom and of episcopate, not the deeds and the journeys. 3. If that Cyprian of Antioch, who is said to have suffered with Justina at Nicomedia, had never existed, how could a feast day in the name of both have been introduced in the fourth century into the places neighbouring Nicomedia, how could the fame of both have been celebrated on the lips of all? Moreover, it is perceived quite clearly from Oration 18 of St Gregory Nazianzen, which was delivered at Constantinople, that the Cyprian whose feast day was being kept was not the Carthaginian but the Antiochene. For Gregory proclaims his magic arts and his conversion as the principal and best-known events of his life, so much so that he doubts whether any of his hearers is ignorant of his deeds (p. 277). What is more, as to his saying that Cyprian after his conversion was made a sacristan, he testifies that he heard this from someone (p. 281). It is not probable that Cyprian of Carthage was so well known in these regions, especially for matters in no way pertaining to him, that the inhabitants should have informed Gregory of them; rather, this fame and this feast day must be referred to another.

Fell objects that St Gregory could not have erred so carelessly as to confuse a bishop of Antioch with the Carthaginian; for if that Cyprian, bishop of Antioch, who is said to have suffered at Nicomedia, had truly existed, it could not be that nothing about him would have reached the ears of Gregory, who ought both to have learned such marvellous things early from his father, and to have come to know them himself by travelling through Nicomedia and the neighbouring places. But while the learned man does not allow Gregory to be blamed for having fashioned one out of two Cyprians, he throws him into another reproach not much lighter, namely that he referred to Cyprian of Carthage records at odds with his age, his homeland and his deeds. This way of excusing him seems more probable to me: since between him and those whom he was addressing there had very recently arisen

a familiarity, and after a retreat of some days had returned in good time for the feast day itself, as he himself attests (p. 275), it was very easy, in so narrow a span for learning matters accurately, to slip and to err. As for the same Fell's statement that no Cyprian is found among the bishops of Antioch, that is easily disposed of. For Cyprian is not said to have been bishop of Antioch the Great, but of another, situated in Phoenicia, as Tillemont observes, from which he was brought to Damascus to be interrogated by a judge.

Two Cyprians, then, must be distinguished, and in the eighteenth Oration of Gregory Nazianzen it must be weighed what fits the Antiochene and what the Carthaginian. Gregory's statement that Cyprian was born of a noble and senatorial house Tillemont attributes to our Cyprian, as being not very consistent with that other great one; but in vol. 5, where he treats of Cyprian of Antioch, he admits that this cannot be decided. I shall not linger in examining other conjectures that are commonly made about Cyprian, such as that Baronius and some others after him have supposed that Cyprian came to the Christian religion when already an old man. They rely on a certain passage from the Letter to Donatus, where Cyprian speaks thus: "How is so great a conversion possible, I used to say, that there should suddenly and swiftly be stripped off what has either hardened, inborn, in the decay of natural matter, or, long assumed, has grown ingrained with the old age of years?" But Cyprian is not counting his own years; he is speaking of vices, which grow old even in a man who is not old, since, as we read in the same place, "they have settled deep, with a root driven far down." Add to this that Cyprian does not discourse only of his own affairs, but embraces in general all ages and conditions of life, of which the Christians excepted not one at all that they did not say could be renewed and reborn by the grace of Christ. This is clear from what follows: "When," he says, "does he learn frugality who has grown accustomed to banqueting suppers and lavish feasts? And he who, conspicuous in costly dress, has shone in gold and in purple, when does he bring himself down to plain and simple attire? He who has delighted in the fasces and in honours cannot be a private and inglorious man. This one, thronged by wedges of clients, honoured by the more crowded retinue of an attentive train, thinks it a punishment when he is alone. By clinging allurements it must ever be, as it used to be, that drunkenness entices, pride puffs up, anger inflames, greed disquiets, cruelty goads, ambition delights, lust hurls headlong." These things I have thought fit to quote, so that it might be plain that those men abuse their leisure somewhat intemperately who suppose that Cyprian in this picture portrayed his own character and described the splendour and wealth of his former condition. If these conjectures were valid, it would have to be said that he shone with the fasces and laboured under the vices of drunkenness and greed, which I see no one has suspected up to now.

II.—On the conversion of St Cyprian.—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.

Very much ornament and protection indeed accrued to the Christian religion by the conversion of so great an intellect; and truth seemed to triumph most of all when the most celebrated

teacher and defender of falsehood was captured by it. Yet Cyprian was not overcome at the first assault, but, which is not very surprising in a man puffed up with the knowledge of empty things, he wavered for a long time between truth and error with an undecided mind. For what the Christian religion teaches about the new creation in Christ he refuted as a kind of dream by an argument drawn from his own experience, being not yet willing to amend his vices, and thinking that they could not be amended. What surges of mind he then experienced he himself sets out thus in the Letter to Donatus: "When I," he says, "lay in darkness and in blind night, and when I was tossed about on the sea of a restless world, wavering and doubtful, with wandering steps, ignorant of my own life, a stranger to truth and light, I thought it altogether difficult and hard, given the habits I then had, what the divine indulgence promised me for my salvation, that anyone could be born again, and that, quickened into a new life by the bath of saving water, he could put off what he had been before, and, though the frame of the body remained, could change the man in soul and mind. How is so great a conversion possible, I used to say? etc." But at length Christ bent his mind, and made it teachable through the exhortations of Caecilius the presbyter, who was the agent and interpreter of so splendid a work; not indeed, as some have supposed, the teacher of Diadumenus, but rather the same man who in the dialogue of Minucius Felix attacks the Christian religion by fair means and foul, and then gladly embraces it when it has been vigorously defended by Octavius. The friendship which existed between Cyprian and Caecilius was bound so tightly by the greatness of the benefit that Cyprian loved him in the place of a parent, and wished to bear his name, and seems to have lived in his very house: "He had indeed," says Pontius, "a companionship among us with a man righteous and of praiseworthy memory, Caecilius, a presbyter then both in age and in honour, who had corrected him from the error of the world to the acknowledgement of the true Divinity. Him he loved with all honour and every observance, looking up to him with obedient veneration, no longer as a friend equal to his own soul, but as the parent of his new life. Finally that man, soothed by his attentions, was moved to such a degree by the merit of an immense love that, departing from the world when his summons was now near, he commended to him his wife and children, and made him whom he had made a partaker in the fellowship of the sect afterwards the heir of his piety." This companionship, which indicates that Cyprian lived in the house of Caecilius, agrees less well with the conjectures of learned men who will have it that Cyprian had a wife and perhaps also children when he embraced the Christian religion, although no trace at all of this matter is found, either in his writings or in the Life of him which Pontius wrote.

Various surges of thought delayed the conversion of the wavering Cyprian; but as soon as he yielded to the truth shining before his eyes, piety poured itself out wholly in him, and, cultivated by the oracles of the Scriptures, brought forth ripe fruits at the very beginning. "Among the first rudiments of his faith," says Pontius, "he believed nothing else worthy of God than that he should preserve continence; for then, [he believed,] the heart and mind could become fit to attain to the full

capacity for the truth, if he trampled down the concupiscence of the flesh with the robust and unimpaired vigour of holiness. Who has ever remembered so great a miracle? The second birth had not yet illumined the new man with the full splendour of the divine light, and already the mere preparation for the light was overcoming the old and former darkness. Then, what is greater, when he had learned certain things from the divine reading, not according to the condition of a novice but according to the eagerness of faith, he at once seized upon what he found would be of profit for deserving well of the Lord. Having sold his property and laid out whole estates at their price for relieving the need of the poor, he joined two goods together: that he should both spurn the ambition of the world, than which nothing is more pernicious, and fulfil mercy, which God preferred even to His own sacrifices, and which not even he who had said that he had kept all the commandments of the law performed; and by the hasty swiftness of his piety he almost began to be perfect before he learned.”

It is not agreed among the learned whether Cyprian had been initiated into the Christian mysteries when he bound himself by the law of continence and distributed his goods to the poor, or whether he performed these two splendid deeds while still a catechumen. But if the words of Pontius are considered more attentively, there will scarcely remain room for doubt. For in express words he declares that Cyprian had not yet been regenerated by Baptism when he did these things: “The second birth had not illumined him, but the mere preparation for the light was overcoming the old and former darkness.” A little after the words cited, Cyprian is called “a man still raw in the faith, and one who perhaps was not yet trusted.” The same is established from these words: “The threshing came before the sowing, the vintage before the vine-shoot, the fruit before the root....” And further on: “What, moreover, would he do as bishop for the poor, whom he loved as a catechumen?” But Tillemont, a writer of most acute judgement, thinks that this testimony of Pontius, which he indeed admits ought not to be called into doubt, can scarcely be reconciled with the Letter to Donatus, in which Cyprian, as we have just seen, declares that at the beginning of his conversion he could not attain the amendment of his morals and the change of his life even in thought, much less that he set out from such fervent beginnings: “In despair of better things,” he says, “I favoured my own evils as though they were already my own and native to me.” Moreover, he ascribes the amendment of his morals to Baptism received, and says that “after, by the aid of the life-giving water, the stain of former years had been washed away, light from above poured itself into the cleansed and pure breast,” then indeed he recognized that “what had previously seemed difficult was easy, that what had been thought impossible could be done.” How then could he have attained so many ornaments of the virtues before Baptism?

That this difficulty may be resolved, it must be observed, 1st, that Tillemont less accurately refers to the beginnings of his Christian profession those doubtful thoughts which drew Cyprian this way and that before his conversion. For he did not yet believe in Christ when he was thus wavering in mind, but, as he himself relates, “he lay in darkness and in blind night; in the surge of the tossing world, tottering and doubtful, with wandering footsteps” he was wavering, “ignorant of his own life, a stranger to truth and light.”

Pontius, therefore, is easily reconciled with Cyprian; nor is it surprising if the former testifies that Cyprian, after he had yielded to the truth, soared to the summit of virtue, although Cyprian himself had despaired of the amendment of his morals before receiving the gift of faith. Secondly, not without reason does Cyprian attribute the renewal of his soul and his new creation to Baptism, although he had come to Baptism already furnished with many virtues. For such has always been the custom of ecclesiastical speech, that, although no one was admitted to Baptism except after many signs of an amended life, the renewal itself and the new creation were nevertheless said to be the fruit of Baptism. Hence that saying of Cyril of Jerusalem in Catechesis III (p. 45): "Dead in sins you went down; made alive, you come up in righteousness." Yet there is no doubt that, of the catechumens whom Cyril was instructing, not a few had already made great progress in virtue; and perhaps some had even bound themselves by a vow of continence, as the most learned editor observes in the notes on Cat. IV (p. 62). It is not the business of this undertaking to explain the manner of discourse customary among the holy Fathers and theologians, but from it at any rate it is clear that Pontius and Cyprian do not conflict with each other, while the one narrates the excellent deeds of Cyprian as he prepared himself for Baptism, and the other assigns to Baptism whatever he had attained both in the very administration of Baptism and in the preceding meditation and exercise; I add also whatever [he attained] in the sacrament of Confirmation and in the communion of the body and blood of Christ, which two sacraments were customarily conferred together with Baptism.

In what year Cyprian was converted and baptized must be judged from the beginning of his episcopate. For, as Pontius says, "he was elected to the office of the priesthood and the rank of the episcopate while still a neophyte and, as was thought, a novice." Therefore, since he was made bishop in the year 248 or 249, as we shall see shortly, his Baptism will not unsuitably be assigned to the year 244 or 245. Others assign it to the year 246, but on these matters it seems that nothing can be settled with certainty. It would, however, be vain to inquire at what time of year he was baptized. Pearson and some others judge that he was initiated into this sacrament between Easter and Pentecost, "because this space of time was appointed in Africa for administering the washings." But although these days were especially consecrated to Baptism, nothing nevertheless prevented Baptism from being given at other times, if any reasons arose for deferring Baptism beyond the solemn days, or even for anticipating them. Tertullian shows in his book On Baptism that there is no harm if Baptism is received outside the solemn days for just reasons: "Easter," he says, "provides the more solemn day for Baptism...... Thereafter Pentecost is a most ample space for administering the washings...... For the rest, every day is the Lord's, every hour, every time is suitable for Baptism: if it makes a difference as to solemnity, it matters nothing as to grace." Moreover, St Gregory of Nazianzus in Oration 40 rebukes at length the sluggish postponers of Baptism, and does not approve what they used to say: "I am waiting for the feast of Lights; I value the feast of Easter more; I shall wait for Pentecost. With Christ

it is preferable to be baptized, to return to life with Christ on the day of the resurrection, to honour the coming of the Spirit.”

Pontius says that Cyprian, while still a layman, did many things after the examples of the righteous of old, and that if he saw any deed of theirs, nobly done, approved and praised by the authority of Scripture, he strove to attain it by imitation. That Cyprian was adorned with the gift of prophecy is attested by the many things foreseen and foretold by him for the benefit of the Church. But there are not lacking those who infer from the Epistle to Donatus, which he wrote fresh from his baptism, that he was even then a partaker of this gift and of many others. For he so recalls those gifts, and so exhorts others to attain them, that he himself does not seem to have been without them: “Only let our breast thirst,” he says, “and lie open: as much faith able to receive as we bring thither, so much overflowing grace do we draw. Thence power is now given, with sober chastity, with sound mind, with pure voice, with sincere virtue, to be able to extinguish the poison of venoms for the healing of those in pain, to cleanse the stains of foolish souls by restoring health, to command peace to the hostile, quiet to the violent, gentleness to the fierce, to compel to confession by threatening rebukes the unclean and wandering spirits which have plunged themselves into men in order to overthrow them, etc.”

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

There is no doubt that all the time which passed from his baptism to his ordination Cyprian spent in reading the Scriptures, in turning over the ecclesiastical writers, and in meditating on and gathering all those things which he afterwards brought forth into the light and before the eyes of the whole Church. Among the ecclesiastical writers he seems to have loved Tertullian above all. Known to all is what Jerome relates in his book On Ecclesiastical Writers, that he had seen “a certain Paul of Concordia, which is a town of Italy, an old man, who said that, when he himself was quite a young man, he had seen at Rome the notary of the blessed Cyprian, then already of great age, and that he used to relate to him that Cyprian never let a single day pass without reading Tertullian, and often said to him: ‘Give me the master’, meaning, that is, Tertullian.” But if Cyprian was so eager to read Tertullian, he applied no less diligence to guarding against, or rather refuting, his errors. For, to pass over the unity of the Church, which, violated by Tertullian, Cyprian vigorously defended, as many statements of the holy Martyr as are extant concerning just indulgence towards the lapsed, so many stings seem to be aimed at Tertullian.

Not long after his baptism Cyprian sharpened his talent for the defence of religion and for the shaping of morals. For to this time belong the Epistle to Donatus and the book On the Vanity of Idols. The highest eloquence indeed shines out in the other works of Cyprian; there is in them weight of thought and splendour of words; but the Epistle to Donatus is composed with such great art and adorned with so many elegant pictures that it does not at all smell of those times when Cyprian, occupied in conducting and discussing the greatest affairs, no longer, as regards exquisite graces,

took pains, but poured out the riches of his speech without disguise, without colouring. Hence Augustine excellently says in book 4 of On Christian Doctrine, ch. 14: “There is something of this kind,” he says, “in a letter of the most blessed Cyprian. This, I think, either happened by chance or was done on purpose, so that it might be known by posterity what a tongue the soundness of Christian doctrine recalled from that redundancy and restrained to a weightier and more modest eloquence, such as in his subsequent letters is loved without risk, sought after devoutly, and attained with the greatest difficulty.” Pontius lists this book first among the works of Cyprian, when he says that Cyprian had shown “the profit of grace advancing through faith.” Although Cyprian alone speaks, a certain form of dialogue is nevertheless discernible. At Donatus' demand, Cyprian delivers the promised discourse while the vintage gives them leisure, in a most pleasant garden; he describes admirably what he had been before Baptism and what Baptism had worked in him; and, to commend the greatness of the benefit received from Christ, he elegantly depicts the vices and dangers of the world. He makes an end of speaking when the sun is already declining: then, so that the rest of the day might be spent in gladness, he urges Donatus, who had a retentive memory and a melodious voice, to take up the Psalms, as was the custom, at the sober meal. Donatus therefore seems to have been not only a friend but also a table-companion of Cyprian. He knew what the death of sins had taken from Cyprian and what the life of virtues had conferred on him; he had given his name to the camp of the heavenly warfare, and, since nothing was so pleasing to his ears as what is pleasing to God, he was wonderfully drawn by Cyprian's discourses. About the same time the book On the Vanity of Idols seems to have been written, in which, besides much expressed by imitation, some things also occur translated word for word from Tertullian's books against the heathen and from the dialogue of Minucius Felix. Some things said with too little accuracy in this book savour of the beginnings of his conversion, as when Cyprian says that kingdoms vary by lot, that Christ had to suffer, and, when He had suffered, to return again to those above.

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.

Pontius observes that in Cyprian's case, because of his outstanding progress in virtue, what the Apostle's letters had prescribed, that neophytes should not be raised to the priesthood, was not observed at all: “He received the presbyterate and the priesthood at once,” he says; “for who would not entrust every grade of honour to one who believed with such a mind?” He adds that as a presbyter he did many things excellently, but he has not handed them down to our memory. I gladly agree with Pearson and Fell that the three books of Testimonies were written by Cyprian as a presbyter, or at least I would believe them written at the beginning of his episcopate. For in them there is no trace of those things which Cyprian afterwards defended with such ardour of mind, whether when he contended against Felicissimus that the lapsed were not to be received without penance, and against Novatian that they were not to be shut out from the hope of pardon; or when he defended the unity of the Church against both;

or when he was contending that Baptism outside the Church is null and void. In the third book he brings forward a number of testimonies of Scripture against heretics and schismatics, but he would have been far fuller and more vehement had he written in the very blaze and amid the disturbances stirred up by the heretics. Moreover, what he says in book III, chapter 28, 'That he who has sinned against God cannot be forgiven in the Church', although I hope it has been explained not unsuitably in the preface, chapter 9, nevertheless indicates a mind less attentive to the controversy stirred up by Novatian. Fell observes that neither are the testimonies of Scripture cited in these books in the same way as in the others, nor are the books of Scripture designated by the same names; from which he confirms that they were written before Cyprian's other works. They are inscribed to Quirinus, whom Cyprian calls his son, and at whose request he gathered testimonies of Scripture under certain definite heads, adding nothing of his own apart from the titles and the prefaces placed before the first and third books. Those who deny these books to Cyprian, or at least the third, brought to light by Erasmus, are refuted in Baluze's first observation on these books, which is worth reading.

Cyprian did not remain long in the rank of presbyter, but shortly afterwards, as is seen from the testimony of Pontius, on the death of the bishop of Carthage he was put in his place 'by the judgement of God and the favour of the people'. Yet it was not easily obtained from him that he should take up so great a burden, but 'when the whole people, with the Lord inspiring them, sprang forward in love and honour towards him, he humbly withdrew, yielding to those older than himself and judging himself unworthy of the title of so great an honour'. But, since the people's zeal for him was necessarily the more inflamed, and a numerous brotherhood besieged the doors of his house, and anxious charity went round every entrance, he was compelled to yield to the divine will signified by so many manifest things. But although the episcopate was imposed on him unwilling and fleeing, there were not lacking those who, having formed a conspiracy, opposed his election; among whom five presbyters above all made their wickedness notorious. The indignation of the people blazed out against Cyprian's detractors, as is clear from Letter 40; but Cyprian omitted nothing to restore their embittered minds to health, 'counting them among his closest friends and intimates, to the wonder of many', says Pontius. But those five presbyters nourished the poison they had conceived in their marrow, and after some years, when a schism had been kindled, it broke out violently. Augustine, book II, On Baptism, chapter 7, calls Agrippinus Cyprian's predecessor. But Cyprian did not immediately succeed him, both because in Letter 73 he says that it was many years now and a long age since a decree had been made in council under Agrippinus on rejecting the baptism of heretics; and because in Letter 55 he calls Donatus his predecessor, as he calls Fabian Cornelius's. Him therefore, as is most likely, he immediately succeeded.

Cyprian in Letter 55, written in the year 252, says that he has been 'approved by his people in the episcopate for four years already'. From this those who have treated of his deeds conclude that he was ordained in the year 248. But nevertheless, if we reckon up the calculations more carefully, the matter is not so certain and established as to those learned men

it seems; and it could very well have happened that, having been ordained at the beginning of the year 249, he counted four years of episcopate in this Letter 55, which can scarcely have been written before the month of July of the year 252. For Cyprian is accustomed in this way to count years begun as whole ones: the time elapsed from the month of January or February of the year 250 up to the Easter of the year 251 he calls a two-year period in Ep. 40; similarly he interprets [a period] as three years in Epist. 53. Therefore, if he had been ordained around the Easter of the year 249, he could count a four-year period in the month of July of the year 252; but we perceive that he was already bishop around the Easter of the year 249 from Letter 24, written in his retirement, in which he says that he had given Saturus the office of reader once and again on the day of Easter. For since this Easter cannot be referred to the year 250, for Cyprian was then absent, it must be referred to the year 249: but perhaps, when he gave Saturus the office of reader, he was fresh from his Ordination, and nothing forbids our saying that he was ordained at the beginning of the year 249. If, however, he received Ordination in the year 248, which I do not deny could very well have happened, he certainly did not receive it long before the month of July. For, after his custom, he would have counted a five-year period, not a four-year period, at the beginning of July of the year 252, if he had been ordained in the month of May in the year 248.

The time elapsed from the beginning of his episcopate up to the persecution of Decius Cyprian spent in amending the morals of his people and in upholding the laws of discipline. For he says in Epist. 55 that he served "in the quiet of discipline". Since he always took the greatest care of virgins, some not unsuitably refer to the beginnings of his episcopate the book On the Dress of Virgins. Others hold that these words, "we exhort them with affection rather than with authority," befit a presbyter rather than a bishop; but Pearson attributes these words to Cyprian's modesty; he observes that episcopal authority is in force in other places, as when Cyprian says: "Hear, then, virgins, as a parent; hear, I beg, one who teaches and admonishes you alike." Rigault puts this book back after the persecution of Decius, relying on this argument, that it is reckoned by Pontius among those works of Cyprian which the Church would have lacked had Cyprian not escaped the onslaught of the heathen by a prudent retirement. But Rigault did not see that the book To Donatus itself is also mentioned in this way by Pontius, which nevertheless no one would deny was written at the beginning of his conversion. Hence it is plain that Pontius enumerates the works of Cyprian as the occasion arose, not only those which he had written after his retirement.

About the same time, that is, before the persecution, Letter 66 is thought to have been written, which Cyprian wrote "to the presbyters and deacons and people abiding at Furni," concerning a certain Geminius Victor, who had named Geminius Faustinus, a presbyter, as guardian in his will. Cyprian orders to be observed what the bishops his predecessors had long ago decreed, "that no brother departing [this life] should name a cleric to a guardianship or trusteeship, and if anyone had done this, offering should not be made for him, nor the sacrifice be celebrated for his falling asleep." Cyprian had deliberated on this matter with the colleagues who were present, and with the fellow presbyters who sat with him. For often the African bishops, by business,

were drawn to Carthage, with whom the bishop of Carthage could hold, as it were, a continual council. It is, however, clear enough, as Pearson and Tillemont observe, that this letter was written in peacetime. For that Geminius would not, while persecution was raging, have entrusted the guardianship of his sons to a presbyter, whom the dignity and office he held would have thrown into the midst of danger. It is likely that this Geminius Faustinus, whom Victor had named as guardian, was afterwards made bishop of the same city. For Geminius of Furni was present at the council of Carthage in the year 256.

Pearson declares that three other letters were written before the year 250: the sixty-first, to Euchratius, concerning a certain actor who, although he had given up the theatre, was still teaching his art; the sixty-second, to Pomponius, concerning virgins who had been caught in the same bed with men, one of whom was a deacon; the sixty-fifth, to Rogatianus, concerning a certain deacon who had insulted and wronged him, with no regard either for his dignity or for his old age. If these letters were written at the beginning of his episcopate, it must be that the esteem for Cyprian's wisdom was already very great, since bishops from every side sought his replies; but it must be admitted that there is no mark in these letters why they should be assigned to this time. I would rather believe that the letter to Rogatianus was written after the disturbances stirred up by Novatus and his followers; for Cyprian seems to have them in view when he says: "For these are the beginnings of heretics and the origins and attempts of evil-minded schismatics: that they please themselves, that they despise their superior with swollen pride. Thus is the Church abandoned, thus is a profane altar set up outside, thus is rebellion made against the peace of Christ and the ordinance and unity of God."

Cyprian's wisdom shines out in these letters. In the sixty-first he declares that it befits neither the divine majesty nor the discipline of the Gospel that an actor should receive communion. But if poverty should compel him to practise this art, he ought to be supported at the Church's expense, provided, however, that he be content with plainer food; or, if the Church there cannot bear this expense, he invites him to his own. In the sixty-second he praises Pomponius for having excluded the deacon who had often stayed with a virgin, and also the others who had been accustomed to sleep with virgins. He advises that the virgins be examined carefully by midwives, and that if they are found to be virgins, they be admitted into the Church having received communion, provided, however, that they have so far done penance for this unlawful sleeping together and have separated from one another. He threatens a heavier censure if they return to the same men, or if they live together with them in one house and under the same roof. On those who have been corrupted he imposes full penance, and he declares that, if they obstinately persist, they can never be admitted into the Church. In the sixty-fifth he praises the humility of Rogatianus, because, although by the vigour of his episcopate and the authority of his chair he could have exacted punishment from the deacon, he referred the complaint to him. He rules that the deacon must do penance for his audacity, and acknowledge the honour of the priest,

" and to make satisfaction with full humility to the bishop set over him. Here the authority of Cyprian is easily perceived, as of one not so much giving advice as commanding and ordering; both on account of the dignity of his see, and because he gave his replies after taking counsel with bishops and presbyters. For the Letters to Pomponius and to Rogatianus were written not only in the name of Cyprian, but also in that of the bishops with whom he had deliberated on the matters put before him. Nor is it indeed surprising if he took counsel with bishops on graver matters, he who had resolved from the beginning of his episcopate to do nothing by his private judgement without the counsel of the clergy and the consent of the people. From what we shall say hereafter anyone will easily perceive how great was Cyprian's diligence and assiduity in this kind of thing, whether clerics were to be ordained, or anything else of greater moment was to be undertaken. Pontius praises in his episcopate his piety and vigour, his mercy and strictness, a countenance grave and glad, neither a gloomy severity nor an excessive affability, a mind turned away from worldly pride, yet without the squalor of affected poverty, and finally the highest charity towards the poor, whom he had loved as a catechumen.

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

Cyprian, elected in peace, as he himself testifies in Letter 55, spent one year, to which perhaps some months are to be added, in this state of affairs. About the beginning of this year 250, Novatus the presbyter, on account of his wife's womb struck with his heel and the offspring forced out by abortion, and other crimes, was summoned to judgement before Cyprian; and already the day of the hearing was at hand, but the persecution supervened (Letter 49). Pearson vaunts himself on this example of a married presbyter: but yet Novatus did not take a wife at the time when he was a presbyter, nor, if as a presbyter he kept her, is the Church on that account forbidden to choose presbyters from the number of the continent.

A very wide field for Cyprian's virtues was opened by the persecution of Decius, about which a few things must be said by us before we go through the deeds done by Cyprian in these most troublesome times. Decius, having cruelly slain the Philips and seized the empire, considered that nothing was to be done by him sooner or in preference than to turn all the efforts of his rule against the Christian religion, which under the Philips and the earlier emperors had grown to a wonderful degree. He therefore began, both from his own hatred towards the Philips and from longing for the Roman superstitions, upon whose ruins he saw this religion being built up, to make funeral offerings in the blood of Christians.

That the persecution began together with the reign of Decius we learn from a reliable witness, Dionysius of Alexandria, who bore a very great share in defending and protecting the Church in this persecution. "But immediately," he says in Eusebius (History, book 6, chapter 41), the change of that reign so very kindly towards us was announced to us, and a most grievous terror of threats was held over us. And already the edict of the emperor was at hand, etc." The same is attested by Lactantius in the book On the Deaths of the Persecutors, chapter 4, and by Orosius, book 6, chapter 21. Wherefore, since there exists no trace of the persecution before the month of January

of the year 250, on the twentieth day of which month it is established that Pope Fabian suffered at Rome, Tillemont does not agree with the learned author of the Cyprianic Annals, who thinks that Philip was killed in the month of August of the year 249, and that Decius assumed the purple at the end of the month of July. It is indeed not without reason held that both Philips perished before the end of the year 249, and did not reign seven years, as seemed right to Eusebius; for since in the Code of Justinian (book 4, title 16) there is extant a rescript issued under the name of Decius on the fourteenth day before the Kalends of November, in the consulship of Aemilianus and Aquilinus, the Philips therefore seem already by then to have perished; but that this happened in the month of August is not proved: indeed Tillemont even cites from the Code of Justinian (book 6, title 36) a law issued by Philip on the Ides of October in the consulship of the same Aemilianus, to whom Peregrinus is assigned as colleague, not without error.

But, whatever beginnings of his reign may be assigned to Decius, it cannot be denied that the persecution was raging at the beginning of the year 250. Its first stages were free of cruelty of torments, not indeed in all places, but at least at Carthage, where at first no other penalties were inflicted on the confessors than prison and exile; but, after a few months had passed, no kind of torture was lacking. Thus Aurelius, as Cyprian says in Letter 33, « contended before the eyes of a few earlier, when he was being made an exile; but afterwards he merited to contend also in the forum with more illustrious virtue, so that after the magistrates he overcame even the proconsul, and after exile he surmounted torments. » Tillemont thinks that the persecution raged sooner at Rome than in Africa, and that Moyses and Maximus, Roman presbyters, had already been thrown into prison when the persecution began in Africa, although they were thrown in after the martyrdom of Pope Fabian, as is found in Bucherius's Pontifical. It is certainly not inconsistent that the persecution should have broken out sooner at Rome than in the provinces; but yet the words of Cyprian on which the most learned man relies do not altogether demonstrate what seems so to him, that the Roman confessors were thrown into prison before the Carthaginians, but only that tortures and torments began earlier at Rome than at Carthage. For thus Cyprian speaks in Letter 25, to Moyses and Maximus and the other confessors: « For you, made the foremost and leaders for the battle of our time, have advanced the standards of the heavenly warfare; you have inaugurated with your virtues the spiritual contest which God has now willed to be waged; you have broken the first onslaughts of the rising war with immovable strength and unshaken steadfastness: from there the happy beginnings of fighting arose; from there the auspices of conquering began. It has happened here that martyrdoms were consummated through torments: but he who in the contest, going before, was made an example of virtue to the brethren shares in honour with the martyrs. Your garlands, woven by hand, you have handed on from there to here, and you have handed the brethren a drink from the cup of salvation. » Tillemont denies that it follows from these words that Moyses and Maximus were the very first of all at Rome to confess, since Fabian died a martyr before they were thrown into prison, but only that they won this praise before the Carthaginians. But yet no one is excepted by

Cyprian, and he declares that the confessors to whom he was writing, "the foremost and the leaders in the battle of our time", had advanced the standards. It is therefore far better to take these words of the constancy of the martyrs in enduring tortures, as the whole construction of the words requires.

Cyprian, in the book On the Lapsed, traces the cause of the persecution back to the sins of the Christians, whose ancient piety a long peace had so corrupted that in most of them a hunger for money, love of luxuries, frauds and robberies, marriages with unbelievers, perjuries, enmities and curses were deservedly censured. Corruption had infected very many bishops too, in whom Cyprian chastises not only the management of worldly affairs and the markets of gainful trading through other provinces, but also frauds and robberies and usury. God used the persecution of Decius for the amendment of so many evils, which both wonderfully exercised the piety and constancy of the good, and laid bare the cowardice and the inner stains of soul of those who were Christians in name rather than in life. For this persecution had this peculiar feature, that it took in absolutely all Christians, at least at Carthage, and no one came out of it except either as a distinguished confessor of Christ, or as a faithless worshipper of images, or as a libellaticus. For to each person days were fixed in advance for the testing of his faith, as Cyprian says in the book On the Lapsed (p. 182), and so not only he who boldly presented himself, but also he who "did not profess within the day, and withdrew leaving his patrimony behind, confessed himself to be a Christian." There was therefore no middle course: either life was to be poured out for Christ, or at least the patrimony thrown away, or both were to be kept along with crime. That the same happened at Alexandria is seen from Dionysius of Alexandria, in Eusebius' History (bk 6, ch. 41). The Roman confessors deplore "the ruin of many throughout almost the whole world, and a great offence that has raged throughout almost the whole world with incredible devastation" (Ep. 26). "Behold the whole world almost laid waste," says the Roman clergy (Ep. 31), "and everywhere the remains and ruins of the fallen lying about. Cyprian too, in Ep. 6, laments "the hostile storm," which had "laid low" his people for the most part, "and had also grazed a portion of the clergy, although the clergy fell later. Not without the deepest grief does he recall in the book On the Lapsed (p. 183) that "at the very first words of the threatening enemy the greatest number of the brethren betrayed their faith, and were not laid low by the onslaught of persecution, but laid themselves low by a voluntary fall. They did not wait," he says, "at least to deny when questioned, to go up when arrested; many were conquered before the battle, laid low without an encounter, and did not leave themselves even this, that they should seem to sacrifice to idols unwillingly; they ran to the forum of their own accord, hastened to death willingly..... What of those who, when evening was pressing on, were put off by the magistrates, and even asked that their destruction should not be deferred?... And for many their own destruction was not enough: a people was driven into its ruin by mutual urgings, death was pledged to one another in a deadly cup." Yet the life of not all the lapsed before the persecution was unpraiseworthy, for Cyprian testifies in Ep. 27,

that there were some "of the lapsed, humble and meek, and trembling and fearing God, and who in the Church always worked gloriously and grandly, and ascribed their work to the Lord." Great indeed was the disgrace branded upon the Christian name by the cowardice of so many men running from the sacred rites of Christ to the altars of demons; but on the other side, very great splendour accrued, not only from the fortitude and constancy of those who overcame horrible tortures and unheard-of punishments for Christ, but also from the prudent flight of innumerable others who, since they preferred to cast away their wealth rather than obey impious commands, are numbered among the confessors, with Cyprian as judge. Therefore, if never at any other time was so great a multitude of the lapsed seen, never too did so great a number of confessors exist; and then, though the persecution raged everywhere, yet not everywhere did his arts succeed for the devil. For the Roman clergy writes in Ep. 3 to the clergy of Carthage that the Roman Church stands strong in the faith, and that only some, compelled by terror, had fallen. This too is to be observed to the praise of religion, that very few bishops fell, and that innumerable others steadily steered the ship of the Church amid horrible storms and, when peace was restored, so healed the wounds of the lapsed that those who had succumbed to the persecution of Decius conquered when the contest was renewed under Gallus and Volusianus, as the author of the book To Novatian the Heretic testifies.

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

While the persecution of Decius was raging, there appeared in Africa a certain new kind of lapsed, who were called Libellatici, and who have given material for the conjectures of learned men. Rigault (in his notes on Cyprian's Epp. 14 and 31) and Natalis Alexander (vol. 2, p. 635) held that those were called Libellatici who, having paid money to the judge, received a certificate of security, and thus bought themselves off both from the law imposed of sacrificing and from the penalties threatened against those who resisted. But this opinion is of itself so bare of all arguments and unaccompanied by them, and has been so broken and hissed off by learned men, that it needs no fresh labour of refutation. For who would persuade himself that it is a grave sin, to be expiated by penance, which is approved by the examples of Scripture and by canon 12 of Peter of Alexandria, and was never disallowed except among the Montanists, who condemned fleeing persecution as a crime? Many other conjectures have arisen about the Libellatici, on which it is not so easy to judge. The author of the Annales Cyprianici (p. 17) thinks that the Libellatici "denied Christ in acts publicly drawn up before the magistrates." St Augustine interprets the Libellatici as those "who in time of persecution had declared by certificates that they would offer incense" (book 4, On Baptism, n. 6). Baronius (at the year 253) denies that the Libellatici were so called from having given certificates, but rather from having received them; yet he maintains that Christ was denied by them. Tillemont (vol. 1, note 3 on the persecution of Decius) doubts whether they gave certificates or received them: he suspects that they both gave and received them, and he shows that the same view was held by the learned author of the book On

Frequent Communion. Many others think that the Libellatici were so called from certificates they had given, as Bosquet does (book 3 of the Ecclesiastical History of Gaul, p. 132); some also hold that they had signed in the public records. Since this variety of opinions leaves freedom to conjecture and investigate, I shall not be afraid to set out what seems right to me. I think, then, that the Libellatici neither promised by voice or in writing that they would do anything impious, nor declared that they had done it, but were blamed and assigned to just penance for this reason: that they had obtained certificates of security from the magistrates on the terms and condition that it should be written in the public records that they had sacrificed and denied Christ, although they had committed neither.

That the crime of the Libellatici lay in this is seen from the fact that their deceit is compared with the one which the king's ministers had proposed to Eleazar: "And so that no one," says Cyprian in the book On the Exhortation to Martyrdom (p. 271), "when the opportunity of a certificate or of any other thing by which he might deceive is offered to him, may embrace the evil gift of deceivers: Eleazar too must not be passed over in silence, etc." The Libellatici therefore committed what Eleazar refused to commit; they consented to be said to have sacrificed, far unlike that excellent old man. But if they had pronounced by voice, or declared in writing, that they had sacrificed and denied Christ, Cyprian would have dissuaded them from such a deed as from open impiety, not as from a cunning pretence.

The same is seen both from those passages in which the fault of the Libellatici is softened and in some measure excused, and also from those in which it is more severely rebuked. When the peace granted to the Libellatici at the synod of Carthage was being criticized by the followers of Novatian, Cyprian defended the synod's action thus in Letter 52, to Antonianus: "Since, then, among those very people who have sacrificed," he says (p. 70), "there is great diversity, what lack of clemency it is, and how bitter a harshness, to join the Libellatici with those who have sacrificed, when the one by whom the certificate was received may say: I had previously read, and had learned from the bishop's teaching, that one must not sacrifice to idols, and that a servant of God ought not to worship images; and therefore, so as not to do what was not lawful, when the opportunity of a certificate had been offered, which I would not have accepted either had the opportunity not been presented, I either went to the magistrate or sent word through another who was going, that I am a Christian, that it is not lawful for me to sacrifice, that I cannot come to the altars of the devil, that I am paying a price for this, so that I may not do what is not lawful. Yet now even this man who has been stained by the certificate, after he has learned from our admonitions that he ought not to have done even this, and that although his hand is pure and no contagion of deadly food has polluted his mouth, yet his conscience is polluted, weeps on hearing us and laments, and is now made aware of the wrong he has done, and, deceived not so much by crime as by error, testifies that he is henceforth instructed and prepared." From these words it is seen, 1st, that the Libellatici drew their name not from certificates given but from certificates received; 2nd, that they secretly confessed to the magistrate that they were Christians, and that the whole affair was handled so moderately that neither did the Christian seem to himself to say or do anything impious, nor did the judge come into danger; 3rd, that it was not the hand of the Libellatici, not their mouth that had been

defiled, but only the conscience, because, that is, with their knowledge a fictitious crime had been entered in the public records. But if they had attested by voice or in writing that they had sacrificed and denied Christ, would Cyprian have judged their tongues and hands free and pure of the crime? 4th, finally, those who conclude from this letter that there were two kinds of libellatici, of whom some had sinned much more gravely than others, are refuted by the very thing they think most favours them. For when Cyprian observes that "among those very ones who sacrificed" there is great diversity, he sets no other distinction among the libellatici than that some had gone to the magistrate, while others had given their instructions through another who went. He does not doubt that both sinned equally. Hence peace was granted to both at the same time in the council of Carthage, which was held in the year 251 after Easter. Indeed, since in that council the bishops weighed all considerations most carefully, as Cyprian testifies in this Letter 52, they would not have dealt in the same way with all the libellatici if there had been a notable difference among them. But what both kinds of libellatici had done wrong, both those who had dealt with the magistrate in person and those who did so through others, Cyprian does not state; for the matter was very well known to Antonianus; but this at least is clear from his words, that the sin was such that they did not even seem to themselves to have sinned. But it is wholly incredible that Christians imbued with the best moral precepts were so blinded as to believe that they could declare or write without crime: I have sacrificed to the gods, I have denied Christ; and that only on being admonished by Cyprian did they learn that they ought not to have done this. So manifest is the impiety of such a deed that it could have escaped no one at all, except one who had stripped off all sense of religion.

The Roman clergy, in a letter among those of Cyprian, 31, chastise the fault of the libellatici with no gentle arm, and yet indicate nothing other than what we have just observed: "That we do not say this falsely," they say, "our earlier letter proved, in which we set out our view to you in a clear exposition, both against those who had betrayed themselves as unbelievers by the unlawful profession of wicked certificates, as though they would seem to escape those entangling snares of the devil, by which they were held no less than if they had approached the wicked altars, by the very fact that they had attested it; and also against those who had had the records made, although they had not been present when they were made, since by giving instructions that they be so written they had certainly made their presence. For he is not free of the crime who ordered that it be done, nor is he a stranger to the guilt by whose consent the guilt, though not committed by himself, is nevertheless publicly read. And since the whole sacrament of faith is understood to be summed up in the confession of the name of Christ, he who seeks deceitful tricks by way of excuse has denied, and he who wishes to seem to have satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the Gospel has by that very fact already obeyed, in that he wished to seem to have obeyed." This passage is indeed a twin of the other, drawn from the Letter to Antonianus, although the one inclines to the utmost leniency, the other to the utmost severity. The Roman clergy testify that the libellatici were so disposed in mind that they, about to escape the devil's snares,

seemed to themselves; which certainly would not have entered the minds of Christians if they had uttered anything impious either by voice or attested it in writing. The Roman clergy distinguish two kinds of libellatici, as in the Letter to Antonianus: those who had been present at the writing, and those who had not even dared or been able to be present. Both are blamed equally, because the latter, although "they had not been there in person when the record was being made, had at any rate made their presence felt by ordering that it be written thus." Furthermore, concerning those who were not present at the writing, no one would say that they had handed in a certificate, or declared anything with an impious word. They are reproached only in this, that they had ordered the record to be made, that "with their consent a crime, though not committed by them, was nevertheless publicly" read out; that they had sought "deceitful tricks by way of excuse"; that they had wished "to seem to have satisfied the edicts or laws set forth against the Gospel." Therefore those who had been present, since they are in exactly the same case, committed nothing else than that a feigned crime was entered in the public records before their own eyes. Wherefore, when the Roman clergy say that they are held guilty "no less than if they had approached the wicked altars, by the very fact that they had attested it," this is not to be understood as though they had declared aloud that they had approached the altars, but that they had consented that public testimony should nevertheless exist of a crime not committed. In a like sense the same clergy say that those made the record who "had not been there in person when the record was being made." In the same way is to be understood what is said of Martialis in Ep. 68 (p. 119), and also that passage from the book On the Lapsed (p. 190): "nor let those flatter themselves so as not to do penance who, although they have not defiled their hands with unspeakable sacrifices, have yet polluted their conscience with certificates. And that profession of one who denies is the attestation of a Christian that he had renounced [the faith]. He said he had done whatever another committed by doing it." This passage does not disagree with the judgement of the Roman clergy against those "who had betrayed themselves as unbelievers by the unlawful profession of wicked certificates." The libellaticus said he had done whatever another committed by doing it, not because he declared aloud that he had denied and sacrificed, for he was saying to the judge that he was a Christian and to sacrifice, to come to the altars of the devil, was not possible for him, as we read in Ep. 52; but because that profession of the certificate is, in a certain manner, that of a man who denies. For thus, having examined the ancient editions and eight manuscript codices, I found that this passage is to be read: "and that profession is of one who denies; it is the attestation of a Christian that he had renounced [the faith]," that is, in the same sense in which the Roman clergy say that he who seeks deceitful tricks by way of excuse has denied, and that he who wishes to seem to have satisfied the edicts has by that very fact already obeyed.

As for the certificates given by the judges, it does not seem that the same thing was written in them as in the public records. For the sin of the libellatici would have been graver if, besides the testimony recorded in the public records, they had kept certificates of this kind and shown them when occasion offered; which indeed was not laid against them either by Cyprian or by the Roman clergy. To the weighty reasons adduced so far I will add one: that it was not the custom

that those who denied the faith should record it in writing, but it was only entered into the acts. Baronius (at the year 304) and Tillemont (vol. 5, p. 451) think otherwise, and bring forward a passage from the Acts of the holy martyrs Agape, Chionia and Irene, who are said to have been "ordered to profess a written denial of Christ". But that written denial, in Greek ἔγγραφος (for so I judge the Greek text to have read), is nothing other than a denial recorded in the acts. So in Eusebius (History, book 11, ch. 5) certain women were compelled by the commander λέγειν ἐγγράφως, "to confess by testimonies spoken for the record" that they had been Christians and were privy to the shameful deeds committed by Christians. The Messalians in Photius (Cod. 52) are said to have been convicted ἐγγράφως, that is, "by testimonies spoken for the record", of having returned to their errors. Hence Basil (book 1 On Baptism, ch. 3) calls the promises by which we are bound in Baptism ὥσπερ ἔγγραφον ὁμολογίαν, "as it were a kind of profession on record". Whence also Optatus (book 2, n. 34): "The faith of believers and the profession which is made on the record of the Angels."

The crime of the certificates, although it had its fame and name chiefly in Africa, was nevertheless not unknown in other provinces: for at Rome St Cornelius was charged with this crime by wicked schismatics; and in Spain the bishops Basilides and Martialis were convicted of the same. Moreover in Egypt under Peter of Alexandria there occurs a certain kind of libellatici, but I do not know whether it differs from the African. Peter of Alexandria (Canon 5) assigns a penance of six months to those who feigned, as David also did, ἤτοι ὡς διελθόντες βωμούς, ἤτοι ὡς χειρογραφήσαντες, ἤτοι ὡς ἀνθ' ἑαυτῶν βαλόντες ἐθνικούς, "either as passing through the altars, or as giving a handwritten bond, or as sending heathens in their own place." Peter admits that men of this sort did not openly display impiety, καὶ μὴ γυμνῶς ἀπογραψαμένοις τὰ πρὸς ἄρνησιν: where it seems one should read ἐπιγραψαμένοις. Zonaras interprets that handwritten bond thus, συνέθεντο θῦσαι, "they agreed that they would sacrifice." But would this promise have lacked the appearance of open impiety? I would rather believe that men of this sort, just like the libellatici in Africa, received from the judges some arrangement which would seem both safe for the judge and not openly impious to the Christian. I will say nothing of another kind of libellatici, which Baronius (at the year 253) thought he perceived in the letter of Pliny to Trajan, from which he brings forward these words: "A pamphlet was posted without an author, containing the names of many who denied that they were or had been Christians, etc." But Baronius did not notice that this pamphlet was not presented by Christians, but by someone concealing his own name and designating many by name as Christians who nevertheless denied that they were or had been Christians. Hence Trajan, replying to Pliny, says: "But pamphlets posted without an author ought to have no place in any charge, for that is both of the worst precedent and not of our age."

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

As soon as the edict of Decius was brought into Africa, Cyprian, at once harried by the clamours of the people and for the lion

demanded, he avoided the fury of the impious by a prudent withdrawal, since he preferred that his crown be put off to another time rather than that new torches be set to the fire of persecution by his presence. Not once only was he sought, but often at other times the fury of the populace blazed out against him in his absence. Pontius testifies that he was demanded "for the lion by votes often repeated," and "attained the glory of proscription." He himself relates the same of himself, that he was "so often clamoured for and sought" (Ep. 6). "So often demanded for the lion in the circus, in the amphitheatre," and that he was even proscribed "with the name of his episcopate attached and joined to it" (Ep. 55). "When it was publicly read out: If anyone holds or possesses any of the goods of Caecilius Cyprianus, bishop of the Christians (Ep. 69)." Where he betook himself we do not know; but the presbyters and deacons of Rome, deceived by unjust talk, judged too unfairly of his withdrawal before they were more fully informed by him of the whole matter. There is scarcely any doubt that some others also blamed him; for Pontius would not have defended his action with such zeal if it had been approved by all and cleared of reproach. Perhaps this handle for censure was seized upon formerly, or may even be seized upon today, if anyone should arrogate to himself the part of a censor: that in his absence the greater part of the faithful fell shamefully, whereas they would have been more constant in the faith, or at least slower to the horrible crime, if they had heard the entirely free confession of their bishop, or had witnessed his glorious death for Christ.

But, so that we may ward off all reproach from Cyprian in a plan of this kind, which two other most eminent men, Gregory Thaumaturgus and Dionysius of Alexandria, adopted at the same time, it must be observed, first, that he obeyed the common precept of the Gospel, which he was bound to observe most of all at that time, when the persecution was breaking out chiefly against his own name, and there was danger that by his presence he might kindle the fury of the gentiles against his people. Second, he was admonished by God in a singular manner to depart: "For a mind dedicated to God in all things," says Pontius, "and a faith made subject to divine admonitions, believed that, unless it obeyed the Lord, Who then commanded a hiding-place, it would sin even by martyrdom itself." Cyprian defends himself by the precept of the Gospel in the letter which he wrote to the Roman clergy for the sake of clearing himself; but in another letter, namely the tenth, he declares that the Lord commanded him to withdraw. Third, that very great number of the brethren which fell in Cyprian's absence was not forced to deny Christ by torments and tortures, "but at the very first words of the threatening enemy betrayed its faith," as we read in the book On the Lapsed. For people so disposed in mind Cyprian could not provide better than if he urged them by his own example to withdraw. Fourth, Pontius observes that Cyprian was preserved by divine counsel, so that, when the Church had suffered a very great disaster in the persecution of Decius, "he might, applying the remedy of heavenly medicine, either cut for the time being or foment, according to the nature of the wound, men who were wounded and struck by the various art of the destroying enemy." The outcome proved the matter. For the author of the book To Novatian the Heretic testifies that "those who in the first battle line," that is, "were wounded in the Decian persecution, these afterwards, that

is, in the second battle, persevered so bravely that, despising the edicts of worldly princes, they held this as unconquerable, that they did not fear, after the example of the good shepherd, to give up their life and to shed their blood, nor to refuse any savagery of the raging tyrant." Fifth, finally, Cyprian was absent in body in such a way that in mind and solicitude he was present in all matters, and neglected none of the duties of a bishop. On departing he had made provision for all things, he had distributed money among the clergy, "so that more of them might have the means with which to work for the necessities and pressures of individuals (Ep. 5)." He seems while in retreat to have offered the sacrifices constantly, with Victor the deacon ministering, who had accompanied him with some others (Epp. 5, 37). At times several bishops were present, and together with Cyprian they ordained Aurelius and Celerinus, as is clear from Epp. 33 and 34. Moreover, he speaks of his sacrifices in such a way that he seems to have gathered a numerous people. For he says in Epistle 16, which is to the Roman confessors: "And we indeed, mindful of you by day and night, both when we make prayer with many in the sacrifices, and when in retreat we pray with private prayers, ask of the Lord full favour for your crowns and praises." But when he had committed the care of the Church to the presbyters and deacons, and moreover, to use his own words from Ep. 38, had sent two bishops, Caldonius and Herculanus, as vicars in his place, to whom he had joined the presbyters Rogatianus and Numidicus, everything was referred to him, and nothing was omitted by him that pertained to relieving the poor, to exhorting and at times even rebuking the confessors, to repairing the ruins of the lapsed, to the observance of discipline and the pacification of the Church. But, since different people arrange the letters he wrote in retreat differently, the matter must be examined by us not perfunctorily.

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

The presbyters and deacons of Rome, to whom, Fabian having died, the chief charge of administering affairs had reverted, learned of Cyprian's withdrawal from Clementius, or, as Baluze calls him, Crementius, a Carthaginian subdeacon. And since the matter had been reported « less simply and less faithfully, » as Cyprian says in Ep. 15, whether by this subdeacon or by others (for Cyprian does not accuse him), they sent two letters to Carthage by the same Crementius, one to Cyprian on the death of Fabian, which indeed has come down to us, the other to his clergy; although Cyprian says that « neither who wrote it, nor to whom it was written, was clearly expressed. » In this letter, which is turned up in third place in Pamelius, although nothing is said of Cyprian by name except honourably, yet they speak of his withdrawal in such a way as by no means to approve of him: they discourse on the marks of good shepherds as though they found them wanting in Cyprian; finally, they commend the guarding of the flock to the Carthaginian clergy as though the church were widowed of its bishop. This too could be vexing to Cyprian, that the Romans asked the Carthaginian clergy

to transmit a copy of this letter to whomever it could through suitable opportunities, or to make it its own.

Tillemont places this letter of the Roman clergy about the month of May; but it is not likely that the Romans informed Cyprian so late of the death of Fabius, who died a martyr on the twentieth day of January. Even if the persecution had cut off the means of doing this, as Tillemont conjectures, there was nevertheless far too much intercourse between Rome and Carthage for "rumour to be uncertain and opinion to waver in doubt" about so notable an event for four months, as Cyprian says in Ep. 4. Then, moreover, from the letter of Celerinus to Lucianus (number 21 among Cyprian's), we learn that sixty-five [con]fessors came to Rome from Carthage shortly after Easter, or perhaps even before Easter, which this year fell on 7 April by the cycle of Victorius, or on 31 March by the cycle of Hippolytus. Yet the Roman clergy indicate, in the letter with which we are now dealing, that no one had come from Carthage from whom they could be informed about Cyprian's withdrawal, except Clementius the subdeacon. It is therefore much more probable that this letter was delivered in the month of March.

But Tillemont objects that Cyprian, in Letter 15, which is agreed to have been written in summer, speaks of this letter of the Roman clergy in such a way as to say that it had been sent recently. He then asks why, when Cyprian answered this letter at once, the Romans wrote back so late: for they had not yet done so when Cyprian was writing Letter 15. That word "recently" proves nothing, since it bears a varying sense according to the varying way in which the matter is considered. Cyprian, in Ep. 65, says that a certain decree of his predecessors was made long ago and recently. He could therefore say that he had recently received a letter received four months before, especially since no other letter had come during that whole time. The reason why the Romans had not yet answered Cyprian in the month of July is easy and ready to hand: for they had not yet laid aside their suspicions, [and] their ears still lay open to unjust talk, as may be seen at the beginning of Letter 15. For this reason they had resolved not to reply; hence in the month of July they addressed a letter not to Cyprian himself but to his clergy; although there is not the least doubt that they had received Cyprian's first letter, even if it had not been written before the month of May.

IX. — On Cyprian's first reply to the letter 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 wanting.

Cyprian at once answered the first letter of the Roman clergy, and rejoiced at the glorious end of Fabian, about which there had previously been an uncertain rumour. As for the other [letter], written to the Carthaginian clergy, he judged that the matter must be handled prudently. Since he had noticed that in this letter "neither who had written nor to whom it was written was expressly indicated," and since "in that same letter the handwriting and the sense and the very sheets also" troubled him, lest anything of the genuine [text] had been either removed "or altered, the same to

them, the authentic letter," he sent back, "so that they might recognize whether it was the one which they had given to the subdeacon Clementius to be delivered" (Ep. 4). But when he found that the letter was genuine, without waiting for the reply of the Romans, he wrote again for the sake of clearing himself, and with a calm heart set out an account of his actions, sending to them also thirteen letters which, written by him on various matters since he had withdrawn, left no suspicion whatever of negligence. And Cyprian reviews these letters thus: "And what I have done," he says in Ep. 15, "the letters sent out as the occasions required, thirteen in number, which I have transmitted to you, tell you; in which neither counsel to the clergy, nor exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke to the exiles when it was needed, nor our address and persuasion to the whole brotherhood to entreat the mercy of God was lacking, so far as, according to the law of faith and the fear of God, with the Lord prompting, our mediocrity was able to strive. But after the tortures also came, whether to our brethren already tortured or to those still shut up to be tortured, our word reached them to strengthen and comfort them. Likewise..... I wrote letters by which I might recall the martyrs and confessors by my counsel, as far as I could, to the Lord's precepts. Likewise the vigour of the priesthood was not lacking towards the presbyters and deacons..... To the people themselves too, as far as we could, we composed their mind..: concerning this also I wrote twice to the clergy, etc." It is of very great moment to distinguish those thirteen letters among the Cyprianic ones, and to investigate whether all are extant or some have perished. Pearson does not allow that any at all is missing; but besides the fifth Epistle, to the clergy, the ninth, to the confessors, and five others on the Lapsed, namely 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, which correspond exactly to the words of Cyprian just quoted, he counts Epistles 81, 37, 36, 8, 7, 6 among those thirteen which were sent to Rome. Tillemont, on the contrary, contends that four Epistles out of those thirteen that were sent to Rome have perished; and he thinks that Epistles 8, 7, 6, 36 were written later, namely at the close of this year 250. Although the loss of Cyprian's letters is vexing to learned men, I shall nevertheless be compelled to increase their sense of its want. For I agree with Tillemont about Epistles 8, 7, 6, 36; but concerning the eighty-first and the thirty-seventh I can agree neither with him nor with Pearson that they were written at this time and sent to Rome. Therefore, of the thirteen Epistles sent to Rome, only seven seem to me to survive.

First, I should like it noted in the testimony of Cyprian which we have just reported that only eleven letters are designated, although thirteen are said to have been sent. For since he mentions by name one to the martyrs after the tortures, and five others written on the lapsed, it is necessary that seven others be comprised in these words: "Neither counsel to the clergy, nor exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke to the exiles when it was needed, nor our address and persuasion to the whole brotherhood to entreat the mercy of God was lacking." Secondly, from these things it is clear that those waste the labour and oil of conjectures who seem to themselves to have detected those thirteen letters among the Cyprianic ones.

For where will they find seven letters that answer to these words of Cyprian? Where are those letters which he testifies in Ep. 37 that he wrote "frequently" to the presbyters and deacons, in order to commend to them the care of the martyrs and confessors? Only one is extant before the thirty-seventh, namely the fifth. We have none at all written to the exiles for the purpose of rebuking them, none "to the whole brotherhood for entreating the mercy of God." But these things will become more explicit and plainer from what is to be said about Letters 8, 7, 6 and 36; for we shall deal with the thirty-seventh in the following chapter, and with the eighty-first when we come to the persecution of Gallus and Volusianus.

There can be no doubt that these four letters were written, as Tillemont observes, when the hope of approaching peace had revived Cyprian. In the seventh he exhorts the confessors to make more and more progress in the Lord, "so that, when He in His mercy has made the peace which He promises that He will make," they may return to the Church renewed and almost changed. In the eighth he relates that he heard in a vision divinely granted: "Tell him to be untroubled, because peace is coming; but that there is a little delay meanwhile is because some still remain to be proved." And in the sixth and the thirty-sixth he testifies that his return is hindered by this one thing, that he fears to be the cause of breaking the peace. But Pearson, in order to free himself from this difficulty, contrives the following: "that the proconsul, glutted with the blood of martyrs, left Carthage about this time, and that from this departure of his the persecution was carried on far more mildly day by day by the magistrates at Carthage; for after this time no mention is made either of the proconsul or of tortures or harassment in prison." But it must be noted, first, that in the letters which it is established were sent to Rome, and which Pearson places after those four, there exists no trace whatever of approaching peace. "The battle is still being waged," says Cyprian in Ep. 14, "and the contest is celebrated daily." In Ep. 25, to Moyses and the other Roman confessors, which Pearson thinks was written at the beginning of the month of August, one reads thus in the Oxford edition: "It happens here that martyrdoms are celebrated through tortures." In the Letter of Lucian to Celerinus, which was written after the month of May, when summer had already begun, one can perceive what the martyrs had suffered a few days before, when they were tormented "with hunger and thirst, and also with the heat of fire." And in general, in all those letters which speak of the lapsed, there is no mention of a peace, not only not of one already granted, as it seems to Pearson, but not even of one approaching. Cyprian orders that the case of the lapsed be kept intact until his return, and lays down that it is necessary for the Church to receive peace from the Lord before she grants peace to the lapsed. Yet nowhere does he indicate that he had learnt by divine means of the end of the persecution, although that would have been a thing most suited to calming the minds of the lapsed, who were vexed at being put off for a long time. Secondly, from Letter 8 it is seen that the persecution had raged for a long while: "But if two of one mind can do so much," he says, "what if there were unanimity among all? But if, according to

the peace which the Lord has given us, there were agreement among all the brethren, we would long ago have obtained from the divine mercy what we ask, and we would not be tossed about so long in this peril to our salvation and faith." This letter therefore could not have been written in the month of April of the year 250. In the same letter these words are read: "Finally, to His least servant, set though he is amid very many sins and unworthy of His regard, He has nevertheless, of His goodness towards us, deigned to send this command: Tell him, He says, to be untroubled, because peace is coming; but that there is meanwhile a little delay is because some still remain who are to be tested." If Cyprian wrote this in the month of April of the year 250, why did he lie hidden in retreat for a further year because of the persecution? Why, in Letter 33, which is agreed to have been written at the close of the year 250, does he say that Aurelius made an auspicious beginning of "peace while he dedicates the reading"? 3° Letter 8 is addressed to the presbyters and deacons, and St Augustine (On Baptism, bk. 4, ch. 2) testifies that it was written to the clergy. Pearson nevertheless thinks that it corresponds to these words of Cyprian: "Nor were our address and persuasion lacking to the whole brotherhood for entreating the mercy of God." But then the letter "to the whole brotherhood" was written before the tortures, as is clear from Letter 15; whereas Cyprian testifies in this same Letter 8 that tortures had already been inflicted on the confessors. The same must be said of Letter 7, in which Cyprian exhorts the confessors at length to guard the glory of their confession by a praiseworthy life, and rebukes not a few of their faults, among them that some exiles had returned to their homeland unbidden. From this Pearson seizes the occasion to prove that Cyprian is speaking of this Letter 7 when he says that reproof was not lacking to the exiles. But if Cyprian had mentioned this letter in his letter to the Roman clergy, he would have designated it not by one or another word which he said as if in passing, but by the purpose and design of the whole letter. From this opinion of Pearson, moreover, the utmost confusion of order has been introduced into the Letters of Cyprian. In Letter 7 of the Oxford edition, which is 36 in Pamelius, Cyprian fears lest, if he returns, he "be the author of breaking the peace"; but in Letter 11 of the Oxford edition, which is 8 in Pamelius, Pearson thinks that tortures recently inflicted on the confessors are mentioned. In Letters 13 and 14 of the Oxford edition, which are 7 and 6 in Pamelius, the martyrs are seen to have been already released from prison. But in Letter 15 of the Oxford edition, 11 in Pamelius, they are still held shut up in prison.

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

Once those letters have been removed from a place not their own, the order of the rest will now be freer and plainer: both of those which were sent to Rome, and of those which Cyprian wrote afterwards as the tumult of the lapsed grew heavier, and of those which he wrote at the close of this year 250, when the hope of peace had been shown him by a divine warning. First of all those written in retreat is reckoned to be the one which in Pamelius and in the Oxford edition is allotted fifth place. For it corresponds to these

words of Letter 15: "Nor was counsel lacking to the clergy." He commends the care of the poor to the clergy, and asks that "nothing be lacking to them, since the whole sum that was collected has been distributed there among the clergy for cases of this kind, so that more people might have the means to work for the needs and distresses of individuals." He also urges, for the sake of avoiding ill-will, that the confessors be visited "not in crowds nor by a multitude joined together at once," and that "the presbyters also who offer there among the confessors should take turns one at a time, each with one deacon." For my part I would readily grant that of the letters which Cyprian sent to Rome for the sake of clearing himself, none survives today which is to be preferred to this fifth one. But that it was written first of all and as soon as Cyprian withdrew, as Pearson and Fell maintain, I cannot persuade myself. For since Cyprian, as I have already observed, does not designate all those thirteen letters one by one, and since the fall of the people of Carthage, who "at the first words of the threatening enemy" had forsworn the faith, had brought Cyprian the greatest grief, there is scarcely any doubt that he strengthened his clergy with his counsels in so great a difficulty of affairs, and wrote some letters to them before this fifth one; or at least in the letters which he first wrote on receiving news of this trouble some sign of so great a grief must have been present. Therefore I would not believe that this letter was written first of all; but there is no doubt that it was written when "everything was intact regarding the safety of the clergy," when some humane treatment was still being shown to the confessors, and accordingly before part of the clergy was disturbing the Church with secret schemes or obeying the edicts of Decius, indeed before the torments inflicted on the confessors in the month of April, before the darkness of the hotter prison which is mentioned in the Letter of Lucian to Celerinus. There were also written before the same month three other letters, "in which neither exhortation to the confessors, nor rebuke to the exiles when it was needed, nor address and persuasion to the whole brotherhood to entreat the mercy of God was lacking." Cyprian indicates that they were written before the torments, but we have shown that they have not come down to us.

Learned men observe that the torments were inflicted on the confessors in the month of April. Mappalicus died a martyr under interrogation on 17 April, as the martyrologies attest, having on the day before endured the fiercest tortures, amid which he said to the proconsul: "Tomorrow you will see a contest." Cyprian therefore wrote, as is probable, at the end of this month, Letter 9 to the martyrs and confessors, in which he extols their praises with a full hand, and urges them to follow "that most blessed martyr and the others who shared in the same encounter, and companions steadfast in faith, patient in pain, victors under interrogation." There is no doubt that this is the very Letter which Cyprian says in Letter 15 that he wrote "after the torments came."

Not long after, that is in the month of May, Pearson and Tillemont, following Baronius and Lombert, consider that Letter 37 was written, in which Cyprian commends the care of the poor to the presbyters and deacons,

and again and again urges "that for the bodies also of all who, even though they have not been tortured in prison, nevertheless depart by the glorious exit of death, a more ready vigilance and care be bestowed, and that the days on which they depart" be noted down, "so that" he might be able "to celebrate their commemorations among the memorials of the martyrs". What follows must be carefully observed: "Although Tertullus," he says, "our most faithful and most devoted brother, in keeping with the rest of the solicitude and care which he bestows on the brethren in every service of work, and who is not lacking there either in the care of the bodies, has written and is writing and informing me of the days on which our blessed brethren in prison pass to immortality by the exit of a glorious death, and oblations and sacrifices are celebrated here by us for their commemorations, which we shall soon celebrate with you, the Lord protecting [us]." For my part, although I am very greatly moved by the authority of so many learned men, I nevertheless do not see why they would have it that Cyprian wrote these things in the month of May, that is, in the greatest blaze of the persecution, since he himself announces that he will soon celebrate the commemorations of the martyrs with his clergy. The persecution, therefore, already cooling, was bringing him hope of an early return; and the same reasons which moved Tillemont to put off Letters VI, VII, VIII, XXXI to the end of the year 250 ought to have moved him to pass the same judgement on the thirty-seventh. Moreover, in the month of May the martyrs were being tormented with horrible tortures; but when Letter XXXVIII was being written, they were no longer gaining the crown through the wounds of martyrdom, but, if any flew away to heaven, they attained this by dying in prison without torments. But in the month of May the days to be noted down and reported to Cyprian would have been those not of men dying in prison without torments, but of men pouring out their life amid tortures. It is therefore far more probable that this Letter XXXVI was composed when the persecution was abating day by day, but the confessors had not yet been released from prison.

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.

Cyprian was receiving a great deal of consolation from the triumphs of the martyrs; but this joy was tainted by the wicked schemes of certain presbyters who, since they had always opposed him from the beginning of his episcopate, caused him the most grievous troubles while he was absent. The material for the tragedy they enacted was supplied by an ancient and praiseworthy custom, which they tried to turn to the ruin of many. It was the practice in the Church that for the lapsed who had obtained certificates from the martyrs something of the canonical penalties should be remitted at the judgement of the bishops. Tertullian attacks this institution towards the end of his book On Modesty, though he had once, as a Catholic, praised it in his book To the Martyrs. Such certificates, however, were not given by just any confessors, but by those who had been condemned to death, or had at least endured some tortures. Hence Celerinus in his letter to Lucian asks "that whoever

"first" from among the confessors "shall have been crowned should remit the sin of Numeria and Candida." Accordingly, since the beginnings of the persecution of Decius were without tortures, no certificates were being given, none of the lapsed had occasion to evade penance, and the presbyters eager for innovations were idle; but after tortures were inflicted in the month of April, and some of the confessors had been crowned with martyrdom, then certificates came forth, yet with due honour preserved both to the dignity of the bishop and to the ecclesiastical laws. For the martyrs directed a letter to Cyprian, and asked "that their desires be examined then, and peace be given when the mother Church herself has first received peace from the mercy of the Lord," and when "divine protection" has made Cyprian return "to his church (Ep. 10). Moreover, certificates were given to few, as is seen from Ep. 23. Mappalicus the martyr, moved by family devotion, had given one only to his mother, who had lapsed; Saturninus, still held in prison after his tortures, to no one at all; but a little later measure and discrimination ceased to be observed: "For Lucian, he too one of the confessors, ardent indeed in faith and strong in virtue," as Cyprian says in the same place, "but less grounded in the reading of the Lord, attempted certain things, having for some time now set himself up as leader of the ignorant crowd, so that certificates written by his hand were given in droves to many in the name of Paul." And he did this "not only while Paul was still held in prison, but also after his departure, saying that this had been entrusted to him by him. Many certificates were also given in the name of Aurelius, a youth who had endured tortures, written by the hand of the same Lucian, because he did not know letters." The same Lucian seems to have been the author of the certificates which Cyprian had heard were written to this effect (Ep. 11): "Let him communicate together with his own." Cyprian censures some others who, "showing partiality to persons in the benefits" of the martyrs, either bestowed favours "or hunted after the market-days of an illicit traffic."

Cyprian was not unaware that five presbyters were giving "encouragements and exhortations to certain confessors," "that they should not agree with the bishop, that they should not maintain ecclesiastical discipline with faith and quiet according to the precepts of the Lord (Ep. 40)." Yet, since the whole matter was being kept intact until his return, and in this licence of certificates nothing was being promised to the lapsed before the peace of the Church and the judgement of the bishop, he dissembled and kept his patience, as though a modest silence would contribute to quiet (Ep. 10). But the five presbyters, mindful neither of the Gospel nor of their own place, and giving no thought either to the future judgement of the Lord or to the bishop set over them, perpetrated a crime new and unheard of under Cyprian's predecessors. They had given peace and the Eucharist to the lapsed "before penance had been done, before the confession of a most grave and extreme offence had been made, before a hand had been laid on them in penance by the bishop and clergy." Then indeed Cyprian understood that there must be no dissembling in a matter of such moment, lest excessive silence should go on to the peril of the people and of himself alike. Therefore, to check the progress of the evil, he wrote three letters with the same oil and labour, full of feeling

and of grief: one to the martyrs and confessors, another to the presbyters and deacons, a third to the people. These letters are, in Pamelius, the eleventh, tenth and twelfth: in each of them two others are mentioned.

He admonishes the martyrs "that by those by whom the faith of the Lord is kept so devoutly and bravely, the law and discipline of the Lord also be preserved." He shows that he wonders that they are not, as used formerly to be done, ruled and instructed by the presbyters and deacons, but rather that their pious wishes are importuned by certain presbyters who pervert all rights. He therefore urges them themselves to teach the presbyters what they ought to have heard from the presbyters: he prescribes that, in granting certificates, following the footsteps of their predecessors, they weigh carefully and cautiously the desires of those who ask, examine both the conduct and the works and merits of each, and consider also the kinds and qualities of their very offences; finally, that those whom they themselves see, whom they know, whose penance they perceive to be close to satisfaction, they designate by name in the certificate, and so direct to the bishop letters in keeping with faith and discipline.

In the Letter to the clergy he is still more vehemently indignant against the presbyters who had dared to profane the holy body of the Lord. He declares that, "if they persevere further in the same things," he will use that admonition which the Lord bade him use, "that meanwhile they be prohibited from offering. For, besides visions by night, by day also" the innocent age of boys was filled "with the Holy Spirit, which in ecstasy saw with its eyes and heard and spoke those things by which" the Lord deigned "to warn and instruct" Cyprian. In the Letter to the people he declares that he knows the quiet and likewise the fear of his people; nor does he doubt that the lapsed would have been watchful in making satisfaction to God and in supplication, had not certain of the presbyters, currying favour, deceived them. He urges them themselves to guide individuals, and by their counsel and moderation to temper the minds of the lapsed according to the divine precepts. He orders the whole matter to be kept intact until his return, "so that, when by the mercy of God," he says, "we have come to you, several fellow bishops having been called together, according to the discipline of the Lord and in the presence of the confessors and with your judgement also, we may examine the letters and desires of the blessed martyrs."

From these words of the Letter to the clergy, "I have long kept my patience," it can be perceived that those three letters were not written before the month of June. But Tillemont, less happily, thinks that Cyprian bore patiently for a long time not only the licence of the certificates but also the crime of the profaned Eucharist. That most learned man was misled by these words of Cyprian in Ep. 55 (p. 85): "That one thing, in which the cause is not mine nor men's but God's, I do not think should be passed over in silence concerning their crime: that from the very first day of the persecution, when the crimes of the offenders were fresh and still burning, and not only the altars of the devil but even the very hands and mouths of the lapsed were still smoking from the abominable sacrifices, they did not cease to communicate with the lapsed and to obstruct the performance of penance. From these things Tillemont concludes that from that very

day on which the persecution began, there were not lacking those who gave the Eucharist to the lapsed.

The most learned writer interprets Cyprian too narrowly. His words mean nothing other than that the presbyters had communicated with the lapsed while their crime was still recent. Indeed, if one considers the time customarily spent in penance in those days, Cyprian could say without absurd exaggeration that the presbyters had communicated with the lapsed "from the very first day of the persecution". Moreover, since the lapsed did not all fall at the same time, but some sooner, others later, it could happen that many received communion from the wicked presbyters a very few days after committing the crime. The whole sequence and connection of events imposes the necessity of interpreting Cyprian thus. For the presbyters seized their occasion for causing disturbance from the certificates of the martyrs, which began to be given after the tortures; and Cyprian in Ep. XV, just as he mentions the certificates of the martyrs after the tortures inflicted, so also after the certificates themselves mentions the audacity of those "who had already begun to communicate with the lapsed." From this too it is clear that the presbyters' misdeed was altogether recent. He testifies to the same in Epist. XII, to the people: "I hear, however," he says, "that certain of the presbyters... have already begun to communicate with the lapsed." But, what most bears on the matter and the case, Cyprian declares in the Epistle to the clergy that the misdeed of the presbyters is of the kind that cannot be borne and passed over: he shows that he has long kept patience; but, since certain men are trying to disturb the tranquillity of the people and claim everything for themselves, that it is not right to be silent any longer; that he has always passed over and endured the insults to the episcopate, but that now there is no room for passing over "when the brotherhood is deceived by certain men who, while they wish to be popular without any principle of restoring salvation, rather harm the lapsed."

Tillemont rightly refutes Lombert, who interprets these words of the same Epistle to the clergy, "that they be meanwhile forbidden to offer," as if Cyprian were meanwhile forbidding the presbyters to offer the names of the lapsed. Tillemont contends that these presbyters were suspended, or at least that the threat of suspension was held over them, yet that they were not deposed. He adds that the same seemed right to Baronius, and before him to Pamelius, whose observation was carried over into the editions of Prior and Fell. But, if I may say so with the leave of so many most learned men, Cyprian by these words, "that they be meanwhile forbidden to offer," designates not suspension but excommunication, and he does not inflict this penalty for the present time, but only threatens it. He adds, moreover: "being about to plead their case both before us and before the confessors themselves and before the whole people, when, with the Lord permitting, we have begun to be gathered again into the bosom of mother Church"; these things, I say, he adds, because at that time it was being deliberated, not whether these presbyters were to be deposed or not, as Tillemont holds, but whether communion was to be restored to them or not, and on what condition, under what law of penance it was to be restored. I cannot interpret Cyprian otherwise when I read Epistle XXVIII, in which he congratulates his presbyters and deacons that with Gaius of Didda and his deacon,

who had given communion to the lapsed, they had refused to communicate. In the same letter he renews his decree, that whoever dares to communicate with the lapsed be kept away from his communion. So too in Epist. 52 (p. 67), setting out the severity he had once applied against the lapsed, he relates that he had decreed that, "if anyone," he says, "before our counsel and before a judgement determined by the counsel of all, had wished rashly to communicate with the lapsed, he himself should be debarred from communion." Now, to be debarred from communion is not the same as to be suspended, especially in Cyprian, who by this word designates excommunication, as when he says that Felicissimus had been debarred by him, in Epist. 48; that Jovinus and Maximus had been debarred in council on account of their abominable sacrifices, Ep. 55; that Novatian had been debarred by the priests of God throughout the whole world, Epist. 67. By these words, therefore, "that meanwhile they be forbidden to offer," it is declared that not only the priestly but also the lay offering and communion are to be taken away. From what we have said this too is perceived, that this penalty was not at once imposed by Cyprian, but that threats only had been held out, as befitted most difficult times requiring the utmost prudence. And this is confirmed both by Cyprian's singular gentleness in keeping silent about the names of the presbyters, and by the condition attached by him, "if they persist further in the same things."

To this letter the clergy did not reply; but a little later Cyprian, ever attentive to the guarding of the flock, seeing that he did not yet have the opportunity of returning, and that summer had already begun, a season beset by frequent and grave illnesses, judged that provision must be made both for the lapsed and for the hearers. He therefore wrote Epistle 13 to the clergy, in which he decrees that the lapsed who hold certificates from the martyrs, if they fall dangerously ill, be permitted to make the exomologesis of their offence before any presbyter who is present, or, if no presbyter is found and death begins to press, before a deacon also, provided only that they can be helped with God by the prerogative of the martyrs. To the rest, who had not received certificates but were doing penance meekly and humbly, he promises that in future provision will be made for them also by the divine remedy. Likewise he prescribes that the mercy of the Lord be not denied to hearers imploring the divine grace. By a similar decree Dionysius of Alexandria provided for the lapsed in this persecution. For he himself testifies in the Epistle to Fabius of Antioch that he had instructed "that pardon be granted to the dying, if they asked for it, and especially if they had previously requested it as suppliants, so that they might depart from this life full of good hope" (Euseb. bk. 6, ch. 44). Dionysius draws a distinction between those who sought penance when danger pressed and those who had sought it before the illness. But although in making this distinction he does not seem to be as exact as Cyprian, who expressly requires that those who had received certificates from the martyrs be able to be helped by their aid and prerogative with the Lord, I should nevertheless believe the view of both to be the same; nor do I doubt that Dionysius would not have granted peace if any had boldly, as to penance,

refused it, a thing which we see was committed by very many in Africa.

When the clergy had replied to this letter (for Cyprian had complained that they answered nothing to so many letters of his), and at the same time had consulted him about certain immoderate people who were hastily pressing for communion to be received, Cyprian writes Letter 14, in which he confirms what he had laid down in his previous letter concerning the lapsed who were dangerously ill; but he vehemently refutes and rebukes those importunate demanders of peace: « Those who, if they are in too great haste, he says, have in their own power what they ask, the time itself granting them more than they ask. The battle is still being waged and the contest is celebrated daily. If one truly and firmly repents of what was committed, and the warmth of faith prevails, he who cannot be put off can be crowned. » By this speech Cyprian seems to allow the lapsed to offer themselves to the judges; for if he had wished them to wait until a day was appointed for them, he would not have said that what they ask is in their power. It was indeed forbidden that anyone should offer himself of his own accord, and Cyprian declared this before Paternus the proconsul; but laws of this kind sometimes yield to various circumstances. For we see many, as in Justin in the shorter Apology and in Eusebius book 8, to have approached the judge of their own accord and to have come to confession when summoned: and if in them this freedom is not blamed, much less is it always to be blamed in the lapsed, whom it befitted to repair the disgrace brought upon the Christian name, and to confess Christ there where they had shamefully denied Him. Cyprian lifts the praises of the Roman Church to heaven with a full hand, Letter 57, because when Cornelius went forth to confess, whoever heard of it ran up in haste and came, and not single soldiers but the whole camp together went forth to battle, and the whole Roman Church confessed, and very many lapsed were restored by a glorious confession.

XII. — On Letter 15 of St Cyprian and several others written a little later when a new tumult had arisen.

So many things having been done bravely and prudently for the pacification of the Church, Cyprian wrote Letter 15 to the Roman clergy, for the sake of clearing himself; and he judged nothing more apt for repelling unjust suspicions than to send to Rome five letters concerning the lapsed together with eight others likewise written in his retreat, of which we have observed that only two survive, namely the fifth to the clergy and the ninth to the confessors. Moreover, the charity and moderation of mind of Cyprian shine forth wonderfully in the Letter 15 to the Romans: for there is in it no sign of an offended mind, no complaints; but he briefly sets out why he withdrew and what he did in his retreat; and, out of his supreme zeal for unity, he declares that in the things which he granted to the penitent lapsed he thought he must abide also by the judgement of the Roman clergy, lest our action, he says, « which ought to be united and to agree in all things, » should disagree in any respect.

The five letters which Cyprian had written amid the disturbances stirred up by the lapsed were sent not only to the Romans but also to very many bishops; and already

those men had written back to Cyprian « that they too stood in the same counsel according to the catholic faith, » when Cyprian replied to Bishop Caldonius. Caldonius had consulted him about certain persons « who, after they had sacrificed, were seized a second time and were made exiles; » among whom was a woman named Bona, who, when she had been dragged by her husband to sacrifice, or rather had not sacrificed herself, but those who held the hands of her as she struggled had done so, to whom she kept saying: « I did not do it, you did it, » was herself also made an exile. When these sought peace, although Caldonius did not doubt that they had first washed away their offence, he was nevertheless unwilling to decide anything unless the authority of Cyprian were added. Cyprian praises his prudence, and replies that men of this kind, « since they have washed away every offence, and with the Lord assisting them have blotted out their former stain by a greater virtue, ought not to lie any longer under the devil as if prostrate. » He sends Caldonius « a book with letters, five in number. » This book Fell interprets as the very bundle of five letters; Rigault and Baluze understand the book On the Lapsed; but that had not yet been composed. The letter of Caldonius and the reply of Cyprian hold the nineteenth and twentieth place in the order of Pamelius.

The letters of Cyprian, in which mildness tempered a just severity, ought to have healed the ulcerated minds; but Lucian, at the instigation of wicked presbyters, brought forth a new outrage. He wrote to Cyprian in the name of all the confessors « that they had given peace to all, and wished this form to be made known through Cyprian to the other bishops. » But what he added, « those concerning whom an account has been established of what they have done since the offence, » aimed at stirring up ill will against Cyprian, as he himself observes in Letter 23. A somewhat too free admonition also seems to be contained in these words: « We desire that you have peace with the holy martyrs. » From this letter of Lucian, which is the 17th in Pamelius, seditions arose, and in Cyprian's province « in some cities an assault was made by the multitude upon the prelates, and they compelled peace to be granted to them at once, the prelates being terrified and subdued, » those of the weaker sort. In the very church of Carthage certain turbulent men, kindled by this letter as if by torches, blazed up the more (Letter 23). Cyprian wrote on this matter to his clergy Letter 17, in which he teaches that his former letters are to be stood by; and since the confessors had said, « those concerning whom an account has been established before you of what they have done since the offence, » he concludes from this that the confessors had wished the cases of the lapsed to be examined, and that those who were unwilling to wait for the time for that matter acted most unjustly. In fact the confessors, although they were carrying the matter beyond law and measure, yet, because Cyprian had threatened excommunication if anyone gave communion to the lapsed without consulting him, did not dare to ask that peace be given before the peace of the Church, before the judgement of Cyprian. Hence Lucian in the Letter to Celerinus asks that several lapsed of the Roman Church, who had been commended to him, should have peace on this condition, « when the Lord has begun to give peace to the Church itself, and when there has been set out

the case before the bishop. » Cyprian also sent to his clergy the letter of Caldonius, and the one he himself had written to Caldonius in reply.

In these straits of affairs there arrived, most opportunely, letters of the Roman clergy and also of the confessors, not indeed addressed to Cyprian (for they had not yet learned his circumstances accurately), but the first to the clergy of Carthage, the second to the Carthaginian confessors. They were written before Cyprian's Letter 15 had been brought to Rome. Neither has come down to us, but from Cyprian's Letter 23 we learn that "the full vigour of the Gospel and the robust discipline of the Lord's law" were strong in them, and that they brought very great support to Cyprian as he laboured and resisted the onslaught of ill will with all the strength of faith. The Roman clergy mention the same letters in Ep. 31, where they say that in their earlier letters they had set out their judgement "in a lucid exposition" against the libellatici, and had also shown their faith and their agreement against those who had sacrificed. Had Cyprian been mindful of his own right and of the honour due to him, letters of this kind written to his clergy and confessors with himself passed over would have offended him. But whatever profited the Church could not fail to be welcome to him; and at once, as for a very great kindness, he gave thanks to the Roman clergy and the confessors. The clergy, then, he informs by Ep. 23, both of the earlier deeds of Lucianus and of the most recent disturbances stirred up by him. The confessors, on the other hand, he congratulates by Ep. 25, both on the glory of their confession and on their outstanding zeal for defending discipline. These letters, 23 and 25, were carried by Saturus and Optatus, the first of whom Cyprian had made a reader and the other a subdeacon for this task of carrying letters. For since he had to write through clerics, and knew that most of his own were absent and that the few who were at Carthage scarcely sufficed for the ministry of daily work, he found it necessary to appoint some new ones to be sent. By the same clerics he sent six other letters to the Roman clergy, namely Letters 17, 18, 19 and 20, of which we have already spoken, and besides these the letter of Celerinus to Lucianus and the reply of Lucianus, in Pamelius 21 and 22, of which we shall say a few things.

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

Celerinus of Carthage, when he was staying at Rome and, cast into prison there for Christ, had given outstanding examples of constancy, drew very great grief from the lapse of two women, Numeria and Candida, who had sacrificed. One of them, namely, as is probable, Numeria, was his sister, and he says that on account of her deeds, on this day of the joy of Easter, weeping day and night in sackcloth and ashes, he had spent his days in tears and was spending them up to this present day. He mentions besides another woman, Etecusa by name, who had not sacrificed, but had nevertheless gone up as far as the Three Fates and come down again from there; for she had paid gifts so as not to sacrifice. Of these, 'their case having now been heard, they ordered

them, the overseers [did], to remain thus for the time being, until a bishop is appointed.' Celerinus therefore asks Lucian to refer [the matter] to the other confessors and to ask of them 'that, whoever has been crowned first, they may remit such a sin to these sisters.' And he asks this not in his own name only, but also in that of sixty-five confessors, to whom, when they were coming from Carthage to Rome, these women 'went down to the harbour and brought them up into the city, and ministered to them and cherished them in all things.' Celerinus hoped that, 'in accordance with their penitence and the works' which they had done among the confessors, 'Christ would pardon them at the request of the martyrs.' It is clear that this letter was written in the days of Easter, from these words which Baluze unearthed from ancient manuscripts: 'On this day of the joy of Easter.' Learned men think that Celerinus wrote to other confessors as well; but it seems more probable that he wanted Lucian to read this letter to the other confessors and to regard it as common to himself and to them. For these words of Celerinus indicate nothing else: 'For you ought to know this, that I have also written a letter to my lords your brothers, which I ask you to deign to read thus on their behalf.'

There was no need to weary Lucian with entreaties, since he kept no measure in matters of this kind. Accordingly he replies to Celerinus in such a way that he seems to grant nothing special to the lapsed women, but to include them in a favour lavished upon all the lapsed. For he relates that all the confessors 'by agreement' had granted 'peace to all,' and that the martyr Paul, while he was still in the body, had said to him: 'Lucian, before Christ I say to you, that if anyone after my summoning seeks peace from you, give it in my name.' Hence he grants peace not only to those women whom Celerinus had commended, 'but also to those whom you know,' he says, 'to reach our mind,' that is, those for whom we are touched by some concern. Trajan uses a similar manner of speaking in Letter 28 to Pliny: 'It bears upon my mind,' he says, 'by what route you arrive in the province.' Now, however, the persecution was raging, at its very height. For Lucian relates that he, with other confessors, had been shut up again for the past eight days, and that he hoped shortly to become, with others, a companion of the martyrs who had already been crowned. In the Annales Cyprianici this letter is said to have been written 'when the month of May was already advanced,' but quite wrongly. For in it Lucian expressly declares that all the confessors had given peace to all the lapsed, a deed which, however, they did not attempt until after Cyprian's Letter 15, to the Romans, had been written, as Cyprian himself testifies in Letter 23.

In these letters of Celerinus and Lucian mention is made of Saturninus the confessor, whom some would have to be the same as Saturninus of Carthage, who, as Cyprian testifies in Letter 23, after tortures and while still held in prison, gave out no certificates, and to whom, together with Aurelius, the letter of the Roman confessors was addressed. But assuredly two Saturnini must be distinguished, a Roman and a Carthaginian. For the Saturninus in whose name Celerinus greets Lucian had already there 'confessed bravely under the punishment of the claws'; but this, concerning the Carthaginian

Saturninus cannot be understood. For when Celerinus wrote this on the day of the joy of Easter, the tortures had not yet been inflicted at Carthage, or at least the report of this matter had not yet [arrived], much less could Saturninus himself, led back to prison after the tortures, have reached Rome. Hence Celerinus did not know whether any of the Carthaginian confessors had already suffered or been crowned. But then, amid the vexations caused to Cyprian by Lucian, there arrived the letter of the Roman confessors addressed to Saturninus and Aurelius: Lucian at the same time, that is, shortly after Cyprian's fifteenth epistle and the peace licentiously granted to all the lapsed, replies to Celerinus and greets Saturninus. It is necessary, therefore, to distinguish two Saturninuses. And indeed I should be inclined to believe that the Carthaginian had already been crowned when the letter of the Roman confessors addressed to him and Aurelius arrived. For Cyprian's statement that he, still confined in prison after the tortures, gave no certificates seems to indicate that he was released from prison in no other way than by martyrdom. Similarly he says “that while Paul, whose departure he records, was still placed in prison, Lucian gave certificates written in his own hand in his name.” Certainly the confessors had not yet been released from prison when Cyprian wrote this Epistle 23. I shall attempt to emend a notable corrupted passage in the letter of Celerinus. Thus it reads in the printed editions: “Yet I ask, dearest, of the Lord, that, if you are washed beforehand with that holy blood, if you have suffered first for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, before my letter reaches you in this world, or now if it reaches you, you write back to me about these things.” The editors have toiled over these words and have been able to explain nothing. But in the manuscript codex formerly of Baluze, now of the Royal Library, it reads thus: “Yet I ask, dearest, of the Lord, that you may be washed beforehand with that holy blood for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, before my letter reaches you in this world; or now, if it reaches you, that you write back to me about these things.” A truly splendid thought, and worthy of a martyr! The Grenoble codex confirms this reading, which has: “Yet I ask, dearest, of the Lord, that by me with that blood, etc.”

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

After Cyprian had appointed Saturus and Optatus clerics and sent them to Rome with a letter, he writes to his clergy Epistle 24, in which he gives the reason why he had created new clerics without consulting the clergy; although he shows that not even this was done without consulting the clergy; since, he says, “we had long ago, by common counsel, made them next to the clergy, when we gave Saturus the reading on Easter day once and again, or when lately, while we were carefully testing readers with the presbyter teachers, we appointed Optatus from among the readers as teacher of the hearers, examining

whether all the things that ought to be in those who were being prepared for the clergy were suited to them." In the following centuries those who had read once and a second time were not only next to the clergy, but were even attached and enrolled in it. Hence Augustine, Epist. 63, implores the conscience of Severus "whether a man", he says, "entrusted to the stewardship of my church, who had already begun to read, and not once, but a second and a third time, can or ought to be judged not to have been a lector." It was decreed at the Council of Milevis in the year 402 that whoever had read in a church even once should not be retained by another church.

Tillemont admits that he does not know what letters Cyprian means at the beginning of this Epistle 24, where he speaks thus: "So that nothing might be hidden from your knowledge, dearest brothers, of what was written to me and what I wrote in reply, I have sent you a copy of each letter, and I believe that what I wrote in reply does not displease you." But since Cyprian, in Epistle 27, which was written a little after this twenty-fourth, testifies that certain persons "of the lapsed, humble and meek, and trembling and fearing God, and who have always laboured gloriously and greatly in the Church" had lately written to him, and that he had congratulated them and that the Lord had deigned "to show what servants of this kind and such as these deserve from His kindness", I would readily believe that this letter of the lapsed and Cyprian's reply were sent to the clergy at Carthage together with Epistle 24. The same moderation of mind did not appear in all the lapsed. For some wrote to Cyprian "not asking that peace be given to them, but claiming it for themselves as though already given (Epist. 29)", and, what most aroused Cyprian's indignation, they wrote in such a way that "they made a letter in the name of the Church." Cyprian wrote Epistle 27 to them, to check their rashness.

About the same time the clergy of Carthage informed him that, on the advice of the bishops who were present, they had judged that there should be no communion with Gaius of Didda and his deacon, because they had communicated with the lapsed and had offered their oblations, and, having been warned by the bishops once and again, had persisted. Cyprian praises the constancy of his clergy, orders that they read to the bishops the letter which he was writing to them (it is the twenty-eighth), and that if any of his presbyters or deacons, or even of the strangers, should dare to communicate with the lapsed, he be kept from his communion. And when he had also been consulted by the clergy about Philomenus and Fortunatus, subdeacons, and Favorinus, acolyte, who, having gone away in the meantime, had lately returned, he judged that the time for deciding this matter had not yet come, because many of the clergy were still absent, and the case of each had to be handled and thoroughly refined not only with his colleagues, but also with the whole people itself. And so he decided that "in the meantime they should only abstain from the monthly distribution, not as though they seemed to be deprived of the ecclesiastical ministry, but that, all things being kept intact, they be deferred", he says, "until our presence." Then Cyprian writes Epistle 29 to Rome about these matters, through Fortunatus the subdeacon, and at the same time

he sends both the letter of the lapsed and his own reply, and the letters which he had afterwards written back to the clergy.

Now those three letters which Cyprian sent to Rome, namely 15, 23 and 29, are so linked with one another that they seem to have been written almost continuously. There is no doubt that Letter 23 was sent by Saturus and Optatus before the Roman clergy had replied to Letter 15, since the Roman clergy in fact replied to both in one and the same document. Moreover the last, which was sent by Fortunatus, seems to have been written before Cyprian had received the letter of the Romans. For beyond doubt, with his consummate courtesy, he would have thanked them for having been so great a comfort to him in most troublesome circumstances. Then again, just as Cyprian, writing by Saturus and Optatus, said: 'After the letter was sent to you ..... something else has come up, which also ought not to be hidden from you;' so also in the letter sent by Fortunatus he said: 'After I had written the letter to you which I sent by Saturus the lector and Optatus the subdeacon, our brethren, having seen the rashness of certain persons who refuse to do penance and to make satisfaction to God, wrote a letter to me.' Therefore, since letters of this kind followed one another very closely, Pearson wrongly pushes the last of them back to the month of October; for they are not to be placed so late, inasmuch as they were sent before the reply to the letter written at the beginning of July had been received. And the reply of the Roman clergy itself also seems to be placed too late when it is put in the month of September. For many things combined to make the Romans reply quickly: the disturbance of the Carthaginian church demanded a swift remedy, and the vexation which the silence of the Romans and unjust suspicions had brought upon Cyprian had to be removed from him. It is more probable, therefore, that in the very month of August there came that most illustrious letter of the Roman clergy and confessors which stands in Pamelius as numbers 31 and 24, and which contains an excellent reply both to Letter 15, which Cyprian had written to clear himself, and also to the one which he afterwards sent by Saturus and Optatus. Novatian, as is seen from Cyprian's Letter 52 (p. 67), wrote this letter 31, together with which the Roman clergy at the same time sent Cyprian the letter written in the name of the Roman Church to Sicily.

So much comfort did Cyprian draw from this letter of the Roman clergy and confessors, and so useful to all did he judge it would be, that he instructed Saturus, who seems to have brought it back from Rome, to give everyone who wished the opportunity to copy it. He also sent it to his clergy together with the letters which he himself had written to Rome, at the same time directing (by Letter 32) that both his own writings and their replies should be made known to the brethren; and further that, if any bishops or presbyters or deacons from abroad should be present or should arrive, they should hear all these things, and if they wished to transcribe copies of the letters and carry them to their own people, they should receive the opportunity of transcribing them. We learn from Cyprian's Letter 52 that this letter of the Roman clergy was sent throughout the whole world and was brought to the knowledge of all the churches and of all the brethren. Hence he declares in Letter 40,

which was written at the beginning of the year 251, that it had once been agreed "as much by us," he says, "as by the confessors and clergy of the City, and likewise by all the bishops established either in our province or across the sea, that nothing should be changed concerning the case of the lapsed until we have all come together in one, etc." Not long afterwards the Roman clergy replied in the same sense to the letter of Cyprian, which, written indeed, as we have already said, before Saturus had returned, but nevertheless after he had set out from Rome, and carried to that city by the subdeacon Fortunatus, laid upon the Roman clergy the necessity of writing again. This letter is the thirtieth in Pamelius. Towards the end of the letter they thank Cyprian that, after his custom, he had reported on the matters that concern Privatus of Lambaesis. They also declare that even before his letter the fraud of that cunning man could not have lain hidden. "For when," they say, "a certain Futurus, standard-bearer of Privatus, from the cohort of his wickedness, had come here before this and was trying fraudulently to draw a letter out of us, neither did what he was escape us, nor did he receive the letter he wanted." Cyprian had therefore written some letter about this Privatus, of whom nothing at all survives in the three letters we have mentioned; but this letter has perished with many others. There is no doubt that these letters of the Romans were of great use to Cyprian in these difficulties of affairs; and this perhaps was the reason why, in the letters which we shall review as written in the remaining part of this year, the same stings of anxiety do not seem to prick Cyprian, since those who were seditious and silently pursuing wicked designs, which they tried to carry out at the beginning of the following year, had evidently been held in check for a time.

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.

I conjecture that Letter 37 was written about the month of October, in which Cyprian admonishes the presbyters and deacons of the same thing of which he had already often admonished them, that every care be shown to the confessors placed in prison, and that the days on which they depart in prison be noted down. He praises the diligence of the presbyter Tertullus both in helping the confessors with every office of kindness and in informing him of the days on which they pass away in prison. This letter, placed less suitably by Tillemont and others in the greatest heat of the persecution, I have preferred to assign to that time when, as the persecution was cooling and the confessors were dying in prison rather than amid torments, Cyprian hoped that he would soon, under the Lord's protection, celebrate the sacrifices with his clergy.

Letter 8 seems to have been written not long afterwards, when Cyprian had heard in a vision divinely granted: "Tell him to be untroubled, because peace is coming. But that there is a little delay in the meantime is because some still remain who are to be proved." The persecution was still ravaging the flock, as Cyprian at once adds, and though it had been at times milder, at times harsher, it seems towards its very end, as Tillemont observes, to have broken out afresh with violence. For what Cyprian says, that torments came while the confessors

do not keep discipline, he does not seem to be recalling events that took place in the month of April or May, but to be describing the present state of affairs, and this is sufficiently clear from his words. "But what blows," he says, "what wounds do we not deserve, when not even the confessors, who ought to have been an example to the rest for good conduct, keep discipline? And so, while the timid and shameless boasting of their confession insolently puffs up some, torments have come. We suffer these things through our own fault and desert." To this time seems to belong what Cyprian narrates in Epist. 40 about five leading men of Carthage, "who had lately been joined to the magistrates by an edict, in order to overthrow the faith (of the Christians)." For here he is not reporting a vision, as some have supposed, but a thing known to all and attested; nor is it hard to believe that five leading men of the city were joined to the magistrate either in promulgating or in executing some edict against the Christians. But what Cyprian adds, "The same scheme, the same overthrow is now brought in again for the ruin of salvation through five presbyters joined to Felicissimus," certainly does not indicate that the crime of the presbyters had been foreshadowed by some vision, but rather that the same danger was being created for the Church by them as had earlier arisen for it from the magistrates and the five leading men of the city. That the close of the persecution was violent is also shown by this, that, although the Carthaginian clergy had hitherto been whole and pure amid such great contagions of evils, Cyprian deplores the falls of some in letters written at the end of this year, namely 6 and 35. That those who lapsed were from the presbyterate, and not from the number of the lower clerics, can be inferred from this, that Cyprian says in Epist. 35 that the presbyter Numidicus, whom he enrolled in the number of the Carthaginian presbyters, had been wonderfully preserved, so that "the Lord might join him to the clergy (of Carthage) and adorn with glorious priests the company made desolate by the lapse of certain presbyters." But he does not say the same of Aurelius and Celerinus, glorious confessors, whom he ordained readers about the same time. That presbyter Numidicus had by his exhortation sent before him a great number of martyrs killed by stones and flames, and had joyfully watched his wife, clinging to his side, burned together with the rest. He himself, half-burnt, overwhelmed with stones and left for dead, was found by his daughter as she searched anxiously, and was drawn out and revived, and had remained [alive] against his will. Cyprian had resolved to promote him to the episcopate when he returned to Carthage; but meanwhile, admonished and instructed by divine favour, he enrolled him in the number of the Carthaginian presbyters, and wrote the news of this joy to the presbyters and deacons and the people (Epist. 35).

About the same time two outstanding confessors were ordained readers by Cyprian and the bishops who were present, Aurelius and Celerinus, Aurelius first, and a few days later Celerinus, whom Cyprian had wished to join to Aurelius, but he steadfastly refused the honour, and at length was compelled by a vision shown to him at night

to yield. Of these ordinations Cyprian informs the presbyters and deacons and the whole people by Epist. XXXIII and XXXIV. These things, moreover, happened amid the first joys of the peace that was dawning, as is plain from these words of Cyprian about Aurelius, in Ep. XXXIII: "He has meanwhile read for us on the Lord's day, that is, he has inaugurated peace while he dedicates the reading." Aurelius was a distinguished young man, still young in years, but advanced in the praise of virtue and faith: he had twice confessed, both before the magistrates, who condemned him to exile, and before the proconsul, by whose order he was most severely tortured. Cyprian is in doubt whether he should praise in him more the glory of his wounds, or the modesty of his conduct and his outstanding humility. Celerinus too had endured the gravest tortures, and had compelled Decius himself, under whose eyes he was being tortured, to praise and admire his virtue. Examples from his own household encouraged him; for his grandmother Celerina, his paternal uncle and maternal uncle Laurentinus and Egnatius had carried off the crown of martyrdom. Cyprian did not raise that excellent pair of young men any higher than to the office of reader, but he even then designated the honour of the presbyterate for them, "that they should both be honoured with the same allowances as the presbyters" and "share in the monthly distributions in equal quantities".

Celerinus, coming from Rome into Africa, when he had betaken himself to Cyprian, showed him how highly the Roman confessors esteemed him and how much they loved him. This was the reason Cyprian had for writing Epistle XVI to them, in which indeed he so describes the four seasons of the year which the confessors had passed in prison that there is no doubt that this letter was written when this year 250 was completed, or at least ending. After the short delay which Cyprian had foretold had passed, the church of Carthage tasted some beginning of peace, and the confessors were released from prison. The greatest part of them guarded the glory of their confession by the best conduct; but some were a disgrace to so great a praise, whom Cyprian reproaches in Epistle VII with drunkenness and wantonness, arrogance, contentiousness and promiscuous sleeping with women. He also touches on the same thing in Epistle VI, which he wrote about the same time, while he was still unwillingly kept in retirement, to the presbyters and deacons, to commend to them the care of the poor and especially of the confessors. For although the confessors had been released, a full and firm peace had not yet shone forth. Therefore Cyprian, although he was borne towards Carthage in mind and spirit, both to see his own people again and to set the affairs of the church in order, was nevertheless compelled to follow the wise counsel of the presbyter Tertullus, who had advised him not to come forth so soon into that place where he had so often been demanded. The exiles had not yet obtained leave to return, and when the calmer state of affairs had induced some to return without orders, Cyprian vehemently rebukes them in the same epistle VII. Indeed, shortly before the feast of Easter he was still praying for "the fullest peace, first for the mother, then for her sons." (Ep. 11.)

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

While Cyprian remains in retirement, so as not to be the cause

of breaking the peace, he who ought to have taken thought for all; meanwhile he writes to his presbyters and deacons Letter XXXVI, in which he says that he will come to them when they have written that, 'matters being settled, he ought to come, or if the Lord has deigned to show it beforehand.' Then he exhorts them to take 'diligent care of the widows and the sick and all the poor,' 'but also for strangers, if any should be in need,' to supply 'expenses from my own sum,' he says, 'which I left with Rogatianus our fellow presbyter; and lest that sum should perhaps already have been entirely paid out, I have sent to him by Naricus the acolyte another portion, so that the work on behalf of those in distress may be carried out more generously and promptly.' Tillemont observes that from these words it appears that Cyprian, when he departed from Carthage, left a sum of money with Rogatianus. In this, indeed, he admits that he is entangled in very many difficulties. For first, Rogatianus made his confession before Cyprian's withdrawal, for so the learned man judges. Then, even if Cyprian had departed earlier, since Rogatianus lay so long in prison, the sum of money does not seem to have been safe with him. Finally, since this Letter XXXVI was written at the end of the year 250 or the beginning of 251, why does Cyprian doubt whether the money which he had given so long before had been entirely paid out? Moved by these awkwardnesses, Tillemont conjectures that instead of these words, 'I left with Rogatianus,' one should read 'I sent to Rogatianus'; but it does not seem necessary to alter the text; for these words do not necessarily show that Cyprian, on departing from Carthage, entrusted money to Rogatianus, but they can signify that the holy Martyr, since his own sum was customarily sent to him while he lay hidden in his retreat, did not wish this sum of money to be brought to him as usual, and left it with Rogatianus. Moreover, since little time had passed since Rogatianus and the other confessors had come out of prison, Cyprian not without reason doubted whether all this money had been paid out.

Besides Rogatianus, Cyprian had sent two bishops, Caldonius and Herculanus, and the presbyter Numidicus as his deputies, so that they might meet 'the needs of the brethren with funds; if any also wished to practise their crafts, they should assist their wishes with as much addition as would be sufficient; at the same time also' that they might distinguish 'their ages and conditions and merits,' so that Cyprian might know them all very well, and might promote 'all who are worthy and humble and meek to the offices of ecclesiastical administration.' But while those bishops and presbyters were carrying out Cyprian's instructions, Felicissimus came upon the scene, a man of abandoned rashness and the utmost audacity, and interposed 'that no one should be able to be relieved, nor might those things' which Cyprian had desired 'be distinguished by diligent examination; threatening also, with wicked domination and violent terror, the brethren who had been the first to come forward to be relieved, that they would not be in communion with him in death.' Afterwards he burst out, 'with very many, proclaiming himself with reckless fury the leader of a faction and the chief of a sedition.' Cyprian, informed of these matters by the bishops Caldonius and Herculanus

and the presbyters Rogatianus and Numidicus, wrote to them the thirty-eighth Epistle, in which he excommunicates Felicissimus, both on account of his wicked schism and because "to his frauds and plunderings, which," he says, "we have learned with clear truth, there is added also the crime of adultery, which our brethren, serious men, have reported that they detected, and have affirmed that they will prove." And Cyprian threatens the same to Augendus, who had allied himself with Felicissimus, if he persevered with him any further. It is not easily explained what Felicissimus meant when "with wicked domination and violent terror" he threatened that those who had obeyed Cyprian would not communicate with him in death. Where Baluze put "in death," relying on the authority of the old manuscripts, other editions have "on the mountain"; but whether one reads "on the mountain" or "in death," could an excommunication threatened by a man of this sort strike violent terror? Would he not rather have terrified them then if he had threatened that he would compel the Catholics to communicate with him? Or could it seem a grave inconvenience to men attached to their bishop and detesting Felicissimus to be without the communion of a most wicked man? For my part, so far as I can conjecture in a very obscure matter, I suspect that Felicissimus threatened not excommunication alone but death itself as well, so that he said that those who had obeyed Cyprian would not communicate with him in the death which he was threatening. When Cornelius seemed to have been frightened "by the parricidal threats" of Felicissimus, Cyprian declares in Ep. 55 that it makes no difference to him "either by whom or when he is slain, being about to receive from the Lord the reward of death and blood." But if the parricidal threats of Felicissimus broke out against Cornelius and Cyprian, who would wonder that the common people were terrified by threats of this kind from him?

The bishops and presbyters whose deputed service he used while absent diligently obeyed Cyprian, and they excommunicated Felicissimus and his chief followers, as is plain from the Epistle that is the thirty-ninth among the Cyprianic letters, which nevertheless seems not so much to be a letter as a notice of excommunication publicly posted.

17. The schism of Felicissimus at the beginning of the year 251. Novatus one of the five schismatic presbyters. On Epistle 40 of Cyprian.

It is not worth the trouble to refute what Baronius rather unhappily supposed about the priesthood of Felicissimus. For that he was a layman when he stirred up the schism, Cyprian is a reliable witness, who declares that Novatus procured the diaconate for him by the same machinations by which he also procured the episcopate for Novatian: "He it is," he says in Ep. 44, "who appointed Felicissimus, his henchman, a deacon, without my permitting it or knowing it, by his own faction and ambition. He who here had made a deacon against the Church, there appointed a bishop." Moreover, this ordination could not have taken place except after the schism was open; and Pearson places it before the schism on no ground whatever, since Cyprian, as Tillemont observes, does not count this deed among the crimes of Felicissimus (in Ep. 38). Novatus himself also,

although he was the torch of that fire, at the beginning of the schism he nevertheless carried his wickedness covertly, and did not join himself to Felicissimus openly and plainly. Had he dared to do so, he would have undergone the same excommunication as the other followers of Felicissimus. This schism can be placed neither earlier nor later than the beginning of the year 251. For, as Tillemont shows against Pearson, who refers it to the year 258, there exists no trace whatever of the schism in the letters written in the year 250; nor had Cyprian received any report of this matter when he wrote Letter 36, which gave the schismatics the occasion to break out. Nor again did Felicissimus fall away from the Church any later; for the five presbyters, who laid themselves bare around Easter, had already been fostering his party secretly for some time.

Cyprian had resolved to celebrate the Easter of this year 251 in his own church: for he was pained by « an exile now of two years, and the mournful separation from the faces and eyes (of his own), the constant grief and groaning which tormented him, alone, with continual lamentation, the tears flowing day and night, because it had not yet befallen the bishop to cling to the embraces (of his own) » (Letter 11). But to this grief, which the hope of a speedy return was softening, there was added as a crowning weight the treachery of five presbyters, who at last, before the Easter of this year, broke out into an open schism which they had long been bringing to birth in their wicked minds, and by their threats and plots drove Cyprian to the point that he did not dare to return before Easter, lest at his very coming « a greater tumult should arise there, and, since a bishop ought to provide in all things for peace and tranquillity, he himself should seem to have given matter for sedition and to have embittered the persecution afresh. » (Ibid.)

Those five presbyters, after they had already earlier conspired against the episcopate of Cyprian, had called some confessors away from the reverence owed to the bishop, and had driven them into wholly dishonourable vices, openly « turned themselves to the ruin of the lapsed with their poisoned deceit, and called them away from the healing of their wound », and, « with the prayers and supplications broken off by which the Lord is to be appeased through long and continual satisfaction, » invited them « to a ruinous rashness by the lie of a deceitful peace ». To these too Cyprian attributes the schism of Felicissimus, as to its hidden authors. Although so many evils had arisen from men of this kind, Cyprian nevertheless did not wish that they should cast themselves out of their own accord; but the sentence which they had escaped through his indulgence they passed upon themselves, and « by the providence of God », with Cyprian neither willing nor wishing it, indeed even pardoning and keeping silent, « they paid the penalties which they had deserved. » (Ibid.) I am indeed surprised that in the Annales Cyprianici Novatus is exempted from the number of the five presbyters, since Cyprian speaks of him thus in Letter 49: « This is the same Novatus who first sowed among us the fire of discord and schism, who separated certain of the brethren there from the bishop, who in the very persecution was to our people a kind of second persecution, for the overthrowing of the minds of the brethren. It is he who, by his own faction and ambition, appointed Felicissimus, his henchman, a deacon, without my permitting or knowing it, etc. » There was also of the same number,

as Cyprian testifies in Epist. 55, Fortunatus, whom the schismatics afterwards made pseudo-bishop of Carthage. Two others, not improbably, come into the same number, Donatus and Gordius, who are dealt with in Epist. 6, and perhaps also, in the fifth place, Gaius of Didda, whom Cyprian removes from his communion by Epistle 28. Four presbyters, Donatus and Fortunatus, Novatus and Gordius, had written to Cyprian shortly before the schism of Felicissimus: on what matter they wrote Cyprian does not indicate, but he declares that he had not been able to reply to them alone, since from the beginning of his episcopate he had resolved to do nothing by his own private judgement without the counsel of the clergy and without the consent of the people. (Ep. 6.)

After Cyprian learned of the crime of the five presbyters, he wrote to the whole people Epistle 40, in which he describes the wickedness of the schismatics in its native colours, demonstrates the unity of the Church, and exhorts both the standing and the lapsed: the former, that they guard the praise won in the persecution; the latter, that "in this second trial they faithfully" take thought "for their hope and peace"; finally he declares that this is the last and extreme trial of the persecution, "which too," he says, "will quickly pass, the Lord protecting, so that I may be presented to you after the day of Easter with my colleagues." Tillemont observes that Cyprian also wrote about this matter to the clergy, but that the letter has not come down to us. For Cyprian mentions in Epist. 42 a letter written by him to the clergy and to the people concerning Felicissimus and his presbytery, which set out both the order and the reason of what had been done.

18.—Cyprian returns when the persecution has been lulled, and deliberates with his colleagues on the case of the lapsed; but before the council he writes the book On the Lapsed.

When the peace divinely promised had at long last shone upon the African church, Cyprian came forth after Easter from the retreat in which he had now been hiding for a year and about four months. He says in Epist. 52 that the persecution had then been lulled; he does not say that it had been altogether quelled. In truth, as long as Decius lived, his cruelty was always to be feared by the Christians. Hence Pope Cornelius, elected in the month of June, sat "fearless," as Cyprian witnesses in Ep. 52 (p. 69), "at Rome in the priestly chair, at the time when a tyrant hostile to the priests of God was threatening things utterable and unutterable." It seems, then, that nothing else brought about this peace than the fear struck into Decius by Lucius Priscus, who, while governing Macedonia, had seized the imperial power in that province and had joined his forces with the Goths against Decius. To Cyprian on his return it was a most joyful sight to behold gathered in the church both very many confessors, among whom women and virgins and boys shone forth, and the rest of the multitude of the standing, to whom nothing had been of such value that they should obey the emperor's edicts. But the lapsed distracted him with anxiety, not indeed those who had truly and from the heart embraced penance, for with these he had rejoiced in a wonderful manner, and the Lord had shown him "what of this kind and

such servants may earn from His kindness »; but those who had joined themselves to apostates and the faithless, or were trying either to hide their sin by a kind of theft or, once it was known, to withdraw it from the laws of penance. Shortly after Cyprian's return God set up many examples against those who, though they had not confessed their sins to the priests, had dared to approach communion: « Many, daily not doing penance nor confessing their consciousness of their offence, were filled with unclean spirits; many, senseless even to madness of mind by the fury of insanity, » were shaken. Many other displays of the divine anger against men of this kind, as we learn from the book On the Lapsed, were given both while the persecution was raging and also after Cyprian's return; and he relates that from these a certain little girl was not exempt, whom, after she had been led to the idols by her nurse, her mother, unaware and ignorant of this matter, had brought into the church while Cyprian was offering the sacrifice.

Cyprian had promised that, as soon as he returned, he would judge the case of the lapsed after taking counsel and weighing the matter with his colleagues, « so that the overseers, meeting together with the clergy, in the presence of the people who stood firm, to whom honour is also due for their faith and fear, might be able to arrange everything with the scrupulousness of common counsel » (Ep. 14). He did not fall short of his promises; but he seems to have written the book On the Lapsed before the council was held, in order to prepare the minds of the lapsed to receive the decrees of the council, as was fitting. Pearson, however, thinks this book was composed after the death of Decius, and the author of the Observations on Dupin's Library thinks it was composed after the Council of Carthage. Tillemont denies both for very weighty reasons. And first he uses this argument against Pearson: since the Roman confessors returned to the Church in the same month in which Decius was slain, this book On the Lapsed, which was sent to them before their return to the Church together with the book On the Unity of the Church, cannot be put after the death of Decius. For it is implausible that so many notable events should be crowded into one and the same month: the slaying of Decius, the news of it reaching all the provinces, the peace of the Church, two books written by Cyprian and sent to Rome, and the return of the confessors to the Church after these books had been read through. Pearson was moved by what is read at the beginning of the book: « By the help and vengeance of God our security has been restored. » From this he concludes that Decius had already by then paid the penalty for harassing the Christian religion. Tillemont observes that Decius was so hampered by the revolt of Lucius Priscus and the advances of the Goths that God was already then manifestly avenging the blood of the Christians and establishing peace in the church, at least the African one. But he thinks it unworthy of Cyprian, as one who prayed daily for the emperor, to exult in his calamity. He therefore suspects that these words were either added by Cyprian after the death of Decius, or are to be referred to the punishment of the proconsul or to some other event. But I do not see why we should fear to interpret Cyprian's words as concerning Decius himself, not yet stripped of empire and life but already under attack. Nothing prevented Cyprian, although he prayed daily for the emperor, from nevertheless tracing his calamity back to

divine vengeance, especially since he does not name Decius himself, nor say anything rather harsh against him. After Decius was dead he was far more vehement, as may be seen in the Letter to Antonianus, where he calls him a tyrant and depicts his cruelty, so that the fact that in the book On the Lapsed he was content with a single little word, and that one so mild, ought to be an argument that Decius was still reigning.

It is proved no less easily that the book On the Lapsed was written before the council of Carthage. The decrees of the council are nowhere mentioned in this book: in the council peace was granted to the libellatici. But in this book Cyprian exhorts not only the libellatici but also those "who even thought of this", that they should not cease "in doing penance and in entreating the mercy of the Lord, lest what seems to be less in the quality of the offence be heaped up through neglected satisfaction." That the book was written amid the first joys of restored peace is plain from its opening: "Behold, most beloved brethren, peace has been restored to the Church, and what lately seemed difficult to the unbelieving and impossible to the faithless, our security has been repaired by divine aid and vengeance... : the day longed for in the prayers of all has come.... We gaze with joyful looks upon the confessors, renowned for the proclamation of a good name and glorious with the praises of virtue and faith; clinging to them with holy kisses, we embrace with insatiable eagerness those long desired. The white cohort of the soldiers of Christ is present, etc." It seems therefore that the book On the Lapsed paved the way for the council of Carthage, which was held shortly after Cyprian's return. It is placed by Pearson in the month of May of this year 251, and this agrees with the words of Cyprian: "Yet according to what had been determined before," he says in Ep. 52 (p. 67), "when the persecution had been laid to rest and opportunity had been given of assembling together, a plentiful number of bishops, whom their own faith and the protection of the Lord had preserved whole and unharmed, came together." That presbyters and deacons were present is plain from Ep. 55. As for Cyprian's saying, in the same Ep. 52 and in Ep. 55, that the bishops wrote to Cornelius and that a decision about the lapsed was made "by counsel shared with one another", this at first sight seems to prove that the council was held later; for Cornelius was elected in the month of June, and did not at once receive letters from the African bishops, who for some time sent their letters not to him but to his church, until the envoys whom they had sent to Rome should bring back certain news of the dissension that had arisen there. But, as Tillemont observes, it may have happened that of the bishops who had attended the council, many were still staying at Carthage when the lawfulness of Cornelius' election was established; and since they wrote to Cornelius in their own name and that of others, they not undeservedly seemed to have decided whatever they decided about the lapsed by counsels joined with Cornelius. These words, moreover, from Epistle 55, "the council having been frequently held", Tillemont, following Pearson, interprets thus: as if the council had been often resumed, so that, with some bishops leaving Carthage and others succeeding them, it could seem to have been in a manner continued.

The chief deliberation of the council in judging the cases of the lapsed

was engaged; and since the variety of circumstances was very great, everything was examined with singular prudence, as if on a goldsmith's balance. For some had been defiled by the abominable sacrifice, others by certificates alone, or had even incurred the crime by thought alone. They were not to be put on an equal footing, says Cyprian, Ep. 52 (p. 70): «he who leapt forward of his own will at once to the abominable sacrifice, and he who, after resisting and struggling long, came to this deadly deed under compulsion; he who betrayed both himself and all his household, and he who, himself going into danger on behalf of all, protected his wife and children and his whole house by undergoing the peril himself; he who drove his tenants or friends to the crime, and he who spared his tenants and farmers, and even received under his roof and into his hospitality very many brethren who were withdrawing as exiles and fugitives, showing and offering to the Lord many souls living and unharmed, to make intercession for one wounded soul.» Finally, some had lapsed later, others sooner; some had at once taken refuge in penance, others, through excessive confidence in the certificates received from the martyrs, had tried to escape this remedy. Accordingly there were examined in the council of Carthage «the cases and the wills and the necessities of individuals, and the decisions concerning individuals were written down in a document.» (Ibid.) Baronius rightly observed that this document was not unlike the penitential canons, and the Oxford editor, in his notes on this passage, with no reason whatever understands it to be the book On the Lapsed. What we have said about the decrees of the council in the preface may be consulted.

Tillemont suspects that there was a decree in the same council that, if any persecution threatened, communion should be given to the lapsed before the prescribed time. He was led into this suspicion by these words of Cyprian from Ep. 52 (p. 71): «Nor can anyone be driven by us to penance, he says, if the fruit of penance is taken away. If battle comes first, he will be found strengthened by us, armed for the battle. But if sickness presses upon him before the battle, he departs with the comfort of peace and communion.» But the sense of this passage seems to be that the hope of obtaining peace after penance has this advantage, that it raises the spirits of the lapsed and strengthens them to fight more keenly, should any occasion return; because, as Cyprian had said a little before, «from penance strength is armed for faith and virtue; and it could not be armed if someone fails through despair, if, harshly and cruelly cut off from the Church, he turns himself to the ways of the gentiles and to worldly works, or, rejected by the Church, goes over to heretics and schismatics.» Moreover, if there had been a decree in this council that communion should be given to the lapsed when persecution pressed, Cyprian and the other bishops would not have left it out in Ep. 54, in which they do not try to win Cornelius's approval, on the authority of the earlier council, for what they had decreed about gathering the lapsed into the Church on account of the imminent persecution, but declare that they had so determined «at the prompting of the Holy Spirit». Cyprian in Epistle 55 mentions another decree of the same council, concerning lapsed bishops: that men of this kind «may indeed be admitted to do penance, from ordination

of the clergy, however, and from priestly honour be barred.» Felicissimus came forward before the bishops gathered in council, with the presbyters attached to him, as is seen from Ep. XLII; but the bishops, having heard them, condemned them and excluded them from communion. "But also Jovinus and Maximus, bishops, condemned by the sentence of nine bishops for abominable sacrifices and for crimes proved against them, were again excluded from communion in the council," says Cyprian in Ep. LV (p. 84).

Just as in this council it was decreed, "not by the consent" only of the bishops "but also with threatening," as Cyprian says in Ep. LV (p. 85), "that no one should rashly give peace to those not doing penance," so I would believe that something was granted to the just petitions of the martyrs for honour's sake, as the custom of the Church required. For in the book On the Lapsed, which Cyprian in Ep. LI testifies that he had recently read at Carthage, whence some also gather that it was read in the council itself; in this book, I say, just as Cyprian refutes the excessive licence of some martyrs "in remitting and granting sins indiscriminately," so he admits that something can be conceded to their mandates, "if the things to be done by the priest of God are just, if lawful, if not against the Lord Himself, if the consent of the one obeying is easy and ready, if the moderation of the one asking is religious" (p. 187). He admits also (p. 195) that God can credit to account whatever, on behalf of the truly penitent, "both the martyrs have asked and the priests have done." Therefore it is likely that something was granted to the martyr Mappalicus, who, moved by domestic piety, had commended his mother and, as is read in some editions, his sister, and also to others who had not imitated Lucian but, as Cyprian directs in Ep. XI, had diligently examined "both the conduct and the works and the merits of each, and also the kinds and qualities of the offences themselves," and had designated by name in a certificate those whom they themselves knew, "whose penitence" they saw to be "close to satisfaction."

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

When Cyprian had come through the most grievous troubles which the intemperate indulgence of some martyrs and the impious rashness of the schismatics had caused him, new difficulties came upon him, a dissension having arisen at Rome and the heresy of Novatian attempting to gain entry into various churches. After Fabian, who died a martyr on 20 January in the year 250, the Roman Church had been without a bishop, nor had the cruelty of Decius left any opportunity for electing a pastor. But at length, the tyrant being absent and the government in the City having been entrusted to Julius Valens, when a most favourable time had presented itself, there was elected, "by the testimony of almost all the clergy, by the vote of the people who were then present, and by the college of aged priests and good men," St Cornelius, a man laden with every praise, of whom how high a judgement Cyprian formed is seen from many of his letters, especially from Ep. LII. It is established that this election was made after Easter

of this year 251, since Cyprian, who returned to Carthage when the feast days were over, was holding a council with his colleagues when the news of this election was brought. Indeed, the election must be put off as far as the fourth day of June, if we follow the conjectures of Pearson, which seemed probable to Tillemont. For, since of the two pontificals the one published by Bucherius says that Cornelius sat two years, three months and ten days, while the other, edited by Bolland, assigns to the holy Pontiff one year, two months and three days, Pearson, taking from each what seemed to agree and emending what fitted less well, reckons that Cornelius sat one year, three months and ten days, and so refers the election to the fourth day of June of the year 251, in order to reconcile it with his death, which many weighty indications show to have occurred on the Ides of September in the year 252.

Novatus, who in Africa "had first sown the fire of discord and schism," as Cyprian says in Ep. 49, "sailing to Rome as well to overthrow the Church, attempted like and equal things there." He gave himself to Novatian, and devoted to him his arts and his fertile wit. Novatian, relying on this agent, attached to his own purposes five presbyters, some confessors and part of the people, and opposed the election of Cornelius, accusing him of various crimes, among them that he had defiled himself with a certificate. When both parties had written to Africa, Cyprian and very many other bishops who had come to him understood that a matter of such moment must be handled with every forethought of mind. Accordingly Cyprian ordered that the letters of Cornelius, "which sounded of religious simplicity," be read to the clergy and people, and "made known the ordination of his episcopate to the ears of each"; but the charges that had been "heaped up with criminous bitterness" from the opposite side against Cornelius and his presbyters in a book "sent across" to Carthage he utterly rejected (Ep. 42); yet with the many bishops who had assembled together he nevertheless resolved that, "our fellow bishops Caldonius and Fortunatus having been sent to Rome as legates, everything should meanwhile be held in suspense untouched, until these same colleagues should return, matters there having either been brought to peace or ascertained in accordance with the truth." The African bishops were not unaware that by ancient custom it was enough for Cornelius to announce by letter that he had been made bishop; but, to cut off from his adversaries every pretext for disturbing the Church, they asked for letters from the bishops by whom he had been ordained, and sent legates to bring back these letters and to report the whole matter after careful inquiry, "so that then at last, every scruple having been shaken from the breasts of each, letters might be issued through absolutely all the bishops established in Africa, and all their colleagues might firmly approve and hold Cornelius and communion with him, that is, the unity and likewise the charity of the Catholic Church" (Ep. 41). That these measures were taken by Cyprian and his colleagues with the intention of establishing the election of Cornelius, not because they called it into suspicion, is also seen from the fact that Cyprian "to each of those sailing, lest with

any scandal they should sail, gave the reason," and he exhorted them "to acknowledge and hold fast the root and womb of the Catholic Church," that is, to be in communion with Cornelius. But nevertheless the letters were directed to the presbyters and deacons, not to Cornelius; and when Cyprian and Cerealis had come to Hadrumetum before the return of the envoys, and had informed the presbyters and deacons of that city, in the absence of Bishop Polycarp, what had been decreed in the council, they too began to observe what the others also observed, and they addressed their letters to the Roman presbyters and deacons, although previously letters had been directed in Polycarp's name to Cornelius himself (Ibid.).

Before the envoys returned, there came to Carthage, sent by Novatian, Maximus a presbyter and Augendus a deacon, and a certain Machaeus and Longinus; and when Cyprian and his colleagues had learned from the letters which they carried with them, and from their speech and assertion, that Novatian had been made bishop, they decided that they must at once be kept back from communion, having meanwhile refuted and beaten back what they were trying obstinately and stubbornly to assert.

After the envoys had returned with the letters of the bishops who had been present at the ordination of Cornelius, two other African bishops, Pompeius and Stephen, arrived from Rome, who, since they had seen the whole affair with their own eyes, "themselves also, for the instruction (of the African bishops), brought forward clear proofs and testimonies in accordance with their gravity and faith (Ep. 41)." Pearson thinks that those two bishops had been sent to Rome to be present at the election of the Roman bishop; but, as Tillemont observes, besides the fact that no example of legations of this kind exists, and that the Africans seem to have known nothing of the coming election, certainly if envoys had been sent to Rome for this task, it would not have been necessary to send Caldonius and Fortunatus afterwards, but it would have been much more convenient to await the return of those who had examined the whole affair with their own eyes. Yet Caldonius and Fortunatus forestalled them. So true is it that they were not sent by their colleagues, but either had fled while the persecution was raging, or had set out for Rome on business. Since their testimony agreed with the account of the envoys and with the letters of Cornelius' colleagues, it was thus established among all concerning his lawful ordination, "so that it was not even necessary any longer to hear those who had come sent by Novatian." (Ibid.)

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

But it is of no small importance for the order of the things done by Cyprian to inquire at what time Novatian stirred up the schism, and at what time he received ordination. Valesius and Pearson held that the beginnings of the schism were the same as those of the year 251. Tillemont denies that it happened before the ordination of Cornelius. Of great weight on either view is the testimony of Cornelius in the letter to Fabius of Antioch, where the holy Pontiff testifies that the holy martyr Moses, while still

among the living, refused communion to Novatian and five presbyters. Hence, since both sides agree that St Moses acted thus towards Novatian as an open and avowed schismatic, Valesius and Pearson conclude that the schism began with the year 251, because St Moses died in prison at the beginning of that year, as stands in the old catalogue of the Pontiffs of Bucherius; Tillemont, however, since he holds for certain that the schism did not break out before the ordination of Cornelius, puts off the death of Moses, who Cornelius says had lately undergone martyrdom, to the month of November of the same year 251. I shall therefore take a middle way between the two, so as to adopt something from each opinion and also to refute something. For although I do not believe that the schism broke out before the ordination of Cornelius, it nevertheless seems to have been shaped and prepared long before by hidden schemings, so that it neither imposes the necessity of postponing the martyrdom of St Moses with Tillemont, nor does the death of St Moses compel us to refer the schism to the beginning of the year 251 with Valesius and Pearson.

With compelling reasons Tillemont argues that no schism existed at Rome before the ordination of Cornelius. 1° St Pacian, Ep. 2 (pp. 56 and 60), and the author of the book To Novatian the Heretic declare that Novatian was driven into schism by envy conceived at the episcopate of Cornelius. 2° Novatus, who was stirring up the schism at Carthage in the month of March or at least February, Pearson quite absurdly in the month of January, Valesius in February, transfer to Rome. Finally, it is inconceivable that the African church should have been unaware for so long of a schism that had arisen at Rome, and should not have sent legates to settle the dissension before it had been informed of the election of Cornelius. It is difficult indeed not to assent to these reasons.

But the testimony of Cornelius favours neither Tillemont nor his adversaries; rather it proves that St Moses condemned in Novatian not an open schism but hidden machinations joined with many wicked deeds. Thus the holy Pontiff speaks in Eusebius (bk 6, ch. 43): Whom also Moses the blessed martyr, who lately bore among us a noble and wonderful witness, while he was still in the world, perceiving his audacity and folly, made excommunicate together with the five presbyters who had cut themselves off from the church along with him. « Whom (Novatian) also, » he says, « Moses the most blessed martyr, who lately among us accomplished an excellent and admirable martyrdom, while he was still alive, having perceived his audacity and fury, separated from his communion together with five presbyters who had likewise broken themselves off with him from the body of the Church. » In vain does a learned man gather from these words, « lately having undergone martyrdom, » that the thing happened one or two months before, since such a manner of speaking can be applied to things that happened ten months or even a year before. By these words, however, « with five presbyters who had likewise broken themselves off with him from the body of the Church, » I admit that communion denied to open schismatics is indicated. But the Greek words are best rendered thus, « with five presbyters

who broke themselves away from the Church together with him. » Interpreting it thus, it does not appear that the schism preceded the communion refused by Moyses, but rather that it followed it.

Many things in the same testimony confirm this interpretation. 1° Cornelius narrates the deed of Moyses in such a way, and uses his testimony in such a way, as both to bestow on him a praise which he would not share in common with everyone, and to brand Novatian with no slight ignominy. Moreover, it would not have been great praise for the holy martyr not to admit to his communion men entangled in open schism and detested by so many bishops, so many presbyters and almost the whole people; nor would the loss of one martyr's communion have been a great disgrace to schismatics who were themselves excluded from the communion of the whole world. Then again, when Novatian was holding schismatic assemblies with his followers, are we to say that he then wished to communicate with St Moyses and suffered a rebuff? The time does not seem to have been suited to such a thing. 2° Cornelius does not say that communion was refused to Novatian on account of open schism, but because Moyses perceived his audacity and fury. Novatian had done quite enough wicked things for Moyses to deal with him thus, above all in that, when admonished by the deacons during the persecution to succour the brethren, he had said that he no longer wished to be a presbyter. This was that audacity of Novatian, this his fury; and when to it was added the nefarious union of counsels with five presbyters, it was not difficult for St Moyses to foresee what they were plotting for the ruin of the Church, and it is no wonder if he refused to communicate with them. 3° If St Moyses had denied communion to manifest schismatics, he would have branded with the same sentence not only the five presbyters but also the confessors who had given themselves over to Novatian. For a "schismatic and heretical error" had received four confessors "as they came forth from prison", as Cyprian says in Ep. 51, "and had associated them with itself from the beginning." Novatian, on the testimony of Cornelius in Eusebius (book 6, ch. 43), ought to have been the same towards these companions of Novatian as he was towards the five presbyters; and yet he denies communion only to the five presbyters. This is proof that what he condemned in Novatian was not open schism, not manifest war with Cornelius and all the bishops adhering to Cornelius, but nefarious machinations and plans entered into with five presbyters for throwing the Church into disorder, which, added to Novatian's many vices, deterred Moyses from communicating with him. 4° The martyrdom of Moyses seems to have taken place not in the month of November, as Tillemont thinks, but rather before the ordination of Cornelius. It is established that the martyrs had been released from prison when Cornelius was ordained. Why then would Moyses alone not have shared in that peace which gave the opportunity, so long denied, of electing a bishop? Then again, Moyses did not die in prison, as is stated in Bucher's catalogue, but shed his blood for Christ, as Tillemont demonstrates from the words of Cornelius, who declares that he accomplished a glorious and admirable martyrdom. Moreover, from the ordination of Cornelius up to the month of November, it does not seem that the blood of Christians at Rome

was poured out. Cornelius sat undaunted "at Rome in the priestly chair at that time when a tyrant hostile to the priests of God was threatening things speakable and unspeakable, when he would hear with much more patience and tolerance that a rival prince was being raised up against him than that a priest of God was being established at Rome," says Cyprian, Ep. 52 (p. 69). Therefore either Decius was unable during that whole time to sate his cruelty, or he was deferring it until his return. Since, then, Cornelius escaped, against whom Decius was nonetheless most especially hostile, Moyses does not seem to have accomplished his illustrious and admirable martyrdom in the month of November, but rather in the month of January, as it stands in the old catalogue of Bucherius, or at any rate before the end of the persecution, before the ordination of Cornelius and the open schism of Novatian.

21. — At what time Novatian was ordained.

Concerning the ordination of Novatian the opinion of the critics is not one. Pearson thinks that Novatian was ordained in the very month of June, and that his envoys came to Carthage at the beginning of July; Tillemont contends that it happened after the ordination of Cornelius had been approved by the judgement of all Africa. Weighty reasons persuade [us] that the crime was committed before Africa confirmed the ordination of Cornelius by its testimonies. But before I begin to prove this, I shall observe in passing that Pearson deals less accurately with arranging the matters that concern the ordination of Cornelius. For he says "that Cyprian received the letters of Cornelius and of his colleagues when the month of June was already well advanced." But from what we have already said and shall say hereafter, it is clear that the African bishops, having received the letters of Cornelius, wanted the letters of his colleagues, and only then applied themselves to confirming the ordination of Cornelius, when the envoys brought back these letters of the colleagues. But since Cornelius was ordained in the month of June, the envoys sent by the Africans after receiving the news of this event could not return with the letters in the month of June.

As for what concerns the ordination of Novatian, it is easily proved against Tillemont that this crime was committed shortly after the ordination of Cornelius, and perhaps even at the very end of the month of June, as seemed to Pearson. For the envoys sent by Novatian came into Africa before Caldonius and Fortunatus had returned from Rome, whom the African bishops had sent to that city to settle the dissensions. The matter is plain from Epistle 41, where Cyprian relates that the envoys of Novatian, as soon as they came to Carthage and announced that Novatian had been made bishop, were barred from communion, "what they were attempting obstinately and stubbornly to assert having meanwhile been refuted and beaten back." Then he adds this: "For both I and very many colleagues who had assembled with me awaited the arrival of our colleagues Caldonius and Fortunatus, whom we had lately sent as envoys to you and to our fellow bishops who had been present at your ordination, so that, when they arrived and reported the truth of what had been done, the wickedness of the opposing party might be broken by greater authority and by clear proof through them." It is evident, therefore, that Novatian's envoys

had outstripped in speed the return of the African prelates, and that meanwhile they were kept from communion while the return of the legates was awaited. After these had returned, and two other bishops, Pompeius and Stephen, who had been present at the ordination of Cornelius, had come on top of them, then indeed, both by the letters of the Italian bishops which the legates had brought and by the testimonies of Pompeius and Stephen, the matter was so clarified and confirmed "that it was not even necessary for those who had come sent by Novatian to be heard any further." Similarly in Letter 42 Cyprian relates that the African bishops, after the opposing party had set up a bishop for itself, having received letters both from Cornelius and from his colleagues, "and likewise when the good men Pompeius and Stephen arrived, by whom all these things were firmly asserted and proved, to the common joy," only then sent letters to Cornelius. Therefore the legates of Novatian were sent to Carthage before Caldonius and Fortunatus had set out from Rome, or perhaps even before they had reached Rome. For if they had seen the events with their own eyes, why would Cyprian rely only on the letters which they brought, and not rather on their testimony as well, just as he relies on the testimony of Pompeius and Stephen? Moreover, Cyprian testifies in Letter 41 that he learned "from the letters which the legates of Novatian were carrying with them, and from their speech and assertion, that Novatian had been made bishop." From this it is plain that the first news of this affair was brought by the legates of Novatian, and that no one in Africa had suspected the horrible crime before their arrival. From which is also confirmed what we have already said, that they arrived not only before Pompeius and Stephen, by "whom all these things were asserted and proved," namely that a bishop had been set up by seditious men "against the once-delivered sacrament of the divine ordinance and of catholic unity," but also before Caldonius and Fortunatus. For in the letters which Caldonius and Fortunatus brought from Cornelius and his colleagues there were written, as Cornelius testifies in Letter 46, many things which had gone before, contrived by the confessors who adhered to Novatian, and which, on returning to the Church, they confessed not without tears, among them that "having been circumvented they had committed schismatic acts and had been the authors of heresy, so as to allow hands to be laid on him (Novatian) as if upon a bishop." But if letters of this kind had anticipated the arrival of Novatian's legates, Cyprian and the other bishops would not have received from these legates the first news of the episcopate seized by Novatian.

Therefore the opinion of Tillemont cannot be defended, and it is on no ground whatever that that most careful writer places the ordination of Novatian after the return of the legates of Africa. But that is much more improbable, where he says that the Church, at least the African, had already agreed in approving the episcopate of Cornelius when Novatian was ordained. This agreement of the African church shone forth only when the bishops who were present at Carthage, informed of the whole affair by Cyprian and his colleagues, wrote letters to Cornelius. But before Cyprian informed the African bishops about the affairs of the Roman Church, he sent the presbyter Primitivus to Rome with